The Sardonyx Net (38 page)

“Seems to be,” he agreed. “I'm looking for a particular friend.” He rested his hip on the bar stool. “I'll bet you know everyone here.”
 

She looked straight at him. “I don't know you.”
 

“My name is Dana Ikoro,” he said.
 

Turning away, Amber pressed a button. Ice clattered into a cooler behind the bar. “I've heard the name,” she said.
 

The hairs on the back of Dana's neck stirred. “Where?”
 

“In here,” she said. She cracked her thumb knuckles. “From the Net crew.”
 

“What did they say?” Dana asked, trying to keep his voice casual.
 

She gazed at him from beneath the bird's nest tangle of hair. “They said that some Hyper named Ikoro had been picked up by the Narc Control and funneled to the Net. And that he ended up as meat for Zed Yago.”
 

Meat. Yes. That he had been, and was. Dana's throat soured. “Did they say anything else?”
 

“They said they thought he was a Starcaptain.”
 

Dana said, “That's true.”
 

Her eyes, which were green as Pellin's grass, searched his face. “And the rest.”
 

Old woman, he thought, if you pity me...."The rest is true, too.”
 

Her face did not change. “Welcome to The Green Dancer, Starcaptain.”
 

“Thank you,” Dana said. “I'm looking for Tori Lamonica.”
 

Amber ran a hand through her hair, not improving it. “I know her,” she said. “She comes in here.”
 

At their table, the woman with the red feather in her hair and the girl in blue glitterstick were glaring at each other. Suddenly the girl said loudly, “Well, you can just shinny, if you feel
that
way about it!”
 

“Excuse me,” Amber said. She ducked from behind the bar and went to the table. The girl in glitterstick-blue was standing.
 

There was a whispered argument, finished when Amber jerked a thumb toward the door. The woman in red stalked out. Amber returned to the bar. “Want some lunch?” she said.
 

“Sure,” said Dana, fumbling out his credit disc.
 

Amber thumped the flat of her hand on the bar. “Lunch time!” she said. People at the tables stretched and rose and came to the bar. The girl in glitterstick yawned and came around the end of the bar. She went in the back; in a few moments she emerged with three plates of food on each arm.
 

Amber put a plate in front of him. The seaweed looked overcrisp, but the fish smelled—and tasted—fresh. Dana put his empty glass where the bartender could see it. After a while she refilled it.
 

“Buy you something?” he said.
 

She snorted. “Think I'd drink my own liquor?” Closing her hand suddenly around his glass, she took it away and dumped out the wine. Before he could protest, she filled it with a darker liquid. “Try that.”
 

He drank. The wine was smooth and dry, not cheap. “Thank you,” he said.
 

“Lamonica comes in evenings,” she said. “If she comes in tonight, I'll tell her you're looking for her.”
 

Dana wondered if Tori Lamonica knew he had been taken by the Net. He decided she must. “I'd appreciate that,” he said. “Tell her that I'll come back tomorrow night.”
 

She said sharply, “I want no trouble in the bar.”
 

“There'll be no trouble,” Dana promised.
 

The girl in glitterstick sauntered to the bar and took the stool beside Dana. “Amber, may I have a drink?” She smiled at Dana, and her voice went up half an octave. “Hello?”
 

Dana grinned at her. “Sorry,” he said, “I'm shinnying.” He drained the glass of good wine before heading toward the door.
 

Outside in the street he stood, breathing deeply, while sweat rolled down his arms. Dust blew down the narrow roadway. He wondered who the girl was; she looked too young to be a Hyper. Amber's daughter? Some star-crazed kid? Maybe she had taken antiagathics and was really two hundred years old. He rubbed his eyes with both hands. Somehow he had not realized before that, even if—no,
when
—he managed to escape, the information about what had happened to him on the Sardonyx Net would never leave him.... From star to star, sector to sector, it would follow him around; in every place he drank, he would hear his own name, and then Zed Yago's, and people would stare.
 

