Undercity (9 page)
Authors: Catherine Asaro
Tags: #Fiction, #science fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Space Opera
“Do the gangs still fight back?” I asked.
“Always,” Jak said. “In the shadows.”
I nodded, remembering how our gang had prowled up here at night, protecting ourselves with numbers. We learned to fight as a form of gang identification, and we were damn good at the rough and tumble. It wasn’t like we had much else to do. None of us had been in school or had jobs.
“Who trained us?” I said.
He gave me a quizzical glance. “What?”
“Our gang. We had incredible discipline.” I couldn’t remember anyone actually teaching us how to fight. “Military almost.”
He shrugged. “We trained ourselves. What works for military works for rats.”
I continued to think as we walked. “One reason I succeeded in the army was because I already knew discipline. Hell, it was easy. They yelled at us a lot, sure, but they didn’t kill us for screwing up and we had plenty to eat.”
His voice hardened. “What, are you saying dust rats should join the army?” He looked as if he wanted to punch the wall. “Give our lives for the people who let us starve? What a way to swell the enlisted ranks, eh? Draft all the rats. Let us die on the front lines. After all, we aren’t valuable.”
“For flaming sake, Jak. You know I didn’t mean that.”
He looked like he still wanted to be angry. “So what the hell do you mean?”
I spoke slowly, thinking it through. “A way to improve the lives of our young people. They need a structure that supports them, one that comes from the undercity itself. The gangs are a start, but they aren’t enough.”
“We have our own ways,” Jak said. “No interference from above.”
He was right, mostly. Sure the undercity was rough, but we also had rich, ancient culture. And
freedom.
We lived unencumbered by above-city strictures. As a child, I would rather have died than give up that freedom. Hell, I almost had more than once, from sickness or violence. That attitude had made sense to me then, but it was a hard way to live. The authorities in Cries didn’t care. They ignored us as long as we didn’t bother them. If we upset the balance, they rounded up a few of us, threw the adults in jail and dumped the kids in orphanages regardless of whether or not they were orphans. A better way had to exist, one that preserved our community and culture without crushing us in poverty or the animosity of Cries.
A large, bulky man came up alongside Jak. He looked like a tourist out for a jaunt judged by his clothes. I wasn’t fooled. I knew him too well. Under that amiable exterior, he could be as mean as sin.
“Heya, Gourd,” Jak said.
Gourd nodded. Then he looked across Jak at me. “Good to see you, Bhaaj.”
“Yah,” I said. “Good seeing.”
He spoke to Jak. “Got time?”
“Enough,” Jak said.
I could tell Gourd wanted privacy. “Got to go,” I said.
“No you don’t.” Jak glanced at Gourd. “What’s up?”
“Commander Braze lost a hundred thousand on holo-roulette.”
Jak gave a satisfied smile. “Good.”
“Not good. She’s ready to drill someone.” Gourd scowled at him. “Says you got contraband holos in the casino that make people gamble too much.”
“She can’t do rizz,” Jak said. “Get herself court-martialed for gambling.”
“She’s got ties,” Gourd said.
Jak frowned. “What ties?”
Gourd told him. It seemed Commander Braze had relatives with less than sterling backgrounds and enough connections undercity to add a lot of grief to Jak’s life.
“She wants her credit back,” Gourd said.
“Yah, right.” Sarcasm could have dripped off Jak’s voice.
“Could make it hot for you,” Gourd said.
“I give in to Braze, every rizzpunk in Cries will think they can take me.”
Gourd didn’t look surprised. He nodded to us both and took off, headed back to wherever they had moved the Black Mark.
“You got trouble?” I asked.
Jak shrugged. “I’ll manage.”
I hoped so. It sounded like Braze’s people could buy him a lot of misery. I doubted Braze cared as much about getting back her credits as she did about saving face over this business with Jak and his blasted holos.
“Could be a mess,” I said.
“No worry.” Jak glanced around with that honed awareness of his that could be so unnerving. “How will you find Scorch?”
