The Sardonyx Net (32 page)

“I hope not,” said Dana.
 

Zed looked at him with a momentary rare sympathy. “It will happen,” he said.
 

Dana looked away, into the blue sky, past the city and the dry, contoured hills. It happens to others, he thought. It isn't going to happen to me.
 

Binkie said, in his ear, “You want to know about the Auction?”
 

Dana was grateful for the change of subject. “Please.” Listening to Binkie, he was careful to keep his eyes on the crowded, kaleidoscopic street.
 

“The long buildings flanking Auction Place are called the Barracks. The slaves are kept there, clothed, fed, drugged with dorazine, from the time they leave the Net.”
 

“How many?” Dana asked.
 

He thought he had lost Zed's attention. But the Net commander answered the question: “The capacity of the Net is four thousand slaves. This year it transported three thousand, six hundred and seventy-nine.”
 

“Thank you, Zed-ka,” Dana said.
 

“They bring the slaves in lots from the Barracks,” Binkie said. “The lots are divided according to skills. Laborers come first. They're picked up by the building contractors, the landingport, the city maintenance department, and the Gemit mines. Later come the skilled laborers, technicians, craftspeople, professionals, and specialty lots. There's a break at noon when everyone hides. We've missed the first lot, and maybe the second.”
 

The Boulevard broadened. “My dear,” said a voice to Dana's right, “it's all automated. You slip your credit disc in the slot and punch the bid you want. The screen shows the last bid recorded. You'll see. It's fun to get there early, when they've just opened the bidding on a new lot. You can bid knowing your bid will be topped. Like gambling!”
 

Like bees in a swarm, the crowds of people streamed into Auction Place. White-walled buildings reflected sunlight into the glittering crowd. Bodies trapped the heat. Dana wiped the sweat from his face. The open space simmered like a pot on a fire. Whispers rose: “
Rhani Yago, Yago, Yago
.” Tourists turned around to stare. Serene in her silver tunic, Zed beside her, Rhani strolled forward. People backed to make way for her.
 

Binkie jostled Dana from behind. “There.”
 

Doors like black mouths opened in the buildings' white sides. Dana saw that there were platforms lining the square, parallel to the buildings, about a meter off the ground. People marched out the doors. “Those are the slaves,” said Rhani. Men and women in blue uniforms walked at their sides. The slaves wore white. Directed by their keepers, they positioned themselves on the platforms at regular intervals. A whisper informed Dana that this was the last of the skilled laborers' lots.
 

Rhani walked to a platform. Dana looked up. A woman slave stood above him. A screen told him who she was AMALIE O-THORIS, it read. AGE: FORTY-NINE. GENERAL MACHINIST. CONTRACT: FIVE YEARS. DORAZINE DOSAGE: 1.75. She seemed oblivious to his scrutiny. She stared into the sky, over the bobbing heads of the people in the square, toward the distant horizon.
 

Binkie said in Dana's ear, “The city'll buy her to keep the movalongs running. Or else she'll go to Gemit. They need machinists in the mines.” Dana wondered what Amalie O-Thoris' crime had been, and what her final price would be.
 

“Excuse me,” said a voice. Dana backed away. A dark woman read the information on the screen. She bit her thumb, and then inserted a disc in a slot and punched buttons. Numbers shuddered into orange life. She wore a white jumpsuit with a dark insignia on it: the Dur crest, the axe lifted to strike.
 

Dana said, “If you buy her, where will she go?”
 

“The mines,” said the woman in white.
 

“See?” hissed Binkie.
 

The air steamed with the smell of thousands of sweating, perfumed bodies.
 

Dana stared at the motionless figures, tucked into invisible niches on the platforms. “Isn't there any shade?” he said.
 

Binkie said, “For slaves? No.”
 

Rhani turned around. “The lots stand for an hour. In that hour they get three breaks in which they may sit down. They drink as much water as they need. And most of them are on dorazine, which can make even an uncomfortable situation pleasant.”
 

