Forging Zero (38 page)

Knaaren
backed up, glaring at them. 
“You are jenfurglings, to mourn over a
traitor.”

The
Ooreiki ignored him, their mournful voices rising in a growing tide.

Lord
Knaaren snorted. 
“I cannot bear these wretches’ howling.”
  At that, he
turned and departed, trailing his escort of Takki.

And it
wasn’t just the Ooreiki in the courtyard, Joe realized.  The entire
city
was taking up the heart-rending wail.  It was reverberating from every hollow
cave, every skyscraper, bouncing off every wall, every crevice, a mournful
sound that reached to the very soul.  The kids stood in formation for another
twenty minutes, but none of the Ooreiki made any motions to excuse them.  They
had gathered in a circle around the pieces of Kihgl’s oorei and were ignoring
them completely, their collective song loud enough to make the diamond jitter
at their feet. 

Once
the Ooreiki screaming had lasted more than an hour, one of the recruits from
the other battalions muttered he was hungry.  His battalion disintegrated as
its members went to go have lunch.  Another battalion followed, and another,
until Joe’s and the Second Battalion were the last two remaining.  Only the
constant training of the past few days kept Joe and the others in place.  After
endless hours of Nebil’s drills and Tril’s attempts to trick them, one thing
stood out in their minds more than anything else—they hadn’t been dismissed
yet.

After a
while, Sasha made a disgusted noise and started to move, but Libby stopped
her.  “They didn’t dismiss us,” Libby said.

“They’re
just standing there howling,” Sasha said.  “Besides, I’m battlemaster.  I’ll
dismiss us for them.”  She gave Libby a condescending look and started to leave
the formation.

“Stay,”
Joe commanded. 

Sasha
jerked, frowning at him like he’d just grown antennae.  “
What
did you
say to me, recruit?”

“Stay,”
Joe repeated, “Or I’ll make you stay.”

“
We’ll
make you stay,” Scott said.

“Yeah,”
Monk said.  “
We’ll
make you stay.”

Sasha
scowled at Monk, who was quickly becoming the smallest member of the battalion,
and for a moment, Joe thought she would try to dismiss the battalion anyway. 
Then her gaze passed from Monk to Libby, to Maggie, to Scott, all of whom were
staring her down with the obvious intent of pounding her freak jaw into
oblivion.

Nervously,
she turned back to Joe.  She looked him up and down with a disdainful sneer and
Joe watched her reach that split-second decision where she judged whether or
not her five-five frame could win in a fistfight. 

Sniffing
loudly with disdain, Sasha returned to her place as recruit battlemaster.  For
the next hour, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and fidgeted as the Ooreiki song
went on.  Joe glared at the back of her head as she stood in front of them,
pouting. 
That spoiled brat doesn’t deserve to be battlemaster
, he
thought bitterly, watching her scuff at the diamond dust.  All around them, all
activity in the entire city had come to an utter standstill.  All haauk
s
had landed, their colorful passengers all facing the courtyard and its pitiful
group of black-clad mourners.

Across
the plaza, Second Battalion also remained where it was.

The
Ooreiki did not stop wailing.  Instead, their despondent cry continued to grow
until the very air trembled and all of Alishai was ringing with the sound.  The
noise was so powerful it made Joe’s knees and lungs shake.  It was so
unavoidably
strong
it felt to Joe like they were
inside
a violin
or a set of bagpipes, and that the sound was seeping into every single
molecule, of everything from his flesh and blood to the stone at his feet.  Joe
had to clench his fists together in front of him to keep from feeling his
finger-bones vibrating against each other.  The sound penetrated everything,
right down to his marrow.

But
still it continued.

Other
cities took up the cry.  Like the odd scraping sounds in the forest, the echoes
of the other cities were a distant, softer tone that bounced against the ferlii
and seemed to come from everywhere at once.  It felt like it was going to
rattle him apart.

