The Sardonyx Net Part 28

"Zed-ka -- " Rhani put her fists on her hips, prepared to scold, and remembered Dana's presence. She could not be angry at Zed in front of Dana.

"Dana," she said, "you may go."

He bowed, and left the room. Rhani advanced on her brother. He rose.

"Rhani," he said gently, cupping her cheek with his palm, "I know what you want to say. Don't."

It stopped her. His fingers curved around her cheek. She wanted to shout, to tell him that he could tell her anything, that if something was wrong she needed to know, that she trusted him and always would.... Dark patches stained the skin beneath his eyes.

Unable to scold, she hugged him lightly and stepped back. "Let's eat."

"I'm not especially hungry," he said. Picking up a m.u.f.fin, he broke it and handed her the larger piece. "I wish Corrios would make egg tarts."

"I'll ask him to," Rhani promised. She bit into a blueberry. The sweet juice spurted onto her tongue. Blueberries, like all fruits and vegetables, were imported to Chabad. Forty years back an agricultural commune from Sabado had brought in citrus tree stock and had erected ma.s.sive greenhouses. With careful temperature control, the commune insisted, they could produce three crops a year, and the Levos Family, against advice, had invested money in the plan. It had all sounded workable, but within two years the greenhouses had had to be abandoned. Those advising the investors had not bargained for the unrelenting alkalinity of Chabad's soil.

Zed tore apart a second m.u.f.fin. "These are pretty good," he said.

Rhani ate another piece slowly, watching the sunlight pattern the walls.

She sat on the bed, leaning back on one palm. "Zed-ka," she said, "have you ever wondered how historians will write about us in their books?"

His eyebrows went up. "What put that in your mind?"

She pointed to the PINsheet. "That. If Michel A-Rae has his way, they will say that under its fifth generation of inhabitants, Chabad's economy collapsed."

"Do you think that he will?" Zed asked.

"I don't know," Rhani said. "I hope not. Lisa Yago helped to found this colony. Irene was a member of the first Council. Orrin went to Nexus. Our mother built the Net. What will they say about me?"

"What would you like them to say?"

Rhani said, "I would love to have them tell how Rhani Yago established Chabad's independence from outside influence by purchasing the dorazine formula from The Pharmacy."

"Oh ho," Zed said. He smiled at her. "I should like that, very much."

"Or," she said, "they might also say that Rhani Yago changed the political and economic structure of Chabad by uniting the influence and fortune of two great Families in the person of her daughter."

He froze for a moment, eyes shuttering, gaze turning inward, smile gone.

Then he said, "You have decided to do it."

She nodded. "Yes."

His mouth quirked suddenly with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Have you told Ferris Dur?"

"Not yet."

"I see," he said. "Thank you for telling me first. Are you doing this to placate history, Rhani-ka, or to appease our mother's shade ...?"

I am doing it because I want to, Rhani thought, and because I have found a way to do it that will afford me pleasure.... But this, above all, she could not say to Zed.

"It seems right," she said, determined not to grow angry. "Domna Sam used to tell me to trust my intuition."

"Pilots are taught that, too," Zed said. He gazed around the room. "Our mother never had any to trust."

Rhani was astonished. Zed rarely mentioned Isobel, and he had deliberately mentioned her twice in the last minute. He's upset, she thought; about Michel A-Rae, about me, about Darien Riis.... She did not want to think about _that_. On impulse, she leaned across the bed to the compartment in the headboard, and brought out the wrapped sculpture that she had bought at Tuli's.

"Zed-ka," she said, "I was saving this to give you on Founders' Day, but I think I want you to have it now." She pa.s.sed it to him. "Be gentle with it, it's gla.s.s."

He unwrapped it, methodically folding the paper and laying it aside. As the sculpture came free, it caught the light and glittered, and Rhani heard her brother's sharp intake of breath. It was a statue of a man standing on an ice slab; the man was blue, the ice black. The man held an ice hammer, and wore an ice suit with the hood folded back. Tuli had promised that the etched details would be exquisite, and they were: in the curves and hollows of the climber's tiny profile, the maker had managed to render Zed Yago's portrait.