“I need another entrance into the Maze. Know any?”
He shook his head. “Scorch changes doors like I move the Black Mark.”
“So maybe we make our own door,” I muttered.
Jak frowned at me. “What are you up to?”
I tapped the pack slung over my shoulder. “I need a better shroud. Got anything?”
“Plenty.” Then he said, “At the Black Mark.”
I didn’t expect him to tell me its location. The less I knew about his operations right now, the better. We couldn’t tell how this would play out, whether I would end up working with the police or in their custody.
I motioned at a café with canopies over its outdoor tables. “I can wait there. I’ll have a kava.”
He grinned. “Bhaaj acting like a tourist.”
“Like hell,” I grumbled. “Go on. Get out of here.”
Laughing, he said, “Be back.”
He set off at a brisk walk down the Concourse while I headed toward a bridge that arched over the wide boulevard. Ancient architects had built that span from red-streaked blue stone, and the Cries Parks and Recreation people saw to its upkeep. I had just reached its high point when Jak turned a corner on the throughway below. As soon as he was out of sight, I double-checked my jammer to make sure I was shrouded. Then I jogged back to the Concourse.
I set out for Scorch’s cavern. Alone.
* * *
Seven years ago, after Jak disappeared, I had mapped the cavities above Scorch’s Maze while I searched for him. I knew she had a part in that scheme to cheat him out of millions even if I had no evidence. Given that it involved Jak’s illegal casino, I could hardly take my suspicions to the police. But I had never forgiven Scorch.
I crawled through cavities barely big enough for my body, with ragged holes everywhere. Spiky mineral buildups encrusted the openings. I wriggled on my stomach with the jammer in the pack on my back. Although it hadn’t shrouded me from Scorch’s security at the old entrance, I wagered it was more difficult to monitor this convoluted network of natural passageways. I was betting my life on winning that wager.
The infrared enhancements in my eyes bathed the world in a lurid red glow. The hotter an object, the more it glowed red to my IR sensors. Although the stone didn’t generate enough heat to make small details clear, I could see where I was going. I wished I could double-check my location relative to the Maze. My shroud interfered with the weaker signals I could use to explore the caverns, and I couldn’t risk stronger probes because Scorch’s security might pick them up.
I stopped at a hole deep enough for half the length of my body. If my map was accurate, I’d reached the edge of Scorch’s operation in the Maze. A quick check of my ammo verified I had three full cartridges. I deactivated the EM pulse the bullets released on impact. It could disable electro-optical systems within a small range, but it was of no use here, where the pulse had nothing to act on but stone. If it did manage to affect equipment somewhere, that would ruin my element of surprise. I was also close enough to the target that the pulse might affect my own equipment. I did make sure, however, that the sonic damper on the jammer was operating. And then I fired at the floor of the hole in front of me.
The serrated projectiles from my gun tore into the bottom of the well, boring it deeper. Although the damping field muffled the noise, my shots still weren’t silent. Damn. I fired again, drilling even deeper. Debris crumbled from its sides. Gripping my gun in one hand, I eased into the chute I had enlarged. The sides felt warm. When my feet touched the bottom, my head was a handspan below the top. I held still and listened.
Nothing. No voices or machinery. If I had chosen well, the silence meant I was above an empty cave; if I was wrong, I could drill for hours and never break through.
With my back against one wall and my boots braced against the other, I scooted partway up the chute and fired at the bottom again. I gritted my teeth as debris pelted my body. Then I hammered the hard, blocky heel of my boot into the bottom of the hole with enhanced strength and speed, over and over. Still nothing. I fired, deepening the chute, then hammered the ground again. I might as well be trying to drill through the blasted planet—
My heel cracked the bottom.
Ho! I probed with my foot and pebbles fell away from the crack. They dropped for about as long as I would expect in a cavern before they clattered on the ground. No light came from below, which could mean I had found an empty area. I hoped. I needed extra care here. That scatter of debris wasn’t likely to draw attention; it happened often in these caves. But anything as heavy as me dropping from this height could set off alarms. I worked as quietly as possible, and I managed to widen the opening without more rocks falling. Finally I eased my body down and out, clenching the edges of the opening. So there I was, hanging from the ceiling.
