The Sardonyx Net (49 page)

“Don't be ridiculous,” the lawyer said briskly. “Are you all right?”
 

“I'm fine. Don't you read the PINsheets?”
 

Christina grimaced eloquently. “Never,” she said, “when I can help it.” She grinned rakishly out of the screen. “I assume you made an appointment because you wanted to see me about something important; if it had been trivial, you would have dropped me a note. Would you like to make it tomorrow? I have time.” Her eyepatch glittered. She had lost one eye in a freak accident some years back. The damage was reparable but the surgery had left scars, and she had chosen to cover the eye rather than display it. Today's patch was shaped like a blue butterfly.
 

Rhani was touched by the offer; she knew how much in demand Christina's abilities were. She also knew that little went on in Abanat that Christina Wu was unaware of. “Thank you, Christina,” she said. “What time?”
 

Christina flapped a hand. “Let our secretaries arrange that.” She blanked the display. Nialle looked at Rhani inquiringly.
 

“Rhani-ka, do you have a preference?”
 

“No,” Rhani said. “Make it to Christina's convenience. And when you have finished that, please connect me with Domni Ferris Dur.”
 

A slave answered the call to Dur House. Rhani heard him say, “One moment, please, while I transfer the call downstairs.” There was a pause, and then Nialle was beckoning to her.
 

“Domna, Domni Ferris is online.”
 

“Thank you, Nialle,” Rhani said. Tactfully, Nialle went out the door. Ferris was glaring at her from the screen. Behind him, where she expected to see the ugly, heavy furnishings of the study, she saw boxes and coarse draperies. It looked like a warehouse.
 

“Why didn't you call before?” Ferris was saying petulantly. He plucked hard at a sleeve. “I was worried about you!”
 

It was on the tip of Rhani's tongue to tell him that they were not married yet, and that under no circumstances, married or not, was he ever to think he had the right to call her to account.
 

But she could see from his face and from the state of his clothes that he meant what he said—he
had
been worried for her. So she said only, “I'm sorry, Ferris. I've been doing very little.”
 

“Of course, I understand,” he said, mollified. “I just wish—that you had come here. There's as much room here as at the Kyneth house, and we are—I mean—this is—” He halted, confused. And with surprising dignity, said, “This is your house, Rhani. I want you to believe that.”
 

“Thank you, Ferris,” Rhani said, gently, although she had no intention of ever living in Dur House. The ghost of Domna Sam would haunt me, she thought.
 

“I was wondering, Rhani,” he said diffidently, “do you plan to rebuild the house?”
 

“I do.” She would—though it would be quite different from the house Lisa Yago had commissioned. For one thing, she thought, I'd like a house all on one floor, maybe even with sunken rooms.
 

“Good,” he said. “Then I may be able to help you.”
 

She gazed curiously at him. She had never heard Ferris speak with such confidence about anything. She said, “I hope you may, Ferris.”
 

He grinned. “You'll see,” he said, “I will. How are your lawyers doing with the contract drafts?”
 

She said, “Ferris, don't push me.”
 

He retreated at once. “I beg your pardon.”
 

Once again she was conscious of his unhappiness. Somewhere in the core of him was a wound, or a place that had never grown and still retained a child's defenselessness.... To ease him, she said, “Ferris, might I call upon you to do me a favor?”
 

He said, “Of course,” and his fingers ceased twisting the silken tassels of his gown.
 

“The Dur Family has extensive contacts throughout Abanat, I'm sure,” she said. Ferris nodded proudly. “Would you instruct them, through whatever channels you use, to be alert for the appearance of Michel A-Rae?”
 

“Surely. And if he is found, I suppose you would like to be notified
before
the Abanat police?”
 

“Precisely,” she said, and thought: That's something Domna Sam might have done! “My thanks.”
 

