And handed it to the soldier.
Gods above. Had that actually happened? I watched with disbelief as Dig also gave him her tangler. I hoped the people here realized the freaking miracle they had just witnessed, that Dig Kajada willingly surrendered her weapons.
Dig turned and spoke to Lavinda in her rasping voice, her words strained and careful, for she was doing her best to use above-city speech rather than undercity dialect.
“Colonel,” Dig said, “I understand that anyone who comes here, for this one day, has got sanctuary. No matter who they are.”
I could almost feel how badly Lavinda wanted to deny those words, how much she wanted to clap Dig into the technological version of irons.
The colonel said only, “That is correct.”
Dig tapped a panel on her gauntlet and spoke into her comm. “Bring them.”
In response, a Center volunteer from outside walked through the sunlight streaming into the center—and he brought with him three children, a boy and two girls ranging in age from about six to twelve. Canal dust covered them, their clothes crusted with blue and red powder as if an avalanche had buried them. Bruises and gashes covered their skin, but none of them looked seriously hurt. Someone had protected them from a rock fall, and though I couldn’t have said how I knew, I had no doubt that person had thrown her own body across theirs, taking the brunt of the rocks.
Digjan inhaled sharply, and the children glanced at her. The smallest, the boy, gave a cry of recognition and started toward her, but the volunteer holding his hand drew him back. Instead, he brought the children to us and they all stood there with Dig.
“These are my children,” Dig told Lavinda. “Do I have your word that you will treat them as you treat everyone else here?”
“Yes,” Lavinda said. “You have my word.”
Dig continued in her ragged above-city speech. “They were taken by Vakaar during the combat and caught in the collapse of the canals. I ask that you see to their medical condition. Feed them.” She took a rattling breath. “And you test them for the emotion and thought hearing. All of them. Completely.”
“We will do that,” Lavinda said. “For you, too, if you wish.”
Dig nodded. Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed like a great stone column in the aqueducts crashing to the ground.
“Dig,” I shouted, dropping to my knees next to her body.
People were running to us. Digjan called her mother’s name, and then she was at my side, crouched next to Dig. Medics pushed their way past us and lifted up the cartel queen. I followed as they carried her to a pallet at one of the medical stations. People were everywhere, hooking Dig to monitors, paramedics calling, the doctor injecting her with gods only knew what.
“She’s failing,” someone yelled.
I stood back with Digjan, barely breathing while the medics worked. Gourd came up on Digjan’s other side and Jak stood with me. I felt as if I was seeing it through a haze, everything slowed down.
A voice cut through the chaos, low, rasping, unmistakable. “Fuck that, let me die in peace.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I grabbed Digjan’s arm and we pushed our way forward. As we knelt next to the pallet where Dig was hooked up to monitors and lines, Gourd and Jak crouched on the other side. Dig’s other daughters knelt by Jak, near their mother, and the boy squeezed between the two of them.
Dig looked up at her oldest daughter. Then she looked at me. She took Digjan’s hand and crossed it with mine, laying her daughter’s palm on top of my knuckles. She spoke to Digjan, her words barely audible. “You see this Bhaajan person? Great pain in my ass.”
“Stop talking,” Digjan told her. “You need to rest. Recover.”
Dig scowled. “Not argue with me, just once, Daughter.” She shook our joined hands. “Bhaaj is a great ass pain, yah. Bhaaj is also good. You be like her, Digjan. Like her. Not me.”
Digjan gripped her hand. “You won’t die.”
Dig glowered at her. “You won’t argue.” She glanced at me. “Always, this jan argues.” Her voice was fading and her eyes closed, but nothing hid her satisfaction as she said, “Vakaar is gone.”
“Hammer is dead?” Digjan asked.
“I kill.” Dig opened her eyes. “Your father is avenged.”
Digjan’s voice cracked. “Mother—”
“No more cartel,” Dig told her. “You take it over, I’ll come back from the dead and whoop your damn ass.”
