Forging Zero (70 page)

Joe ignored him.

After a moment of silence, the
Dhasha said, “You aren’t by any chance older than the rest of these recruits,
are you Zero?”

His head jerked back to the Dhasha,
wary.  “Maybe.”

The Dhasha’s eyes glittered. 
“Thought so.  Since you so graciously gave me a chance to study you, I noticed
your rash.  Classic example of post-puberty hormone conflict.  How old were you
when they Drafted you, Zero?”

“Fourteen,” Joe said, his voice a
whisper.  His heart had once again begun hammering in his ears.

“I’ll have them change your
rations.  Tril’s a jenfurgling not to let Nebil change your diet.  I noticed
he’d filed several petitions, but until now I hadn’t realized why.  Next time
you eat at the chow hall, the problem should be fixed.  If it’s not, come talk
to me.”

“Shouldn’t you be offering to send
me home?” Joe demanded.  “You guys took me off my planet illegally.”

“Wrong,” the Dhasha said, clicking
his teeth together.  “You assaulted an Ooreiki ground team back on Earth.  They
lost all the recruits they’d been transporting.  For that alone, you were a
legal draftee.  Further, you embarrassed Lagrah, lost us an entire battalion. 
By all rights, they
should
have used you as an Unclaimed.  That they
didn’t still amazes me. 
Vkala
usually aren’t so kind.”

Joe grimaced and looked away.

“Why
did
you attack
Lagrah’s collection team, anyway, Zero?”

“He had my brother,” Joe managed.

“Ah.”  Bagkhal was quiet a
moment.  “Is he here now?  In one of the other battalions, perhaps?”

“He escaped,” Joe said, his throat
getting tight.  “I distracted them and he ran.”

“So you took his place,” Prince
Bagkhal said thoughtfully.

He
had
taken Sam’s place,
and now he was a slave again and he hated his brother for it.  Joe swallowed
and nodded.

“Sometimes,” Prince Bagkhal said,
“when the Mothers weave their tapestry, the needs of the many replace the needs
of the one.”

“Or sometimes you’re just stupid,”
Joe muttered.

They rode the rest of the way to
the top in silence, Joe staring out over the city, wondering what it would be
like to leap over the balcony and swan-dive to his death.  The Dhasha, for his
part, said nothing more.

As soon as the elevator came to a stop,
Bagkhal stepped onto the rooftop and went over to a boxlike object built into
the wall under a wide overhang.

To the box, he said, “Access the
file of Recruit Zero, Sixth Battalion, Second Brigade, Eighty-Seventh Regiment,
Fourteenth Human Ground Force.”

Immediately, an Ooreiki voice
said,
“File accessed, Prince Bagkhal.”
  It was the same computerized
voice that Joe had heard each time Tril had taken him over to a terminal to
observe as he added more time to Joe’s service.  Joe tensed, realizing this was
where Bagkhal erased him from the system entirely, to start his penance as a
Dhasha slave.

“Remove twelve turns from Zero’s
current enlistment term.”

“Twelve turns have been
removed, Prince Bagkhal.  Updated enlistment term is fifty-eight turns.”

Prince Bagkhal made a startled
grunt and glanced over his shoulder at Joe.  “Jreet gods, boy…  Whose scales
did
you
crawl under?  Enlistments start at thirty-three!”  He glanced
back at the box.  “For what cause was Recruit Zero’s enlistment lengthened?”

“Recruit Zero’s enlistment was
lengthened for sixteen counts of disobedience to superior officers, twenty-one
counts of disrespect for superior officers, seven counts of severe injuries,
eighteen counts of minor injuries, twelve counts of—”

“Remove another twenty turns.”

“Twenty turns have been
removed, Prince Bagkhal.  Updated enlistment term is thirty-eight turns.”

“That’s more reasonable,” the
Dhasha said.  “Seal that, and put a lock on it.  Altered by overseer or above
only.”

“Recruit Zero’s file has been
sealed and locked, Prince Bagkhal,”
the Ooreiki
computer said pleasantly. 
“Further alteration requiring approval of
Overseer or above.”

