Inwardly, Rhani sighed. "You know," she said, "I received your letters.

I'm afraid I found them a little peremptory."

He looked abashed. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I'm afraid I pay less attention to the niceties than my mother did."

Domna Sam never bothered to be delicate either, Rhani reflected, but she at least knew how. She leaned back in the chair. The images of dead and forgotten Durs looked down their painted noses at her from the walls.

"Well," she said, "shall we talk business? As I recall, your letters said you had something very important to discuss with me. 'Business of import to Chabad ...'?" "Yes," said Ferris. "It is important. I would like to propose an alliance between Family Dur and Family Yago. A permanent alliance."

Rhani frowned. Clearly he was not talking about a kerit farm.

She said, "What sort of permanent alliance?"

He licked his lips nervously. "A marital alliance," he said, and went on before she could talk; "I know what you're thinking; Yagos don't marry. Neither do Durs. I am thinking of it primarily as a business arrangement."

Marriage? Rhani thought. He's crazy, that's all. He wants to marry me?

She wondered if this could be one of Domna Sam's schemes. For Domna Sam's sake, she would listen. "Perhaps you could be more specific," she said.

He leaned forward. "I propose," he said, "that you and I marry, and have a child -- at least one child, but that would be up to you -- upon whom we could settle a joint inheritance. This agreement would enable our two Families to unite finances as well as lines. The investment advantages of such a merger would be tremendous. It could be profitable for both Families, and for Chabad."

Rhani rubbed her chin. "The other Families will be quite disturbed," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "So what?"

"It runs counter to all our customs."

"Yes," he said, "but then, it could create others." He reached, and took a piece of cheese off the mother-of-pearl inlaid tray. Rhani's gla.s.s was empty; she put it down. The slave shuffled forward to refill it. "No, that's enough,"

Rhani said, and the gla.s.sy-eyed woman stepped back. The vacant smile was distressing; Rhani looked away.

She rarely thought about it, but she had always taken for granted that someday, not soon, she would bear a child. Part of her responsibility as a Yago was to produce an heir. Until then, pills controlled her fertility. She had suppressed as soon as she reached adulthood what it had felt like to _be_ a child. When Aliza Kyneth's youngest was born, she visited the house, and Aliza had let her hold the baby. "I feel silly -- clumsy," she had said, cupping the dark fuzzy head to her breast.

Imre took his son from her and cradled him with casual competence. He teased, "There's more where he came from if you drop him."

Would it, she wondered, have felt different, would she have felt less clumsy, if she'd been holding her own child?

With a slight shock, she realized that she was taking Ferris' proposal seriously.

He was watching her anxiously; so, she thought, must he often have watched his mother. "If what you really want is for the Yago and Dur finances to merge," she said, "why not propose a corporate merger?" She wondered what he would answer.

He shook his head. "We can't," he said. "The Founders' Agreement prohibits it. The only way to change something in the Founders' Agreement is to have a planetary referendum and add a section to the Const.i.tution."

"And marriage between us does not const.i.tute a violation of the Agreement?" she said.

"It would, if we did not put fifty percent of our joint capital in trust for the child, or children."

"What control would we retain of this capital?" she said. "Who would execute the trust?"

"On Chabad?" he said, surprised. "Anyone we like."

It was true. Rhani smiled, wondering if she could name as executor the Investment Committee of the Yago Bank. Arranging to place fifty percent of Yago Corporation capital in a trust might be difficult, but she thought it could be managed. Or did the statute mean fifty percent of her personal capital? She would have to read the Agreement -- something she had not done in fifteen years -- or, better still, discuss the entire scheme with her legal staff. She would have to do that anyway, of course. She wondered what the other Families would say about it, and why none of them had ever thought of such a thing. They were so accustomed to inter-Family rivalry, to compet.i.tion, to spying and bargaining and making secret deals.... Such a merger, she thought, would change utterly the balance of power on Chabad.

That was not an unattractive thought.

Hesitantly she said, "This could not be our private agreement, Ferris.

Our legal departments would have to work out a contract."

"Of course." His voice was eager. "So you think it's a good idea?"

She scowled. "I'm not accepting the offer. I want to think about it."

"Yes, I understand," he said. He pushed the tray with foodstuffs at her.

"Won't you have something to eat?"

