Zero Recall (15 page)

“Don’t concern
yourself with the Huouyt.  I’ve already stacked our odds, so to speak.”

Rri’jan watched
him, finding his words carefully.  “You hand-picked your own team?  Already? 
How could you possibly—”  He trailed off, apparently realizing that he was
showing his own ignorance, and that Forgotten was enjoying it.

“I chose two
teams,” Forgotten said.  “Each with equal chances of survival.”

“How?”

“I have contacts
and money and the power of suggestion.”

“And what will
you need from me for your plan to work?”

“Not to question
my decisions.”

The former
assassin peered at him, unblinking.  “Are you thinking of one decision in
particular?”

“I arranged it
so that Jer’ait will be on one of the groundteams going to Neskfaat.”

Rri’jan
stiffened.  “Jer’ait is a cur.  I have better assassins.”

“Better than the
top Va’ga?” Forgotten asked.  “Better than your own blood?”

“
Never
suggest that infectious pustule shares my blood!” Rri’jan trilled, his musical
voice going high in rage.  The Representative looked dangerously close to doing
something stupid.

“We both know he
does,” Forgotten said.  “I also know that the only reason he is not here
devising a way to acquire his Tribunal seat instead of you is his birth
defect.  He surpasses you in every other way.”

Rri’jan’s voice
was calm with fury, now.  “For the sake of our plan, I will allow you to choose
whatever filth you wish.  But if you fail, Forgotten, I will destroy you.  I
swear it.”

“I will not
fail.”

CHAPTER
8:  Daviin, Meet Joe

“Interesting,
Jreet.  It seems our Human had a spine, before you shattered it.”

Jer’ait’s eyes
followed the Human’s mangled body as the medics took it away, a smugness
seeping from under his Va’ga-trained, expressionless features.  The doctors had
cursed and complained, but had accepted the Human out of the shuttle stasis
with few questions, saying that the multi-species groundteams had been the
biggest Takkiscrew they had seen since first giving the Dhasha Congressional
technologies.  Apparently, every room in the hospital was full, and not one
injury had been from the enemy.

“Beda’s bones. 
Let it rest already,” Daviin growled.

“You know the Human
won’t take you back, don’t you?” Jer’ait continued, without pause.  “If there
was any question before, it fled the moment you drove his sternum through his
shoulder blade.”  Jer’ait watched him intently.  Only the Huouyt’s purple eye
was out of place, like the mask that was a normal Huouyt had been torn away to
reveal a trickle of his thoughts through this one odd-colored window.

Daviin was still
furious with himself that he had allowed the Human to get under his skin, even
more furious that the Human had actually followed through with his threat.  To
have the Huouyt rub it in, however, was too much.  He turned on Jer’ait with a
snarl. 

“Let me deal
with the Human,” he growled at his annoying companion.

While the
Huouyt’s blue-white eye remained expressionless, the Huouyt’s purple eye oozed
amusement.  “Considering whether your vengeance is worth more than your pride,
my friend?”

“I am not your
friend.”

“On that I
agree,” Jer’ait said.  “It was a figure of speech.”

Daviin peered at
Jer’ait, wondering if the Huouyt’s mismatched eyes contained a key to the
Huouyt nature heretofore undiscovered by the rest of Congress.  The right one
seemed completely aloof, eerie, unnerving, like all normal Huouyt.  The
malformed left one, however, had none of the unnaturalness of a Huouyt’s normal
gaze.  Instead, it felt almost harmless, like an Ooreiki’s, seeming to betray
Jer’ait’s thoughts like a leak within a canteen.  A slow leak, but a leak
nonetheless.

“Is that why
those with defects are not allowed to sit in the Regency?”

Daviin had
murmured it, almost to himself, but Jer’ait stiffened immediately.  His violet
left eye betrayed anger, frustration.  His right betrayed nothing.

“That’s it,”
Daviin whispered.  “Your eyes.  They’re like a shield from your thoughts.  Except
your left is broken.”

Jer’ait stepped
closer, until he was only a foot from Daviin’s coiled torso.  “And what am I
thinking right now, Jreet?”

Daviin ignored
the threat.  “Why are you here, Jer’ait?  I recognize you from Sentinel
training.  They made us memorize your voice.”

The assassin flinched,
obviously taken aback.  “How long have you known?”

