Part 52 (1/2)

”Why?”

Dana did not know what to answer. He didn't know. ”I just couldn't leave him,” he said finally.

”That's because you're a moral cretin,” said A-Rae, with sacerdotal satisfaction, and kicked him a third time.

Dana moved just swiftly enough to catch most of it on his shoulder. Then he rose, despite the flare of pain from his side, and put his thumbs into A- Rae's throat. The woman with the stunner swore and shouted, and the big man came through the open door and pulled him off.

A-Rae was breathing hard. ”You son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h,” he said, and behind his anger Dana saw a look that he knew very well on another face, a look of pleasure at a victim's helplessness.

”You b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” he said, ”you're like him, that's why you hate him!”

A-Rae ignored the comment. He said to the big man, ”He hurt me, Elon.

Make him feel it.”

”Sure,” said the man genially, and thrust his thumbs into Dana's neck.

Suddenly, Dana could not breathe. He tried to clap at Elon's ears; a knee slammed into the small of his back. Then he was dropped to the concrete floor.

A-Rae gave the order to tie him, and the big man knelt and trussed him with his hands behind his back and a slip-knot around his neck.

A-Rae prodded him with one foot. ”There,” he said. ”That's tamed you.”

Dana shook his head and tried to stand. A-Rae grinned and tripped him. Dana twisted so that he would land on his side, not his head. ”Tie his feet, too.”

Elon obeyed, las.h.i.+ng the cords tightly around Dana's ankles. A-Rae hunkered down beside him and pa.s.sed a hand lightly over his face. Suddenly he seized a lock of hair and yanked. Tears came to Dana's eyes. He jerked his head free.

”He's lively,” said the big man admiringly.

”Yes,” said A-Rae. ”Tell me, Dana Ikoro, where is Rhani Yago?”

”What?” Dana said. ”What d'you mean, where is she? When I left, she was at the estate.”

”She isn't there now.”

”Then I don't know where she is.”

”Guess,” said A-Rae. Dana swallowed. All three were watching him avidly.

Cold sweat began to run down his sides.

”Wherever Zed is,” he suggested.

A-Rae sighed. ”Zed Yago's in the Clinic, being guarded by the Net crew as if he were a gold mine. Try again.” He put a thumb on Dana's closed left eye- lid.

”I don't know,” Dana said. He tried to keep his voice steady, decided it didn't matter and that he couldn't control it anyway, and let it shake. The Kyneth House, he thought, and did not say it. His bladder hurt.... A-Rae took the thumb away.

Through the thud of his heartbeat Dana heard A-Rae say to the others, ”She could be in the Clinic under another name. Can we check that?”

The woman said, ”Fallon is checking the hotel registers. Maybe Sindic can do it. What about him?” She gestured toward Dana with the stun gun. The big man said, ”_I_ think he knows.” He put a great, spatulate thumb on Dana's right eyelid, pressing hard.... Dana leaned away from it until he touched the wall and could go no further. The pressure made yellow moire patterns behind the lid, and it hurt.

”Enough!” A-Rae said. The thumb lifted.

Dana blinked. Through a clearing haze he saw A-Rae stand, circle the small room, and come to stand beside him, over him, like a magistrate to judgment. His eyes no longer looked wild. ”He'll tell us,” he said. ”We've got days before they find us. Days.” The big man nodded as if he had heard a p.r.o.nouncement of some subtle wisdom.

”What'll I do with him?” he said.

”Keep him tied. And give him a blanket. We've got other things to do; we can deal with him later.” The woman holstered the stun gun. Elon sighed and walked out, to return a moment later with a blanket which he tossed over Dana's helpless form.

”Days,” he said. He and the woman marched out. She went first. A-Rae hesitated. He licked his lips.