Because she was his guest, Rhani took an applestick from the tray, and bit slowly through the red rind to the soft white heart. She wondered if Ferris thought they could be lovers. "You know," she said, "I have always preferred to arrange my own liaisons...."

He flushed, deeply embarra.s.sed. "I'm sure we can arrange not to interfere with each others' private lives."

She watched his fingers stroke the fur of his robe, wondering what he was like in bed. The prospect did not excite her. He probably liked to bed slaves.

Slaves.... She thought of her brother. What would he think of this? "Is that all you have to discuss with me?" she said.

With the first sign of humor she had seen from him, he said diffidently, "Isn't that enough?"

Rhani felt suddenly very sorry for him, alone in this great house with only ghosts and slaves on dorazine for company. But pity, she thought, was a bad base on which to do business. It was too bad he was so unattractive.... She stood. Ferris rose. "Thank you very much for your hospitality, Ferris. I shall go home now."

"You will -- "

"I will consider your offer," she said firmly.

He snapped his fingers. "My slaves will escort you," he said, and led her to the front door himself.

The street was hot. The two slaves kept Rhani between them as she walked down the Boulevard. One of them held a white parasol over her head. The tourists were all indoors, hiding from the heat, and the wide road was deserted; mutable as water, the stones seemed to dance in the brilliant, shimmering light.

Abanat _is_ beautiful, Rhani thought with swift, possessive pride.

Perhaps one day she would bring her daughter to this street, and tell her the history of the city. "_The fountain was built by Orrin Yago_," she would say.

"_Lisa Yago planted this tree_."

She hunched her shoulders. Marriage, and with Ferris Dur? It was strange even to think about. She pictured a daughter, a solemn, slender girl with hair the color of wheat, and almond-shaped, amber eyes. I will name her Jade, or Cecilia, or Samantha, Rhani thought. She squinted into the sun, trying to see the child's face, and realized that she was remembering herself.

Then she thought: People are trying to kill me! The image shattered. She looked up; there was her house. "You may go," she told the slaves. They bowed and shuffled away. Leaping up the broad steps, she hammered on the door. It opened. The hall was dark, and there seemed to be a lot of people in it.... She heard Binkie say her name, with a sound like a sob.

*Chapter Seven*

With some judicious bullying, Zed found his ice climbing equipment at the little landingport. It lay in a corner, under a pile of greasy rags where some porter had dropped it. He checked the seals; they were unbroken. The manager apologized a dozen times. Zed watched the porters move around the port, frowning. He wondered when they had last had blood tests. They were not slaves -- the only slave near the landingport was in the exit booth -- but dorazine addiction was a constant problem among laborers, ex-slave or not.

"I want your people tested," he said to the manager. "I'm on my way to the Clinic; I'll have the clerk call you to set up a time."

"Whatever you say, Commander."

Main Clinic was in the city's southeast corner, six blocks from the Promenade. It looked, off-worlders said, like a Terran starfish; five long one- story buildings radiated from the center hub. The hub was CTD, Clinical Tests Department. Its spokes were Outpatient, Contagious, Surgery, Recovery, and Special Services. Outpatient's princ.i.p.al work was to coordinate and staff the mobile units that did the monthly dorazine tests. By Chabadese law, every slave on dorazine maintenance had to have a blood test every three months. The technicians who rotated to the mobile units called it "Going to Needle Row."

Zed stopped at the Outpatient desk. The clerk said, "I'll put it in the computer, Senior, but they probably won't get to it until after the Auction."

"Do what you can," Zed said. The clerk shrugged.

The wheel-like architecture of Main Clinic reminded Zed with pleasure of the Net. He followed the traffic flow through Outpatient to CTD. From there he walked around the rim of the core until he came to the entrance to Surgery. He walked to the interior of the building and leaned on the chief clerk's desk.

Her name was Yukiko Chun; she was a dark woman, withered as a dry stick, all snap and bark. "Senior Yago," she said, "welcome back."

"Thank you, Yuki. It's good to be home."

"Too bad you didn't get here earlier," she said. "We could have used you last week."

"Oh?"

"There was an accident at the Gemit mines." Zed's interest sharpened.

