III
Majda
The Matriarch indicated a brocaded couch with gilt-edged legs. Wooden legs. And Raylicon had no trees. “Let us sit,” she said in her terrifyingly rich voice.
My knowledge of how to behave with royalty was exactly zilch. However, the Majda Matriarch also served as one of the Joint Commanders in charge of the Skolian military, specifically the General of the Pharaoh’s Army. And she had used my military title, though I had been out of the army for years. Military protocol I could handle. So I said, “Thank you, General.”
She inclined her head, accepting the title. I sat on the couch and she settled on a wingchair. A table with red and gold mosaics stood between us. Majda crossed her long legs and light glinted on her polished knee-boots.
“Would you care for a drink?” she asked. “I have a bit of Kazar brandy.”
Seriously? I’d give a decade of life for genuine Kazar. I said only, “Thank you, yes.”
Majda touched the scrolled arm on her chair. A circle the size of her fingertip glowed blue, but nothing else happened.
Then we sat.
I had no idea what to do with the silence. She would set the conversation. So I waited, racking my brain for what I knew about the Majdas. Five millennia ago, the Ruby Dynasty had reigned over an empire led by the Ruby Pharaoh, who was also Matriarch of the House of Skolia. Although the elected Assembly ruled the Imperialate now instead of the dynasty, the Skolias still wielded substantial power. After the Skolias, the Majdas were the most influential House. They no longer ruled Raylicon; in these modern times, their empire was financial. They controlled more wealth than the combined governments of entire planets.
They also controlled a significant portion of the military. During the Ruby Empire, the House of Majda had supplied generals to the Pharaoh’s Army. Today, they dominated the two largest branches of Imperial Space Command, the army and the Imperial Fleet. Majda women served as officers. Only the women. Of all the noble Houses, Majda adhered most to the old ways. They kept their princes secluded, never seen by any women outside the family.
A man in dark clothes entered the room carrying a tray with two crystal tumblers. Gold liquid sparkled in them. He set the tray on the table and bowed to Majda.
The general inclined her head. “Thank you.”
He left as silently as he had come. I stared after him. No one had human servants anymore. Robots were less expensive, more reliable, and required less upkeep.
Majda indicated the tumblers to me. “Please be my guest.”
We both took our glasses. The brandy swirled in my mouth, went down like ambrosia, and detonated when it hit bottom. Saints almighty. I sat up straighter. The nanomeds in my body would keep me sober, but gods, with brandy like this, I was tempted to get drunk.
“That’s good,” I said, ever the master of understatement.
Majda sipped her drink. “You have an interesting reputation, Major Bhaajan.”
“You’ve a job for me, I take it.”
“A discreet job.”
Discretion was my specialty. No messes. “Of course.”
“I need to find someone.” She considered me. “I’m told you are the best there is for such searches and that you know Cries.”
“I grew up here.” I had no wish to remember my youth. I had lived in the undercity, deep below the gleaming City of Cries, a dust rat surviving on my wits, my ability to steal, and my sheer cussed refusal to let poverty kill me. I knew Cries in ways no Majda could understand. Before she could bring up any more about my past, I changed the subject. “I’ll need to see all the details you can give me about this person and how she disappeared. Holos, mesh access, traits, everything on her habits and friends.”
“You will have the information.” Her voice hardened. “Be certain you never misuse it.”
That didn’t sound good. “Misuse how?”
“He is a member of this family.”
He. He. Ah, hell.
Majda had lost a prince, one of those hidden and robed enigmas that fascinated the empire. You could end up in prison just for trying to glimpse one of their men. It wasn’t so long ago that the penalty for a woman who touched a Majda prince was execution. My life wouldn’t be worth spit if I offended this House, and I couldn’t imagine a better way to piss them off than to trespass against one of their men.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
She tapped the arm on her chair and the room dimmed. Curtains closed over the windows. A screen came down in front of the wall across from us and a holo formed, the image of a man. He stood in a room similar to this one, but with wood paneling and tapestries on the walls instead of books. He looked in his early twenties. Luxuriant black hair curled over his forehead and he had the Majda eyes, large and dark, tilted upward. His broad shoulders, leanly muscled torso, and long legs had ideal proportions. He wore a tunic of russet velvet and red brocade, edged in gold, and darker trousers with knee hoots. The word gorgeous didn’t begin to describe him. He was, without doubt, the most singularly arresting man I had ever seen.