I had hoped to come out near a rock formation, but the closest was a full body length away, a ridged pyramid standing in a cluster of smaller spikes. My handhold crumbled in my grip, dropping more pebbles to the floor. Blast! I would fall in seconds. With a grunt, I swung toward the pyramid. That effort destroyed what little remained of my grip, and I lost my hold as I moved through the air. I rammed into the pyramid and threw my arms and legs around it while I slid to the ground. I managed to slow my fall enough so that when my boots hit the floor, they made almost no sound. I crouched down and waited.
Silence.
After several moments, I reached back into my pack and switched off the damper. Although I wanted its silencing effect, I couldn’t hear enough through its field. Still silence. That didn’t mean I was home free. The last time I had come down, Scorch had known as soon as I entered her empire.
The hole I had made in the ceiling hid itself by looking like all the other ragged crevices up there. Good. I looked around the cave as I stood up. Crates with military markings were stacked all around me. Scorch was selling illegal arms, tanglers and laser carbines it looked like. The only other exit from this smuggler’s den was a narrow space between two columns of rock on the other side of the cave. A length of canvas hung there like a door. I didn’t see any other escape route, and none of the crates were close enough to my hole in the roof to help me to climb out. I could move them, but it would be noisy and take too long. If Scorch caught me here again, she’d go for a kill.
I turned the damper back on and tried opening several crates. Nothing worked, including shooting them with my muted gun. Smashing them would make too much noise even with the damper. A fortune in weapons, and I couldn’t steal a single one. Of course, I had my pulse gun. I’d take that over a tangler. If Scorch was selling these to the Traders, I hoped she died a miserable death. Better yet, I hoped they double-crossed her and sold her into slavery. It was probably too late for Prince Dayjarind, but if Scorch had smuggled him to the Trader Aristos, she deserved the worst.
I loaded my gun with the second cartridge. Then I went to the exit and pushed aside the canvas, my weapon up and ready while I checked the area. A pathway curved by outside. Columns lined the pathway, created in some past age when the tips of the stalactites from the ceiling had met the cones of stalagmites jutting up from the ground. To my left, ripples curved along a wall as if it were a curtain. The barrier looked filmy but it registered on my internal sensors as solid rock.
Max,
I thought.
How are my vital signs?
Fine
, he answered.
Why do you ask?
I was wondering if you could monitor other people the way you monitor me.
Not like you. I get your medical data from the nanomeds in your body.
They might have nanos, too.
Most people who could afford health meds carried them. Scorch’s illegal biomech would certainly include meds.
I know the protocols for the chips in yours. I don’t for theirs.
Can you hack them?
I will try
, Max thought.
Good. Let me know if you find anyone.
I set off along the path. In my IR vision, crystals glinted on the rocks like rubies. A drop of water fell from above and splashed on my nose. I had grown up on Raylicon and my biomech was programmed to respond to different worlds, so until now I hadn’t noticed the lighter gravity here compared to Parthonia. But I was walking down a steep grade, enough to give me trouble in timing my steps. It slowed me down.
I have a signal
, Max said.
Who?
I don’t know. I can’t crack their network. They’re up ahead.
Max was quite effectively simulating concern.
I advise caution.
I eased along the curtain of stone, my back to its rippled surface. Ahead on the path, an oval glowed brighter red than the surrounding rock. As I edged closer, I realized it was a canvas door hanging in the entrance of another cave, hiding whatever waited beyond.
Max, can you tell what’s behind that canvas?
Someone is either sitting or standing several paces back from the entrance
, he thought.
To the left.
Got it.
I swept aside the canvas, jerked up my gun—
And nearly blasted His Highness, Prince Dayjarind Kazair Majda, into oblivion.
