Undercity

by Catherine Asaro

  Goddamn it! I lifted my gun. They’re going to destroy the canal.

  If you start firing, they will locate and kill you, Max thought.

  I’m not shooting at anyone. Damned if I didn’t want to, though.

  Good. Because you’re the only one with a pulse revolver, and both sides probably want you dead.

  Not Dig. I hoped.

  True. But her people are unlikely to have the same compunctions about killing you.

  Are you picking up anyone else in the area besides punkers?

  Possibly, Max thought. It’s hard to tell with all the laser fire. As if to punctuate his words, more shots flared in the canal. I’ve picked up signs of two people hiding in the midwalk wall, neither with nanomed tech in their bodies, which means they probably aren’t punkers.

  How do you know they’re here if they have no meds for you to detect?

  The red beetle went in close enough to pick up their heartbeats.

  Can I reach them without being seen?

  Maybe. I’ve mapped this area, but I don’t know all the hidden passages. He paused. Get to the canal wall closest to where you’re hiding. You might fit into a hole there that might take put you into a tunnel that I think slopes up to the midwalk in the adjacent canal. From there, I think you can reach the trapped people.

  That’s a lot of mights.

  Yes. Unfortunately, it’s the best I can do.

  I peered through the dusty air. It felt sticky against my skin. Someone fired a shot that hit the ground a few meters beyond me, and partially melted debris plumed into the air. Under that cover, I sprinted for the canal wall, keeping low to the ground, scuffing up red dust. I doubted anyone noticed, given how much grit already filled in the air. I reached the wall—

  And it didn’t have a single damn hole.

  Max! Where is the entrance? I crouched down, pressing against the wall. Any moment the dust would settle enough for someone to see me here.

  Try to your right, Max thought.

  I inched along, half blinded by grit, which was cooling into glassy sand that rained out of the air. My hand hit a cone of rock taller than my height. Reaching around it, I found a hole in the canal wall. Unfortunately, the cone was too close to the wall for me to squeeze past it into the opening.

  Max, is this what you meant? I asked.

  Yes. Apparently you won’t fit.

  Yah, brilliant deduction. I brought up my gun, waited until someone took another shot, and under that cover, I fired at the cone. Hopefully I also fried the sensors of anyone close enough to detect me. The cone broke apart while a new deluge of dust filled the air. As I squeezed into the hole, jagged edges of rock caught at my jacket and skin. The smart leather didn’t tear, but a spike gauged my face and blood ran down my neck.

  I’m sending meds through your bloodstream to treat your wounds, Max thought.

  Yah, fine. I had no time to worry about injuries. I was crammed into a hole with no outlet in the middle of a battle. If the midwalk above me collapsed, it would crush me as flat as flint.

  I turned around in the cavity, squeezing my way to the back. A vertical slit cut the rock there. I reached into the opening, but it was so narrow, I couldn’t even get my elbow through. Some sort of open area lay beyond. I didn’t have room to kick open the slit, which meant I had to fire my gun again, this time in a confined space. I flicked off the EM pulse so the close quarters wouldn’t fry Max. Gritting my teeth, I waited until the noise out in the canal ratcheted up and then I fired, protecting my face with my arm. Debris blasted my body, ripping at my clothes and skin. A sliver of rock penetrated even my smart clothes and buried itself in my leg and something hard hit my temple. With a groan, I sagged forward and fell through the opening I had just created.

  You should stop, Max thought. Treat your wounds.

  Later. I climbed to my feet with my hand over my head. I barely had enough room to straighten up. Just pray this place doesn’t collapse on me.

  I wouldn’t advise shooting anything else.

  No kidding. I felt woozy and blood ran down my arm, but I was otherwise intact. My head bumped the roof when I walked forward, but I was able to make my way forward. The passage wasn’t a tunnel so much as a natural warren of holes and jagged spaces. The air smelled better, less acrid that out in the canal. I reached a slope and climbed upward, my feet dislodging dirt and rocks.