He wasn’t smiling.
“His name is Prince Dayjarind Kazair Majda,” the general said. “He is my nephew. No woman outside this family has ever seen him in person.” She paused. “Save one.”
Had he run off with a lover who had a death wish? I spoke carefully. “Who?”
“Roca Skolia.”
That wasn’t what I had expected. “You mean the Pharaoh’s sister?”
“That is correct.”
Well, well. Roca Skolia was heir to the Ruby Throne, first in line to the title of Ruby Pharaoh. She not only held a hereditary seat in the elected Assembly that governed the Imperialate, she had also run for election and won a seat as a delegate. She had risen in the Assembly ranks until she became the Foreign Affairs Councilor, making her one of the most powerful politicians in the Imperialate. If this Majda queen expected me to investigate Roca Skolia, she had a far higher estimation of my skills than even I did myself.
“Your Highness,” I said, “I can’t force a member of the Ruby Dynasty to return your nephew.”
“He is not with Roca. They were betrothed. Almost.” A thinly concealed disdain edged her voice. “Two years ago, Roca broke her agreement in order to marry some barbarian king.” After a pause, she added, “Reparations were offered. Eventually my House accepted them.” Her tone implied acceptance hadn’t come easy. “I had thought the matter settled. Then three days ago, Dayj ran away.”
“How did he leave?” It wouldn’t surprise me if this Prince Dayj had better security guarding him than some heads of state.
“We aren’t certain.” She set her drink on the table. “I have always viewed my nephew as a pleasant and good-natured young man, but without much depth. I may have underestimated him.”
“Do you have any idea where he went?”
“None.”
“What do the authorities in Cries say?”
Her voice cooled. “Majda has its own police force.”
“But they can’t find him?”
A pause. “They haven’t exhausted all the possibilities.”
Right. That was why they had brought me in, a stranger from another planet. “Could someone have kidnapped your nephew?”
She spoke coolly. “It would be almost impossible to take him from here even with his cooperation. And we’ve received no ransom demand.” Her gaze darkened. “If he left of his own free will, which we believe he did, he knows nothing about survival outside this palace. He can read and write, but beyond that he has no experience in taking care of himself.”
Maybe. If he had been able to outwit the Majda security, he was probably more savvy than she believed. “Did he leave a note?”
“On his holopad.” Her voice sounded strained, as if she were in pain but trying to cover it. “It said, ‘I can’t do this any longer. I have to go. I’m sorry. I love you all.’”
Such a simple message with such a world of hurt. Yet she mentioned only a broken agreement with Roca Skolia from two years ago. “So you think he’s still upset about the betrothal?”
Majda snorted. “Hardly. He never wanted to marry Roca.”
“Then why do you mention it?”
“Because he said the same thing after she broke the betrothal. Except not that sentence about having to go.”
“Has he ever talked about leaving?”
Majda waved her hand. “He never says much, just male talk. Inconsequentials.”
I could already see plenty of reasons why Dayjarind Majda might have run off, but I couldn’t suggest any of them to the Matriarch. So I said only, “General Majda, if he can be found, I’ll do it.”
“No measure is too extreme.” She leaned forward. “Whatever you need, we will provide.”
* * *
I spent the morning in a private suite the Majdas gave me in the palace, trying to figure out who might have helped Dayj escape. He was one of nine Majda princes here, including his father and two younger brothers. His Uncle Izam was consort to Vaj Majda, the Matriarch. Izam and Vaj had three daughters, Devon, Corey, and Naaj, and one son, Jazar. The Matriarch’s two sisters lived in the palace with their families, but her brothers had married and left Raylicon. The older brother continued to live in seclusion with his wife, the Matriarch of another noble House, but the general’s younger brother had pulverized tradition and scandalized his family by attending college. He was now a psychology professor at the Royal University on Parthonia. Good for him.