“That
sound’s driving me crazy,” Sasha said.  “You guys are really stupid to make us
stay here.  Her angular face was strained, her hands clenched into fists at her
side.

“My
fingers are going numb,” Scott said behind Joe.

“I’m
hungry,” Maggie whimpered.

And
still the Ooreiki howled.  On and on, until Joe thought he was going to lose
his mind.

Then it
stopped.

All at
once, like a conductor had dropped his wand, every single Ooreiki on the planet
stopped screaming.  The echoing silence was enormous, filling his ears until
they hummed.  Then, like nothing had ever happened, the Congies all turned away
from the shattered pieces of the oorei to face their recruits. 

Sixth
and Second Battalions got to sleep that night.  The others did not.

CHAPTER
18: 
Christmas Songs

“Any of
you know any Christmas songs?” Joe asked into an otherwise sullen silence.  He
had gotten all of his chores done and he was bored, looking for something to
do.  From what he could guess, it was sometime around Christmas, though he
couldn’t be sure.  The Congies measured time differently, and had never given
them a conversion of turns to years—they just expected the kids to pick it up
as they went.

“I do!”
Monk cried, “I know lots.  Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,
Dashing Through the Snow—”

“That’s
Jingle Bells,” Scott said.

“No
it’s not.”

“Yes it
is.”

“No
it’s
not.
  Joe, is it Jingle Bells?”

“I
don’t know,” Joe admitted.  “Not big on Christmas.”

“So why
do you wanna sing Christmas songs?” Scott asked.

“I
think it’s around Christmastime.”

“That
was last week,” Libby said.

“Well soot. 
I mean damn.  I mean crap. 
Burn.
  Mag, just close your ears, okay?”

“We
missed Christmas?” Maggie asked in a tiny voice.  Her eyes were wide, and her
lip had started trembling.

Wincing,
Joe said, “Maybe.  It was close to Christmas when we left.”

“It was
last week,” Libby said again.

“Well,
Hell,” Joe muttered, giving Libby an irritated look.  She hadn’t been wrong
yet, but couldn’t she just
fudge
it for once?  “We can make our own
Christmas.”

“When
are we gonna get our presents?” Maggie asked, with instant excitement.

“Aliens
don’t believe in Christmas,” Monk said.  “Mom says they’re all heathens and Mr.
Allen says they’re all going to Hell.  Why would they give us presents if
they’re all going to Hell?”

“
Santa
could bring us presents,” Maggie retorted.  “I don’t want alien presents
anyway.  I want them from Santa.  When is Santa going to bring us presents,
Joe?”

Monk
frowned.  “There is no—”

“We
don’t have to have presents to have a good Christmas,” Joe interrupted.  He
shot Monk a pointed look and pulled the top of his collar shut to retain
warmth.  The sun was on its dark cycle again, and they were all wearing heavy,
heat-retaining jackets because the barracks weren’t heated.

“How
can you have Christmas without presents?” Maggie asked, perplexed.

“Christmas
isn’t about presents, it’s about getting out of school,” Scott said. 

“It is
not!”
Monk cried.  “Christmas is about making sure you give everyone a good gift so
the Lord doesn’t think you’re stingy and send you to Hell.”

Libby
rolled her eyes and stayed out of the conversation.  She was using Joe’s Swiss
Army knife to cut holes in her gear.  Joe had already tried to stop her, but
she had ignored him.   

Joe
rubbed the acne that was itching on his back, then sighed.  “Let’s hear Rudolph
the Red Nosed Reindeer.  I don’t know anything else.”

Monk
joyfully broke out into
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
and he and Maggie
joined in.  It took a little bit longer for Scott, but soon enough half their
barracks room was singing.  Libby looked up with a frown and watched them over
her gear, but didn’t join.

Once
they finished
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
, Joe started
Deck the
Halls
and even more kids got into it, some of them learning the lines as
they went.  For the first time in months, Joe saw an entire roomful of kids
grinning and laughing.  He heard more of Sixth Battalion start up all around
him, their voices reverberating off the honeycombed black walls and glassy
ebony tunnels.

