The Sardonyx Net (40 page)

The door opened; a wave of cold air swept in. So did four people, two human, two Verdian. One of the humans was Tori Lamonica. She was wearing green, a deep green that looked almost black. Her medallion hung around her neck. She walked to the bar and leaned on it to talk with Amber. She accepted a drink, and strolled in his direction, halting at the tableful of gamesters. “Hey, Tori, man, how's tricks?” said Juno, rising to kiss her on the mouth. “Want to play?”
 

Dana could not hear Lamonica's reply. She shook her head, punched Juno's shoulder with the hand that did not hold the drink, and continued down the aisle. She sat opposite him. Good evening,” she said. Her clothing was undecorated, which was uncharacteristic for a Hyper, but she was wearing gold hoops in her ears, and she had dyed her left eyebrow green, and her right one white.
 

Her drink was green, with a froth of cream on top. Dana lifted his wine glass. “To the luck,” he said. His voice was not quite steady.
 

She lifted her own glass and let it clink against his. “I'll always drink to the luck.”
 

Dana waited until she set the glass down again. Cream dappled her upper lip, and she wiped her mouth with one hand. “How've you been?” he said.
 

“Well enough,” she answered. “You?”
 

“It's been better.”
 

From the round table came a shout. “Hey, you can't make that move; it's illegal!” A glass shattered.
 

Juno rose. “Who said I can't?”
 

“Shut up,” said Lyn Cowan. “Roll it again.”
 

“But I like what I just rolled.” Protesting, Juno sat. Lyn kicked the glass under the table. The overhead lights flickered, then came back on.
 

Lamonica said, “I was surprised when I heard you'd followed me. I figured you would turn around, maybe go back to Nexus.”
 

I should have, Dana thought. But I didn't know. How could I know? “So you heard,” he said.
 

She nodded. “I'm sorry.” She rubbed her thumb along the side of her glass.
 

“Leave it,” Dana said. He didn't need apologies. At the table to his left, someone lit a dopestick. He took a deep breath. The man saw him and, grinning, passed him the stick. He took the smoke into his lungs.
 

Careful, he told himself. Remember, you can't stay out all night. He offered the stick to Lamonica; she shook her head. “It makes me cough,” she explained. “So does tobacco. How did you find out that I was still on Chabad?”
 

“I saw you,” Dana said. “The day of the Auction you walked by the Yago house.”
 

She looked startled. “So I did. I was just walking. I like Abanat; it's a beautiful city.” She lifted her glass, and he sensed her embarrassment. “Maybe you don't think so.”
 

“It'll do,” he said. “I was surprised to see you. I thought
you'd
gone.”
 

She said, “I wanted to. But I had some trouble selling my cargo.”
 

Dana said lightly, “Your dealer left town?”
 

Her left eyebrow, the green one, twitched. “Now, how the hell did you hear that?”
 

He grinned. It was all falling into place. Truly luck had turned for him.... The man at the next table held the dopestick under his nose. He breathed in.
 

“Thanks.” Dana smiled. “Let's talk business, Starcaptain.”
 

Both Lamonica's eyebrows went up. But she turned in her chair and signaled to Rose. The girl waved a hand. Lamonica turned back to him. “Talk,” she said.
 

Dana sipped his wine. It went like water down his throat. “You know,” he began, “that I work for Family Yago.” She nodded. “Family Yago buys dorazine.” He watched her face. “The name of Family Yago's dealer in Abanat is—” he paused—"Sherrix Esbah.”
 

Lamonica leaned forward in her chair. “Go on,” she said.
 

“Sherrix Esbah has left Chabad. The name of the person who has taken her place is Loras U-Ellen.”
 

If anything, Lamonica's bland face grew more impassive. But her left eyebrow twitched again. “So?” she said.
 

“Here,” said Rose, leaning over the table, drink in hand.
 

Lamonica dug out a credit disc and slapped it on the table. “You want another?” she said to Dana. He shook his head. Rose made a face at him. Glitterstick lines striped her breasts, hips, and back. Her nipples were lightly touched with rouge. “Sure?” Lamonica pressed.
 

“I'm sure,” Dana said. Rose shrugged and stalked off. “So,” he said, “Family Yago has an interest in this man.”
 

He was pleased with the choice of words. An interest. That was something Rhani might choose to say. “In fact,” he said, “Rhani Yago would like to meet him.”
 

“So?” Lamonica said.
 

“Have you met him?”
 

“I might have.”
 

“Could you reach him again?”
 

“I might.”
 

“Family Yago would be grateful if you could pass that message on to him.”
 

Lamonica smiled. “How grateful?” she asked dryly.
 

“Fifty credits,” Dana said.
 

“One hundred.”
 

“Seventy-five.” He did not have one hundred credits left on the credit disc.
 

“Ninety.”
 

“Eighty-five,” he said.
 

“Done.” She grinned. “A good night's work.” She raised her glass, drank. “How do I tell U-Ellen to respond?”
 

Dana scowled. Rhani had not told him that.... She would not want U-Ellen to use the com-lines, that was certain. He remembered the responses to the party invitations lying strewn about the room, piles and piles of them. “Tell him to write her a letter,” he said.
 

Lamonica nodded. “They do that a lot in Sardonyx Sector.” She stretched; the gold hoops glinted in her ears. “Pay me, man.”
 

Dana fished his credit disc from his pocket. The transaction unit, he guessed, was at the bar. He started to stand—"No need,” Lamonica said. She put two fingers in her mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Amber and Rose looked around. No one else moved. Lamonica made a signal, two-handed this time, and Rose picked up her tray. She halted at the gaming table to take drink orders, and then moved on to them. On the tray was a squat gray metal box: a PCTU, a portable credit transaction unit.
 

