The Vanished Seas (Major Bhaajan series Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  APPENDIX

  Time Line

  THE

  VANISHED SEAS

  CATHERINE

  ASARO

  The Vanished Seas

  Catherine Asaro

  MAJOR BHAAJAN RETURNS. Book three in the Skolian Empire Major Bhaajan series by Catherine Asaro.

  SURVIVE THE CITY OF CRIES

  Bhaajan grew up in the Undercity, a community hidden in the ruins buried beneath the glittering City of Cries. Caught between the astonishing beauty and crushing poverty of that life, and caught by wanderlust, she enlisted in the military. Now retired, Major Bhaajan is a private investigator who solves cases for the House of Majda, a powerful royal family centered in Cries. The powerful elite of the City of Cries are disappearing, and only Bhaajan, who grew up in the Undercity, can find them—if she isn’t murdered first.

  Baen Books by

  Catherine Asaro

  Sunrise Alley

  Alpha

  The Saga of the Skolian Empire

  The Ruby Dice

  Diamond Star

  Carnelians

  Skolian Empire: Major Bhaajan

  Undercity

  The Bronze Skies

  The Vanished Seas

  THE

  VANISHED SEAS

  CATHERINE

  ASARO

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Catherine Asaro

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN 978-1-9821-2471-7

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-775-9

  Cover art by David Mattingly

  First printing, July 2020

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Asaro, Catherine, author.

  Title: The vanished seas / by Catherine Asaro.

  Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen Books, [2020] | Series: Skolian Empire: Major Bhaajan

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020015801 | ISBN 9781982124717 (trade paperback)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Science Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3551.S29 V36 2020 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015801

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  To my husband,

  John Kendall Cannizzo

  The love of my life

  In cherished memory

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Aly Parsons for critiquing the entire manuscript and to the Aly Parsons writers group for their critiques on selected scenes: Aly Parsons, Bob Chase, Carolyn Ives Gilman, John Hemry, J.G. Huckenpöhler, Simcha Kuritzky, Mike LaViolette, Bud Sparhawk, Connie Warner, Kelly Dwyer, and Mary Thompson; to the amazing Lina Perez, who somehow managed to keep me organized; to my editor Tony Daniel for his superb editing suggestions; to my publisher Toni Weisskopf for her patience and compassion; to Ben Davidoff for his excellent copyedit; to Alex Bear, Corinda Carfora, Elizabeth O'Brien, Christopher Ruocchio, Carol Russo, and all the other fine people at Baen for making this book possible; and to David Mattingly for his inspired art on my covers and for his kindness. My thanks to my agent, Eleanor Wood, of Spectrum Literary Agency, for her much-appreciated support and kindness; and to my publicist Binnie Braunstein for her enthusiasm and hard work on my behalf.

  A heartfelt thanks to the shining lights in my life, my husband John Cannizzo, whose loving support made me the writer I am today, and to our daughter Catherine Jr., whose love, support, and care makes all the difference.

  THE

  VANISHED SEAS

  CHAPTER I

  VANISHING ACT

  Light glittered through the crystal columns in the ballroom of the Quida mansion. Women in sleek clothes and men in sensual black and silver filled the room, all with the ageless beauty that wealth and power could bestow. Music played while the glitterati danced.

  So yah, these people were rich.

  To say I didn’t normally attend parties with Imperialate nobility was like saying it didn’t normally rain in this region of the world Raylicon. I mean, this place was a freaking desert. The few humans who lived here had built the gleaming City of Cries, the stark jewel of the empire, a paragon of modern civilization and all that. Not that it wasn’t true. The City of Cries, despite its name, wasn’t a place where people wept, at least not where you could see.

  Tonight the planners had done themselves proud in this reception for Scorpio Corporation, a simple name for a conglomerate that was anything but simple, an empire of commercial industries and military contracts. I’d attended as a guest of the Royal House of Majda, because, well, who the hell knew why. Majda wanted a private investigator present, so I went. After all, they paid me an exorbitant retainer, not to mention the penthouse they’d given me in Cries. Although I’d never been at ease in their stratospheric world of influence, I’d adapted during the two years I’d worked for them, Earth years, the human standard. To fit in tonight, I’d even worn an evening gown, chic and shimmering gold, the type of clothes I usually avoided like a techno-plague. I was normally a black leather and muscle-shirt gal.

  The Quida mansion stood on the outskirts of Cries in the foothills of the Saint Parval Mountains. Attending the gala had started out as one of my easiest jobs ever, just go to the party so I could later tell the Majdas if I noticed anything “unusual.” They apparently wanted me to judge how the guests reacted to whatever big announcement the Scorpio slicks had planned for tonight.

