The Sardonyx Net Part 36

Rhani said, "Officer Tsurada, I'd like to come see Bi -- my slave."

"We have his interrogation in the computer, Domna. Do you want to read it?" "No. I want to talk to him. You said -- " she hesitated, and then continued -- "you said formal charges have been filed against him. I did not file them."

"The law files them, Domna. The process is automatic." Tsurada rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I-Occad has not only been charged with attempting your death, Domna. He has been tried and convicted."

"That's quick," Dana muttered.

Rhani said, "_I want to see him_, Officer Tsurada. Sentence is _not_ to be carried out until I do. If I leave this house now, the movalong will bring me to your doors in approximately thirty minutes. I'll be there. Wait for me."

"Yes, Domna." Tsurada broke the connection.

Nialle said softly, "Will that be all, Rhani-ka?"

Rhani's lungs felt tight, as if she had not breathed in a long time.

"Yes," she said. "Dana?"

"Yes, Rhani-ka. We can go. But -- "

She frowned at him. "What is it now?"

"I think you should not take the movalong across town," he said. "Your picture is on the front page of every PINsheet."

"Oh, d.a.m.n." She had not considered that. "You are right."

Nialle said, "There is a bubble hangar on the roof, Rhani-ka. We can hire a pilot -- "

"I have a pilot," Rhani said.

*Chapter Sixteen*

A regiment of chiefs stood waiting in the bubble hangar of the Abanat Police Station. Sachiko Tsurada stood among them. She looked startled when Rhani walked straight to her. "Domna Rhani, may I present to you -- " She started putting names to faces. The bubble hangar was cool and dark. An elevator waited, run by a smiling slave. They went down, quite far down. One of the important people explained: "Domna, the cells are two stories below the ground floor."

Dana stayed as close to Rhani as he could. The coded lights on the walls, the noises, the smell of drugs, the bars all reminded him of the Net. Tsurada pointed out the various rooms they pa.s.sed. The room with machines and a bed, she said, was the interrogation room.

Rhani said, "You use drugs."

"Of course, Domna." She named the drugs they used. Dana wondered if Rhani thought the police used her brother's methods of extracting truth. Drugs were faster. But the spiritual kins.h.i.+p between the police cells and the Net made him shake. He listened to Tsurada's voice without hearing the words. She was so tired that when she spoke, she sounded like a bad tape.

"The cells for sentenced prisoners are this way, Domna." Tsurada ushered them into a corridor. Dana had expected the strong lights, the sweet, druggy smells, and the silence. But he had also expected more bars. There were no bars in the wide hallway. Prisoners sat or lay in a honeycomb of tiny cells, visible through gla.s.s. The walls were textured with anti-noise insulation.

"Can they see us?" Rhani asked. There was a remote quality to her voice.

Dana found it disturbing. She seemed unaffected by the sights and smells.

"No," Tsurada said. "That's one-way gla.s.s." Most of the prisoners lay on cots. They looked asleep. A few of them sat upright, staring at bare walls. They wore light gray, ugly clothing. Not one of them looked up as the three visitors went past. Tsurada halted in front of one cell. A man lay curled on the bunk, back toward the hallway.

"That's I-Occad," she said.

"I want to go in there," Rhani said.

Dana said, "Rhani-ka, there must be a panel through which you could speak." The thought of entering that small, bare room popped the sweat out on his palms. Officer Tsurada said calmly, "You can if you like, Domna. There's a guard at the end of the hallway watching each cell through a monitor. That light" -- she pointed to a small red light on the cell wall -- "shows that the machines are on. He's drugged; you're in no danger."

"Please," said Rhani. Tsurada took a plastic disc from a pocket and slid it into a slot near the door. The door folded back. Rhani stepped inside the cell. Dana followed her.

The door closed. Outside it, Sachiko Tsurada stood, waiting, Dana realized, until they were through. Binkie lay unmoving on the narrow bed.

"Binkie," said Rhani. Dana thought perhaps the man was asleep -- and no wonder, after a night of interrogation, he thought -- when suddenly Binkie moved his head. Slowly he pushed himself to a sitting position. He needed both hands. His feet were bare, and Dana wondered if the floor was cold. Bare feet -- he remembered the Net. He was _not_ going to think about that now.

