The Sardonyx Net (54 page)

She might just have it. But to deliver it, without contract or guarantee, to the emissary of a criminal consortium.... She wondered what her mother would say to that. “
Do what you have to do
.” That was one of Isobel's favorite sayings. But then there would be expenses of who knew how much for the plant, for workers, for slaves, for all the equipment...."Citizen,” she said, “you can hardly expect me to reply to this offer now.”
 

He squirmed. “Domna, I will tell you what The Pharmacy told me. They expect an answer in the next four Standard weeks.”
 

“That's not much time,” she said. She rose. “Very well, citizen. I will get back to you. A private letter here will reach you?” He nodded. “Then you will hear from me.” She strode to the door. Gathering up his fallen gown, U-Ellen followed her.
 

“You understand,” he said anxiously, “that this offer has not been made? That if anyone should check, they will find that Loras U-Ellen is in Palaua?”
 

Rhani smiled sweetly at him. “I understand, citizen,” she said. She laid her hand on the door's handle and pulled. Dana stepped out first. He walked up the roadway and back.
 

“It's clear,” he said.
 

“Good day,” Rhani said. She walked into the narrow, dusty street. Fifty percent of thirty million, she thought again. I wonder if Family Yago can indeed come up with fifteen million credits.
 

Once out of the courtyard and the alley, Dana relaxed. He glanced down the narrow roadway. Two Hypers lounged on a corner, smoking a dopestick, and a woman sat on the steps, but no one was looking at them. He stretched, trying to loosen kinked muscles. Rhani was muttering to herself, face intent. He caught her arm to steer her around a hole. “Where to, Rhani-ka?” he said.
 

She looked at him. Her eyes were very bright. “You heard nothing of that,” she said.
 

“Nothing of what?” He grinned at her. “Hypers get pretty good at keeping secrets.”
 

As he said it, he thought how stupid it sounded, coming from him. But she did not seem to care, she barely seemed to have heard. “Damn, I wish I were home,” she said.
 

“You will be,” he said. Soon you'll be at the estate, and I'll be gone. He glanced over his right shoulder at the bright shapes of the shuttlecraft, and a longing hit him for his own ship, for
Zipper
. Resolutely, he shut his mind against it, thinking that if he did not find a way to put a message into the com-unit for Tori Lamonica, he would lose his chance to leave the sector. But Nialle Hamish guarded it like a dragoncat. “Where do you want to go now?” he repeated.
 

“The Kyneth House,” Rhani said. They angled toward the movalong. Dana took her arm as they rode, fearful that in her preoccupation she would lose her balance and fall from the moving strip. He wondered what it would feel like to spend fifteen million credits.
 

They disembarked the movalong on the Promenade. Suddenly, Rhani stopped dead in her tracks. Dana looked. Waddling toward them, with a dreadful, delighted smile on her face, was Charity Diamos.
 

“Cousin Rhani!” The squeal turned heads for ten meters in all directions. “Of course you got my letter so you know how I feel about the destruction of your house, it's a terrible thing, just terrible, and of course the entire city feels for you, such a wonderful house, truly a piece of history: do you know, people are saying the most interesting things? Because of that terrible A-Rae and what he did to you now there won't be a referendum, which I think is best although if we had a referendum I would vote to keep things the way they are, after all they've worked all these years and I always say the old ways are best—”
 

“Charity,” Rhani said, “I have an appointment.”
 

Charity Diamos looked from her to Dana, and giggled. “Oh my,” she said. “Yes.”
 

Later, sitting in Imre Kyneth's book-lined study, facing Christina Wu, Rhani wondered what Christina would say if she were asked: “
Should I spend fifteen million credits to buy the dorazine formula
?” But it was too soon to ask for legal advice. She needed to spend several evenings examining her corporate financial records. “Well,” she said, “say I want to marry Ferris Dur, can I do it or can't I?”
 

Christina's good eye blinked. “You could,” she said. “The Founders' Agreement stipulates only that if you do, you and Ferris must both put fifty percent of your Family capital into a trust for the child, or children, that trust to be handled by some third corporate entity.”
 

