Zero Recall (66 page)

“This is a
hoax
,”
Rri’jan shrieked.  “We all know the damn Geuji would never surrender.  He’s
been a thorn in Congress’s side for three hundred turns.”

“Be silent,” Mekkval said
coolly, “or I will silence you.”

“—personally-acquired
warships.  See Items A1 through A-44, detailing purchase, outfitting, and types
of ships he used.  I will pause to allow you time to examine the evidence.”

“We’ve already previewed
it,” the First Citizen said.  “You may continue.”

“Once his forces
surrounded me,” Forgotten said, “Rri’jan let it be known that he came to me
requesting my help to gain a seat on the Tribunal, video and audioclips of
which can be accessed as B1 through B7 in your evidence packets…”

Rri’jan listened,
disgusted, as Forgotten once again repeated his plan, this time with the added
details of Rri’jan’s exact words and reactions to each proposed twist.  Rri’jan
dropped to his seat in impotent rage.  He stopped listening by the fourth hour.

“If you will notice,”
Forgotten finished, after the Watcher had made them take several food-breaks to
keep from starving during his endless monologue, “as each stage of this plan
came to fruition—most visibly the destruction of Aez, the accumulation of
Dhasha princes on Neskfaat, and Planetary Ops’ debilitating losses—your good
Representative did absolutely nothing to voice his concerns to the Regency.”

“Proof of my innocence!”
Rri’jan snapped, unable to take the sham any longer.

“What I want to know,”
Prazeil snarled, “is why you destroyed my home.”

For a moment, Rri’jan
felt a surge of triumph, thinking that the Jreet’s wrath was focused on
Forgotten.  Then, with a rush of startlement, he realized Prazeil was looking
at
him
.

“Aez was a target of
opportunity,” Forgotten said.  “It would have been too dangerous to leave a
planet of fervent, impassioned, dedicated warriors as skilled and determined as
the Aezi alive during a period of political unrest and instability as crucial for
the Huouyt’s eventual ascension to a secure and stable throne as was the last
turn, and after a long, thorough examination of the facts at hand, it was
decided that their neutralization could not wait until after the Regency’s
power-structure was reorganized to Huouyt liking, and had to be attended to
before the Dhasha created a very visible and powerful distraction in the heart
of Congress, lest our plan leave much of the Old Territory embroiled in a
bitter war that would engulf dozens of innocent planets and undermine the very
structure Rri’jan wished to rule.” 

“You can’t even
understand what he’s saying,” Rri’jan snapped.  “I move to dismiss his entire,
twisted testimony as unclear and indecipherable gibberish.”

“Paraphrase,” Aliphei
commanded of the Geuji. 

“The Aezi would have
created trouble, so we decided to remove Aez from the equation.”

“Don’t implicate me in
that!” Rri’jan snapped, even as the Jreet stiffened and rose from his white
coils with rage.  “Aez was not my idea!  I
questioned
Aez.”

“Then you were there,”
Mekkval suggested, voice utterly cold. 

“I have no idea what he’s
talking about,” Rri’jan snapped.  “I never asked him to get me a throne.”

“Then you admit to the
rest of the conspiracy?”

“No,
none
of this
was my idea!” Rri’jan snapped.  “He did it all!”

“But you bought his
cooperation with a promise to free his people,” Aliphei noted.  “And he says
your ultimate intent was to rearrange the power-structure of Congress to better
suit your liking.  With you enthroned at its head, of course.”

“The Geuji is
lying
,”
Rri’jan screamed, slamming his fist into the podium.  “Can’t you see that?”

“Odd,” Mekkval replied,
“when historically, it is the
Geuji
who are known for their distaste for
lies, and the
Huouyt
have the reputation of being unable to tell the
truth.”

Rri’jan turned to scowl
at his peer.  “You almost speak as if you have already made up your mind,
Dhasha.”

“Oh, I have,” Mekkval
said coldly.

It was at that point
that, looking at the impassive faces of other two Tribunal members, the
horrible truth of the situation dawned upon him.  “You’re going to convict me.”

“Shall we skip the rest
of the formalities and move on to sentencing?” Aliphei asked.  “I have an
appointment with my masseuse this evening.”

“We should at least take
a vote,” Mekkval said, sounding amused.  “Prazeil?  Aliphei?  I vote to
condemn.”

“And I,” Aliphei replied. 
Rri’jan’s breja fluttered at the finality of what had just happened to him. 
The Tribunal only needed two to condemn.