Dayj had an odd life. His elders paid excruciatingly close attention to ensure he behaved as expected for an unmarried man of his station. I hadn’t known people still lived by those rigid codes, over five thousand years old. He could never leave the palace without an escort. On the rare occasion when he had permission to venture beyond the boundaries of his constrained life, he wore a cowled robe that hid him from head to toe. He couldn’t communicate with anyone outside the family, which meant he never used the meshes that spanned human-settled space, a web of communications that most people took for granted.
He had no formal schooling. However, he used the Majda libraries extensively. I wondered if Vaj Majda had ever bothered to check, given her comments about his supposed lack of depth. He read voraciously in science and mathematics, art and culture, history and sociology, psychology and mysticism. His education went beyond what many of us learned in a lifetime. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him, confined here, knowing so much about the freedom beyond his cage.
Still, it was a golden cage. He lived in a manner most people only dreamed about, if they could envision it at all. His family lavished him with jewels worth more than my entire life’s earnings; with tapestries sought by collectors throughout the Imperialate; with gourmet delicacies and wines. Anything he wanted, they gave him as long as it didn’t break his inviolable seclusion. He was among the greatest assets owned by Majda, an incomparably handsome prince who would bring great allies and fortune to the House through his marriage.
No wonder he had run away.
I wondered how he felt about the betrothal to Roca Skolia. He had almost given Majda a direct line into the Ruby Dynasty. I easily found broadcasts on the subject. They made the perfect couple, and their arranged betrothal had fascinated the public. So what had Roca done? Two years ago, she ran off with a farmer from some remote colony, one of the ancient settlements stranded five thousand years ago after the Ruby Empire fell and only recently rediscovered. The fellow apparently carried the blood of the ancient dynasty; either that, or he and Roca married out of love and the Ruby Dynasty scrambled for a royal connection to justify the union. The convoluted web of politics that tangled around all these people made me inestimably grateful for my simple life.
Watching the holos of Dayj and Roca, I doubted he had suffered much heartbreak when she broke the agreement. His family recorded those strained visits; privacy seemed less valuable to them than ensuring that he and the Councilor maintained the proper behavior. Like Dayj, Roca was too beautiful. It was annoying. She had gold hair, gold eyes, golden skin, and an angel’s face. The two of them sat in wingback chairs, drank wine out of jeweled goblets, and conversed stiffly. Despite their perfectly composed sentences, neither seemed to enjoy the visits. Power, beauty, and wealth apparently didn’t translate into romantic bliss.
Regardless of how Dayj had felt about his intended, it had to have hurt when she dumped him. His family had molded his life with one goal in mind: he would become the consort of a powerful woman. They achieved the pinnacle. He literally couldn’t have done better; the only more powerful woman was the Pharaoh herself, and she had to marry within her family, an arcane law that had managed to survive our legal system for millennia. Dayj had done exactly what he was supposed to do, and it had collapsed on him.
I had landed in one holy mess. To solve this, I had to talk to the Majda princes, who would know aspects of Dayj that he probably never revealed to the women of the household. A million ways existed to trespass on the honor of the Majdas. One misstep could embroil me in more trouble than I’d ever seen. I disliked jobs from crime bosses, but even that would be easier to deal with. All criminals had to worry about was the law, or more accurately, not being caught when they broke it. Majda was a law unto itself. The police would look the other way if the Matriarch decided to take that law into her own hands.
If I botched this, I was, literally, royally screwed.
* * *
Prince Paolo had married Colonel Lavinda Majda, the Matriarch’s youngest sister. A son of the Rajindia noble House, Paolo had led a relatively normal life prior to his marriage and earned several university degrees. Gods only knew why such a man would agree to live in seclusion, but even I wasn’t blind to the benefits of marrying into the House of Majda.
