Undercity (6 page)
Authors: Catherine Asaro
Tags: #Fiction, #science fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Space Opera
After I retired from the army, I came back to Raylicon with some nebulous idea that I could find a place to live in the city of my childhood. I wanted to see Cries from the perspective of someone who lived in the above-city. It hadn’t worked and in the end, I had left, I thought forever. After all, they say you can never go home again, whoever “they” is. And yet here I was, once more in the undercity.
Today I followed the midwalk of a shallow waterway only about a meter across. Up ahead, its wall had fallen, blocking my way, a mound of rubble nearly as tall as me. It hadn’t been here seven years ago. I clambered over the debris and squeezed through the hole it left in the wall, entering an even narrower canal. It didn’t surprise me that this entire area seemed deserted; with such a low population in the undercity and such extensive aqueducts, you could walk for a long time without seeing anyone.
Of course that didn’t mean no one was here. These canals were networked with crannies, and crevices, and anyone could be watching from a hiding place. Although my holstered pulse gun was visible, I doubted that was why no one bothered me. For all that I lived and worked in the above-city now, I fooled no one here with my veneer of civilization. They knew their own. However, they hadn’t accepted me, either. They were waiting to see what I would do.
I carried the jammer in my backpack, shrouding myself. No doubt Chief Takkar was trying to track me through the biomech web in my body. That was illegal of course, except for the topmost military brass. Like the General of the Pharaoh’s Army, eh? Although the signals my web produced were encrypted and invisible to most sensors, Takkar would know how to track them. I knew even better how to hide them. The image-dust on my skin also shielded me against the bee-bots in the Majda security arsenal. Blasted bees. They searched out the DNA of a specific person and reported in when they found a match. Several had buzzed around me earlier today, but when I activated my shroud, they became confused and wandered away. Although the “bees” were almost too small to see, I had sensors in my gauntlets that could detect their signatures, devices I’d bought on the black market, one of my savvier investments.
Takkar would be thoroughly pissed when she couldn’t find me. Tough. The people I needed to talk with didn’t react kindly to intruders who came with Majda listening. The cyber-riders salvaged or filched tech-mech from Cries and its garbage dens, and what they did with that “junk” surpassed the best tech-mech Cries had to offer. The undercity would know if I had Majda in my pocket.
I followed the canal to a clogged area with more debris than open areas. Seven years ago, the wall here had a door into the Maze, but now I saw only dust piled everywhere. I nudged off the safety on my pulse gun, then knelt and swept away armfuls of grit. Red powder swirled into the air, saturating my senses with the smell of age and lost dreams.
Eventually I cleared the door. It was hard to see, just a faint seam in the rock that gave away nothing if you didn’t know what to look for. It came up to my shoulders. When I stood up and pushed the door with my booted foot, it didn’t budge. So I kicked it with the enhanced strength provided by the biohydraulics that augmented my muscles and skeleton. Still no good. I tried again, and again—and the door scraped inward, stone grinding on stone. Drawing my gun, I ducked into the tunnel beyond, keeping its wall to my back. Inside, I had room to straighten up. I pulled the door closed and headed down the tunnel, my footfalls muted, the walls and ceiling close. Good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic.
Whoever built the aqueducts had probably drilled these tunnels for access to machinery that had long ago disintegrated. After a while, I came to a junction where three tunnels met. I took the left branch. When I noticed a light ahead, I clicked off my stylus and continued in semidarkness.
Even knowing what to expect, I wasn’t ready for the eerily beautiful sight at the end of the tunnel. A cavern stretched before me. Stalactites hung from its roof and stalagmites grew up from the floor, all sparkling in the radiance of an electro-optic torch someone had left jammed into a nearby outcropping. The light glittered off the white, red, blue, purple crystals that encrusted the stone like a gigantic geode turned inside out.
My footsteps echoed as I entered the cavern. That announced my presence just as well as if I had shouted, “Hey, I’m here.”
A scrape came from my right. I stopped and waited.
A woman walked out from behind two stalagmites. “Bhaaj.”
“Scorch.” I kept my arms by my sides and my gun pointed at the ground.
