Part 38 (2/2)

”He told me most of this himself,” Rhani said. She stepped to the table and, lifting her gla.s.s, took a sip of wine. The Kyneths watched her every move, as if they were watching a masque, a mime, or a play. ”Now, at the beginning of my story I mentioned a slave I bought, Ramas I-Occad. I called him Binkie, and he was my secretary -- a tall, pale man. You might remember him, Aliza. You complimented him the morning of the Auction.”

”I remember,” Aliza said.

”I didn't know it at the time, of course, but he hated me.” She squared her shoulders. ”Part of it was my fault. Part of it was someone else's fault -- ” she looked, bleakly, at Zed -- ”and it may be that that part, too, was my fault. He thought so, anyway. So. Our dedicated policeman comes to Sardonyx Sector. He may once, indeed, have been a moral man. But times have changed him.

He takes all the legal steps possible to destroy the slave system. But he also takes a number of illegal steps. He forms -- out of his own staff -- a group of seeming rebels. He calls them the Free Folk of Chabad. And, on the off-chance that it might prove a fruitful approach, he suggests that they write to Rhani Yago's secretary and ask him to turn informer on her, for them. Perhaps they know what happened on that estate, on that summer night, two years back.”

Imre said softly, ”Rhani, you shock me. His ability to turn his staff into a.s.sa.s.sins bespeaks a level of corruption in Federation service which I did not suspect was there.”

”None of us did, Imre. But I should emphasize, A-Rae did not want a.s.sa.s.sins. The attacks were never designed to kill me. They were designed to frighten, to keep me off-balance and afraid.”

Margarite said, ”You mean, Michel A-Rae got members of his staff to attack you? To burn your house?”

Rhani nodded. ”I was not supposed to be in it. That addition was Binkie's idea. He hoped I would die in the fire, and that with my death he'd be free.”

”Where the h.e.l.l is Michel A-Rae now?” Yianni said.

Rhani smiled. ”No one knows. The Abanat police are searching for him.

He's still on Chabad. According to Ramas I-Occad, he has one more scheme to set in motion, something special he has prepared for me. I want you to help me find him, Imre.”

It was like watching a masque or a play, so that, even as he caught his breath in fury, Zed saw himself listening and reacting as if he were one of the players. He did not move. He found himself contemplating Michel A-Rae's motives with an almost intellectual pa.s.sion. I wonder what it was that disturbed him, he thought. Could someone he knew -- a friend, teacher, lover -- have been a slave?

Then a slave opened the door. Stepping into the reverberant silence unnerved her; she fumbled, and dropped a plate. The clatter made them jump. Zed felt something break in his mind. His dark self, released, writhed. He wanted, simply, to kill Michel A-Rae.

The blood burned in his eyes, so that he saw the room, Rhani, the Kyneths through a true red haze. His hands clenched, every tendon and muscle curling.

Then he felt an unexpected pain in his left hand; it jolted him from his murderous state. He opened his fist, grimacing. He had been holding a spoon, a piece of fine silver, as all Kyneth tableware was. He was still holding it, but it no longer looked like a spoon, and it was b.l.o.o.d.y. He had driven its edges into the flesh of his hand.

He picked the mess from his left hand with his right and deposited it upon the table. As he reached for a cloth napkin to staunch the bleeding, Aliza exclaimed. ”Zed! What -- Lela, get a cloth from the medical kit, and hot water.”

”Just bring a clean cloth and a gel bandage,” Zed said. ”I'll attend to it later.”

”It needs more than that,” Yianni said. Slender, swift, a redhead like all the Kyneth children, he came forward, napkin in hand. Zed recalled -- he was the Kyneth who was studying to be a medic. He pulled a candle close to Zed's chair and went down on one knee, reaching for the injury with unconscious grace.

Zed's system shrieked. ”No!” he said shortly. He pulled the hand back.

Yianni looked up, still kneeling, startled. Then, without comment, he laid his napkin in Zed's lap and returned to his chair.

The slave, Lela, brought a sterile cloth, hot water, and gel. Zed fixed a rough bandage.