  Max, how did you know about this tunnel? I asked.

  I mapped the area earlier by sending pulses of sound into the rock to find hollows.

  Smart EI.

  Thank you.

  Got a suggestion for how I can get out?

  Yes. Veer to your left and keep climbing.

  I went left and soon spotted a line of light ahead, dim, grey, and welcome. When I reached the top of the incline, I stood up. Only two meters of flat, rocky ground separated me from that light. It came from a crack in the wall about two handspans wide and taller than my height.

  Where are the beetles? I asked.

  Monitoring the combat, Max thought.

  I still heard the rumble of falling rock in the canal behind me. How much injury could these ruins take? They had lasted for millennia, but that was with relatively little use. If the one behind me collapsed, it could damage this canal as well.

  Bring a beetle here, I thought. I need its eyes. I walked to the crack in the wall and stood to the side with my gun up and ready. The canal out there looked empty. It wasn’t completely dark; diffuse light came from somewhere.

  Here’s the bot, Max thought.

  The red beetle flew over my shoulder and hovered by my face. Max activated the red lights in its eyes and it blinked at me, glimmering. When Max turned off the lights, the bot became almost invisible. I barely saw it fly out into the canal.

  I’m linking you to its eyes, Max thought.

  I was suddenly flying over the canal, a wide one in good condition. The light came from a street lamp some distance up the midwalk. The city authority didn’t maintain lamps any deeper than this canal, which lay only one level below the Concourse. I didn’t think they realized people lived deeper than this.

  I spoke to Max. If the canal we just left collapses, what will that do to this one?

  I don’t know. Weaken its supports, I suspect.

  I wanted to throttle someone. Damn Dig and Hammer for putting their vendetta before the lives of our people, and damn Braze, for making the guns available. Dig had no clue what she had inherited from Scorch. She saw those weapons and turned greedy. She probably knew nothing about Scorch’s phorine-saturated nightmare, selling our people to the Traders. I had no idea how many psions were in the undercity, but even if the three I had already met were the only ones, they would be a great find to the Trader Aristos. The Aristos would pay far more for psions than Scorch would ever have made on the guns.

  I flew over the canal. In a throughway this central, people were usually out at all hours. Gangs would gather and make music or build dust sculptures. Children ran in packs. Riders played with their tech as they strode along, sending each other arcane messages only they understood. Tonight I saw no one. Good. The dust knights must have come through here.

  I released my link with the beetle and became just Bhaaj again, hiding behind the wall. I stepped out on the midwalk with my gun drawn. Max, can I reach those two people from here?

  The bot registers their heartbeats to your right, about twelve paces forward.

  I walked forward with the wall on my right and stopped after twelve paces. About one handspan away, a crevice showed in the wall.

  I believe they know you are here, Max thought. Their heart rates have increased.

  They have any weapons?

  I detect no tech-mech. They could have knives or similar.

  So they weren’t riders. It didn’t surprise me, given how fast Biker could spread the word. The riders would know to avoid this canal. Normally they chose isolation over interacting with the rest of us, but Biker struck me as a leader who would reac
h out to all our people. He also ran with Pat’s dust gang, which included his name, Tim Oey, in their insignia. It boded well for their spreading the warning. I hoped.

  Here goes. With my gun up, I flicked on my stylus and shone it through the slit in the wall.

  “Ai!” The frightened cry came from a girl. No one jumped out, however.

  After a pause, I peered into the darkness. A man stood several paces back form the opening, and a small girl was hiding behind him with her eyes squeezed shut. The man had one arm up to shield his eyes and the other raised in a fist.

  “I’m here to help,” I said. “Come with. I’ll take you away from the fight.”

  They stared at me, squinting as if I were holding a supernova.

  “You cartel?” the man asked.

  “Nahya,” I said. My people had no word for someone who had left the undercity and then came back, so I just said, “I’m Bhaajan.”

