Forging Zero (59 page)

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From
the very first moment in the den, the Takki methodically shattered Joe’s
dignity.  It was everything he could do to remind himself he was a human
being.  For the first few days, until Knaaren commented on it, they refused to
clothe him.  They gave him the nerve-shattering jobs—like picking rancid strips
of flesh from between the Dhasha’s teeth—and made sure he crawled like a dog
between the Dhasha and the refuse heap to deposit his piles of rotting skin and
parasites.  When he was too slow, they ruthlessly added their claw marks to his
skin.

Joe
only left Knaaren’s den a few times, but during each outing, he realized with a
sinking gut how hopeless his situation was.  The platoons continued to drill
and the battalions continued to hunt, still functioning efficiently despite the
missing recruit called Zero.  Unlike the other humans, who hoped for a miracle
upon seeing their old comrades, Joe always opted to stay behind if he got the
chance.  He didn’t want Libby and the others to see him as he was—a bent-necked,
rubber-spined, teeth-picking slave.

Knaaren,
however, gave him no choice.  The Prime Commander was getting increasingly
odd—sometimes shouting at thin air as if someone was standing there, shouting
back.  The Dhasha’s dreams were also becoming more restless.  Almost as soon as
Knaaren closed his eyes, he began to quiver and shake, snapping at the air with
his huge jaws so often that the most dangerous task for the slaves became
grooming the Prime Commander while he was sleeping.

On
those rare occasions when Knaaren decided he wanted certain slaves to accompany
him out onto the drill plaza, even the slightest suggestion that Joe wanted to
stay behind was enough for the Dhasha to order the Takki to hurt him.

Knaaren
himself couldn’t touch the humans without causing irreversible damage.  His
claws, as Commander Linin had demonstrated, were wedge-shaped and as sharp as
razors.  Instead of simply tearing flesh like claws on Earth, these cut.  And,
with the human slaves dressed in nothing except flimsy purple robes, even a
light bat from a Dhasha paw was enough to cut them in half.  Therefore, he had
the Takki do his dirty work for him.

And
they excelled at their job.  They gave Joe a new scar at every opportunity, and
the two times Joe dared to fight back, they showed him just how weak he really
was.  It took no effort at all for a Takki to beat him senseless.  Unlike the
Ooreiki, the lizard-folk didn’t even have to put much energy into it.  They
simply had to slap him and Joe felt like he’d been hit with a Mack truck.

Joe
eventually discovered his treatment was not special.  The Takki dealt with all
the other humans with the same amount of cruelty.  To the Takki, all slaves who
had to wear purple robes to symbolize their servitude were considered lesser
creatures than they, who had been the loyal companions of the Dhasha for
millennia.  Joe quickly realized that the Takki were
proud
of their
station.  They were even angry that Knaaren had decided to grow humans as
food.  That was
their
place, they figured, and the humans were trying to
usurp it.

Insanity. 
Joe found that they had no concept of Self, no sense of purpose other than to
live and die serving the Dhasha.  He never heard any of them use the word ‘I.’ 
As far as he could tell, they all thought of themselves as a single being with
different jobs to do.  If any of them failed in their duties, they were ostracized
by the whole until the stress became too much and the victim made a fatal
mistake in front of its master.  This lack of compassion made them quick to
snitch on the other slaves, human and Takki alike.  And, Joe quickly found when
Knaaren calmly ate one Takki in front of its uncomplaining mate, they had not
an ounce of courage.

Joe
hated the Dhasha, but he hated the Takki even more.  Knaaren was thoughtless
and brutal, but it did not even compare to the Takki’s cold, methodic cruelty. 
The more he served with them, the more he realized that, without the Takki, the
Dhasha never would have evolved past a stinking, mindless predator.  It was the
Takki who gave Knaaren the ability to send summons to his subordinates.  It was
the Takki who kept dead skin from rotting away his scales and his teeth from
falling out.  It was the Takki who manipulated objects and carried delicate
instruments.  It was the Takki who opened doors and operated haauk.

