The Sardonyx Net Part 23

They rode the movalong to Founders' Green. At the edge of the park, looking into that soft green wildness, Rhani's fear returned. "I can't go in there," she said. "I won't go in there."

Dana nodded. Tersely he said, "Better not." They climbed the steps.

Rhani's feet were sore. She was shaking with fatigue. The door opened before they reached it, and Corrios came out to the step. Before she could speak, he bent and swept Rhani up in his arms. She put her head on his shoulder. His bulk was comforting. Swinging around, he carried her into the front hall.

The feel of the house restored Rhani's strength. Corrios seemed ready to carry her to her room. "Put me down," she said. She ignored the dull throbbing pain spreading in her right side. Amri and Binkie hovered near her. "I'm all right. Dana has a cut on his face. Amri, bring us something to drink, and run a bath for me. Binkie, leave a message at the Clinic for Zed. No specifics, just say that I want him to call. And then get me a line to Officer Tsurada of the Abanat police." She walked upstairs without help. Binkie babbled fatuously beside her: _Was she hurt, had she been alone, did she want a medic?_ "Of course I wasn't alone," she said. "Dana was there." She stripped off the torn, dirty sari and put on her robe.

The pendant bounced on her neck. Stupid, she told herself. You could have used it, at least. Irritated, she took it off. Amri brought a tray with a pitcher and gla.s.s, and went to run her bath. She was snuffling. Binkie leaned over the com-unit, struggling for self-control.

"Rhani-ka," he said huskily, "I have Officer Tsurada on display." Rhani went to the screen. Sachiko Tsurada looked grimly back at her.

"Domna," she said. "My deep sympathy and regrets. I hope you are not badly injured."

"No," Rhani said. "I was simply shaken up."

"Can you tell me what your attackers looked like?"

"I'll try," Rhani said, sitting in the chair. "There were three of them, two men, one woman." She tried to picture their faces, but the features she had seen so intimately in the strong sunlight came back to her now impossibly blurred. "Wait," she said, and told Binkie to find Dana. After a few moments he came to the bedroom. There was a white gel patch on his cheek. "The police need to know what those people looked like," she said.

He nodded. "I'll try." She let him have the chair. She was aching now, as if every muscle had been strained. She half-listened to Dana's description; "Fair skin, dark hair, nose broken to the left. She was right handed. There might be some fingerprints on the shards of broken gla.s.s."

Amri said, "Rhani-ka, your bath is ready."

Rhani tottered to the washroom. The mirrors were steamy. She slid her robe from her shoulders and handed it to Amri. The slave gasped. "Rhani-ka, your side!" Rhani looked at herself in the clouded mirror. Her right side was blue from shoulder to hip. She lowered herself into the hot water, and had to clench her jaw tightly to keep from crying.

The heat eased the soreness. She leaned forward to let Amri soap her back. Her legs stung; they were sc.r.a.ped from her fall on the pavement. She lifted her hands to free her hair from its coils and remembered the wig. It was not there. She did not remember when, during the struggle, it had gone.

"Rhani-ka," said Amri, "your beautiful dress is all torn."

"It doesn't matter," Rhani said. She leaned against the wall of the tub.

She stayed in the bath until the water cooled. At last, moving slowly, she eased herself from the washroom. Her skin was reddened where it was not black and blue.

She drank a gla.s.s of fruit punch, savoring the sweetness of the cold drink. Probably, she thought, it would be good to eat. But she had no appet.i.te for food. Amri opened the bed for her, and she climbed between the sheets.

The face of the woman with the bottle slid waveringly into her mind.

"Yago b.i.t.c.h," they had called her. She pictured the police hunting them through the streets. Tears sprang traitorously to life beneath her eyelids; she lay weeping, furious at her body's weakness. She was Rhani Yago, _Domna_ Rhani Yago, what was she doing, lying in her own bed crying like a child?

Amri crept in. "Rhani-ka, are you in pain? Can I get you something?"

"No," Rhani said. She rubbed her face. "Has Zed called yet?"

"Not yet, Rhani-ka."

"Is Dana there?"

"I think he went downstairs again," Amri said.

"I want him," Rhani said.

"I'll go find him."

"Thank you, Amri," Rhani said. She struggled up. She wanted to be sitting up when he came in, sitting, and not crying. The door slid aside. He came into the bedroom. "You sent for me, Rhani- ka."

"Yes," Rhani said. The traitor tears began to run down her nose again.

