Part 45 (2/2)

Rhani said, ”Turn the light on.”

Dana obeyed.

”Zed is on the Net,” she said.

Dana shrugged. ”So? He's there, you're here. Nothing you can do.”

She gazed at him. ”You don't care,” she said.

”Rhani, I just woke up!” He cycled the message through again. Even if there was trouble on the Net, what difference did it make? They had said good- bye. ”Rhani, he's gone. Let him go.”

She ignored him. Striding to her closet, she began to put on clothes.

”I'm going to Abanat,” she said.

Dana realized she was serious. He caught her arm. ”What good will that do?”

”Something's wrong. I want to know what is it.”

He said, ”It could be something wrong with the com-link. Call Tam Orion and tell him to call LandingPort Station to send up a repair crew. Any Hyper engineer can fix it.”

”It isn't that kind of wrong,” she said.

”How do you know?”

She jerked her arm from his grasp. ”Dana, use your mind! The Net's a stars.h.i.+p, it's got every means of communication there is, radio, laser beam, com-link, message capsule, flare signals. Whatever's wrong isn't the kind of thing a repair crew can fix.” She was right. Dana stuck his knuckles in his eyes to rouse his dullard brain. Rhani wriggled into a s.h.i.+rt. Her head popped through the stretch-fiber neck. ”Call Jo, the Skellian,” he suggested. ”Get her to go look.”

”She's on the Net, with Zed.”

”Oh.” He watched her comb her hair with her hands. His unease grew. The distress call had been sent, he recalled, in navigator's code. Jo Leiakanawa was a navigator. It took a very distressing event indeed to bother a Skellian. He looked for his pants. Rhani put on her boots. ”Rhani. Do you understand that this could be dangerous?”

Her mouth thinned with contempt. ”Of course.”

He considered all the things that could go wrong with the Drive Core of a stars.h.i.+p. ”You'll just be in the way.”

She looked at him. He stepped back. The hairs on the nape of his neck lifted. Her face was stony; her eyes burned. She looked like Zed. ”I have to know,” she said. Dana stayed very still. The dark glare died. She tilted her head; her gaze suddenly coldly speculative. ”You could go.”

Dana nearly tripped on his own pair of pants. ”What?”

”You can go to the Net. I'll give you the blueprints. You can get in.

You're a Starcaptain: that means you're an engineer, too. You could help.” She a.s.sessed him, the way an engineer might a.s.sess a tool. She was Domna Rhani Yago, who had once said to him: ”You forget, _I own you_.”

She was serious. She looked at him as if he had suddenly become a stranger. She would send him to the Net, to the a.s.sistance of a man he deeply feared and more deeply hated, to a place that reeked in memory of tears and humiliation. He wondered what she would do if he refused to go. Perhaps she would feed him dorazine....

She said, ”You don't want to do it, do you.” He shook his head. ”I won't order you to.” She walked to the com-unit. ”I'll pay you to go.” She pressed keys. The screen blinked. She thumbed the colored plastic. A sheet of paper glided from the slot to the shelf; she brought it to him. ”Will this be a fair price, Starcaptain?”

He turned the flimsy piece of paper in his hands. It was his slave contract. At bottom, over the box with the Yago seal, the computer had printed in neat red letters, MANUMITTED. Beside it was the month and date. She had handed him his freedom.

He keyed the computer for a STATUS TRANSACTION: REPLACEMENT OF CREDIT DISC AND I-DISC. It requested his name: he punched DANA IKORO, STARCAPTAIN. It requested his I.D. code. He had to copy it from the abrogated contract. PELLIN NWC26R7P21-7669. He pressed his thumb to the cool sheet. The unit hummed loudly and spat one red and one black disc at him. He ran his fingertips across their surfaces, feeling the b.u.mps and indentations that identified him.

He tapped the forearm tattoo. ”How do I get rid of this?”

”There's a gel which does it. You have to get it at the Clinic.”

”There isn't time for that.” His mouth was stale. He went down to the room in the slaves' hall to get his boots. Rhani had put the agreement into the computer. He found the boots beneath the bed. It said (she had had to translate the legal language) that for services to be rendered in the form of a.s.sistance to the Yago Net, he, Dana Ikoro, pilot/slave of Family Yago, was free. He could not quite believe it. He laced the boots with stiff fingers. He could fly the bubble to Abanat, ride a shuttle to the Net -- no, he couldn't. His tattoo would set off every alarm in the place, and as fast as he could drive the bubble, it would still take over an hour to get there. There had to be a solution. He couldn't think, and yet he felt that he was moving at top speed: the characteristic illusion of an interrupted sleep. He gazed out the window of the room. Moonlight made the lawn s.h.i.+mmer as brightly as a Flight Field under its bristle of lights. He struck himself lightly on the head. ”Fool.” Of course he didn't want a bubble or shuttle. What he needed was a stars.h.i.+p. He thought of _Zipper_. He yearned for _Zipper_, but _Zipper_ was on the moon, and it would take as long to get there as to get to the Net. But he didn't need _Zipper_. He knew where he could get a s.h.i.+p. He went up the stairs swiftly.

Rhani was pacing, shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets. He went to the com- unit.

He called The Green Dancer. Amber's withered face wavered before him.

Tightly he said, ”Listen, Amber. This is an emergency. I need to get in touch with Starcaptain Lamonica.”

Amber shrugged. ”She isn't here.”

”I know. But you know where she is, you're her mail drop. If you can't tell me so that I can call her directly, then send someone to tell her to call me.”

”It's nearly midnight -- ”

”d.a.m.n it, I know what time it is! Tell her it's Starcaptain Dana Ikoro.

Give her this line number.” He read it.

Amber's eyebrows lifted to her hair. ”Clear, Starcaptain,” she said, and switched off.

”What are you doing?” demanded Rhani.

”Getting a ride to the Net, fast.”

Lamonica called. Her voice rasped through the speaker, though the screen stayed free of picture: ”Dana, what's going on? I thought we had an agreement.”

”Canceled. I want to make a new one. d.a.m.n it, will you come online so I can see you!” She glared at him abruptly from the screen, hair standing on end, face bare of glitterstick. Dana put his hands in his pockets and held up the two discs. ”Credit. I-disc. I'm free. But before that freedom goes into effect, I need a ride to the Yago Net. It'll mean a thousand credits for you if you can give it to me.”

Greed and suspicion contended on her face. She frowned. ”I don't like being rushed into things.”

”This is an emergency.”

”Two thousand credits.”

Dana looked at Rhani. She nodded. ”Done,” he said.

”When do you want this ride?”

”Right now. How fast can your bubble do one hundred kilometers?”

She grinned. ”Ask me something hard.”

<script>