Binkie murmured syllables which might have been, “Yes, Rhani-ka.” Worming through the crowd, peddlers hawked tarts and seaweed and jelly cakes and ices. A woman sold balloons with the Yago “Y” imprinted on them, and tiny silver flags. Dana heard a drum, and the tinny clash of finger cymbals. On the platforms the slaves shifted and sighed, trapped in dorazine dreams.
 

Staying close to the platforms, Rhani and Zed strolled around the square. Dana noticed a woman with the Yago “Y” on her tunic make a bid on a short, thick-shouldered man. Numbers changed on the screens. Beneath one screen two buyers stood, glaring at each other, jaws outthrust, punching alternate bids. Zed bought Rhani a seaweed cake. The peddler would not let him pay for it.
 

“Zed! Rhani!” A woman sailed toward them. Dana recognized the majestic redhead Rhani had greeted on the Dur steps. She was wearing a white gown; in the bright sun, she moved with the grace and strength of a square-sailed ship. “My compliments to the Yago Net. Imre's managers report that they have filled their labor reserve, and I have a new gardener, so we are all pleased.”
 

“Thank you, Aliza,” said Zed.
 

“Have you heard about the Gemit accident?”
 

“I did hear something,” Rhani murmured vaguely.
 

“Oh, hell,” said Zed. “I heard about it from Sai, at the Clinic. I meant to tell you. They'll be buying today. A week ago, wasn't it, Aliza? Sai didn't know the figures; all she wanted to talk about was the limb replacements.”
 

“Two full work teams put out of action,” said Aliza.
 

“That's too bad,” said Rhani pleasantly. They smiled at one another.
 

A bell rang. Blue-clad attendants walked onto the platforms to guide the slaves back to the Barracks. The platforms stayed empty for about five minutes, and then another lot of slaves came out through the doors. “Which lot is this?” said Aliza Kyneth.
 

Zed answered, “The technicians' lot.”
 

Dana asked Binkie a question which had been puzzling him for some time. “What happens to the slaves who are not bought?”
 

“Dealers buy them,” Binkie explained. “They're taken from the Barracks and housed and fed at the dealers' expense. Then when a slave's contract runs out in midyear, or if the slave is manumitted, or dies, immediate replacements are available. Of course, the dealers' prices are higher than the prices usually paid at Auction.”
 

Aliza Kyneth had been listening. “That is correct,” she said, with approval. “Rhani, your secretary is very concise.”
 

Rhani smiled. Binkie bowed, his pale face flushed.
 

The bidding on this lot was brisk. The Yago household and Aliza Kyneth made a conspicuous knot in the traffic flow. A clever peddler released a sackful of artificial butterflies into the air. Wings powered by the sunlight, they fluttered and soared in graceful imitation. The crowd shifted toward the east side of the Place as people rushed to buy them.
 

A voice at their backs said, “Good morning, Domna, Commander.”
 

They turned around. A man in black stood facing them, flanked by other people in black. On the front of his shirt was a silver insignia. A Hyper, Dana's mind registered, and then he recognized the silver symbol; and a cop. Rhani did not know him, Dana could tell from her face, but Zed did.
 

“Rhani-ka,” he said, smiling only with his lips, “let me introduce you to Michel A-Rae, Sardonyx Sector's very own nemesis.”
 

Without fuss, Aliza Kyneth turned her bulk broadside to them, making a shield of herself to block the gaze of any interested tourists. Rhani nodded to the black-clad man. “Good morning,” she said. “I trust you are enjoying the Auction.”
 

Stars, she's cool, Dana thought, admiring her composure. A-Rae looked much more individual in person than he did in his photographs. In his left ear he was wearing a black pearl earring, and Dana guessed that it had a transmitter in it. He was weaponless, as far as Dana could tell, but the two people on either side of him were carrying stunners conspicuously clipped to their belts.
 

“I am not,” A-Rae said. “But then, I didn't expect to. Some things we do out of duty. This is one of them.”
 

