Undercity - eARC

by Catherine Asaro

  “Can’t learn a tangler that way.” Scorch’s brusque voice gave me chills. “Even if you knew, you could never shoot. Not you. Drop the gun, Dayj.”

  I held my breath. If Scorch wavered even a moment, it would give me the opening I needed.

  Dayj stared at Scorch, his gun aimed at her. The blaze of the canvas had died to embers and she was almost invisible. She was seconds away from winning. As soon as we could no longer see her, Jak’s advantage disappeared. I glanced at Jak, moving only my eyes, not my head. His outline was also fading, which meant Scorch was losing one of her advantages, too, but it also acted as a flag, letting her know how little we could see her.

  Dayj stood frozen, gripping the stalagmite next to him, the chain hanging from the manacle on his wrist. He held the tangler in his other hand. Watching him, I knew she was right. He couldn’t commit murder. It wasn’t in him.

  Dayj fired.

  Everything happened at once. I threw myself to the ground, blasting Scorch’s location with bullets even while her laser exploded a stalactite above my head. Melted debris showered me. Jak fired a fraction of a second later, but Scorch had already ducked to the side. Dayj’s shot hadn’t hit her. And now Scorch knew; Jak had bluffed about his speed.

  Dayj lunged away from the storeroom. I could no longer see Scorch, but he had to be next to her. I couldn’t believe it. He was gambling that one of the most hardened undercity killers on the planet wouldn’t immediately end his life. And he was right. She hesitated only an instant, but it was long enough for him to yank the pack off her back, smashing it against a stalagmite. Although her shroud didn’t fail completely, her disguise faded enough to let me see her blurred outline.

  I was already jumping to my feet. Although I moved much faster than normal, everything seemed to slow down. In the instant it took Scorch to recover, I fired. My bullets ripped through her, hammering into her body, riveting her to the rock wall like a drill.

  The roar from my gun abruptly stopped. The remains of Scorch’s body slid down the wall and crumpled on the ground, leaving a smear of red.

  “Ah, gods.” Dayj stumbled back and dropped to his knees. Leaning forward with his arms around his stomach, he vomited on the ground.

  I stood with both hands clenched in a death grip on my gun, my arms extended out from my body, my thumb pressing the firing stud of my empty pulse gun.

  “Bhaaj.” Jak’s calm voice came at my side. “It’s done.”

  I turned slowly, my gun still up and aimed, now at him. He put his hand on the barrel and carefully pushed the gun aside. “Stand down, Major,” he said softly.

  I stared at the empty gun. Taking a deep breath, I nodded to him and lowered my weapon.

  We went to Dayj then. He had his arms around his stomach and his head down. The remains of Scorch’s body lay crumpled only paces away, but I couldn’t look. Later, I’d have to face what I’d done here today. Right now, Dayj needed us more.

  I knelt next to him. “Are you all right?”

  He lifted his head. “Who are you?”

  Even in the waning light of the embers from the fire, I could see the haggard lines of his face. “My name is Bhaajan,” I said. “I used to be an army officer. Now I’m a PI.”

  Dayj was still gripping the tangler. I pried open his clenched fingers and took the gun. A quick check and the blood drained from my face.

  “These darts are loaded with water,” I said. Water. That was it. Plain, ordinary H2O.

  “I have no idea how to use this weapon,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t even know what it is.”

  “It’s a tangler,” I said. “Properly loaded, it’s the deadliest neural disruptor ever made.”

  He met my gaze. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do that would give you a chance.”

  I set the gun on the ground. “You have guts.” What an incredible understatement. He had just bluffed one of the most brutal criminals on the entire planet with a water pistol.

  “Gods,” Jak muttered. “Remind me never to let you into the Black Mark.” He glanced around. “We should get moving. I’m surprised no automated system has shot at us.”

  “It is probably because you are with me,” Dayj said. “Her systems won’t harm me. She reprogrammed them after a laser nearly killed me when I tried to escape.”

  “We’re also shrouded,” I said. “From most sensors.”

