Forging Zero (25 page)

The
downy alien standing beside Joe snorted. 
“Honored?  Who would want to
escape on this disgusting planet?  We spend much more time out here and
I
might require a respirator.”
  With one parting glance at Joe, the
three-legged creature turned and threaded its way through the rows of children
back to a spot beside the First Citizen.

To
Joe’s despair, the balding man followed the aliens further down the rows of
children and none of them looked back. 

He’s
leaving us.  He’s not even going to try to help.
 
Joe turned back to the front of the formation and caught Commander Kihgl
staring at him.  Kihgl’s sudah were fluttering, his eyes hard with fury.  The
armband felt like it was on fire where it touched his bicep under the cammi jacket. 
Joe swallowed down a lump of fear. 
He told me not to put it on,
he
thought, in agony.

Further
down the formation, the three aliens and their human guide had stopped again,
eyeing Second Battalion.  Joe recognized Commander Lagrah at the head of the
battalion, his scarred, pale, droopy-skinned body as still as stone as the
Representatives discussed his recruits.  Then they moved on. When they did, one
of the little kids in the back row fell out of formation and ran towards them. 

Before
the child could reach the balding man, two enormous, serpentine aliens
materialized out of nowhere, abruptly slamming the flat ends of their
transparent, glassy spears into the child’s gut and pushing her backwards,
shouting in a language of clicks and pops completely different from anything
Joe had ever heard before.  The translators ringing their powerful scarlet arms
said,
“Keep your distance from the First Citizen.  Next time we take your
head.”

With
that dire warning, the two serpentine aliens vanished again, their scaled ruby bodies
shimmering and then disappearing completely.  Seeing that, Joe suddenly
understood what Nebil had meant, back in their Species Recognition class.  He
was pretty sure those two Jreet could have annihilated all nine of the gathered
battalions in Prime Commander Lagrah’s regiment, Ooreiki and all, and nobody
could have done a damn thing about it.  They weren’t
shadows
or
blurs
like Hollywood had portrayed invisible creatures in the movies.  To all
appearances, they weren’t
there
.  And they had to have been sixty feet
long.

As the
three Tribunal members went on, heedless, two Ooreiki battlemasters rushed from
Lagrah’s formation to pick the screaming child off the ground and spirit her
off the plaza.  The balding man wiped his brow and took another puff on his air
tube, but then returned to his conversation with the enormous, shaggy blue
beast. 

The
formation lasted another hour, giving the four Representatives a chance to
circle the entire regiment three times before retiring from the plaza. 

Once
they were out of sight, Ooreiki barked orders and the eight other battalions
began to move away from the plaza, their recruits moving as one.  Joe and the
rest of Sixth Battalion found themselves awed at the crisp movements, the sharp
turns they made at the battlemasters’ commands. Thousands of them, moving in
perfect unison.  It was awe-inspiring to watch. 

Then
Nebil grabbed Sasha by the collar and wrenched her violently out of formation. 
“I said take them back to the barracks, you slithering wad of Takki waste! 
Are you deaf as well as stupid?”

Sasha
just stared at him.

“Now,
janja scum!”
Battlemaster Nebil bellowed.
  “We
already look like we’ve got our tentacles tied in knots.”

Sasha
cleared her throat and did her best to imitate the Congie word for about-face. 
She was not loud enough, because only the kids nearest her complied.  She tried
again, a little louder.  A full quarter of the platoon gave her a funny look.

“You
sound like a Takki-loving spacer!”
Nebil screamed
into Sasha’s ear. 
“Say it like a
grounder,
recruit!  I wanna hear
the diamond rumble at the sound of your Takki-loving voice!  I want to hear the
ferlii crumble!  I want to hear a spacer shitting himself in his plush little
reclining chair all the way out in orbit!”

Sasha
shouted again, and again Nebil shrieked into her ear that she wasn’t loud
enough. 
“You sound like you’ve got a mouthful of Takki soot!  Spit it out
and try again!  Zero, show this shabba turd how it’s done before I use
both
your hides to decorate my shitter!”