Scorch had led one of the dust gangs here when we were kids, but by the time I enlisted, she had graduated to bigger game. Well-toned muscles creased her dark jumpsuit. I knew her biomech equaled to my own, except that I came by mine legally. Her chin jutted, and her nose dominated her face like on the giant statues in the ruins of ancient Cries. She wore her hair short with a black spike sticking up behind one ear. The torchlight glittered in the mirrored surfaces of her laser carbine and its bulging power pack.
“Long time,” she said.
“I went offworld,” I answered. “Selei City.”
“I heard.” She shifted her gun, not quite pointing it at me. “Why come back?”
“Job.”
She snorted. “Worth leaving Selei City? Can’t see it.”
“Majda,” I said.
Her expression shuttered. “We don’t bother Majda, they don’t bother us.”
I had no doubt the authorities in Cries knew about the smuggling operation Scorch ran through here, everything from proscribed liqueurs to hallucinogenic silks. Still, I’d never known her to traffic in people. The Traders based their economy on slavery, which was why we were at war with them. They saw us as fodder for their markets. Would Scorch sell to the enemy? I didn’t want to believe it, but a Majda prince like Dayj could bring her more than all her other product combined. Even so. It strained credulity to believe anyone would risk that gargantuan offense against the Majdas in their own backyard. Scorch knew damn well that if Vaj Majda decided to clean up this place, she could blast the undercity bare.
“I’m searching for a man,” I said. “Good-looking.”
She laughed harshly. “So are we all.”
“This one had gems to sell.”
“Lot of people got gems to sell.” Her eyes glinted. “Most don’t kick in my back door.”
“Used to be front door.”
“Used to be guarded.” She shifted her gun. “Still is.”
I doubted she would shoot me. I’d first met her here when I was fifteen. I found her lying in her own blood after three of her “clients” left her for dead instead of paying their bill. I’d tended her until she recovered. Saved her life. Scorch might be a psychopath, but she paid her debts. That meant I had a pass here; for the three fools who tried to murder her, it had meant a long, ugly death.
I said only, “Your door let me in.”
“For now.” She held the gun in what looked like a relaxed grip. I wasn’t fooled. She could shoot faster than sin.
Time to bargain. “Got information,” I said.
She snorted. “You don’t live here anymore. How you got anything for me?”
“Majda. Got access to their mesh.” If they caught me offering to sell their private data, they would draw and quarter me. But they didn’t have to deal with Scorch. Besides, Vaj said no measure was too extreme. I doubted this was what she had meant, but never mind.
Scorch narrowed her gaze at me. We both knew she wouldn’t come by an offer like this again. That she paused for so long could be a bargaining tactic, but it made me uneasy.
“What information?” she said.
“Depends. What do you need?”
“Flight schedules.” Her eyes took on a voracious glitter. “For their private ships.”
Damn. A smuggler could do a lot of damage with the closely guarded schedule of flights in and out of the private Majda starport.
“Might be possible,” I said, maybe lying, maybe not. “Depends what you got.”
Her smile turned feral. “I know a lot about good-looking men. What you looking for, Bhaaj, that you can’t get legally?”
I crossed my arms. “Dark hair. Dark eyes. Like a nobleman. Good build. Taller than average. Maybe sold jeweled clothes for a fake ID and offworld passage.”
Her hand visibly tightened on the carbine. “That one’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Offworld. Don’t know.”
Maybe she wanted more than the schedules. “Got a lot to sell.”
“Not interested.”
Ho! That made
no
sense. Scorch would never walk away from the opportunity to steal Majda flight schedules. Now suddenly she didn’t want them? Like hell. She was hiding something.
“I hear rumors,” I said coldly. “About deals with Traders.”
She lifted the carbine and aimed it at me. “Lies.”
Sweat ran down my neck. I didn’t answer.
Scorch jerked—and fired the carbine.
The burst blinded me. I protected my face with my arm while thunder echoed in the cavern and stones crashed to the ground. Grit and debris rained over me, rough against my skin. When it settled, I cautiously lowered my arm and opened my eyes. The slagged remains of a stalactite lay broken on the ground only a few steps away. If Scorch had fired any closer, I’d be dead.
“Get out,” she said.
I beat a fast retreat out of her territory.
