The Vanished Seas (Major Bhaajan series Book 3)

by Catherine Asaro

  I stood in the shadows, watching. Daan looked discreet tonight, in simple dark clothes, as if he hoped to avoid notice. That wasn’t going to save his ass if someone tried to explode him.

  “More cards?” Bez asked.

  “Two.” Daan set two cards on the table and the dealer gave him new ones.

  As the round progressed, most of the other players folded, until Daan was facing only an older woman with a too perfect face and black hair pulled back in a sleek braid. She watched him intently, and he avoided her gaze. With the barest hint of a smile, she tapped the table. The holo of a ten-thousand-opto chit formed in front of her, glowing blue and purple.

  Daan let out a breath. Even for a high-powered exec, that was a large bet. I’d never understood how they could squander their wealth that way. I hung onto every opto I earned. To risk so much just for a game was beyond my ability to comprehend.

  “Raise, call, or fold?” the dealer prompted him.

  Daan finally looked at his opponent. She met his gaze with confidence.

  “You going to play?” She sounded smug.

  “Call.” Daan tapped the table, and a chit for ten thousand optos appeared in front of him.

  “Show your hands,” the dealer said.

  “Fine,” the woman muttered. She tossed down her cards. “It’s yours.”

  Murmurs of appreciation went around the table. “Well played,” someone said.

  Daan’s mouth fell open, which made me suspect he hadn’t been sure she was bluffing. Then he grinned. I walked around the room, staying in the shadows until I was opposite Daan, in his view. Then I leaned against the wall to watch them again.

  Daan glanced up—and froze. “Fuck!”

  Surprise, I thought.

  The others at the table stiffened as they looked around. Their gazes scraped over me as if I were part of the scenery. Daan’s face, however, went pale.

  Bez glanced at me, at Daan, at me again. “Got a problem?”

  “Nahya,” I said. “All good.” I spoke to Daan in his Cries dialect. “We should get going.”

  “Uh—we should?” Confusion washed across his face. He stood and tapped the cash-in panel on the table so the casino could send the opto credits to his bit-disk. He’d figure out later what to do with them, but for now no record existed, except on his disk, that he’d just made ten thousand credits.

  Daan walked with me back to the main room. He didn’t say a word. The smell of some oil he wore wafted around me, a subtle scent. It smelled good, but it seemed, well, I didn’t know what. Not natural. Out of place. My people never wore cologne.

  Ironically, with so much action in the main room, we had more privacy than in the private game. Everyone here was intent on their own fun: gambling, watching holos, getting doped, hacked, or drunk, or otherwise indulging their vices. They didn’t even glance at us.

  Daan spoke in a low voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  His face tightened with anger and something uglier. “You talked like a fucking dust rat to that dealer. And you look like one, dressed that way. What’s wrong with you?”

  Drill you, I thought. “What stupid shit are you doing, dumping your guards and coming to a place where you’re practically begging to get whacked?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  I’d heard that tone before. I tensed, gritting my teeth.

  Bhaaj, let it go, Max thought. You have a job to do.

  I took a moment to breathe. Then I said, “If you want to get out of here alive, stay with me.” I angled toward the bar.

  Daan followed without more argument. I stopped in front of the bar, where abstract holos in purple and blue rotated lazily above its dark surface. Dara stood on the other side, watching me as she polished a glass. It swirled purple light around her hands.

  “Eh,” I said.

  “Eh.” She glanced at Daan, and then back at me. “Got a friend.”

  Not likely. “He’s leaving. Needs an escort.”

  “Angel is on the job tonight.”

  Good. As one of my future tykado black belts, Angel was one hell of a fighter, and as a Dust Knight, she’d sworn to the Code of Honor, which included no drugs. I could trust her, and she’d be alert.

  “Comm her?” I asked.

  “Yah, can do.” Dara set down her glass and tapped a code into the counter.

  “What language is that?” Daan asked me. “I can’t understand you.”

