Undercity - eARC

by Catherine Asaro

  Vaj looked up with a start, as if she had been lost in her thoughts. “Oh. Yes. What is a dust knight?”

  Damn! I didn’t want them interfering with the knights. That was ours and ours alone, purely undercity. I had to tell her something, though, and the words needed some truth, because she was too savvy to fool.

  “It’s a sort of club,” I said. “The kids agree to a code where they don’t lie, do drugs, or fight to hurt people. In return, I teach them some moves and philosophies from tykado.”

  “Ah, yes.” Vaj still looked preoccupied. “Lavinda thought sports would be a good outlet.”

  We walked for a while through the garden, along a bluestone path under the pale sky of Raylican. Small winged reptiles flew over the flowers like tiny ruziks taken flight. Lost in her own thoughts, Vaj seemed to have forgotten me.

  We were strolling by a gold-tiled pond when she spoke again. “Almost every organ in her body was damaged, even crushed.”

  I glanced up. “Ma’am?”

  “The Kajada drug queen.” Vaj met my gaze. “Apparently the Vakaar queen tried to kill her children. They were caught in the collapse of the ruins and Kajada protected them with her body. Somehow, she and the children dug their way out. It took them more than a day. Then Kajada took them to the Center. You know the rest.”

  I stared at her. “With internal injuries that serious? She should have been dead!”

  “Yes, she should have.” Vaj stopped by a lattice heavy with red vines. “I have heard of superhuman feats performed by parents protecting their children, but until I saw the records from yesterday, I had never witnessed such.”

  Well, Dig never did anything halfway. She protected her three younger children from being crushed by rocks and her oldest daughter from being crushed by her life. If it hadn’t been for Dig, I knew Jak, Gourd, and I would have been worse off growing up. Yet she had also plagued Cries with gruesome drug trade. I doubted I would ever sort out how I felt about her, all that love and anger mixed together. But Digjan had escaped, and her siblings would, too. I’d make sure of that.

  A quartet of male guards was approaching us through the garden. Odd. Usually they came with one of the princes. They were alone now, though.

  Vaj inclined her head toward the guards. “Go with them.”

  “All right,” I said, puzzled. Then I realized Paolo and I had a great deal to work out for the aqueducts.

  As I joined Paolo’s guards, however, Vaj said, “Major.”

  I turned back to her. “Yes?”

  She stood like a tall statue. “You didn’t get tested yesterday.”

  “It wasn’t necessary. I had a Kyle workup in the army.” I shrugged, the way I had back then. “I have no psi ability.” She should know that already, given that she had looked at my records.

  “The tests didn’t say you have no ability,” Vaj told me. “They said you didn’t manifest any.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “If the testers had been certain you had no ability, they would have given you a rating of zero.” She paused. “They didn’t give you any rating.”

  “I thought psi traits always showed up on tests.”

  “Usually.” She had an odd look, deep and quiet. “Unless you repress them so much that you barely feel them yourself.”

  This made no sense. “Why would I do that?”

  “Perhaps to protect your mind.” Softly she said, “From a life that was killing everyone around you.”

  I felt hot, then cold. I didn’t want to have this conversation. “I’m sure I have no abilities.”

  “Perhaps not,” Vaj said. “However, one of the analysts who examined you in the army suggested testing you further as an empath. Also for precognitive dreams.”

  No. My dreams were just dreams. My thoughts were ordinary. I had absolutely no desire to be an empath. I had enough trouble dealing with my own emotions. I couldn’t take on any others.

  After I was silent for a while, Vaj nodded, acknowledging the end of the conversation. Then, incredibly, she smiled. It was only slight, barely an upward curve of her lips, but it was still a smile. She raised her hand, a gesture of respect. “Go well, Major.”

  “Thank you.” I lifted my hand. “And you.”

  We parted then, she returning to the palace and me to meet with the architect who would try to repair the injuries to a world in the darkness.

  * * *

  The guards didn’t take me to see Paolo.

