Part 54 (2/2)

”Three days,” said Zed softly.

” -- Three days,” Rhani said, ”and that I don't believe he left with a lover.” Not a male lover, she thought. ”I'm sorry, Domna,” said Catriona Graeme, ”but though these speculations are interesting, they aren't evidence. Starcaptain Lamonica proffered no suggestions as to what might have happened to Ikoro, but she did refer frequently to her intuition. He seems to have been rather a popular young man, as well as a cooperative one.”

For a moment, Rhani wondered if they were still speaking the same language. ”I beg your pardon,” she said.

”I think you know what I mean well enough, Domna,” Cat Graeme said.

Not, Rhani thought, if you mean what you seem to be implying.... A wave of heat pa.s.sed from her heart to her head and back down to the soles of her feet. She felt as if the nerves in her skin had begun to crackle, and that her hands might be letting off sparks. ”Captain Graeme,” she said, in as measured a tone as she could achieve, ”do you have pictures of Michel A-Rae's male cohorts?”

”Yes, we do,” said Graeme, clearly puzzled.

”Then I suggest you call Tori Lamonica at NW724-07, show them to her, and ask if she recognizes them. I also suggest you discuss with the Abanat police the best way to locate two people, both male, one large and wearing a cloak, one slender and drunk, who left The Green Dancer at whatever time they left it five nights ago. If you have any problems with cooperation, I hope you'll mention my name.”

Cat Graeme looked as if she had swallowed something which stung her.

”Domna, you don't appreciate the -- ” she paused. ”Might I submit that you don't entirely understand police work?”

”I don't care what you submit,” Rhani said. ”Nor do I care, Captain Graeme, if you or the Abanat police get credit for Michel A-Rae's arrest. I can easily repeat this entire conversation with the Abanat Chief of Police and receive a more appropriate response. You are not dealing with a hostile force, Captain Graeme, you are dealing with an intelligent planetary community that needs to be neither manipulated nor subdued. No, let me amend that. You _were_ not dealing with a hostile force.” She turned off the com-unit. She was no longer hot. She drew the robe around her shoulders, savoring the feel of the silk.

Beside and over her, Zed said, ”What made you so angry, Rhani-ka? Her intimation that you and Dana Ikoro were lovers?”

”No!” Rhani said. She swung around in the chair. ”No. But she a.s.sumed that my judgment would be less reliable because of it, and decided that she could, with impunity, be rude about it. I don't mind being told that I'm wrong, Zed-ka, but I _despise_ being told I am wrong as if the teller's opinion itself was proof.” She gazed at the com-unit. Suddenly, it began to _beep-beep_ with anxious regularity. She turned the alarm's audio off. A green light blinked.

Pulling the two halves of the robe's front seam together, Rhani sealed them with her thumb, and stood. Light glowed through the lattice walls from the direction of the kitchen; Merril, too, was up. Rhani swallowed. Vehemence had parched her mouth, and she wished for some sweet lemonade or some fruit punch -- Corrios'

fruit punch. Or even, since it was night, some sweet chocolate, a taste from her childhood, remarkable because it was one of the few childhood memories for which she felt a true nostalgia....

”Were you, Rhani-ka? Lovers?”

Rhani was shocked. Zed never asked about her lovers. And because he had never asked before, she knew that she had to answer it. Fingers clenched together, she said, ”Yes, Zed, we were.”

She heard his in-drawn breath. She could only see his face in profile against the lamplight. At the very edge of her vision, the green light went off and on, off and on. Better tell him the rest, too. ”Not only that, but I'm pregnant,” she said. ”Dana doesn't know. I never told him.” He did not move. In the single light, he appeared ghostly, an eidolon.

Then he walked, slowly, to one of the hanging chairs. It creaked. Released to response by the sound, Rhani took a step toward him. ”Zed?”

”No,” he said.

Had he wept, she would have ignored all words and gone to him. But the exigency of his isolation was too extreme for comfort. She knew; she remembered.

So she extinguished the light and left him to his grief.

In the morning, Zed did not appear for breakfast.

