Undercity (31 page)

Beauty wasn’t power. I’d read my share on that subject in my officer training classes, where they made damn sure we would know how to treat everyone in our command fairly and didn’t do something stupid that could get the army sued for harassment or swamped in scandal. I read the bulleted outlines they had given us, and then out of curiosity I looked up the scholarly works. I’d never forgotten how, in my youth, I could wheedle food out of Concourse vendors because they thought I was pretty. It became one of many techniques in my bag of tricks for How To Eat, along with numerous methods of petty theft. The articles pointed out the obvious, that beauty was an illusory “power” dependent on physical characteristics that weren’t permanent and said nothing about a person’s worth or character. It rarely lasted. That was certainly true in the undercity, where most of us had gaunt faces, scars, or the pockmarks of disease by the time we were adults. Either that, or we were dead and didn’t give a whack about power dynamics.

In Raylicon’s past, women had attained power through war, wealth, and work. Men were “powerful” if women found them desirable, but once they were owned, they had no say in their lives. That wasn’t power, it was possession, and even I could see it was wrong. Yes, I knew the scholarship, and I knew its truth, but in this moment none of that mattered, because Dayjarind Majda had, by his mere presence, rendered me utterly powerless.

I had seen holos of him and I had seen him after we rescued him from Scorch, but I had never seen him like this, at his best, contentedly sitting in the sun reading his books. He was the singularly most devastating man I had ever met, and if he had asked me to prostrate myself on the floor right then and babble like an idiot, I would have done it. So okay, I was an idiot. Sue me. It would have been worth it for these few moments in his presence.

All he did, however, was motion me over to the table. “Major, please join me.” Then he smiled, and I could have died in ecstasy.

My heart continued to beat, however, so instead of expiring, I went over and sat across from him at the table.

“My glittings,” I said. Gods, I was a moron today. “Uh, greetings, that is. My greetings. Your Higgness. Your Highness, I mean.”

Dayj was kind enough not to laugh. “My greetings, Major.” He tapped a square on the table and the holos disappeared. “It’s good to see you.” He seemed delighted to say those words. I supposed he didn’t have much chance to use them, given his lack of visitors.

“Are you studying?” I asked.

“For my placement tests. The university is sending an examiner from Parthonia. She’ll be here in a few days.” He grinned at me. “If I pass, and I think I will, then I’m off to university.”

I almost lost him after the grin, but I caught enough to understand. “That’s wonderful.”

We sat in awkward silence. Then I said, “Did you want to see me about something?”

He hesitated. “What happened in the aqueducts, the fighting and destruction, is my fault. I feel I should make amends, but I have no idea how to do so.”

Good gods. “How could it be your fault?”

“My foolish trip to the canals started the chain of events that made it possible for the cartel to steal the weapons, which started the fighting.”

“That’s not your fault.”

He spoke dryly. “Really? Scorch would have just given those carbines and tanglers to the Kajada cartel out of the goodness of her heart?”

“Uh, well, no.”

“If I had never gone there,” he said, “Kajada couldn’t have stolen the guns, Vakaar wouldn’t have felt the need to arm themselves in response, the canals would still be intact, and people would be alive who are dead now.”

“Dayj, you can’t blame yourself for the violence of the cartels.” I shook my head. “Without you, we wouldn’t have learned Scorch’s plans. You prevented one of the worst crimes in the history of this planet. She could have sold psions for years, feeding off the undercity, decimating us, giving the Traders the advantage over our military they’ve sought for centuries, and we would never have known.” I spoke firmly. “Raylicon and the Imperialate owe you an incalculable debt of gratitude.”

He grimaced. “I didn’t do anything except act stupid.”

“You had the courage to break the rules. It shook up everything. When the dust settled, the world had changed.” Gently I said, “For the better.”

He sat for a while, taking that in. Then he said, “I hadn’t seen it in those terms.”

“You should. Because they’re true.” If Scorch had killed or sold him, it would have been a different story, but his family had acted fast enough that he sat here preparing for college exams instead of living as a slave.

Dayj smiled. “You’re a good person, Major.”

That was embarrassing, because I knew better. I had good in me, yes. Most people did, even Dig, maybe even Scorch. But darkness also lived in my heart. Yet despite everything that had happened to Dayj, he still saw the good in people. I hoped he always kept a portion of that innocence, for it was worth more than all the wealth of the Majdas.

