The Sardonyx Net Part 8

The next day Rhani was aware of an oddity in the house: whenever Amri appeared to make a bed, straighten a room, replace a towel, Dana came with her.

The girl chattered to him blithely, mostly about Abanat. He listened, smiling. He seemed almost happy. Rhani had not expected him to adjust that fast.

He was young, of course, and flexible -- but his docility surprised her, and it made her watch him. Once he was in the bedroom when Zed came in; he froze, and she saw his shoulders hunch. Amri looked at him in puzzlement. Zed said, "Go on with what you're doing." After a moment Dana's hands moved again. Zed turned away from him. "You had something to show me, Rhani-ka?"

"To ask you." She hunted through the printed Net report. "I see that we lost a technician again. Can you think of anything to stop that? They disappear in the sector -- I don't like the idea of just anyone being able to learn all about the Net. I don't understand it. Where do they go?"

"Enchanter, or Ley, or Sabado. They see green, water, rain -- and they just jump s.h.i.+p." The discussion engrossed her.

But when it was done, and Zed gone from the room, Rhani retained her awareness of Dana bending over the bed: an afterimage. He was gone. He had been a Starcaptain; did he like making beds?

Before lunch she went into the garden, half to take a walk, half looking for Cara, to tell her Zed was leaving the next day at dawn and would be back that night. She could hear Amri singing off-key in the slave's quarters. She pa.s.sed through the kitchen. Dana sat there, on a stool, hands on his thighs. His face was intent, shuttered. He looked as if he were listening to something. She listened for it but all she heard was the hum of the aircooling system, and Amri's discordant voice. "Dana?"

It took him several seconds to respond. "Yes, Rhani-ka."

"What are you doing?"

"I was listening."

"To what?"

"'Concerto in A Minor for Electric Flute,' by Stratta."

"I've never heard of it," Rhani said.

"Not many people have."

"It doesn't sound contemporary."

"It isn't. Stratta wrote about four hundred years ago. He's obscure ... I like his music. I had a lot of tapes of it in _Zipper_. I don't know what happened to them." He looked away from her. "They're probably destroyed by now."

_"Zipper?"_ "My stars.h.i.+p."

She wondered if he knew that Zed had bought the s.h.i.+p for Family Yago.

Property taken from slaves belonged to the world their crime was committed on.

"You hear this music in your head?"

"Not very well. I was trying. Is there something I can do for you, Rhani- ka?"

Rhani bit her lip. He was warning her off the subject, as deferentially and adroitly as Binkie might. "I was looking for Cara."

"She and Immeld are walking in the garden."

His face had taken on that look of patient waiting shared, Rhani thought, by slaves and children. She had worn it as a child. He had not looked like that smiling at Amri. She wanted to see him relax. With a twinge of disloyalty, she said, "Zed's going to Abanat tomorrow."

His dark eyes came alive.

"Just for a day. He's going to talk with Jo Leiakanawa, the Net second.

We need someone with contacts in the Abanat drug market to -- " She heard herself sharing Family Yago's business with a stranger, a slave, not even a secretary. Astounded, she stopped.

But Dana's head was c.o.c.ked to one side. He was listening. Rhani started to speak. He held up a hand. She listened -- and heard, over the sounds made by the house, a high-pitched whine. "What is it?" she asked, and then answered herself. "It's a bubble. But the mail bubble comes at dawn, and it isn't due for two days yet."

They went out the kitchen door. Shading their eyes, they stared at the sky. Dana pointed west. Rhani gazed up. The drone continued. Light flashed: sunlight glinting off metal. She glanced back at the house; Zed had come out to the terrace. He was wearing sunshades on his eyes.

An hour before noon it was hot even under the shade trees. Timithos had turned the water off. By noon, taking a breath felt like you were filling your lungs with sand, and sweat evaporated from the skin at once. The most indefatigable tourists napped. Who would fly a bubble so close to noon, so near the estate? All the Abanat pilots knew how strongly the Four Families valued their solitude.

Now she could see the little craft clearly. At the last instant, it changed course. Making a wide swerve, it skirted the wall of the estate, and circled back toward Abanat.

Rhani said, "Maybe a pilot lost the way. It's dangerous, Zed says, to fly in the noon sun."

"Maybe the pilot's new to Chabad," Dana said.

"Or some tourist offered a pilot a bribe to fly as close to the Yago estate as she dared," Rhani said. "It's happened before."

He said, "I was wondering -- " and stopped.

"Yes?" Rhani said.

"I was wondering about the mail bubble."

"What about it?"

"On Pellin, and Nexus, too, mail goes through the computer network."

Rhani smiled. "Custom on Chabad is different. Public mail, trivia, news: this goes through the computer. But Family matters, business dealings, private communications we write on paper, with ink."

He said, "Some people might call that archaic."

"It is archaic. Though we prefer the word 'traditional' on Chabad. The Founders, the folk of the Four Families who turned Chabad from a prison planet to a successful mining colony, were very traditional people."

"But what is the point to avoiding the com-net?"

"To keep private information inaccessible to unauthorized persons who might try to see it."

He looked doubtful. "Paper and ink -- aren't you afraid that someone might steal the letters? It's physically easier than cracking the computer network. Or" -- he sounded serious -- "if you have to make some data inaccessible, why not just file everything under a 'Restricted' code?"

