The Sardonyx Net (64 page)

The man grinned. He wore a black pearl earring in his left ear. “You just said the password, Starcaptain.” He clapped Dana on the side of the neck with one hand. It stung.
 

“Hey!” Dana took a step away from him. “You—” The street reeled. His breath streamed away in front of him in a plume of smoke, infinitely long.... I'm falling, he thought. The stranger caught him and slung him over his back with contemptuous ease.
 

“Relax, man, and don't skop it, it'll wear off soon.” His steps jolted Dana's belt against his stomach. He spoke to the air. “One fish, caught. No trouble. It'd be nice if someone could meet me at the corner and help me bring him in.”
 

They carried Dana into a house and dumped him on a bed. They strapped him to it: he fought them, feeling the drug they had given him fading and the Sobitrex taking hold. He got in several effective strikes before the big man who'd carried him to the house punched him in the stomach. As he was struggling not to be sick, they pulled the straps tight, opened the window over his head, and left him alone. As he sobered, Dana realized that he did know the man who'd carried him in—he had been wearing a black-and-silver uniform, and had been standing at Michel A-Rae's right shoulder the day of the Auction.
 

That told him where he was. A sour taste filled his throat; without volition, he leaned as far as he could over the side of the bed—it was a cot, really—and vomited. What the hell did they want from him? he thought. That they had deliberately sought him out in the bar, he had no doubt. Information? Revenge? He had saved Zed Yago's life; he wondered if they knew that he had killed Darien Riis. He had not, really—Zed's hand had held the laser—but it was his laser. The wind blew through the window, chilling him so that he shook, and the foul scent of the mess he'd made filled the little space.
 

It was near dawn when they finally returned to the room. The wind had lessened, and though it was still cold, the night had paled to a deep, hard-edged blue. The door banged open and two men and a woman walked in. Dana knew the woman at once; he had kicked a broken bottle out of her hand. She was carrying a stun gun. The two men were the man who had tricked him in the bar and Michel A-Rae. The big man—he was very dark, with hair that stood out from his head in great coiled springs—yanked the straps loose and pulled Dana to his feet in one fluid motion. “Pig,” he said.
 

“Pig yourself,” Dana answered. The dark man hit him, a slap that reeled him off his feet. He landed in a heap against the opposite wall.
 

“Get that out of here,” A-Rae said, pointing his chin toward the cot. The big man walked to it, folded the soiled mattress in two, and carried it through the door. When he returned he held a mop. He pointed the mop at the crusted vomit and turned it on: it coughed and then sucked the dried stuff up, leaving no trace except a stain. The big man held the mop in one hand and the cot frame in the other and edged out.
 

Michel A-Rae sauntered to Dana's corner. His black-and-silver uniform was soiled, and his eyes looked wild. Dana tensed. “Better not,” the woman with the gun said tersely. Dana glanced at her; she was pointing the gun directly at him. “It's set on lethal,” she warned.
 

Dana opened his hands. Slowly he tried to ease himself to a more comfortable position on the floor.
 

“Look at me,” said Michel A-Rae.
 

Startled, Dana looked. A-Rae took a step forward, swung his right foot, and kicked Dana hard in the side.
 

Dana gasped and bent over. “What the hell was that for?” he said. He breathed shallowly. His ribs ached with each breath. He tried to gather his feet together.
 

“Better not,” said the woman with the gun. She was watching him, lips parted, and there was no mercy in her eyes.
 

“Every move I made on this world,” A-Rae said, “you've been in my way.”
 

“Bullshit,” Dana said. And twisted, not soon enough. A-Rae's kick slammed into his ribs. He bent over, hugging himself. Damn it, he thought, that's the wrong answer, it's always the wrong answer, you fool.... He wondered if any answer was the right answer. He had the terrible feeling that what Michel A-Rae most wanted to do in the world was to kick him slowly to death.
 

Maybe not. If he does it again I'll go for him, gun or no gun, Dana thought. “Why do you say that?” he whispered, because his ribs ached too much for him speak normally.
 

