The Sardonyx Net Part 29

The secretary glared at him. "You have no right to question me," he said.

"Let go."

Dana held on. "I want to know," he said.

"You're a fool," Binkie said. Contempt edged his tone. "I think you like it -- being a slave."

Dana wanted to hit him. "What the f.u.c.k makes you think that?" he said.

Binkie snorted. "The way you spend your days."

Dana flushed. "I can't exactly refuse," he said defensively.

"Why not?" Binkie said. "She won't rape you. She's not Zed."

"Keep your voice down!" Dana said. It was not like Binkie to be so reckless with his words. He dropped his hand from Binkie's s.h.i.+rt. "You've been acting odd lately," he said. "Amri's noticed it -- I don't know why Rhani hasn't."

"Because all she thinks about is hopping into bed with you," the secretary said. "I'd sooner bed a kerit." He started to brush past Dana.

"Hold it." Dana caught his arm. "I still want to know what you have to say to the Hype cops."

Binkie looked him up and down. "It seems to have escaped your attention,"

he said, "that I don't want to tell you. What do you think I'm doing? I'm buying my way out of here. Like you."

Dana was silent. It was true, of course. His fingers loosened. "I don't like being a slave," he said quietly.

"Then you ought to have noticed," Binkie said, "that the only person fighting the slave system in this sector is an ex-Hype cop, Michel A-Rae."

Dana scowled. "I'm not used to thinking of the Hype cops as allies," he said.

Binkie stared at him. "Sweet mother," he said. "You're a child. You -- but I forget. How long have you been a slave? Under a month, right? Try it for a year, Dana. Try it for four years. Wait a little while, until Rhani gets bored with your body, or Zed finds out you've been her lover. You've pushed what he did to you to the back of your mind, because you have to, I know, but it can happen again. And your lover Rhani won't save you from him because she needs him a h.e.l.l of a lot more than she needs you. How long is your slave contract for?" Dana swallowed. "Ten years."

Binkie said, "How old will you be in ten years?"

"Thirty-four."

"Think about that. And then tell me _I'm_ odd." He went up the stairs.

Dana heard the door close.

Slowly he went down the steps. Stars, he thought, Binkie's right.... He scowled, and kicked a pebble. He felt shamed. He had been defending the very system of which he was a victim. But it was a legal system, he thought, and besides, was it wrong of him to have saved Rhani Yago's life? He tugged at his left sleeve. The s.h.i.+rt was one of Rhani's, and the sleeves went to his wrists, hiding his slave brand. She had offered him one of Zed's s.h.i.+rts, but he had refused it. If slavery is abolished, they will have to put something in its place, he thought, and that won't feel any better to the people in jails.... He wondered what it would be like to live in a cell, or whatever they let prisoners live in. What if they voted in something worse than slavery: forced labor, or brain-wipe?

But slavery was already a kind of forced labor, and dorazine addiction produced a temporary brain-wipe. The arguments went around and around in his head. Suddenly, a face popped in front of him. "Excuse me, citizen, can you tell me what you think of the referendum?" It was a PINsheet pollster. The man crowded him expertly, camera poised, one hand thrusting out a hand mike. "Your name, citizen?" he pressed.

"f.u.c.k off," Dana said. The man sighed and turned away. PINsheets littered the walkways. Dana pa.s.sed one newsstand; a woman with mirrorshades and sandals on -- and nothing else -- was listening to the news through headphones. Dana's foot crunched on a sheet. The headline said: "PEt.i.tIONERS CLAIM 40,000 SIGNATURES IN 3 DAYS.".

The PINsheeter had found someone who would talk to him. She wore a light yellow apton robe that billowed about her like a cloud: not a citizen, Dana thought, but a tourist. He dawdled, listening to her comments. She hoped the referendum would fail, though, of course, since she was from Sector Cardinal, it was none of her business, but after all, Chabad's methods with criminals were not _so_ awful; on her world, China II, rehabilitation sometimes took _years_, and anyway the slave system made Chabad so intriguing, so different to come to!

"Would you own slaves?" the PINsheeter asked.

The tourist looked uneasy. "I don't know."

"Do you know anything about dorazine addiction?"

She backed away, suddenly shy. "Oh, no. No."

Dana grinned mirthlessly, because if he did not laugh he would weep. The woman's rationalizations were painfully familiar. Halting at a map, he located the nearest movalong going north. Exultation coursed through him. Careful, he told himself. He had a credit disc in his pocket and the freedom of the streets, but he was not free.

As he neared the Hyper district, sound captured his attention first. In the narrowed streets, behind a closed door, someone was drumming. The insistent patter, like hail on the hard ground, thrust his imagination back in time to Liathera's, on Nexus.

Careful. Be careful.