So, Rhani thought, what Ferris told me is true. Rising, she strolled to the bookcase. She had to turn her head to one side to read the titles of the books.
The Time Machine
, said one.
Last and First Men
, said another.
The Dispossessed
—she wondered what that was about. “Would you like a drink?” she asked.
 

“Thank you, I would,” Christina said.
 

Rhani tugged on the ornate, antique ribbon of tapestry that the Kyneths used to summon their slaves. A slave pushed open the round door. “Wine.” she said. “Christina?”
 

“Wine would be lovely,” said the lawyer. The slave bowed and went away. In a moment he reappeared and came at a crouch through the aperture. Setting it on the desk, he poured wine from a carafe into two gilt-lined glasses.
 

“Will that be all, Domna?” he said.
 

“Thank you, yes,” Rhani said. She took one glass and handed the second to Christina. “And this placing of money in a trust, Christina, would it have to be done immediately, or could it wait, for instance, until a child actually appeared.”
 

Christina frowned. “I don't know. I would have to examine the statutes.”
 

“I see.”
 

They drank in silence. Then Christina said, “Rhani, how long have we known each other?”
 

Rhani ran her tongue over her lips. “Fifteen years?” she said.
 

“About that. You returned from Sovka, and then Domna Isobel died. I had only been practicing my profession for a few years.” Christina rose. She was truly tiny, about one point three meters tall, and weighed perhaps thirty kilograms. “I like this room; it's almost small enough for me,” she said. “I wonder who the architect was. Perhaps I can have it copied, though not, of course, with the books. Rhani, do you
want
to marry Ferris Dur?”
 

“It's possible,” Rhani said.
 

Christina said softly, “Despite the fact that while he is Domni Ferris, he is not the chief financial officer of the corporate entity that is his Family?”
 

“He—isn't?”
 

Christina shook her head. Her small hands caressed the gilt-edged glass. Chabadese glass, Rhani thought. “No. Family Dur is run by a committee which was formed, before she died, by Domna Sam.” She smiled. Her teeth were almost as white as Loras U-Ellen's.
 

Rhani thought: I wish she had told
me
. She leaned back in the chair. “You mean,” she said, “that Ferris does not control Family Dur's money.”
 

“That's correct,” Christina said. “Oh, he has the household accounts, and I believe a fairly extensive private account to pay for his hobbies.”
 

“But why?”
 

Christina said, “Because Ferris Dur is not quite an adult. Something in him never grew; he mimics maturity but he's not competent in those matters which you, sweetheart, manage by instinct. Why do you think Domna Sam disliked him so?”
 

“Does Ferris know?” Rhani asked.
 

Christina said, “Who knows what Ferris knows? It appears so, sometimes. Other times, clearly not.” As he did not seem to know, Rhani thought, when he first discussed this subject with me.... She sighed, and laid the glass down. She did not want any more wine. Why, she wondered, did that feel so long ago?
 

I could still marry, she thought. I could even marry Ferris Dur. Many corporate entities are run by committee; it does not make them less efficient. I probably know everyone on the committee, and Ferris wouldn't care as long as I was kind to him and let him pretend to be important.
 

Sweet mother, she thought, with fearful empathy, what does he do with his time? How does he fill his days? Dreaming up elaborate strategies which will fit him into a world in which he knows he doesn't belong? Rearranging furniture? Snapping his fingers at household slaves?
 

Inexplicably she found her eyes filling with tears. She rose.
 

“Rhani?” Christina leaped from her chair. “Rhani, I'm sorry, I had no idea this would distress you—Rhani, come sit, please.”
 

“No, Christina, I don't want to sit.” Rhani wiped her eyes with her knuckles. Christina was gazing at her, worried and disturbed.
 

“Rhani,” she said slowly, “I—forgive me—are you
fond
of Ferris?”
 

Rhani laughed despite herself, and choked. She coughed, drank wine, and coughed again as the strong vintage burned her throat. “No, Christina, I'm not. I just feel sad for him. What the hell does he do all day?”
 

Christina said promptly, “He makes models.”
 