  “I can see you,” Dayj said. “Your skin shimmers.”

  “It’s holographic powder. The effect breaks down up close.” I rose to my feet and offered him a hand.

  Dayj stood up and tried to take a step. As his leg gave out, both Jak and I grabbed him. We each slid an arm around his waist, and he put his arms over our shoulders. We headed up the path where Jak had come down, Dayj limping between us.

  “We can go out a back door I know,” I said.

  “Got a closer one,” Jak said. “I’ve a jeeper waiting there.”

  “A closer one?” I demanded. “You knew about another entrance?

  Jak cleared his throat. “Uh. Well. Yah.”

  “You, who supposedly didn’t know a way in here?” Now that I thought about it, he hadn’t had time to get a shroud, go back to the café, and then come here. He must have gone straight to the cavern after we split up.

  “Bhaaj—”

  “You bastard,” I said. “You ditched me.”

  Jak stared at me across Dayj, his gaze dark. “Of course you would never ditch me. And never mind that I just helped save your stubborn ass.”

  “My stubborn ass was fine,” I growled.

  “Excuse me,” Dayj said, “but if the two of you continue this, you will break my spine.”

  Ho! I hadn’t realized I was gripping him so hard. As I spluttered an embarrassed, “My apologies, Your Highness,” Jak turned red and said, “Sorry about that.” We both loosened our hold.

  We soon reached an exit that let us out into a decrepit canal. A jeeper waited, stocky and squat by the rubble of a fallen wall. Holo-paint sheened the armored surfaces of the vehicle, creating a mottled rust and blue exterior that matched the surroundings.

  As I helped Dayj into the jeeper, Jak surveyed the area. “No one has come after us yet.”

  Dayj paused in the doorway. “Scorch didn’t want people to know she had me prisoner.” In a dull voice, he added, “Anyone who knew, she killed.”

  I spoke in a low voice. “It’s not your fault.”

  Jak swung up into the driver’s seat. “Her behavior makes no sense.”

  I helped Dayj into the back, where he could lie down if he needed, then closed the door and slid into the front passenger seat. “Why not?”

  Jak powered up the jeeper. After it rose into the air and headed down the canal, he looked back at Dayj. “She threw her reason to the wind over you.”

  It made sense to me. I’d thrown my reason to the wind over Jak more than once.

  “Who are you?” Dayj asked him.

  “Jak.”

  “I thank you for your help.”

  Jak nodded awkwardly. “I set a course for the palace.”

  “No,” I said. “Wait.” I turned to Dayj. “Is that what you want?”

  He went very still. “I have a choice?”

  I took a breath and plunged over the proverbial cliff. “I told your family you went offworld. The port lists a ticket bought by someone with the ID Scorch sold you. It says you went to Metropoli. This jeeper and the caverns are protected from surveillance.” I felt as if the world were spinning. If the Majdas ever found out what I was doing, my life would be worth less than spit. “You can’t leave Raylicon now, but if the search moves to Metropoli, it will ease up here. Eventually you can go wherever you want.”

  Jak stared at me in disbelief. “I am not hearing this.”

  “Why?” Dayj asked me. “Why would you do this for me? Do you realize what my family would do to you if they found out? Or the reward they will give you for bringing me back?”

  “This isn’t about a reward,
” I said. “Or their revenge. Some things are more important. Like freedom. You shouldn’t have to live that way.”

  “What way?” He sounded tired. “As one of the richest people in an interstellar empire? There is a real hardship.”

  “You’re a prisoner in your own home.”

  “The Houses have a rationale that goes back millennia.” He rubbed his eyes, then dropped his arm. “It is a rich tradition, Major, not one to discard lightly.”

  “Then why did you run away?” I asked.

  Softly he said, “Because I was starving.”

  I gentled my voice the best I knew how. “Skolians have settled hundreds of worlds. If you want a well-populated place with many seas, it doesn’t have to be Metropoli. You can go somewhere no on would ever know.”