  We went to an alcove tiled like a sunrise, with a border along the floor like the horizon of the desert. Above it, the wall shaded from rose hues into lighter blue. Across the room, a man sat at a similarly tiled table next to a tall window. He was studying holos above the table, images about the physics of Higgs bosons. Sun streamed in through the window, glistening on his black hair, his face, his broad shoulders, and his clothes, velvet and Haverian silk, with diamonds on the shirt cuffs. The scene was so arresting that I froze just inside the door, causing one of the guards to bump into me. He stopped after hitting my shoulder, and I couldn’t move.

  Beauty wasn’t power. I’d read my share on that subject in my officer training classes, where they made damn sure we would know how to treat everyone in our command fairly and didn’t do something stupid that could get the army sued for harassment or swamped in scandal. I read the bulleted outlines they given us, and then out of curiosity I looked up the scholarly works. I’d never forgotten how, in my youth, I could wheedle food out of Concourse vendors because they thought I was pretty. It became one of many techniques in my bag of tricks for How To Eat, along with numerous methods of petty theft. The articles pointed out the obvious, that beauty was an illusory “power” dependent on physical characteristics that weren’t permanent and said nothing about a person’s worth or character. It rarely lasted. That was certainly true in the undercity, where most of us had gaunt faces, scars, or the pockmarks of disease by the time we were adults. Either that, or we were dead and didn’t give a whack about power dynamics.

  In Raylicon’s past, women had attained power through war, wealth, and work. Men were “powerful” if women found them desirable, but once they were owned, they had no say in their lives. That wasn’t power, it was possession, and even I could see it was wrong. Yes, I knew the scholarship, and I knew its truth, but in this moment none of that mattered, because Dayjarind Majda had, by his mere presence, rendered me utterly powerless.

  I had seen holos of him and I had seen him after we rescued him from Scorch, but I had never seen him like this, at his best, contentedly sitting in the sun reading his books. He was the singularly most devastating man I had ever met, and if he had asked me to prostrate myself on the floor right then and babble like an idiot, I would have done it. So okay, I was an idiot. Sue me. It would have been worth it for these few moments in his presence.

  All he did, however, was motion me over to the table. “Major, please join me.” Then he smiled, and I could have died in ecstasy.

  My heart continued to beat, however, so instead of expiring, I went over and sat across from him at the table.

  “My glittings,” I said. Gods, I was a moron today. “Uh, greetings, that is. My greetings. Your Higgness. Your Highness, I mean.”

  Dayj was kind enough not to laugh. “My greetings, Major.” He tapped a square on the table and the holos disappeared. “It’s good to see you.” He seemed delighted to say those words. I supposed he didn’t have much chance to use them, given his lack of visitors.

  “Are you studying?” I asked.

  “For my placement tests. The university is sending an examiner from Parthonia. She’ll be here in a few days.” He grinned at me. “If I pass, and I think I will, then I’m off to university.”

  I almost lost him after the grin, but I caught enough to understand. “That’s wonderful.”

  We sat in awkward silence. Then I said, “Did you want to see me about something?”

  He hesitated. “What happened in the aqueducts, the fighting
and destruction, is my fault. I feel I should make amends, but I have no idea how to do so.”

  Good gods. “How could it be your fault?”

  “My foolish trip to the canals started the chain of events that made it possible for the cartel to steal the weapons, which started the fighting.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  He spoke dryly. “Really? Scorch would have just given those carbines and tanglers to the Kajada cartel out of the goodness of her heart?”

  “Uh, well, no.”

  “If I had never gone there,” he said, “Kajada couldn’t have stolen the guns, Vakaar wouldn’t have felt the need to arms themselves in response, the canals would still be intact, and people would be alive who are dead now.”

  “Dayj, you can’t blame yourself for the violence of the cartels.” I shook my head. “Without you, we wouldn’t have learned Scorch’s plans. You prevented one of the worst crimes in the history of this planet. She could have sold psions for years, feeding off the undercity, decimating us, giving the Traders the advantage over our military they’ve sought for centuries, and we would never have known.” I spoke firmly. “Raylicon and the Imperialate owe you an incalculable debt of gratitude.”

  He grimaced. “I didn’t do anything except act stupid.”