“I am glad to do it,” Ferris said. “And—Rhani—” he fumbled into a sentence—"I am sorry for anything I might have done the last time you were at my house—”
 

“I have already forgotten it,” Rhani said. “Good day, Ferris. I'll call you.” Putting the unit on hold, she said loudly, “Thank you, Nialle.” Nialle entered, with Dana at her back. He was wearing blue velvet, and she found herself thinking, in painful imitation of Charity Diamos: Oh, my dear, Rhani Yago certainly clothes that handsome young slave
well
....
 

She nodded to him, conscious of Nialle's solid presence in the room. He bowed, said, “Good morning, Rhani-ka,” and handed her a letter.
 

It was from Corrios. He was resigning.
 

“How did you get this?” she asked.
 

“He gave it to me,” Dana said.
 

“Do you know what's in it?” Dana shook his head. She passed it to him. “Go ahead, read it.” As he did, she heard the phrases of the note in her mind—"many years' service ... appreciate your trust...” She felt as if a piece of her childhood had just crumbled to dust, leaving a gaping hole in what she had thought was a sturdy edifice.
 

“Will you accept it?” Dana asked.
 

“Of course.” She took the letter back, wondering where Corrios would go. The letter said he wanted to leave Chabad. Perhaps he would find some gray planet, some world where it was always twilight, cloud, and mist, where the sun hid, not the people, where he could walk in the light without sunscreen and shades. Was there such a world? she thought. Dana might know.
 

She passed the letter to Nialle Hamish. “Please arrange for a bonus of three thousand credits to be paid to Corrios Rull, and tell him that Family Yago will pay his transportation costs to anyplace, in or out of sector.”
 

“Yes, Rhani-ka,” Nialle said. She took the letter. “About the party—”
 

“Yes?” Rhani said.
 

“I took the liberty of extracting the list of acceptees from the records of the computer. Do you want me to write to them and cancel the event?”
 

“Sweet mother,” Rhani said, “they'll know by now, won't they?” Nialle's bland face looked mildly surprised. “Oh, I suppose that's a good idea. Yes, do that, but send the cancellations through the computer net, Nialle. There's no reason for those letters to be calligraphed.”
 

“Certainly, Rhani-ka.”
 

Dana was watching her. She wondered what he was thinking. She wondered if there was a room in this big house where they could hide, and make love, and not be disturbed.... “My brother is returning to the estate today,” she said. His shoulders lifted at the first two words, and fell with relief after she said the rest.
 

“Will we be going anywhere today, Rhani-ka?” he said. He is pretending, she thought, amused, to be the utterly obedient slave.
 

“I don't know yet,” she said. “Possibly. I will call you.” He bowed and went to the door. She wondered what he would do until she called him. Read? The house had books enough. Listen to music? She recalled, suddenly, Binkie's hateful words: “
I was invisible, a thing, a machine that turned itself off when you didn't need it
....” No! she thought. I don't do that. I won't do that.
 

She glanced at Nialle. The secretary was bent over the com-unit, instructing the computer to send the notice of the Yago party's cancellation to a list of addresses. Quietly, Rhani walked into the bathroom. Light from the stained-glass windows patterned her flesh as she opened all the cabinets until she found the room's medikit. Trust Aliza Kyneth to put a medikit in every room, she thought. She looked through it for the meter she knew was there. Finally she found it, took it from its protective case, and stuck it under her tongue. Sense told her that even if she had conceived, it was too soon for the meter to register the changes in her mucus and saliva—but she needed to check. Impatiently she waited one minute and then pulled it from her mouth and gazed at the bulb. If she was pregnant, it would be orange.
 

It was pale pink, its usual color.
 

Washing the meter, she returned it to its case and closed the medikit. Odd—she was impatient now for it to happen. Yet she was young for pregnancy, for a Yago, and she ought—according to Family tradition—to be feeling intruded upon, resentful, apprehensive, or at least indifferent. Maybe it had something to do with age, she thought. Maybe her mother, and her grandmother, and her great-grandmother should have had children early, instead of doing what had become the Family custom and extending artificially the period of fertility. She gazed into the gold-framed mirror, seeing through her own image the smaller image of a girl's, a girl with red-gold hair and a solemn face.... Sweet mother, she thought, with a sharp, intense hurt that was purely of the heart, if my mother had borne me at thirty, even forty, she might have loved me,
wanted
me, instead of seeing me as the rival who would inevitably wrest her power from her....
 