Rhani smiled sweetly. “That is very noble of you, Captain A-Rae.”
 

He pursed his lips. “I'm surprised you know my title.”
 

Rhani said, “I know a little about you. I must confess, I would like to know more.”
 

“Really?” He seemed amused. “Like what?”
 

“Well—” Rhani rubbed her chin—"I would like to know why you appear to have a vendetta against Chabad. Were you ever a slave?”
 

One of the flanking drug cops gasped. A-Rae shook his head. “No, Domna, I was never a slave. I am Enchantean. When I was a child I was taken to watch the loading of the Net shuttles. It horrified me. When I grew older I found that my own family was deeply engaged in supporting and profiting from the slave system, and I found that horrible, too. I repudiated my family and have since dedicated my life to the destruction of slavery.”
 

“For no other reason than moral repugnance,” Rhani said.
 

“Does one need another reason?”
 

“You don't,” Rhani said. “I might.”
 

A-Rae stuck his thumbs in his belt. “Since your mother built the Net and your brother is its commander, I would not expect you to share my feelings,” he said. “But then, I have always assumed that people who profit from human pain have no morals.” He looked directly at Zed. Dana saw Zed's shoulders go back.
 

Rhani laid a hand lightly on her brother's arm. “I think you are being rude, Michel A-Rae,” she said.
 

He grinned mirthlessly at her. “Does my rudeness upset you, Domna? And yet, you can stomach
this
!” He swept his hand toward the immobile, sweating slaves.
 

Dana's stomach hurt with tension. Rhani seemed able to ignore it. “This repels you,” she murmured. “Yet you are not distressed by prisons?”
 

“In prison, a person may retain some measure of dignity. There is no dignity in being
owned
.” Despite himself, Dana nodded. Out of the corner of an eye he glimpsed Binkie's face: the secretary/slave was drinking in A-Rae's every word, lips parted, eyes wide.
 

“I see,” Rhani said in a tone of polite disbelief. “You have, of course, been to prison, and know.”
 

A-Rae scowled. “No, Domna, I have not been to prison. Is this all you want to know from me?”
 

“Well,” Rhani said, “I admit I am curious to know why your people are watching my house.”
 

A-Rae raised his thick eyebrows. “My people—I presume by that phrase you mean my staff, Domna—are not watching your
house
.”
 

“Me, then?”
 

He grew grave. “That is Federation business, I am afraid. You know I cannot answer questions about Federation business.”
 

Dana thought: He is enjoying this, isn't he. He thinks he is humiliating Rhani Yago, and he likes it. The realization disturbed something deep within him. He waited to hear what Rhani would say.
 

She simply nodded. “You must have wounded your family deeply when you changed your name,” she said. “Have you reconciled yourself to them at all, after so many years?”
 

A-Rae's dark eyes smoldered with anger. “My family is also none of your business, Domna!” he said, clipping the words out. He touched the shoulders of his two companions briefly. “This is my family!”
 

“Very touching,” Rhani said.
 

Her lack of excitement seemed to infuriate the man. “You are so sure that you are untouchable, aren't you?” he said. “You are wrong. I hope to prove to you that you are wrong.”
 

One of his companions murmured placatingly in his ear. His face worked, and then smoothed to a polite mask. “Domna, if you will excuse me,” he said. The three cops stepped aside and bent their heads together.
 

The Barracks' bells chimed. Zed said softly, “He is so
damn
cocksure.” Dana glanced at the Net commander. Zed was gazing at the little huddle the three cops made, his eyes grim.
 

Rhani tightened her fingers on her brother's arm. “He is an uncivil boor,” she said. “But I would prefer that you did not create a scene with him in public, Zed-ka.”
 

Zed scowled. “He said you have no morals.”
 

“I don't care what he thinks of me, Zed-ka.”
 

Dana said, “His companions have stunners.”
 

Zed's shoulders stiffened. “You think they'd use them? On me?”
 

“The way they feel about you and the Net? Yes,” Dana said.