She didn't know what she wanted from him. Rea.s.surance ... the knowledge that he did not think less of her because she was helpless in a fight? "d.a.m.n it, I -- "

She had to stop, and blow her nose. He turned, and vanished into the washroom, to emerge carrying a wet cloth and a dry towel. Sitting on the bed, he wiped her face with the cloth and patted it dry, just as if she were four years old.

"Better?" he said.

There was neither reproach nor scorn in his voice. Rhani put her head back in the pillows, and her heart, which had been knocking against her rib cage like a demented pendulum, regained its equilibrium. Measuringly, she gazed at him. She knew what she wanted. "Close the door," she said. He left the bed and shut the door. She pulled the blanket to one side. Walking back to the bedside, he stood gazing at her. She moved in the big bed, making a place for him there.

"Come inside."

He stripped. In the soft arrested daylight behind the curtains, his body looked hard and cold. But against hers it was warm. He touched her gently, cautious of her bruises. He wasn't clumsy. His weight on her was uncomfortable; she gestured, and he rolled, pulling her on top of him and easing himself into her in one motion. His hips lifted to meet her. Lowering her head, she began to stroke his chest with her hair. He teased her nipples with eager fingers, and she saw his lips soften and sigh with pleasure as she began to ride.

*Chapter Eleven*

After the loving, Dana rose and opened the curtains.

Light filled the dark room, spilling down the paneled walls. The afternoon bustle of tourists through the streets came faintly upward, noise without words, like the distant rus.h.i.+ng of a river. The house was quiet, except for the labor of the aircooling machine. But, Rhani thought, why do I think of rivers? The rivers run underground on Chabad.

Dana came back to the bed. He leaned over it to kiss her, and she stroked his hairless yellow chest, feeling for the heartbeat beneath the skin. The room smelled of s.e.x and s.e.m.e.n.

"I must go," he said.

"Yes." He bent to her, kissing her eyelids, cheeks, nose, ears. She captured his mouth and brought it to hers, enjoying the taste of him.

When she let him go, he dressed. Noiselessly he slid the door ajar. He closed it behind him. Rhani stretched and rolled onto her belly. She could still smell him in the creases of the sheets.

Her bruises ached. She watched the sunlight move on the dark wooden walls. Finally she rose, went to the washroom, and stepped into the shower. The water felt good except on her sc.r.a.pes. She returned to the bed and pulled it into some sort of order, straightening the covers and plumping the pillows. Then she got into it, knowing that she should be up and working, and not caring. The stillness of the big house was soporific.

Zed's step on the stair woke her from sleep. He was coming two at a time.

The room was cool. The sky outside the windows was a brilliant s.h.i.+mmering purple.

Zed slid her bedroom door aside without bothering to knock. He crossed to the bed. She lifted her hand to him. "Zed-ka."

He sat on the edge of the bed. He was wearing a green gown, tied at the throat. "Did you come through the streets like that?" she asked.

"Yes. Clinic garb. Are you all right? I came as soon as I could. All the juniors are on Needle Row, or at the Barracks. I was working Emergency." His face was drawn. "I told Binkie not to tell you!" she said. "He was only to tell you to call...."

"I have been calling," he said. "And calling. There's been no answer for six hours."

"Oh." Rhani glanced at the com-unit. The message light on its side flashed steadily. "I -- I was asleep."

"City Computer said the line was not malfunctioning. I was worried. I came home. Binkie told me there was a second attack. Three people, one of them with a bottle?"

"Yes, that's right. I wasn't hurt, just shaken up. My side aches."

"Tell me about it." She described the attack as best she could. "Let me see your side." She drew back the coverlet to show him the bruises. They were purple-green, very big, and ugly. In places, the flesh was puffy. Clinically, carefully, he touched her ribs. It hadn't occurred to her that they might be broken.

"You see," she said, "I'm fine." She smiled at him to prove it.

He did not return the smile. "Rhani, do you want to go back to the estate?" he said.

"Run away, you mean?" He nodded. "Absolutely not. What would you have me do on the estate, build a Cage-field? Live behind bars? No. I am going to the Auction tomorrow, and in six days we will have the Yago party. We will leave after that, as we always do. Family Yago built this city; I will not be chased out of it!"

Mildly, he said, "I had to ask."

"I suppose you did."

"Did you notify the Abanat police of the attack?"

"Of course." Rhani got out of bed and reached for her robe, wincing a little at the ache in her right arm.

"What is it?" said Zed quickly.