“Since I saw you,”
Daviin replied, looking him over.  “Who are you here to kill?  Me?”  He doubted
as much, because Jer’ait was well-known as a Peacemaker’s tool, refusing even
the highest bids for his service, which, for a Huouyt, was enough to create a
smudge of respect within Daviin.  In a species of lying, backstabbing
betrayers, Jer’ait was almost…

…honorable. 
Almost.

“I have better
things to do than dabble in Jreet clan warfare.”

“That’s what I
thought,” Daviin said.  “But the Twelfth Hjai wouldn’t send you unless it was
someone special.”

Jer’ait gave him
a long look before saying, “I am here to make sure the Vahlin dies.”

Daviin felt his
body stiffen reflexively, feeling his vengeance on the Vahlin sliding through
his fingers.  “You’re next in line to the Twelfth Hjai.  Don’t the Peacemakers
have underlings to do this?”  An underling would fail.  Jer’ait would not.

“Don’t fret,
Jreet,” the Huouyt said.  “I’m not the Human.  I won’t stand between you and
your revenge if I can avoid it.  All that matters to me is that he dies.”

Daviin scanned
the Huouyt’s odd violet eye, watching his thoughts leak from him in a slow but
steady stream.  “The truth is there for anyone who would see it.  A Huouyt’s
eyes…they act as a distraction.  They bar natural communication, natural
reading.  It’s why Huouyt with the defect are not allowed off your planets. 
Tell me I’m wrong.”

It was
impossible to miss the tightening of Jer’ait’s paddle-like fists.  “It is
unwise to antagonize me, Jreet.”

Daviin had a
brief moment of nervousness, realizing what he was dealing with.  It was
creatures like Jer’ait that were sent to assassinate creatures like him.

Jer’ait’s
vertical slit of a mouth puckered.  “Since you are to be my groundmate, Jreet,
I’ll spare you the mental anguish and I’ll tell you another secret.  My
disability does not keep me from reading
your
eyes as well as any
Huouyt.”

Daviin flinched
as Jer’ait strode away.  This was a mistake.  He should have gone straight back
to Vora, gathered up a party of warriors, and come back here to do battle. 
Instead, he was going to have to rely upon five strangers, creatures infinitely
weaker than himself.

Weaker…but
possibly more useful.

Daviin
understood his limitations.  He glanced down at his long, ungainly bulk and
squeezed his claws together.  His kind relied upon ambush or distraction to
kill.  Once located, he could not move away fast enough to avoid a Dhasha’s
claws.  He was not agile.  He was not quick.

The Ooreiki and
the Human were.

Further, due to
the Dhasha’s ability to hear his echolocation, Daviin could not penetrate a
Dhasha den undetected.  Jer’ait could.

Last, he had
neither the capabilities of flight, nor a faculty for digging.  They had
discovered the nature of their last two teammates upon landing on Jeelsiht, and
though Daviin had been curious as to why they needed a Baga underground, he was
not going to question Phoenix’s choices.  With its burrowing skills, the Grekkon
had been an obvious advantage.  Galek had gone to meet them in the barracks
while Daviin and Jer’ait had stayed to admit the Human to the Congie medical
system.

Daviin decided
to wait for Joe.  Though he dreaded the moment, he needed to offer his ground
leader an apology for losing control.  Honor would allow him nothing less.  He
went looking for his commander’s regen chamber.

After a long,
frustrating search through the hospital corridors, many terrified Ueshi doctors
giving directions that made no sense, and many dead ends, Daviin finally found
the regeneration rooms deep in the hospital core.  In full view of the Ooreiki
guards in combat gear patrolling the hospital, Daviin passed repeated written
warnings of Sensitive Area, Authorized Personnel, Staff Only, Escort Required,
and other, more dire warnings to trespassers.  The guards watched him, but none
tried to approach him.  If anything, they went in the other direction.

Annoyed at their
cowardice, Daviin stopped outside the door that reeked of Human.  There, he
folded his body into a coil to the left of the door.  The medics of the
hospital eyed him askance as they passed, but none tried to tell him to leave.

Daviin felt
irritated the way they left him unchallenged.  It was a sensitive area, highly
classified.  What if he had been an assassin?  What if he was here to spy or
steal technology?