  With so many of the Imperialate’s mighty gathered together, none of the invited guests noticed when Mara Quida disappeared. It told me a lot more about this supposed esteemed gathering than they probably wanted me to know. As Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Scorpio Corporation, Quida was the guest of honor at tonight’s gala.

  You’d think they would have noticed when she fucking vanished.

  Four of us gathered in an alcove upstairs, hidden from the ballroom while the gala continued downstairs, its entitled guests blithely partying. The small room here gleamed, white with silver accents. Detective Talon, the head of security for Scorpio Corporation, paced across the alcove, rigid in her gray uniform, with silver hair and silver ribbing on her sleeves. She surveyed our group as if she were trying to fix us in place with her stare. Screw that. I had no patience for people who expected to intimidate me instead of earning my respect.

  Besides myself and Talon, our group included two other people: Colonel Lavinda Majda, third in line to the Majda throne; and o
f course Mara Quida’s husband Lukas Quida. We were isolated from the gala; Lavinda’s “aide,” the redoubtable Lieutenant Jo Muller, stood hulking at the bottom of the sweeping staircase that led from this alcove down to the main floor, out of earshot but not out of sight, pretending to be the colonel’s assistant. Yah, right. Majda bodyguards were about as discreet as power-hammers.

  “Who knows Mara Quida is gone?” Detective Talon demanded. She spoke to Colonel Majda, which made zero sense. How would Lavinda know?

  Lukas answered. “No one is aware of her disappearance yet except the four of us.” Light from the chandelier glinted on his silver hair. He was too young and too rich to be going gray; that metallic look had to be deliberate. The effect was gorgeous. So was he, the trophy husband, with his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and handsome face.

  Lavinda spoke coolly to Talon. “Why does it matter who knows?” She looked every bit a royal heir, with her dark coloring and aristocratic features. The green tunic and trousers of her dress uniform were sharply pressed and gold bars gleamed on her shoulders. Her dark eyes, high cheekbones, and smooth skin showed no trace of irregularity. I recognized her upright military carriage because I also stood that way, but only in part. I’d never exuded that sense of authority, a self-assurance so ingrained, I doubted she even realized the confidence she projected. I’d always respected Lavinda, in part because she never tried to intimidate anyone. She did it anyway, to put it mildly, but it wasn’t deliberate.

  Talon’s discomfort actually seemed more with Lukas than the Colonel. The detective glanced at Lukas when he spoke, then looked away quickly and talked to Lavinda instead. “It could help to know. None of our searches have given any clue why his wife vanished. She might have had her own—personal reasons.”

  Ouch. That was as subtle as thwacking Lukas with a hammer. I doubted his wife had run off with another man. Why do it in the middle of this gala intended to honor her? Lukas wouldn’t have asked for our help if he believed it was anything that simple, not to mention humiliating. That he’d called us here suggested he had good reason to suspect trouble.

  Lukas spoke with restraint, but his body had gone so tense, he seemed like a band of elastic ready to snap. “She didn’t have a ‘personal’ reason.”

  Talon grunted, and she still wouldn’t look at him. Seriously? The atavistic era was long gone when matriarchal queens owned their men, when no woman could speak to a highborn man unless she was a member of his family. Modern culture gave men equal rights with women. In the Skolian Imperialate, a star-spanning civilization with nearly a trillion people, almost no one followed the ancient customs, only a few of the most conservative noble Houses—including the Majdas. Since they cloistered their princes, hiding the prized fellows from the rest of the universe, some families among the highest society here followed similar customs. Although legally they couldn’t get away with keeping their men in full seclusion—they weren’t Majdas, after all—they could still be ridiculously sexist. Lukas had asked us to come here, though, so I doubted he had any use for those barbaric constraints.

  I spoke directly to Lukas. “How did you discover your wife was gone?”

  He turned to me, his shoulders coming down from their hunched position. “Mara was about to announce the Scorpio contract with Metropoli. She intended to present the Metropoli execs with a scroll, a ceremonial parchment. She went to get it about an hour ago. When she didn’t return, I looked for her.” He raked his hand through his hair, messing it up, which revealed more than he knew. He didn’t care about his appearance, he just wanted to know what the hell had happened to his wife. “She wasn’t in our room,” he continued. “The remains of the scroll were on the bed. It was ripped up, like it had been caught in a fight.”

  Talon frowned as if he were a lying child. “Those ceremonial scrolls are museum pieces.”

  For flaming sake. What was wrong with Talon? He finds the bedroom in shambles and her only comment is about the damage to a thing?

  Lukas met her gaze, neither averting his eyes nor stepping back. “What’s your point?” He looked ready to explode.