VIII
Dayj
He was sitting on a rough pallet by the wall of the cave, staring into what had to be total darkness for him. Although he surely had health meds in his body, I doubted they included military bioware like the IR sensors in my eyes. I could see him, however, and it didn’t take a genius to tell he was frightened. Manacles circled his left wrist and ankle, with heavy chains that stretched to a ring embedded in the wall. A blanket lay bunched up at one end of the pallet and a jug stood nearby. His clothes were simple but clean, dark trousers and shirt, nothing like the expensive garments he had worn in the Majda holos.
He spoke in a pure Iotic accent. “Who is it? Who is there?”
Gods. That deep, sensual voice alone could have women at his feet.
Lowering my gun, I fumbled for the stylus around my neck. I came to my senses before I turned it on. Scorch would monitor this cell even better than her storerooms. I hadn’t expected she would keep Dayj for herself. It truly was insanity. She had to leave Raylicon; she could never pull this off here without the news leaking. But she couldn’t escape with Dayj now, not with every port under surveillance.
I went over and crouched next to him, speaking in a low voice. “I’m here to help.”
He snapped up his clenched fist while he protected his face with his other arm. I caught his wrist before he struck me, but his action told me a great deal about how Scorch treated him.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said. Up close, I could see him better. I should have been ready, but no holo could prepare anyone for the full impact of Dayjarind Majda. Even with his face ragged from exhaustion and fear, he was so beautiful, it was hard to believe he was real.
His voice rasped. “What do you want?”
“Your family sent me.” My mind spun with plans. His cell was small, little more than a large hole created when mineral-laden water had dissolved the softer rock and left a shell of harder stone. As I scanned the area, my sensors located two holo-cams monitoring the cave.
One was pointed at me.
I spoke fast. “Your Highness, it won’t be long before I’m discovered, if I haven’t been already. We have to go. I’m going to shoot off your chains with my gun.”
He was looking at me in the dark, though he probably couldn’t see squat. “How do I know you won’t shoot me?”
“You have to trust me.” I wondered if his voice rasped so badly because he had been shouting for help. No one would hear him down here except Scorch and the few people she let enter her empire. Or maybe he had been screaming for other reasons.
Gritting my teeth, I aimed at a point on the chain between his wrist and the wall. Sweat gathered on my forehead. I didn’t want to risk hitting him, but if he had to haul around too much of that chain, it would slow us down.
“I’m firing,” I said. “Don’t move.” I held down the stud long enough to shoot two projectiles, their explosive power muffled by the damper. The first damaged the chain and the second cracked it in two. It took two more shots to break the second chain. Having a stranger fire so near him in the dark had to be disturbing, but Dayj didn’t flinch, not once. I had seen ISC officers with less composure than this terrified young man. I wondered if his family knew him at all.
“All right,” I said. “You’re free.”
The chains scraped as he moved his leg, dragging the links across the ground. “Thank you.”
I grimaced. “Don’t thank me yet. I don’t know if I can get us out of here alive.”
He felt around the wall next to him until he found a handhold. As he pulled himself up, his leg buckled and he fell against the stone.
I jumped to my feet and reached for him. “What happened to your leg?”
Dayj jerked away when my palm brushed his arm. “Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“It’s all right.” He took a shaky breath. “After one of the beatings, I couldn’t walk for a few days. But I don’t think it’s broken.”
Gods al-flaming-mighty.
“Who beat you?”
“She calls herself Scorch.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t like it when I refused her.”
I wondered how Scorch’s nose would feel, breaking under my fist, smashed into a million little bone shards. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.” He took a lurching step, but he didn’t fall. “Not fast, I am afraid.”
“Here.” I touched his arm, offering support. He tensed, but this time he didn’t jerk away. So I slid my arm around his waist. He draped an arm over my shoulder and leaned on me while I helped him limp toward the doorway. Well, damn. The Majdas had better not kill me for touching him.
“Did Oxil bring you down here?” I asked as we pushed our way past the canvas.