I couldn’t see him alone, of course. Four male guards accompanied me into his study, led by Duane Ebersole, a retired major from the Pharaoh’s Army, a powerfully built man who projected a sense of self-assured authority. His people were recording this meeting. A female guard remained outside, Captain Krestone, another former officer who headed palace security and missed nothing. One thing I’d say for the Majdas; they chose their staff well. Both Krestone and Ebersole impressed me with their calm authority and a situational awareness that I recognized only because I’d also been taught to keep that same alert attention to all details, large and small.
Paolo was seated behind his large desk. A clutter of data spheres, holosheets, and light styluses lay strewn across its surface, which consisted of a glossy black holoscreen. He leaned back as I sat across from him in a wing chair with smart cushions.
“My greetings, Major,” he said.
“My greetings, Your Highness,” I answered.
He studied me with dark eyes. Of course he was handsome, even including the streaks of gray in his hair and fine lines around his eyes. All the Majda men I had seen were unusually good-looking, every one of them dark, well-proportioned, and undoubtedly fertile. The Matriarch might consider Dayj shallow, but maybe she ought to look at her own values. Majda women hardly seemed to choose their princes for depth. Then again, maybe there was more to it. Paolo Rajindia Majda was no fool. Before his marriage, he had earned a doctorate at the Architecture Institute associated with Imperial College on the world Metropoli, one of the most elite academic institutions in the Imperialate.
“You’ve come to ask about Dayj,” he said.
“That’s right.” I had intended to talk with Dayj’s parents first, but they were both at the starport with the police, trying to find out if he had gone offworld.
Paolo rested his elbow on the arm of his chair. “Do you think he left Raylicon?”
“I’ve no idea.” I tried a probe. “It depends how much help he had from inside the palace.”
Paolo didn’t twitch. “What help?”
“To escape, he needed inside someone’s aid.”
His voice cooled. “Why? You don’t think he could figure it out himself?”
Interesting. Paolo didn’t like hearing his nephew’s intellect talked down. “I’ve no doubt about his intelligence,” I said. “However, he has no experience outside the limitations of his life here.”
He spoke dryly. “If you have no doubt about his intellect, Major, you’re in a minority here.”
“Maybe he didn’t appreciate that.”
“Maybe not,” Paolo picked up a light stylus and tapped it against his desk. “Dayj could be vain and self-absorbed, but no one ever gave him a chance to be anything else. If anyone took the time to look, they might find a very different young man under his outward veneer.”
I wondered who he meant by “anyone.” Dayj’s parents? The Matriarch? Her siblings? Paolo probably had a different take on Majda princes than family members who grew up at the palace.
“You’ve an interesting background yourself,” I said.
“That was tactful.” He spoke wryly. “Shall I answer the question you really wanted to ask?”
“What question is that?”
“Why am I willing to live in seclusion when I had job offers from some good companies?”
According to my research, those “good companies” were all elite architectural firms. I asked. “Did you want a job like that?”
“I have my own small business.” He motioned at the holosheets on his desk. “I’ve designed buildings in a few places, including Cries. Also in your corner of space, Selei City.”
Ho! Those were two of the most prestigious markets in the Imperialate. “You have your own firm? How?”
Paolo was watching me closely. “That I can’t leave this place, Major, doesn’t mean I can’t work. I have a staff. They take care of anything that requires interaction with the outside world. It leaves me free to be creative.”
“Nice setup,” I said. “Except you can never touch your creations.” He could walk through virtual simulations of his buildings, but he could never set foot in them.
He shrugged. “We all pay a price for our dreams.”
“And Dayj?”
“Ah, well. Dayj.” His exhaled. “He has more than the rest of us. And less.”
“Meaning?”
“You’ve seen holos of him?” When I nodded, he said, “Then you know. He’s one of the best-looking men in the Imperialate.”
What was it with them and this beauty thing? Even as a child, I had resented it when vendors in Cries gave me food because they thought I was pretty, but they let my friends go hungry.
I crossed my arms. “Life has more to it than appearance.”
“Yes, well, no one ever bothered to tell my nephew that.” He shook his head. “From a certain point of view, Dayj is perfect. The epitome of the Majda prince.”