  “It’s the same language as in Cries,” I said. “Just a different dialect, a more compact form of speech. The accent can be hard to understand if you aren’t used to it.”

  Dara was reading a message scrolling across the counter panel. “Be a while. Angel is bringing in another slick.” She looked up at me. “You want I get someone else?”

  “Nahya. Stay with Angel. She gets here, let me know.”

  Dara nodded, her curiosity practically tangible in the air. “Got it.”

  I glanced at Daan. “Come with,” I told him.

  His forehead furrowed. “What did you say?”

  I hadn’t even realized I was still using my dialect. I switched to Cries speech. “Come with me. I need to talk to someone before we leave.” I led him around the bar, to the discreet staircase.

  “Hey.” Daan stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “We can’t go up there!”

  “You’ll be fine.” I started up the stairs. “Just stay with me.”

  “Are you freaking bats? I’m not going up there.”

  I turned around. “Would you please quit the hell arguing with me and come up the stairs?”

  “You’re a lunatic,” he muttered. He did join me, though.

  At the top, we followed a private hallway. Holos of stars floated into view as we approached and darkened behind us. At Jak’s office, I tapped a code on the door panel, including a tag to let him know I wasn’t alone. The door slid open, revealing the black-and-silver room with tendrils of blue smoke curling in the air. Jak lounged at his big desk chair, watching holos of the rooms downstairs that floated above his desk. As I walked in with Daan, the door closed behind us.

  “You got a city slick.” Jak tapped his desk and the casino holos vanished.

  “He’s leaving,” I said. “When Angel gets back.”

  Jak stood up, studying Daan, who stared back like a terrified fluff-pup.

  “Why bring him here?” Jak asked me.

  “He had guards. Idiot slipped the cops to come here and lose money.”

  Jak spoke to Daan in Cries speech. “Why are the police guarding you?”

  Daan pushed his hand through his spiked hair. “Another exec at the corp, I mean the place where I work, she vanished. Kidnapped, they think, or—or murdered. They think I could be next.”

  Jak scowled at him. “The cops better not have tried to follow you here.”

  Daan’s face turned ashen. “I’m sure they didn’t.”

  “How are you sure?” Jak asked.

  “I mean, I don’t see how they could have. I was careful.”

  Jak didn’t look angry so much as puzzled. His guides would have known if Daan had cops following him around, and they wouldn’t have brought him to the casino.

  Jak turned to me. “Got a worry?”

  “Yah.” I rubbed my eyes, tired. My torso still ached where the knife had cut me yesterday. I tilted my head toward the back wall of his office. “Private.”

  Jak spoke to Daan. “You. Stay there.” Daan nodded, his gaze wide.

  Jak and I walked to the back wall together. Jak’s shrouds were running, so Daan couldn’t catch our words, not even if he had enhanced hearing. But we took no chances. I turned so Daan couldn’t see my lips and spoke to Jak in a low voice, describing my meeting with the execs, and the shadow who had followed me afterward.

  “It all ends up here,” I said.

  He didn’t look pleased. “You think those slicks are doing dirt in my casino?”

  “Somehow, yah. Maybe the
y meet here. Secret. No way to trace.”

  “Could be.” Jak glanced at Bialo. “Got to get him out of here.”

  “I’ll take him, with Angel. You close up shop. Got a cover story now. Daan came here. Cops were guarding him. Too risky to stay open.” Jak could have his super-nanos disassemble the casino and reassemble it as a plain black wall somewhere else, until he decided to reopen. The Black Mark was a ghost.

  “Will do.” He glanced at Bialo. “Other execs vanished from Cries, though. Not from here.”

  “So far. But, listen: All three come here, all three go to the Desert Winds. Got a connection.”

  “What about Scorp-corp and Abyss?” Jak asked. “They linked?”

  “Not really.” I thought for a moment. “Need to look at other corps, other execs who come here. See if any more have links.”

