Zero Recall (64 page)

Besides.  He wanted to have
a chat with his brother.  He had questions for him.

#

Rri’jan hesitated in the
corridor of the shabby Jahul apartment complex, listening.  For a moment, he
thought he had heard footsteps, following him, but as he waited to hear it
again, caught nothing but the sound of rain dribbling down the eaves to spatter
against the filthy cobbles.  Sighing, he looked back at the dilapidated, grimy
structure that had been his sanctuary the last three days as he gathered
information on the Geuji.  It was a low-tech establishment, out near the Outer
Line.  He wore a Jahul pattern that was even then dripping a combination of
excrement and water into the disgusting puddles of murky refuse at his feet. 
Monsoons were a problem on this planet, something that the Ueshi who owned it
were petitioning to fix, though the survival of the primitive native flora and
fauna had been stopping up the process with studies and permits for almost a
hundred turns.  Rri’jan’s current pattern had been one of the scientists
charged with collecting genetic material for analysis by Ueshi scientists on
Koliinaat.

A Jahul,
Rri’jan
thought, looking down at himself disgustedly.  If there was one pattern a
Va’gan hated to take, it was a Jahul.  They were the most physically revolting
pattern of the Grand Six, if not all of Congress, and spent most of their time
walking around in their own shit.  That was, however, what had worked in his
favor in his escape from Koliinaat.  No Peacemaker blockader or Regency agent
thought a Huouyt Representative would demean himself enough to take the pattern
of a Jahul.

Forgotten will pay for
this,
Rri’jan thought.  Ever since the Geuji’s plans had failed—
failed
—and
Mekkval had somehow linked it back to
him
, Rri’jan had been plotting Forgotten’s
demise.

And now, with his latest
information on the Geuji’s whereabouts, taken from an Ueshi mechanic on his
deathbed, he was only days from his target.

Slow,
he thought
again, as he leaned back to pull his front two legs off the ground to reach the
opening to his apartment. 
It will be slow and painful.

As it was, Forgotten was scheduled
to be docked in Hub 13 of the Oriath spaceport in one week.  Rri’jan had
tracked him to this lonely corner of space, and intended to rid the universe of
the pest once and for all before he disappeared for good.  Probably on an Ueshi
pleasure-planet.  Kaleu had appealed to him, though it was a bit high-profile
for his liking.  Tholiba was the smarter choice.  Large enough to get lost in
the traffic, yet small enough that it wouldn’t be on the Peacemakers’ lists to
search.

It was as Rri’jan fiddled
with the corroded metal lock to his filthy hideaway that a camouflaged Jikaln
paw slapped him across his neck and he felt a sting.  Rri’jan immediately moved
to contain and neutralize the poison—but not before he was hit in four more
places, too many to counter.  Rri’jan felt himself losing control, the
chemicals dispersing into his system.  In a wash of horror, he went limp.

“Jahul befits you,
brother,” a Jikaln voice rattled above him.  “The shit compliments your lovely
eyes.”  At that, Rri’jan was being dragged into the apartment he had just
unlocked, then shut the door to the waterlogged alley behind them.  The Jikaln
propped him up against the wall and regarded him, his body blending so
perfectly with the wall and shabby shelves behind him that the four-legged
alien was almost impossible to see.  “Where is he?”

For a startled moment,
Rri’jan thought that his attacker had mistaken him for an underling.  “Rri’jan
went to Kaleu,” he said.  “He sent me here as a decoy.”

The Jikaln chuckled,
making his shape blur before re-solidifying to that of the wall once more. 
“Forgotten, brother.  I want to know where he is before I take you back to face
the Tribunal.”

“I’m not your brother,”
Rri’jan snapped, furious that he had somehow allowed his caution to lapse
enough for a Congressional lackey to find him.  “Watch your pretensions,
Peacemaker.  When it comes to blood-merit, we are not even of the same
solar-system.”

 “And that,” the
Jikaln-patterned Huouyt said, “is where you are wrong, brother.”

Rri’jan froze, a wash of
fury almost twisting him out of pattern with its intensity.  “You lie.”  The
thought that the mutated
scum
had the audacity to touch
him
, the
royal heir to the Ze’laa…  Jer’ait’s days were numbered.  Either that, or it
was another assassin’s tactic to unnerve him, make him say something stupid.

