Baen Books Free Stories 2017

by Baen Books

I closed my eyes, as if that could stop the tears that threatened to spill. “Only gone six years.”

  “Six years. Forever.”

  I hurt inside, even though I’d looked forward to this day for nearly a year. I’d learned so much after Gourd got me better access to the educational webs in Cries. I’d read and studied every day, preparing so I wouldn’t fail the exams this time. I’d also gone through the entire mesh site for the Pharaoh’s Army, memorizing every rule and regulation I could find.

  “Come with me,” I said.

  “Can’t. Die in army.”

  “Not join. Just come.”

  “Can’t leave,” he told me. “My home. Get casino.”

  He had a dream, too. I couldn’t share it with him. I didn’t want to be a thug for his casino much more than I wanted to be a thug for the cartel. But ah, gods, I didn’t want to leave him, either.

  Jadix Kajada didn’t want me to enlist. She never stopped trying to break my spirit, even if it meant beating me up herself, when I defied her in front of her drug punkers. It enraged Dig, especially when the punkers held her back while her mother pounded me. It was no good. As long as I stayed here, challenging Jadix, it put Dig in an impossible position. That Dig always defended me, without hesitation, told me volumes about her, all of it good, but I could never get past the crushing truth that someday, if this kept up, Jadix would have to kill either me or Dig. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I had no idea how to tell Jak what I felt. So I said, “You start casino, cops break it.”

  “Nahya.” He kissed my ear. “Use nano stuff to build. Put up fast, take down fast. Hide.”

  I knew he meant the nanobot-doped composites that could remake an entire structure in minutes if you knew how to program them. He was right, it would make it possible for him to hide his gambling den here. The above-city slicks would come for the illegal games, but he’d control who played in his casino, all three syllables of it. Unfortunately, nanos like that cost more credits than either of us would ever see in a lifetime.

  “No bargain big enough to get nanos,” I said.

  “Wrong, Bhaajo. Win with dice.” He nuzzled my hair. “With cards.”

  He had a point. If anyone could win that many credits, it was Jak. Everyone knew about him now. The whisper mill went wild with tales of his exploits. People loved him, as long as he didn’t gamble with them. His dice skill was legendary, and he could count cards so well that most poker dens wouldn’t let him play anymore.

  “Need workers for casino,” I pointed out.

  “Give jobs.” He laid his head next to mine. “Food for work. Water for tending bar. Mesh time for dealing cards. Take care of people. Our people.”

  I understood. We’d all learned from Dig: you cared for the people you looked after, always, whether they were your circle or they worked for you. Jak’s dream was as vivid for him as mine was for me. I couldn’t ask him to come away. He would hate the life of an army spouse.

  I’d never doubted Jak would give back to our people by taking from the wealthy in Cries, trading his vices for their silence about his activities. And yes, I knew now gambling wasn’t illegal everywhere, that the City of Cries was considered the most conservative government center in the Imperialate. But we lived here, not somewhere else, and gambling could become an addiction anywhere. Even if I found a way to make peace with it, I couldn’t turn back, not when I finally understood what lay beyond the Undercity. Wanderlust pulled me toward the stars. I couldn’t be what Jak wanted any more than he could come with me.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. With that one word, I broke our unwritten laws. Never show vulnerability. I didn’t care. I held him in the night with tears on my face as we made love for the last time, the sweetest love I’d ever known. I’d never kissed another man, never touched anyone else in this way. I held him in the darkness and mourned a loss I had yet to know.

  #

  Gourd didn’t talk as he unrolled his mesh screen. He tapped the edges, and holos formed above it in a network of lines. “Cries mesh,” he said, staring at the image.

  “Look at me,” I said.

  He looked. “Eh, Bhaaj.”

  “I send messages,” I promised. “For you, Dig, Jak. Everyone.”

  He motioned toward the network. “Set up done. You send, we receive.”

  “Good.” I would tell them about my adventures. After having read about the life of an army grunt, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy to send them messages from offworld, but I’d manage.

