Part 54 (1/2)

”The h.e.l.l,” said the first voice. Someone yelled. Zed opened the door. A woman in a maroon-and-gray jumpsuit walked through it. She had one green and one white eyebrow, and her hair was dirty gold. Sid loomed behind her, his hands spread apologetically.

”Sorry, Commander, Domna,” he said. ”She just cut through. Hit Barbara a good crack; she's behind a bush, whoopin' her guts out.”

Tori Lamonica, hands on hips, advanced into the room without requesting entrance. ”I don't like being questioned,” she said tightly. ”By anyone.”

Zed said, ”Never mind, Sid. You tried.” The big man shrugged and stepped back. Zed closed the door. ”Good evening, Starcaptain,” he said.

Rhani rose. ”Starcaptain Lamonica,” she said. ”I'm sorry you had to fight your way to the door.”

Lamonica shrugged. Her pearl-gray jumpsuit s.h.i.+mmered like the mottled iridescent layering on a mollusk's sh.e.l.l. ”I don't mind a good sc.r.a.p,” she said.

She nodded at Zed. ”You look better than you did when I last saw you.” She turned in a circle. ”How many houses you folks got?”

”Two,” Rhani said.

”Nice,” Lamonica said. She glanced at the carved walls, the woven straw rugs, the mirror sculpture Rhani had placed beside her chair; ”Yeah, nice.” Her medallion shone on her chest. She stroked the chain with one hand. ”I come to ask _you_ a question.” She took a breath. ”I'm lookin' for someone you know.

Dana Ikoro. You seen him?”

Rhani said, ”Not since the night you landed a bubblecraft on the Yago estate lawn.” She could not see her brother's face, but she watched his shoulders hunch.... He turned around. His hands were in his pockets, and his mouth was rigid as stone. ”Why?”

”Because no one else has either, since four nights ago, when he walked out of The Dancer drunk out of his mind with some big stud wearing a cloak. Also wearing one black earring, you know, the kind with a remote?” She was talking to Zed. He nodded. ”Dana's mostly hetero, so there's d.a.m.n little reason I can think of for him to nest with some man for four days, and no one's seen _him_ again, either.” Zed said, ”Are you Dana Ikoro's keeper, Starcaptain?”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. ”No. But ten years I've been riding the red dust, and I've learned to listen to feeling. Something's wrong with him. He's a nice kid and he got a raw deal from you, Commander, and a hard deal from you, Domna. So if I'm right and he's in trouble somewhere in this d.a.m.n town, I figure you owe him. Tell me I'm wrong.” Her eyes flickered from Zed to Rhani.

What kind of trouble could Dana be in? Rhani thought. ”No,” she said to the angry Hyper, ”You're not wrong.”

Suddenly, Tori Lamonica deflated, became a diffident woman in a gray suit. ”Sorry to come blazing at you,” she said. ”But I went to the A.P. Talked to the Hype cops. They don't care. Two days he spent yipping his throat hoa.r.s.e to their d.a.m.n computer.”

Merril appeared at an archway in the lattice. ”Would you like something to drink, Domna?” she said.

”Starcaptain?” Rhani said. She reseated herself in the rocker.

”No, thanks,” Lamonica said. ”I mean, nothing for me. I've been drinking all evening, how else do you think I worked up the snap to come here?”

Rhani grinned. She liked this woman, who could be rude and still disarm by her very rudeness. ”Please sit, Starcaptain,” she said, pointing to the second hanging chair.

Lamonica shook her head. ”I'm not going to stay.”

Zed said, ”You've tried the usual ways to reach him?”

”I sent out a com-call, yes. Set it to key whenever he used his I-disc or his credit disc. No result. That was three days ago. Told folks to keep an eye out for him -- told your crew, even. Nothin'. Checked the Clinic, even. He's not there; he wasn't there.”

”What do you expect me to do?” Rhani said.

Lamonica scowled. ”h.e.l.l, I don't know. You're a Yago, they say you run this f.u.c.king planet. Tell me you can't find someone if you want him?”

Rhani thought: We haven't found Michel A-Rae. But then, he doesn't want us to find him.

Zed echoed the thought. ”Maybe Dana doesn't want to be found.” He picked up the viewer and was switching it off and on.

”I'm no telepath,” Lamonica said. ”I don't know. I'll s.h.i.+nny now, I've said what I came to say. I'm at NW724-07 if you want to reach me.” She opened the front door. A cold wind licked slowly in from the garden before she could close it.