Rhani lingered in the dining s.p.a.ce off the kitchen, hoping that he would come from his room and join her. When it was clear that he would not, she went into the common room to wait. Cole Arajian was sitting reading a PlNsheet. He pa.s.sed it to her and she looked the front page over: it contained the first of his creations, and a quotation from Imre Kyneth....”Once more a Yago has found a solution to a problem of such complex dimensions that many of us believed it was insoluble....” There was a bad picture of her on the second page.

As she returned the sheet to Cole, someone knocked at the front door.

Cole opened it. John Salambo, one of the Net crewmen, was standing just outside.

Behind him were three strangers. One of them was Catriona Graeme.

”Domna, these folks want to speak with you.” Salambo was studiously casual. Cole looked at Rhani.

”Thank you. Let them through, please.” They walked in: Graeme, a burly- shouldered man in black, a tall woman holding a communicator. The morning sunlight touched the gray strands in Graeme's dark hair.

”Domna,” she said, hands at her sides, shoulders square in an unconsciously military stance, ”I came to apologize.” The jagged scar at her right temple pulsed. ”I made some stupid a.s.sumptions last night. I was wrong.”

She swallowed. ”Starcaptain Lamonica confirms identification of the man she saw leave with Dana Ikoro as one Elon Liddell, ex-member of the Hypers.p.a.ce Police, who disappeared with Michel A-Rae the day after the Auction. We have ascertained the route they took and the district they went to, on the other side of the Boulevard, just south of the Barrens. I am hopeful that, within a few hours, we will have located the very house.”

Rhani thought: It took courage to come and say that to me in front of my entire household and her own subordinates....”Captain Graeme, I appreciate your choosing to tell me this in person,” she said. ”I have complete confidence that you will indeed find what you're looking for. Last night was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

The tall woman murmured into the communicator. ”Clear,” she said.

”Captain, we've got it! One-oh-nine West Cooley. A big man with a black cloak has been seen by the neighbors going in and out of the house. Three of them recognized a holo of Liddell.”

An electric current seemed to s.h.i.+mmer suddenly through the latticed walls of the house. ”Good,” said Graeme. ”Notify the A.P. and ask them to set up backup, just in case. Seal off the block, tell city services to cut the power on the northeast slideway, call Moa Li at Base and tell her to move Group B to within a block of the house and set up a perimeter, and to wait. Domna, we have to go -- as you've gathered, we may have found our target.” She turned toward the door, which the burly man had already opened.

”Captain Graeme,” said Zed from the archway.

She turned impatiently. ”Yes?”

”May I join your forces?” His voice was very steady. His skin looked stretched across cheekbones and jaw, and it was flushed to a clear, even rose.

His clothes were drab, except for the silver mesh of his gloves.

”Who the h.e.l.l are you?”

”Zed Yago, ex-commander of the Yago Net.”

”Can you take my orders?”

”Try me,” he said. She frowned. ”I don't need amateurs in the middle of this. They get hurt, or hurt someone else.”

Zed said nothing.

Graeme flicked a look at Rhani. ”All right, Commander,” she said. ”You come with us. Malachi -- ” she jerked a thumb at the man by the door -- ”will tell you where to go.” She strode out of the house. The others followed her like the tail on a comet.

”Zed-ka,” Rhani said, ”what ...?”

He smiled, and brushed her cheek with one hand as he pa.s.sed her. ”I love you,” he said, and then the door closed.

In Auction Place, the heat s.h.i.+mmered upward from the pavement, distorting vision. The air thickened, and it smelled of burning. Overhead, the city flags flapped fitfully on their poles. Malachi, twenty meters to Zed's left, was walking through the square with disinterest, a busy man with somewhere specific to go. He swerved right. Zed counted to ten and followed him. Behind them, irritated tourists milled around the stationary movalong. Zed counted the streets in his head. Four more to go to West Cooley. One-oh-nine was a corner house. B Group was already in position, cutting off possible escape routes. Zed reached up to rub his left ear, caught the motion, stopped it. He was not used to wearing a remote. It spoke suddenly. ”A Team, positions in eight minutes.”

Zed lengthened his stride. Malachi had vanished, but twenty meters to Zed's right strode a figure in cream-colored pants and a brown, webbed s.h.i.+rt, ordinary garments, except for the stunner in the boot holster.

In the quiet sunlight, Zed held his hands in front of him and worked his claws.

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