The Vanished Seas (Major Bhaajan series Book 3)

by Catherine Asaro

  “Yah. Tell the Knights.” I didn’t want to believe our attackers came from the aqueducts, but who else could have blown up the tunnel? Without a guide, outsiders never got below the top levels of the canals. Gangs harassed them from hiding places, throwing knives and taunts; drug punkers mugged them for their valuables; and cyber-riders screwed up their tech-mech, corrupting their systems. We had an unspoken agreement with Cries: As long as my people stayed put, without going onto the Concourse, Cries left us alone. Mostly it worked.

  To reach the tunnels where we’d been attacked, an intruder would need help from someone who knew the aqueducts. We had to warn the Dust Knights: keep watch, stay on guard, protect. I regarded Angel in silence and she inclined her head, acknowledging my unspoken directive. She’d tell her dust gang, and they would tell the other Knights. The warning of what had happened would spread throughout the Undercity.

  Angel jogged back toward the aqueducts, taking a wide path that sloped downward. A street lamp shone there, one of the few Cries maintained below the Concourse. It wasn’t for those of us who lived in the Undercity; the city posted it for any tourist foolish enough to wander this far. I liked it, though. The post had an antique look, aged bronze, with a top that curled in a loop. Its lamp hung by a chain from the loop, shedding golden light on the path.

  Daan straightened up, breathing more normally. “Where is she going?”

  “Back to work.” I turned to him. “You okay?”

  He gave an unsteady laugh. “That was something! What happened? An avalanche?”

  “I don’t know. The ground blew up.”

  His smiled vanished. “What?”

  “Something attacked us.” I scowled at him. “Which was why you were supposed to stay with your police protection. You’re lucky you didn’t become another statistic in this business of vanishing people who have too much money and too little sense.”

  Daan squinted at me. “You shouldn’t talk to me that way.” He sounded a lot less certain about it than he had in the casino.

  “For fuck’s sake.” Would it kill him to say thank you for saving my over-indulged life?

  “I don’t understand you.” He seemed more confused than angry. “You sound like one of them. You shouldn’t slum that way. I guess you have to if you’re working a case, so you blend in. But you shouldn’t act that way to me.”

  Gods. He still didn’t get it. I spoke curtly. “I grew up here. I didn’t leave until I enlisted in the army. No one from Cries could ‘slum’ here. You can’t get anywhere without a guide. Even if you did manage without getting mugged or whacked, we’d know you weren’t one of us.”

  “You’re from the undercity?” He made the word sound as if it wasn’t capitalized, like if I said he came from the city of cries.

  “Yah, I’m from the Undercity,” I said.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Is it now? How interesting.”

  “No, I mean, seriously, you can’t be from here.”

  “And why is that?”

  “You’re too intelligent. Too educated.” He shook his head as if to push away an indigestible idea. “You’re physically superior to most people. You were an officer in the army. You’re too beautiful to be a dust rat. I mean, you do have a wild quality, but I assumed you affected it to seem more exotic. You look too young to be a retired major who’s been a PI for over a decade, which means you have health meds to delay your aging. I mean, come on. No way could a homeless nobody with inferior genes achieve even a small part of that.”

  I just stared at him. So much was wrong with everything he’d just said, I had no idea how to respond. If I said what I wanted, Max would chew me out for my profanity, not to mention my lack of originality. Yah, I needed some new curses.

  “We have to go.” I lifted my hand, indicating the archway that led out onto the Concourse.

  His face went pale. “I can’t go out there. People will see me.”

  Yah, well, tough. “It’s the only way back to Cries.”

  “No, it’s not. They brought me in a secret way. Take me out that way.”

  “Too dangerous.” I met his gaze. “I’d have to put you in the goggles, which means you couldn’t defend yourself if someone tries to kill you again.”

  “But they didn’t really—” He stopped. “I mean, that wasn’t a murder attempt, was it? It was just some Undercity gang prank, right?”

  “No.”

  He waited, as if I was going to qualify the statement. When I didn’t, he said, “Why would anyone want to kill me?”