* * *
I didn’t turn off the jammer until I was above ground. Within moments my gauntlet comm squawked. I tapped the receive panel.
Takkar’s voice snapped out. “Bhaajan, where the hell are you?”
“Greetings to you, too,” I said.
“Get back to the palace.”
Charming. “You aren’t my CO, Takkar.”
“Get your ass back here or I’ll throw it in jail.”
My night was growing progressively worse. “For what?”
“Murder,” she said.
VI
The Pin
The Majda police station had no books, tapestries, brocaded divans, or anything else that remotely resembled the aristocratic gentility of the palace. Sleek and sharp, it was all polarized glass and white Luminex, and it looked as efficient as hell. Takkar met me in an interrogation room.
The chief and I faced each other across a table, both of us standing up. Takkar looked ready to blow holes in the sky, preferably with me as the ammo that got pulverized by the strike. People filled the overly bright room. Major Ebersole stood by the wall on my right, his handsome face schooled to neutrality. He would blend well into a crowd, making him even more effective in his job.
The Majda sisters were all here, tall, formidable, and pissed off. Corejida Majda paced like a caged desert-lion on my left, back and forth in front of her sister, Colonel Lavinda Majda. The colonel stood by the door, looking stunned. It didn’t surprise me. She had just discovered the dead body of one of her best people. Vaj Majda stood across the table with Takkar, a silent figure who watched us all, her appraising gaze like ice. I had no doubt she missed nothing.
Max,
I thought.
Record everything that happens here and store it in file “Interrogation.”
Recording
, he thought.
The wall to my right doubled as a holoscreen. At the moment, it was playing the recording made by a Majda bee-bot that had followed Lavinda around today. The playback showed the flycar that had taken the colonel, her aide, her bodyguard, and Captain Krestone away from the palace.
The playback showed Lavinda’s flycar as it settled on the roof of an office tower in Cries. Krestone was piloting and Ebersole sat in the front passenger’s seat. The colonel and her aide were in the back of the car, working with screens they had rolled out into thin films on their laps. Holos danced in the air above the screens showing graphs, images, and glyphs.
Lavinda was professional with her male aide. It fit my research; the Majdas were scrupulous in their relationships. They treated everyone with the same distant professionalism. If they ever strayed in their personal lives, they had left no trace of their indiscretions. In their circles, heredity determined everything. During the Ruby Empire, the penalty for adultery among the nobility had been execution, and to this day that law remained in force. I had never heard of a noble House executing anyone for fooling around, and I seriously doubted they were all paragons of virtue, but they kept it discreet. As far as I could tell, however, the Majdas actually followed the law. They were annoyingly well behaved, another reason blackmail would never work with them.
In the recording, the colonel disembarked with her aide and Ebersole, and the three of them walked across the landing pad. A bland bodyguard I vaguely recognized from the palace staff met them at the lift shaft, which jutted up from the roof like a spire of modern art. The bee-bot flew with them. The airlift inside was little more than a disk in a chute, but it lowered them so smoothly, it didn’t ruffle a lock of anyone’s hair. It stopped at upper level of the building, and the four of them walked into a huge place, a confusing expanse of gleaming silver and white Luminex. Then my mind reoriented and I made sense out of the scene. The room spanned the entire floor of the tower. Partial walls of white Luminex stood here and there, but it was mostly open. Abstract sculptures of blue and silver chrome stood in a few areas. It was artistic in a weird sort of way.
The colonel went to a glass-enclosed office with her aide and the bland bodyguard. She left a box of data spheres on the desk and checked the console there. Major Ebersole stood by the door and kept watch on the huge room, which was empty except for the three of them. He grinned suddenly and swatted directly at us, as if to strike our faces. Of course he didn’t. However, our view did swerve, showing the other offices as if the camera had swung around. Then it came back to Ebersole and the colonel. Hah! Ebersole had done the supposedly impossible, which was see a bee-bot spying on him, and by swatting it, he made it check the rest of the room. Smart fellow. So far all four of them were quite alive, and with Ebersole there, they seemed likely to stay that way. So when had Lavinda’s aide died?