“And I,” Prazeil growled,
lurching up to almost two rods in height.  “Rest assured, Huouyt, whatever
sentence is offered you, I will purchase your contract and make you dance on my
tek.”

“That might be difficult,
considering you no longer have a planet backing you, worm,” Rri’jan snapped,
beyond reason, now.

“The sentence,” Aliphei
said, “shall befit your crime and station.  For your repeated crimes as a
species, the Huouyt will be henceforth banned from the Tribunal.”

“Agreed,” Mekkval said.

“Agreed,” Prazeil
barked.  “May the Huouyt shrivel and die like the sun-fearing cowards they
are.”

Rri’jan could only
stare.  “Did you just say…
banned
?”

“Shall I look up the
definition for you?” Mekkval asked, sounding amused.

“In the history of
Congress, no species has been
banned
from the Tribunal,” Rri’jan
snapped.  “That’s
ludicrous
.” 

“We thought it was
fitting,” Mekkval said, his huge, oblong jaw open in a smirk, showing rows upon
rows of triangular black teeth.  “You are, after all, the species to come up
again and again, in inter-species conflicts.”

Rri’jan ignored the
Dhasha’s taunt.  “If you’re going to ban the Huouyt, ban the Dhasha, too.  It
is
their
rebellions that drain Congressional funds and necessitate the
Draft.”

“As far as I was aware,”
Aliphei said, “the Dhasha are not on trial, here,”

“The Huouyt have been
with Congress since we formed it!” Rri’jan snapped.  “You can’t
ban
us,
furgs.”

“I was reading the
Tribunal charter last night,” Mekkval said idly, “and it says we can.”

“Further,” Aliphei said,
“there is the matter of your
personal
punishment, Rri’jan.”

“Kill him!” Prazeil
roared.  “Give him to me and I shall make him squeal like a gutted melaa before
he dies.”

“Rri’jan sought money and
power,” Aliphei went on.  “I vote we send this ambitious vaghi to a place where
he can witness both, for the rest of his existence, as a slave.”

“Where were you thinking?”
Mekkval asked, his attention sharpening.

“I say we kill him,”
Prazeil snapped.  “I’ll do the honors myself.  I’ll make the coward scream
until his grandmothers cringe in their—”

“Yes, we heard you,”
Rri’jan snapped, intently focused on the First Citizen and the Dhasha.  They
were the two he needed to concern himself with.  The Jreet was a bumbling
clown.

“It would please me
greatly to see this selfish furg rehabilitated,” Mekkval offered, meeting
Rri’jan’s stare pointedly.  “Satisfying, even.”

“Yes!  Make him grovel! 
Then we shall soak the earth in his blood and hunt down his kinfolk for their
part in his crimes.”

“I was thinking the
same,” Aliphei said calmly.

“Where?” Mekkval asked.

“On a platform in the
center of the Regency!” Prazeil cried.  “I will sharpen my tek so that he
quivers, then cleanse him personally, so all may watch.”

“There are several
options,” Aliphei said thoughtfully.  “All of which are appealing.”

“An Ueshi pleasure-slave?”
Mekkval asked, his scaly face alighting in amusement.

Rri’jan watched Mekkval
and Aliphei in fury, promising himself that, wherever the furgs sent him, he
would slip free of his wardens’ grasp and return to see them both die
painfully.  He was not worried about the Jreet.  The Jreet he could kill the
moment he tried to wrap him in his coils.  It was these two who had the
intelligence to be the ringleaders in this operation.

“How about a ruvmestin
mine,” Aliphei said.  “Grakkas, perhaps.”

The furglings send me
to Grakkas,
Rri’jan thought, fighting a smirk,
and I will be back on a
shuttle within a night.
  He schooled his face into the picture of horror. 
“You can’t do that.”

“His zora must be
removed, of course,” Mekkval suggested. 

Rri’jan froze, all of his
smugness draining out his feet in a wash of horror.  No matter where they sent
him, he could escape—if he had his zora.  If he
didn’t
, he was just
another criminal.  Just another stagnant, trapped creature to be ushered
about.  “That barbaric punishment was outlawed millennia ago,” he blurted.

“Not outlawed,” Mekkval
said, sounding amused.  “Frowned upon.”

“Why should we bother
maiming him?” Prazeil demanded, giving his companions a confused glance.  “Are
you
afraid
of this tekless betrayer, Dhasha?”