“Yes.” He spoke bitterly. “I was so grateful to her for sneaking me out of the palace. Gods, I was a fool.”
“You aren’t a fool.” Lonely, yes, but if that made a person a fool, then half the human race was with him. I tried not to think of the past seven years since I had left Jak. “It isn’t your fault Oxil is scum.”
“I’m afraid I am a rather poor judge of people.” Dryly he said, “For all I know, Scorch could have sent you.”
I swore colorfully at the suggestion, then remembered who I was with and shut up. “Sorry.”
He actually laughed. It was soft and hoarse, but still a laugh. “I have heard much worse in the past few days.”
Having heard Scorch’s vivid vocabulary, I could imagine. It amazed me that he could retain a sense of humor in all this.
We made our way uphill toward the storeroom, slowed down by my gravity problems and his injured leg. I thought of the dust in his gift box. His father said he had kept it for years. “When did Oxil first bring you here?”
He glanced at me. “Four years ago.”
“Did you meet Scorch then?”
“No. Not until I wanted to go offworld.” He continued doggedly with his labored steps. “Apparently she saw me, though, the first time I came down here.”
Four years. That fit the date on the news broadcast about the Assembly that Scorch had watched. No wonder she had worn such an odd expression, an intensity that bordered on hatred. The delegates in that Assembly procession had included Roca Skolia, Dayj’s intended. Scorch must have loathed the woman who could claim Dayj. I thought of his words:
She didn’t like it when I refused her.
Assault took many forms, and ways existed for Scorch to make him do what she wanted regardless of how he felt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “About everything.”
He spoke in a low voice. “I just wanted to see the ocean. A real ocean.”
“You will someday.”
“Perhaps.” He didn’t sound like he believed it any more than I did.
The canvas door of a storeroom came into view, but it didn’t look like the right one.
Max,
I thought.
Have you mapped out this area?
Yes. The doorway you want is ten meters up the path.
Thanks.
We kept going, and I recognized the next canvas as the “door” of the room with the gun crates. We drew alongside the entrance—
A light appeared ahead.
Blast it! I pushed Dayj behind a stalagmite and nudged him at the canvas. Going into the storeroom wouldn’t free him; even if he could have climbed to the hole in the ceiling, he didn’t know how to navigate the maze up there. But with all the bizarre rock formations and crates in the cave, he had plenty of places to hide.
Dayj slipped past the canvas. When he was gone, I switched off the damper.
A voice became audible. “—don’t see anyone here. They may have moved on.”
I edged forward in a crouch behind the stalagmites that lined the path. Peering between two of the rock formations, I saw one of Scorch’s rizz-punks on the path ahead, talking into her comm. She reminded me of the drifter Scorch had killed in the desert. Scorch probably intended to murder everyone who knew she had kidnapped a Majda prince. These people were fools if they believed otherwise. It could explain why she had so few human guards here; the fewer people who knew, the better. For the same reason, she’d have to erase any records her security systems kept of Dayj.
I considered the rizz-punk. My gauntlet darts shot a powerful sedative, but they weren’t as accurate at long distances as the pulse gun.
Max,
I thought.
If I fire a dart from here, what is the probability I’ll knock out that punker?
I’d say about thirty percent
, he answered.
If you move closer, the odds improve, but you won’t have any cover.
I grimaced. I had reached the last stalagmite where I could hide. Any further, and I’d be in the open where she could see me. She’d blast me to smithereens. If I shot from here and didn’t knock her out, she’d know my location. Then I was dead.
Thirty percent. I had a one in three chance of hitting her. The odds were too damn small.
Sometimes I hated this job.
I fired my pulse gun.
She never knew. The shots ripped through her torso, tearing her apart as they sent shock waves through her body. She collapsed, twisting as she fell, and smashed her light when the remains of her body hit the ground. The tunnel went dark—
A laser flared from behind me, its brilliant light stabbing the darkness. The shot pulverized a stalagmite only centimeters from where I crouched. I dropped and rolled as a second shot exploded a stalactite above me. I barely escaped the spear of rock that crashed to the ground. Shards flew everywhere and one stabbed my arm.