Binkie was gaunt; he'd lost weight overnight. Head canted to one side, he stared at Rhani. His eyes were fixed, the pupils dilated. He ran his tongue around his lips. "Rhani Yago."

There was no deference in his voice, and no fear, either; simply exhaustion.

Rhani said to him, "Were you always one of the Free Folk of Chabad?"

As if she had not spoken, he said, "They told me you were alive. I was glad of that, a little. I was sorry that the fire killed Amri. I wanted it to be your brother." He might have been remarking on the heat. "I don't have to talk to you," he said. "I talked to the police all night. Why don't you ask them questions?"

Rhani said, meditatively, "We were friends, once."

He coughed. "To you we were friends."

"Was it all an act, then?" she said evenly.

He gazed at her without speaking, and then, suddenly, rubbed his face with both hands. When he lifted his head, his skin was blotchy. "I suppose not,"

he said. "Is that why you came, to know that? Do me a favor, then. A friendly favor. Don't call me Binkie. My _name_ is Ramas I-Occad." Dana s.h.i.+vered, remembering without wanting to how Zed had stripped him, methodically, of even his name. And then had given it back to him.

Rhani said, "All right. Ramas -- will you tell me what happened?"

"What happened?" He laughed weakly. "Zed happened. Your brother." His face worked. "No, that's not entirely true. There's more. I don't expect you to understand it." His voice was a monotone. "I never denied my crimes. On the Net they gave me dorazine, and everything they did seemed just. I don't remember the Auction. Then you bought me, and brought me to the estate, showed me your work, taught me to use your machines. And you talked to me, like a human being. I began to believe I was a human being. But -- " he coughed -- "that isn't true, I know now. Unless you wanted me to do something for you, you never looked at me.

I was invisible, a thing, a machine that turned itself off when you didn't need it."

"I never thought you were a thing," she said.

"There wasn't even dorazine," he said. "That's when I began to go mad, I think. You don't know how cruel it is, Rhani Yago, that you don't permit your house slaves to take dorazine. We work for you, we stay ourselves, we act, we think, we are sane, we are almost free -- " He coughed again. "But you can't be free _and_ a slave." He looked at Dana. "_You_ know what I'm talking about, don't you? But you had your music. I'm sorry about your tapes."

Dana swallowed. "That's all right." Binkie was correct; he did understand. He remembered a moment during that first week at the estate when he had almost walked out the gate. "So I ran," said Ramas. "I knew I couldn't escape. I just had to get away from _you_. And your brother brought me back -- and you let it happen! Two days and nights screaming my guts out -- did you pretend not to hear it?"

Rhani's face darkened. "I tried," she said. "I tried to stop him."

"No," Ramas said. "I won't believe that, because I don't believe you can't. I think you _like_ what he does."

Sweet mother, Dana thought. He watched Rhani's face whiten at the accusation.

"You're wrong," she said tonelessly.

"I'm right," said the slave. "He wors.h.i.+ps you. He would never do anything you didn't want him to do. You call him twin -- he's your other half, Rhani Yago. You're kind, gentle, generous to your slaves -- because he is there, to do what you will never have to do. I used to picture you standing outside the door of the room he put me in, listening. Did you do that? Did you watch?"

"Stop it," Rhani said, with fury.

He laughed at her. "Make me. Hurt me."

Dana said, "Rhani, you don't have to stay here. We can go."

Ramas laughed, and coughed in the middle of it. "That's right, protect her. Remember though, what I said. She won't protect you." He leaned against the wall.

"No," Rhani said, "I want to stay. I still want to know about the Free Folk of Chabad."

Ramas nodded. "I'll tell you," he said. "Why not? The police will if I don't. They were all Hype cops. I didn't know that when I offered to help them.

No, that's not what really happened -- they approached me. In the mail. Your mail, which I opened every day. They asked me to be their spy, no more than that, to tell them where you went, who you saw, what your schedule was -- I did.

I told them everything. I rather hoped they'd kill you. If your owner dies, you go free."

"Not if it's discovered that you had a hand in it," Rhani said.

"I know, but I thought they were smart. After the bombing, the police didn't know where to look. It took a while before I saw that they didn't want to kill you. You were smart, you guessed that." He coughed, and licked his lips.

"I'd like some water," he said.