"Do you like it?" she said.

"Rhani-ka, it's stupendous," he said. He rotated it gently, face momentarily unguarded in his appreciation of beauty. "I love it. Thank you." He kissed her forehead. Rising, he crossed to the door, carrying the radiant blue figure in both hands. "I'll put it in my room. I'll have to warn Amri not to touch it." As he reached the door, he turned back. "I'm going to the Clinic again today," he said.

"Now?" Rhani exclaimed. He nodded. Wait, she wanted to cry, wait, we have to talk, I need your advice.... But he had gone. She heard his footsteps in the hall, the sound of a door sliding back, and silence.

The laboring aircooler wheezed. She sat rigid, fists locked on her knees.

Finally she stood and went to the com-unit. She checked the message -- it was indeed from Ferris Dur -- and instructed the unit to connect her with Imre Kyneth.

A woman's image formed on the screen. "Good day," she said, "this is a recording of Nialle Hamish, Domni Imre's secretary. Would you kindly leave your message?"

"This is Rhani Yago," Rhani said. "Imre, I think we should wait a week to a.s.sess public reaction, and then call a Council meeting. Let me know if this seems good to you." She switched off, waited a second, and called Ferris.

He came onto the screen immediately; himself, not a recording.

"Domna!" he said. "I hoped you would call."

He was agitated; she could see that from the state of the fur trim on his robe. She braced herself to deal with it.

"You've heard, of course," he said.

"I've heard," Rhani said. "I've suggested to Imre that the Upper House request a Council meeting in a week."

"Why wait?" Ferris said. "This pet.i.tion is a threat!"

"A threat is not an attack," Rhani said. "Besides, it seems more in keeping with our dignity if we do not appear to be frightened of it. If we meet now -- " She let the sentence finish itself in his mind, and then said, "But the referendum is not why I called, Ferris. I called to give you my response to your proposal -- the proposal of import to all Chabad...."

"Yes," he said, leaning forward. "Yes?"

"Yes," she said. "I will marry you, Domni Ferris." She held up a hand before he could speak. "I will have my legal staff draw up the contracts for merger and settlement of our mutual properties upon a child."

"Our child," he said.

She said, "_My_ child." His jaw slackened as he understood. "That must be part of our agreement, Ferris, or else we do not have one."

His brown eyes grew indignant. He twisted the robe's fur with both hands.

"All right," he muttered. "I can accept that."

"I am pleased," Rhani said, and switched off. She had not bothered to sit: now, leaning on the back of the chair, she breathed slowly, calming her senses, calming her mind.

She went to the bathroom, covered her hair, and took a shower. As the water streamed down her body, she looked at herself as if she were a stranger even to herself. She tried to imagine what it would feel like to be pregnant, and could not. I could ask Tuli, she thought. Tuli has a child. Tuli has a son.

What if I should have a son? She imagined herself holding a boy child like the youngest Kyneth, with black hair, not reddish hair.... It would not matter, she thought. She stepped from the shower and toweled herself dry. Then, facing her mirror, she reached for the little vial of pills beside it.

One pill every seven days kept her infertile; she had been taking them for twenty-three years.

She watched in the mirror as a woman in a bathroom just like her own put a vial of pills into a disposal.

Then she went to the intercom. "Dana?" she said.

He answered, "Yes, Rhani-ka?" In the background she heard the lilt of music, and Anri asking a question.

"I want to talk to you," she said. "Please come now to my room."

*Chapter Thirteen*

The room was dark. Rhani had drawn the heavy curtains over the windows; Dana did not know why. She was sleeping now, curled on her side, head on the pillow. Her unbraided hair fell across her face and veiled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s: lips parted, in the shadowy bedroom she looked like a sleeping child. Dana bent closer. Her eyelids flickered but did not open; she was dreaming. He wondered what about. He stretched, feeling sad despite the lingering remembrance of pleasure. For three days now she had called him to her bed. The loving had been good, splendid and pa.s.sionate, and yet -- he sensed behind her gaze as she smiled at him and called his name the presence of another person, another face.

