The Sardonyx Net (14 page)

“Don't cry,” Zed told her. “Let me get near him, Amri.” She scurried back from the bed. “Was the head wound bleeding, Rhani-ka?”
 

“No,” she said. “It was just a discolored lump.”
 

Zed touched the bandages. “I want to take this off,” he said. “Amri, get me warm water and a scissors and a sterile cloth.”
 

“I don't know what that is, Zed-ka.”
 

“Go into my room, look in my closet, and bring me my medic's kit.”
 

She brought it instantly, carrying it in both hands. Zed took the clumsy bandage off. The swelling beneath it was purple. He cleaned the area, using the scissors to cut Dana's hair, looking for blood. There was none. “It should have been iced, not bandaged,” he said, “but no harm done.”
 

Rhani stared at the swelling. “It looks terrible.”
 

“It's not. What about the rest of him?” Zed drew the sheet away.
 

“Is it a concussion?” Rhani said.
 

“It may be one.”
 

Amri said, tearfully, “Why won't he wake up?”
 

On Dana's back there were welts and abrasions where debris from the explosion had torn the skin away. Zed resisted the urge to lay his fingers, ever so lightly, against those places of pain. Dana breathed evenly, his fine eyelashes trembling. “He will,” Zed said. “Dana.” He pitched his voice. “Dana.” The long body stirred. “See, he hears me. Wake up.”
 

Dana heard Zed calling.
Wake up
. He resisted the command, wanting only rest. But he had been harshly schooled to listen to that voice. He surfaced into consciousness blinking. The daylight was blinding. His eyes teared involuntarily; he could not make out a face.
 

A cloth wiped his eyes. He saw clearly: Amri, Rhani, Zed. Zed held the cloth. Dana remembered: an arm, waving from the bubble. Something falling. Noise. Yes.
 

Rhani said tremulously, “Dana!”
 

He focused on her.
 

“I would be dead, if not for you.”
 

“Who?” he asked.
 

Zed said, “We don't know. Yet.”
 

His lips felt thick and sore. “Was anyone else hurt?”
 

Rhani said, “A dragoncat was killed. And Timithos is furious because the bomb tore a huge hole in his beautiful garden.
 

Dana tried to swallow. His mouth was dry as bone. Zed said, “Thirsty?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“You can have water. No food yet. Sleep as much as you like. Don't get up. Here.” He put a hand into his pocket and drew out a small box. He held it over the bed. Small hard pellets—musictapes—cascaded out. “These should keep you still. Don't get a headache. There's an auditor in the library. Amri can bring it to you.”
 

Dana touched the musictapes, unbelieving. His fingers shook.
 

Zed touched his shoulder to draw his attention. “You did well,” he said.
 

Dana struggled. “Thank you, Zed-ka.”
 

Rhani leaned over the bed. “Don't tire yourself,” she said. Self-possession had returned to her voice. She linked her arm with Zed's. “Zed-ka.”
 

“I am with you,” he said. They left; Dana heard their footsteps, matched, recede along the hall. Amri pattered in, carrying the auditor. She put it where Dana could reach it. His hands felt stiff; his fingers fat, unwieldy as clubs. He fumbled among the tapes for the “Concerto in A Minor.”
 

“I can do it,” Amri said.
 

“I want to,” said Dana. He inserted the tape. Stratta filled the room.
 

“That's pretty,” Amri said.
 

Dana closed his eyes.
 

An hour after Zed's return and some four hours after Binkie's call to them, two members of the Abanat police arrived at the estate.
 

The officer in charge of the case was named Sachiko Tsurada. Her companion's last name was Ron. Rhani never heard his first name; later she decided that perhaps he didn't have one. Tsurada was small and dark and clearly the worker of the duo. When the bubble landed by the hangar, she emerged first, hand outstretched in greeting. “Domna,” she said briskly. She held out her hand to Zed. “Commander.” She surveyed them. “I am glad you were not hurt. I apologize for the length of time it took us to respond to your call.” She permitted herself to smile. “No one in the department wanted this assignment, you see.”
 

“I can understand that,” Zed said grimly.
 

“I would like to see all communications you have received from the Free Folk of Chabad, all other threats from anyone, the bomb crater, and, if you retrieved them, any pieces of the bomb.”
 

“There were none,” said Zed. He had spent an hour searching through the shrubbery. “At least, none that we could recognize.”
 

“I would also like to tour the estate grounds.”
 

Rhani said, “I'll take you.”
 

The policewoman looked disconcerted. “That isn't necessary, Domna, a slave can do it.”
 

Rhani put her hands on her hips. “I'll take you, I said. They're
my
grounds.” The scrapes on her arms and legs stung. She led the way to the house. On the assumption that the police would want to see them, she had told Binkie to sort out the various ugly letters and threats. From the downstairs hall, she called him on the intercom.
 

“Binkie, please bring the threatening letters downstairs,” she said.
 

“Yes, Rhani-ka,” he answered. In a moment, he came down the stairs and handed them to her. She passed them to Tsurada, who glanced through them with a look of contemptuous distaste.
 

“May we keep these, Domna?”
 

“If you think it will help.”
 

“It may,” she said, passing the neat pile to Officer Ron. “I should tell you, Domna, the Abanat police have never heard of the Free Folk of Chabad. They haven't surfaced before. There are groups like them scattered all about the city, of course; but those we know—most of them are infiltrated—and none of them are organized enough to plan an attack which includes a dry run, or, indeed, sober enough to build a bomb.”
 

Zed said, “I'm not convinced that the attackers are the Free Folk of Chabad.”
 

Rhani said, “But if the Abanat police don't know them, it's more likely to be they than a group that is well known.”
 