  “Good question. Maybe the same reason someone disappeared Quida and Starchild.”

  “This makes no sense! I barely know Mara and I’ve never met Chiaru Starchild.”

  “You all have two traits in common,” I told him. “You belong to the Desert Winds and you gamble at the Black Mark.”

  He glanced away from me. “Oh.”

  I had no intention of letting that one go. “Does that have a translation?”

  Daan looked at me. “I’ve seen them at the Winds a few times.”

  “Did the three of you ever do anything together?”

  “No. We socialize in different networks.”

  “What about at the casino? You play in the same poker game? Make bets together?”

  “I can’t remember any time we were even at the same table.” He regarded me uneasily. “You seem to know the proprietor. Perhaps he has, um, records?”

  Given that Jak promised his clients secrecy, which was part of why they paid him so much, I had no intention of giving away the fact that he did indeed keep records of everything. I said only, “The Black Mark is completely off-grid.” For Cries, anyway.

  “I never went to the casino with either Mara or Chiaru,” Daan said. “At least, not that I know. I was always blindfolded and deaf, so I couldn’t say if anyone was with me.”

  “You ever sleep with either of them? Or both?”

  “No!” He reddened. “They’re married. Besides, Chiaru Starchild isn’t interested in men.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  He shifted his feet. “I heard it in the news broadcast about her disappearance.”

  “No, you didn’t.” The Starchilds kept their private lives exactly that: private. “How are you privy to details about her personal life if you’ve never met her and know nothing about her?”

  He crossed his arms. “I don’t need to tell you anything.”

  “Well, no.” I tapped his forehead. “But if you want us to stop people from trying to blow holes in your head, I suggest you tell me everything you can.” I lowered my arm. “Look, I know you go to the Black Mark. I’m obviously not going to tell the cops, since I was there too.”

  He thought about that. “Here’s the thing.” He stopped, started to speak, and stopped again. Finally he said, “All three of us are in the High Mesh. It’s a smaller, uh, club. Invitation only.”

  “What does it do?”

  He hesitated for so long, I wondered if he’d answer at all. Then he said, “Understand me, Major. This is confidential. If you relate what I tell you to anyone, I will report your activities in the Black Mark to the Cries police force.” He gave me a look that was apparently supposed to appear significant, maybe even threatening. “To the Majdas, even.”

  Yah, right. I was shaking in my boots. The cops and the Majdas already knew about my association with Jak and his casino, since it helped me solve cases no one else could crack. I’d given the army full disclosure of my life decades ago. Still, if Daan thought I feared exposure, he might be more forthcoming.

  “Understood,” I said. “You keep my secrets, I keep yours.” No one ever said Undercity bargains had to be fair, only that we had to make them.

  Daan spoke with pride. “The High Mesh is a club dedicated to sponsoring new technologies that are under our control, both the research and deployment, without outside influence.” He sounded like he’d been dying to tell someone.

  He made it sound innocuo
us, just a “club.” But technology was power. The more control they had over the methods, production, and creation of valuable new tech, the more power they gained. Just what we needed, a secret cabal of elitist, wealthy execs finding insidious ways to control human populations, as if the Imperialate didn’t have enough of that shit already.

  “I don’t see the point,” I lied.

  He spoke too casually. “It’s no big deal. Just an engineering club. Nothing you’d know.”

  Yah, right. My university degree was in mechanical engineering. “I’m sure I don’t. What I do need to know is the link with the Black Mark.” I had to protect Jak.

  He cleared his throat. “Well.”

  I waited. “Well, what?”

  “We get messages through the casino.”

  “What kind of messages?”

  His gaze shifted away from me. “Nothing important.”

  “Sure it’s not. That’s why someone blew a hole in the tunnel.” They’d done worse than collapse the passage; they’d somehow melted it, impossible as that seemed.

