Zero Recall (2 page)

Forgotten watched the
Congressional fighters get into position around him and, for one of the few
times in his life, found himself wondering what the hell he’d been thinking. 
Conversation was one thing, but the probabilities were rapidly ticking further
into the unacceptable range with each moment he waited to flee.

He, Forgotten realized
with a pang of alarm, was beginning to get reckless.

It’s the loneliness
,
he thought, as every mental pathway he had was suddenly overloaded with that
bewildering, earth-shattering revelation. 
Geuji were never meant to be
alone.

Indeed, on their home
planet, they had spanned entire continents, sharing and discoursing and
comparing notes as they analyzed the skies together.

Disturbed, Forgotten
selected a Huouyt voice from his ship’s database and said in Sh’ai-accented,
Northern Gha’Salaoian Huouyt, “Shall I give you the AR controls or do you
intend to board?”

The Huouyt captain
hesitated.  In crisp Congie he said, “
This territory is known for its space
pirates.  Our escort believes you might be hostile.  It would put everyone at
ease if you would identify yourself before we pass.
”

From the mid-sized
fighter in the back left of the formation, a Morinthian, Va’ga-trained Huouyt
said, “
He did identify himself, fool.
”

A mix of satisfaction and
fear appeared in Forgotten’s mind.  He’d been right—and if he failed, he was
going to die.  Rri’jan Ze’laa did not leave a job unfinished.  It was why he
had replaced Representative Na’leen in the Huouyt Regency seat.

“I’ve been given quite an
escort,” Forgotten said in Morinthian, Va’ga-accented Huouyt.  “A Va’ga-trained
assassin.  A hundred and forty-two turns old.  The head of the Ze’laa, a title
taken from your elder brother after his…problem…saw him sterilized and slated
for execution.  You prefer to drink water bottled from northern Astori streams
and you have a personal phobia of flesh-eating bacteria and Trith.   What did I
do for Aliphei to send you to visit?”

“
Your antics do not
unnerve me, Geuji.
”  Rri’jan’s voice was cold, lacking the characteristic
musical quality of Huouyt speech.  It was a trait that all Va’gan graduates
maintained—flat, lifeless speech, giving nothing away, ever.  At least to
everyone but a Geuji.

“I never suspected they
would, my friend,” Forgotten replied.  “I was simply being polite.  After all,
you are a murderer by birth and training.  The fifth most powerful family in
Congress.  How could I ever intimidate you?”

This got under Rri’jan’s
skin.  “
The Ze’laa is
the
most
powerful family in Congress, as
we have clearly shown.  We have the resources and manpower to capture even
you,
Forgotten.
”

Capture,
Forgotten
thought wryly.
  Truly, they do not understand what they are dealing with. 
Not
even the
Huouyt
, his closest intellectual rivals in all of Congress,
truly understood.
 
Which, he supposed, made his survival in the upcoming
game easier. 

“You are fifth,”
Forgotten replied, on the common frequency.  “Mekkval, Gervin, Keddrik, and
Fabara could each have accomplished as much, and they would not have had to
empty out their coffers to do it.  This little escapade probably took an entire
seventh of your familial worth, did it not?  What is Aliphei paying you?  I
will triple it, plus cover the expenses you took to make your warships appear
so believably unrealistic, and it won’t even skim the surface of my funds.” 
Then he hesitated.  “But wait.  That would make
me
the most powerful
‘family’ in Congress, no?  Which would make you…sixth.  And that’s only if you
don’t split the Ooreiki and Jahul into their royal lineages.  And at least four
Dhasha princes exceed the Ze’laa’s base wealth.  Bagkhal is a good example. 
You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he owns three planets. 
Personally.”

Rri’jan’s voice was as
lifeless as ever, but Forgotten detected the anger buried underneath.  “
Prepare
for boarding, Geuji.
”

Forgotten initiated the
sequence without complaint, knowing the next seconds were crucial. 
Noncompliance would result in a cold, dead Geuji floating around in abandoned
space.  Too much reluctance would make Rri’jan overconfident and prone to do
stupid, violent things.  Complying immediately would simply scare the hell out
of him. 

As expected, the other
ship hesitated as Forgotten instantly completed his ship’s mating routine.  There
was a very long pause in which the opposite ship remained undocked, hovering in
space, just out of reach. 

