Zero's Return (80 page)

Joe sensed an opportunity
to open her eyes staring him in the face, and, for a moment, he thought about
telling her the truth of what she was.  Then self-preservation nipped that
thought in the bud and he coughed and looked away, uncomfortable. 

“You’ve seen it too,” she
whispered, horrified.  “You’ve
noticed
my shame.”

Joe thought of all the
times she had cursed his heritage, the uncountable instances she casually
dismissed his fighting-skills, thrown him around, or scornfully demeaned his
manhood, and realized this was a stellar opportunity to deal that all back to
her, in spades.  Then he thought of being trapped in a tiny brainwashing bed as
cold, inhuman doctors fed him whatever memories they wanted him to have simply
because he’d had the bad luck of being conceived in a test-tube and not a Human
mother, and, instead, Joe bowed his head in a Jreet symbol of respect and said,
“I will teach you everything I know.  It would be an honor.”

Shael blinked, her mouth
falling open slightly as she stared at him in shock.  “An…
honor
?” she
whispered.  “But I barely…”  She swallowed, her face flushing as she looked
away.  “I…lose.  At everything.”

Joe snorted.  “Then you
didn’t have a very good teacher.”

She swallowed again. 
“You’d…
teach
me?”  Almost like she were terrified she’d misheard.

“
Somebody’s
gotta
protect those Takkiscrew furglings,” Joe said, jabbing a thumb over his
shoulder at the People, “and these all-night shifts are taking their toll on
me.  Not only are you the only person who’s showed even the slightest interest
in learning what I know, but you’ve got the warrior spirit.  I’ve even seen you
put that pointy-eared bastard in his place.  Hell yes, I’ll teach you.”

Shael doesn’t want to
be a warrior,
Twelve-A insisted, at the same time Shael spontaneously threw
her arms around Joe and started sobbing.  At first, Joe thought maybe the
minder was right, and that Shael was somehow terrified of the idea of soldiery,
but then he pulled back enough to get a look at her face and realized they were
tears of
happiness
, not despair.

“Uh,” Joe said, acutely
aware that the act of hugging was un-Jreetlike and very likely to get him
squished later, once she came to her senses, “you okay?”

“I tried
so hard
,”
she whimpered into his chest.  “
So hard
, and it all came out
wrong
. 
Thank you, Joe Dobbs ga Badass ga Male Model ga Chiseled Pecs.  I owe you
everything for your generosity, but my clan has abandoned me on this planet, so
I can only offer my friendship and my spear beside yours in battle.”

Okay, so maybe Joe felt a
little bad about the clan thing.  Maybe.  He had, after all, just been thrown
down a mountain. 

“I should have known you
had greatness within you,” she went on.  “Your kindness in teaching me your
clan names after I’d exploited your weakness and threw you down a hill using
nothing but my war-mind is a generosity only a
true
Jreet prince would
give to an ignorant weakling like me.”

Joe winced.  “Uh,
Shael…?”

“Thank you, Joe Dobbs,”
she said again.  “After you offered to tie knots, I was too cowardly to ask for
your help remembering my training.  I thought you would take it as an
invitation to battle for my tek.  And, after coming to a draw with you, then
losing to a
Human
…”  She was crying again, and this time, he was pretty
sure it was not happiness.

“Aw, Shael,” Joe
whispered, drawing her close.  He put his chin on the top of her head.  “You
don’t deserve what’s happened to you.”

She went still in his
arms, but, surprisingly, she didn’t struggle to break their ‘ridiculous biped
touching ritual’.  Silence reigned; one where Joe could hear nothing except her
soft breaths against his chest.  “What do you mean by that?” she finally said
softly.

Joe flushed and felt his
heart start to pound.  “I, uh…”

Shael pulled back, old
tears reddening her eyes.  She was frowning, now.  “Do you know of what
happened to me, Joe Dobbs?”

His heart wrenching at
the anguish in her face, Joe winced.  He’d never been good at telling a direct
lie.  “I have a pretty good idea,” he admitted.

She cocked her head, her
pretty green eyes scanning his face.  “But you don’t want to tell me.”