“Don’t die,” Digjan whispered.
“Little son, little jans.” Dig reached for her other children and they clutched her fingers. Dig let out a breath, sighed once, and closed her eyes. The monitors stopped beeping and gave that horrible siren scream of death.
I was vaguely aware of the medics pushing me away so they could work on Dig. I rose to my feet and stumbled back, but nothing changed. The machines kept up their death wail. Digjan and her sisters and brother stayed with their mother until the other two Kajada punkers drew them away. The medics pulled a sheet over Dig, covering her entire body, including her head. Digjan was kneeling on the ground, rocking back and forth, holding her brother and sisters. The other punkers knelt with them, holding Digjan and the children.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Dig had been a monster. Why was I breaking apart? I spun around and strode away from them all. I was aware of Lavinda in front of me. She was trying to say something, but I couldn’t hear. I shook my head and kept going. What could I say? Oh sorry, Colonel, I neglected to tell you that my oldest friend, the blood sister I swore my life to when I was three years old, also happened to be one of the undercity’s worst criminals.
I walked into the light streaming through the doorway. Then I was outside, among the others who had come up from the undercity. Many had crowded around the door, watching the scene unfold. They parted and I strode past them, past the doctors treating patients, past the testers doing exams. Soon I was running in long strides that took me away from the Center. I had to escape. I followed side streets that wound between market stalls, then went farther, past shops closed for the noon sleep, until the sounds of the Center faded behind me. When I reached the wall of the Concourse, I sank down with my back against the white stone barrier, an empty shop on either side, and sat with my knees drawn up to my chest and my forehead on my knees.
A rustle came from nearby. I looked up to see Jak settling next to me. Gourd dropped down on my other side. We sat there together, leaning against one another.
“Damn Dig,” I whispered.
“A greater ass pain even than Bhaaj.” Jak’s ironic tone was ruined when his voice cracked.
I gave a ragged laugh that threatened to end with a sob. “Yah.”
“She argued even more than Digjan,” Gourd said.
“She saved my life more than once,” I said.
“Dig was my first,” Gourd said. “Good first.”
“You’re Digjan’s father?” I asked. That didn’t fit with what I had just heard.
He shook his head. “Dig and me, we were just kids. Later she had a bigger love.”
“Same father, all four children,” Jak said. “Vakaar killed him.”
So the cartel war had been about more than drugs. Dig was avenging the death of her children’s father. I put my forehead back on my knees and closed my eyes. Too much had happened. So many emotions, so much grief and triumph, pain and joy, fighting, killing and birth, children laughing and children dying, starvation and freedom, the freedom simply to stand in the sunlight. I couldn’t absorb it all, even comprehend what it felt like to walk up the Concourse with four hundred people following me. I didn’t know whether to mourn or rejoice. My mind couldn’t hold all these emotions. I was drowning.
The knees of my trousers must have taken a spill from the water in someone’s snap-bottle. Those weren’t tears on my face, sliding down my cheeks, soaking into my clothes.
We sat there, me and Gourd and Mean Jak clumped together. Jak put his arm around my should
ers and I put mine around his waist. Gourd put his big arm over Jak’s on my shoulders, and I put my other one around Gourd’s waist.
And then we did what dust rats never did.
We cried.
XXIII
The Children
I had expected, when I received a summons to the palace, to meet Lavinda in her office or one of those round alcoves with tall windows that were like polished jewel boxes. Instead, the pilot who picked me up at the penthouse landed his flyer in a vast garden behind the palace, a place of many plants on terraces. After he left, I stood on the highest terrace at the end of a path paved in stones that were a wimpy purple color.
Lavender, Max thought.
What? I couldn’t concentrate.
The color of the stones. It’s called lavender.
