Part 9 (1/2)

”Do they all live together?” Rhani asked.

”No. But they get together all the time, to party, or to sing and dance, or to go on caravans. They get into three wagons and travel for months around the countryside.”

Rhani said, ”So many people -- I don't think I'd like it.”

”Not everyone on Pellin likes it,” he a.s.sured her. ”People go what we call _bersk_. They get very grumpy and have to be alone for a time. I spent two years alone, off and on, in a cabin, gone _bersk_.”

They strolled slowly toward the garden. ”I gather,” Dana said, ”that family customs are different on Chabad.”

”Rather,” said Rhani dryly.

”You don't have children early.”

”Nor in such quant.i.ties.” She chuckled. ”Ah, I lie. Imre and Aliza Kyneth have a brood of children, enough to fill a wagon. But they have been together thirty-five years, they are married, and their daughter, Margarite, the Kyneth heir, is only three years younger than I.”

He wondered who these people were. Friends? Relatives? It made him curious about her life. She seemed gentle, decent, no monster. They came to a bare patch of earth, and Rhani knelt to touch the dusty ground. On the top of her head, her hair was more red than brown. She said, ”This spot just soaks up water, and nothing ever grows.” Standing, she brushed the grit from her fingers.

Dana saw again how much she looked like her brother. Like Zed, she was fair.

Fine blond hairs glinted on the backs of her hands and along her arms. Zed had bought him for her. Did she know? he wondered. Did she know what her brother was? He chanced a personal question. ”Don't Yagos marry?”

”No. We never have. My mother, Isobel, is the only Yago to bear more than one child. I never knew my father, not even his name.” She smiled. ”Does that shock you?”

”Yes,” he said.

”It's our custom. We bear late, too: my mother had me when she was fifty- five. Zed's my heir, until I have a child. If something were to happen to us both, the line reverts to cousins: the Diamos family. Lisa Yago had a brother.

It's a parallel line. There are scores of them. _We_ stay solitary: we give our strongest years to Chabad. Isobel was eighty when she died.” For a moment she seemed to have forgotten Dana. Then she said, ”I know your age. How old am I?”

”Thirty-five?”

”Thirty-six.” Sunlight touched her; a cl.u.s.ter of small lines radiated from the outer corners of her eyes toward her hairline. ”You guess well. Zed's two years younger.” She c.o.c.ked her head to one side. ”Do you hear something?”

Dana listened. ”It's a bubble,” he said, focusing on the sound. He shaded his eyes and found it. ”There it is.” ”That's odd.” It winked across the western sky, a traveling point of light.

”Could it be the mail bubble?”

”I suppose. It isn't due till tomorrow.”

”It sounds like the one that overflew us yesterday.”

Rhani looked surprised. ”Can you tell that just from the sound?” The bubble was hurrying closer. As it neared the estate, it slowed almost to landing speed. It crossed the wall. Rhani waved. The bubble seemed to hover. A door slid open. An arm poked out. Something small and dark fell from the arm toward them.

It struck the gra.s.s-carpeted earth.

The bubble shot away at top speed.

”What -- ”

Dana reacted on reflex. He seized Rhani around the waist. Yanking her off her feet, he threw her toward a clump of nearby trees. He saw her face, frightened and enraged. ”Stay down!” She landed, rolling. He dove after her, and fell on top of her. She squirmed beneath him, fighting to be free. Her hand whipped his cheek. ”I'm not -- ” he started to say, but his voice was lost as the explosion slapped the earth. He clung to the gra.s.s, keeping Rhani beneath him. His ears blazed with noise. Something hit his head from behind. Rhani cried out. His head whirled, riotous with pain. He tried to warn her not to rise, to stay down, and then felt darkness wrap about him, incombatable as death.

*Chapter Five*

Thirteen days before the Auction, Abanat was _en fete_. Main Landingport was busy and noisy, jammed with gaily dressed tourists fighting their way off the shuttles.h.i.+ps. As Zed brought the Yago bubble down to the landing strip, he wished with all his heart that he did not need to talk to Tam Orion. Without that need, he could have landed at Landingport East, which the city maintained for the exclusive use of the Four Families and their guests. But he did not want to speak with Tam on a com-line.

He avoided the tourists by entering the Flight Tower through the pilots'

door. Inside Communications, his way was barred by a hara.s.sed young operator.

”I'm sorry,” he said, with weary courtesy, ”but only Landingport personnel are authorized to enter the Tower.”

Zed smiled at him, liking the youngster's looks. ”You're new, aren't you?” Behind him, the other communications operators were chuckling.

”He can use anything he wants in the place,” said one. ”a.s.shole, that's Zed Yago.”

The new man gulped and stepped aside. ”Sorry, Commander.”

Zed shrugged. ”No harm done. Seen the chief?”

”In his office,” someone called.

”Thanks. See you later.”

As Zed left the room, he heard the new man saying, ”I didn't even know the chief had an office.”

The chief pilot's ”office” was in the nose-cone-like cubbyhole at the top of the Flight Tower. All landingports, except the smallest, had Flight Towers.

In this one, the little s.p.a.ce was reachable on a private elevator. Zed used his I-disc to bring the elevator to him. In a moment, he was whisked up the spire.

He knocked on the only door. Tam Orion opened it himself. He beamed at Zed and stepped to one side to allow the Net commander into his hole. Zed slid in.

”Mind if I admire your view for awhile?”

Tam gestured at the scene below. It was truly breathtaking: Zed could see in all directions across Abanat; west to the ocean and the twin peaks of ice, east, north, and south to the city streets and the brown, bleak hills beyond.

”Got a bit of a complaint to make,” Zed said casually. He glanced at Tam, who nodded. Zed often wondered how many years it had taken Tam to learn to signal when other people spoke to him, and if he had any idea how unnerving strangers found his silence.

”Yesterday, around noon, a two-person bubble overflew the estate. It was too bright to see registration markings. I thought I'd better mention it to you.

I figured it was probably a new pilot who doesn't know how foolhardy it is to fly at noon on this rock.”

Tam nodded; tugging at an earlobe, he made a great effort. ”Right.” He drew a spiral in the air with an index finger. Zed knew from long a.s.sociation that the gesture referred to the Net.

”The trip was fine,” he said. ”No problems.”

But Tam had ceased to notice him. He was leaning forward, watching a large, overladen bubble begin a wobbly descent. Zed wondered what he was telling the pilot. Tam Orion was a one-way telepath: he could send but not receive. It did not interfere with -- indeed, it helped -- his job, but it made him a freak among telepaths and non-telepaths alike. When Zed had first met him, he had been drinking himself to death in a Nexus bar. Zed had learned his story and, knowing himself what it was to be a freak, had decided to rescue him.