  His look said it all, the longing, the loneliness, the frustrated dreams. It was there in his dark eyes. He spoke with difficulty. “When I was lying in my cell in the caverns, I remembered a gift my parents had given me when I was little, a globe of Raylicon with deserts in gold, the dead seas in crystal, the clouds in diamond. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But they wouldn’t let me play with it. I might have broken the globe, you see.” In a low voice be said, “That is my life, Major. I can only look at it, never touch it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

  “But you see, while I lay in the dark, I remembered why my parents gave me such a gift. I remembered their love.” He spoke with difficulty. “I want to leave. But I cannot.”

  I thought of Corejida and Ahktar at the Lake of Whispers, both crying. It gave me a strange feeling. Envy? Grief? No one had ever stood on a shore or anywhere else and wept for me.

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’m sure. I will go home.”

  Jak spoke. “Maybe after all this, you can convince them to give you more freedom.”

  Dayj tried to smile. “Perhaps.”

  None of us said the truth we all knew, that it could never happen.

  IX

  Homecoming

  It was still night when the jeeper reached Majda territory. The comm crackled with a woman’s voice. “You have entered restricted airspace. Identify yourself and await instructions.”

  I spoke into the comm. “This is Major Bhaajan. Notify General Majda that I’m coming in.”

  “Please hold, Major,” the woman said.

  “Understood.” Apparently the jeeper’s shroud didn’t work all that well given how fast they had detected us. But it probably still hid the people inside. I reached forward to deactivate the shroud. Once they knew we carried Dayj, we shouldn’t have any trouble.

  “Wait,” Dayj said. “Not yet.”

  Jak glanced at him. “It’s too late to turn back.”

  “I know,” Dayj said. “I just—I want a few more minutes of freedom. Even knowing it’s about to end.”

  A new voice snapped out of the comm, hard and clipped. “Major, this is Chief Takkar. Where the hell have you been?”

  Takkar. Oh, great. “Around,” I said.

  “Don’t rizz with me, Bhaajan. You’ve hidden continuously since we told you to stop with the shroud. You’re going to need a damn good explanation, and this one had better not involve some disreputable undercity kingpin.”

  Jak’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t you like me, Captain?”

  Takkar swore like she never would have done if she’d known a Majda prince was listening. I glanced at Dayj. He smiled slightly and shrugged.

  I had other issues with the captain. “Tell me something, Takkar,” I said. “Where is Oxil?”

  “She’s off-duty,” Takkar said. “Why?”

  “You don’t wonder where she is?”

  “No. Why do you?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “I’ll explain when we land.”

  “Damn right you will,” Takkar said. “The police are escorting you to the south park.”

  “Understood,” I answered. Takkar sounded angry but not defensive. It was hard to tell from a voice over the comm, but my intuition said she didn’t know about Oxil.

  “Captain,” I said. “Can you have the Majda sisters meet us when we land?”

  “Why?” Takkar asked.

  “I have news for them.”

  Tension snapped in her voice. “What did you find out?”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  Takkar just grunted.

  I toggled off the comm and turned to Dayj. “How well do you know Chief Takkar?”

  “She’s been with our police force for decades.” He smiled, his teeth a flash of white. “I’ve always liked her.”

  It was the first time I had seen his full smile, and I barely heard a word after that. That grin could fry the brains of any woman within a ten-kilometer radius. No wonder Scorch had fallen so hard. She must have seen that dazzling smile when she spied on his visits with Oxil to the aqueducts. Scorch had tried to attain the unattainable and paid for it with her life.

  “Do you think Takkar knows about Oxil?” I asked Dayj.

  He shook his head. “Chief Takkar is loyal to my family.”

  Although I disliked Takkar enough to wish he was wrong, his opinion fit my impression of the chief. “They’ll give her a lie detector test.”

  “She’ll pass.” He pushed back his tousled hair. “Or maybe I am just a bad judge of people. I thought Oxil was a good person. The first time she snuck me out to the canals, I expected she would want something in return. She never asked for anything.”

  “She wanted you to trust her.”

