Zero Recall (61 page)

More than once, the Human
woke just long enough to scream before settling back into oblivion.  Perhaps
he’d never left it.

It was his heart stopping
that worried Daviin.  It had been punctured during the Dhasha’s assault. 
Shredded.  The surgeons had tried to fuse and graft it back together, but the
shredded muscles refused to beat as one. 

His lungs, too, were
refusing to work.  They were deflated lumps, neither able to support themselves
despite everything the Ueshi did to repair them.

His liver had been
removed—that which had remained, anyway.  The Human’s intestines were all but
gone.  Even now, the Human was living off machines, his fluids filtered, his
breathing forced, his heart prodded.

The doctors didn’t have
enough time to culture him the organs he needed.  They needed another week.

Hold on,
Daviin
thought, willing him to stay alive until they could give him a transplant. 
You
can do this.

If he felt Daviin’s need
for him to live, Joe never showed any change.  The skin that remained was black
and yellow, one massive, ugly bruise.  He was still missing an arm.

Jer’ait came to Daviin
during one of the quiet periods between operations.  “I found him.”

Daviin swiveled. 
“Where?”

“Call the Ueshi,” Jer’ait
said.  “Tonight Joe will live.”

#

Jer’ait knew only one
Huouyt who would have had the rank to get himself chipped as Galek.  Gra’fei. 
Eleventh Hjai.  Yua’nev’s other assassin.

“Let me take him,”
Jer’ait said.  “No arguments this time, Jreet.  If things don’t go exactly
right, we’ll fail.  You know what that means.”

Beside him, Daviin nodded
grimly. 

“Good.  Vanish.”  Jer’ait
pushed three more arms from his borrowed Ooreiki torso and entered the bar.

His target sat in one
corner, sipping a drink, waiting for his shuttle to arrive to carry him back to
Levren.  He was watching an Ueshi dancer undulate in the center of the room,
thus his eyes were elsewhere when Jer’ait touched him on the shoulder.  And on
the chest.  And the face.  And the leg.  And the back.

“So nice to see you
again, Gra’fei.”

The other Huouyt’s eyes
widened as five different poisons entered his system from five different
places.  Too many to counter.  His mouth pressed together in fear as he went
limp in his chair.

“You got it?” Jer’ait
asked.

“Yes.”  Daviin uncloaked
and handed him a red vial.  The Ueshi in the center of the room stopped
dancing, staring down at the Jreet’s body where it snaked through the center of
the dance floor, only ninths from her feet. 

All eyes in the place
fell on them.

“Good,” Jer’ait said.  He
pried open Gra’fei’s
zora
sheath, tilted the other Huouyt’s unresisting
head back, unstoppered the vial, and poured it inside.

Gra’fei’s eyes widened
with understanding and fear as his body began to change.

“Wait for it,” Jer’ait
said, as the Huouyt’s breja disappeared and his body grew bony and weak.  Then,
gently, he reached out and took the other Huouyt by the neck of his Human
pattern.  He leaned down to speak in Gra’fei’s ear.  Softly, he said, “You die
for a good cause.”  He administered the antidotes and pulled away.  “Now,
Jreet.  Make it count.”

Even as Gra’fei was
beginning to regain some of his motor functions, Daviin struck.

The ferocity with which
the Jreet ripped off the Huouyt’s Human head and tore open his ribcage, then
delicately plucked out the desired organs left Jer’ait with a professional
respect.

Then, with great disdain,
Daviin flipped the bleeding carcass aside and twisted around to make his
departure, the organs held out in front of him like great war trophies,
intestines looped around his wrist like a gruesome bracelet.  Jer’ait followed,
pulling his three extra arms back into his torso as he went.

From the bar through the
streets, to the halls of the hospital, every alien in their path got out of the
way.

“Here,” Daviin said, once
they were back in the operating room.  He thrust his prizes out for the Ueshi
to inspect.  The Ueshi stared.

“The heart’s still
beating,” Daviin offered, sounding nervous.  “You said fresh was best.”

“It’s…good,” the Ueshi
said.  “Fresh.”  He seemed to regain his composure and nodded for Jer’ait to
close the door.  “Let’s get to work.”

As the operation began,
the Jreet hovered like a nervous hen.  Jer’ait had to refrain from doing the
same.  Something about the Human made him stupid…and he thought he finally
understood what it was.  “Sentinel,” Jer’ait said gruffly, reaching into his
pocket.