And
just that fast, Joe became responsible for yelling the loudest, responding the
quickest to commands, and making sure everyone else in the battalion did what
they were told.  Several times, Joe caught Sasha giving him a dirty look, but
Joe knew it was a punishment more than anything else.  Nebil had Joe at the
front of the battalion the rest of the night, cursing him and yelling in his
ear and kicking him if he did anything wrong.

And so
it went on.
 All the lung-deep screaming left Joe dizzy and nauseous,
but somehow he managed to keep from puking his guts out over the crushed black
rock.  Others were not so lucky.  Nebil grabbed them and ruthlessly forced them
back into formation.  Then, while everyone was panting and struggling for
breath, he made the battalion march endless laps around the enormous buildings,
turning them at odd moments to head back in the other direction, forcing them
to shout marching commands until Joe thought his lungs would burst.

Only
after their feet were numb and their minds blurred with all the different
commands Nebil had given them did their battlemaster allow them to return to
the barracks.  A few kids ran up the six flights of stairs in their enthusiasm
to get back to their beds, only to end up gasping upon the steps, the putrid
air overwhelming them. 

It was
then that Joe saw his second Takki.  About a dozen of them crawled out of tiny
side-tunnels that Joe had previously overlooked, gently scooping up those who
had fallen.

The
little lizards were covered in small round scales that, when Joe got close to
them, gave the illusion of depth, making their whole bodies appear to be a
multi-faceted gem.  Joe found himself standing still, his mouth agape in
wonder. 
Maggie was right.  They’re beautiful.
 

In
seconds, they were out of sight, the fallen children cradled in their jeweled
arms.

“Joe?”
Scott called from several steps above.  “You coming?” 

Joe
shook off his amazement and hurried after his group, a sense of hope
rejuvenating him. 
They’re only five feet tall.  Too small for Nebil to make
us go down their tunnels.

At the
top of the stairs, Battlemaster Nebil was waiting for him.  When Joe nervously
tried to pass, Nebil blocked his path, the small black ranking device gripped
in one tentacle.  Nebil gave Joe a long, irritated look, his sticky brown eyes
scanning his face in silence.  Finally, he just shook his head. 
“You’re
gonna need this, you stupid furg,”
he said, and grabbed Joe by the back of
the neck in a stinging grasp.  Holding him in place, Nebil snaked his arm under
Joe’s jacket and jabbed the small black device into the muscle of Joe’s chest,
in same place Kihgl had done when he tried to give him battlemaster.

Before
he could start struggling, Nebil withdrew his arm and released him. 
“Prove
to me you can be a battlemaster.  You’re not getting it until you deserve it.”

Looking
at his shirt, Joe realized that the silver bar of a ground leader was morphing
into a triangle, though it still did not have the outside circle of a soldier. 
Nebil was already gone, stalking back down the stairs towards the plaza.

Joe
stared after him, stunned. 

Nebil
had almost sounded…
pleased
with him.

CHAPTER
12: 
Representative Na’leen

Soft,
downy hands touched Joe’s arm.

“Go
back to sleep, Maggie,” Joe mumbled.  “It’s not time to get up yet.”

“Of
all the Humans, Ko-Na’leen had to choose a stupid one.” 

Joe
jerked awake and found himself staring into impossibly huge, electric-blue
eyes.  The tiny white hairs covering the creature’s face were writhing on their
own, like millions of microscopic worms protruding from its skin.  Shouting,
Joe leapt out of the covers and landed on the far side of the bed, cutting his
feet on the glassy floor.  He was naked except for his underwear and the
kasja.

There
were two of the three-legged, squid-like aliens watching him, one who had woken
him and one waiting near the door.  Both of them followed Joe impassively with
their huge, white-blue eyes as he gingerly checked to see how badly he had
injured himself.  The cuts weren’t deep, but they were enough to slicken the
floor beneath him with his own blood.  Once he was sure he wasn’t going to
bleed to death, Joe straightened and studied the aliens.  They were easily six
feet tall, dressed in glimmering shades of green trimmed with gold, not Congie
black.  Somehow that made Joe wary. 