Fuck, he thought. Damned infertile son of a syphilitic goat—he thought in Pellish. He walked from the building, wishing that he could stay, sit on the barstool, drink Amber's wine (even the cheap stuff) and tell glamorous lies. But he had to go back. He made himself stop swearing. If he let himself grow too angry, one day it would come out at the wrong time.
 

The moment he entered the Yago mansion he knew that something was wrong. As he returned his sunshades to the hall rack he saw that Rhani's were not there. He went to the kitchen. Amri was sitting on a stool, eating chobi seeds. “Is Rhani home?” he said.
 

She jumped like a startled cat. “Oh. No. She went out.”
 

“Alone?”
 

Amri nodded, and her bland face grew troubled. “Yes. Corrios said she should wait for you but she said she didn't want to.”
 

Dana groaned. “Did she say where she was going?”
 

Corrios entered. “Tuli's,” he said.
 

Tuli's. That was the glass shop in the market square. He remembered the package. “When did she leave?”
 

Corrios glanced at the wall clock. “Half an hour ago.”
 

“Maybe I can catch her,” Dana said. “Why the hell didn't you stop her?” he said to Corrios, but the big man only shrugged.
 

“How?”
 

Don't open the door, Dana thought savagely. Hide all the sunshades. Lock her up.
 

Seizing his sunshades, he loped to the front door. At least, he thought grimly, if Zed comes home, he'll find us both gone. He cast his mind back to that first confusing day, trying to recall their movements through the streets.... They had gone from the little landingport to the market square. He hurried down the steps. Twice on his way he thought he saw her and crossed the street to find he had been chasing a stranger. Once, for five minutes, he got lost. At last, he found the square. It was easy to pick out Tuli's shop window: it shimmered.
 

As he started across the square, he saw her. She was moving quite slowly through the throng of shoppers. Her hair was loose; sunshades hid her eyes, and she was wearing the gold pendant that Zed had given her.
 

He went to meet her. As he neared her, she stopped, waiting for him. Her face looked tense; the lines around her mouth suddenly prominent. “Rhani-ka,” he said, “why didn't you wait for me?”
 

She did not answer.
 

“What's wrong?” he asked, alarmed.
 

She sighed, and put her arm through his. “I wanted to talk to Tuli,” she said. “So I went to the shop. When I got there—” She paused. “I've known Tuli for eight years. I thought we were friends. I went in. She was behind the counter, waiting on a customer. I said her name. She called me Domna Rhani. She wouldn't smile at me. I saw a sheet of paper on the wall and went to read it. It said that anyone wishing to sign the petition calling for a referendum on the maintenance of slavery in Sardonyx Sector should see the proprietor of the store.”
 

Dana did not know what to say. As noncommittally as possible, he said, “You were surprised?”
 

Rhani's normally husky voice was rough with pain. “I just wanted to talk.”
 

“Did you expect an ex-slave to be in favor of slavery?”
 

Her fingers bit into his arm. “I'm not that much of a fool! But she need not have called me Domna Rhani. And I did think she might have the grace to remain publicly neutral.”
 

Dana said, “I'm sorry you're upset.”
 

“I'm not upset, I'm angry! At myself.” With a choppy gesture, she thrust her sunshades to the crown of her head. “I have feared what this referendum's outcome might do to the economy of this planet, if A-Rae's position won it. Now I fear that, whichever side wins or loses, the feelings released by the issue will break Chabad apart. I should have foreseen it.”
 

She was, Dana realized, quite serious. “Rhani,” he said, “you aren't responsible for the destiny of an entire planet.”
 

The cacophony and color of the market square swirled around them like storm winds around the eye. Rhani gazed at him. She was only a little shorter than he.... She was wearing blue pants and a blue shirt. The shirt had a red dragon embroidered on its back. The gold pendant glinted in the soft hollow of her throat. She said, “You are wrong. I am.”
 