“Models? Of what?” She had a bizarre vision of Ferris walking through a room filled with life-sized, lifeless dolls.
 

“Of houses,” Christina said. “He makes them in the basement. I'm surprised he hasn't taken you to see them, but maybe he was saving it for a treat. He's very good at it; he puts them all together with his hands, and he tries to find original materials. His ambition, he told me once, is to have a model of all Abanat in the basement of that house. It
is
sad. You're not going to marry him, are you, Rhani?”
 

“No,” Rhani said. She went to the chair and sat, wishing she were home on the estate, with Binkie sitting by the com-unit and Isis playing at her feet.... But Binkie was dead. “No, Christina, I'm not.”
 

She saw Christina to the door. They embraced. The small woman's hands were steady on Rhani's cheeks. Kissing her, Christina said, “Get out of here, sweetheart. Abanat's bad for you.” Rhani went to the window to watch her. She looked fragile as a child on the broad street.
 

She went upstairs. As she got to the bedroom, the thought of Ferris made her want to weep again. Mercifully the room was empty; she slid the door closed and locked it. The clothes she had worn to the Hyper district and then stripped off lay scattered around the big pink bed. Desultorily she piled pants, shirt, sandals on a chair. Suddenly, her knees gave way—it felt as if the bones had jellied. She grabbed the chair arm and sat heavily on the heap of clothes. What the hell was wrong with her? She felt her head. Her hair was hot.
 

A touch of the sun.... She leaned back. In a few moments, she told herself, she could go downstairs and drink something cold. Not fruit punch. Ice water. She let her head droop against the chair's back, thinking about what Christina had said. Poor Ferris—and poor Domna Sam, realizing perhaps too late that her one and only son was not capable of succeeding her. Wearily, she plucked at the tie around her braid. It came loose, and she combed her hair out with her fingers. It wasn't fair, she thought. Our mothers had no luck with their sons. She felt disloyal, to think such a thing of Zed, but she knew—few knew better—how deeply wounded her brother was. Did my mother do that? she wondered. Or is there something in Chabad that transforms and destroys? Maybe A-Rae is right, maybe slavery is a moral disease, infecting us like that strange disease, that mutation they found at Sovka, what was its name—hemophilia....
 

Not A-Rae. She rose from the chair and went to the com-unit. U-Ellen had told her A-Rae's true name: it was U-Anasi, or rather, had been U-Anasi until he turned eighteen. She punched in a request for Nialle to obtain all information possible on one Michel U-Anasi, who nine years back had been an Enchantean citizen. Most of the information, she knew, would have to come from Enchanter and obtaining it would take at least two Standard weeks.
 

Then she went to the washroom and ran cold water on her wrists until her heart subsided. I can't be sick, she thought. She checked her temperature with the gauge in the medikit. Normal. Because she was there, she felt in the medikit for the meter. She gazed into the bathroom's wall-sized mirror as she stuck the meter under her tongue. Dark crescents underscored her eyes, and she thought: Christina's right. Abanat is bad for me.
 

Her thoughts spiraled again. Maybe it isn't Abanat. Maybe it's Chabad. The heat saps our strength.... But she knew that was nonsense. There were other worlds among the Living Worlds whose conditions were inimical to human life, and they, too, had been colonized and settled. Dana—her Starcaptain, she thought with sudden tenderness—Dana would know their names, and what they looked, tasted, smelled like, and if their children had been hurt as Chabad's children were hurt.... She pulled the meter from her mouth and stared at it.
 

The indicator bulb had turned from a negative pink to a resplendent, positive orange.
 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

 

Dropping into the estate hangar, Rhani thought, was like a bird homing to its nest, if the bubble could be said to be a bird, if Chabad had had birds. Dana cut the power. She swung from the bubble not even trying to conceal her grin of relief. It was good to be home. She stretched her arms to the sky. “I feel as if I've been gone months,” she said to Dana. The hangar roof closed like two hands joining. They walked into the sunlight. Immeld, Cara, and Timithos stood on the front steps. Cara looked sour. Rhani thought of Amri, and of Binkie.