Zero Recall (35 page)

“Strange,” Jer’ait said,
glancing at the small bare patches on the Jreet’s hide.  “I was under the
assumption Jreet didn’t have doctors.”

“We don’t,” Daviin
growled.  He ripped off a last bleeding chunk of meat and swallowed it whole. 
Then he slammed the shattered bone down on the pile and picked up the carcass
again.

“Then how’d he do such a
good job of patching you up?” Joe asked, a small frown forming on the Human’s
face once more.

“Some of the cowards on
Welu might keep them on staff,” Daviin said, tossing aside another bone.  “I
know for a fact Vora doesn’t.”

“Well, from what I hear,
you’re damn lucky he was here,” the Human said.

Daviin grunted.

“Why?” Jer’ait asked.

“They had to replace sixty
lobes of flesh,” Joe replied.  “He was shredded in several places, holding
together by less than half his musculature.  Had organ damage, stuff not even
nanos would fix.  And the pressure he put on his wounds tore some of his
muscles halfway up his body.”

“That bad?” Jer’ait
asked, surprised.  “How’d he get out?”

“Beats me.”  The Human
went back to eating his red, wormy sauce.

“I
slid
out,”
Daviin growled, snapping open another melaa bone so he could suck out the
juices inside.  He disdainfully tossed the remains aside, almost hitting the
Ueshi proprietor, who took more pictures.  Then he looked at Jer’ait and added,
“Carrying the rest of you lazy bastards.”

Jer’ait’s
breja
rippled with shame.

“But,” Daviin set down
the carcass and leaned down so that his head hovered near Jer’ait’s.  “
I
fell from the ceiling,
I
ruined our plans, and
I
almost got you
killed.  I was repaying what I owed.”

Damn
the Jreet! 
Jer’ait once more thought about his eye, how it would be better to have just
one that worked than two that gave away his thoughts like a vid tutorial.  He
once again considered blinding himself.

Across the room, a loud Human
voice shouted, “Burn me!  That’s a big Jreet!”

Daviin flexed the outer
ridges of his audial canals in irritation, then twisted his head to face the
door to the street.

Three Humans were walking
toward them, one strutting with great confidence while the other, smaller ones
walked together.  It was the shorter of the two who concerned Jer’ait.  He
recognized her from Earth. 

“We were looking for you,
man,” the taller Human said.  He held out his hand for Joe.  “Prime Commander
Wolfgang Weiss.  My men call me White Wolf.”

“Wolfgang.”  Joe had not
taken his eyes off of Phoenix.  Jer’ait had the idea he wanted to lunge out of
his chair, so tightly was he gripping the table.  His stare was so dark that
even the Jreet noticed.

“Who’s this, Joe?” Daviin
asked warily.

Phoenix did not even
bother to glance up at the Jreet’s bulk, keeping her gaudily-modified eyes
firmly fixed on Zero.  “We need to talk.”  Beside her, the other female said
nothing, though she looked uncomfortable.

“About what?”

After several moments of
Joe ignoring it, the male dropped his hand.  “About how screwed up things are
around here.  You were down there.  You saw it.”

“Or maybe he didn’t,”
Phoenix said, her eyes never leaving Joe’s.  “After all, he was unconscious for
half of it.”

Instead of telling them
to leave or simply going back to his meal, Joe stood up.  To Jer’ait and
Daviin, he said, “I’ll see you guys back at the barracks.”  Then he turned and
followed the taller one out.

Phoenix paused a moment,
giving Daviin and Jer’ait a calculating glance, then departed.

“Should we follow him?”
the Jreet asked.

“No.”

“They act like they know
each other.”

“They do.”

“Really?”  Daviin twisted
around to give him a surprised look.  “Who is the small one?”

“The one that ruined his
career.”  Jer’ait got up to go.

Daviin reached out and
held him in place with an enormous hand.  “I want to talk to you.  Alone.”

Jer’ait stifled his
irritation.  “I’m busy.”  He tried to shrug off the Jreet’s grip so he could
leave, but it was like trying to shrug off a mountain.  Daviin did not let go.

“It is unnatural the way
you eat by yourself, Huouyt,” Daviin said, looming over him.  “Joe didn’t
notice, but you didn’t take a single bite of your meal.  You haven’t eaten with
any of us since we arrived here.”

Jer’ait stiffened,
resisting the urge to punch a poisoned spine through the Jreet’s meddlesome
hand.  “I like to eat alone.”