They began to walk then, threading slowly through the clumps of tourists. That's crazy, Dana thought. No one runs a planet; that's fantasy.
 

But it was not fantasy, he thought. This woman strolling at his side had the power to make decisions which affected the politics and the economy of this and four other worlds.
 

A series of shouts from behind them made them both turn. Rhani started to walk toward the noise. Dana caught her arm, remembering his responsibility as bodyguard. “Don't,” he said, “it isn't safe.”
 

“Move aside, please!” came an amplified shout. Three Abanat police officers sliced briskly through the crowd. Two of them were carrying Federation-issue stunners.
 

Like members of a herd, the tourists began to bunch toward the shouting. “Come on, let's get out of here,” Dana said. He held Rhani's arm. Shopkeepers came from their doorways to gaze into the square, and a few of them looked curiously at the two people moving steadily away from the confrontation. Dana watched, but he could not see anyone who stared for very long.
 

“This way,” Rhani said, changing direction. Dana followed automatically. Soon they had reached the Boulevard, and, crossing it, were heading toward Founders' Green.
 

The woman at the gate smiled and bowed and passed them in beneath the cool, green trees. “Why do you always walk around the city?” Dana asked.
 

Rhani chuckled. “It's the only exercise I get,” she said. She grinned. “Besides, the movalongs are for tourists.”
 

They stopped beside the fountain to watch the water cascade from rock to artistically placed rock. “I love waterfalls,” Rhani said.
 

Dana said, “There are worlds with more waterfalls than Chabad has rocks.”
 

She shook her head. “I doubt that,” she said. Then the left corner of her mouth turned up in amusement. “I told a lie,” she murmured, putting her hand on Dana's arm.
 

“What?” he said.
 

Her amusement broadened. “Walking is not my only exercise.”
 

The spray from the fall had left a veil of drops against her hair; they looked like sequins in the trees' concealing shade. Dana glanced toward the Yago house...."No one can see us,” Rhani said. She reached for him.
 

But Dana held her off. “Rhani-ka, it's not safe,” he said. “We may be being watched. The Hype cops—”
 

Rhani scowled. “Damn,” she said softly. “I was trying to forget about them.”
 

As they walked from beneath the trees, Rhani said, “How did your errand go?”
 

Dana tensed. “I've made a step toward contact,” he said.
 

“What's your next step?”
 

“I must go back tomorrow night.”
 

“You are being very vague,” she said. They walked into sunlight, and the sweat jumped on Dana's arms and neck. “I presume you mean to be.”
 

He said, “I would prefer to be, yes.”
 

She turned to face him. Pushing back her cloud of hair with both hands, she said, “I dislike being ignorant, Dana.” Behind her, the tines of the iron fence gleamed darkly in the stark Chabadese light.
 

Dana said, “Rhani, if I tell you what I do and who I see, I break a confidence. Even more than that—I break Hyper tradition. I promised you Loras U-Ellen. Will you trust me to keep that promise?”
 

She did not like being cornered; he could see it in her face. She cocked her head to one side. “How long till I have him?”
 

“I don't know,” he said. Sweet mother, he thought, she had better trust me. If she doesn't, I shall have to tell her a pack of lies.
 

He did not want to lie to a Yago.
 

She nodded. “All right. I will trust you.”
 

“Thank you,” he said.
 

She said, “Don't be a fool, Starcaptain. What should I do, give you to Zed? Let him discover that we have been lovers?”
 

He said grimly, “Zed would never hurt you.”
 

“I know that,” she said. Her shoes rapped crisply on the path. Ahead of them sat the second gate, and, looming over it, the façade with the Yago crest. “Leave it, Dana. Let's not go over it again.” They walked through the gate. “Oh, no!” Her voice rose in dismay. Dana looked past her. PINsheeters with cameras and recording equipment swarmed over the steps of the house.