The
alien closest to the door cocked its triangular head at Joe, its electric-blue
eyes utterly unreadable.  Like mirrors. 
“Looks like it might be difficult. 
Use the tranquilizer.”
 

The one
near the bed pulled a pen-shaped object from the vest it wore, the vertical
slit above and between its eyes puckering together rhythmically, like a
heartbeat.

Joe
stiffened.  Without boots to protect the soles of his feet from the glass, he
wasn’t going anywhere fast.  “I’ll come,” Joe said.

“What
did it say?”

“I’m
not sure.”

“Well,
be sure to use the low setting.  We don’t want to kill it.”

“I said
I’ll
come!”
Joe said, holding up his hands.  “Don’t you dare shoot me,
you stupid squid bastards.”

“Careful,
that’s a sign of aggression.”

Joe
frowned at the guard near the door.  “No it’s not.”  But he lowered his hands
anyway.

Behind
him, Elf whispered, “What do they want, Joe?”

Joe
never took his eyes off the alien with the pen-shaped tranquilizer.  “They want
to recruit me for some obscene alien fornication ritual,” he told him.

“What’s
that?” Maggie asked, wide-eyed. 

“Don’t
worry about it, Mag,” Scott said, grinning.

Slowly,
to prove he wasn’t resisting, Joe went to his clothes.  To the aliens, he said,
“I’m getting dressed.  You try shooting me with that thing and I’ll break you
flimsy bastards in half.  Understand me?”

The one
with the pen-shaped object pointed it at Joe.

“Don’t!”
Joe snapped, picking up his boots and shoving his feet inside.  He winced as
the cuts in his soles stung from the rough treatment.  “Dammit, I’m getting
dressed.  See?”  He began to dress as quickly as he could.

The
alien watched him a moment, then grunted and yanked a small translucent sheet
of papery film from his chest.  He ran the pen-shaped object across a slip of
the clear blue film, leaving a squiggly mark.  This it affixed to the wall
above the bed.

At
Joe’s stunned expression, the white, squid-like alien gave him a flat electric
stare and said, “In case anyone wonders where we are taking you for our obscene
fornication rituals.” 

Joe’s
jaw fell open.

“You
talk!
”
Maggie cried.

“A
bit.  Your vocal cords are easy to make, but hard to control.”  His voice was
high-pitched and musical, like a eunuch in choir, almost too sing-song to
understand. 

“You
can’t
make
vocal cords,” Monk said matter-of-factly from the bed.  “Mom
taught music.  Your
vocal
cords make
sounds.
”

Unlike
the Ooreiki, the downy creature showed no emotion in its flat face whatsoever. 
“Well, if we didn’t reproduce the cords, how would we reproduce the sounds?”
When Monk frowned at him, he added, “Hurry, please.  We are wasting time.”

“All
right,” Joe said, throwing his jacket over his shoulders reluctantly.  “What do
you want?”

The
alien looked him up and down and took a moment to reply, obviously considering
whether or not it was worth wasting the breath to tell him.  Finally, with a
condescending sneer, he said, “Our employer, Ko-Na’leen, Representative of the
Huouyt, wishes to see you.”

Joe
froze.  “That guy who inspected the regiment yesterday?”

The
Huouyt closest to Joe glanced at his companion, clearly amused.  “Ti’peth, if
Ko-Na’leen does not want this one, I might have to claim him.  He might liven
up those long hours on the ship.”  He looked back at Joe, the amusement gone in
an instant.  “Do you realize that referencing one of the Tribunal members so
casually would get you sold to the Dhasha if it were within a Jreet’s
hearing?”

Joe
stiffened, remembering the huge serpentine creatures that had shoved the little
girl to the ground.  “The Jreet?”  He nervously glanced at the door, wondering
if any of the snakelike monsters had followed them inside.