Even knowing they were recording this interview, I couldn’t hide my anger. “A prize, right? The ultimate trophy, bred from birth to marry a Ruby heir.”
His voice cooled. “Take care, Major.”
Yes, antagonizing the House of Majda was dangerous. But if I was going to find Dayj when none of their own people had managed, I needed to look where they didn’t want to go even if my process of getting there offended them.
I said only, “How did he respond when the betrothal fell through?”
Paolo remained silent as he studied my face. Finally he said, “He seemed numb. It wasn’t that he mourned her loss. He hardly knew her. But what did he have left? Nothing.”
For flaming sakes. “Did you people actually tell him that?”
Paolo spoke with an edge. “Make no mistake, Major. This family loves Dayj and will do anything to bring him back. You may not like what you hear, but that won’t change the truth.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” I met his gaze. “Dayj’s truth might be different than what everyone here believes.”
His face took on an aristocratic chill. “Whereas you claim to know it?”
“No,” I said. “But I mean to find out.”
* * *
Dayj’s parents were Corejida and Ahktar. Corejida was the middle Majda sister, younger than the Matriarch but older than Lavinda. She resembled General Majda, but with a less imposing presence. Her clothes had a softer look, light blue trousers and a tunic that molded to her body. Right now, she was pacing across the circular alcove. The room had polished walls tiled in pale blue and silver mosaics, as if we were inside a jeweled box. Its arched windows stretched from floor to ceiling and showed a lofty view of the mountains outside, peaks with a desolate beauty. General Majda stood by one of the windows facing us, her gaze intent on her sister.
Chief Takkar, the head of the Majda police force, was leaning against the wall with her brawny arms crossed. She had only a cold stare for me. Her black uniform matched the one worn by the pilot who had picked me up in the flycar. Like everyone else here, Takkar was physically fit, with black hair and dark eyes. Hell, I was physically fit, with black hair and dark eyes. Did the Majdas subconsciously chose their employees to resemble themselves? Who knew, maybe it wasn’t subconscious.
Four guards stood by the arched exit across the room, making sure that, gods forbid, I didn’t sneak deeper into the palace and trespass on the men’s quarters. At least Krestone, their captain, didn’t show any of Chief Takkar’s hostility toward me. Krestone remained by the doorway, alert and focused, the solid sort who spoke rarely and saw a great deal.
“We have to find him,” Corejida was saying as she paced through a panel of sunlight that slanted through a window and across the floor. “Gods only know what has happened out there. He could be hurt, lost, starving.” She looked as if she hadn’t slept for the last three days.
“Has he talked about anything outside the palace?” I asked. “Any place, in any context?”
“We’ve already been through this,” Takkar told me. “He never spoke of other places.”
“I’d like to hear Lady Corejida’s thoughts.” I wasn’t sure why Corejida went by the honorific Lady; it seemed rather modest for such a highly placed House. She was hard to read. Although Majda women seemed to prefer military titles to noble address, she had never joined the military. Finance was her specialty. Someone had to run the Majda empire.
“Does Prince Dayjarind have any special interests?” I asked. “Subjects he likes to read about? Hobbies? Favorite pursuits?”
“He’s been talking about landscapes lately.” Corejida rubbed the back of her neck as she paced, working at the muscles. “He looks at holo-images in the library.”
“Did he mention any holo in particular?” I asked.
She paused in front of a window and stood facing me, backlit by the streaming sunlight. “He likes imaginary scenes, impossible images created by mesh systems.”
Vaj spoke in her husky voice. “Dayj has always been that way. Dreaming whatever boys dream.”
I hardly thought a twenty-three-year-old man qualified as a boy. “Did he want to make landscapes?”
They stared at me blankly. Corejida said, “Make them?”
I thought of Paolo with his architectural firm. “Yes, design them.”
His mother squinted at me. “You mean, create his own art?”
“Maybe that was why he enjoyed looking at those scenes,” I said. “He wants to be an artist.”
“I don’t think so,” Corejida said.
“Did you check his mesh account?” I asked.
