Zero Recall (34 page)

And yet, a thread of
anger, a tendril of the great fire that had burned inside him ever since he’d
watched Rri’jan receive the crown while he was condemned to death and
sterilized before a crowd of millions…that anger that had refused to accept
their punishment, that had pushed him to escape and be greater than all of
them…that anger kept him from conceding.  The stubbornness that had kept him
alive where he had no right to be, bludgeoning his way through society by his
reputation and fear alone, kept him from opening his mouth.

You furg.

Jer’ait stared at the
ceiling, calculating when the end would come, wondering how many souls he would
take to the grave with him before he faced the inevitable.

Sometime later, a
disturbance outside his room made him sit up.  Jer’ait was getting out of his
tank when the door burst open and a flailing Huouyt was thrown inside, skidding
several digs on the floor before coming to a stunned halt a half-dig from
Jer’ait’s bath.  Jer’ait was still trying to process this when the Huouyt
seemingly rose into the air of his own accord and flew out the door with all
the speed of a malfunctioning
haauk.

Jer’ait grimaced.  “I do
not need your help, Jreet.”

Daviin appeared, his
great length taking up much of the floor space in the center of the room. 
“Help?”  The Jreet looked irritated as he peered through the open door at the
Huouyt he had thrown.  “Those furgs insulted my parentage.”

Stepping inside to join
them, the Human said, “What is it he’s helping you
with
, Huouyt?”

Jer’ait did not trust the
shrewd look in the Human’s eyes.  If he did not already suspect Jer’ait’s
troubles, he would soon.  The last thing he wanted was his pity.

“Go,” Jer’ait said.  “I’m
not finished resting.”

“Rest is for the weak,”
Daviin said.  “Come with us.  We’re getting food.”

Jer’ait’s system craved
sustenance—he’d gone without food for too long.  Bev’kii and the other Huouyt
had denied him anything but water for two days, and now the need to eat was a
dull ache in his
zora.
  Still, though, his pride kept him from
accepting.  He did not need a Jreet to solve his problems for him.

“That wasn’t a question,”
the Jreet said.  He lashed out suddenly, grasped Jer’ait by the torso with both
enormous arms, and lifted him from the water, sandwiched against the sheath of
his tek
.

The message was clear. 
Fight, and things would become unpleasant.

“Put me down, Jreet,”
Jer’ait muttered.  “I’ll walk.”

Daviin dropped him
unceremoniously at the Human’s feet.

“You need some clothes?”
Joe asked.

“Clothes are for the
weak,” the Jreet said, giving Jer’ait a push.

Jer’ait swiveled, giving
his left hand the pattern of a Jreet’s tek
.
  He jammed it into the
exposed blue skin of Daviin’s side, then yanked it out again, giving the Jreet
an even stare.  “Push me again, Takki, and next time I will add something
interesting.  Now get out.  I am not done resting.”

The Jreet stared down at
the wound.  It was small, oozing only a few drops of blue liquid.  Both of them
knew, however, that the Jreet would have been dead had Jer’ait wished it.

To Jer’ait’s irritation,
the Jreet laughed and clapped an enormous hand on his shoulder.  Without regard
to the hand still shaped like a tek
,
the Jreet firmly guided him from
the room and out into the hall.

“Food,” the Jreet said,
“will improve your attitude.”

It probably would, at
that.  Jer’ait re-formed his hand and resigned himself to eating with his
groundmates.

“Where are you taking
that patient?” Overseer Bev’kii demanded from down the hall.  He was flanked by
eight more Huouyt, all of them armed.

“We’re going to go get
some grub,” the Human said.  “Don’t worry.  We won’t exhaust him.”

“That patient is not
leaving the premises.”

Jer’ait watched the Human’s
eyes darken, perceptiveness and anger sharpening his features.  “This is a
hospital, not a brig.  If my groundmate wants to share our victory dinner, he will.”

Bev’kii stepped forward,
until he was almost touching the Human.  They were of a same height, though
Bev’kii outweighed Joe by thirty lobes.  Bev’kii’s eyes were flat when he said,
“You’re the useless Human Prime who spent his time unconscious while his
groundteam killed the prince without him.”

To Jer’ait’s surprise,
Joe grinned.  “That’s me.”

“Allow me to make
something clear to you, Human,” Bev’kii said, “It was
these
two who
accomplished that mission.  You had nothing to do with it.”  Bev’kii’s face
spread in a smug smile.  “So don’t let the victory get to your head.  You
didn’t deserve it.”