  “You had the courage to break the rules. It shook up everything. When the dust settled, the world had changed.” Gently I said, “For the better.”

  He sat for a while, taking that in. Then he said, “I hadn’t seen it in those terms.”

  “You should. Because they’re true.” If Scorch had killed or sold him, it would have been a different story, but his family had acted fast, enough that he sat here preparing for college exams instead of living as a slave.

  Dayj smiled. “You’re a good person, Major.”

  That was embarrassing, because I knew better. I had good in me, yes. Most people did, even Dig, maybe even Scorch. But darkness also lived in my heart. Yet despite everything that had happened to Dayj, he still saw the good in people. I hoped he always kept a portion of that innocence, for it was worth more than all the wealth of the Majdas.

  * * *

  A wide plaza stretched out from the outskirts of Cries in two shallow terraces, all blue and grey stone. A fountain bubbled on the upper terrace. Even from this far away, I could hear children laughing as they splashed in the water.

  The entrance to the Concourse lay beyond the terraces, an archway wide enough for several people to walk through together. The stairs inside descended to the boulevard, which at this end was only one story underground. The sun had spent the last hour setting, and the archway glowed with lights, blue and gold, sparkling in the fading day.

  I was walking next to a retaining wall, headed for the archway, when a boy came alongside me, an above-city child of about eight, clean and new in his sports clothes.

  I smiled at him. “My greetings, sir.”

  “Are you The Bhaaj?” A lock of floppy brown hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it back.

  It startled me to hear the odd title spoken in an above-city accent. I slowed to a stop and sat on the wall so my height was equal to his. “I’m just Bhaaj. What can I do for you?”

  He regarded me earnestly. “I want to join the Dust Knights.”

  Good gods. This young fellow had probably never even seen a stalagmite, let alone been to the undercity. “Where did you hear about the Knights?”

  He smiled, a flash of healthy teeth. “My cousin’s brother has a girlfriend who heard about it from a boy at her school who snuck down to the canals.” He straightened up, pulling back his shoulders. “Dust Knights follow the code. Protect and train. Do good.”

  Well, I hoped they would do good. It seemed a small thing, that this charming fellow wanted to join the knights—except he came from the above-city, from the world of magic and privilege. Until this moment, everything that had happened, everything we had done, had revolved around the undercity coming to an accommodation with Cries. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone from Cries might want to come to us.

  I couldn’t take this nice kid to the aqueducts. He wouldn’t last five minutes. Maybe, though, we could work out a program at the Rec Center where the children could do a sport together, both above and undercity teams. I didn’t know if anyone would show up besides this boy, but it was worth a try. It was certainly a better way to introduce undercity youth to above-city culture than Vaj’s draconian idea of forcing our children into state schools.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “If you’re still interested in five days, come to the Rec Center in the morning, tenth hour. I’ll meet you and we’ll talk.” I needed time to put some ideas together.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Good!” He stepped onto the wall and jumped off with a yell.

  A chill swept over me, and I had the oddest sense, as if I saw a time centuries beyond this day, an age when the knights had become a legend that served an empire. They were revered throughout the Imperialate, a secret order of protectors even more difficult to join than the Jagernauts, an order based in an exquisite, mythical place hidden beneath the oldest city in the Imperialate.

  The chill went away as fast as it came, and I was once again sitting in a warm evening on the edge of Cries. I snorted at my ridiculous imagination, and the boy laughed at the undignified sound.

  “Tomi,” a woman called. “Come on. Time for dinner.”

  Looking back, I saw a woman walking across the plaza toward us. I grinned at Tomi. “Better get going. Knights have to eat their cabbage-roots to stay strong.”

  “I hate cabbage-roots,” he announced. He waved and took off, running toward his mother.

  I resumed my walk to the Concourse, thinking. I had to prepare for my meeting with the Majdas reps. Tomorrow I would go to various offices in Cries to see if I could arrange market licenses for undercity vendors. The office staff would resist the idea, of course, but I would keep at it until I wore them down. I could be annoyingly persistent.