A man came yawning from a doorway. His face was streaked with glitterstick and he walked, like all Hypers, with the recognition in his bones that gravity is just a local condition.

As un.o.btrusively as he knew how, Dana followed him.

He had no idea who the yawning man was: a pilot off a shuttles.h.i.+p, perhaps? A crewman from one of the pa.s.senger liners? The man turned two corners and, with another gaping yawn, sauntered into a doorway. The door opened to his palm. Hard night, Dana thought, breathing in the heavy odors of marijuana and wine. An acrid smell caught his attention as he moved further down the nameless street.... Coffee, he realized. He walked quickly to the corner. Sure enough, the smell grew stronger. He had located at least part of what he was looking for: only a Hyper bar would serve coffee.

As he strolled through The Green Dancer's swinging door, he remembered coming in to Chabad's moon with the chatter of the shuttles.h.i.+p pilots welcoming him. He tried to recall names. _Seminole_ -- he remembered _Seminole_. With Juno on the stick. He wondered if Juno came here often. Just within the doorway he halted to look. It looked like every other bar he knew. Small tables and rugged chairs. Booths in the back. A curving bar that ran the width of the front room.

Over the bar was hanging an awkwardly painted picture of a figure in green veils: supposedly, Dana guessed, a Verdian dancing a _K'm'ta_. Dana wondered if Chabad had any Verdians on it. If it did, they would come here. Bars for the Hyper community were not simply places to meet friends, drink, listen to music, and fight.

A mean-looking woman with frizzy, white hair was standing behind the bar.

Dana went to her. "Red wine." He slid his credit disc across the dark-brown neowood surface. She poured a gla.s.s of syrupy red wine for him and flicked the disc back.

"First one's free," she said.

"Oh." He was not certain what that meant. He decided that it could only mean that the bar bought everybody's first drink of the day. A pleasant custom.

He took the gla.s.s of wine to a table. Food smells wafted from an unseen place; broiled fish and seaweed cakes, cheap Chabadese food. He would have lunch, he thought. It was wonderful to know that he could order food if he wanted it, that he could buy clothes -- s.h.i.+rts with long sleeves -- and jewelry -- earrings that were not blue -- musictapes, booktapes ... but he could not buy a weapon, the disc would not pay for that. Nor could he rent a bubble.

He sipped the wine. It was awful, dreadfully sweet. People drifted in, spoke to the bartender, whose name, it seemed, was Amber, picked up drinks, and ambled to seats. He wondered if the Net crew came in here. Of course, they must.

A woman stalked in wearing a scarlet feather in her hair, and he wondered what it was: a signal, an identification, or just decoration?

The coffee smell grew stronger. Dana glanced toward the bar: Amber had poured herself a mug of it, which told Dana a small fact about her. People who drank coffee had once lived on New Terra, Old Terra, or New Terrain, or had s.h.i.+pped with someone who had. Russell drank coffee. It was Russell who'd told him that. And there was a lot more he said that I should have listened to, Dana thought.

Zed Yago's voice whispered in his mind, "_Didn't your mother ever tell you not to skop Skellians_?"

f.u.c.k off, Dana replied. He sipped the wine and discovered he had nearly emptied the gla.s.s. He returned to the bar. "More wine, please," he said to Amber. This time she took his money.

As she slapped his credit disc down, she said, "We don't often see strangers in here."

It was, of course, a question, and it delighted him because it meant that, whatever else he was, he was still a Hyper. Amber would never trouble to question a tourist. He leaned an elbow on the bar. "I'm looking for a friend,"

he answered.

She stepped to the other end of the bar to pour a drink for a chunky man wearing a loader's harness. Dana let his gaze wander to the tables. They were crowded now; the noon heat had driven the stragglers off the streets. A girl in blue glitterstick was talking to the woman with the feather. Amber came back. As she set up fresh gla.s.ses on the counter, she said, "This is a friendly bar."

"Seems to be," he agreed. "I'm looking for a particular friend." He rested his hip on the bar stool. "I'll bet you know everyone here."

She looked straight at him. "I don't know you." "My name is Dana Ikoro," he said.

Turning away, Amber pressed a b.u.t.ton. Ice clattered into a cooler behind the bar. "I've heard the name," she said.

The hairs on the back of Dana's neck stirred. "Where?"

"In here," she said. She cracked her thumb knuckles. "From the Net crew."

"What did they say?" Dana asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

She gazed at him from beneath the bird's nest tangle of hair. "They said that some Hyper named Ikoro had been picked up by the Narc Control and funneled to the Net. And that he ended up as meat for Zed Yago."

Meat. Yes. That he had been, and was. Dana's throat soured. "Did they say anything else?"

"They said they thought he was a Starcaptain."

Dana said, "That's true."