“Do I?” the Huouyt
asked.  He moved again, his predatory outline once again blurring against the
wall before he faded back into his surroundings, only his yellow eyes showing. 
“Since you killed all but one brother in your scramble for the Ze’laa throne,”
his captor acceded, “I suppose you’re right…the chances are small I would be
the one who managed to escape your ambition for all these turns.”

It was the first time
Rri’jan had looked his brother in the eyes since his crowning, and it left his
zora cold.  Jer’ait was not what he had imagined.  Four hundred turns had given
the reject…presence. 

Then, realizing it was
just his nerves and overactive imagination, Rri’jan forced himself to laugh. 
“You won’t kill me.  You bow and scrape to the Peacemaster like the lapdog you
are.”

The Huouyt continued to
watch him flatly.  “Why are you seeking Forgotten?”

Rri’jan found his
brother’s ignorance to be amusing.  “He planned it all, you know.  Neskfaat. 
Aez.  Mekkval.  Everything.”

Jer’ait cocked his head
and his attention sharpened.  “Oh?” he asked, his curiosity as painfully clear
as a child’s.

The outclassed moron. 
“Used you like a pawn,” Rri’jan sneered.  “The whole time, you danced like
a puppet to his whim.  All that, everything that happened on Neskfaat, was to
pick the team that would kill Mekkval.”

“Which failed.”  The furg
actually had the lack of discipline to sound confused.

“As the Trith so clearly
demonstrated one and a half million turns ago,” Rri’jan laughed, “not even a
Geuji can predict the future.”

“And why should we
believe it was the Geuji when
you
were the one implicated?” Jer’ait
asked.  He picked at a cloth-covered lump of fermented grain, trying
amateurishly to look disinterested in the conversation, which he was in all
likelihood recording.

“What better scapegoat
for the Geuji’s foiled plans than the Huouyt?” Rri’jan demanded.  “His
plan—whatever it was—failed, and now he needs to remove himself from the
limelight before the universe gets wind of what he’s done.”

“Oh?” Jer’ait asked. 
“Why would he do that?”

“So he can go back to
skulking in shadows like the coward he is,” Rri’jan snapped.  “Don’t test my
patience, lapdog.  The Geuji is setting up the Huouyt as his fall-men so that
he can return to hiding.  The less the universe knows about him, the safer he
is.”

“And what,” Jer’ait
asked, lifting the stinking Jahul food-object to look at it distractedly,
“would Forgotten have against the Huouyt?”

“Study the history books,
furg,” Rri’jan sneered.  “This was Forgotten’s way of getting even for what
happened to the Geuji on Neskfaat.”  There, let
that
lead his ignorant
brother astray.

Jer’ait dropped the cloth
bundle back to the shelf.  This time, his voice was flat as any Va’gan’s, his
intelligence unmistakable.  “Then we are to simply overlook the fact you were
the one with the most motive, and that Mekkval’s death would have eased your
way back to the Tribunal with minimum effort on your part?”

Rri’jan’s face darkened. 
“The Regency has nothing to hold against me, Jer’ait.  They have no proof
except the confession of one tortured Human.  I was on my way to assassinate
the bigger threat.  It will hold up before the Tribunal.  Release me now, so
that I may finish the job, or when I go free, you and Forgotten will
both
die.”

“Generally, in order to
make decent threats, one must have something substantial to back them,” Jer’ait
said.  He moved forward, hurting the eyes as his outline shifted against the
wall.  “Tell me what you know of the Geuji.”

Rri’jan smiled, happy to
take the Geuji down with him.  “I know he will be in Hub 13 of the Oriath
spaceport in eight days,” Rri’jan said.  “A communications overhaul on his long-distance
array.”

For a Peacemaker whose
organization had been trying to capture the Geuji for three hundred and four turns,
Jer’ait seemed disappointingly unaffected by the news.  “Ah.”  Then his captor
leaned forward and touched him again, and Rri’jan embraced oblivion.

Chapter 32:  Going Straight

Eight days after sending
Rri’jan back to Koliinaat with an escort of his best men, Jer’ait stood alone against
one wall of Hub 13 of the Oriath spaceport, watching the arrival lists for
something that stood out from the rest.  It was late, and his quarry had not
yet shown himself.  Several ships had ordered ‘minor repairs’ throughout the
day, but all checked out to be legitimate debris hits or minor trading scuffles. 
Jer’ait was beginning to think that Rri’jan had sent him on a furg’s errand
when the Jahul trader
Silence
pulled into the dock and he felt his
attention sharpen.

