Zero Recall (36 page)

“God
damn
it!”  Joe
slammed his fist on the table and stood, making every soldier in the room stop
their conversation.  Joe had to squeeze his fist several times to keep from
reaching for her throat.  Quietly, levelly, he said, “I did nothing to you,
Mag.”

“No, but you will.”  She
said it utterly flatly, without a hint of emotion or regret.

“Because you keep on
pushing
me!”  Then, catching himself, Joe took a deep breath and closed his eyes. 
Softly, he said, “I don’t know what the Trith said to you, Maggie.  All this
time, you never told me.”

A little sneer curled her
lips.  “And I’m never going to.”

Anger flashed inside Joe,
at that.  “Grow up, will you?  Trith lie.  Everyone knows they never tell the
whole prophecy.  Not when it suits them better to leave parts out.”  When she
just gave him a flat stare, he tightened a fist and slammed it into the table. 
“They’re just making you
dance
to their goddamn
tune,
Mag, can’t
you see that?”

Maggie got to her feet,
anger flashing in her own eyes.  “They told the truth on Kophat, Joe.  That’s
all I need to know.”

Maggie,
Joe wanted
to shout,
what did he say to you?
  He wanted to grasp her by the shoulders,
to demand what had fueled her hatred for fifty turns.  Instead, he could only
stare at her, unable to speak.

Maggie leaned closer,
until she was almost touching him.  In a whisper, she said, “You’re gonna die
in those tunnels, Joe.  We’ll keep sending you back until you’re dead.  I’ll
make sure of it.”  Maggie turned and walked off, not waiting for Wolfgang.

Once she was gone,
Wolfgang whispered, “You met a Trith?”

Joe stalked out of the
bar, ignoring him.

“Zero, wait!” a female
voice called behind him.

Joe slowed in the street
outside the bar.  The brown-eyed woman Maggie and Wolfgang had brought with
them was jogging to catch up with him.  When she reached him, she hesitated,
looking suddenly unsure.

“What?” Joe demanded.

She held out a hand. 
“Prime Commander Leila Wright.”

Joe shook her hand
reluctantly.  He was surprised at her firm grip.  “Joe Dobbs.”

“I wanted to thank you
for what you did on Kophat, sir.  Most of us wouldn’t be here today if it
weren’t for you leading the assault on Na’leen’s control tower.”

Joe peered at her. 
“You’re from the first Draft.”  Memories of his recruit days came flashing back
in a painful wave.

“Yes sir,” she said, like
he was a Jreet god.

“It’s Joe,” Joe said. 

“Sir,” she said, looking
for all the world like a panicky recruit and not some battle-hardened veteran
that had survived since Congress discovered Earth and initiated the first
Draft, “I feel more comfortable calling you ‘sir.’”

“We’re the same rank, for
Mothers’ sakes,” Joe said.  “Call me Joe.”

She gave the
eight-pointed star on his chest a nervous glance.  “True, but everyone knows
you should be a Corps Director.”

Joe laughed in despair. 
“That don’t mean squat to Congress.  Your lovely friend back there made sure of
that.”

“She isn’t my friend,”
Leila said.  “She’s using me, just like she’s using you.”  She gestured back at
the bar, where their other companion had stayed at the booth, ordering food. 
“Wolfgang’s the only one who doesn’t see it.  Then again, he never had to go up
against you and Libby in the tunnel crawls.”

Joe cocked his head at
her, slowly making the connection.  “You’re Rat.”

She broke out into a big
grin.  “Some call me that.  I prefer Leila.”

Joe grinned back, despite
himself.  “I never thought I’d see
you
again.  Maggie made a good decision
in you, at least.  I’ve never heard of that ‘White Wolf’ fellah.”

Leila rolled her eyes. 
“He only started calling himself that when he got his groundteam.”

Joe frowned.  “So how
many teams did Maggie put together?”

“Just three.”  At his
soaring eyebrows, she sighed.  “I know.  She’s being hailed as a genius. 
They’re talking about giving her Director whether we get the Vahlin for her or
not.”

“Funny, how we do the
work and she gets all the glory.”

“Not really.”  Leila
looked him over.  “So what kind of groundteam did she give you?”

Joe groaned.  “Don’t
ask.”

