Forging Zero (23 page)

“A
Peacemaker.  He was just doing his job, researching what he had been ordered to
research, but I had to stop him.  I had to save your life, just in case the
Trith was right.”

“Right…about
what?” Joe asked weakly.

Kihgl
fixed him with an intent stare. 
“About the fall of Congress.”

Joe did
not know what to say.

“I
made it look like an accident, but only time will tell if you evaded them. 
Whatever happens, I will be gone.  My fate has already been decided.”

“So
you’re not killing me?”

Kihgl
continued to pick at the rock. 
“For as long as anyone can remember, there’s
been a prophecy that spells destruction for Congress.  The Fourfold Prophecy. 
Nobody tells it more than once, since the more times it is told, the more
chances Peacemakers will hear it.”
  Kihgl turned to face him. 
“So I
will tell it to you.”

Joe felt
goosebumps prickle his arms again. 

“The
prophecy arrived soon after the eight original species banded together to
create the first Regency.  It originated in four separate places at once, two
of which Congress hadn’t even discovered yet.  It says a race will one day rise
up against Congress and win its independence, and that Congress will smash its
armies to pieces trying to bring it back.  The Dhasha believe they are the
ones, but their revolts always end in defeat.  It makes the believers think
that it will be one of the new species we discover.  Some, like Nebil, are even
foolish enough to believe it could be Humans.”

Joe was
unsure what to say.  Kihgl still radiated a feeling of instability, like he was
only a heartbeat from yanking his gun from his belt and blowing Joe away,
despite what he had said.  Carefully, Joe ventured, “You think it could be
humans, too.”

“Not
Humans.  You’re too frail.  I think it will be something else.  Something new.”
 Kihgl turned back to the wall. 
“But it’s hard
to deny the power in a Trith’s stare.”
  The Ooreiki looked like he wanted
to say more, but didn’t.

“Did
you really save my life?” Joe asked.

“Kkee. 
  The Trith said I would.”
  Kihgl glanced at the
horizon and seemed to steady himself.
  “Every soldier must endeavor to avoid
the Peacemakers, but now you must be doubly sure not to fall under their
scrutiny.  Along with the prophecy of my death, the Trith told me that the
bearer of your mark would in all probability die.  There was only one path you
could take to save yourself, and out of the infinite possibilities in someone’s
future, it is not likely you’ll choose it.”

“The
Trith talked about
me?
” Joe asked, stunned.

“He
did.”

Caught
completely off guard, Joe simply blurted, “What did he say?”

Immediately,
the secondary commander’s expression darkened. 
“My fortune was for me to
know, not you,”
Kihgl said harshly.
  “If the Trith want you to know
anything, they’ll come to you personally.  Just pray they don’t.  A Trith never
gives the whole prophecy.”

“The
whole…prophecy?  They tell futures?”

Kihgl
snorted. 
“They
are
the future, boy.  They walk in it as we walk in
the present.  If one comes for you, run.  Don’t listen to what he’s got to
say.  Just get as far away as you can.  Tell the Peacemakers you saw one—but
never tell them it came for
you
.  That’s a death-sentence as surely as
quoting the Fourfold Prophecy.”

Joe was
getting more and more freaked out, realizing that he was finally recognizing
the odd tone he’d first noticed to Kihgl’s voice.  The secondary commander was
speaking as if he had already accepted his own demise…and was counseling Joe on
how to avoid the same fate.  “Okay,” Joe said slowly, “What does a Trith look
like?  How do I avoid them?”

Kihgl
flicked the rock chips from his fingertips and turned to him. 
“Trith look
like what Humans thought aliens looked like before Congress discovered your
planet.  Small and gray.  Big heads, black eyes.  Somehow, you knew.  Nebil
thinks it means you Humans are the ones.”

“But
why would they visit us?”

Kihgl
looked across the ruined city and seemed to think about it. 
“To give you
something,”
he finally suggested

Joe
snorted.  “If they gave anybody anything, they gave it to the government and
the government hid it from us.  That’s so typical.  They should have
told
us.”