Chief Takkar spoke tightly. “We’ve checked every account he’s ever used.” Then she added, “Major” as if it were an afterthought, making my title sound like an insult.
I considered the police chief. “I’d like to take a look.”
Corejida spoke quickly, before Takkar could respond. “It can be arranged.” Lines of strain showed around her eyes. “Anything you need. Just find my son.”
Takkar pressed her lips together. If I found a clue that she had missed, it wouldn’t reflect well on her. Well, tough. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. Territorial, yes, and defensive. That her people had failed to locate the prince put her in a tight spot. Anything I found that she had missed could make her look bad. As much as she might resent my presence, however, it would benefit her to work with me. The sooner we located Dayj, the better for everyone.
Whether or not Takkar saw it that way remained to be seen.
* * *
“I’m not sure what you think I would know,” Krestone told me. “I’m assigned to Lavinda Majda’s guard, and her husband Prince Paolo. I don’t interact much with Prince Dayjarind.”
We were in the living room of my palace suite, relaxing on large pillows on the floor. The black lacquered table between us reflected the crystal goblets of wine a servant had poured and the matching decanter he left on the table, half full of a red liquid. It was all gorgeous, but really, how could anyone enjoy a drink packaged like that? You couldn’t swig ale from a crystal goblet.
“I’m talking to all the palace guards,” I said. Which was true, though that was partly so it didn’t look as if I had singled out Krestone. Of all the people I’d dealt with here, she struck me as the one most likely to offer useful information. I doubted the Majdas were deliberately making matters difficult; they wanted me to succeed. But they rarely if ever had strangers prying into their private lives, and they raised barriers without realizing they were hindering my work.
“I wondered when you last saw Prince Dayjarind,” I said. “I’m trying to get a sense of his actions before he disappeared.”
“Three days ago,” Krestone said. “It was a few hours before he disappeared.” She picked up her goblet, which startled me. Then again, she was no longer on duty. During her free time, she could drink whatever she pleased. Well, what the hell. Even if it looked too perfect to consume, the wine was still just wine. I picked up my goblet, too.
“I saw him that morning.” Krestone took a swallow of her drink, then blinked at the glass. “You know, this is actually good.” With a rueful smile, she added, “When it comes to liquor, I’m more of a shoot-’em-first-and-ask-questions-later type.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yah.” I took a swallow of wine. Ho! Good hardly described that blissful moment. I said only, “It’s not bad.”
Krestone grinned, and we both drank some more. Then she said, “Dayj came by Paolo’s office that morning. He wanted to return a book Paolo had lent him.”
“Did Dayj seem upset?”
“Maybe a little distant. He’s often that way, though.” She shook her head. “It’s hard to say. I was outside. Only his guards went inside Paolo’s office with him.
“Did they talk long?”
“A few minutes.”
I nodded, disappointed. Dayj’s guards had told me the same. “Had you seen him with anyone unusual recently?”
“Never. Just his family, and of course Captain Ebersole, Hazi, Oxil, or Nazina.”
That was quite a list. “Who are Hazi, Oxil, and Nazina?”
“Bodyguards attached to the palace,” Krestone said.
Oh. No surprise there. I’d have to check my notes, but I’d already talked to Duane Ebersole, and I was pretty sure Hazi, Oxil, and Nazina were also on my list. No wonder Dayj was going stir crazy, with so many people constraining his life.
“Do you remember anything else?” I asked.
“Nothing, sorry.” As the captain put down her drink, the comm on her gauntlet pinged. She tapped the receive panel. “Krestone here.”
Takkar’s voice rose out of the comm. “Heya, Kres. You busy?”
“I’m off right now,” Krestone said. “What do you need?”
“We could use your help. We’re doing shift assignments.”
“Be right there,” Krestone said. “I was just talking with Major Bhaajan.”
Takkar’s tone cooled markedly. “Well, fuck. She causing you any trouble?”
Krestone glanced at me with a look of apology. Into the comm, she said, “None at all.”
I spoke, raising my voice enough so Takkar could hear. “Got a problem with me, Chief?”