“Really.  I’m
interested.  She gave Wolfgang a pack of Hebbut and a Dreit.”

Joe snorted.  “A few days
ago, I would’ve traded places with him in an instant.”

“Why?  What’d you get?”

“Ooreiki, Grekkon, Baga,
Huouyt, and a pain in the ass Jreet.”  He lost his smile when he realized Leila
was giving him an odd look.  “What?”

“That Ooreiki wouldn’t
happen to have tunnel instinct, would he?”

Joe frowned.  “Yeah.  He
does.”

“And the Huouyt is
Va’ga?”

“Yeah.”

Her face was pale.  “Then
the Jreet is a Welu heir?”

“No.  Voran.”

Her eyes widened.  “
You’re
the groundteam with the Voran?!  Mothers’ ghosts, we’ve gotta get back!”

“Why?” Joe asked.

She was already running,
motioning at him to follow.  He caught up with her easily.  “Why?” he asked
again.

“Because my Jreet is
Welu, and about a thousand lobes bigger than yours.  Big brother of one of the
little guys your Voran fucked up.  And he’s in town with me.”

Joe cursed and he ran
faster.

CHAPTER 19:  More Important Than a Planet

Daviin was finishing
another
melaa
when the stranger sat down in his booth.  At first, he
thought it was Jer’ait returning, but the visitor’s color was different. 
Daviin lowered the
melaa
and peered down to get a good look at it.

The creature was a shade
of gray, its head impossibly big for its body.  It had skinny arms, tiny hands,
and a mouth that was a small slit in its chin.  Set inside the teardrop-shaped
skull, eyes like the Void stared back at him, catching him in their thrall. 
Daviin felt himself shrink against the enormity of the universe, becoming an
insignificant smudge on the plane of existence.  The feeling was more humbling
than his first day in the Sentinels.  He shuddered.

The blackness of the Void
seemed to suddenly form words that surrounded him, giving him no escape.

Daviin ga Vora, know
these fourfold things:  First.  You will survive this war of Neskfaat long
enough to seek vengeance on the one responsible.

The darkness was
encompassing him, now.  Swallowing him.  Compressing him into a tiny pinprick
of light within an endless expanse of nothingness.

Second.  Within the
sphere of the Regency, you will be forced to choose between protecting your
Human ward or serving justice. 

Daviin fought a
disgraceful amount of panic as his world narrowed to a tiny speck of existence
faced with the enormity of an entire universe.  For the first time, he felt how
truly small and meaningless he really was, and that thought overwhelmed him.

Third.  Before you
die, the Humans will need your help.  This will be your chance to rescue
Congress from its own demise…or learn what it means to be forgotten.

The Void crushed him,
suffocated him, giving him no relief from its constant pressure.

Fourth.  You will
succeed in your quest to find the traitor who destroyed Aez.  When you do, you will
kill him and let his death be an example to all, then you will take your
rightful place in the history of the Jreet.

Daviin jerked, severing
the contact.  “Who are you?  Why do you tell me things I already know?”

He could have sworn the
tiny creature smiled at him. 
I forewarn you, in case you waver in your
resolve.

“I’m a Jreet.  My resolve
doesn’t waver.”  Daviin did not like this creature at all.  Instinct told him
to drive his tek through the thing’s chest and dump the corpse in the waste
recycler.

Remember that when you
realize it is your Human friend who will rob you of your proper vengeance.

The irritating creature
stood up to go.

Daviin grabbed the
alien’s small shoulder, holding him firmly in place.  “Explain that.”  He
leaned down with a scowl.  “Or I introduce you to my tek.”

The tiny creature looked
up at him, his thin gray lips forming a smile.  In the same moment, the room
filled with a Welu war-cry.  Daviin ducked as a tek slammed into the wall
beside him, burying itself in the upholstery.  Behind him, nine rods of muscle
thrashed the room, throwing tables and chairs aside as the Welu attacked. 

Daviin screamed a reply
and raised his energy level, the tiny visitor and its strange message forgotten.

#

Syuri took another deep
breath, then opened the door.

“Who the hell are you?” 
An Ooreiki guard rose from the security booth emanating startlement, hand on
his weapon

Eleven tics,
Syuri
thought.  He raised his penlike stunner and shot him.  “Apologies, friend.”  He
gently levered the Ooreiki aside, then entered the first set of codes Forgotten
had given him into the console behind the desk.