The Human said nothing
for a long time and Jer’ait could feel the Jreet tense behind him. 
Sweet
gods,
Jer’ait thought,
He says the word and Daviin will slay them all.
 
Jer’ait held his breath, ready to follow Daviin’s lead, should it be necessary.

“I agree.”

For a moment, Jer’ait
thought he had not heard correctly.  When he turned, however, the Human was
simply watching the Overseer.

“I agree on everything
but one point.  It wasn’t just these two.  The other three did their jobs just
as well.”

“But you admit you
failed.”

Joe laughed.  “I spent
half the time bleeding internally six digs from our target.  Yes, I failed.”

Jer’ait stiffened. 
“Don’t let him goad you.”

“Yes,” Daviin said,
swallowing Joe’s shoulder with a clawed scarlet hand, “Our food awaits.”

“Jer’ait will return to
his room,” Bev’kii repeated.  “That’s an order.”

“You might want to
re-think that order.”  The Human said it with a good-natured smile, but there
was a hard tone to his words.

At that, the Jreet
vanished.  The unspoken threat of Daviin’s action hung in the air like the
sharp tang of ozone.  No one moved.

For several heartbeats,
it looked as if there would be blood.

“Very well,” Bev’kii said
softly.  “I will see you again, Jer’ait, when you do not have a Jreet to
protect you.”

“Protect him from what?”
Joe said. 
Damn
the meddling Human.

Bev’kii cocked his head
at Joe, his mirror-perfect eyes showing nothing.  “Jer’ait is to retire.  The
Huouyt Corps Director commands it.  We will be outfitting your groundteam with
another Huouyt, one more suitable to the task.  I have a meeting with your
Overseer in two hours.  We’ll inform you of his replacement.”

“Go ahead,” Joe said. 
“But I’m crawling the tunnels with whoever I damn well please.”

Bev’kii twitched, showing
his first hint of irritation.  “I don’t believe you understand the scope of
this situation, Human.  If Jer’ait does not leave for Morinth by tomorrow, he
will—”

“Food,” Jer’ait said. 
“This prattle bores me.”  He turned, trying to draw the Human with him.

Joe did not budge, his
eyes never leaving Bev’kii’s.  “He’ll what?”

“He’ll face his peers.” 
Bev’kii bowed slightly, then departed.

Jer’ait did not like the
thoughtful look the Human had as he watched them go.

The Jreet found the
restaurant for them, happily dragging them inside when he found out it served
the disgusting fleshy beasts called
melaa
at half price.

“They were obviously
trying to lure you in here,” Jer’ait said disgustedly as they were seated. 
“What other creature in the universe has the stomach to eat a
melaa?
” 
Even as he said it, the Ueshi running the restaurant were not-so-discreetly
taking photographs and vidclips of the enormous Jreet coiled upon their floor.

Daviin did not seem to
notice.  He was drooling, eying the live pictures of the three different
melaa
the restaurant housed in their back rooms.  He pointed one of them out to the
Ueshi proprietor, who immediately bowed its slim blue-green body and scurried
away.

“What the hell does that
mean, ‘face his peers’?”  Joe asked, once their servers had taken their order. 
“What peers?”

Jer’ait winced, hoping
until that point that the Human had forgotten.  “It means I’ll have to deal
with the consequences of my actions.”

“He means they’ll come to
kill him.”

Jer’ait could have killed
Daviin for interfering.  “Keep your assumptions to yourself, Jreet.”

“Am I wrong?” Daviin
challenged.  When Jer’ait did not respond, he said, “Your kind is like mine—we
do not accept failure.  To a Huouyt, deformity is failure, regardless of your
talents.  Frankly, I am surprised they haven’t tried to kill you before this.”

“They have,” Jer’ait
said.

The other two watched him
in silence.  Jer’ait sensed understanding, and possibly even pity, making the
shame within him burn all that more.  He studied a scratch in the tabletop.

“We came here to eat,”
the Jreet said finally.  “Not prattle on about Huouyt politics.”

For once, Jer’ait could
have blessed the Jreet’s scaly hide.

Joe said nothing, watching
him in silence as the servers brought their meals and placed them in front of
them—orange nutrient wafers for Jer’ait, a reddish mass atop a pile of what
appeared to be worms for the Human, and a large, dead
melaa
for the
Jreet.  It was still bleeding from its blubbery throat.