A silence followed my question. Then Takkar said, “Krestone, we’re at the station. Come when you can. Out here.” The comm fell silent.
Krestone gave me a rueful look. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem.” I shouldn’t push Takkar, but you could find out a lot about people from the way they reacted when they were irritated.
Unfortunately, so far I hadn’t found out squat.
* * *
“Lumos down to five percent,” I said.
The lights in my suite dimmed until I could barely see the console that curved around my chair. I leaned back, my hands clasped behind my head, and put my feet on the console. “Jan, show me the landscapes that Prince Dayjarind collected.”
“Accessed.” Jan’s androgynous voice came from the Evolving Intelligence brain, or EI, that ran the console. A holo appeared above the console, a startling scene in three dimensions. Waves rose impossibly high over a sapphire beach and crashed down on the glittering blue sand, spraying phosphorescent foam. The physics made no sense. Unless it was an unusually low-gravity world, those waves went up far too high and came down far too slowly. When they built to their highest point, they looked like tidal waves. The ocean should have receded far back from the beach as each wave pulled up all the water, but it didn’t. None of that mattered, though. Artistically, the scene was breathtaking.
“What planet is that on?” I asked.
“It isn’t,” Jan said.
“Is it pure fiction?” I asked. “Or does it resemble a known place?”
After a pause, Jan said, “The scene has a nine percent correlation to the Urban Sea on the planet Metropoli.”
Nine percent didn’t say much, but it wasn’t negligible. “Show me another one he liked.”
Over the next hour, Jan showed me Dayj’s collection of oceans, beaches, and mountains, a valley of opal hills, a plain of red reeds under a cobalt sky, a forest of stained-glass trees. At first I didn’t see any correlation between them, other than their eerie beauty. Then it hit me.
They were all empty.
“Do any of his landscapes have people in them?” I asked.
Another pause. Then Jan said, “None.”
I exhaled, saddened.
* * *
Vaj Majda spoke coldly. “Offending my family and staff achieves nothing, Major Bhaajan.”
One day at the palace and already I had insulted people. Apparently neither Takkar nor Prince Paolo liked my attitude.
We were standing before a window in the library, bathed in sunlight. “The whole point of bringing me in,” I said, “was to get new insights, to see if I can find what others missed.”
She considered me, one of the few people I knew who was tall enough to look down at me, not by much, but it was still unsettling.
“And have you found anything?” she asked.
“I ran correlations on Dayj’s landscapes with real places.”
The general waved her hand in dismissal. “So did Takkar’s people.”
“True. But I searched for negatives.”
“Negative in what sense?”
“I looked for what was missing.”
“And?”
“He doesn’t like the desert. No images at all.”
Majda tilted her head, her face thoughtful. “He lives on the edge of a desert. It might seem harsh or mundane to him.”
I’d wondered the same. “He likes the ocean.”
She smiled with unexpected grace. “Perhaps he dreams of the age when the Vanished Sea stretched here to the horizon and sent waves crashing into the shore.”
Interesting. A bit of a poet lived in the conservative general. I struggled to express an idea that was more intuition than analysis. “You say he’s a dreamer. He likes to read stories. He enjoys exotic landscapes that exist only in the mind of an artist. All places. No people.”
“I’m not sure I follow your meaning.”
“He’s lonely.”
She frowned. “That is the best you can do? His holos have no people, therefore he is lonely?”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I hired you to find him. Not give him therapy.”
I spoke carefully. “Your Highness, if I offend, I ask your pardon. But to find him, I have to explore all possibilities. Maybe your nephew dreamed of places rather than people because he saw his life as empty. Without companionship. Actual places are no more real to him than the creations of an artist’s imagination. What greater freedom is there than to visit a place that doesn’t exist?”
“If it doesn’t exist,” she asked dryly, “how will you find it?”
“I think he went to the sea.” I let loose with one of my intuitive leaps. “He feels he is vanishing. And he lives by the Vanished Sea. So he went to find a sea that exists.”
“That strikes me as exceedingly far-fetched.” She sounded puzzled, though, rather than dismissive.
