The Sardonyx Net (60 page)

Her voice wavered. “Starcaptain?”
 

“Please don't call me that.”
 

Her face came a little closer to the screen; he could see her weeping. “Goodbye, Dana. Go away now. Don't come back to Chabad. I wish you good fortune. Live on a green and pleasant world with a lover who treats you better than this one.” She switched off. Dana rested his head against the chair back. He felt as if someone had just punched him in the heart.
 

Tori shook him roughly. “Go lie down.”
 

He pointed at the controls. “What about ...?”
 

“Sweet mother, you think I can't fly this ship by myself? Get into a bunk.”
 

“Where are we going?”
 

“To Nexus. Where else? Unless there's somewhere you want me to stop.”
 

Dana considered Pellin. It was a green and pleasant world. His family would be pleased to see him. But he was not ready to go world-bound. “Nexus.”
 

“Go lie down.”
 

He levered his head up. It weighed a ton. “No.”
 

“As you please,” said Tori. She talked to the Flight Tower. The gel warmed on Dana's upper arm. Sleepily, he realized that Lamonica was swearing into the com-unit; that something, somewhere, had gone wrong.
 

“What is it?” he said.
 

“Fucking cops.” Lamonica twirled the pilot's chair around to face him. “We're grounded, man.”
 

“Why?”
 

“Everybody's grounded, until they find that son-of-a-bitch who started this, A-Rae.” She mimicked the Flight Tower's impersonal voice. “
All ve-hi-cles can-cel lift-off pro-ce-dures
.” She chuckled. “The shuttleship pilots are going crazy. They've all got full passenger loads to deliver to the moon.”
 

“When can we take off?” Dana said.
 

“Who knows?” She began to mutter the lift-off litany in reverse.
 

A voice from the com-line said, “
Lamia
, are you there? Stand by for boarding.”
 

“What?” Tori slammed her hand on the chair arm. “Who's boarding my ship?”
 

“Drug Detail, Hyperspace Police,” intoned the com-unit.
 

Dana sat fully up in the chair. His left arm had gone to sleep, and he shook it. A trickle of alarm raced through his nervous system. “Hey,” he said. “Make sure you see a boarding pass.”
 

The com-unit crackled wih a different voice. “
Lamia
, this is the Hyperspace Police, Drug Detail, Captain Graeme. We request permission to board.”
 

“Do I have a choice?” Tori said. She palmed the door switch. The starship's door shot up. A hand found the ceiling bar, another, another—bemused, Dana watched as four people in black-and-silver uniforms swung into the little starship.
 

“I want to see a pass,” Tori said, advancing toward them.
 

A man with a communicator in his hand extended a sheet of paper toward her. The other three were standing at near-attention, close to the starship's door. Two hands gripped the ceiling bar and, with a smooth acrobatic heave, a fifth person entered the ship. The Hype cops stiffened. The newcomer glanced at each of them as she came upright and, stepping forward, extended a hand to Tori Lamonica. “Sorry for the delay, Starcaptain,” she said. “Cat Graeme, Hyperspace Police.”
 

At first glance, Dana thought she was the plainest woman he had ever seen. She wore the black uniform with no special grace. Her hair was dusky and coarse, her skin weathered, and her hands were lumpy and callused, as if she had once spent a long time doing heavy manual labor. She had a jagged scar on her right temple. Her eyes were blue. She was short and tough and, in the center of the MPL-class starship, she looked immovable.
 

“Starcaptain Dana Ikoro,” she said.
 

Wearily Dana levered himself from his chair. “That's me,” he said.
 

“The drug detail of the Hyperspace Police respectfully requests your cooperation.”
 

Dana sighed. He wanted, very badly, to tell this woman to do something anatomically impossible with a black hole. “What kind of cooperation?” he said.
 

“Dull, boring work,” she said. “We want you to sit in front of a machine and tell it what happened on the Sardonyx Net, before it blew up.”
 