”Days,” A-Rae said. He did not sound pleased. He sounded frightened. He went out. Curling his wrists upward behind his back, Dana rolled and wriggled until he was sitting. There was a way to get out of this cord configuration, he knew, but it only worked if you were double-jointed in both shoulders, and he was not. The cords, he guessed, were probably apton and nylon and would not break or fray. But they could be cut, if the angle was right and the edge was sharp.... Slowly, Dana began to crawl over the floor, looking for a sharp implement. He did not expect to find one but it was better than waiting to discover what A-Rae had in store for him next.

He did not find one, and when he stopped moving, his throat was raw from the rasp of the cord.

The fourth afternoon after the destruction of the Yago Net, Ja Narayan wandered into Zed Yago's room at the Clinic. He was jaunty. ”Bored?” he said to Zed. ”Want your hands back? Silly of you to burn them in the first place, you know.”

”I know,” Zed said. He left the chair by the window and moved to the bed.

”How are you feeling?”

”I've been better.” He was tired. It was difficult to sleep with his hands always either propped in front of him, lying by his sides, or extended over his head.

”Should read,” said Ja. He sauntered around the room, in no special hurry, and as if by accident ended up at Zed's side. ”Play games.”

”I've tried,” Zed said. He had invited the Net crew in for endless rounds of the six or seven varieties of dice games they knew ... But he loathed games, and loathed more not being able to hold the dice. It enraged him not to be able to use his hands to do even the simplest thing. The water dispenser and the bookviewer could be connected to foot controls, but some things he could not do with his feet. That morning, a letter from Rhani had arrived, telling him that she had left Dur House and where she was. He had had to ask Hal Ku to open it.

And he itched, as if sand had gotten under his skin. Boredom and confinement were infuriating but the itch was torment, the more so because he knew it to be imaginary. He was bathed every morning. He hated that too, being handled like a child. Hal had learned after the first day to do it quickly and without saying anything.

Ja sent a technician for a sterile instrument tray. ”How do they feel?”

he said.

Zed said, ”They don't feel like anything.”

”Good.” The technician returned. ”Put it down, open it, and go away,” Ja said. The technician obeyed, clearly disappointed. The wrists of the sterile gloves sat open in the dispenser: Ja fit his fingers into them and pushed. The gloves squeezed over his hands. He withdrew them from the dispenser and wiggled his fingers....”Perfect fit,” he said, though the extruded gloves were always a perfect fit, that was how they were made. ”Right hand, please,” the surgeon said, lifting forceps from the tray. Zed braced his right elbow against his knee. His right hand bobbed in the air like a layered white balloon. ”Hold it still.” The forceps plucked the bandages off and dropped them in the disposal.

Beneath the gauze were more layers of regenerative gel.

”If you hadn't shown up,” Zed murmured, ”I was getting ready to take this stuff off with my teeth.”

Narayan chuckled. ”Very poor technique,” he said. He picked at the edge of the hardened gel with the forceps. ”There's one,” he said, peeling a strip of gel away, ”there's two -- ” He chanted the count. When he was done, the strips of gel dangled from Zed's wrist like the rind of a peeled fruit.

The hand still looked like a construct, something made, not flesh, and it still had no fingers. Reparative paint, a thick, membranous substance, covered the ungainly lump. The paint gleamed like tarnished silver. Ja picked up a sponge from the tray and dabbed at the crusted paint. Slowly the paint dissolved, dripped, and fell off. Fingers began to emerge from the lump. They looked red, grotesque, ugly....”Looks good,” Ja said. He sponged off the last flake of paint. ”Waggle your fingers,” he commanded.

Zed tried. He felt a tingling in the wrist. Then the fingers moved.

”Response time one point three seconds,” Ja said. ”That's quite common. Left hand, please.”

As Ja picked away at the left-hand bandages, Zed tried moving his right hand. He had seen the effect before in cases of limb replacement or tissue match: no matter how expert the surgeon -- and Ja Narayan was very good, indeed -- it took a certain time before the original and the new neural pathways synched. The response lag would lessen and finally disappear, he knew. He was more concerned about the numbness. He wiggled the fingers, turned the hand at the wrist, searching for a way to waken feeling in the restored digits.