“Shhh, they’re connecting
the arteries.”  Daviin was hunched over the operating table, and not one of the
doctors had the zora to tell him to leave.

“
Worm
.”

Daviin’s tiny golden eyes
narrowed and he swiveled his massive head.  Jer’ait held out Joe’s knife. 
“Take it.  I can’t stay to give it to him.”

“Joe’s knife!” Daviin
said, delighted.  He took it in an enormous crimson fist with the same delicacy
as if he were cradling a precious treasure.

“It was on the floor of
the cavern where they were batting him apart,” Jer’ait said.

Daviin’s fist closed
around the polymer object and Jer’ait had the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t
open again until Joe woke.  “Why can’t you stay?”

Jer’ait felt a darkness
cross his features as he thought of his peers.  “I have other things I must
do.”

Daviin settled his eyes
on Jer’ait’s face, and for a moment, they just met each other’s gazes, the
Sentinel and the assassin.  Despite his density at times, Jer’ait knew Daviin
understood what he planned.  “I never thought I’d say this,” the Jreet finally
said, “but good luck.  May you kill a great many with your tricks.”

Jer’ait smiled, despite
himself.  “And you, too, Jreet.  Someday, if I survive, I’ll invite you to
Koliinaat for a drink.”  Then, together, they turned back to watch the
surgery.  Once he saw that the operation would succeed, Jer’ait slid from the
room and went to catch Gra’fei’s shuttle to Levren.

#

Joe opened his eyes.

This time, he was pretty
sure he was dead.

He could see no reason
why he was still alive.  He’d seen pieces of his liver on the ground.  He’d
seen his arm torn off, his lower torso lying in its own blood.  He’d seen the
blood.

Yet when he took a
breath, it was of his own accord.  He felt his heart beating in his chest.  The
only thing he couldn’t feel was the fingertips of his right hand.

Joe struggled to lift his
right arm.  There was
something
there…it was heavy and he was weak. 
When he saw it was a perfect Human arm, however, he had to stare.  He flexed
the fingers, goggling.  He had
some
sensation, he realized, but not what
he was used to.  He touched the steel edge of the bed with it, found the
fingers stiffer, strange.

Mechanical,
Joe
realized, a little stunned.  And, cradled in the artificial fingers, were the
smooth red surfaces of his father’s knife.  Joe felt tears burning his eyes and
had to look away, tightening his new fingers around the ancient memory.

It was then that Joe saw
Daviin.

The Jreet was curled
beside the bed in an enormous coil, his great bulk blocking the door,
effectively cutting off any would-be assassins…or emergency personnel.

“Hey,” Joe rasped.  It
was a grating sound, barely above a whisper.  Joe swallowed twice and tried
again.  Not much better.  The Jreet never twitched.

Joe realized Daviin was
asleep.

Grinning, he lay back
against the bed and pondered how he had gotten where he was.  He was happy to
be alive, but he knew he should be dead.  No scenario he could imagine in his
mind even began to explain how he had gotten where he was.  He was grateful,
yet perplexed.  Several times, he had to sit up just to re-confirm that he was
completely whole.

It didn’t make sense.  He
knew Congress couldn’t grow specialized tissues that fast.  Troubled, Joe
stared at the ceiling, wishing Daviin would wake up to talk to him.

A door slamming
impatiently against Daviin’s bulk made Joe twitch.  “Out of the way, Jreet,”
Rat’s voice commanded.  “They told me he just woke up.”

Joe sat up, propping
himself up on his elbows to spare his tender stomach muscles. 

On the floor, Daviin
grunted, then started awake.  “Joe’s—”  When their eyes met, the sheer
joy
in the Jreet’s crocodile-like face was almost cute.

The rough way Daviin
ripped Joe off the bed, yanking loose IV lines in his haste to squish him
against his chest, was not.

“Goddamn it!” Joe
roared.  “Get your tek out of my face!  Put me back!  I
need
those
drugs!”

Daviin continued to hold
him well off the ground.  Happily, he said, “A warrior doesn’t need drugs. 
Welcome back, Joe!”

“I think you just broke
my ribs again,” Joe muttered.  Already, the effects of the drugs were beginning
to wear off and he was aching from head to toe.  “Really, you should put me
back.”

“Nonsense!  We go eat!” 
Daviin set him on the floor and gave him a shove toward the door, post-op
nightgown and all.