Knaaren
took it all for granted, too.  Several times, Joe glanced up at the door locking
them inside the den and wondered what would happen to Knaaren if he suddenly
went on a rampage and killed all of his slaves.  His powerful forequarters were
too stubby to lift higher than necessary to run, and his paws were too rigid to
press individual buttons.  His sharklike face was too wide to do anything but
mash the keypad and his tail was too small and stiff to use it as another
limb.  In short, he had absolutely no way of getting himself out of the den,
should the Takki lock him in there forever.

And
yet, for some reason, they never did.

They’re
cowards,
Joe thought, hating them. 
All this
time, they could be free and the Dhasha couldn’t stop them, but they don’t even
try.

What made him hate them even more
was that the Takki were treated even more poorly than the humans and still they
did nothing to help themselves.  Knaaren cuffed and batted them daily,
sometimes scoring deep furrows in their scales, sometimes breaking through and
dipping into skin.  He ate them often, usually for a slight infraction.  Those
that he ate were always replaced, their fresh scales and bright eyes indicative
of transfer from some Dhasha slave colony.  Those were usually the first to
make mistakes and become lunch.  The older ones, the ones bearing the most
scars from Knaaren’s rages, had somehow clawed their way to the top of the
Takki food chain and spent all of their time outside the den, managing their
master’s affairs.

Once
Knaaren was clean and groomed, he only seemed to care about making Joe and the
other humans do his bidding, watching their movements with an interested air. 
Joe could not help but shudder when those green, egg-shaped eyes were fixed on
him, feeling like a trapped rodent pinned under a cat’s cold stare. 

Knaaren
delighted in singling out a human and forcing him to lean into his mouth to
retrieve some stubborn bit of rot that lay between his sharklike fangs.  When
they finished, he would insist that they did not get the right piece of flesh,
telling them that they were worthless and command them to do it again.  If they
were too shaken to go in a second time, he had the Takki punish them.  If they
said there was nothing left between his teeth, he had the Takki punish them. 
If they whimpered and cried and begged, he had the Takki punish them. Then he
would move on to the next human and start the process all over again.    

Knaaren
was in one of these moods when an Ooreiki messenger summoned him to the drill
field to oversee the punishment of an attempted escapee.  Knaaren chose Joe,
who had just been about to start the nerve-wracking process of crawling inside
the lion’s jaws, to accompany him.

Out on
the plaza, Joe kept his eyes away from the sharp black rows of recruits,
staring instead at the ground.  The last thing he wanted to do was recognize somebody
he knew.  He slumped to hide his height and kept the Dhasha between him and the
regiment.

Still,
he knew instantly which one was Sixth because it was still the only Battalion
without the symbol of Congress flapping above it.  As much as Knaaren enjoyed
playing mind-games with his slaves, he enjoyed it even more with his
subordinates.  Tril probably wouldn’t get his standards until the day his
recruits were to graduate.

“Carry
this,” an older Takki ordered, shoving an alien notepad into his hands.  “Master
will need it to log his discipline choice in the escapee’s record.”  Joe
recognized some of the symbols, but immediately shifted his eyes back to the
ground.  The Takki would return for it later, once Knaaren needed it.

The
unfortunate kid who had attempted escape was standing at attention in front of
Sixth Battalion, pale and wide-eyed.  He, of all the kids in the plaza, was
wearing white.  Joe felt a breath of relief when he did not recognize him, but
knew that another black mark against Sixth Battalion was bringing it dangerous
attention it didn’t need.

Joe
realized upon examining the boy that the growth hormones had been working on
some better than others.  The kid was as large as Joe and as beefy as a steer,
with biceps the size of small turkeys.  Looking at him, it was easy to imagine
that humans were related to apes.  Joe had the feeling that if the drugs hadn’t
gotten rid of their hair, the boy would be sprouting a rug from his
belly-button to his sternum.