Officer Tsurada said, “We'll find out.”
 

“How?” said Zed.
 

Tsurada smiled. “Brilliant police work, naturally. Probably one of them will get frightened, and turn informer. That's how we get most of our information about these groups. I assume you don't want this event made public, Domna?”
 

Rhani frowned. “I do not. Has PIN heard about it already?”
 

“They monitor the police com-lines,” Tsurada said. “But I've already told them that whatever they hear, they may not use. They're used to being told not to print things.”
 

“Thank you,” Rhani said.
 

“I would like to see the bomb site, now.”
 

Rhani escorted them to it. Timithos sat on his haunches nearby, staring disconsolately at the ugly scar. Tsurada walked around it. “'From what distance was the bomb thrown?” she asked.
 

Rhani shook her head. “I don't know. It happened very fast.”
 

“Dana might be able to say,” murmured Zed.
 

“When he wakes up, I'll ask him,” said Rhani. “Dana is one of my slaves,” she explained. “He was with me when it happened. He was hurt.”
 

Tsurada glanced at Timithos. “Your gardener?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“Have you seen anything around this hole of metal or plastic, anything unfamiliar that might have come from the bomb?”
 

Timithos looked frightened. “I found stones,” he said timidly.
 

“I don't think Timithos would recognize a piece of a bomb if it hit him,” Rhani interposed.
 

She and Zed led the police officers around the entire estate. They examined the walls, admired the dragoncats, and walked through and around the gate. As they walked back to the house, Tsurada said, “I don't think there's any way for you to be completely safe here, Domna, short of building a Cage-field over the grounds, or quartering an army on your lawn.”
 

Rhani said, “There is no army on Chabad, and I don't think I could live inside a cage.”
 

Tsurada nodded. “Nor could I.” She frowned. “I wish I had a piece of that bomb. With your permission, I'd like to send a team out to examine the grounds.”
 

“You have it,” Rhani said. “But why is it important?”
 

“A piece would tell me where it came from, for starters; if it was made on Chabad, or smuggled in from the outside.” She glanced at Timithos, who was now talking softly to the dragoncats. “Domna, have you thought at all that your attackers might be slaves?”
 

“Ex-slaves, you mean,” said Zed. “I assumed that.”
 

“I don't mean that,” Tsurada said. “I mean slaves, the slaves who live in our houses, run our computers, arrange our lives. Slaves can use their owners' prestige, their owners' wealth, to get almost anything done. Until and unless one of them made a mistake, proof would be almost impossible to find.”
 

Rhani swallowed. She could not believe ... “Not my slaves,” she said.
 

Tsurada shrugged. “You know them. It need not be your slaves.” She hesitated, and then said, “Domna, you must know that if any Family on Chabad is responsible for slavery, in the slaves' minds, it's Family Yago.”
 

In the hangar, Tsurada shook hands again with Rhani, and then with Zed. “The team will fly out tomorrow morning,” she promised. She mounted the bubble, then leaned down to say, “Do you intend to keep to your usual custom, Domna, and go to Abanat for the Auction?”
 

Rhani had not even considered canceling the trip. “Of course,” she said firmly.
 

“While you are in Abanat,” Tsurada said, “you might think about hiring a bodyguard.”
 

Walking back to the house, Zed said, “That's not a bad idea.”
 

“A bodyguard?” Rhani scowled. She hated Abanat; she was never happy there; but she didn't want to be trailed around the streets by some galumphing hired guard. “Ugh.”
 

“Jo could do it. Skellians make excellent bodyguards.”
 

“Jo can't be in two places at once, and she's supposed to be finding Sherrix.”
 

“That's true,” said Zed. “But it's still a good idea.”
 

Rhani put her hands in her pockets. Mutinously she thought, I
won't
have a bodyguard. She chuckled suddenly, remembering that wonderful Pellish word Dana had taught her.
Bersk
. I'll get very grumpy and have to be alone for a long while.
 

Zed said, “Will you at least think about it, Rhani?”
 

She sighed. “I'll think about it, Zed-ka.”
 

With the discipline that years of practice had taught her, she put Tsurada from her mind. In her bedroom she took out the letter from the Gemit spy. Using pen and paper, she drafted what she wanted to tell him, which was, to listen, report, and when he could discreetly, to foment trouble. Life was going ill with Family Yago; why should it go well with Family Dur? Binkie was at the computer, using the display screen. He was very pale, and she wondered if Zed had been at him for some imagined or trivial wrong.
 

“Binkie,” she said. He turned around to face her. “What's the matter?”
 

His hands were shaking. “Rhani-ka, I—I seem to have made an error. Days ago you instructed me to take steps to find the source of the threats. I drafted a letter to the police, with details. I thought I'd sent it—but it's still here, on display mode, which means I never sent it at all. If I had, the attack, the bomb—none of that might have happened!” His tone lifted shrilly.
 

“Stop that,” Rhani said, sharply. “You didn't drop the bomb. You simply made a mistake.”
 

“But—”
 

“No, that's enough. What's done is done.” Coldly, she watched him as he fought himself under control.
 

“You—you won't—” He gulped for air.
 

“Tell my brother? No, why should I?” she said. Weak with relief, he sagged against the bedroom wall.
 

She picked up the Gemit report, heartsick. Damn Zed! She had never told him, but she had guessed the night before it happened that Binkie was going to run.
 

I should never have let Zed do what he did, she thought, and then sighed, knowing that the compulsion driving her brother was too strong for him to break and that under certain circumstances she, even she, could not control him. Again she glanced at Binkie. Fear was effective, but it destroyed all trust. She needed her slaves to trust her. She would use dorazine if she wanted to be served by a houseful of automatons.