“Anytime you’re ready,
Representative,” Forgotten said.  “I recently replenished my supply of
Sutharian microbes.  Play nice, and we should get along fine.”

The pause grew to several
tics, and Forgotten monitored the dispute that instantly began to rage inside
the other ship.  The Representative finally had to pull rank to get his
underlings to submit to Forgotten’s lock.  Somewhere in the scathing arguments
that followed, Rri’jan’s captain finally found the courage to complete the
mating sequence.  Forgotten waited, watching the airlock from his ship’s camera
system. 

Rri’jan was a gifted
Va’gan assassin before he took the Regency seat.  He had the capability of
producing nine hundred and thirteen different drugs and deadly chemicals with
his body, which he could then inject with a multitude of body shifts—spines,
excretions, biological syringes, gaseous emanations—that the Huouyt were known
for.  And, because Forgotten had pushed him, Rri’jan was likely to forego his
original intent in approaching him and simply attempt to kill Forgotten in the
most painful way possible, to salvage his dubious honor. 

Of course, if Rri’jan did
anything at all that Forgotten did not approve of, he would flush both of their
ships with a load of microbes that would eat away a Huouyt’s
breja
and
put its owner in the worst pain he’d ever felt before he died.

Tit for tat.

Tics passed.  More
argument within the Huouyt ship.  Forgotten used the time to access Rri’jan’s
secured link to Koliinaat and confirm the current political atmosphere towards
using an ekhta.  It was as he had predicted.  While the Jreet and the Dhasha
maintained Tribunal seats, the Jahul had recently been given four new,
lucrative metals-planets by the Planetary Claims Board, and they—an entire
species of empaths—currently held the most sway in Congress.  Further, the
Jreet would vote to physically fight, considering technology of any sort to be
a coward’s weapon, and the Dhasha considered themselves invincible on
principle.  Forgotten sent a few subtle messages to strengthen these positions
as he waited.

The air-lock between
their ships remained shut.  A closed-circuit message came to him directly from
the other ship.

Eventually, Rri’jan got
on the com system.  “
I want you to know, Forgotten, that I am not here to
kill you.
”

“The word of a murderer
is unto the word of a Huouyt to me, and since you are both, forgive me if I
find it hard to believe you.”  Forgotten considered the current predicament of
the Geuji imprisoned on Levren and decided that they would want, at the very
least, to be able to communicate with each other.  That, of course, would never
happen with Yua’nev at the helm of the Peacemakers.  Yet the
Huouyt—psychopathic monsters that they were—traditionally maintained the Tenth
through Twelfth Hjai of the Peacemakers, and their assassins would simply kill
any non-Huouyt who had the audacity to try to claim a higher rank.

“
I am here to hire
you,
” Rri’jan said, the truth ringing in his voice at a ninety-ninth
percent certainty.

“I’m sure you are aware
that the Huouyt are infamous for their ability to lie,” Forgotten said as he
accessed Rri’jan’s ship’s database and pored through Planetary Ops records. 
There were several profiles that interested him.  Daviin ga Vora would make a
good Representative—if he had financial backing—and the Baga Traxxalihania had
the familial ties to regain for his people thirty-two planets from the Huouyt
and Ooreiki, should the Baga become aware of the discrepancy.  Corruption and
payoffs were increasing throughout the Peacemaker accounts, with over fifty
percent of high-profile Sanctuary cases being fraudulently performed to
increase the populace’s fear of Peacemaker reprisals, further suggesting the
current Peacemaster needed to be replaced, preferably by someone with a
conscience. 

Rri’jan seemed to
understand that he would die as soon as he stepped on Forgotten’s ship without
an invitation, for the airlock remained shut.

“
The Huouyt want what
is ours.
”

Forgotten monitored
Dhasha missives in the Old Territory as he listened.  Several denned princes
were attempting to foment war using new Dhasha planets along the distant
outskirts of the Outer Line as staging points, and were conspiring with kin entrenched
in the central Congressional planets.  As if that was anything new.  Mekkval
couldn’t send a team after them, however, because nothing sent down a deep den ever
came back, and, in desperation, Mekkval was considering going after them
himself, which would mean his inevitable death.  Considering how Mekkval was
one of the only
decent
beings in the Regency at that moment, Forgotten
wanted to avoid that if possible.  To Rri’jan, he said, “You want me to arrange
Mekkval’s death.”