  Jak spoke in a low voice, his head turned away from Daan. “I’ll check.”

  Such a simple statement—for such an explosive idea.

  Jak had just put words to his deadly secret, that he could cross-reference members of the most elite club on one of the most powerful worlds in the Imperialate with the list of who frequented Raylicon’s most notorious criminal establishment. A blackmailer couldn’t find a more lucrative list, and he had just offered it to an investigator for the royal family. Gods, no wonder people wanted me dead. Him too, if they realized he knew.

  Jak’s gauntlet hummed, and Royal’s voice floated into the air. “Angel is downstairs.”

  “Good,” Jak said. “Got a slick for her.”

  “Eh, Royal,” I said.

  The EI’s voice deepened into a sexual rumble. “Good evening, Major.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Jak. “You tell your EI to talk to me like that?”

  He laughed, another deep and sensual sound. “He talks how he wants.” His smile faded as he tilted his head toward Daan. “Get him home, fast.”

  Angel met us in a foyer that sometimes served as an exit from the Black Mark. Hexagonal in shape, with a high ceiling, the room moved within the casino to wherever Jak wanted it. The only light came from wall niches that gave off a red glow. Each held a human skull, its teeth inlaid with diamonds and its eye sockets bejeweled with rubies. Angel leaned against one wall, taller even than me, her body backlit by the red light, her muscled arms crossed, her trousers tucked into boots covered with red canal dust. A pair of goggles hung off her belt and she wore her knife in a finely tooled leather sheath.

  As Daan and I entered the foyer, he gaped at Angel. The door closed behind us and the hum of motors rumbled under our feet.

  “This is Angel,” I told Daan.

  “Her name is Angel?”

  “Yah,” she said. “Angel.”

  Normally we didn’t reveal our names to outsiders, but Angel got a kick out of the effect hers had on Jak’s clientele. She nodded to Daan. He stared back at her, apparently not realizing she had just offered him the Undercity equivalent of a friendly greeting.

  “Pretty,” she told him.

  Daan’s face turned red. He looked like he didn’t know whether to be afraid or fascinated. Our ancient bloodlines ran strong in the Undercity, undiluted by civilization; Angel was a throwback to the warrior queens who had ruled Raylicon thousands of years ago. Still, he had nothing to fear from her. If anything, she felt protective toward the handsome slick. I doubted she’d feel so generous if she knew what he thought of us, but as long as he kept his mouth shut, he’d be fine.

  Angel gave the goggles to Daan. He turned as pale as a moonstone when he took them, but he didn’t protest. Any slick who visited Jak’s illicit den knew this drill. They all had to do it, no matter how great their wealth or power. Say no and you’d never find the casino.

  Daan pulled on the goggles and adjusted their silencers over his ears. The eyepiece was still transparent, letting us see his uneasy gaze. Angel tapped her gauntlets and the goggles went dark, making him deaf and blind. They also locked into place on his head so he couldn’t remove them. His posture became so tense, the tendons in his neck stood out.

  Angel glanced at me. “You come with?”

  “Yah.” I tapped the wall in a place no different than the rest of the room, unless you were one of the few people the foyer recognized. The hum of its engines stopped and a doorway opened onto a maze of twisty rock passages. Light trickled from the foyer into the darkness outside.

  Max, I thought. Crank up my senses.

  Done.

  The passages outside became easier to see as my night vision amped up. The augmentation could blind me in brighter light, but here it worked fine. I became aware of dust rustling in the air currents, which blew through a web of conduits that came down from the desert and extended throughout the Undercity. Our ancestors had designed that network thousands of years ago to keep our air fresh, and in these modern times, our structural wizards rigorously maintained the system.

  Angel guided Daan outside, and I followed. The Black Mark closed up, leaving us in darkness so complete that even with enhanced vision I couldn’t see squat. I touched my gauntlet, turning on a dim light embedded in its leather. The casino blended so well with the stone around us that if we hadn’t known it was there, we wouldn’t have seen it. I doubted it would be here for more than another hour or two, however long it took Jak to send his patrons home and fold up shop. Then he’d disappear.