  Gourd tapped his screen and a new holo replaced the network. This one showed a woman and a man with glittering black hair, red eyes, and elegant black clothes. Their alabaster faces were so perfect, they seemed like sculptures. Arrogance was written in every line of their features, as if they could dismiss the worth of all other humanity with a wave of the hand.

  “Aristos,” I said. The title left a sour taste in my mouth.

  “Fight them,” Gourd said.

  “Not them. Their slaves.”

  The first thing I’d done, after I left the recruiting center last year, was learn who I would fight if I returned on my sixteenth birthday. I had to know before I could enlist. I refused to fight for Jadix, and I wouldn’t fight for anyone else who asked me to go against the way I felt I had to live. Orin called it my moral code. I knew only that I had to find out more about these enemies.

  So I learned about the Trader Aristos.

  They called themselves the Eubian Concord. My people called them Traders because they based their economy on buying and selling people. Until last year, my world had consisted of a few hundred people in the Undercity and what little I saw of the Concourse. When I learned Raylicon was only one world in the Skolian Imperialate, a civilization that included nearly a trillion people across hundreds of worlds and habitats, at first I couldn’t understand. It took me months to absorb the impact. The Skolian Imperialate. I was a Skolian citizen.

  The Trader Aristos ruled an empire twice the size of ours. Yet only about two thousand Aristos existed, a race of genetically altered narcissists obsessed with the “purity” of their bloodlines and their conviction that they—and only they—had worth. The rest of us were no more than products for sale, worthless except in what we could do for them. They owned over two trillion people. To them, the mere act of ownership exalted their slaves. They wanted to add my people to those ranks, all trillion of us.

  I hadn’t believed it at first. Although I didn’t know the word propaganda when I started my search, I understood the idea. So I looked up speeches made by Aristos themselves. I read the translations provided by their scholars. And I learned the truth. Aristos were worse than what the Skolian government told us. Our military played down the danger, to keep people from panicking, but the news broadcasts were there for anyone willing to look for them.

  Aristos believed they were gods and the rest of us were nothing. They made Jadix look like a sweet girl, but they did it with the appearance of ice-cold elegance. They committed genocide when people rebelled against their rule. I read about their “re-education” centers, their genetic experiments, their torture camps, and I threw up. I didn’t tell anyone. This holo of two Aristos, that was all I showed them. I told them the Aristos would enslave our people. That was enough. I never wanted them to know what truly lay out there, beyond the limitations of our self-contained world.

  Gourd was watching my face. He spoke softly. “Stay strong.”

  I forced myself to grin. “Always.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t seem real. His eyes showed grief, not laughter. He put his hand on top of mine, his palm resting against my knuckles. “Be well, friend.”

  My voice caught. “And you.”

  I didn’t know if any of us would be well, but tomorrow, on my sixteenth birthday, the future waited.

  #

  A solitary lamppost cast light over the path to the Foyer. In the past year, I’d mapped out routes from here to the surface, finding the best ways to avoid tourists. I’d bee
n lucky that first time. No cops sighted me. Since then, I’d practiced the route, just barely avoiding capture a few times, honing my choices until I could jog up the Concourse.

  Yesterday, I’d done a final round of practice exams, using old tests I found on city and army mesh sites. I’d do better this time. Jak and I loved playing math games, and we’d searched out ways this year to get even better, especially anything that would help him win at dice or cards. I’d also learned what IQ meant, that many types existed, not just pattern recognition and spatial perception, but tests for creativity, problem solving, emotional and artistic intelligence, empathy and mental acuity. I still didn’t get the emotional tests, at least in relation to my own feelings. At a gut level, I understood how the people around me felt. It kept me alive, knowing how to judge how people would react and why, but I had no idea how to put that into words.

  Last night I’d cleaned my best clothes and left them out to dry. This morning I bathed in the grotto. I combed my hair, even trimmed the locks that fell down my back. I understood now what would happen when I enlisted. I’d be shipped offworld, spend two years in school and training, and then be deployed to fight the Traders in a war waged by millions across distances of light years.