Tertiary Commander Tril stepped
forward, as stiffly as ever.  “My lord, this recruit is charged with
abandonment of his duties, failure to return to his post upon request, and
assaulting the soldiers who brought him in.”

It took Joe a moment to realize
that the Mexican kid bore a bruised face and a split lip.  He was also
shivering uncontrollably under Knaaren’s stare, but at least he had the good
sense not to run.  Joe felt sorry for him, but knew that at least whatever
punishment they gave the kid would end.  The only way Joe was getting out of
Knaaren’s clutches was if he screwed up and the Dhasha ate him.

“A
Sixth Degree of perceptual punishment is common for desertion,” the Dhasha
said.  “Why are you wasting my time?”

“We
punished him, sir.  After my punishment, he ran away again.  This time, he
assaulted two soldiers who were sent to retrieve him.”

“He
assaulted an Ooreiki?” Knaaren asked.  The Prime Commander was in a good
mood—he had eaten a Takki that morning and his stomach was full.  It was
surprising to Joe that he was actually staying awake to hear out this case.

“Two of
them, my lord.”

Knaaren
snorted.  “We both know a Human can’t hurt an Ooreiki.”

“This
one did,” Tril said.  “It took nanorejuvenation to keep them both from dying.”

“What
did he use as a weapon?”

“His
hands and a chunk of rock.”

The
Dhasha glanced over at the Ooreiki lining the battalion.  “Sounds to me like
your underlings are incompetent, commander.”

“The
boy used tactics he learned in the hunts to lure them both out of hiding,
separate them, and ambush them.”

“Sounds
like you should be promoting him, not punishing him.”

“He is
uncontrollable.  He killed a fellow recruit and hurt another before we found
him the second time.  She is still undergoing treatment for mental trauma.”

“What
sort of mental trauma?”

“He
utilized her reproductive capabilities against her will.”

Lord
Knaaren, who had been boredly scanning the regiment, swiveled.  “He did?”

Joe
stiffened as he stared at the ground. 
Don’t let him do it.

“It’s a
severe crime amongst Humans.  Mentally, they are unprepared to handle unwanted
partners.  Physically, they can only birth one child every year, so it’s in
their best interest to make sure they only breed with acceptable mates.  It’s
an evolutionary side effect, sir.”

The
Dhasha’s eyes were fixed on the Mexican boy.  “I want him.”

Commander
Tril’s sudah gave a startled flutter.  “This is just a routine punishment,
sir.  My recruits have earned their first badge.  You no longer have the right
to take them from us.” 

“What
do you want for him?”

“He is
here for punishment, not sale.”

“And I
will see to it he receives his punishment,” Knaaren retorted.  “What do you
want for him?”

Tril’s
sudah were almost invisible, they were moving so fast.  “To avoid further
psychological damage, I believe we need to institute a few rules before things
get out of hand.”

Knaaren
snorted.  “I don’t think so.”

“Several
other regiments have been experiencing the same problem,” Tril insisted.  “In
order to stabilize their recruits, they’ve written up several different sets of
laws.  It would help if you read them and drafted a standard of—”

“I do
not cater to cattle,” Knaaren barked.  “If you really believe he has done
wrong, hand him over to me and be done with it.  I could always use another
slave.”

“The
boy is one of the younger ones, sir.”

“So?”

“These Humans
do not mature like normal creatures.  He’s still a child with an adult’s body,
with new hormones assaulting his system.  He does not have the mental
development to understand the psychological repercussions of his actions.”

“
I
want him
,” Knaaren roared.

Tril
balked.  “The boy did not understand.  Even Dhasha hatchlings are given
allowances when they murder fellow soldiers…”

Knaaren
bared his teeth.  “Of course they are given allowances.  They have natural
urges.  It is not their fault they are drawn to blood.”

Joe
stared at the back of the Dhasha’s head. 
You sure are one stupid son of a
bitch, you know that?