Yah, good. I was trying with no success to stop feeling nervous. The garden was far more lush than anything that grew naturally in this desert. The few trees were sculptures. The one nearest to where I stood looked like a great flying lizard, its leafy wings outstretched, its double trunk like two legs braided around each other. A fountain burbled beyond it, and flowers bloomed everywhere, big orchids, blue, pink, and red. The terraced gardens descended in huge steps to a meadow below, and beyond the meadow, the mountains rose into the sky.
I couldn’t see on the other side of the palace, but I knew the mountains there descended down to the desert. On that side, I could have seen Cries in the distance, but here I saw nothing except blue and red peaks with no foliage. A stark view, yes, but spectacularly beautiful in its barren majesty. I needed that view today. The sight eased the ragged edges of my mind. It was hard to believe only a day had passed since we of the undercity walked the Concourse and changed the history of Cries.
After a while, I wondered what had happened to Lavinda. I had never known her to be late. Just as I was about to go in search of her, footsteps sounded behind me. I turned—and blinked. Four guards were approaching along the path from the palace. A man walked in their midst. It wasn’t Lavinda who had come to see me, but her husband.
Prince Paulo wore simple clothes, no gems or gold, just a blue shirt and dark trousers. As he drew closer, I realized the cloth was imported Haverian silk, a fabric woven by tinarian spiders on the planet Haveria. I had never actually seen anyone wealthy enough to wear clothes made from that silk. What unsettled me even more, though, was that he didn’t have on his robe. Within the palace, Majda men didn’t have to go robed, but they also didn’t usually talk to outsiders.
When Paolo reached me, I bowed, acutely self-conscious. “My greetings, Your Highness.”
“Major.” He lifted his hand, indicating a bench under the tree. “Would you care to sit?”
“Uh, yah, sure,” Gods, I sounded like an idiot. Majda men did that to me. Their mere presence was enough to leave us mere mortals tongue-tied.
We settled on the bench, he on one end and me on the other, with two of his guards standing behind the bench, the third on the side next to Paolo, and the fourth a few meters to the front, checking out the terraces, as if gods forbid, a tiny flying lizard might trespass on the Majda prince he guarded. I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, so I waited.
“I often come to this garden to think,” Paolo said. “I find it soothing.”
“It’s beautiful.” I couldn’t imagine why I was here.
“The army architects sent me their records of the collapsed canals,” Paolo said. “Along with reports from the university detailing the historical value and structure of the ruins.”
It seemed bizarre they would send him all that information, but what did I know? I said only, “Part of two canals fell.” Wryly I added, “They made a lot of noise.”
He smiled. “I imagine so. Have you had a good look at them since then?”
“Several times.” I was still puzzled. “Why do you ask?”
“The engineers could rebuild them,” he said, “but they don’t feel they can do the canals justice. Repairing a ruin that ancient is no easy task.”
I wondered why he cared. Then it hit me. Good gods. “You’re going to direct the repair.”
“Why does that surprise you?”
I had expected the Anthropology Department at the university to spearhead the work. The canals were marvels, and of course Cries would want them preserved. But no one would expect a prince of the realm to do the job, especially one of Paolo’s standing. Were I a diplomat with expertise in verbal nuance, I could have soft-pedaled my response, but I was just inarticulate me. So I said, “I’m surprised you agreed to fix a slum, even one with historical value. You’re one of the top architects in the Imperialate. And you live in seclusion.”
“I saw the records of your procession on the Concourse.” His voice had an odd sound, as if it were hollowed out. “We have much to answer for.”
“We?”
“Majda. Cries. Anyone who stood by and did nothing when we could have helped.”
I couldn’t answer. That touched too close to the scorched places in my heart. The irony was that my people would shy away from his help, wary of royalty setting their hand onto our lives. But the Majdas weren’t what I expected. Yes, they were wealthy and privileged, and they took their lives for granted, oblivious to the bitter truths of life below their shimmering city. The gap between their sphere and ours was so big, we might never truly understand each other. Yet both Lavinda and her husband were willing to try bridging that gap.