He leaned on the chair back. “What if I don't want to help?” he said.
 

She said, “Come on, Starcaptain. You're tired and you want to go home, but you're also not a child. We need that testimony. You're the only person who can give it.”
 

“Ask Zed Yago,” Dana said.
 

Graeme shook her head. Dana decided that her nose had been broken at least once. It leaned to the right. “Zed Yago's in Main Clinic, and can't talk to us. And might not, even if he were conscious.”
 

Dana remembered, unwillingly, the sight and smell of Zed's seared hands. The memory made his stomach ache. “All right,” he said. “Since I can't get out of here anyway.” He yawned. “Tori—”
 

She nodded at him. “It's been fun,” she said. “Let's do it again sometime.” She slid into the pilot's chair.
 

“Let's not,” Dana said. Cat Graeme gestured to the open door. Two of the cops preceded him; the others followed. The dark night was cold, but the lights over the Flight Field brightened it to day. Dana hesitated at the doorlip. I thought I was going home.... Leaning forward, he closed his palms around the cool metal of the ceiling bar.
 

In the Abanat Clinic, Zed Yago floated over a white bed in a silent room, gazing down at the form of a man with badly burned hands.
 

Until he realized that he was disembodied and invisible, it had disturbed him that the man in the bed could not or did not seem to see him. But then, no one else saw him either: not the medics or the guards in their blue-and-silver uniforms who stood near the bed. Two people entered the room, and he recognized them as Sai Thomas and Ja Narayan. They spoke to the man with the burned hands.
 

“I can do it,” said the surgeon. “Medically it's simple; the light beam did most of the work for us. Your circulation below the elbow is fine. There's no infection. I can scrape the seared bone clean and graft new tissue in after I set the claw mechanism in place. CTD has an excellent tissue match.”
 

Sai Thomas said, “Zed, are you sure you want this?”
 

“I'm sure,” said the man on the bed. I'm sure, whispered Zed Yago.
 

He could see by the lines around her eyes that she wasn't happy. Don't worry, he said to reassure her, forgetting that he was disembodied and that she couldn't hear him. He wanted to tell her that he had been crazy, but also that he was sane again, as sane as he was ever gong to get. In another time and on another world, they might say that he had been bewitched.
 

“Don't worry,” said the man in the bed.
 

“I'll tell Yukiko,” said Sai Thomas. The medics left. Zed Yago climbed back into his body. It took a certain effort to stay there. He could not feel anything. The slack body had no more hold on him than a shell. He wondered what Ja Narayan would think if he knew that he was not simply inserting fingerclaws into those hands, but that he was reattaching a soul.
 

They put him entirely out for the surgery. As he felt himself sink into chemical oblivion, Zed regretted that he could not float above the table to watch the repair. Then he slept. He woke in Recovery, woozy and dry-mouthed, but whole, himself. He tried to move the reconstructed fingers within the plaster of the healing gel. He couldn't tell if they obeyed him.
 

A woman came to stand at the edge of the bed. It was Rhani. They had dressed her in green but he knew her. He wondered if Rhani was angry at him. There was a reason why she might be, though he could not remember what it was. His throat hurt; he had to whisper. “Rhani-ka.”
 

“Zed-ka,” she said.
 

A second figure in green stepped forward with a cloth and held it for him to suck. Water trickled into his throat.
 

“The Net—” he said.
 

“I know,” she said, “I know. Don't worry about it. I have other plans. I'll tell you about them when you're stronger.”
 

He wanted to tell her that he was no longer crazy. “I'll come back tomorrow,” she told him. “They don't want me to stay now. Get well, Zed-ka.” She mimed a kiss as she went through the door. Intense joy, like a bright light, filled Zed's mind. He groaned.
 

The medic stepped forward, alarmed. “Are you in pain?”
 

“No. Oh, no. I'm happy,” Zed Yago said.
 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-One

 

 

In the anteroom of Recovery, Rhani Yago spoke with Ja Narayan. “He knew me,” she said. “He spoke to me.”
 