The second door dripped
open, leaving Syuri facing an eerie black hallway.  The line of red lights
lining the ceiling did nothing to take away the feeling he was peering into a
crypt.

Syuri scratched his arms,
the overpowering feeling that he was facing a tomb suddenly too powerful to
ignore. 
Why does the Army insist on building such dreary places?
 

No time.

Syuri stepped into the
hall, then paused, realizing a row of doors lined the hall on either side. 
Each was marked with an alien word, one he did not recognize.  He went to the
first door and entered the override code.

Ten tics,
Syuri
thought as he waited for the door to slide open and the multiple seals to
break.  He heard several more clicks, and the whirring of machinery and a great
hum of a fan.  Immediately, a suction formed on the door and air from outside
was forced inside.  Syuri whistled. 
Sweet Hagra, whatever’s in here must be
precious.
  Then he frowned.  Why would they want air to move
into
the place?  In every vault he’d ever seen, they’d tried to keep air
out.
 
The last barrier fell away, leaving Syuri standing in a powerful whoosh of air
that almost propelled him into the room on its own.  Syuri held his place and
peered into the darkness.

Inside, he saw nothing
but pitch blackness, heard nothing but the roar of the fan.

He saw nothing, but the
blast of misery that sank into Syuri’s soul was enough to make him gag.  He
stumbled backwards, fumbling for a light.  He flipped it on and aimed it at
whatever lay beyond the open door.

What he saw made him drop
his flashlight.

The walls, floor, and
ceiling were covered with a familiar black mold.

“You’re a…Geuji.”  His
throat felt like it was closing up. 

The room did not answer
him.

Tentatively, Syuri moved
forward.  Despair clung to him that was not his own, making the light tremble
in his hand.  He bent to touch the Geuji.  The Geuji’s body was very much
alive—it glistened and rippled with health, responding to his touch.  “Hello?”

Silence.

Then he understood. 
Whomever kept the Geuji down here did not allow him the artificial voice to
speak.  Nor did they allow light, nor sound, nor any companionship save the
roar of a fan.

Horrified, Syuri stumbled
from the room.  He felt sick, like his soul had been submerged in filth. 

“Sweet Hagra,” Syuri
whispered.  He glanced down the hall.  It had hundreds, if not thousands of
doors. 

Suddenly, Syuri understood. 
This
was why the Geuji weren’t running planetary economies and creating
art and researching wonder-drugs.  Because they were
here
.

“Forgotten’s going to
help you,” he whispered.

The fan answered him in
silence.

Syuri glanced down the
hallway.  Forgotten had told him to visit at least three vaults.  He picked
another door at random, entered the codes, and waited through the successive
thumps and whirs before the layers of door began peeling away.  He flashed his
light inside.

Another Geuji.

And, in that moment,
Syuri knew what was more important to Forgotten than a planet.

Family. 

#

Daviin wound behind the
echo-obscuring jumble of toppled tables, staying out of earshot.  Behind him,
he heard the Welu’s pings as it tried to locate him.  The Welu moved and the
floor groaned.  Merciful Ayhi, his opponent was
big.

“Come out, coward!” the
Welu screamed.  “Face your death like a warrior!”

Outside, Daviin heard
Ooreiki Peacemakers shouting, ordering them both to stand down.  Daviin ignored
them.  With the positioning of the tables, he could work his way around the
Welu, then have a chance of ambushing him from behind, just as the coward had
done to him.

“This is your last
warning!” the Ooreiki outside shouted.  “End the violence or we’ll be forced to
take action!”

Daviin smelled smoke from
where their struggles had torn away half the building’s inner wall, exposing
the kitchen.  The appliances and utilities inside had been crushed, and food
was charring where the chefs had left it in their haste to escape.

“Voran!” the Welu
screamed.  “Come
out!
”  He picked up a two-rod table and lobbed it into
the jumble Daviin now worked his way under, screaming in his frustration.

Daviin reached the edge
of the debris and peered around it.  He focused on the Welu, who continued to
ping the mass, oblivious to Daviin’s location.  Daviin began pulling his body
up behind him, coiling it for a lunge.