  “Ah.” The man lowered his arm. “The Bhaaj.” He took the girl’s hand and they stepped forward.

  Max, I thought as I moved out of their way. That’s the second time someone has called me “The Bhaaj.” Any idea what that means?

  It’s your name.

  Great. My EI was being wry. They make it sound like a title.

  They have to call you something.

  I suppose.

  They eased sideways through the crack and stepped onto the midwalk. The girl looked about eight and the man was probably in his twenties. Their resemblance was unmistakable. Their skin was so light, it seemed translucent, like alabaster. They stood protecting their eyes, so I switched off my stylus, leaving us in only the dim light from the lamp down the midwalk.

  The man lowered his hand. “Our thanks.” The girl stopped squinting.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We’re fine.”

  I included my head toward the girl. “Your sister?”

  “Daughter.”

  I nodded, acknowledging the bond, and motioned down the midwalk, toward the lamp. “We go that way. To safety.”

  Together, the thee of us headed toward the lamp. The midwalk was wide enough for all of us to walk abreast, which was rare in the canals. I stayed on the outside edge.

  The girl spoke in a soft voice. “Got light.”

  “Yah,” I murmured. As we passed under the street lamp, they both shaded their eyes.

  “Where’re you from?” I asked.

  “The down-below,” the man said. “Below the aqueducts.”

  I hadn’t realized people lived that deep. “No light?”

  “Not bright light.” He motioned toward the streetlamp behind us. “Not like that.”

  If he thought that lamp was bright, they must live in almost total darkness. It could explain why they hadn’t heard the warning, if they were that removed from our main population.

  “Why come here?” I asked.

  The girl lifted her chin. “Dust knights.”

  I blinked. “You know about the knights?”

  “Came to join,” the father said. He paused, then added, “If the knights got a place for us.”

  They had come up into the painful brightness to be dust knights. I felt a strange sensation building within, a sort of tension, but not exactly. Something was happening with the knights, I wasn’t sure what, but it seemed good.

  “Might have places,” I said. “But know this. Knights live by a code. To be a knight, you must keep the code.”

  “We keep,” the man said.

  “Whisper says the code is tough,” the girl told me earnestly.

  I was surprised they had heard the code was tough, given that I had yet to figure out what it was, beyond “protect people.” I thought of the cartels. “No drugs.”

  “No drugs,” the man agreed. He sounded relieved.

  “Protect dust gangers,” the girl said.

  “Protect cyber-riders,” the man said.

  “Protect families,” the girl said.

  “Train,” the man said. “Learn discipline.”

  “Learn kicks!” The girl hopped on one leg while she kicked out with the other. It looked charming rather than fearsome, but it she was already that limber, she might someday become formidable at tykado.

  The man smiled. “Learn to run,” he told the girl.

  The girl looked up at me. “Run long. Hard. Fast. Like The Bhaaj.”

  Before I could respond, the man added, “Learn to read. To write.”

  “Learn numbers,” the girl said.

  The man spoke quietly. “No killing. Unless you must, to defend your circle.”

  Good gods. Where had all that come from? No, I knew. It was bits and pieces of what I had said to the knights, to other people here, even to Dig. I hadn’t formalized anything, but it sounded like what I would come up with if I decided to form a code.

  “That’s right,” I said. “It’s our code of honor.”

  “Stealing okay,” the girl added.

  It wasn’t okay, actually, but I had deliberately left it out in my words to the knights. When you were starving, a code that forbade you to steal food was about as useful as trying to breathe when you were buried in dust. Before I included a ban against theft in the code, I had to find a workable alternative to feed people. The undercity was economically viable, yes, but just barely. We lived on an edge, and people fell over it all too often, into poverty.

  Up ahead, a trio of adults jogged into view. They wore ragged clothes, as if they lived here, but they wouldn’t fool anyone. Even from this far away, I could tell their outfits had no dust ingrained in the cloth, besides which, they moved together like a well-trained unit. They might as well have had “army” written all over them. Lavinda Majda had sent her troops.