"I said we were traditional!" Rhani exclaimed. "Not paranoiac. Actually"

-- she rubbed her chin -- "I think we write so many letters on Chabad because one of the few things the planet produces, besides precious metals and kerits, is paper."

He sighed. "It's different," he said.

"You'll get used to it," she said, but gently, so that he would not feel that she was dwelling upon his state of servitude.

Cara and Immeld walked toward them, arm in arm. Rhani said, "Did you see the bubble, just now?"

Cara nodded. Immeld said, "It came very close. They never come that close."

Cara said thoughtfully, "They're not supposed to do that."

"No," Rhani agreed. "I'll tell Binkie to call Main Landingport and remind them. Cara, Zed is going to Abanat tomorrow, just for one day. He'll be back in the evening."

Suddenly, Dana began to laugh.

All three women turned to look at him. "What are you laughing at?" Rhani said.

Controlling the laughter, he hiccoughed. "Sorry, Rhani-ka. It occurred to me that the pilot of the bubble might be someone I know."

"Who?" asked Immeld. Cara frowned at her, and pressed her arm.

"It doesn't matter," Dana said, "because it can't be her. The timing's all off."

"I thought you didn't know anyone on Chabad," Rhani said. But she remembered as she said it that he had not exactly stated that.

"I don't."

"Then who were you thinking of?" she pressed. His face closed like a fist. "A Starcaptain," he answered, "named Tori Lamonica."

Zed Yago left the estate in the dark before sunrise.

Rhani walked with him to the bubble hangar. In the west, the stars made a frosty diadem on Chabad's horizon. "Good hunting in Abanat," she said. "I'll miss you."

"I won't be gone long. Jo drinks at The Green Dancer. I'll talk with her about Sherrix and I'll be back. I want to stop at the Main Landingport and talk to Tam Orion about that overflight."

"I was going to have Bink write."

"Let me complain. It was probably a newly hired pilot, but that's no excuse."

Rhani said, "That's what Dana said. I thought some tourist offered a pilot a bribe."

Zed palmed the bubble door. "They're paid on Nexus' scale. They don't need bribes."

She caught his sleeve as he reached for the ceiling bar to swing inside the bubblecraft. "Zed-ka -- where's Dana's s.h.i.+p? You told me you bought it from the Council."

"_Zipper_?" He dropped back to earth lightly. "At Port, on the Field, with the Yago seal on it. He should know better than to bother you about it."

"He didn't. But yesterday I found him listening to the air, to music in his mind." Zed was nodding. "You know about his music, Zed-ka?"

"I know about it," said Zed.

"He's adjusting well to the change in his life."

"He'd better."

"But I think he would be more content, less inclined to run, if he had his music. He thought the tapes were destroyed."

Zed said, "They weren't. I gave orders that nothing in _Zipper_ was to be touched. If you want, Rhani-ka, I'll call up to Port and have them send the tapes to Abanat on a shuttles.h.i.+p. If I call this morning I should have them by tonight."

"I'd like that, Zed-ka." She smiled, picturing Dana's surprise and joy.

Zed said, "Don't coddle him, Rhani-ka."

"Happy slaves work better."

He smiled at her. "We've had this discussion before." He ran his fingers along the edge of her cheek. "I'll bring the tapes."

"Thank you, Zed-ka. Don't stay all day at the Landingport, exchanging lies with the chief pilot."

"I will not," he said with dignity. He reached again for the ceiling bar.

He disappeared into the bubble. Rhani stepped back as the two halves of the hangar roof began to slide apart. The bubble hummed. She clapped her hands over her ears. Zed transpared the skin, waved briefly, and then opaqued it over. The bubble s.h.i.+vered, and lifted straight up.

Dana, awake in his bed, heard the familiar drone.

It swelled, and then died, till all that he could hear of it was a dry arthropodal whine.

Zed was gone. In his head a chord sounded. He got out of bed smiling. He washed and then dressed. The straw sandals were already conforming to his feet.

He went to the kitchen and helped himself to fruit. The house was quiet. The kitchen door was unlocked. Pus.h.i.+ng it open, he strolled outside.

The shadowless light was pleasant. The cool air seemed softer. Dana picked his way to the rear of the house, where the bubble hangar sat. A slight figure rested on a hangar strut, arms folded. Dana hesitated. Rhani saw him. She leaned away from the hangar. Shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets, she came to join him. She looked thoughtful. Delicately as a dragoncat, she lifted her chin, sniffing the air. "Smell the moisture?"

Dana said, "I thought it seemed less dry."

"In the valleys at sunrise, sometimes you can feel dew on the gra.s.s. In winter it even rains: three storms a season. When it rains in Abanat the shops close. People leave houses and stores to walk in the rain."

"Amri said there were no seasons here."

"She wasn't born here."

"She was remembering Belle."

"She seems taken with you," Rhani said.

"She reminds me of one of my little brothers."

"You have more than one?"

Dana smiled. "I have seven."

"Seven!" Rhani marveled. "All eight sons of one mother?"

"Oh, no." He chuckled. "No. We go in for extended parenting on Pellin.

There are actually nine sons, ten daughters, eight mothers, five fathers."