  Daan rubbed his eyes. In the casino, he’d sported an elegant look, but now dust covered him, his clothes were torn, his hair straggled around his face, and sweat soaked his shirt, so much that its smart cloth couldn’t keep itself dry and wrinkle free. “A dealer at the casino tells us where our next meeting will take place.”

  “A dealer? Of what? Drugs?”

  “No. One of the card dealers at the poker table.”

  I couldn’t believe someone on Jak’s staff was passing messages for execs. “Who?”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  Him. That was a start. “What does he look like?”

  “I don’t know. Blue hair. Longish. Good-looking, I guess.” He scratched his ear. “He was wearing a silver shirt. You know, like all the dealers dress, in tight clothes. Black pants, I think.”

  “Young? Old? Thin? Husky?”

  “I don’t know.” He squinted at me. “Young, I guess. Women are easier to remember.”

  That was probably enough for Jak to identify him. “So you do see Mara Quida and Chiaru Starchild, just not at the Desert Winds or the casino. This dealer tells you where to meet. Then you all get together and talk about your projects.” I underplayed what he’d told me. The more he thought I didn’t understand what they were doing, the better.

  “Something like that.”

  “How does a dealer at the Black Mark know where you’re supposed to meet?” I kept my voice mild, almost disinterested, like a bored PI who had to do her job.

  “I guess someone tells him.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s just a few of us. Like a hobby club.” He smiled in an offhand manner. “We just share a common interest, you could say.”

  We could indeed. We were pretending this wasn’t a big deal, but I felt chilled. Powerful people belonged to the Desert Winds, including General Vaj Majda, Matriarch of the House of Majda, General of the Pharaoh’s Army, and the queen of a financial empire. If she also belonged to this High Mesh, it turned my view of the Majdas sideways. It still didn’t make sense, though, that she would order Sav Halin to shoot me after the gala. If Vaj Majda was part of this High Mesh, she had a vested interest in discovering why two of its members had vanished.

  I regarded Daan with fake sympathy. “I guess you’ll have to give up this hobby club.”

  He stiffened. “Why would I do that?”

  “They like to meet in secret. You know, like those clubs at university.” It wasn’t the least bit like any honor society I knew, where the meetings weren’t really secret, but a ritual to build camaraderie. If he thought I believed they were similar, though, that worked in my favor. “Once they know about what happened tonight, they’ll kick you out.”

  He crossed his arms. “What, are you going to tell them?”

  “Why would I do that? I don’t want anyone to know I was at the Black Mark.”

  “Good.” Relief flickered across his face. “I don’t need to say anything, either. It will be our secret. No one needs to know.” He almost looked contrite. “I’ll stay with my police escort after this. I’ll tell them I slipped away to meet a woman.”

  I thought of my work as a PI before the Majdas hired me. His excuse would actually work. “That’s one of the most common reasons people sneak away from their bodyguards.”

  “I can imagine.” He started to step toward the exit, then stopped. “If we walk onto the Concourse like this, people will know I’ve been in the Undercity. Rumors will start.”

  Well, damn. He had a point. As tempted as I was to make him walk the Concourse after his trash talk about the Undercity, I couldn’t. I had to protect myself. If we went out there now, it would be obvious we’d been up to shenanigans down here. Rumors would spread like a desert whirlwind. It would probably scare the hell out of this High Mesh, making them wonder what I’d discovered. I had to keep a low profile, which meant sparing Daan the indignity of his walk of shame.

  “Oh, all right.” I gave him the goggles. “Put this on and I’ll take you out the secret way.”

  He didn’t look at all comfortable, but he donned the goggles and I activated them. Then we set off for the back ways through the Concourse.

  If we were lucky, we’d stay alive for another day.

  The window-wall in my penthouse didn’t need to dim this early in the morning. With the sun rising behind the building, the desert below lay in shadow. I stood gazing at the view, drinking a steaming mug of cacao. The stark beauty of the scene soothed my thoughts. The land stretched in folds until it reached the jagged black mountains on the horizon. I tried to imagine an ocean filling that basin, its waves crashing on the shore. It would flood the City of Cries and drown the Undercity. That ocean had ceased to exist so long ago that even the geologists who studied Raylicon weren’t certain when it dried up. The Vanished Sea: It felt like an apt metaphor this morning when I still had two missing execs and only opaque clues about what happened to them.