He did not know whose.

Some previous lover's? he thought. Zed's? That frightened him. For the fiftieth time in three days he pictured Zed walking in and finding them in bed.

"_I cannot always control him_," Rhani had warned. The image made his s.c.r.o.t.u.m contract. He lifted on an elbow. Rhani opened her eyes. She smiled, and stretched like a cat. "Hmm?"

He stroked her flat belly. Her skin was soft as silk. "Rhani-ka, I should go."

"Why?" she said. Lunging, she wound her arms about his neck and pulled him to her. "Bored?"

He breathed her smell. "No," he said into the side of her neck. "Oh, no."

She released him. "What is it, then?" She teased him with one groping hand. He trapped it in his own.

"Rhani-ka, stop."

"What for?"

"Because I should leave."

She sat up. Her hair fell over her shoulders. "What do you have to do that is so important?"

He said, "It's been two days since the Auction. Don't you want me to find Loras U-Ellen?"

"No," she said, and in the same breath, "Yes. Yes, I suppose so." Once again she seemed to look through him to that other face. He felt sullen, sulky as a child whose promised treat has been withheld. He wanted to shake her, and to say: You don't love me, and my body's nothing special. So what's this all about?

But then, his own motives were none too pure.

"What are you thinking?" she demanded.

He gazed at her, finding her beautiful. "I was thinking how strange this is," he temporized.

She laughed, and sat up suddenly. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swung. Her nipples were small and pinkish-brown; the nipples of a woman who had never had children.

Leaning forward, she kissed him quickly. "Better go if you're going."

He left the bed and dressed before she changed her mind.

"You'll need a credit disc," she said as he started toward the door.

Feeling somewhat sheepish, he turned back. She opened the compartment in the headboard of the bed and handed it to him. He took it, pulse quickening.

"You look so happy," she said thoughtfully as he once more began to leave the room. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Her tone was wistful ...

Relax, he ordered himself, relax. She isn't Zed, who would sense the presence of the joy and question until he knew what source it sprang from. This is Rhani.

"Loras U-Ellen," he said. "I'll return as soon as I can."

"Don't forget the curfew," she said. Oh, _h.e.l.l_, Dana thought. He had forgotten that unaccompanied slaves had to be off Abanat's streets one hour after sunset.

It doesn't matter, he thought. I can go back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until I find her. "Thank you, Rhani-ka," he said. He left the room. The hall was bright, and he squinted as he went downstairs. Amri saw him and shot him a knowing look from the dining alcove.

It was just past noon, and he guessed that Corrios was asleep. He walked back to Amri. "Kitten, I may be back late," he said. "I'm on an errand."

She nodded. "Binkie's out, too," she said. Jumping up, she came to him and put a hand on his forearm. Her clear blue eyes were guileless. "Dana, Binkie doesn't like you, you know."

"How do you know?" he said.

She shrugged. "I just do."

He accepted it. "Thanks, kitten. I'll remember." He went to the front door, remembering at the last minute to lift his sunshades from the rack. He stepped outside. The air s.h.i.+mmered with heat. He went slowly down the steps, feeling the sunlight fold like a cape around his shoulders and back.

In Founders' Green, the fountains were playing. He watched them for a while. Suddenly he saw Binkie crossing the street, coming toward the house. Dana gazed along his trajectory.... At the corner of the street was a figure in black striding swiftly west. He thought: Even tourists should know better than to wear black in Abanat -- and then remembered who might wear black anyplace, anytime.

Binkie came abreast of him and started to pa.s.s him; Dana reached out and clamped a hand in the front of Binkie's blue s.h.i.+rt.

"Who was that?" he said.

The secretary said, "What the h.e.l.l business is that of yours?" He tried to pull away; Dana tightened his grip.

"That was a Hype cop," he said. "Why are you talking with the Hype cops?"