* * *

A wide plaza stretched out from the outskirts of Cries in two shallow terraces, all blue and grey stone. A fountain bubbled on the upper terrace. Even from this far away, I could hear children laughing as they splashed in the water.

The entrance to the Concourse lay beyond the terraces, an archway wide enough for several people to walk through together. The stairs inside descended to the boulevard, which at this end was only one story underground. The sun had spent the last hour setting, and the archway glowed with lights, blue and gold, sparkling in the fading day.

I was walking next to a retaining wall, headed for the archway, when a boy came alongside me, an above-city child of about eight, clean and new in his sports clothes.

I smiled at him. “My greetings, sir.”

“Are you The Bhaaj?” A lock of floppy brown hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it back.

It startled me to hear the odd title spoken in an above-city accent. I slowed to a stop and sat on the wall so my height was equal to his. “I’m just Bhaaj. What can I do for you?”

He regarded me earnestly. “I want to join the Dust Knights.”

Good gods. This young fellow had probably never even seen a stalagmite, let alone been to the undercity. “Where did you hear about the Knights?”

He smiled, a flash of healthy teeth. “My cousin’s brother has a girlfriend who heard about it from a boy at her school who snuck down to the canals.” He straightened up, pulling back his shoulders. “Dust Knights follow the Code. Protect and train. Do good.”

Well, I hoped they would do good. It seemed a small thing, that this charming fellow wanted to join the Knights—except he came from the above-city, from the world of magic and privilege. Until this moment, everything that had happened, everything we had done, had revolved around the undercity coming to an accommodation with Cries. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone from Cries might want to come to us.

I couldn’t take this nice kid to the aqueducts. He wouldn’t last five minutes. Maybe, though, we could work out a program at the Rec Center where the children could do a sport together, both above- and undercity teams. I didn’t know if anyone would show up besides this boy, but it was worth a try. It was certainly a better way to introduce undercity youth to above-city culture than Vaj’s draconian idea of forcing our children into state schools.

“Tell you what,” I said. “If you’re still interested in five days, come to the Rec Center in the morning, tenth hour. I’ll meet you and we’ll talk.” I needed time to put some ideas together.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Good!” He stepped onto the wall and jumped off with a yell.

A chill swept over me, and I had the oddest sense, as if I saw a time centuries beyond this day, an age when the Knights had become a legend that served an empire. They were revered throughout the Imperialate, a secret order of protectors even more difficult to join than the Jagernauts, an order based in an exquisite, mythical place hidden beneath the oldest city in the Imperialate.

The chill went away as fast as it came, and I was once again sitting in a warm evening on the edge of Cries. I snorted at my ridiculous imagination, and the boy laughed at the undignified sound.

“Tomi,” a woman called. “Come on. Time for dinner.”

Looking back, I saw a woman walking across the plaza toward us. I grinned at Tomi. “Better get going. Knights have to eat their cabbage-roots to stay strong.”

“I hate cabbage-roots,” he announced. He waved and took off, running toward his mother.

I resumed my walk to the Concourse, thinking. I had to prepare for my meeting with the Majdas reps. Tomorrow I would go to various offices in Cries to see if I could arrange market licenses for undercity vendors. The office staff would resist the idea, of course, but I would keep at it until I wore them down. I could be annoyingly persistent.

I would also talk to the directors of the Rec Center. If we could arrange a less conspicuous annex near the end of the Concourse, our young people might go there. And I’d look up Orin at the university. It would be good to see him. Even if he no longer went to the aqueducts, he might know who did. Perhaps I could convince them to work as mentors with our children in return for the kids acting as guides to the canals. I could check with the engineers, too, to see if they’d work with the cyber-riders. It would take some mega-tech to lure out the riders, and engineers were less likely than anthropologists to enter the undercity, but you never knew.

So I pondered as I walked the Concourse. Even if only a few of my ideas succeeded, it was a start. Or so I hoped. I might be setting myself up for a lot of work with little chance of success. No matter. It was worth the effort. We had caught the attention of the above-city, and incredibly, at least for now, they were willing to work with us.

Tonight, though, I didn’t want to think anymore. I was on my way to meet someone more tempting than any ruins, tech, or Majda prince. I was going to spend the evening with my disreputable kingpin. Thoughts about changing the world could wait until tomorrow.