"Where is it?" Rhani asked. He pointed to a spout on the wall. There was a cup on a hook beside it. She filled the cup and handed it across the little cell to him.

He drank it thirstily. "The fire?" she said.

"The fire -- the fire was my idea."

"The Hype cops didn't know?" Dana said.

"They knew. They gave me the equipment. But they thought I would time the fire for daylight, for some time when there was no one in the house."

"Did you send me away to save my life"

"No. I hoped they'd blame you for the fire. Since they weren't going to find my body either, I figured they could blame me, or you." He grinned. "Michel A-Rae planned it, every bit of it, except the last part. He wants to bring you down, Rhani-ka." His tone was suddenly vicious. "I hope he does it. He's got something else prepared for you, something I know nothing about, so even the drugs can't make me talk about it. He despises you. But he hates your brother more -- even more than I do."

Rhani's face lost color at his tone. But her voice was still calm as she said, "He's stupid, to think I would react to threat by panicking."

Ramas said, "Yes. He is stupid. I could have told him you don't frighten easily." He slumped aginst the wall. His hair fell across his eyes, and he made no move to brush it away. "Leave me alone," he said. "Go away. I've answered your questions, and I'm tired. I suppose they'll kill me tonight, and then you won't have to think about me anymore." Dana said, "What do you mean, they'll kill you?"

Rhani and her slave looked at him with identical expressions on their faces. Ramas answered, his tone irritable. "I tried to kill her. It's in the contract -- if a slave kills his owner, or tries to, he's executed."

"You knew that, and you still tried it?" Dana said.

"Sure." Ramas grinned like a death's head. "Are you telling me that, given an opportunity and a way to blame someone else, you wouldn't try to kill Zed?"

Dana swallowed. "I don't know." The thought of trying to kill Zed made him sick, because if it didn't work...."Zed's not my owner, though."

"There's no difference," Ramas said. "She's just as bad as he is."

Dana saw Rhani's hands twist together. "I don't believe that," he said.

"More fool you." He held out the cup. "Water, please." Silently Rhani refilled the cup and gave it to him. "Thank you, Rhani-ka." There was rage in the last syllable. Dana tensed. His gaze flicked to the steady red of the scanner light. It was on, and Sachiko Tsurada still stood patiently waiting in the hall.

Suddenly Rhani stepped forward. Kneeling, she put a hand on the slave's knee. "Ramas -- Binkie. Aren't you afraid?"

He looked at her, shrinking a little toward the wall. A tremor shook him.

"Of course I am." He swallowed. "I don't want to die. I -- " He halted. "Oh, leave me, _please_." His pale face was chalk-white.

Rhani said gently, "Are you sure you want me to?"

A communication pa.s.sed between them, a silent, mysterious thread. Hope?

Dana thought. Love? He did not understand what was happening. Rhani looked at the door, which from this side was gray and opaque. "Officer Tsurada," she said, "I want to speak to you."

The door folded back and Tsurada stepped to the doorway. "Yes, Domna?"

"What happens now?" Rhani asked. She was still kneeling.

The policewoman looked faintly embarra.s.sed. "Well, he's confessed. The sentence is automatic. Normally, we would wait until evening, when we would drug his food and then -- " She did not finish.

"What drug do you use for the sentence?" Rhani said.

"Morphidyne."

Dana had heard of it. It gave release from pain, but was said to be terribly addictive. Of course, in this case it wouldn't matter, he thought. The smell of the hallway was beginning to sicken him. He breathed deeply to push the nausea back.

Rhani said, "Binkie?"

The slave's hands trembled. "I -- oh, this is hard."

"I'll stay," Rhani said. She sat beside him on the narrow bunk and looked at Officer Tsurada. "Do you have any objections to that"

Tsurada looked bewildered. "No, Domna," she said. "But it isn't -- usual."

"I don't care," Rhani said. "Go and get your drug, Officer."

Tsurada left the room. Dana wiped his palms on his pants; he was sweating badly now. When Tsurada returned, she held a cup with a small black pill in it in one hand and a loaded syringe in the other.

"Which do you want?" she said.

Ramas stared at her laden hands. He nodded at the syringe. "That's faster, isn't it?" he said hoa.r.s.ely. Dana felt dizzy. He put a hand on the white wall to hold himself upright. I refuse, he thought, I absolutely refuse to be sick.