“The bomb,” said A-Rae. “You were there. The attack in the street, you were there. The house—” he paused. “You had nothing to do with that,” he said grudgingly. “But on the Net—” his eyes gleamed hotly. “You killed Darien. I could kill you, just for that.”
 

“Don't kill me,” Dana whispered.
 

It was begging, of course. But honor no longer troubled him: if it seemed expedient, he would beg. He watched A-Rae's righteous fury increase, like fuel-fed fire. “You're disgusting,” he said.
 

Fine, Dana thought, lecture me. Don't kick me.
 

“Tell me what happened on the Net.”
 

Dana said, “I didn't kill Darien Riis. I didn't know she was a cop until she told me, after I boarded the Net. Rhani Yago sent me there to find out what was wrong. When I arrived, Jo Leiakanawa was dead and Zed Yago was out cold. Darien told me that the net was going to blow up. I thought she was going to kill me and I grappled with her. Zed Yago woke from stun and shot her with my cutting laser, which she had told me to throw to the floor.”
 

“You carried him out of there,” Michel A-Rae said.
 

“That's right.”
 

“Why?”
 

Dana did not know what to answer. He didn't know. “I just couldn't leave him,” he said finally.
 

“That's because you're a moral cretin,” said A-Rae, with sacerdotal satisfaction, and kicked him a third time.
 

Dana moved just swiftly enough to catch most of it on his shoulder. Then he rose, despite the flare of pain from his side, and put his thumbs into A-Rae's throat. The woman with the stunner swore and shouted, and the big man came through the open door and pulled him off.
 

A-Rae was breathing hard. “You son-of-a-bitch,” he said, and behind his anger Dana saw a look that he knew very well on another face, a look of pleasure at a victim's helplessness.
 

“You bastard,” he said, “you're like him, that's why you hate him!”
 

A-Rae ignored the comment. He said to the big man, “He hurt me, Elon. Make him feel it.”
 

“Sure,” said the man genially, and thrust his thumbs into Dana's neck. Suddenly, Dana could not breathe. He tried to clap at Elon's ears; a knee slammed into the small of his back. Then he was dropped to the concrete floor. A-Rae gave the order to tie him, and the big man knelt and trussed him with his hands behind his back and a slip-knot around his neck.
 

A-Rae prodded him with one foot. “There,” he said. “That's tamed you.” Dana shook his head and tried to stand. A-Rae grinned and tripped him. Dana twisted so that he would land on his side, not his head. “Tie his feet, too.” Elon obeyed, lashing the cords tightly around Dana's ankles. A-Rae hunkered down beside him and passed a hand lightly over his face. Suddenly he seized a lock of hair and yanked. Tears came to Dana's eyes. He jerked his head free.
 

“He's lively,” said the big man admiringly.
 

“Yes,” said A-Rae. “Tell me, Dana Ikoro, where is Rhani Yago?”
 

“What?” Dana said. “What d'you mean, where is she? When I left, she was at the estate.”
 

“She isn't there now.”
 

“Then I don't know where she is.”
 

“Guess,” said A-Rae. Dana swallowed. All three were watching him avidly. Cold sweat began to run down his sides.
 

“Wherever Zed is,” he suggested.
 

A-Rae sighed. “Zed Yago's in the Clinic, being guarded by the Net crew as if he were a gold mine. Try again.” He put a thumb on Dana's closed left eye-lid.
 

“I don't know,” Dana said. He tried to keep his voice steady, decided it didn't matter and that he couldn't control it anyway, and let it shake. The Kyneth House, he thought, and did not say it. His bladder hurt.... A-Rae took the thumb away.
 

Through the thud of his heartbeat Dana heard A-Rae say to the others, “She could be in the Clinic under another name. Can we check that?”
 

The woman said, “Fallon is checking the hotel registers. Maybe Sindic can do it. What about him?” She gestured toward Dana with the stun gun.
 

