The Sardonyx Net (37 page)

“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 breasts 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,
hell
, 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 shimmered 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 pass him; Dana reached out and clamped a hand in the front of Binkie's blue shirt.
 

“Who was that?” he said.
 

The secretary said, “What the hell 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?”
 

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 fuck 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 shirt. “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 hell 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 shirt was one of Rhani's, and the sleeves went to his wrists, hiding his slave brand. She had offered him one of Zed's shirts, 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.
 

“Fuck off,” Dana said. The man sighed and turned away. PINsheets littered the walkways. Dana passed 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: “PETITIONERS 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 unobtrusively as he knew how, Dana followed him.
 

He had no idea who the yawning man was: a pilot off a shuttleship, perhaps? A crewman from one of the passenger 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 shuttleship 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 glass 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 glass 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—shirts 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 shipped 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
?”
 

Fuck off, Dana replied. He sipped the wine and discovered he had nearly emptied the glass. 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 glasses on the counter, she said, “This is a friendly bar.”