  We headed into the tunnels, with Angel leading Daan. The passages were so narrow, they brushed my shoulders. A few times, we turned sideways to squeeze through. I knew the way; Jak and I had played here as small children, wandered this maze as older kids, and found hiding places for a different kind of play when we were older.

  Daan never spoke. His unease felt like mist in the air. I tried to read his mood, relaxing my mind the way Doctor Sanva had suggested with her exercises. I felt nothing. Well, okay, I did sense that Daan was thinking about what to do with his winnings, but yah, what else would he be thinking about. He wanted to transfer his credits. No, that wasn’t right. He wanted them in the Kyle mesh? That made no sense. Exasperated, I dropped my clumsy attempts to reach him.

  So we went, trekking through tunnels under the desert. It amazed me that Jak’s patrons were willing to go through all this to reach his casino. I supposed it added to the aura of mystery. Eventually we entered a more open area where we couldn’t touch the walls on either side. The silence became too complete—

  I grabbed Angel and Daan and threw us all to the side, smashing into a ragged stalagmite.

  “Hey!” Daan yelled.

  “Protect him!” I told Angel as I scrambled to my feet. In the same instant, the ground where we’d been a moment before rippled.

  “Jump!” I yelled. “Both of you!”

  As I leapt into the air, the ground beneath us roiled in a whirlpool as if it were liquid—and collapsed into the tunnel below.

  CHAPTER X

  HIGH MESH

  I fell through the air and into the collapsing tunnel with a rain of broken rock. Dust went down my throat and nose, choking me. The ragged debris scraping my arms and face felt like fused rock. I slammed into the ground of the passage below and falling rocks pummeled my body.

  “Angel!” I shouted.

  “Here,” she said from somewhere close.

  “Daan?”

  “Here, too,” she said. “Can’t hear you.”

  I climbed to my feet, knocking away the slag. It reminded me of shrapnel fused by plasma artillery. “He breathing?”

  “Think so.”

  I needed better than think so. “Let him see and hear. We need to run.”

  “What the hell happened?” Daan said.

  I exhaled with relief. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” It sounded like he’d pulled off his goggles, which he couldn’t do unless Angel unlocked them. “What threw us around?”

  “The tunnel exploded.” I could see now as the dust settled. Daan stood a few paces away, and Angel towered behind him, one large hand on his shoulde
r.

  “Come on.” I scooped up a handful of the slag. “We need to get out of here.” The walls creaked around us. I had no intention of discovering if more of the tunnel was going to collapse.

  “Don’t know this level,” Angel said.

  “I do.” I dumped the slag into my pack and slung it onto my back. “Follow me.”

  We picked our way free of the debris and took off running.

  We raced for over a kilometer. Daan kept our pace, gasping as he ran. I didn’t call a stop until we reached the Foyer at the top level of the aqueducts. We stood together in a clump, catching our breath. Daan bent over with his hands braced against his knees and gulped in air.

  The Foyer was about fifteen paces across, with a ceiling as tall as two of me, one standing on the shoulders of the other. The walls resembled stone lace, created by mineral-rich water dripping in past ages. Rock stumps offered places to sit if anyone wanted them, which mostly no one ever did. My people had secret ways to come and go, and we avoided this entrance. It served as the “official” exit from the aqueducts to the Concourse, its archway opening into the lower end of the avenue. An ancient sculptor had carved arabesque designs around that exit so long ago, no one remembered who created that exquisite artwork. Beyond it, the Concourse was visible, draped in a smoky haze, the dregs of an alley that only became an upscale boulevard farther up its length. Its light filtered into the Foyer, along with tendrils of smoke from the braziers.

  Angel gave me the goggles Daan had worn. “I go back.”