If Rri’jan was unnerved
at how much Forgotten had deduced, he did not show it.  “
We want Na’leen’s
seat on the Tribunal returned to us.  If you can do it more easily without
killing Mekkval, then—
”

“Mekkval must be killed
for the Huouyt to gain the Tribunal seat,” Forgotten said.  “Unless you would
rather oust Prazeil.  But you won’t.  The Jreet are much more easily
manipulated than the Dhasha, and Mekkval has a personal distaste for Huouyt, so
he would be likely to thwart you on every vote he could.”

“
Then you agree to
help us?
” Rri’jan demanded.

“I agree to nothing until
I hear your terms.”  Forgotten continued to monitor food shortages around the
struggling new colony planets along the Outer Line.  The military had
overreached itself again, and the Ground Force was even then taking rations
from starving settlers, turning several non-aggressive species’ planets into
dwindling ghost-towns that would be easily swept up and re-colonized by Huouyt
before the Planetary Claims board got around to making up the proper deeds. 
Further, Aez’s charismatic new clan leader Prazeil had whipped his followers
into a blood-fever and all three Jreet bloodlines were on the verge of a
full-sector civil war that would boil over into eighty-six other planets,
including three peaceful Ueshi pleasure-planets, the Bajnan banking planet of Faelor,
and Ooreiki’s hallowed temple-planet of Poen.

But Rri’jan retorted, “
I
will only present my terms in person, and I am not stepping aboard your ship
until I am sure you will not make the experience unpleasant.
”

“Then we are at an
impasse because I am not going to be pleasant until I am sure you are telling
the truth.  As it is, I am only ninety-two percent convinced.”  Forgotten
studied the other feeds coming in from the Outer Line.  An enterprising Dhasha
prince had secured a planet very close to Earth and had given Human scientists
a massive amount of classified Congressional documents, and Humans had taken
the bait.  Using his information, they had begun top-secret genetics
experiments that would get Earth a severe Congressional rebuke—and finally give
the Dhasha access to Earth for slaves.  The Kophat-trained Human was the best
candidate to help stave off that disaster, but in order to fulfill that
destiny, his Va’gan tormentor was going to have to forgive and forget.  Or at
least move on. 

“
Ninety-two percent is
not enough for you?
”

Forgotten set his studies
aside.  “With my slow, painful death at stake?  No.”

“
Very well,”
Rri’jan said calmly.
  “What can I do to convince you?
”

“Take the pattern of a
Takki and have your Jreet blindfold you and secure your hands behind your back
with stasis links.”

Anger hovered in the
flatness of Rri’jan’s voice.  “
I am a Representative of Congress.
”

“And I am a myth.  I
would rather not be dispelled.”

“
You realize that by
angering me, you are only increasing the chance that I’ll kill you?
”

“Probabilities are a
tricky matter,” Forgotten replied.  “You see, for every moment I anger you, not
only does it increase your chances of future rash decisions, but it changes the
probabilities of how you will react to future situations, thereby giving me an
edge in any future conversations.  Your anger also reflects on how likely it is
you are telling the truth, which has jumped considerably after your last
statement, all things considered.”

“
What probability will
it take to convince you I come to bargain?
”

“One hundred percent.”

“
And to do that, I
must take the pattern of a
Takki
.
”  Distaste was thick in his voice.

“Yes.”

“
And if I said I do
not carry Takki patterns with me?
”

“Then you would be lying,
though your probability would only drop slightly, since Huouyt have the
tendency to lie uncontrollably and you still might be telling the truth, as
much as it pains you.”

“
Very amusing, Geuji,”
Rri’jan said coldly,
“but I understand the symbolism.  I will have my ships
annihilate you before I assume the role of your slave.
”

Which meant Rri’jan was
telling the truth.  In certain situations, the Huouyt were as prideful as the
Jreet.  Had it been an assassination attempt, Rri’jan would have had no qualms
with donning a demeaning pattern, since he would have simply made Forgotten’s
death all the more painful for it afterwards.  Being
forced
to wear the
pattern of a slave, however, was unacceptable to a Huouyt royal.