As Daviin
enthusiastically grasped the corpse in both hands and ripped away a leg with
his jaws, Jer’ait glanced down at his own food.  One thing he enjoyed about
taking the pattern of another species was his ability to eat solid food.  He
was grimacing at the gelatinous orange wafers when the Human leaned forward.

“Are you trying to tell
me your own Overseer just threatened to kill you?”

Jer’ait suddenly lost the
remnants of his appetite.  “Leave it alone, Human.”

“No,” Joe said.  “Answer
me.”

Anger licked at Jer’ait’s
insides like fire.  “I’ll deal with it.”

“How?”  The Human fixed
him with a cold brown stare.

“It is none of your
concern, Human.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes.”  Before the Human
could continue on that train of thought, he said, “Why’d you allow Bev’kii to
goad you?  What good did it do?”

The Human’s hard brown eyes
told him he knew Jer’ait was deflecting the issue.  Nonetheless, he said, “No
one goaded me.  I acknowledged a fact.  In my old teams, I was always the best,
the one who got the kills and received the honors.  I was the hot shit.  I was
the one going places.  Here, I’m always gonna be sixth fiddle.”

Daviin dropped a large
bone on the table servers had provided for the purpose and wiped his bloody muzzle. 
“What’s a fiddle?”

“You know what he
means.”  Jer’ait glanced at his nutrient wafers.  He’d never eaten around
others before, at least not since his training in Va’ga.  There were too many
risks involved.  He glanced at his companions to assure himself they were not
watching him.  Still, he could only stare at his food, fighting humiliation at
the burning need to eat.

“I do,” the Jreet
confirmed.  “But I would like to know what this fiddle is.  It must be a stupid
thing, indeed, for him to make such a furgish statement.”

“Furgish?” Joe said. 
“Beside a Huouyt or a Jreet, I’m just a waste of space.”

“We survived, furg,” the
Jreet growled.  “There were other teams with Huouyt and Jreet and no Human and
they failed.  This one survived.”

“I was out cold.”

Daviin made an irritated
rumbling sound in his throat.  “Two thousand teams made it out of the tunnels
alive, Joe.  A quarter of them were led by Humans.  Do you not see a pattern?”

“There is no pattern,”
Joe said, locking gazes with the Jreet.

Jer’ait could not hold
back his surprise.  “
Only
two thousand?”

His groundmates broke
their stare to glance at him.  “No one told you?”

“No,” Jer’ait whispered. 
The numbers were staggering.  The Ground Force had lost millions.

Daviin snorted.  “They
told me, and I was strapped to the floor.”  He clapped a huge scarlet hand
against Joe’s back and said, “The Humans won the day.”

“The Jreet appreciate a
winner,” Joe muttered.  “But unfortunately, your congratulations are mislaid. 
I did nothing.”

“Four Jreet warriors died
in the tunnels that day,” Daviin said.  “And almost twenty thousand Huouyt. 
Every Human that went in came out alive.”

Joe laughed.  “That’s a
lie.”

“Jreet don’t lie.”

The Human’s smile
faltered.  “How many went in?”

“A little over five
hundred.”

Joe only stared at him.

Daviin went back to his
carcass, his point made.

“How do you know?”  Joe
looked at a loss, now.

“The Ueshi used it to
distract me while they drugged me.”

Jer’ait tore his eyes
from his uneaten wafers and glanced at the Jreet.  “I was under the impression
Jreet didn’t need to be drugged.”

For a long moment, Joe
did not reply, and the Jreet did not enlighten him.  Eventually, however, Joe
shook himself and grinned.  “They did this time.  You want to tell the story,
Daviin, or should I?”

Daviin made a sour face
and began tearing into his carcass with more vigor.  He ripped a good-sized
limb from the creature and loudly cracked its bones between his jaws.  It was a
less-than-subtle threat, one the Human missed entirely.

Turning to Jer’ait, Joe said,
“He scared the crap out of this little slavesoul Ueshi doctor, told him he’d
hunt him down and kill him and all his descendants if he shaved his scales. 
They drugged him, then stapled him to the floor, then shaved whatever they
wanted.  Daviin swore to kill every coward in the room, make them dance on his tek
before he crushed their bodies and went off to hunt down their kin…you know,
typical Jreet stuff.  Doctor didn’t take it too well.  Was gonna have him
deported.”