  I’d slept alone last night, after the adventure with the exploding tunnel. Jak had the Black Mark to worry about, and I hadn’t expected him to come here. I did miss him, though.

  “Greetings, Max,” I said. “Can you send a message to Tallmount? I need to talk to her.”

  “Good morning,” Max said. “Message sent.”

  “Any news about the Majdas?”

  “Nothing unusual. Lavinda Majda wants to know how the investigation is proceeding.”

  “Set up a meeting with her.” After last night, I had plenty of questions about Majda involvement in this case. I couldn’t risk asking them outright, but I had other methods.

  “Message sent.”

  “Thanks.” I rubbed my abdomen, wincing. All that activity last night had reopened my wound. Although I’d treated it when I got home, it still hurt. “Max, what kind of recording did you get in the tunnel last night?”

  “It’s choppy and dark. Do you want to see it?”

  I nodded, then remembered he wasn’t monitoring my head. “Yes. Run it above the carpet.”

  Lights glowed and a holo appeared in the air showing a dark, blurry image of Angel leading Daan through a tunnel. I could only see as much of myself as the cams in my gauntlets showed for my body. In the recording, I grabbed Angel and Daan and threw us against a stalagmite. Daan yelled and I told Angel to protect him as I drew my gun.

  “Max, stop the recording.”

  The holos froze with Angel and Daan in the process of standing up.

  “No one else is there but us,” I said. “Who set the explosives?”

  “It’s too dark to see everything,” Max said. “Someone could be hiding in the wall cavities.”

  “I suppose.” I rubbed my chin. “I thought I heard a sound just before I threw us all to the side, but it isn’t on this recording. Is it set to account for my ears being augmented last night?”

  “Yes. You should be able to hear anything now that you heard l
ast night.”

  “Huh. Weird. Continue.”

  The images moved again. I shouted, we all jumped, and the cave exploded.

  “Freeze,” I said. The replay stopped with all of us in midair, along with flying debris. “That explosion looks like it came from a bot-bomb.”

  “I’d say a class 4C bot,” Max said. “Minimal AI, not fast enough to judge your location.”

  “That’s a pretty stupid bomb.” It didn’t fit with my image of the High Mesh.

  “It was a logical choice,” Max said. “Anything larger could have brought down the ceiling.”

  “Yah, but even with a minimal AI, the bomb still should have caught us.”

  “It looked like you dodged in the exact instant the bomb launched. If you’d moved a second later, it would have hit you; a second earlier, it would have had time to recalibrate your position.”

  I squinted at my image. “How did you know?” I murmured.

  “It just looks that way,” Max said.

  “I meant me. How did I know the exact moment to dodge?” A sound couldn’t have warned me. By the time I heard someone throw a bomb, it would have been too late to dodge.

  “Situational awareness,” Max said. “It’s always been one of your strong points.”

  “I know I’m good at it. But this needed too much luck.”

  “Maybe you sensed the shooter. You are an empath, after all.”

  “Not a strong one, and I’ve no idea how to use it.” I studied the images. “Continue.”

  The holos moved again. The ground in the image liquefied, swirling like a whirlpool. It collapsed into the tunnel below us, solidifying into debris as it fell. We came down with a chaotic tumble of slag while debris rained over us.

  “Freeze,” I said.

  The recording stopped with Angel tucking into a roll as she hit the ground, Daan flailing, and me flipping in midair. “Max, I knew it was going to happen, and it wasn’t some weird empath shit.” I walked around the holos, studying the scene. “Can you run it backwards, in slow motion?”

  “Yes. Tell me when to stop.”

  The motion reversed, all three of us going upward in slow motion, and the cloud of flying debris contracting upward from the tunnel. The melted rock swirled in the other direction as the floor reformed beneath us. We came down—