Rhani said to Zed, ”What do you think?”

He was still holding the viewer, but she did not think he saw either it or her.

He said, ”I'm going to bed.” He walked through the arch in the lattice, and Rhani saw his shadowy form retreat down the hall. She heard the door close.

Well, she thought, sleep is one way to handle a problem you can't solve. Instead of reading about ice climbing, I wish he'd _go_ ice climbing.... But she knew it would be another two weeks at least before his hands would be strong enough.

Meanwhile, he would withdraw, grow moody, walk around the house and the city like a kerit in a cage, and watch the PINsheets, with malignant intensity, for news of Michel A-Rae.

As she fell asleep that night, she thought about Dana, remembering their loving, and the tenderness with which he had touched her. He was decent, gentle -- in a way that she was not -- and it troubled her that he had dropped out of sight in such a way that it worried someone with experience, someone like Tori Lamonica. A black earring.... She snapped awake. How had Lamonica described Dana's companion?” ..._Some big stud wearing a cloak and one black earring_....”

Rhani remembered -- and her skin crawled at the memory -- that Michel A-Rae liked to wear one black earring. He had worn it the afternoon of the Auction. No, she told herself, really, _really_ that's coincidence, you cannot build on it, it means nothing -- but as she thought it she was out of the bed and hurrying through the darkened hall to the common room, to the com-unit. As she reached it, she thought -- Rhani, don't do this, they'll laugh at you, they'll think you're crazy -- but her hands, working without direction, had already made connection with the Abanat police. The wall clock told her that it was not even midnight, not late, and if she were wrong, it wouldn't matter whether it was day or night, she would still be wrong, and if she were right....”This is Domna Rhani Yago,” she said to the face on the screen. ”Can you connect me with Captain Catriona Graeme of the Hypers.p.a.ce Police?”

”One moment, Domna,” said the duty officer. The screen blanked, and lit again, with a different face.

”Domna, I'm Captain Graeme. What can I do for you?”

Rhani hesitated. She had not expected this conventional-seeming woman with a crooked nose whose face, on the display screen at least, appeared as homely as her PINsheet pictures. ”Captain Graeme, I hope I haven't disturbed you.”

Cat Graeme smiled. She had a singularly pleasant smile. ”You haven't, Domna. Tell me how I can help you.”

Rhani sat in the com-unit chair. Behind her, something creaked in the darkness, and then a light came on and a robe fell over her shoulders. She glanced up at her brother.

”Captain Graeme,” she said, ”I'm worried about a friend. I think he may be in trouble, perhaps in danger, and I think Michel A-Rae has something to do with it.”

Nothing changed on Cat Graeme's face, but shadows moved behind her, and suddenly a board at her back winked into life. Beside her, Rhani heard Zed's breath hiss through his teeth. ”Go on, Domna,” said Graeme.

Rhani took a breath. ”Do you know who Dana Ikoro is, Captain?”

”Certainly,” said Graeme. ”A very cooperative young man. He spent two days here, telling us everything he could remember about Michel A-Rae and his cohorts.”

”Starcaptain Tori Lamonica” -- Graeme nodded -- ”came to my house tonight, a few hours ago, to inform that Dana Ikoro disappeared four days ago, accompanied by a total stranger, and hasn't been seen since.”

Graeme's face remained polite, but her voice was tinged with weariness as she said, ”Dana Ikoro's a Hyper, Domna Rhani, and Hypers tend toward odd friends.h.i.+ps and adventures. When he left here, as I recall, he expressed a strong ambition to be very drunk.”

”He was drunk, Lamonica said so. But she also said -- ” Rhani licked her lips. ”Captain Graeme, this may not make much sense, but please try to take it seriously. Dana Ikoro went off with a man no one seems to know, a man wearing a black pearl earring, with, she said, 'a remote.'”

”A transmitter-receiver unit, yes. They're quite common pieces of equipment, Domna, you can buy them anywhere.”

”Michel A-Rae wore a black pearl earring the day of the Abanat Auction,”

Rhani said.

A thin line appeared between Cat Graeme's eyebrows. ”Domna, that's one h.e.l.l of a speculative jump. Do you think Dana Ikoro was kidnapped by Michel A- Rae? What for? As a hostage toward escape? Surely, we would have heard from him by now if that were his intention.”

Rhani said, ”I don't know what his intention is. I do know that Dana Ikoro has vanished, that he is not in the Clinic or in jail, that he has not used his credit nor his I-disc in four days, and that -- ”