Imre said, ”Zed, do you need a tourniquet? Surgery? Perhaps a cast?”

Zed laughed. It eased the tension. ”No, I'll live.” He glanced at Yianni.

”Thank you.”

Aliza said, ”Your sister has a fine sense of drama.”

Zed smiled. As always, pain, whether his or another's, had sharpened his senses. He sipped the wine, admiring the play of light on Rhani's hair. Yianni Kyneth was studying him over the rim of his own goblet. Imre said, ”Rhani, I will of course do everything in my power to help the Abanat police locate Michel A-Rae. How much of this do you intend to make public?”

”As little as possible,” Rhani said. ”The confessions of the ex-police are, of course, already public. And I expect the Abanat police to make public their warrant for A-Rae's arrest.”

”Imre,” said Aliza, ”what if the Chabad Council were to offer a reward to persons a.s.sisting the Abanat police in that endeavor?”

Imre c.o.c.ked his head at Rhani. ”What do you think, my dear? In this matter, you are the most injured party.”

Rhani said, ”The A.P. might find it somewhat demoralizing. But I suppose, if they haven't located him in a few weeks, we might.”

”Who is Henrietta Melones?” Margarite said. Imre shot his daughter an approving glance, and then answered her.

”No one we need be concerned with,” he said. ”My sources on the moon tell me that this is the highest Federation rank she has ever held, and that there is no chance of her being named captain, as opposed to acting captain.”

Silence descended. Aliza rose, a pillar of light in the dark room.

”Yianni, get the light, please.” Yianni rose and vanished into the darkness. The overhead chandelier came on. ”Is there more, my children?”

Zed tensed. He watched his sister, suddenly afraid that she would tell the Kyneths about her alliance with Ferris Dur. But she simply shook her head.

”Good,” said Aliza. ”Then -- since we have all received enough shocks to our nervous systems to make sleep imperative -- I, at least, am going to bed!”

Imre rose from his chair. ”I always go to bed with my wife,” he explained.

Zed walked to Rhani. She held out her hand and, when he laid the bandaged one upon it, she drew it to her lips. ”Can you forgive me for that?” she said.

Zed said, ”It isn't incapacitating.”

Behind them, Yianni Kyneth coughed. ”Excuse me,” he said, ”but are you sure, Zed, that you won't need help in tying that?”

”I can manage,” Zed said. He put his arm around Rhani as they walked from the room. As he escorted her up the stairs, he regretted that he could respond to such overtures only in his own devastating way.

He rummaged in the Kyneths' vast medikit: spray anesthetic allowed him to st.i.tch the deepest cut. Re-covering the hand with gel, he went to the room he'd been given. Through the window drape he saw lights in the sky: the city was giving the tourists a fireworks display. No wonder the children had been quiet, he thought. He watched as the night sky over the Barrens sported a white-hulled s.h.i.+p with indigo sails, a gold-and-purple dragon, and a green kerit. For a finale, a great silver wheel bloomed in the sky and burst in a shower of glittering sparks. In the adjoining bedroom, someone produced a series of m.u.f.fled shrieks which turned into giggles. He wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a house filled with siblings, permitted to yell, to giggle, to argue with one's parent. He wondered how he might have turned out if he had grown up a Kyneth.

He walked down the hall, to say good night to Rhani. But the guard at her door said, ”She's asleep, Commander. She turned the light out ten minutes ago.”

”Thank you,” said Zed. Feeling cheated, he returned to his room. He had just taken off his s.h.i.+rt when a tap sounded on his door. He opened it.

His visitor -- I should have known, Zed thought -- was Yianni Kyneth.

”I want to talk to you,” he said. His eyes were hard and direct.

Zed said, ”Come in.” He gestured to a chair -- the rooms in the Kyneth house always seemed to have lots of chairs in them. Yianni shook his head.

”I don't want to sit. I want to know what happened tonight,” he said firmly.

”What happened?” ”Between us. There was something.” His gaze was like a knife. ”I won't let it sit and fester. I don't do things like that. If we talk, perhaps we can discover what it is.”

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