At the moment, the aide was standing at Lavinda’s side in the office, checking his mesh glove whenever she asked him a question. The bodyguard stood behind him, looking bored. After about fifteen minutes, the three of them rejoined Ebersole and they all returned to the airlift. The entire visit seemed perfunctory, a company owner putting in an appearance. They rode back to the roof and walked to the flycar.
Krestone had fallen asleep, slouched over the controls. It was the first oddity; she was scrupulous about her duties, and I could never imagine her sleeping at work. Judged from Lavinda’s frown, she had the same thought. When her group reached the flycar, the bodyguard opened the door and pulled Krestone back.
The captain’s body flopped lifelessly to the side.
Hell and damnation.
I had assumed Lavinda’s aide was the one who died because he wasn’t here, but they must have already debriefed him.
“My people arrived three minutes after Colonel Lavinda commed us,” Chief Takkar said. “At that time, Captain Krestone had been dead for eleven minutes.”
I wanted to hit someone. I liked Krestone. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I also had no clue where the blazes Takkar had come up with me as a murder suspect. I’d been having dinner with Jak when Krestone died. Unfortunately I couldn’t prove it; I’d been shrouded, hiding from Majda. Even if I had thought Jak could give me an alibi, I would never ask. No way could I risk drawing Majda attention to the Black Mark.
“What was the cause of death?” I asked.
“She was shot with a tangler.” Takkar’s voice hardened. “Your area of expertise, Major.”
Well, shit. That wasn’t evidence. I spoke coldly. “I trained with contraband weapons in the army, if that’s what you mean.”
All three sisters watched me with their dark eyes. Assessing.
General Majda spoke. “You can use a neural tangler?”
“Yes.” I met her gaze. “However, I haven’t fired one in years.”
“Where were you this evening?” Takkar asked, her voice even more brusque than normal. “For some odd reason, we have no record of your whereabouts.”
“I was having dinner with an old friend.”
Takkar’s snort left little doubt what she thought about my alibi. “His name?”
I crossed my arms. “Captain, are you accusing me of something?”
General Majda answered. “No one has accused anyone.” She glanced at Takkar. “Do you have evidence as to who fired the tangler?”
“We will,” Takkar said, which I translated to mean,
We haven’t a clue.
Tangler bursts were notoriously difficult to trace. They left no residue; they just disrupted neural activity in the brain. No matter. Whoever had done this to the captain would pay. I would see to that.
Vaj Majda was studying me. Her controlled expression and posture gave away nothing. I tried to remain cool, but being scrutinized by the General of the Pharaoh’s Army was an unsettling proposition. She spoke coldly. “You may return to your apartment. However, do not leave the city. And don’t use any more shrouds.”
That was no good. “I can’t do my job unless I can assure my sources of secrecy.”
“What sources?” Takkar demanded.
I just looked at her. She knew perfectly well I wouldn’t reveal mine any more than she would reveal hers.
Vaj spoke in her dusky voice. “Very well, Major. Use your judgment.” She left unspoken the obvious warning; if they had no record of my whereabouts, I had no alibi if anything else happened.
Corejida came over to me, her posture so tense she seemed ready to snap. “Have you news about Dayj?”
Normally I wouldn’t talk about a case with so many ends dangling. I didn’t want to give her false hope. Right now, though, it seemed a good idea to give them something before they decided to toss me in jail.
“It looks like he sold some jewels,” I said. “I think he bought a new identity and passage off Raylicon.”
“No!” Corejida stared at me. “That can’t be. Dayj has no idea how to do that.”
Takkar snorted. “It’s an absurd suggestion that he could manage that on his own.”
“It’s no less absurd,” I said, “than suggesting I shot Captain Krestone.”
“I didn’t hear any such suggestion,” Lavinda said coldly. “Just an inquiry establishing that you had the requisite experience.”
“Stop it!” Corejida told her younger sister.
Lavinda’s reaction didn’t bother me. She had just witnessed the death of a vital member of her staff, probably someone she liked, given Krestone’s personable nature. Vaj Majda unsettled me far more. She stood back, quieter than the others. It didn’t fool me. Of the three sisters, she was by far the most dangerous.
“Did Dayj actually go offworld?” Corejida asked me. “Where to?”
