Undercity by Catherine Asaro

any wish he might have to break tradition? Made grants to such institution? Invested in a company? Supported either an individual or an organization, legal or otherwise, that might have helped Dayj leave?”
    Jan was quiet for a while. Finally she said, “I find no such connection.”
    “That can’t be.” With a business empire as vast as the Majda holdings, it would require a deliberate effort to exclude every such person or group.
    “Such a link would be offensive to the House,” Jan said.
    So it was a deliberate exclusion. “Someone must have helped him. He’s smarter than they think, a lot smarter, but even given that, he couldn’t have done it alone. Security is too tight.” I thought about negatives. “Who in your opinion is least likely to help him leave?”
    “General Majda,” Jan said.
    “Not his parents?”
    “They, also. But if he were truly unhappy, it would affect them more than the general.”
    “Doesn’t she care about his happiness?”
    “Yes,” Jan said. “Despite her reserve, she shows great affection for her nephew. I would call it love as far as I can determine that emotion.”
    “What about the other princes?”
    “Of the consorts, the one least likely to help Prince Dayj leave is probably Prince Paolo.”
    That was the last name I expected to hear. “I would have thought the opposite. Paolo knows what freedom is like.”
    “And he gave it up. Why, then, should Dayj have it?”
    “I see your point.” I sat up, planting my booted feet on the floor, my hands clasped between my knees. “What about his uncles? One of General Majda’s brothers teaches psychology at a university.”
    “Tam might help. However, he no longer lives on Raylicon.”
    “Tam?”
    “Tamarjind Majda. The psychology professor.”
    “He wouldn’t need to live on Raylicon to help.” He could use the Kyle meshes to talk with his family. That web bypassed spacetime, making it possible to communicate via a universe where light speed was irrelevant. It allowed people to converse across interstellar distances.
    “I have no record of any communication between Prince Tamarjind and Prince Dayjarind,” Jan said.
    “Who does Tamarjind talk to when he contacts the palace?” It used to be his home, after all.
    “His sisters and nieces. Never his male relatives.”
    “Why not?”
    “General Majda forbade such communications.”
    I scowled. “Because he’s a bad influence?”
    “Yes.”
    “You know, Jan, I’d feel better if you said, ‘In the general’s opinion’ rather than just ‘Yes.’”
    “That would be inconsistent with my programming.”
    “Yah, well, that’s the problem.” Then I added, “But thanks for the information.”
    After I signed off, I sat in the dark and pondered. I had an idea how to find Dayj.
    If I was lucky, it wouldn’t kill me.

V
    Scorch
    I hid in the mountains above the palace and spent the day spying on my employers. The jammer in my backpack shrouded me from sensors, and I had dusted my face with holo-powder. Smart dust. Nanos in the dust and in the cloth of my clothes formed a network I could link to the jammer, which then projected holos around my body of whatever lay behind me. In other words, I became invisible, provided no one looked too closely. The inner surface of the jumpsuit kept me warm and the outer surface matched its air temperature. It confused infrared sensors; if they couldn’t register the heat I generated, I became invisible to them. Sonic dampers in the jammer interfered with sound waves. It even created false echoes to fool neutrino sensors, which could penetrate almost anything. If Majda security made a concentrated effort, they could still find me, but I hadn’t given them cause for such a search. Not yet, anyway.
    I sat on a ledge against a cliff and watched the palace with my spyglass, checking everyone who went in or out of the building. I spent hours up there, protected from the icy wind by my climate-controlled jacket. Although Raylicon had