"My arm ... I fell on it. It got wrenched out of the socket. Dana put it back." His name resonated in her mind, like a bell ringing. She turned her face away in unaccustomed dissembling from her sharp-eyed brother. She turned the lights up. The purple had faded into a soft, shadowless blue, herald of darkness. She wondered how long it would take him to learn that she and Dana had bedded. Amri might let it slip. Corrios would not. Binkie would not say two words to Zed by choice.

She called the kitchen on the intercom. "Amri, tell Corrios that Zed and I will want dinner in the dining alcove." To Zed she said, "Are you hungry? You must be. I am. When I left the Dur party they had just begun to serve lunch."

"You left early," he said. "Was it so tiresome?"

"Yes," she said, half-smiling as she recalled Ferris Dur's mouth against her own. So clumsy. Not like Dana. "Very tiresome. Zed-ka, don't you want to put on other clothes?"

He glanced at his Clinic greens. "Oh. Yes." He rose, and then came to her, and very gently, as if she were made of gla.s.s, put his arms about her and buried his head in her hair. "Rhani," he whispered.

She held him lightly. "Zed, I'm all right. I'm all right, twin."

"Yes," he whispered, and let his arms fall.

Dana watched Zed and Rhani walk side by side down the curving marble stair.

As he had been the first time, at the estate, he was struck by their likeness. But now he could see beyond it, beyond the fact that their eyes were amber, their hair red-brown -- Rhani's dark, Zed's lighter -- their height the same, their voices similar. They were different as light and dark, different as pleasure from pain. He remembered the springy weight of Rhani's hair on his throat, and s.h.i.+vered. And what am _I_ now? he thought. Slave, Starcaptain, pilot, friend, lover, bodyguard.... Amri pushed past him, carrying a tray. He retreated from her path, into the kitchen. Zed and Rhani went into the dining alcove. Corrios was bending over his pots, muttering. Binkie sat on a stool, eating. His look was unfriendly.

Corrios jabbed Dana in the ribs with an elbow. "Eat," he said.

"All right." Dana filled his plate and sat on another stool.

He tried to think of something lighthearted to say to Binkie, and couldn't. They sat in silence, and ate. Suddenly Amri came from the dining alcove. "Dana, Zed wants you."

"Wants me -- now?" Dana said, half rising. Amri nodded. Dana swallowed.

Binkie looked at him, expressionless. Dana's hurts began to ache as he walked from the kitchen. His left arm had been sc.r.a.ped on the stones of the Boulevard, and there was a dark, painful knot where he had been kicked, on his left thigh.

He walked to the dining alcove. Rhani was there. He was careful not to look too long at her. Be careful, warned the blood hammering through his chest, be very careful. He called upon the discipline he had learned on Nexus, and shut Rhani's presence from his consciousness. Then he turned, to face the one person who could, if he chose, obliterate that self-control with a touch.

"You sent for me, Zed-ka."

"Yes," said Zed. He leaned back in his chair. "Tell me about this attack today."

"There were three of them," Dana said. "They were waiting for us, approximately halfway between Founders' Green and Dur House, on the Boulevard.

They pretended to be drunk. It was noon, a perfect time; there was no one on the street for blocks. Rhani's black wig didn't fool them: they must have known she had it on."

Zed frowned. "Black wig?" he said to Rhani.

"I wore that black wig, the one I bought four years ago," she said. "And the silver sari."

He nodded. "Go on."

Dana thought back. "The woman with the bottle went for Rhani first, I think. Yes. I got between them. I kicked the bottle from her hand." He grimaced.

"It was a stupid move, but it worked. I brought her down and hit her. The second one tackled me and we rolled around for awhile. The third one went after Rhani.

He was twisting her arms when I got to him. I pulled him off her and they all got skittish and ran. There wasn't a soul in the street to see it."

"Was it difficult, chasing them off?" Zed asked.

Dana's thigh throbbed. "It wasn't fun."

Zed said, "What did they want, do you think? To kidnap Rhani? Hurt her?

Frighten her?"

Dana considered that. "I -- I don't know, Zed-ka," he said. "They couldn't have wanted to kill her or they would have done it from a distance, and I never would have seen their faces."

Zed locked gazes with Rhani. "It makes a pattern," he said.

Rhani was nodding. "Yes. The day after tomorrow I should get a letter from the Free Folk of Chabad."

Zed's gaze shot to Dana's face. "You did well," he said.

"Thank you, Zed-ka," Dana said.

"Tell me" -- Zed sipped his wine, still looking at Dana -- "was there no way to put one of them out? A knock on the head would have done it, and the police would have had someone to question."

Dana swallowed. He had been expecting this question, and dreading it.