“I was thinking more of
his capacity to elude Congressional forces, once he is tucked away to serve
penance,” the Dhasha responded. 

“There will be no
‘eluding’,” Prazeil snapped.  “He will not leave his trial alive.”

“We’ll see,” Mekkval
said, watching Rri’jan intently.  “Watcher, remove his zora.  Authorized by
myself.”

“And I,” Aliphei said.

“As you command, your
Excellencies.”

Rri’jan stiffened as he
felt something shift within him, then all the sensation of a limb disappeared. 
With it, he lost everything.  The sensory organs that could activate and direct
his body were simply…gone.

In that moment, Rri’jan’s
life simply crashed down around his shoulders, leaving him naked and terrified
before his accusers.

But Mekkval wasn’t done. 
“I say we let the Huouyt decide,” the Dhasha continued.  “Death by tek or
rehabilitation by servitude.”   

“The craven weakling does
not get to choose!” Prazeil snapped.  “It was
my
planet he destroyed. 
He shall therefore dance on
my
tek.”

“Choose,” Aliphei commanded,
watching him coldly.

And, in that moment,
Rri’jan realized that the more pleasant outcome, for him, would be the Jreet’s
suggestion.

More pleasant…but
infinitely more short.

Rri’jan stared at
Aliphei, then Mekkval, humiliated, hopeless, furious that they were going to
make him choose between slavery and execution.  He, a Ze’laa royal.  A
Representative of
Congress
.  They had maimed him.  Impotized him before
the entire universe.  He was so stunned and wretchedly degraded that he
couldn’t find the words to speak.

“For what it’s worth,”
the Geuji said into the silence that followed, “You never stood a chance,
Rri’jan.  Bow and accept the terms given.  You can still save yourself.”

“Enough!” Prazeil
snapped.  “The slime-mold is done here.  Watcher, remove him to his cell.”

Forgotten had just enough
time to say a startled, “But we agreed—” before his disgusting mass vanished. 
Rri’jan felt a satisfied ripple of his breja knowing that he would not be the
only one whose plans were ruined, but it was short-lived.  Once again, he was
left facing his three cold-eyed peers, facing a choice no Huouyt should have to
make.  Steeling himself, knowing that alive—albeit humiliated—was better than
righteous and dead, Rri’jan whispered, “Send me to Grakkas, you miserable furgs.”

“I hear the ruvmestin
mines,” Aliphei commented.

“I’ll buy his contract,”
Prazeil retorted.  “There will be no Grakkas.”

“You and what economy?”
Rri’jan retorted, unable to hold back his disdain.  “In case you forgot,
Aezi
,
there is nothing left for you to use to purchase my servitude.”

“A Congressional
Representative would require an inordinately high bid,” Aliphei conceded.  “I’m
afraid you don’t have the funds, Jreet.”

“Make an exception!”
Prazeil snapped.  “It was
my
planet the sniveling vaghi destroyed. 
I
should be able to mete out justice.”

“If Tribunal members
flaunted the rules we made, what stability would there be in our great nation?”
Aliphei asked pointedly.  Then, to Mekkval, “What say you?”

The Dhasha, who had said
nothing up until that point, continued watching Rri’jan and said, “Ka-par.”

Instantly, the Jreet
reared up with a roar of fury, his ivory scales arching two and a half rods
over the proceedings.  “There will be no ka-par!  The Huouyt is
mine
.”

For a moment, the room
was tense, waiting for the First Citizen to weigh in on the matter.  When he
did, it was with great reluctance.  “The Dhasha are allowed ka-par as part of
their species’ cultural concessions,” Aliphei said slowly.  “But if he accepts,
then the rules of ka-par shall stand.  He would take your place if he won,
Mekkval.”

“He won’t win,” Mekkval
said, the prince’s confidence like an immobile mountain, crushing him.

Rri’jan felt his breja
curl at the idea of being indentured to a Dhasha. 
That
Dhasha.

“I will not allow it,”
Prazeil snarled.  “By the seventh hell, you will
not
take this prize
from me, Mekkval.”

“He is my prize, too,”
Mekkval retorted.  “It is
I
that the Huouyt sought to assassinate.  It
is I who will rise to his challenge.  If he is man enough to face the consequences
of his own actions.”

“My
blood
before
you steal the Huouyt,” Prazeil snapped.  “I will not waste my breath with
allowances or compromises.  I
will
be given what is owed.”