  “Ho!” The father stopped and pushed his daughter behind him. He must have hidden a knife in his clothes, because he now held a long blade with a honed edge that glinted.

  “Wait.” I laid my hand on his arm. “They may be friends.”

  “Not friends,” he said. “Soldiers. Above-city.”

  “I’ll talk with them. Stay here.” I headed toward the trio, two women and a man.

  As I drew nearer, I recognized the man, Major Duane Ebersole. I let out a breath. Him I trusted. The two women were active military. Duane had retired, but as far as Majda was concerned, that didn’t matter. Once you had worn the uniform, they considered you theirs forever.

  We met several hundred yards beyond where the father waited with his daughter. One of the women said, “Major Bhaajan?” She had dark hair pulled back from her face, and a holster showed under her jacket.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Did Colonel Majda send you?”

  Duane nodded and indicated the others. “We’re one of four trios she sent here.”

  I tilted my head toward the man and the girl behind me. “Can you get them to safety?”

  “We’ve set up a refuge to protect people,” Ebersole said. “It’s just below the Concourse.”

  “Good.” The fighting wouldn’t go that high, and it was a good distance from here. If any of these canals collapsed, the destruction wouldn’t reach that part of the undercity. “They can’t go anywhere with more light than here, though, unless they have lenses for their eyes.”

  “We’ll take care of it.” He looked past me to where the man and girl waited. “Will they come? No one here trusts us. We’ve had to round up some against their will.”

  It drilled rocks that they had to take people who protested. Even so. Better a pissed-off population than a dead one. “How many people have you gathered?” I asked.

  “A big chunk of the population,” one of the women said. “Aside from the cartels, that is.”

  I blinked at her. How had they rounded up a big chunk of our population and put them up by the Concourse? “How many?” I asked again.

  “About eighteen,” she answered. “Counting the two with you. Nine or ten children.”

  Eighteen people? And she thought that was a big
chunk of our population? Good gods.

  Duane spoke quietly. “More people live here.”

  I nodded, relieved at least one of them understood. “The rest are probably hiding.” I led them to where the man waited with his daughter, but as we approached, the two stepped back.

  I tilted my head at the soldiers and spoke to the father. “Friends. Take you to safety.”

  He stiffened. “No. Stay in aqueducts.”

  “Yah,” I agreed. “Stay in aqueducts. A safer part.”

  The father stayed put, regarding me warily.

  The girl peeked out from behind him, peering at the soldiers. “Got snap?” she asked.

  I glanced at Duane. “Do you?”

  “I don’t understand her,” he said.

  “She wants to know if you have water.” Sharing the bottles would be a gesture of good will.

  “Oh. Yes, certainly.” Duane pulled off his pack and took out a bottle. He knew to offer it to the father first, instead of the girl. “Would you like some?” he asked the man.

  The father squinted at Duane. “What say?”

  Duane tried again. “Would you like some water?” He spoke the above-city language of Cries beautifully, which meant the father could probably barely understand him.

  When the father glanced at me, I aid, “A bargain. Take their water. Go with them.”

  After an icy pause, the father thawed a bit and took the bottle. He handed it to his daughter, and her face lit up as she tore off the top. He accepted two more bottles from the other soldiers, then nodded to Duane in the undercity manner of accepting a bargain. “We go with.”

  “We’ll make sure you’re protected,” Duane said. Awkwardly, he added, “Got protection.” His undercity accent was terrible, but he tried, which meant far more than perfect words.

  The man tilted his head, seeming more intrigued now than distrustful of Duane. He took his daughter’s hand and they went with the soldiers.

  As soon as they left, I headed the other way, deeper into the aqueducts, to see if anyone else was trapped. As I jogged along, the weapons fire in the other canal grew louder. A thunder of rocks crashed somewhere and I stopped, listening. Unlike the other falls, this one didn’t fade into silence, but kept building.