Over Chabad's landscape, Zed pushed the bubble to its top speed. The ground unrolled beneath him. For once there was no solace in the flight, the solitude, the instantaneous obedience of the machine. He wanted to be home. His sandals were dusty with the ashes of the Abanat house. Home was a green circle on an arid hillside; home was the estate.
 

He had called ahead from the little landingport to tell Cara that he was returning early and alone, and that Rhani would follow with Dana as soon as she could. “Yes, Zed-ka,” she said, and then said, “Excuse me, Zed-ka, but you should—” but he had blanked the screen. It was rude, but he had not wanted to wait.
 

As he came over the grounds to the hangar he saw Timithos waving a broad arm, and the red flash amid the bushes of one of the dragoncats. His heart rejoiced. He dropped the bubble into the hangar and hurried to the house. Cara was downstairs. She said primly, “Welcome back, Zed-ka.”
 

He smiled at her. “Thank you, Cara.”
 

Immeld strolled from the kitchen. “Zed-ka,” she said, “I made egg tarts.”
 

Zed grinned. He was almost surfeited with egg tarts. Not quite. “Thank you, Immeld,” he said. He heard her saying something else but he was already past her, going up the stairs. It felt strange to be coming back without Rhani, without luggage, medikit, ice climbing equipment—his personal metaphors of permanence. He walked into his room. Everything was polished and tidy. The skeleton hung in its corner. Zed slid a hand along its scapula, and grinned at his shelf of booktapes. In the silence of the next few days, before Rhani came home, he might indeed have some time to rest, even to read.
 

He touched a bare space on a shelf. The glass sculpture Rhani had given him, now melted and unrecognizable in the wreckage of the house, would have fit right there. Too bad, he thought. Pushing apart the terrace drapes, he felt for the handle, found it, and slid the door aside.
 

A woman sat, cross-legged, on the terrace, a watering can at her feet.
 

She rose instantly. She was barefoot. Her gaze was steady, her eyes normal, not dilated or fixed—but the steady look was a shade too direct. She was frightened of him. The fear did not tantalize or excite him. She tilted her head to one side, evidently waiting for him to speak, to react, to tell her what to do.... He felt his chest tighten with tension. He couldn't breathe. He gasped, and the tension broke, shattered like ice breaking.
 

Cara had entered his bedroom at his back. With anger in her tone, she said, “I tried to tell you. You wouldn't listen.”
 

“When did she get here?” he said.
 

“The Barracks' bubble brought her,” said the steward. “They delivered her yesterday without a word of explanation. I have the invoice.” She put her hands on her hips. “Zed-ka, what possible use have we for a computer technician?”
 

Zed blinked at the total irrelevance of the question. Finally he said, “Cara, go away, please.”
 

Cara opened her mouth, shut it with a snap like a door closing, and stalked from the room. Zed gazed at the woman on the terrace. He had not expected her to be here, not yet. He wondered what they had told her about him in the Barracks. He thought: Be human, damn it, Yago—be kind. Send her away.
 

He couldn't.
 

Softly, he said, “Tell me your name.”
 

She said, “Darien Riis.” She sounded fragile as glass.
 

Brusquely he said, “You don't have to be afraid of me.”
 

She bowed her head.
 

“Do you know who I am?”
 

“You're Zed Yago. I remember you from the Net.”
 

He had not seen her. There were plenty of prisoners he never saw; most, in fact. As chief medic, he checked the records, but the juniors only called him for certain cases. “I don't remember you,” he said. “Were you sick? Did I come to your cell to treat you?”