Prince Bagkhal again glanced over
his shoulder.  “Believe me now, Zero?”

Joe’s heart was pounding like a
jackhammer.  He had been mentally adding up the extensions to his enlistment in
despair over the last weeks, knowing that, at the rate he was going, he would
never actually be able to leave the Army. 

Without another word, Bagkhal turned
and disappeared into the gaping door set in the wall. 

He just reset my enlistment
term,
Joe thought, utterly stunned.

Still, Joe held back, his chest
aching in terror, remembering the last time he had gone through those doors,
and how he had almost not come back out.  Perhaps Bagkhal just wanted to lull
him into complacency…so he could eat him later.

“The elevator will not go down
again unless I request it,” Bagkhal said from inside the den.  “You might as
well come inside, Zero.”

“I could jump,” Joe said. 
“Flatten myself on the ground out there.  Medics wouldn’t have a chance in hell
of saving me.”

“That’s true,” Bagkhal agreed. 
Then he left Joe alone with the baffled Ooreiki elevator-operator.

Though
he swore to himself he wouldn’t follow, several minutes later, Joe swallowed
his pride and stepped into the monster’s lair.  Immediately, he noticed that
the lavish cushions Knaaren had spread around the place had been removed.  Now,
only stark, bare stone remained.  In one corner, a single metal desk stood over
a utilitarian Ooreiki chair.  Prince Bagkhal sat beside it, watching him. 
There was not a single slave in sight.

Joe
hesitated at the top of the stairs leading down into the den.  “What’s all this
waiting ash about, anyway?  You trying to burn my head or what?”

“Obedience
broke down because of a breach of trust,” the Dhasha said.  “I am attempting to
repair that trust.  Is it working?”

Joe
cleared his throat embarrassedly.  “Maybe.”

“Good.
Are you planning on staying up there all night?”

Joe
peered over the railing anxiously.  Just an empty room and a really big burning
Dhasha.  Tensely, he descended the stairs halfway, then paused on the
staircase, poised to bolt back out to the elevator at the first sign of
aggression. “What do you want?”

“Come
sit,” Bagkhal said, indicating the scoop-shaped chair with a swipe of his claws.

Joe
eyed it, then eyed the Dhasha.  Bagkhal just waited in silence.  Warily, Joe descended
the rest of the way into the lion’s den and sat in the proffered seat.

“As you
know, Dhasha civilization has depended much upon the hands of our slaves,”
Bagkhal said.  “We do not have the dexterity to manipulate small objects.” 
Bagkhal lifted one rigid, clawed paw a few inches off of the ground to
illustrate his point.  “For that reason, most Dhasha take slaves.  I’m one of
the few who does not.  I favor having a friend help me, instead.”

Joe
curled his lip.  “I am not your friend.”

“Not
yet.”

Joe
lurched from his chair, making the chair scrape against the diamond floor with
a metallic screech.  “I’m not burning grooming you.”

“I
didn’t ask you to.”

Joe
stared at him a long moment, then reluctantly sat back down.  “So what
do
you want?”

“Your
hands,” Bagkhal said simply.  “Manage my files for me, manipulate devices, open
doors, carry objects…  Everything you take for granted.  In return, I will take
six more turns off your enlistment.”

“You
want a secretary.”

“Kkee.”

Joe
chewed on that a moment.  “You’re not taking me away from my battalion?  Out of
the hunts?”

“You
will still participate in all of your responsibilities as a recruit battlemaster. 
You will be included in all the same training and exercises.  Instead of going
to sleep with the others, you will simply come here to help me.”

“Wait. 
I won’t be getting any
sleep?”

“I will
provide you with drugs to keep you alert.”

Joe
felt himself staring, his heart pounding in his chest.  Was Bagkhal really
serious?  Another six years off his contract?

“Okay,”
Joe agreed.  “But I want it in writing.”

A wry
look passed over Prince Bagkhal’s sharklike face.  “Dhasha don’t put things in
writing.  It is meaningless to us, since we are never the ones to write it. 
However, I will give you my word.”

