Zero Recall (5 page)
Authors: Sara King
With a roar, the
kreenit began ripping through the metal that had held Daviin for so long, its
mono-molecular black talons shredding it as if it were made of mud. Listening
to it, feeling the curls of metal assail his scales as they were thrown aside
by the mindless beast, a new plan formed in Daviin’s mind. He abandoned his
ideas of killing the kreenit and instead began moving across the floor of the
pit, made rugged by the kreenit’s claws. He moved as fast as he dared, keeping
his movements as silent as possible over the rubble the kreenit had spread
across the floor. Here, in the open, he had no protection should the kreenit
realize where he had gone, and both he and his enemies realized it. All around
him, he could hear the echolocating pings of the Aezi spectators as they
excitedly charted his course to doom.
Daviin stopped
near the center of the pit and picked up another chunk of rock. He hefted it
once, pinged to judge the distance to the door to the vast underground Aezi
gladiatorial pens, then threw it.
The kreenit
turned.
Even as the
stone was clattering to the ground, the kreenit was atop it, systematically
tearing holes in the floor, the wall, the door. The monster that had, millions
of turns ago, driven the Dhasha underground, now drove the Jreet guarding the
exit of the pit deeper into the narrow corridor. He heard shouts of terror
from the Aezi cowards inside the gladiator halls, which only drove the kreenit
onward, through the hole it had created, into the chaos beyond.
Daviin waited.
Three seconds later, he heard the kreenit’s scream as its handlers activated
its collar. Daviin lowered the energy level of his scales and instantly the
scene appeared in gory color. Ivory Aezi body parts covered the inside of the
tunnel, which was all but blocked by the enormous body of the ancient,
iridescent-scaled kreenit. Daviin plunged through the opening, sliding over
the kreenit’s rainbow-colored tail.
The lone
surviving Aezi on the other side had her back to him, her three-rod body
stretched out in the corridor, staring at the monster spread out on the floor
in unconsciousness, a dozen Jreet warriors lying in tattered shreds beneath
it. Daviin pushed his tek from its sheath and slammed it forward with every
ounce of his strength, puncturing the ivory scales of the Aezi’s back,
delivering every ounce of poison he had. Before his victim even had a chance
to fall, Daviin was yanking his tek free and fleeing through the hall, seeking
escape. He raised the energy level of his scales again and took random paths
down the cavernous intersections under the fighting pit, backtracking whenever
he ran into gladiator cells or beast pens.
He hid for days,
killing the Aezi searchers if they were alone, avoiding them if they were in
groups. He got no sleep—he spent his time slipping from tunnel to tunnel,
relying on his sense of touch, knowing the Aezi were waiting for him to try
echolocation.
Sometime later, Daviin
had allowed himself a brief few tics of visibility to feed on a gladiatorial
pit-beast when the Jahul found him.
Their eyes met,
and a mix of horror and fear swept across the Jahul’s face. Daviin raised his
energy level to leave the visible spectrum, but not before the Jahul filled the
room with the stench of his excretions.
Daviin listened
to the six-legged creature back from the room. He could hear the Jahul’s
internal pressure stretch his inner chambers, threatening to burst them over
its sticky skin in a fragrant display of filth. In instants, the Jahul would
be out of reach, the first witness that Daviin was indeed alive.
Yet Daviin’s
honor refused to allow him to kill the Jahul. He was obviously a trader of
some sort, a delivery boy. He had nothing to do with this war between the
Vorans and the Aezi. To kill him would be almost as dishonorable as killing a
slave. Still…
Daviin lowered
his energy level again, whipped forward, and dragged the Jahul back into the
room with him. He wrapped a ruby coil of his tail around the Jahul’s
midsection and shut the door of the dead beast’s stall behind them, leaving
them alone in the beast section of the gladiator pits.
Trapped in his
coils, the Jahul soiled himself again, making Daviin’s scales crawl where he
touched the filthy creature.
“Do you know who
I am?” Daviin demanded, wrapping himself further around his prey.
“No,” the Jahul
whimpered. “I came to deliver a few crates of food for your exotics.”
“They’re not
my
exotics,” Daviin snapped, disgusted the Jahul would mistake him for an Aezi.