The big man said, “
I
think he knows.” He put a great, spatulate thumb on Dana's right eyelid, pressing hard.... Dana leaned away from it until he touched the wall and could go no further. The pressure made yellow moiré patterns behind the lid, and it hurt.
 

“Enough!” A-Rae said. The thumb lifted.
 

Dana blinked. Through a clearing haze he saw A-Rae stand, circle the small room, and come to stand beside him, over him, like a magistrate to judgment. His eyes no longer looked wild. “He'll tell us,” he said. “We've got days before they find us. Days.” The big man nodded as if he had heard a pronouncement of some subtle wisdom.
 

“What'll I do with him?” he said.
 

“Keep him tied. And give him a blanket. We've got other things to do; we can deal with him later.” The woman holstered the stun gun. Elon sighed and walked out, to return a moment later with a blanket which he tossed over Dana's helpless form.
 

“Days,” he said. He and the woman marched out. She went first. A-Rae hesitated. He licked his lips.
 

“Days,” A-Rae said. He did not sound pleased. He sounded frightened. He went out. Curling his wrists upward behind his back, Dana rolled and wriggled until he was sitting. There was a way to get out of this cord configuration, he knew, but it only worked if you were double-jointed in both shoulders, and he was not. The cords, he guessed, were probably apton and nylon and would not break or fray. But they could be cut, if the angle was right and the edge was sharp.... Slowly, Dana began to crawl over the floor, looking for a sharp implement. He did not expect to find one but it was better than waiting to discover what A-Rae had in store for him next.
 

He did not find one, and when he stopped moving, his throat was raw from the rasp of the cord.
 

The fourth afternoon after the destruction of the Yago Net, Ja Narayan wandered into Zed Yago's room at the Clinic. He was jaunty. “Bored?” he said to Zed. “Want your hands back? Silly of you to burn them in the first place, you know.”
 

“I know,” Zed said. He left the chair by the window and moved to the bed.
 

“How are you feeling?”
 

“I've been better.” He was tired. It was difficult to sleep with his hands always either propped in front of him, lying by his sides, or extended over his head.
 

“Should read,” said Ja. He sauntered around the room, in no special hurry, and as if by accident ended up at Zed's side. “Play games.”
 

“I've tried,” Zed said. He had invited the Net crew in for endless rounds of the six or seven varieties of dice games they knew ... But he loathed games, and loathed more not being able to hold the dice. It enraged him not to be able to use his hands to do even the simplest thing. The water dispenser and the bookviewer could be connected to foot controls, but some things he could not do with his feet. That morning, a letter from Rhani had arrived, telling him that she had left Dur House and where she was. He had had to ask Hal Ku to open it.
 

And he itched, as if sand had gotten under his skin. Boredom and confinement were infuriating but the itch was torment, the more so because he knew it to be imaginary. He was bathed every morning. He hated that too, being handled like a child. Hal had learned after the first day to do it quickly and without saying anything.
 

Ja sent a technician for a sterile instrument tray. “How do they feel?” he said.
 

Zed said, “They don't feel like anything.”
 

“Good.” The technician returned. “Put it down, open it, and go away,” Ja said. The technician obeyed, clearly disappointed. The wrists of the sterile gloves sat open in the dispenser: Ja fit his fingers into them and pushed. The gloves squeezed over his hands. He withdrew them from the dispenser and wiggled his fingers...."Perfect fit,” he said, though the extruded gloves were always a perfect fit, that was how they were made. “Right hand, please,” the surgeon said, lifting forceps from the tray. Zed braced his right elbow against his knee. His right hand bobbed in the air like a layered white balloon. “Hold it still.” The forceps plucked the bandages off and dropped them in the disposal. Beneath the gauze were more layers of regenerative gel.
 

“If you hadn't shown up,” Zed murmured, “I was getting ready to take this stuff off with my teeth.”
 

Narayan chuckled. “Very poor technique,” he said. He picked at the edge of the hardened gel with the forceps. “There's one,” he said, peeling a strip of gel away, “there's two—” He chanted the count. When he was done, the strips of gel dangled from Zed's wrist like the rind of a peeled fruit.