“A man who eats alone is
a man without friends,” the Jreet intoned.

“A man who has no friends
does not mourn when they pass.”

Daviin laughed.  “A Jreet
does not want his friends to mourn.  He wants them to celebrate and impregnate
their mates on his grave.”

Jer’ait was amused,
despite himself.  “One can never account for culture.”  Reluctantly, he sat
back down.  Then, hesitating, he took one of the orange nutrient wafers from
the pile.  Feeling it in his paddle-like palm, Jer’ait’s zora burned with
hunger.  He gave the Jreet an anxious look to make sure he wasn’t going to try
anything unpleasant. 

The Jreet was watching him,
waiting.

Desperation warring with
shame, Jer’ait pushed his zora from his mouth, to take the wafer.  Instantly,
his zora closed on the nutrient gel and dragged it back into his head, roiling
over it, consuming it.  Jer’ait experienced the brief moment of panic he always
felt when he ate—a brief wondering if the food had somehow been laced with
organic material—then allowed himself to relax.  The boost of energy was
already entering his system, lending strength to his exhausted muscles.

“Good,” Daviin said, once
the wafer had disappeared in Jer’ait’s head and Jer’ait had relaxed into his
end of the booth.  The Jreet immediately went back to tearing into the
four-legged pile of meat in front of him.  “So tell me about our Prime.  Why do
you want to kill him?”

It took Jer’ait a moment
to understand what the Jreet had said, and when he did, he was so surprised he
couldn’t help but flinch.  “Excuse me?”

The Jreet went on eating
as if he had said nothing out of the ordinary, though his small golden eyes
were sharp as they watched him.

Jer’ait glanced around
the restaurant to see if it was some sort of trap.

“We’re alone, Huouyt.” 
The Jreet’s words were filled with disdain.  “I don’t need others to fight my
battles for me.”

“Is that what this is?”
Jer’ait asked, starting to stand again.  “A battle?”

The Jreet lowered his
meal, his eyes suddenly intense.  “Is that what you want it to be?”

Looking up at his coiled
mass, Jer’ait knew his chances of surviving a brawl with the Jreet were
infinitesimal.  His strength was in deception, not brute strength.  Even if he
somehow found the purchase to administer a poison, it wouldn’t take effect fast
enough.

“No,” Jer’ait said.  “We
both know I’d lose.”

The Jreet grunted and
nodded.  “At least you’re not stupid.  Though it would make me feel better if
you were.”  He flicked a bone shard off of the table in front of him, leveling
his impressive stare on Jer’ait.  “Tell me why you haven’t killed him yet.”

“I never said I was here
to kill him.”

“No,” Daviin said, his
eyes never leaving Jer’ait’s face, “but you are.”

Jer’ait returned the
Jreet’s stare-for-stare, then said, “I’m here to see the Vahlin die.”

“Not to kill Joe.”

“No.”

Daviin scoffed.  “I don’t
believe you.”

“You have to.”

The Jreet frowned at
him.  “Why, when I can just kill you right here?”

“You have to trust me,”
Jer’ait said, “because even if I
am
here to kill him, I’d simply be
replaced as soon as I was dead.”  Jer’ait made a pleasant motion at the exit. 
“At least this way, you can keep your eye on the enemy.”

“
Are
you the
enemy?”  The Jreet’s eyes were too sharp, too cunning.

He really wants to
kill me,
Jer’ait realized, a little nervously. 
He’s trying to goad me
into giving him an excuse.

“No,” Jer’ait said,
standing.  He could find somewhere else to eat.

“I want to hear you say
it,” Daviin said, again blocking the path with his arm.  “I want you to tell me
to my face you’re not here to kill my ward.”  His head was tilted with
challenge, his eyes dangerous.  “Can you do it?”

“We both know I can,”
Jer’ait said.

“But I want to hear it,”
Daviin demanded.  “The fool has ordered me not to dismember you like you
deserve, so I want to hear you say you will not kill him.  It’s the only way my
Sentinel instincts will abide you still breathing around my ward.”

Jer’ait met Daviin’s gaze
and searched the Jreet’s face.

He’s desperate,
Jer’ait realized. 
He wants to hear it more badly than he shows.  He wants
to believe it.

Reading the Jreet’s
expression, Jer’ait realized something else. 
I lie to him and he’ll let it
drop.  He’ll never bother me again.