  I would also talk to the directors of the Rec Center. If we could arrange a less conspicuous annex near the end of the Concourse, our young people might go there. And I’d look up Orin at the university. It would be good to see him. Even if he no longer went to the aqueducts, he might know who did. Perhaps I could convince them to work as mentors with our children in return for the kids acting as guides to the canals. I could check with the engineers, too, to see if they’d work with the cyber-riders. It would take some mega-tech to lure out the riders, and engineers were less likely than anthropologists to enter the undercity, but you never knew.

  So I pondered as I walked the Concourse. Even if only a few of my ideas succeeded, it was a start. Or so I hoped. I might be setting myself up for a lot of work with little chance of success. No matter. It was worth the effort. We had caught the attention of the above-city, and incredibly, at least for now, they were willing to work with us.

  Tonight, though, I didn’t want to think anymore. I was on my way to meet someone more tempting than any ruins, tech, or Majda prince. I was going to spend the evening with my disreputable kingpin. Thoughts about changing the world could wait until tomorrow.

  Characters & Family History

  Boldface names refer to Ruby psions. All Ruby psions use Skolia as their last name. The Selei name indicates the direct line of the Ruby Pharaoh. Children of Roca and Eldrinson take Valdoria as a third name. The del prefix means “in honor of,” and is capitalized if the person honored is (or was) a Triad member. Most names are based on world-building systems drawn from Mayan, North African, and Indian cultures. The family tree below corresponds to the time of the Lightning Strike books, which take place roughly 123 years after the events of Undercity.

  = marriage

  ~

  Lahaylia Selei (Ruby Pharaoh: deceased) = Jarac (Imperator: deceased)

  Lahaylia and Jarac founded the modern-day Ruby Dynasty. Lahaylia was created in the Rh
on genetic project. Her lineage traces back to the ancient Ruby Dynasty that founded the Ruby Empire.

  Lahaylia and Jarac have two daughters, Dyhianna Selei and Roca.

  ~

  Dyhianna (Dehya) = (1) William Seth Rockworth III (separated)

  = (2) Eldrin Jarac Valdoria

  Dehya is the Ruby Pharaoh. She married William Seth Rockworth III as part of the Iceland Treaty between the Skolian Imperialate and Allied Worlds of Earth. They had no children and later separated. The dissolution of their marriage would negate the treaty, so neither the Allieds nor Imperialate recognize their divorce. Her second marriage is to Eldrin, a member of the Ruby Dynasty. Spherical Harmonic tells the story of what happened to Dehya after the Radiance War.

  Dehya and Eldrin have two children, Taquinil Selei and Althor Vyan Selei. Taquinil is an extraordinary genius and an untenably sensitive empath. He appears in The Radiant Seas, Spherical Harmonic, and Carnelians.

  ~

  Althor Vyan = Akushtina (Tina) Selei Santis Pulivok

  Althor and Tina appear in Catch the Lightning, which was expanded and rewritten into the eBook duology Lightning Strike, Book I and Lightning Strike, Book II. Althor Selei is named after his uncle, Althor Valdoria (who is named after his father, Eldrinson Althor Valdoria, the “King of Skyfall”).

  The short story “Avo de Paso” tells of how Tina and her cousin Manuel go to the New Mexico desert to grieve the death of Tina’s mother. It appears in the anthologies Redshift, ed. Al Sarrantino, and Fantasy: The Year’s Best, 2001, eds. Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber.

  ~

  Roca = (1) Tokaba Ryestar (deceased)

  = (2) Darr Hammerjackson (divorced)

  = (3) Eldrinson Althor Valdoria

  Roca is the sister of the Ruby Pharoah. She is in the direct line of succession to the Ruby throne and to all three titles of the Triad. She is also the Foreign Affairs Councilor of the Assembly, a seat she won through election rather than as an inherited title. A ballet dancer turned diplomat, she appears in most of the Ruby Dynasty novels, in particular Skyfall.

  Roca and Tokaba Ryestar had one child, Kurj (Imperator and Jagernaut). Kurj married Ami when he was a century old, and they had one child named Kurjson. Kurj appears in Skyfall, Primary Inversion, and The Radiant Seas, and with more minor roles in many of the other books.