The Sardonyx Net Part 33

"All right," he said. The connection terminated. Rhani yawned, and then grinned at the blank screen in moronic joy.

"Zed!" she called.

In a moment he came through the door. Like her, he was wearing the clothes he had worn all day. "What is it?" he said.

"Dana called."

Zed's eyebrows lifted. "Really? What did he say?"

"He's coming back."

"Is he." Zed's voice was noncommittal.

Exasperated, Rhani said, "Zed-ka, what is wrong with you?

He said, "Rhani, it could be a feint. He must know the patrols have his description. Where did he say he was calling from, did you ask?"

"I asked," she said. "A public booth." Zed ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it flat. "We can check that." He sat at the com-unit. "There'll be a memory of the call in the computer which should contain the location he called from. Let's see."

Rhani went to the intercom. "Amri," she said, "Dana's coming back. Please have some hot food ready for him."

"Yes, Rhani-ka," said Amri's tremulous voice.

"Well, that was true," Zed said. "He did call on a public line."

Rhani swallowed. "Zed-ka," she said, "this is important, please. I need to talk to you."

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "About Dana?" he said.

She took a deep breath. "Yes. I don't -- "

The alarm rang.

Rising and falling like the breathing of a giant, it wailed into the night. At first she did not know what it was. Then she remembered the alarms.

Someone's trying to get in, she thought. Dana? No, why should he not simply knock? The Free Folk of Chabad?

"Rhani, wait here," said Zed, sprinting for the door. Rhani hesitated for an instant, and then thought: Why the h.e.l.l should I? This is my house. And I won't be any safer here than there.

Sliding the door aside, she headed for the stairway. Zed was shouting below. Amri was standing in the slaves' hall, hair floating to her waist, rubbing her eyes. The clamor of the alarms went on and on -- a shrill, panicking sound. "Binkie?" Zed called. "Corrios?"

Corrios came from his room. He was wearing a sleep robe and sunshades.

But it's night, Rhani thought. She walked the rest of the way down the stair.

"Where's Binkie?" she said.

Zed came from the slaves' hall, and she realized that he had been opening the door to every room. He turned in a circle, hands on his hips.

Corrios answered her. "Gone."

The shriek of the alarm was making Rhani's head ache. Why? she thought. A roar answered her. The entranceway was suddenly filled with flame.

Amri shrieked. A window burst. Thick black smoke boiled toward her.

Choking, Rhani shouted Zed's name into the fire.

"Rhani, get to the kitchen!" She could not see him through the smoke.

Ripping her s.h.i.+rt over her head, she held it around her nose and mouth as a screen. Amri was still screaming -- a terrible, tearing sound. Something big moved through the pulsating darkness, and the screaming stopped. Step by step, Rhani felt her way toward the kitchen. Zed intercepted her before she could reach the back door.

"It's blocked from outside," he said. "Let's go to the storeroom."

"We'll be smothered," Rhani said. Her eyes watered.

"It's vented, and it's big. There's a lot of air inside even if they've found the outer vents." He pushed her ahead of him. Corrios grunted as he opened the door.

The stairway was s.p.a.ce-black. Rhani thought insanely: Wait, I'll get a light. She giggled at the image of herself walking down the steps with one of Domna Sam's malodorous candles in her hand. Zed went down the first few steps and reached back to grip her fingers. "Come on," he said. "Keep coming."

"I can't see," she said.

"Step down, Rhani-ka. I won't let you fall." Smoke was blowing through the open doorway. The alarm stopped, at last. Coughing, she stepped into the tense, dry darkness. Corrios came after her. He closed the door.

"Level ground in a few steps," said Zed.

She remembered Amri. "Amri?"

Zed's fingers tightened on her own. "Amri's dead, Rhani."

She nodded, remembering the terrible screaming. "d.a.m.n them, d.a.m.n them,"

she said. "What an ugly death...." "No," Corrios said. "Neck broke."

"Did you do it?" she said.

"Yes."

"Rhani," said Zed, "if you put your hands in front of you, you'll feel a wall."

Stretching her hands in front of her, she touched plaster. It was rough and coa.r.s.e. Wearily she leaned on it, and it sc.r.a.ped her bare shoulder. She had dropped her s.h.i.+rt. Corrios spoke, his voice diminis.h.i.+ng as he moved away from her, "Storage bin, storage bin, cooler, cooler, water pipe, heater, filter, air chimney."

"Where?" said Zed. "Rhani, come." She moved across the hot cellar. She touched something cool. The water pipe, she thought. She breathed hot air. It was Binkie, she thought, with pain. Binkie lied. Binkie set the fire.

Zed came back to her. "The air vents are open, Rhani-ka," he said.

"What does that mean?" she said.

"It means," Zed answered, "that we're going to live."

Overhead, something huge hit the ground. The ceiling quaked and throbbed.

"Is the house falling?"

"Pieces of it," Zed said.

The cellar was stifling. She could not cry. She leaned against Zed, feeling his fingers stroke her hair, as the shuddering went on and on....

*Chapter Fifteen*

As Dana came from the shadows on the north side of the Boulevard, he saw flames. For several minutes, he realized, he had been hearing the wail of a siren. Vaguely he wondered where the fire was, if it was a fire, and how big, and how close it was to the Yago house.... As the realization of just how close it was. .h.i.t him, he started to run. Bubbles darted overhead; a white chemical, half-liquid, half-smoke, poured from their snouts. He raced past Founders' Green and came to a skidding stop, knocking a knot of spectators apart. They snarled at him. He stared. The Yago house was gone. The walls still stood, but the roof had vanished, as had doors, windows, the inner corridors, the whole second floor -- fire had eaten it away like vitriol. The chemical quencher sprayed down by the Abanat Fire Department draped itself in long crystalline coils on the ragged frame, the stone steps, the street. Workers in protective suits and carrying canisters and hoses waded through the terrible wreckage, pouring white clouds on the sparks.