Communications
troubles
, was its listed docking complaint.

The ship mated with the
hub and the airlock synched and the light above the entrance flashed READY, but
for long hours, the door remained closed.  No agents came or went.  No
repairmen went to work on the ship’s exterior.  Aside from the flashing READY
sign, signaling that the ship had equalized its systems in preparation for passenger
exchange, there was no change.

Hours came and went, and
still the lock flashed READY.

Eventually, once the
crowds had died down for the day and it was only Jer’ait and a few scattered
passengers in the hub, the Ueshi docking authority seated in the booth nearby
frowned at the flashing light, glanced at the docking manifest, and then opened
a line to the Jahul ship.  “Are you also experiencing issues with your airlock,
Silence
?”

“Negative,”
a
Jahul voice replied apologetically. 
“I’m waiting for someone, sir.”

He’s expecting me
,
Jer’ait realized, with a breja-crushing wave of unease.

The Ueshi chuckled.  “It
seems your friend needs to synch his time-chip.  You’ve been waiting on him for
six hours.”

“Has it been that
long?”
the Jahul replied. 
“I was busy drafting a letter.” 
Again,
perfect Bovan Jahul.

“More like six and a
half,” the Ueshi port master confirmed.  “Would you like me to patch you
through to a planetside location?”

“No, sir.  I’m sure he’s
on his way.”
 

Steeling himself, Jer’ait
pushed himself from the wall and took a few steps towards the Geuji’s lonely,
flashing airlock, then hesitated in the center of the room, exposed and
vulnerable.

When no laser fire
singled him out, no plasma cut him down, no assassins lurched forth to strike,
Jer’ait took a deep breath and made his way to the Geuji’s lock.

The door opened the
moment he stepped within range.  If the Ueshi manning the docking booth noticed
that Jer’ait had never touched the control screen to activate the door, he
never mentioned it.  Feeling his breja prickling at the complexities of
casually hacking into the port authority’s system, Jer’ait stepped closer and,
fighting nerves, looked inside.

Seeing the utterly
alien-looking airlock waiting through the open door, Jer’ait had a flash of
uncertainty.  Forgotten could have installed anything at all on his ship.  From
robotics to drugs to biological agents to unspeakable alien weaponry.  If he
proceeded with this meeting, he was, quite literally, placing his life in the
Geuji’s hands.  Without backup.  Without a soul even knowing where he was.  He,
the Peacemaster, was about to be completely at Forgotten’s mercy. 

He continued to hesitate,
eying the blackness beyond.  This was where he tested his theory.  With his
life.

Though Jer’ait knew the
Geuji could see him and, if he wanted to, speak through the microphones lining
the lock, Forgotten said nothing.

Jer’ait steeled himself,
then stepped into the airlock.

Immediately, the hub door
dripped shut behind him and there was a slight discomfort at the equalization
of pressure, then the door to the ship opened on the other side, revealing a
brightly-lit corridor leading into the Geuji’s ship.

Very carefully, Jer’ait
stepped out of the darkened airlock and into the light.  He jumped when the
alien door slid shut behind him, trapping him on the ship with the Geuji.  The
sterile hall was brightly lit and eerily silent.

“Hello,” the Geuji said,
seemingly from the ship itself.  It was a voice that Jer’ait couldn’t quite
pinpoint as being from one species, but more a mix of several.

Jer’ait waited in a wary
silence.

When he did not reply
with similar courtesies, the Geuji prodded, “I assume you have questions.”

Jer’ait said nothing,
quietly wondering what in the ninety Jreet hells he had been thinking, stepping
on a Geuji ship alone.  The hall was unlike anything he had ever seen before,
its construction familiar, yet at the same time, nerve-wrackingly different. 
He found himself fighting the urge to back up to the exit as he eyed the
surrounding hall, trying not to let his unease show.

“I’ve been looking
forward to this meeting with you for several turns,” Forgotten said.  “And I’ll
admit that it’s been with a disconcerting combination of fear, excitement, and
anxiety.”