“I’m sorry,” I said as gently as I could manage. “I don’t know yet. I wish I had more news to give you.” I meant it. I could see their heartbreak coming from a kilometer away. At best, Dayj had left Raylicon of his own free will and would be difficult if not impossible to trace. Or he could be a Trader pleasure slave, forever beyond our help. If he was still here, he was probably a prisoner.
Or dead.
* * *
With the night more than half over, Cries had settled into its second sleep cycle. I went to an empty park and sat in a gazebo built from lacework designed from some shimmery gold stuff. Then I activated my gauntlets. They were plugged into sockets in my wrists, which linked to biothreads in my body. Max sent his signals to the threads, they carried the data to my spinal node, and it fired bioelectrodes in my neurons according to signals it received. I perceived the end result as thoughts from Max. I could reverse the process; if I thought with sufficient force, the electrodes fired and the node picked up my response. Tech-created telepathy. It offered far more security than any shroud.
Wake up, Max,
I thought.
I don’t sleep
, Max answered.
Did you get a full record of the session at the police station
?
Unfortunately, yes.
Max did such a good job of simulating distaste, I wondered if he actually felt the emotion.
Quite a scene between you and Chief Takkar.
Friendly, isn’t she?
She’d like to knock you into the wall.
Yah, probably,
I thought.
You know the beetle I sent to follow Colonel Majda? It should also have a record of the trip that ended with Krestone dead.
Yes. Would you like a neural dump?
Anything you’ve got on the murder.
Checking.
Max paused, then thought,
The beetle followed Colonel Majda as far as the entrance to the office tower. It calculated that if it entered a space as confined as the lift, Major Ebersole might notice its presence. So it flew down the side of the tower and spied through the window-walls. It came back up when they returned to the flycar.
Damn. The beetle had made the logical choice, following Lavinda Majda rather than staying with the car, but that didn’t help my investigation.
So it didn’t see the murder.
No. But it did record the scene as the colonel and her party returned to the flycar.
Play it for me.
The scene formed like a translucent wash over my view of the park. I closed my eyes and the images intensified. This time I was watching the flycar from a different angle, one in front of the windshield. Again the bodyguard pulled Krestone back. Unlike Takkar’s playback, however, this one showed Krestone from the front, enough to reveal what the bee-bot had missed; as the bodyguard moved Krestone, she took a pin off the dead captain’s uniform.
My pulse leapt.
Replay that, Max.
The scene reran. Yes, there! The bodyguard pulled some sort of needle off Krestone’s shoulder. In the record made by the Majda’s bee-bot, Krestone’s body had hidden that action.
Who is that guard?
I asked.
Her name is Oxil. She’s on staff at both the palace and the Majda Tower in Cries.
She expected Krestone to be dead.
I needed more information about this bland bodyguard.
Go back and play whatever you have from the last time Krestone was alive.
The scene reset to an earlier time and showed the flycar landing on the roof. Lavinda disembarked with her aide and Duane Ebersole. Krestone remained in the driver’s seat, visible through the windshield. The captain raised her hand to the others, either in a salute or waving farewell. Lavinda nodded to her and then walked with Ebersole and her aide toward the lift shaft.
When the bodyguard met them at the lift, Lavinda said, “Oxil, inform security we’re on our way down.”
“Right away, ma’am.” Oxil thumbed her gauntlet and spoke into the comm.
Interesting. Takkar’s recording had focused on Lavinda. My beetle watched everyone, which gave me a better view of the bodyguard.
Max, replay that bit where Oxil talks to security.
The recording backed up and showed Oxil telling security that Colonel Majda was coming down. Oxil started to sign off, then stopped as someone apparently asked her a question.
“Krestone is staying in the flycar,” Oxil said. “She has everything worked out up here.”
Replay that, Max, and magnify it as much as you can.
Max zoomed in on Oxil’s hand. The playback blurred, losing resolution, but it was clear enough. When Oxil started to sign off, she discreetly tapped the comm mesh.
Freeze that!
I thought.
She switched channels! She wasn’t talking to security anymore.
Apparently not
, Max said.
I studied the image.
She said Krestone had “everything worked out up here.” It was a warning that Krestone figured out something.
I gritted my teeth.
Oxil told someone to kill her.