"I hear they found a body," a woman's voice said. She was one of the spectators. "I wonder whose."

Dana swallowed. No, he thought, staring at the debris, eyes smarting from the smoke, no, it isn't possible....

"Move along, please," said an official voice. Dana stepped back as a light blazed in his face. "Move along -- hold it!" Hands grabbed for him. Sweet mother, he thought, I ran all the way right into the arms of the Abanat police!

He turned from a wristhold and braced himself to run when someone fell heavily on him from behind. It hurt. He bucked. Two people hauled him upright. "Name?"

He shook his head.

They yanked up his sleeve. The light played over his face again. "It must be," muttered someone. "There's the 'Y.' Name?"

"Who're you?" he said.

The answer was a backhand blow that knocked him off his feet. He sprawled on his stomach as they tied his hands behind him. "Name," the voice said venomously.

He swallowed back blood, and coughed. "Dana Ikoro."

They dragged him up again and shone the light in his eyes. He closed them, and was cuffed. A second voice said, "Handle him gently, remember?" The first voice said, "h.e.l.l, he's fine." Dana opened his eyes. Four police officers were standing around him.

"His face is puffing," said one.

The man who had hit him scowled. "Who cares what his face looks like?

Handle him gently. I'll handle him, all right. The man who gave that order is roasting somewhere in that f.u.c.king fire."

"They haven't found all the bodies yet," said one.

Dana said, "What happened?" His head hurt.

The man who had hit him turned on him. "That's what _we're_ going to be asking _you_. There's no freedom for slaves when their owners die victims of a crime. There's been one body found already in that inferno." His face worked. "I think you ought to see it. You like well-done meat? We need someone to identify it." He sank his fingers into Dana's upper arm. "Come on."

Crystals crunched beneath their feet as they walked toward the remnants of the mansion. Suddenly a voice lifted in a shout; the word echoed. "Alive!

Alive!" The man holding Dana stood still; the others started to run toward the cries. A bubble, dipping low, sent out a flare of white light. Dana squinted.

Etched darkly in it, three people appeared out of nowhere, out of the ground, in the very core of the ruins. One of them was Corrios; he had an arm across his face. The other two stood close together and were exactly the same height.

The firefighters cheered. Dana leaned on a police bus. His jaw ached from the blow. Zed and Rhani walked toward him. They were surrounded by police. Amri died, he thought. The searchlight winked out, and the bubble soared upwards.

Tears stung uselessly at Dana's eyes.

Voices gabbled near him. Suddenly, someone said, "Wait." A hand fell on his shoulder. "Dana." It was Zed. Dana's sight crept back. There was a dark, dirty smear across Zed's cheek, and his clothes were torn. "Dana, _why did you run_?"

Dana licked his lips. Zed's grip bit his shoulder. "Binkie told me to,"

he said.

Zed nodded, and let go. "Get those cords off him," he ordered.

The man who had hit him said, "But, Commander, you said he was a runaway, and we thought -- "

"I was wrong," said Zed. He sounded unutterably weary. "d.a.m.n it, untie him, he doesn't have that kind of mind."

Dana stood pa.s.sively as someone cut his bonds. He rubbed his wrists.

"Rhani -- "

"She's all right," Zed said. "Come on." Dana followed him, wondering where they were going. Zed answered the unspoken words. "We're going to the Kyneth house; they're putting us up." To the police he said, "Have you found the other one, yet?"

"No, Commander, we haven't."

"Keep looking," said Zed.

The doors of the police bus slid back. They went inside. A man's voice said, "Let me help you, Domna." Rhani stepped into the bus. She clambered onto the seat. She looked at Dana, and then at Zed. Corrios came in hesitatingly, squinting at the ceiling light. Without his sunshades, his face looked small, and somehow rather naked. The door slid closed, and the bus took off.

Rhani said, "Are you all right?" Dana realized she was talking to him. He wondered what he should say.

"Not really," he said. He tried to smile, so that if she wanted to, she could pretend it was a joke. "Are you?"

"No," she said. She crossed her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Sweat and dirt streaked her skin. He wondered where her s.h.i.+rt had gotten to. "Amri's dead."

Zed said quietly, "Don't think about it, Rhani-ka."

She said, "I have to think about it." Her mouth worked. "d.a.m.n him! Oh, d.a.m.n and double d.a.m.n him! I wish there was a h.e.l.l, so that he could burn in it." Who? thought Dana. He had never seen her like this. The level of rage was frightening. Her eyes were like hot copper in her dirt-stained face. "You don't know," she said. "You don't know what it feels like to hear someone scream as she burns."

She was talking to him, Dana realized. "No," he said. "I don't."

"That craven, lying, deceitful -- " She took a breath. "I'll see him dead, I swear it. I'll watch him die." Hands balled into fists, she shut her eyes. Zed put his arm around her, and, sighing, she leaned her face against his shoulder. Steadily, he stroked her head.

Binkie, Dana thought. It must be Binkie she means. Corrios was here, and Amri was dead. The bus went up and down, and deposited them on the Promenade in front of Kyneth House. The door was open, and Aliza Kyneth waited on the steps.