Couldn’t he see his scales were
red,
not a disgusting, pitiful white?
“They said this
was the storeroom,” the Jahul whimpered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know—” A new
wave of filth flushed out through the Jahul’s pores, over his quivering green skin.
Daviin released
the Jahul disgustedly, intending to rid himself of the sniveling creature
before he spread his reek all over Daviin’s body, possibly lock him in the
beast’s old cell. Then he stopped, his brain only then registering what the
sticky, revolting creature had said. “You are a trader?”
“Exotic feeds,
sir,” the Jahul said. He nodded at the box of food he’d placed outside the
dead beast’s stall. “I’ve got more in my cargo bay.”
Daviin eyed the wooden
box, which smelled strongly of some sort of alien meat. And metal. Daviin briefly
wondered why a box of food would be filled with metal, then he cocked his head
at the Jahul. “You have a ship?”
The Jahul seemed
to sense something was wrong, for his beady black eyes went wide. “No, sir. I
mean, yes, sir, I own a ship, but part of my agreement with the Aezi is I won’t
help runaways…”
“Do you know
what it is like to dance on a tek
,
Jahul?”
The alien’s
black eyes went wide in horror.
“Unless you want
to learn,” Daviin warned, “you will help me. Understand?”
“But the other
Jreet…” The Jahul started to back away, towards the door, and Daviin lashed
out again, easily dragging him back with a single arm.
“I will kill the
other Jreet if they try to stop us,” Daviin said, only ninths from the Jahul’s
huge, bulging, wet black eyes. The eyes, like everything about the Jahul,
disgusted him. He could not imagine having to eat the rank, dripping
creatures, as were once their fate as a prey species before the formation of
Congress.
“But I risk my
livelihood,” the Jahul babbled, soiling itself yet again. Daviin had to fight
the instinctive urge to release the disgusting thing and wipe his hand. Which
was, of course, the mechanism’s purpose—make them too disgusting to touch, and
therefore to eat. “It’s all I have.”
“Your livelihood
or your life, Jahul,” Daviin snapped, lifting the Jahul half a rod off the
ground, until they were eye-to-eye. “Decide now.”
The Jahul’s
bald, leathery, yellow-green skin grew splotchy and dark. It trembled in his
grasp, its six spindly legs twitching for purchase. “I’ll help.”
Daviin twisted
his head and neck until he was peering at the Jahul from the side. “You say
that lightly, you betray me in any way, and I swear by Beda’s bones I shall
kill you before I die. I am a Voran, and my word is my bond. You have my oath
on that, understand?”
“I understand,” the
Jahul whimpered.
Daviin lowered
him to the ground and released him, shamed at how he had bullied the lesser
creature. He would certainly serve penance in an extra hell for his crimes. “You
will not be impoverished for helping me,” he added, feeling somewhat guilty. “I
am the heir of a great family. I will see you find trade with my clan.”
The Jahul’s
small black eyes went wide and flickered to the diamond of white scales that
marked the center of Daviin’s scarlet forehead. “You are Daviin ga Vora.”
Daviin watched
him, saying nothing.
“They think you
fled the pit…they’re looking for you in the city.” The Jahul’s voice caught.
“You have a two million credit bounty on your head.”
“So little?”
Daviin snorted.
The Jahul
swallowed, then seemingly made a decision. He glanced behind them, at the
closed door. “Come. Disappear. I will lead you to my ship.”
“I warn you,
Jahul, if you are misleading me—”
“You’ll kill me,
yes,” the Jahul said. “You said as much already. Please, hurry. I can get
you off Aez before they realize you’re gone.”
Daviin watched
the Jahul’s demeanor change with a pang of irritation. The Jahul would not
willingly risk his life to help another in need, but as soon as credits were
mentioned, he wanted nothing more than to serve. There was a reason why the
immoral little monsters were often strung up by their legs to die of exposure
upon the Voran homeworld.
However, Daviin
was in no position to be choosy about those who helped him. The Jahul would
serve his purpose, and once he had, Daviin would pay him and send him on his
way, with all the blessings of the ninety gods. Anyone who helped Daviin
achieve his revenge would forever have his gratitude.