Rhani will want to know that, he thought. "A surgical team flew out there. They had to do some very tricky limb replacements." Her mouth folded down severely; she was scolding him. As far as Yukiko was concerned, surgeons had no private lives. She moved them ruthlessly about to fit her schedules, knew their every foible, and treated them all alike. "You want morning or evening shift?"

"Wherever you're short," Zed said.

"I'll put you on Emergency call," she said. "Where are you staying?"

"The Abanat house."

There was no exit to the street from Surgery; Zed retraced his steps to CTD, and from there to Outpatient. A woman came through a doorway; saw him; stopped. Shyly she said, "h.e.l.lo, Zed."

Her name was Sai Thomas. Like Zed, she was a senior medic. They were old friends, and a little more. Some five years back she had approached him with an offer.... "I've heard rumors about you," she had said. Oh, no, he had thought, prepared to evade or to lie. "The rumors say you like pain." She was forthright.

"I'm high on the Reage test, you know." The Reage test, Zed knew, examined an individual's emotional and physiological reactions to a situation of mutual, consensual, sado-m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic s.e.x.

"I'm not," he said. It was the truth: he had no interest in mutual pain.

The thought of being vulnerable in the ways he made his victims vulnerable terrified him.

"Tests have been known to be wrong," Sai said. "I thought -- " She laid a hand firmly on his forearm. "Zed, I think you're very attractive."

Despite his better judgment, Zed had been moved. "Sai, I'm not -- I don't usually choose women for partners," he said awkwardly. h.e.l.l, I don't have partners, he had thought.

They had gone to bed together. The trappings of fantasy -- silk and chains -- excited him not at all. Sai was gentle, patient, determined. Zed was hopeful, but even the force of his practiced will had not made his body perform: he could, at her request, bind her, but when it came to inflicting pain he could not move. He was afraid of what might happen if he did. Finally she had understood that it was not going to work. Sadly she said good night to him. He had gone home and gotten drunk. He spent the next night in Lamartine's, the one brothel in Abanat willing to cater to his tastes. That evening five years back had been the last time Zed had tried to break out of his psychos.e.xual patterns.

She was st.u.r.dy, fair-haired, quiet -- not at all like Rhani. Yet that night in her room he had seen only Rhani.

"How are you?" he said.

"Fine," she answered, "you?"

He respected her, and would not lie to her. "Things could be better. I'll tell you about it sometime. Family concerns."

"Anytime. Are you on the schedule?"

"Emergency, on call. And you?" They talked Clinic business for a while.

She had been the anesthesiologist on the team that flew to Gemit. Zed questioned her about the accident, but she knew few of the details. She described the surgical work with pride.

"You should stop in Recovery and look at it."

"I'll do that."

He rode the movalongs back to the house. It was getting close to noon, and hot. He slid the front door back. The house seemed very dark. Binkie, Dana, and Corrios stood in a huddle in the hall. At the sound of the door, they looked up. Binkie's face grayed. Zed stepped in. The door slid closed. Something was wrong. He touched the hall intercom. "Rhani?"

Not even an echo answered him.

He said to them all, "Where is she?"

Dana answered. "We don't know. She went out alone. We were making a list of places to call."

Zed's mind filled with pictures of Rhani hurt, kidnapped, dead, somewhere in Abanat. Binkie babbled; he barely noticed the exculpatory whine. Dana's shoulders were hunched. Zed moved toward him. "I told you to stay with her."

With grim satisfaction, he saw the color drain from Dana's face, and fear tighten the muscles around his eyes.

"Zed, I -- "

"Shut up. I told you to guard her." He let his hand rest on Dana's shoulder, fingers caressing the pressure point. "Didn't I?"

Dana swallowed. In a half-whisper, he said, "Yes, Zed-ka."

Knocking interrupted the moment. Corrios hurried to open the front door.

Rhani stood, framed in the light. Binkie gasped her name. She came inside, glancing swiftly from Zed to Dana. "Zed-ka," she said, "you promised. He's mine."

It was true, and she was unhurt. Nevertheless, Zed permitted himself a hard look at Dana before he took his fingers from Dana's arm. "Where were you?"

he said to his sister. "Why were you alone?"

She said, with a look at the slaves, "It's a long story. Corrios, make us something cool to drink, please. Dana, Binkie -- you may go." Dana bowed. The color was back in his face. He strode off toward the slaves' hall. Binkie nearly knocked a chair down in his haste to follow.