  Today marked my sixteenth birthday. I’d said my good-byes. I was ready. And yet—I continued to stand here. Once I started, nothing would turn me back. But I had to take the first step.

  I drew in a deep breath, then let it out. Yah. Time to go.

  A woman spoke behind me. “Bhaaj.”

  I turned around. Dig stood a few paces down the path. At eighteen, she had come into her prime, tall and powerful, a queen among the dust gangs.

  I walked over to her. “Eh, Dig.”

  She watched me with a fiery stare. “Not go.”

  I met her gaze. “Got to go.”

  “Why? This learning like slicks—it’s wrong, Bhaaj.”

  “Education not wrong. Worth everything.”

  Dig lifted her fist. “This is worth everything.” She opened her fist. “Read, write, sociology, astronomy—gives nothing.”

  I stared at her. It wasn’t the comment itself that struck me; she’d never hid how much she disliked my studies. But she couldn’t be as dismissive as she claimed if she knew how to say words like sociology and astronomy. We didn’t even have concepts for those subjects in the aqueducts. Dig had to have learned about them herself, at least enough to use the words.

  I didn’t know how to tell her what it meant to me, how I craved to know more, see more, travel more, to learn and learn and learn until my brain filled up and glowed.

  “I like,” I said.

  “Nahya.”

  “Yah!” I stumbled over the ideas. “Like treasure. Every day, new, shining.” Gods, that sounded stupid. Shining. Right. “Makes me better.” I stopped, frustrated with my inability to explain.

  She spoke flatly. “Betrayal.”

  What could I say? I was leaving her, our home, all of it. That everyone had known for almost a year that this day would come made it no easier.

  “You, me, always kin,” I said. “But with me gone, no more fights with Jadix.”

  She spat to the side. “Fuck Jadix.”

  “Kin.”

  “Not the right way.” She struggled with her words. “If ever I have—little dusters—not same.”

  I understood what she was trying to say. If she had children, she would care for and protect them as she did for all of us.

  “Teach them,” I said.

  Her gaze turned cold. “Teach them loyalty.”

  I doubted she would ever forgive me for leaving. “Yah. Loyalty.” I took a breath. “Teach them to read, Dig. Let them learn everything, not just fighting.”

  She looked at me.

  I touched her hand, then pulled back, afraid to reveal my turmoil. “Be well, friend.”

  For a long moment she said nothing. Then she turned and walked away.

  I felt as if I were dying. But I’d made my decision. I walked in the other direction.

  “Bhaaj.”

  I stopped to look back. Dig was standing at the top of the spiral staircase that would take her down to the aqueducts. She lifted her hand. “Be well.”

  I lifted my hand. “And you.”

  Then I left, headed up to the City of Cries.

  Conclusion:

  The rest of my history is a matter of record. I enlisted on my sixteenth birthday. This time I passed my exams, including exceptional marks in mathematics. According to my IQ and aptitude tests, I showed a high analytic ability, particularly in problem solving, spatial perception, and self-determination. It took me less than a year to finish my schooling. I became an emancipated minor at seventeen and shipped out with my battalion. I climbed my way out of the enlisted ranks into officer candidate school, earned a university degree in engineering, and became a commissioned officer. I stayed in the military for twenty years, first as a lieutenant, then a captain, then a major. When I retired, I became a private investigator.

  I wish I could say coming home to the Undercity was easy. It wasn’t. I had become a different person by then. But in the end I stayed, serving as the liaison between the Cries government and my people, working to improve conditions in the aqueducts without destroying our unique culture. I also work on retainer as a PI for the House of Majda. I can go places and talk to people that no one in their stratospheric circles can reach. I’m sometimes asked why I spend so much time in the Undercity when I have a penthouse in Cries. The aqueducts will always be my home, no matter how much wealth I accrue. I will give back and pay forward until the day comes when I can no longer walk the canals.