And, as the
Jahul led him through the underground prison, Daviin’s body tingled with
anticipation. His revenge would be soon in coming. In less than a turn, he
would return with an entire armada of Voran elite and crush this honorless
planet to dust. Getting his coils on Prazeil would be tougher, but Daviin
might be able to take out enough loans with his brethren to see the disgraceful
Aezi worm skewered, segments of his ten-rod body staked to fortresses all over
Vora.
The Jahul got
him safely through the gladiatorial tunnels and helped him onto the ship
without even seeing another Jreet. Once their ship had left atmosphere and
Daviin was sure the Jahul did not mean to sell him back to the Aezi, he allowed
himself some rest.
Something
slammed into the ship almost as soon as Daviin closed his eyes.
Daviin instantly
hunched into a defensive position. If there was one thing that unnerved him,
it was the idea of war in space. Bombs and ships, especially, were unnatural.
Cowards’ weapons. That he had to use ships at all was distasteful to him. “Were
we caught?” he demanded.
“No,” the Jahul
whispered. He was staring at the controls. “Aez. It’s…”
Daviin heard
something strike the ship and he flinched. “Aez is firing at us?” He hated
technology—so many things could go wrong with it. Even then, he could see the
next missile puncture the hull and squeeze them all out into space.
“No,” the Jahul
said. “It’s gone.”
Something else
struck the ship, making the entire vessel shudder. Daviin fought down panic
and said, “Then who is shooting at us? The Aezi won’t follow once we leave
their space.”
The Jahul’s hand
was shaking, and for the first time, Daviin noticed the thin sheen of excrement
on the alien’s skin. He was terrified.
Daviin snapped
an arm out and dragged the Jahul closer, until he writhed under Daviin’s sharp
stare. “Tell me what is going on,” Daviin ordered. “Who is shooting at us?”
“No one. That’s
pieces of…” The Jahul’s skin slickened again.
“Pieces of
what
?”
Daviin roared, shaking the little creature as something jostled the ship yet
again. “Answer me, or I will fly the ship myself!”
“Aez!” the Jahul
said in a strangled garble of terror. “It’s pieces of Aez!”
“Pieces of…”
Daviin frowned, wondering if it was some form of Jahul colloquialism he did not
understand. “Beda’s bones! What are you talking about, furg?”
“Aez is gone,”
the Jahul said, staring open-mouthed at the ship’s viewscreen, where a debris
field was now spreading in all directions, chunks of rock slamming into their
ship as they passed. “Somebody just blew it up.”
“Ah, my friend,
come in. Shall I summon servants to file your feet?”
“No, Caus,”
Jer’ait replied. “The journey was not that long. How is business?”
The old Jahul
allowed his inner gas chamber to ooze bubbles over his skin and moved to the
other side of the room, four hind feet pattering the packed earth like some
sort of unsavory pest. It reminded Jer’ait of the fact that he shared a
similar body, a fact that Jer’ait despised him for. Of all the patterns to
take, the Jahul was the most revolting.
“Business has
been poor, my friend. Very poor.” He eyed Jer’ait. “Are you hungry?”
“Thirsty,
perhaps,” Jer’ait said. Anything to get the old bastard drunk.
“Come,” Caus
said, heading to the door. “It is not safe to speak here. If they haven’t
bugged my house yet, they will.”
Jer’ait cursed
inwardly. He’d been told to keep the Jahul within the house for monitoring at
all times.
“You are anxious
about something,” Caus said, eying him.
Damn
the
Jahul and their freak abilities. Jer’ait had been schooled to keep his
emotions from his face and body, but such was not good enough with a Jahul.
They could peer inside his very soul, and if he did not say what he meant, they
could sense it. Empaths, it was said. And when they used their talents to,
say, create a ring of murdering slaver thieves specializing in sales of
Congressional citizens to Dhasha and assassinating Peacemaker spies, it made
infiltration of their network all but impossible.
That’s why
Jer’ait had been called in.
“I feel sorry
for you, old man,” Jer’ait said.
Caus oozed some
more in pleasure. “Don’t. They can monitor me all they want. Congress will
never stop me.”
“Not legally,
anyway,” Jer’ait said. “You’re too good.”
This seemed to
amuse the old Jahul. “Their assassins cannot touch me. I can sense a Huouyt
six marches away.”