“At least let me get
dressed,” Joe said.  “And I need to ask the doctors if—”

“Clothes are for the
weak,” Daviin said.  “And doctors don’t always know what’s best.”

“They fixed my heart good
enough,” Joe said.

Daviin scoffed.  “They
didn’t fix your heart.”  He pointed to a bloody container sitting on the table
beside Joe’s bed.  “Just look at it.  Like a Takki’s face.”

Joe’s mouth fell open. 
“Please tell me that’s not my heart.”

“Thought you’d want a
trophy from all this,” Daviin said, slapping him hard upon the back.  “The slavesoul
Ueshi doctor called it a biohazard, tried to throw it out.  I grabbed it out of
the trash.”

Staring at the multiple
chambers and the ragged scars crisscrossing the muscle, Joe felt ill.  Then
something even more frightening occurred to him. 
If that’s my heart, what’s
that thumping in my chest?

“It’s your other heart,”
a familiar voice said from the door.  “Your groundteam harvested it for you. 
In the middle of Dayut.  During happy hour.  It was on the news.”

Joe was suddenly very
aware of the woman standing in the door, watching them.  She was tall and lean,
in boots only a few ninths shorter than Joe in his bare feet.

“Rat?”

“She gave fluids,” Daviin
said proudly.  “Almost killed her, but it kept you alive long enough for us to
find you replacement organs.”

Joe did not like the
sound of that.  “Replacement?  You mean they didn’t grow them for me?”

“So!” Daviin said,
shoving him toward Rat.  “You two discussed sex, yes?  You can do it while we
eat.”

Joe’s jaw dropped and he
twisted, throwing Daviin’s huge hand off his shoulder.  “What?!”

“On Neskfaat, before the
last assignment.  You spoke of sex.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Not public enough?  We
can go to the celebration in Dayut.  It’s been going on ever since Rat killed
the Vahlin.”

“I didn’t kill the Vahlin,”
Rat said.

Joe frowned at her, then
at Daviin, then back at Rat.  “Can you believe him?  He thinks we’re gonna have
sex with him watching.”

Rat shrugged.  “Why not? 
My Sentinel won’t leave my side, either, but the two of them have come to an
accord over the problem of the two of us mating.  They’ll both wait in the
hall.”

Joe’s mouth fell open.

Rat grinned and winked at
him. 

“Okay,” Joe said.  “I’m
still a little drowsy—the Welu is your
Sentinel
?”

Rat shrugged.  “Only way
I’d let him on the team.”

Joe glanced back at
Daviin.  “I don’t like this.  It’s almost as if it was—”

“Planned?” Rat
suggested.  “Yeah.  In fact, the only difference between your team and mine is
that your Ooreiki was killed.  A Huouyt took his place.  Tried to assassinate
you.  They still don’t know who or why.”

Joe’s heart began to thud
in his chest, sending searing pain through his limbs.

“Careful,” Rat said, her
features softening.  She rushed forward and caught him as he stumbled. 
“Daviin, go get a doctor.”

Daviin took one look at
Joe, then vanished and fled.

“Galek’s dead?” Joe asked
as she helped him back into the bed.

“He was before your
departure from Jeelsiht.  A Huouyt killed him in an alley, took his pattern.”

A surge of hope relieved
some of the tension in Joe’s chest.  “Huouyt don’t take dead patterns.”

Rat’s brows contorted. 
“This one did.  Trust me, Joe, Galek’s dead.  They found him in an alley a few
days ago.  Only now figured out who it was—had his chip fried and his tattoo
carved off.  They did an autopsy on his body.  It was genuine.”

Joe blinked back tears. 
“So,” he said bitterly, “Your team won.”

“And I’m still looking
over my shoulder wherever I go,” Rat said.  “You and I both know there’s
something more to this than what the Geuji wanted us to see.  Yes—my team
survived, but I’ve got a feeling you guys are the lucky ones.  At least for
you, the game’s over.”

“Galek’s dead.”

“But the rest of them are
alive.”  She made a face.  “Even that useless Grekkon.”

“Useless?”

“He refused to help the
other three get you back.  He just sat on the surface the whole time and caught
the pickup that the rest of them missed because they were down in the tunnels,
getting you back.”

Joe remembered a brief
flash of a slick of blood coating the floor in front of him and he shuddered. 
“Who got me out, then?  If it wasn’t the Grekkon…”