Jer’ait opened his
mouth.  Then he remembered collapsing under the Dhasha’s claws, expecting to
bleed to death.  Daviin had dragged him to safety, regardless of his own
wounds.  He had dragged him to safety when it would have been a thousand times
easier to simply let him die in the tunnels.  Daviin could have rid himself of
all these problems, yet he chose to keep Jer’ait alive.

The Jreet continued to
watch him, metallic golden eyes needing to hear the words.

“Finish your meal,” Jer’ait
said.  “We can finish this later, Sentinel.”  He brushed past the Jreet’s arm
and left Daviin coiled alone at the table, staring at the remnants of his
melaa.

#

“What do you want,
Maggie?”  Joe asked, a tired part of his soul realizing that, almost without
exception, this was the source of his misery for the last fifty turns.  Every
investigation, every write-up, every demotion—every outrageous fine that had
appeared after each of his six kasjas, wiping out his bank accounts, leaving
him in debt to Congress, unable to retire... 

It was all her doing.  And
if he survived this whole brutal battle, it was
she
who was going to get
a Corps Directorship.  It was so hard to stand next to her he was shaking.  He
wanted to hurt her, and it was all he could do not to reach for her throat.

“I want you to survive,”
Maggie said, her voice a liquid honey that sent a rush of icewater down his
spine.  “We’re sending you back to the tunnels in a second attack.”

Joe sat down hard.  “A
second
attack?  You’re insane.  The place needs to be demolished.”

“When have you ever known
Congress to be sane?” Wolfgang growled.

“Why don’t they just blow
the whole planet?” Joe demanded, growing angry.  “If there’s ever been a better
time to use an ekhta, I haven’t seen it.”

“Bureaucrats on
Koliinaat,” Wolfgang told him.  “They’re squabbling over who gets to have
Neskfaat once it’s cleared of Dhasha.”

“That, and the Jahul,”
the strange woman with them grimaced.  “They’ve got the Trade Commission
chair.  They’re pressuring really hard to make peace, not war.  That whole
empath thing.”

“So in the meantime,”
Maggie added, “While they’re running the numbers and gathering up the force
required for a second major attack, the Directors are gonna send the Neskfaat survivors
back down to take out as many princes as you can before you all die off.”  She
oozed satisfaction like a Jahul oozed shit.

“This is furgish,” Joe
said.  “PlanOps already lost its best fighters in that fiasco.  Anyone else
they pick will already be second-choice.  They need teachers for the next
wave.”

“They’re claiming it’s
statistics,” Wolfgang said.  “Species abilities versus species compatibility. 
Once they get the right combinations down, they’re gonna try to overwhelm the
princes.”

“You can’t
overwhelm
a Dhasha,” Joe growled.  “You’re just giving him more meat to shred.”

“They’re sending you
back,” Maggie said.  “So I want the three of you to compare notes.”

Joe glanced at the man
and the woman in the booths beside him—both Prime Commanders—and waited.

“Something weird is going
on,” Wolfgang offered.  “Phoenix and I already talked.  Those Dhasha not only
knew when we were coming, but they knew
who
was coming.  They killed
most of the teams before they even got off the surface.”

“Interesting,” Joe said. 
Maggie watched him, the fires flickering in her special contacts failing to
hide her uneasy look.

“Interesting?!  That Vahlin
had my guys pegged, right down to the Dreit that didn’t join ‘til the hour
before the fight.  We found the lists after the dust settled.  And the poor guy
ain’t a traitor, neither.  Peacemakers got all up in his ass after we got back,
but he’s clean as a whistle.”

Joe said nothing.

“You listening to this?”
Wolfgang demanded.

Joe did not respond,
never lifting his eyes from Maggie’s gaze. 
You’re lucky there’s witnesses,
he wanted to say. 
But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?  That’s why
you brought them.

“Screw him,” Wolfgang
said, standing.  “He don’t know soot.” 

“I know the Dhasha prince
we killed had been given an exact date and time for our arrival, right down to
the half hour.”

Wolfgang frowned.  “So
which Overseer chose the time?”

“All of them,” Maggie
said.  “We compromised.  Averaged it.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Yeah.”  Joe continued to
watch Maggie, who never looked away.  “Pretty charred up.”

Her eyes sharpened behind
their dancing flames.  “That’s interesting, coming from the mouth of a
traitor.”