  I spoke quickly, before Talon could cram her foot farther down her throat. “Your wife went to a lot of trouble for this gala. It must be quite an achievement, what she arranged on Metropoli.”

  He took a deep breath, waited a moment, and then spoke in a more even voice. “Yes, it is. She was about to make the announcement. Scorpio will be managing the usage franchises for the northern continent on Metropoli.”

  Holy shit. No wonder Mara Quida wanted to party. “Usage franchises” meant Scorpio had just taken over the electric and optical utilities for the largest continent on the most populous world of the Imperialate. A contract like that would involve billions of people and trillions of credits. Nothing could hide the admiration in Lukas’ voice, and I had the impression he appreciated what she had achieved because of her accomplishment, not because he expected to gain from it in financial or social terms. He offered a refreshing contrast to the other guests I’d met tonight.

  “I see,” Talon said. She watched me with poorly disguised suspicion. People in Cries claimed I had a “wild” quality, whatever that meant. It was true I could go places no Cries citizen dared visit. No one here knew that, however. Besides, I was the least dangerous person in this room. These people took “threatening” to an entirely different level, one that would terrify any sane person who understood how the technocrats of Cries navigated the currents of power in their glittering city. I wasn’t one of them and I never would be no matter what my Majda ties.

  Well, tough. If Talon thought she could intimidate me into leaving, she had no idea. I met her stare, and her expression hardened.

  Someone coughed. Talon turned away and spoke to Lukas. Although she sounded awkward, at least she looked at him this time. “We need to trace your wife’s actions, everything she did for the past day.”

  “I’ll go over it with you,” he said. “Anything you all need, just let me know.”

  Max, are you getting all this? I thought.

  Yes, I am recording. The thought came from Max, my EI, or Evolving Intelligence. I used my neural link with him for privacy. He usually “lived” in my gauntlets, but tonight he resided in the slender bracelets I wore instead. He sent signals via sockets in my wrists along the bio-optic threads in my body to bioelectrodes in my brain. Coated with protective chemicals, the electrodes fired my neurons, which my mind interpreted as thought. Tech-induced telepathy. I wished I actually were telepathic, so I could figure out what everyone here thought. I had to rely on intuition and my ability to read body language, voices, and facial expressions.

  Talon took Lukas through every detail of the gala preparations. Security had searched the bedroom, looking for a body. They found nothing. They also checked their monitors. Big surprise, the footage for those vital moments in the bedroom was missing, with no clues yet as to why.

  “What I don’t get,” Talon was saying, “is why someone destroyed the scroll. It’s as valuable as your wife, maybe even more so.”

  Lukas stiffened, and I stared at the detective. Was she brain dead? She continued, oblivious to the pain she was causing Lukas. “Whatever ransom they can get for her would be greatly increased if they also held the scroll hostage.”

  “That assumes this is a kidnapping,” I said, more to shut her up than because I actually thought something else had happened.

  Lukas turned to me with a jerk, as if he were trying to escape Talon’s words. “What else would it be?”

  “To answer that,” I said, “I need to look more at the bedroom.”

  Talon frowned at me. “This is an internal Scorpio matter. We will take care of it ourselves, officer—” She paused as if waiting for my name, which pissed me off, because as the chief investigator here, she would have checked my identity with her EI the moment we met. Her refusal to acknowledge my name was an insult more effective than any words she might have used.

  Diplomacy, I reminded myse
lf. Be courteous. I said only, “Major Bhaajan, army, retired. I’m not a police officer, I’m a PI.”

  “And why are you here?” Talon spoke with disdain, in an accent that sounded Iotic, the language spoken by the nobility. It also sounded fake. I wasn’t impressed.

  Lavinda turned her cool gaze on Talon and spoke in a true Iotic accent, which I doubted she even thought about. “Major Bhaajan works for the House of Majda. I requested her presence.”

  “Oh.” Talon closed her mouth.

  I wondered what stake Lavinda had in this. As a sister of General Vaj Majda, the Matriarch of the House of Majda, she operated on a level of power I could only imagine. She was also a colonel in the Pharaoh’s Army; I doubted she had either the interest or time to involve herself in her family’s corporate dealings. The third sister, Corejida Majda, ran their finances. I hadn’t expected such a highly ranked Majda to attend the gala, but given what I’d just heard about the Metropoli deal, I saw now why they were interested. They controlled the city, and that meant knowing everything that went on at its highest levels.

  It was also obvious why Lukas requested Lavinda join us. He was no fool; he knew whose presence would get the police snapping on this case.

  “Can you help?” he asked me. Smart choice. Asking an heir to the Majda throne would be presumptuous, but addressing the Majda rep acknowledged their sway.