“Maybe
it wasn’t something to be told,”
Kihgl said, his
pale brown eyes returning to him.
  “Maybe it was something to be used.”
 
And, in that moment, Joe almost thought he saw…hope…in his secondary
commander’s eyes.

Joe
couldn’t help but snort.  “If they did, lot of good it did us when Congress
attacked.”

Kihgl
stiffened as if he had personally insulted him. 
“We didn’t attack.  If we’d
attacked, your backwards planet would have been annihilated right down to its
last insignificant iron atom.”

Which,
Joe realized, was probably pretty damn close to the truth.  He swallowed
nervously, deciding a change of subject was appropriate.  “Why was somebody
investigating me?  Was it for what I did on Earth?”

Kihgl
snorted. 
“Tril reported my collection of Prophecy-related artifacts.  The
Peacemakers are conducting an investigation.  Soon they’re going to find that
ever since the Trith visited me, I’ve spent large portions of my life
researching the Fourfold Prophecy.  It’s enough to have me executed, just like
the Trith predicted.  If they find a way to connect you to the drawing in my
personal files, they’ll execute you, as well.  The Peacemaker I killed was
sifting through the ship’s files, examining the time I took you to my
dormitory.  I had to destroy his brain sac so they could not access his
memories of the symbol on your arm.”

He
really saved my life.
  Joe swallowed hard, dread
thickening into an intestine-squeezing ball in Joe’s gut.  “You’re serious,
aren’t you?  You killed someone to save me?” 

Kihgl
made a croaking grunt. 
“It’s custom for a Trith to make four prophecies
during a reading.  He did so with me.  Three of the four have come true.  I
don’t have a choice.  I never did.”

“Yeah,
but prophecies can be vague.  Like I said about the cave—”

“These
weren’t vague.  These were precise, right down to the moment each would die.”

“…each
would…die?”

“Three
very good friends.  The Trith told me where and when I would watch each of them
die.”

“What
was the fourth prophecy?”

Kihgl
hesitated, his huge brown eyes showing his first hint of real fear. 
“He
said I will die frightened and alone on Kophat, with no one to carry my oorei
to Poen because it will be destroyed.”

Joe
felt a wash of goosebumps roll down his back and arms.  He didn’t know what to
say.  How did someone argue with a prophecy?  It was like trying to argue
politics or religion—it was no use because Kihgl was already convinced.  And
Kihgl looked…terrified.  Clearing his throat anxiously, he said, “Poen’s the
place with all the ghosts?”

Kihgl
looked away a moment, seeming to steady himself. 
“If an Ooreiki does not
get his oorei carried to Poen, he will haunt whatever place holds his oorei
until he is taken home.  Even a rebel Dhasha prince will gather up the oorei on
a battlefield and return them to Poenian priests rather than risk the wrath of
the dead.”

“So
what happens when they’re destroyed?” Joe asked softly.

It took
Kihgl a long time to respond.  When he finally did, he swept a handful of
pulverized rock from atop a ruined building. 
“They dissolve,”
he
whispered, looking at the specks of obsidian he had collected into his hand. 
“Like
dust in the wind.”

“So
what are you going to do?” Joe asked nervously.

Kihgl
tossed his fistful of rock dust at the ground. 
“I don’t know.  It’s too
late to kill you.”
  Kihgl started to head back the way they had come, then
paused. 
“Here.”
  He tugged a black circle the size of a large bracelet
from his arm and held it out to Joe.

Joe
gave it a wary glance.  Another shock collar?

“It’s
not a modifier, you furgling,”
Kihgl growled.
 
“It’s a kasja.  Give it to Battlemaster Nebil so he knows of my choice.”
 
Kihgl shoved it into Joe’s hand.  The thing was distinctly alien, though its
black, utilitarian curves were unmistakably military in origin.

“Take
off your shirt.”
  Kihgl withdrew the small black
ranking device from his vest and waited as Joe reluctantly unbuttoned his jacket. 
Joe got goosebumps as Kihgl reached forward, touching the cool metal to his
chest.

He’s
marking me as one of them.