  As to why I’ve been seen in the company of an Undercity kingpin, the crime boss whose casino has become an elusive legend, frequented by the glitterati of the empire—well, the narrative speaks for itself about Jak. Gourd is also still alive, using his engineering genius to provide fresh water, light, healthy food, and life to generations of children in the aqueducts.

  And Dig. My sister.

  History will list Dig Kajada as the most notorious cartel queen ever known in the Undercity. What those histories can’t tell you is why. To understand the legacy she left with her death, you need to understand Dig.

  No one witnessed the attack that left Jadix Kajada dead from stab wounds, but I have no doubt Hammer Vakaar killed her. If the Vakaar cartel boss expected that murder to leave her with control of the Undercity, she fast discovered just how badly she had miscalculated. In Dig Kajada, Hammer faced an even more formidable rival, one who would never forgive her for murdering the one human being Dig most wanted to reach. In killing Jadix, Hammer robbed Dig of her chance to crack the uncaring monolith that was her mother.

  After I enlisted, Dig no longer had to deal with the threat of my defiance against Jadix. It freed her to concentrate on trying to form a bond with her mother. Did she succeed? I doubt it. Jadix wasn’t capable of loving anyone. She had only one child, a mistake she’d never intended to make. She went through with the pregnancy because having a strong daughter made her look powerful, but she had no use for Dig beyond whatever benefit an heir could offer in her machinations to control the Undercity.

  The same wasn’t true for Dig. If anything, she cared more than any of us. She swore we would have good lives no matter what it cost her, that we would know we were wanted. I never starved as a child, never suffered malnutrition, never lived alone with fear. If not for Dig, her mother would have probably killed my defiant self before I reached my sixteenth birthday. Dig did what she had to so the rest of us could have lives worth living, even if that meant she had to work for the cartel. She gave up her soul so the people she loved could thrive.

  Under Dig’s leadership, the cartel grew even more powerful, reaching its tentacles to new markets in both the Undercity and Cries. It’s true, Dig was savvier and stronger than Jadix, but what made her more successful was that she knew how to lead, not through intimidation and cruelty, but in building the loy
alty of the people who worked for her. Had life offered a different path—had someone done for Dig what she did for those of us in her circle—she could have become a great leader.

  Instead she became a monster.

  The broadcasts claim Dig and Hammer died in the war that exploded between Kajada and Vakaar. It’s true the battle was a culmination of generations of hatred between the two cartels, and it’s also true that Dig Kajada killed Hammer Vakaar. What the histories don’t say is this: Dig didn’t go to war because she wanted sole control of the drug trade. She took vengeance because Hammer had murdered her mother, and then years later her lover, the father of her four children. Dig gave her life to protect her children during the final battle of the cartel war.

  And there lies the difference between her and Jadix.

  Dig Kajada loved with a fierce intensity. She refused to let the drug trade touch her family. From the day her children were born, she separated them from the brutal truth of her life. She insisted they educate themselves, especially Digjan, her eldest. As Dig was dying, she told Digjan to follow in my footsteps. My path. She swore that if her daughter tried to take over the cartel, she would come back from the dead to stop her.

  You’ve all seen Digjan. Her intent to enlist is on record, as is the army recommendation that she instead be considered for the Dieshan Military Academy that commissions Jagernauts, the fighter pilots of ISC. You’ve seen the exam scores that place her in the top tier of all DMA applicants, her remarkable spatial perception and situational awareness, her strength and athletic prowess. You’ve seen her clean bill of health. You’ve also seen the tests that show her neurological development is exceptionally well suited to the mental links required for Jagernaut pilots with their spacecraft. Digjan Kajada is a miracle—a brilliant, taciturn, honest, loyal, spectacular miracle.

  I’ve been asked to give this statement to offer insight into why I am sponsoring Digjan’s application to DMA. Is it real? Could the daughter of Dig Kajada and the granddaughter of Jadix Kajada truly be this incredible young woman?