Her eyes, which were green as Pellin's gra.s.s, searched his face. "And the rest."

Old woman, he thought, if you pity me...."The rest is true, too."

Her face did not change. "Welcome to The Green Dancer, Starcaptain."

"Thank you," Dana said. "I'm looking for Tori Lamonica."

Amber ran a hand through her hair, not improving it. "I know her," she said. "She comes in here."

At their table, the woman with the red feather in her hair and the girl in blue glitterstick were glaring at each other. Suddenly the girl said loudly, "Well, you can just s.h.i.+nny, if you feel _that_ way about it!"

"Excuse me," Amber said. She ducked from behind the bar and went to the table. The girl in glitterstick-blue was standing.

There was a whispered argument, finished when Amber jerked a thumb toward the door. The woman in red stalked out. Amber returned to the bar. "Want some lunch?" she said.

"Sure," said Dana, fumbling out his credit disc.

Amber thumped the flat of her hand on the bar. "Lunch time!" she said.

People at the tables stretched and rose and came to the bar. The girl in glitterstick yawned and came around the end of the bar. She went in the back; in a few moments she emerged with three plates of food on each arm.

Amber put a plate in front of him. The seaweed looked overcrisp, but the fish smelled -- and tasted -- fresh. Dana put his empty gla.s.s where the bartender could see it. After a while she refilled it.

"Buy you something?" he said.

She snorted. "Think I'd drink my own liquor?" Closing her hand suddenly around his gla.s.s, she took it away and dumped out the wine. Before he could protest, she filled it with a darker liquid. "Try that."

He drank. The wine was smooth and dry, not cheap. "Thank you," he said.

"Lamonica comes in evenings," she said. "If she comes in tonight, I'll tell her you're looking for her."

Dana wondered if Tori Lamonica knew he had been taken by the Net. He decided she must. "I'd appreciate that," he said. "Tell her that I'll come back tomorrow night."

She said sharply, "I want no trouble in the bar."

"There'll be no trouble," Dana promised.

The girl in glitterstick sauntered to the bar and took the stool beside Dana. "Amber, may I have a drink?" She smiled at Dana, and her voice went up half an octave. "h.e.l.lo?"

Dana grinned at her. "Sorry," he said, "I'm s.h.i.+nnying." He drained the gla.s.s of good wine before heading toward the door.

Outside in the street he stood, breathing deeply, while sweat rolled down his arms. Dust blew down the narrow roadway. He wondered who the girl was; she looked too young to be a Hyper. Amber's daughter? Some star-crazed kid? Maybe she had taken antiagathics and was really two hundred years old. He rubbed his eyes with both hands. Somehow he had not realized before that, even if -- no, _when_ -- he managed to escape, the information about what had happened to him on the Sardonyx Net would never leave him.... From star to star, sector to sector, it would follow him around; in every place he drank, he would hear his own name, and then Zed Yago's, and people would stare.

f.u.c.k, he thought. d.a.m.ned infertile son of a syphilitic goat -- he thought in Pellish. He walked from the building, wis.h.i.+ng that he could stay, sit on the barstool, drink Amber's wine (even the cheap stuff) and tell glamorous lies. But he had to go back. He made himself stop swearing. If he let himself grow too angry, one day it would come out at the wrong time.

The moment he entered the Yago mansion he knew that something was wrong.

As he returned his sunshades to the hall rack he saw that Rhani's were not there. He went to the kitchen. Amri was sitting on a stool, eating chobi seeds.

"Is Rhani home?" he said.

She jumped like a startled cat. "Oh. No. She went out."

"Alone?"

Amri nodded, and her bland face grew troubled. "Yes. Corrios said she should wait for you but she said she didn't want to."

Dana groaned. "Did she say where she was going?"

Corrios entered. "Tuli's," he said.

Tuli's. That was the gla.s.s shop in the market square. He remembered the package. "When did she leave?"

Corrios glanced at the wall clock. "Half an hour ago."

"Maybe I can catch her," Dana said. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't you stop her?"

he said to Corrios, but the big man only shrugged.

"How?"

Don't open the door, Dana thought savagely. Hide all the sunshades. Lock her up.

Seizing his sunshades, he loped to the front door. At least, he thought grimly, if Zed comes home, he'll find us both gone. He cast his mind back to that first confusing day, trying to recall their movements through the streets.... They had gone from the little landingport to the market square. He hurried down the steps. Twice on his way he thought he saw her and crossed the street to find he had been chasing a stranger. Once, for five minutes, he got lost. At last, he found the square. It was easy to pick out Tuli's shop window: it s.h.i.+mmered.

As he started across the square, he saw her. She was moving quite slowly through the throng of shoppers. Her hair was loose; sunshades hid her eyes, and she was wearing the gold pendant that Zed had given her.