Beda’s
bones.  No wonder the Vahlin managed to steal an
ekhta, Daviin thought,
brooding at doctors and staff from over his coils. 
Congress is filled with
fools.
 A Ueshi doctor saw him from the far end of the hall, where it was
just a blue-green blob to Daviin, and let out a high-pitched squeal and quickly
departed the way it had come.

Fools and
cowards,
Daviin amended, his irritation building.

Several hours
later, with still not a soul willing to come and demand his purpose in the
restricted area, two heavy-limbed Ooreiki in gleaming, ebony Congressional
biosuits stalked up to him, each toting a complex array of weaponry.  Looking
at their chests, he saw they were both four-point Battlemasters.  Daviin perked
up, looking forward to an incident after stewing for hours in his irritation.

Instead, the
Ooreiki gave him nervous glances, and, without a word, went to the other side
of Joe’s door and waited.  The Human’s escort.  Daviin could feel their eyes
shift to him warily, but they said nothing as they waited for Prime Commander
Zero to waken.

Irritation began
to change into anger. 
Do none of these Takki have the courage to say
something to me?

The tics
continued to pass, with no one saying a word to him.  Finally, Daviin could
stand it no longer.

To the two
Ooreiki, he casually said, “If this were a Jreet planet, every soldier in this
hospital would be killed.  Then we would research who trained them and their
instructors would all be killed.  Then we would find their families and
they
would all be killed.”

The two
Ooreiki’s huge ovoid pupils dilated with obvious terror.  One of them
whispered, “Why?”

Daviin motioned
at the uniforms of passersby.  “I don’t belong here.  I wear no black.  I carry
no gun.  Why has no one said anything to me?”

“You’re a
Jreet,” the other one said. 

“So?!” Daviin
demanded.

“Jreet aren’t traitors,”
the Ooreiki babbled.  “Everyone knows this.”

“Not until our
ward turns traitor,” Daviin reminded them.

“But…”  The
nearest Ooreiki stared up at Daviin, his hahkta and sudah trembling.  “
Are
you a traitor?”

“Just shut up.” 
The conversation had only made him want to drive his tek through their
spineless bodies.

And they did. 
As they waited outside the door together in silence, Daviin seethed. 

His disgust had
reached a fever-pitch when the door to the regeneration room opened and the Human
stepped out.

Joe’s gaze was
automatically drawn to Daviin, whose mountain of bright scarlet scales stood
out in the black Congie hallways like a green Takki on a food farm.  Then, as
if he had simply been glancing Daviin’s way, he turned back to the Ooreiki,
ignoring him.

“So.  Can one of
you jerkwads tell me why one of you didn’t escort this Janja pile back to the
waiting area?”

Under the Human’s
stare, the Ooreiki’s sudah began to quiver.  Their big, sticky brown eyes
flickered to Daviin, then to the Human, then back.  “He didn’t appear to be
hurting anything, sir.”

“Oh.”  Joe
seemed to think on that a moment, then said, “So the fact that he can go into
creepy inviso-mode and rip this entire hospital apart means nothing at all to
you?”

The other
Ooreiki said, “We thought he was with you, sir.”

The Human turned
back and met Daviin’s gaze with flat disdain.  “He’s not.”  He continued to
look utterly calm, but there was an edge to his voice.  “Did you check his tag,
men?”

The two Ooreiki
babbled a negative.

“Why not?”  The Human’s
deep brown eyes seemed to be holding back the weight of mountains as they
glared up at Daviin.

“He’s a
Jreet
,
sir.”  The Ooreiki’s sudah were now fluttering in their necks, betraying their
nervousness.

The Human
snorted, eyes still holding Daviin’s gaze.  “A Jreet turns traitor the moment
his ward turns traitor.  And when they do, they’re the best enemy we’ll ever
get.”

Daviin felt
stabbed and vindicated at the same time.

Joe jabbed an
arm at Daviin.  “Check his tag.”

“I don’t carry a—”
Daviin began.

Joe held up a
hand, cutting him off.  To the Ooreiki, he said, “Check it.”

“C-Commander
Zero,” one of the Ooreiki managed, “We’re here to escort you back to the
waiting area, not to—”

“You’re here to
protect
this hospital,
” Joe snarled, turning on them.  “
Check
his
tag.
”

The two Ooreiki
seemed frozen in place for a moment under the Prime Commander’s stare.  Then,
sliding sideways around him, they moved to Daviin, obviously more terrified of
the soft-skinned Human than they were of Daviin’s mountain of coils.