Joe
thought Sixth Battalion was singing awfully loud when he realized that it
wasn’t just them.  The level above them was singing, too.  He actually stopped
and listened, stunned, as kids on the other barracks levels took up the song.

They
finished
Deck the Halls
, and Monk started singing
Frosty the Snowman.
 
This time, the sound was incredible.  It echoed against the glassy walls,
threatening to shatter them.

“You
hear that?” Libby whispered after the last verse was over. 

But by
that time, the battalion below them had started singing
The Twelve Days of
Christmas.
  All around them, the stone was vibrating with thousands of
voices.  Joe went to the locked barracks door and quickly punched in the code
he’d seen Nebil use to open it.  After glancing both ways for battlemasters,
Joe stepped onto the balcony.  Libby followed him outside to listen.  Standing
still on the circular highways surrounding the other buildings, brightly-garbed
Ooreiki civilians had stopped their daily activities and were staring at the
barracks.  Some had even boarded haauk and approached, their brown eyes alight
with curiosity.

Once
Deck
the Halls
was over, someone started
Old MacDonald Had a Farm.
 
Then
it was
Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
  Joe was dumbstruck.  Eight thousand
voices vibrating in the caves sounded like thunder.  They stuck to kids’ songs
for a while, then someone started
Oh Say Can You See
and they went
through a litany of patriotic songs loud enough to make the walls shake.  They
did every song Joe knew, and more he didn’t.  More Ooreiki gathered to watch,
some even walking to the base of the barracks and climbing the stairs to get
closer, but the songs continued.

“You
Humans have voices to make the ancestors cry,”
a
translator said beside him, bringing on a full-body wash of goosebumps.  Joe’s
heart stuttered like he’d been dipped in a bucket of icewater, the songs
forgotten.  He ducked, bracing himself for a blow.

“Battlemaster
Nebil,” he began quickly, “we were just—”

A brightly-garbed civilian stood
behind him, his haauk sitting on the deck a few feet away.  His skin was so
dark it was nearly black, which, Joe had learned from observing his captors,
indicated youth.

Scott
and Libby, who had followed Joe to the door, backed away from the young Ooreiki
nervously.  Battlemaster Nebil had made it clear that any recruit caught
talking to a civilian would be exercised until he could no longer feel his
feet, and Joe had the door wide open when it was supposed to be locked.

“You
look much different than I imagined,”
the Ooreiki
said, stepping closer to Joe, his huge pupils dilating in curiosity. 
“The
images they sent back showed so little detail.  Your eyes are actually
different colors.”
  He seemed to find that fascinating, glancing from Joe
to Scott and back. 
“Is that natural or altered?”

“We’re
not allowed to talk to you,” Libby said, grabbing Joe’s arm.  “Come on, Joe. 
Let’s go back before Nebil sees the door.”

But Joe
was staring at the Ooreiki in front of him with equal fascination.  The alien
wore long, graceful swaths of bright red cloth glittering with waves of
colorful stones.  As he watched, the cloth changed color, shifting from a deep
scarlet to a bright orange, then yellow.  Thousands of Dhasha scales the size
of Joe’s thumbnail gleamed like jewels in spiral patterns radiating outward
from the Ooreiki’s abdomen.  Pebble-sized gems of all colors hung in silver
tassels from his arms.  Silver caps laced with the same Celtic-type knots as
Kihgl’s armband encased the tips of the Ooreiki’s tentacles on the right hand,
leaving only the left still functioning.  Joe could not stop staring.

In the
background, the children had switched to
Mary Had a Little Lamb.

“What
is the significance of their song?”
the Ooreiki asked. 
He was taller than most of the Ooreiki Joe had seen, almost five and a half
feet.

Joe
hesitated, not sure he wanted to risk Nebil’s wrath for talking to the
civilian.  And, at the same time, he was
dying
to talk to him.  Maybe he
knew things, knew ways to get them home…