  He looked out the window at the landscape below, the lush hills of the Majda forest, such a contrast to the rest of Raylicon. “I did trust her. I was stupid.”

  “Dayj, no. They were scum. And Oxil was the fool. Scorch would have killed her.”

  He glanced at me with his dark gaze. “Except you did it for her.”

  I had no answer. He had seen me shoot Scorch, probably Oxil and the guard as well. Scorch’s security system might also have a record of what happened. Any lie detector would verify I believed my actions were necessary to protect Dayj, but no matter how you spun it, I killed three people. Even if the police cleared me of murder, I knew the truth; I was no better than the criminals I tracked.

  “Bhaaj, stop,” Jak said.

  I looked at him and decided to smirk. It was a good way to hide my real thoughts. “It’s not every day I get to ride with a disreputable undercity kingpin.”

  “Your lucky night.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He knew what I was thinking. He had held me in the past when darkness haunted my memories. This time I wouldn’t even have him for long, for he would stay in Cries, which I could never do.

  * * *

  Majda police fliers escorted us to the palace. Jak landed the jeeper on a long, sloping lawn behind the building. As soon as the engines powered down, I opened the door and jumped out. Four police officers waited, along with Takkar and Major Ebersole. The Majda sisters were also there. From Takkar’s thunderous expression, I suspected she wanted to slap me in the modern-day equivalent of irons. However impatient she and the others might be, they stayed back while General Majda approached me.

  I’d always prided myself on my unflappable calm, but even my confidence wavered when I faced Vaj Majda. I tended to forget how tall she was, a towering two meters. Her dark eyes missed nothing, and right now they were intent on me.

  We met a few paces from the jeeper. I bowed from the waist. “My greetings, General.”

  She spoke in her husky voice. “You’ve been difficult to find, Major.”

  “I had good reason.”

  “And that is?”

  I looked back at the jeeper. Jak stepped into the doorway and jumped down to the ground.

  “Major Bhaajan.” The general’s voice tightened. “How you spend your personal time is your affair. I assume you have reason to bring your—companion here.”

 
“He helped.” I started to say more, but then I stopped.

  Dayj appeared in the doorway of the jeeper.

  A cry came from behind us. I turned to see Corejida staring at Dayj, her mouth open. She strode past us, ignoring even Vaj, seeing only her son.

  Dayj eased down to the ground, using his good leg for support, and within moments he and his mother were embracing. Corejida kept saying, “I can’t believe it.” The chain attached to Dayj’s wrist hung down her back as he hugged her, but I didn’t think she noticed. The other chain, the one on his ankle, lay across the grass. Tears ran down her face and she made no attempt to hide them, pulverizing the reputation of the noble Houses for their legendary emotional restraint.

  “Gods,” Vaj said in a low voice. “Thank you, Major.” It was the first time I had seen her control slip.

  I nodded, though inside I grieved for the freedom Dayj would never know. “He’s going to need a doctor.” I hesitated, uncertain about how much to say. “A therapist, too, I think.”

  Majda inclined her head. “We will see to his health, both physical and emotional.”

  “And intellectual?” I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but the words came out anyway.

  She considered me. “Dayj has his books.”

  “It isn’t enough.” I plunged ahead. “General, I ask your forgiveness if I offend. But please listen.” I motioned toward Dayj. “He’s a lot smarter than you think. A lot more talented. He needs independence. He’s suffocating here.”

  Anger flashed in her gaze. “I forgive your offense, Major, because you brought him home. But do not overstep yourself.”

  “He ran away.” I had to speak even if it meant I lost the goodwill I had earned by finding him. “Doesn’t that tell you anything? Gods know, I can see you all love him. He’s a fortunate man.” More quietly I added, “If you love him, let him have his dreams.”

  I thought she would have me thrown off the grounds then. If a gaze could truly have pierced, she would have sliced me to ribbons. “If he ran away of his own free will,” she asked coldly, “why is he coming home in chains?”

  “Because he trusted too easily. He’s never learned to survive on his own.”