“I
don’t want it,” Joe said suddenly.  He threw the
kasja
on the ground
between them and slapped Kihgl’s rubbery tentacle away from his chest before he
could finish.  “I’m not fighting for Congress.  I’m going home.”

As soon
as he said it, Joe knew Kihgl would kill him.  As Kihgl’s sudah began flipping
like enraged hummingbirds’ wings in his wrinkled neck, Joe backed up a pace
nervously, tensing.  Too fast to dodge, Kihgl whipped a heavy, stinging
tentacle around Joe’s neck and shoved him forward so that his face landed in
the glassy dirt beside the black armband. 
“Pick it up.  You don’t want battlemaster,
that’s fine.  The kasja is a message for Nebil.”

Joe realized
at that moment he would pick up the
kasja
or Kihgl would kill him.  He
picked up the
kasja.

“Don’t
even
think
about putting it on.  You don’t
deserve it.”
  Kihgl’s eyes glinted with rage as he spun and returned to the
haauk
.
 

Having
the distinct feeling he could follow or be left behind, Joe struggled to catch
up.

CHAPTER
11: 
The Tribunal’s Visit

When
Battlemaster Nebil found Joe fully dressed, he was not amused.  Joe tried to
give him Kihgl’s armband, but the Ooreiki stared at it so long Joe wondered if
he’d done something wrong.  Finally, Nebil said,
“You’ll wear it.  To remind
yourself what he’s done for you.  I ever see you without it, I’ll kill you.”

Joe
stared.  “But Kihgl told me not to—”

“Kihgl
is dead,”
Nebil snapped.

Joe’s
heart skipped.  “But I just talked to him.”

“A
day, a week, it won’t matter.  He’s dead.  And you’re the cause.  Let you
remember that, when you live and he dies.  Now put it on.”

Biting
his lip, Joe slid the armband over his wrist and up his forearm.  It settled
comfortably over his bicep, under the cloth of his uniform, though to Joe it
felt like the thing had been made of cold, heavy lead.  He wanted to get rid of
it, to do anything except have it there, on his arm, strangling the muscle. 

Apparently,
Nebil did not mind the fact Joe had hid it under his sleeve, because he barely
gave it a passing glance before launching into a tirade about his state of
dress.

“Can’t
you follow one simple instruction, Zero?  Tuck your shirt in.  Pull your pants
out of your boots.  What do you think you are?  An Overseer?  Take it all off. 
No, not the
kasja.
  You’ll wear that ‘till you
die.  Start with your boots.  You want to be dressed so badly, you can teach
the others how to do it.  Start over.” 

Battlemaster
Nebil made Joe dress and undress eight times before allowing the others to
begin putting their clothes on.  By that time, after the stress and septic air
sticking in his lungs, Joe was close to vomiting.  He sat down on one of the groundteam
beds to catch his breath, Kihgl’s
kasja
tight on his arm.

“Zero,
is my instruction so dull that you must sit down to endure it?  Stand up! 
Where’s your rank?  Kihgl thought you were battlemaster material, yet all I see
is a fat primate without a star.  Why didn’t he rank you, Zero?  He must’ve
changed his mind, eh?  You do something to piss him off, you stupid janja
turd?  Get up and start sprinting up and down the aisle.  As fast as you can. 
Don’t stop until I tell you.”

Joe,
his lungs already struggling for breath, was in a near-panic.  He knew he
couldn’t run without vomiting up the meager bowl of
nuajan
that he’d
swallowed that morning.  He started to shuffle along, desperately trying to
keep his breathing under control.  It felt like somebody was shoveling the
contents of a porta-potty down his bronchial tubes, filling them until there
was nothing left to absorb air.

Joe
never knew Battlemaster Nebil had snuck up behind him until his casual blow
sent him sprawling. 
“You stinking puddle of shabba vomit!
  Run.
  Let’s
see how long it takes you to soil your shirt like a Jahul.  Recruit battlemaster
my ass.  You’ve never excelled in anything.  Your only strength is you were
bigger than the rest of them when you were Drafted.  I give you eighteen tics
before you pass out like a Takki.”