“Not especially,” Joe
said.  Then, to pre-empt her next question, he quickly added, “It’s just a
theory, like yours.  And, since you actually
lived
through it, I’m sure
you have a better idea than I do what happened to you.”

Shael made a face, her
pert chin scrunching adorably.  “I do, but until I can retake my rightful place
as prince of Welu and war-leader of the equatorial swamps, I’m willing to
listen to any and all ideas how I can get my body back, however useless you
think they might be.”

Joe met her gaze for
several long heartbeats, again having the knowledge that she was close—
very
close—to realizing the truth of what had happened to her in Doctor Philip’s
dubious care.  All it would have taken on his part, at that point, was just a
gentle nudge, a simple phrase pointing her in the right direction.  Something
within Joe strained to tell her, ached to help her realize the truth, screamed
to give her the answers she so desperately needed.

Be very careful,
Twelve-A said. 
That could go poorly for you.
  With his words came a
very vivid image of Joe’s head exploding like an overfilled zit.

Reddening, Joe cleared
his throat and said, “So how about we get you trained up in modern weaponry?  I
suspect you’ve been…interred…long enough that a lot of these weapons are new to
you?”

She gave his guns another
suspicious look.  “Early iterations were known to me before my move from Welu. 
That’s a laser weapon.  Can puncture a warrior’s scales in under a nanotic.”

“
If
,” Joe said,
“they’re on the visible spectrum.  If you’ve gotta take out Jreet, plasma or
grenades work a hell of a lot better.  Part of what a Jreet’s energy-field does
is redirect light, and a laser is just light.”

Shael made a face.  “It
is the weapon of cowards.”

Joe shrugged.  “Maybe. 
But it’s cool to shoot.  Watch this.”  He slapped the clip back in place, then
brought the rifle up to his shoulder, aimed his superpowered Congie laser at
the gas-tank of a rusting ground vehicle, and squeezed the trigger.  A second
later, the crude antique in the valley below exploded, scattering the Human
scavengers into cover.

“Wow!” Shael gasped. 
“That was
amazing
, Voran!”

Joe found himself a bit
stunned at her open excitement.  It was such a nice change from the typical
Jreet condescension and arrogance that he had to blink at her a moment to
determine if he’d been hearing things.

“Again!” she cried,
gesturing excitedly.  “The blue one, over there.”  She pointed, grinning.

Blinking at her, wondering
which Huouyt had come to snatch her body and replace the Shael he knew, Joe
reluctantly brought the gun back to his shoulder and took out another one. 

Shael actually
giggled
. 

Hearing that delighted
sound, so unlike the imperious threats or insults he was used to hearing from
her, Joe felt his chest start to heat up with the desire to hear it again. 
Without her asking, he peered through the scope and took another shot.  Then
another.  Then another.  Human survivors in the valley below began scattering
like terrified hordespawn as each vehicle went up in a cloud of flames and
billowing black smoke.

“My turn!” Shael cried,
when he lowered the gun.

Joe, who was still
stunned at the idea of Shael
giggling
, numbly handed her the rifle in a
mute daze. 

Shael didn’t seem to
notice his shock.  “And this,” she gestured from a safe distance at the
trigger, “fires the weapon?”

Joe shook himself,
realizing he’d given her a high-powered rifle, fully charged, with no
instruction on how to keep from blowing her own foot off.  He quickly moved in
to guide her hands, show her the correct way to hold it.  “Grip it like this,”
he offered, sliding her hand down the stock to a firmer resting point. 
“Shoulder here.  Cheek here.  Legs like this.”  He adjusted her stance with a
foot.

And Shael, so swept up in
the act of learning to fire a rifle, didn’t even seem to notice their
closeness, the way Joe was breathing against her neck…

The sound of a car
exploding in the valley below yanked Joe out of his reverie and made him blink
at Shael in surprise.  “I didn’t tell you how to aim…” he blurted.

“Seemed simple enough.” 
Shael grunted and turned to locate another one through the scope.  Without
asking, she fired again.  Like the first, it was almost six lengths away, at
the very edge of the rifle’s useful range without an AI to make interference
adjustments.

“Uh…” Joe managed. 
“Lucky shots.”