The little surgeon was amused. His dark eyes glittered. “Certainly he knew you, Domna, there's nothing wrong with his brain. He'll be out of bed tomorrow; in four days you can take him home.”
 

“Thank you,” Rhani said. “Please send your bill to me at the Yago estate outside Abanat.”
 

“As you wish,” he said.
 

“I wish,” said Rhani. She glanced at the pilot of the hired bubble, who had been waiting for her all this time. She had called Landingport East and rented his services just before she received Dana Ikoro's call. “Thank you,” she said, “I appreciate your help.”
 

The boy—he was gangling and awkward and seemed very young—smiled diffidently. “You're welcome, ma'am.” He had a pleasant drawling voice. “I hope the Commander's better soon.”
 

Rhani said, “My brother is going to be all right.”
 

“That's good. Do you want to go home now, ma'am?”
 

Yes, Rhani thought. “No,” she said. “Thank you. If I need you again, I'll call Landingport East.” She watched him walk away down the curving hall. In a little while she followed him along the route they had told her to take: Recovery to CTD, CTD to Outpatient, Outpatient to the street. Twice she passed people in blue-and-silver uniforms. The Clinic staff had told her that soon after Zed arrived they had begun to appear, and she wondered who had called them and how they had known.
 

In Outpatient she saw a PINsheet stand. “YAGO NET DESTROYED!” the headlines cried. A few of the people in the waiting room recognized her; she could tell by the way their eyes seemed to fasten on her face, and by the way they then looked quickly aside. No one spoke to her: she felt invisible, a ghost. Someone touched her shoulder; she turned, and found Ferris Dur beside her. The unexpectedness of it shocked her momentarily from her exhausted state. “Ferris, what are you doing here?” she said.
 

He flinched as if she had hit him. He was wearing red-and-gold and in the utilitarian Clinic he seemed completely out of place.
 

“I heard,” he said. “About the Net, and your brother. I came to see if I could help.”
 

“But it's dawn,” Rhani said. Light stained the windows of the corridor.
 

“I know,” he said. “Rhani—do you have a place to stay?”
 

Rhani blinked. She hadn't thought about it. She did not want to go to the Kyneths' again. “A hotel, I suppose,” she said.
 

“Amid all those tourists?” he said, with one of his rare flashes of humor. “I thought—I hoped—I offered you my house.” His fingers tugged at each other.
 

Rhani pictured Dur House: the heavy, stone walls, the odd melange of furnishings, half Domna Sam's tastes, half her son's.... She sighed. Her bones hurt. “Would I have to sleep in that damned gold bed?” she said.
 

Eagerly he said, “No! I have a room—I made it—” He stumbled over the words and stopped. “I won't touch you, if that's what you're thinking,” he said in a low, miserable tone.
 

A medic walked by them, wheeling a tray filled with instruments. Well, Rhani thought, I can't sleep here.... “All right, Ferris. I accept your hospitality. Thank you,” she said.
 

His heavy-boned face beamed. “I brought a bubble,” he said. With infinite care, as if she were made of crystal or glass, something that might shiver apart at his touch, he cupped his hand beneath her arm.
 

They walked to the Clinic hangars. A bubble with the raised axe emblem on the door sat waiting. As they went toward it, a second bubble spiraled from the northwest toward the hangar. It landed, and six more uniformed Net crew members climbed from it. They looked grim. They strode toward the Outpatient entrance. “Wait,” Rhani said over her shoulder to Ferris, and moved to intercept them.
 

They turned at her approach, and she saw one woman pull a small cylinder from a pocket. It looked suspiciously like the miniature stun gun her brother had brought her. But that, Rhani thought, was very long ago. She wondered where it was. Gone with my house. “Domna Rhani,” said the woman. They closed in about her. They were all taller than she was and it was like being surrounded by steel columns. “How is the commander? Is he going to recover?”