“A
Dhasha’s word is soot to me.”

Prince
Bagkhal lunged to his feet, black rows of triangular teeth bared.  “What did
you say?”

Joe
stood up to face him.  “Go ahead and eat me.  Show every one of your commanders
out there just how good your burning word is.” 

For a
spit second, Prince Bagkhal tensed and Joe looked Death in the eyes.  Then,
seemingly for no reason at all, the Dhasha relaxed.  “If this is how you acted
around Knaaren, it’s amazing all he did was give you a few scars.”

“I was
too much of a coward back then to stand up to him.”

“Or
maybe you sense I’m not going to eat you,” Prince Bagkhal said thoughtfully. 
“However, I’ve already suffered enough insubordination from you for a thousand
recruits.  Any more and I’ll find somebody else.” 

Joe
glanced at the desk, feeling oddly ashamed.

Bagkhal
sat again.  “Your first task as my assistant will be to deliver the list of rules
in front of you to every battlemaster in the regiment.  Return here once Nebil
dismisses you for the night.”

“List of rules?”  Joe glanced at
the electronic device in front of him.  The symbols on the screen were much
more complex than the simplified characters on the PPU.  “What does it say?”

The Dhasha cocked a sharklike head
at him.  “Are you going to make a habit out of questioning me?”

“Probably.”

“Then
you should also make a habit out of being disappointed.  Go do as you were bid,
Zero.  Come back when Nebil is finished with you.”

Joe
picked up the electronic unit and started toward the stairs.  Then he
hesitated, turning.

“Kkee?”
Bagkhal asked.

“I’ve
got a friend,” Joe said.  “The one Tril tried to kill with the perceptual
unit.”

“I warn
you, if you’re about to ask me to send her back to Earth—”

“No,”
Joe said quickly.  “She loves it here.  I think she actually likes it better
here than she did back at home.”  He hesitated.  “Someone cut out her tongue. 
Medical fixed her broken legs, but they didn’t replace her tongue.”

Prince
Bagkhal gave him a long look.  “Technically, a tongue is not necessary for a
recruit’s function.”

“You
said you’d take six years off my contract if I helped you,” Joe pressed on
grudgingly.  “Would you give her a new tongue, instead?”

“Now?”

Joe
nodded.

The
Dhasha cocked his head at him.  “You’re asking me to reward you for work you
haven’t done yet.”

Joe
flushed.  This was where the Dhasha questioned his honor, as Joe had done to
him a few moments earlier.  He lowered his head, ashamed.

“Very
well.  Tell Nebil to send her to medical.  I might as well have them cure her
of the aftereffects of the Eighth at the same time.  No use having a valuable
recruit waste a week of training in a coma.”

Joe’s
head jerked up and he stared, and this time he couldn’t stop the wash of
gratitude toward the alien, mingled with grudging respect.  “You fix her,” Joe
said softly, “and I’ll help you as much as you want.”

“Thank you,” Prince Bagkhal said,
with genuine relief, “I’m helpless without an assistant.”  He sighed when Joe
looked startled.  “I don’t delude myself, Zero.  I’m old.  I’ve seen enough of
this world to know that my people can’t survive on our own.  In a normal
evolutionary process, we would have ended up as the Takki’s mounts, possibly
their soldiers.  By all rights, the Takki should have exterminated us long
ago.  They still can, in an instant.”  He shook his huge head.  “Yet somewhere
the natural evolution failed and here we are.”  He turned, his emerald stare
boring into Joe’s.  “And, somehow, when I look into Humans eyes, I see our
future.”

Joe bristled immediately. 
What’s
he trying to say?

Bagkhal
clicked his teeth together.  “No, I’m not saying Humans will replace Takki. 
Unless your people do something incredibly stupid, Congress will not let the
Dhasha have your planets.  I was merely saying that, despite our great
strength, there is something within you Humans that makes me even more nervous
than the Takki.  Something that makes me wonder why Congress didn’t destroy
Earth as soon as it was found.”

Joe
felt his skin tingle with goosebumps.  “What do you mean?”