“Luck?” she snorted. 
“What you see is
skill
.”  Indeed, when she took out three more vehicles
in rapid succession, Joe had to agree.  It was almost like someone, somewhere,
had taught her all of this before…

Then Shael said, “Try to
best me, Voran.”  She took out a bus, then lowered her rifle to grin up at him
in challenge.  “That is, if you think you have the tek.”

Joe, not one to turn down
a marksmanship challenge from a pretty lady, said, “Oh, I’ve got the tek,
sweetie,” and shrugged his second laser rifle from his shoulder and switched
off the safety.  “What’s the target?”

She squinted out at the
valley.  “The red land vehicle beside the gaudy yellow biped dwelling along the
field.”

Joe brought his rifle to
his shoulder and glanced out over the valley in question, finding the target in
question approximately three lengths from their current position.  The sleek
red vehicle obviously belonged to a wealthy Human, before the Judgement.  Now,
the yellow house was half caved-in, the remnants ransacked, and he could see
the bone-piles of kreenit droppings littering the road outside. 

A cluster of motion at
the edge of his scope caught his attention and Joe trained his rifle on the
dark shapes trudging through the knee-high alien grasses at the center of the
cluster of houses.  He frowned when he saw the group of ragged survivors
crossing the field toward them—at least twenty of them.  And, though it was
almost six lengths out, some of the faces seemed almost familiar…

“Only Takki stand there
for hours, quivering before they make their shot,” Shael snorted.  She exploded
the Voran-red vehicle in question, and the group of survivors scattered back
toward the trees.

Feeling a little pang of
unease, Joe swung his rifle around to glance behind him at the little river
gulley where he’d left the People.  He couldn’t see any of their naked forms
standing out against the rock and scrub, but that wasn’t unusual.  A lot of the
time, when Joe left to do his scouting missions, when he came back, it was to
find them all weaving grass under a tree, attempting to get out of the heat. 
Still, something didn’t seem right.  There were very
few
trees they
could be hiding under.  Half of him wanted to drop everything and sprint back
to camp. 
Everything okay over there?
he finally asked the minder.

We’re doing just
great, furgling,
Twelve-A said. 
You can go back to playing with your
guns.

I don’t see you along
the river where I left you
, Joe insisted.

Eleven-C decided she
wanted to pick flowers on another hill,
Twelve-A replied.

Joe shuddered at the idea
of standing around watching forty-four under-dressed adults aimlessly wandering
a hillside, pawing at plants.  Definitely
not
in his job description. 
Besides, this was the first time he’d had a chance to shoot anything since
hooking up with the experiments, and he was looking forward to a good
marksmanship challenge. 

“What are you doing,
Voran?” Shael asked, suspiciously.

“Just checking on our
charges,” Joe said, swinging back to look out over the valley behind them.  The
last couple members of the group out in the field were slinking back into the
forest, the burning car throwing up huge plumes of smoke nearby.  Joe zoomed in
on the stragglers, but they weren’t carrying the lumpy, rope-filled bags of
Mike’s gang.  He allowed himself to breathe easier, though there was still a
knot of unease in his gut for leaving his friends behind.

I should be down there
with them
, he thought, prepping to end his scouting session early, despite
Shael’s interest in a shooting match, and go back to guard the experiments.  It
was immediately followed by,
They’ve got the telepath with them, and he
wouldn’t do anything stupid.  He’s the most rational, responsible person I’ve
ever met, and he can take care of them while I’m gone.

“And how do they fare?”
Shael demanded, sounding worried.

“They’re fine.  They’ve
got Twelve-A watching them,” Joe said, raising his rifle again.

Shael snorted.  “Twelve-A
is a naïve furg.”  Then she seemed to twitch.  “But he is the most rational,
responsible person I’ve ever met, and he can take care of them while we’re
gone.”

“My thoughts exactly,”
Joe said, sighting in on another car.  “How’s that blue land-roamer at the end
of that cul-de-sac with the white tower sound?”

Shael lifted her own
rifle to peer at the vehicle in question, looking a bit dubious.  “The one by
the big tree?”  She gave him a little frown.  “That’s…far.”

Of course it was. 
Because he was showing off.  “Yeah,” Joe said, as casually as he could.  “Looks
like a hydrogen job.  This should be fun…”  He sighted in and pulled the
trigger.