Whoever fired at me was to my left, where Dayj and I had been walking only moments ago. The storeroom where Dayj was hiding was also to my left, its entrance between me and the shooter. Darkness shrouded the path, which would hide me if the shooter didn’t have IR vision.
A familiar voice grated. “Know you’re here, Bhaaj.”
Scorch. Shit! She had every possible augmentation: sight, hearing, muscles, skeleton, nodes.
Max, can you locate her?
I asked. Blood was dripping down my arm.
I can give you an estimate
, he thought.
Ten meters down the path.
Too close.
If I moved, the noise would give away my location. I peered through the rocks, but I couldn’t see anyone. Nor could I hear breathing. She was shrouded. If she stood in front of a stalagmite, her holosuit would project images of a stalagmite; if she was by a wall, her suit would show a wall. Conduits in the material would also cool the suit, masking the heat of her body.
Moving with care, I pulled off the stylus hanging around my neck.
Max, can you link to the chip that operates this light?
Yes.
When I tell you, turn it on.
I sighted on the guard I had shot—and hurled the stylus.
GO!
Light flared as the stylus flew through the air. A laser shot hit the stylus dead on, and I fired toward the source of the beam, spraying the area with the last of my second ammo cartridge. The cavern echoed as the projectiles shattered stalactites.
Darkness and silence descended.
Did I get her?
You hit a lot of rocks
, Max thought.
I know that. Did I get Scorch?
I estimate the probability is between eleven and seventy-three percent.
Well that’s definitive.
Sorry. It is the best I can do.
I stayed crouched behind an outcropping. That Scorch hadn’t returned fire could mean many things: I had hit her, she couldn’t find me, she had a strategy I hadn’t guessed, or she was recharging the carbine. The longer this went on, the better for her, because I needed ammunition. I didn’t think she had fired enough to exhaust the carbine’s power, but that assumed she started with a full charge.
Footsteps came from my right, on the path where I had shot the guard. Not good. I looked to see Oxil edge around the curtain of rock, a pulse rifle gripped in her hands. With Scorch in the opposite direction, I was penned now on both sides.
Max,
I thought.
This is not good.
Throw your gun. It will draw their fire. It is of no use to you without ammunition.
I have another cartridge. But they’ll hear me when I reload.
If I moved fast enough, I might get Oxil before she killed me, but it would leave me an easy target for Scorch, if she was still alive.
You need a diversion
, Max thought.
Throw your boot.
They’ll hear me take it off.
I paused, thinking.
I can get my gauntlet off faster with less noise.
Without your gauntlets, you lose your connection to me.
I have two of them.
I slid my right hand over my left gauntlet.
Retract the biothreads from my left socket.
Retracted.
Max’s thought took on a tinny quality.
I thumbed the release and my gauntlet split open. No sound had yet betrayed me. Steeling myself, I ripped off the gauntlet and hurled it at Oxil while I scrambled to the left.
She fired, hammering the rocks with bullets. In the same instant, a laser shot bored into the cranny I had just vacated. Hell and damnation! Scorch was alive and on to my tricks. I got rid of my spent cartridge, all the time scuttling behind the stalagmites. As soon as I reloaded, I fired at Oxil, but she had dodged out of sight and my shot just cracked the rocky cones that blocked her former hiding place.
Laser fire flared from Scorch’s direction and melted a stalagmite only a meter away. I edged back, hoping to throw off Scorch’s estimate of my position, and stopped, my pulse racing.
Nothing.
I peered through two rock columns.
Where did Oxil go?
I asked Max.
I believe she has hidden behind the rock formations directly across the path.
A ragged fence of rocky pyramids bordered the other side of the walkway. Oxil could be anywhere back there.
Are you linked to the beetle I sent after Scorch earlier today?
I lost contact when it reached the caverns.
We’re here now, too. See if you can find it.