I had to say something. This wasn’t the time for undercity silence. “Having you design the repair means a great deal.”
He inclined his head, a response not so different from how we acknowledged such statements in the undercity. Then he said, “I can’t, however, visit the ruins.”
“Can you work from holographic recordings?”
“If they are done well.” He considered me. “I need someone who knows the canals to make the recordings.”
That couldn’t be what it sounded like. “Are you asking me?”
“If you have the time.” With a look of apology, he added, “It will be a lot of work. But you would be compensated.”
“I’m just a private investigator. Another architect would be a better choice.”
“It is not the training.” He stopped as if searching for the right words. “What you see in the undercity, Major, cannot be learned. No architect I know could go down there and give me a true picture, not in the way someone who understands the aqueducts could provide. For me to do justice to the repair, I need to know those canals as they are seen by someone who loves them.”
Love? That was nuts. I didn’t even like the aqueducts. Except that was lie, and if it had taken me too long to admit that truth, the least I could do was acknowledge it now.
After a moment, Paolo said, “My apology if I gave offense.”
“No. No, you didn’t.” I took a breath. “Yes, I accept.”
His smile flashed. “Thank you.”
I nodded to him, undercity style. We had a bargain.
Paolo glanced behind us. Following his gaze, I saw a tall woman in a green uniform waiting by the palace, partially hidden by the vines hanging off a latticed arch in the garden.
Paolo stood up, and I rose as well. When I bowed from the waist, he inclined his head to me. He took his leave then, his guards falling in around him. The woman came forward, but she didn’t stop to talk when they passed on the pathway, though it looked like they exchanged a greeting. It seemed oddly formal for a husband and wife, but then, much of what the Majdas did seemed too formal to me. The woman walked through the lattice archway—and I stiffened. It wasn’t Lavinda.
The Majda queen had come to see me.
Vaj walked to the bench where I stood, imposing in her general’s uniform and long-legged gait. She nodded to me the same way that Paolo had done, but she somehow made it intimidating.
“Major,” she said.
“My greetings, General.” I was glad for the cool breezes in the mountains, beca
use otherwise I would have been sweating despite the nanomeds in my body that were supposed to moderate such reactions.
She motioned at the bench and we both sat down. “Paolo said you accepted the job.”
“Yes, I did.”
Vaj gazed out over the terraces. I didn’t have the sense she was deliberately remaining silent, but rather that she wanted to think and felt inclined to do it while we were sitting here. After a moment she turned back to me. “We didn’t expect what you discovered about this woman Scorch.”
I hadn’t either. “I don’t think she had much interest in smuggling weapons. She only became involved because it gave her a contact among the Traders.”
“Yes, that appears to be the case.” Her voice took on a darker quality. “She found psions by addicting them to phorine. She controlled them by limiting the supply of the drug. She planned to sell them to the Traders.”
I didn’t miss her phrasing: Planned. Not did. “Then she hadn’t yet?”
“From what we’ve determined, she was setting up the first sale when you killed her.” The general’s voice was ice. “Hers would have been the ultimate crime, because we had no idea, none of us, that the people she planned to sell even existed.”
Scorch had known, damn her greedy little soul. As much as I might resent that it took this discovery to make the powers in Cries care about us, I hated far more the future Scorch would have created with her greed. I hated Scorch. I didn’t much like myself, either, for the fierce satisfaction I felt in having killed her, but I was glad I had ended her miserable egomaniacal life.
At the moment, however, my feelings were irrelevant. I had a greater concern. Cries had taken notice of the undercity, big-time. “What do you plan to do?” I asked. “Now that you know about my people?”
She spoke in her perfect Iotic accent with that dusky voice. “I imagine my solutions will be different than what you might suggest.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But I had to deal with this, because if I didn’t, the general would go ahead with her own plans. “What are your solutions?”
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