“Maybe.” I waited.
“Raylicon has no true seas,” she said.
“So he’s never seen a real ocean.”
“We have found no trace that he went offworld.”
“Then either he faked his ID or he didn’t go offworld.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m paying you for that analysis?”
Well, all right, it didn’t come out sounding brilliant. I tried again. “I think he will try to buy a false identity and passage offworld. He was wearing expensive clothes the day he disappeared. The gems alone on them are worth a fortune. He didn’t lack for resources.”
The general shook her head. “Takkar and her people checked the black market, not just in Cries, but across the planet. They found no trace of his gems.”
“I can do it better.”
She gave me one of those appraising Majda stares. “You certainly don’t lack for self-confidence.”
“With good reason.”
“What do you need, then, to find him?”
“Complete freedom.” I met her gaze. “I work on my own. No Chief Takkar, no surveillance, no guards, no palace suite, no records of my research, nothing.”
“Why? We have immense resources at your disposal.” She continued to study me with an unsettling intensity. “What do you have to hide?”
“Nothing.” I shook off the odd sense that she was trying to look into my thoughts. “I know this city in ways your police force never will. But I won’t get anywhere without privacy, not where I’m going. If people think Majda is looking over my shoulder, they won’t talk to me.”
Vaj stood there with the sunlight slanting across her tall form. Finally she said, “Very well. We will try it your way.” Then she added, “For now.”
* * *
A visitor showed up as I was preparing to leave my palace suite. The knock came when I was packing my duffel. I opened door to find Captain Krestone and four male guards outside. A hooded figure stood in their midst.
I froze, flustered. That hidden enigma had to be a Majda man. His dark blue robe had metallic patterns embroidered along the hems, probably thread with real gold spun into the strands. I saw a shadowed face within the cowl, but no details. No clues to his identity.
I wasn’t certain if protocol allowed me to address him, so I spoke to Krestone. “My greetings, Captain.”
She wasted no time. “Prince Ahktar wishes to speak with you.”
Ahktar. Dayj’s father. Good. “Yes, certainly.”
Krestone handed me a scroll tied with a gold cord. I blinked. The Majda universe had almost no intersection with the one where I lived, where few people even used paper, let alone parchment. I unrolled the scroll. Inked in calligraphy, it granted me permission to speak with Prince Ahktar.
Bewildered, I stepped back so the prince could enter with his retinue. It was only after Krestone closed the door, staying outside, that Ahktar pushed back his cowl. He resembled Dayj, but the arrangement of his features was somehow different, so that he had nothing of his son’s spectacular looks. I had also discovered that his family, the House of Jizarian, held the lowest rank among the nobility. Whatever Corejida’s reason for marrying him, it wasn’t for his appearance or aristocratic status. How refreshing.
“My honor at your presence, Your Highness,” I said.
He inclined his head. His strained expression was one I had seen before, an expression that was the same regardless of person’s rank or wealth, the anguish of a parent faced with the loss of a child. Whatever else I thought of the Majdas, they genuinely seemed to love Dayj.
Ahktar spoke. “Major, can you find my son?”
“If it’s humanly possible,” I said.
He extended his arm and his sleeve fell down, revealing the jeweled cuff of his shirt. A carved box lay in his palm, wood with enameled panels. “I don’t know if it will help, but Dayj valued this.”
I took the box. Tiny mosaics covered its sides. “What’s inside?”
“Dirt. I couldn’t open it, but I analyzed it with a mesh system.” He pushed his hand through his thinning hair. “Dayj has had it for several years. I don’t know why he kept the dirt, or if it can help you find him, but anything is worth a try.”
I rubbed my thumb over the box’s tiled panels, which showed birds in flight, blue, green, and red against an ivory background. I had seen plenty of puzzle boxes, but none like this. “Thank you.”
“Just find my son.” In a low voice, he added, “Alive.”
So. Ahktar had acknowledged what none of us wanted to admit. Dayj’s chances of staying alive and unharmed on his own might be as vanishing as the ocean beyond the City of Cries.