He was surprised to see it; most bars did not trouble to provide them, unless in addition to selling liquor and drugs they sold other things—stronger drugs, or sex. But then he remembered the gamesters. Rose set the box on the table. “I didn't know you were playing,” she said.
 

“We weren't,” said Lamonica. “I won a bet.” Her green brow lifted. “And you've got my disc.”
 

“Oh! Sorry.” The girl brought it from the pouch around her waist. She laid the black plastic token in Lamonica's palm. Their fingers touched just a little longer than necessary. Lamonica smiled. She pressed a button on the unit and thumbed her disc into the alpha slot. Dana found the beta slot and inserted his.
 

Swiftly, Lamonica instructed the PCTU to transfer eighty-five credits from the disc in the beta to the disc in the alpha slot. The machine burped. TRANSACTION COMPLETE, it printed on its display line. The green letters burned in the shadows and then winked out. The discs fell from the slots. “Is that really all?” said Rose.
 

Lamonica picked up the unit and laid it on the girl's tray. “For now,” she said. The back of her hand stroked Rose's glitter-streaked thigh. “For now.”
 

Rose made a musical noise in the back of her throat, held the tray up, and glided softly away.
 

Dana began to sweat. His throat felt tight. He told himself it was the effect of the dope, no more. Lamonica was watching the girl at the bar. He coughed. She flicked a glance at him. He lowered his voice. “I have a second deal to propose to you.”
 

“Hmm.” The Starcaptain sipped her drink. “That's the fourth proposition I've had tonight.” She gazed at him across the rim of the glass. “Go on.”
 

“It's private, it has nothing to do with the Yagos, and you can name your own price, within limits.”
 

“I like it already,” she said, and yawned.
 

Someone tapped Dana's left shoulder. His muscles spasmed, and his throat soured. For an instant, he was sure,
sure
that the person who had tapped him—who had moved so silently up to him that he had not even heard the footsteps—was a cop, or worse, was someone wearing a Net uniform...."Hey,” said the man at the table to his left, “want more?” He leaned forward, brandishing a smoking dopestick. He wore a shirt with a landingport insignia on it, and his narrow head had been shaved bald. “You know, you're cute. How come I haven't seen you before in here?”
 

Dana sighed. “Not now, friend. I'm busy,” he said.
 

“Oh.” The man jerked his hand back. “Oh, sorry.” He sounded wistful.
 

Lamonica chuckled. “You were saying?”
 

Dana wiped his hands on his knees. “You'd have to pick up a cargo on Chabad and deliver it out of sector undetected.”
 

From her nod, he knew that she had caught the minute stress he had put on the final word. “A legitimate cargo?” she murmured.
 

“No.”
 

“We're talking smuggling. What size and type of cargo—drugs, furs, gold, jewelry?”
 

Dana swallowed. “Me,” he said. Locking his fingers around each other, he watched them shake.
 

He had practically memorized the relevant passages in Nakamura's
History
. Softly he explained to Lamonica, “By Federation law, a slave's credit is frozen until his time of servitude is up. He can't touch it, but neither can anyone else. That means I can't pay you until we get out of Sardonyx Sector. But I can pay you.”
 

“Don't you still own
Zipper
?”
 

He shook his head. “'
The offended state has the right to confiscate any real property
,'” he quoted.
 

“What does that mean?”
 

“It means that Chabad—in fact, Family Yago—owns
Zipper
.” He sipped his drink. He was still shaking. He remembered another sentence from the
History
: “
In the last two hundred years, there have been eight hundred forty-two known attempts at escape
;
of these, twenty-three succeeded
.”
 

“How could it be done?” she said.
 

“I can't get into Main Landingport,” he said. “You'd have to come and get me.”
 

“Where?”
 

“The Yago estate. It's about one hundred kilometers east of here.”
 

“How?”
 

“I'll walk out the gate, around noon,” Dana said. “It's been done before. With reflective clothing—” which I can steal, he thought—"I can live a few hours in the heat. You'd have to pick me up quickly; timing's crucial.”
 

Lamonica scowled. “And if the Abanat police come after me?”
 

“I don't see how they can. But it would help if, sometime between now and then,
Lamia
was hidden near the Yago estate.”
 

“I won't hazard
Lamia
,” she rapped out.
 

“I won't ask you to,” Dana said evenly. “If they overtake us, you can put me out and take off.” She nodded, obviously relieved. He forced his imagination not to dwell on that, on what would happen to him then.... Binkie was right, he knew. Rhani had as good as told him that if he attempted escape, she would not be able to protect him.
 

Sweat rolled from his hair and down his neck. He gulped his drink. Lamonica said, “How would I know when to come for you?”
 

“I'll tell you.”
 

“How?”
 

“Over the com-line. I'll use the bar as a drop point. I'll leave a message addressed to Russell O'Neill in navigator's coding. The message will contain a Chabadese date. Disregard the month; look at the day, and add five to it. If it says twenty-two, it means twenty-seven; if it says forty-three, it means day three, next month.”
 

She tilted her head to one side, her bland face thoughtful. “It sounds good. Can you get to a com-line?”
 

“I can.”
 

She rubbed her nose. “I have to be offplanet in ten weeks.”
 

Dana smiled. “I don't intend to wait that long.”
 

“What if—” She hesitated. “What if you're caught?”
 

“That's your risk,” he said simply. His stomach hurt.
 

“You couldn't not tell them.”
 

He shook his head. “Will you do it?” he said. He would not beg. He leaned back in the chair, trying to still his shaking hands.
 

She laid her right hand, palm down, on the scarred table. “I'll do it,” she said, and her eyebrows jumped. “Hell, I jacked your cargo.”