Forging Zero (18 page)

“Why tell someone what’s gonna
destroy them unless they can do something about it?” Joe went on.  “If he
really sees the future, he had to know you were going to try and avoid it.”

“
You realize you are advising
me to kill you, don’t you, Zero?
”

Joe
swallowed.  Quickly, he went on, “I’m just saying a lot of it’s up to
interpretation.  I mean, shoot. We’ve got psychics on Earth that gaze into a
crystal ball and tell your future.  I had one tell me I’d end up living in a
cave with a bunch of naked people who could slay dragons.  She was supposed to
be really good, a genuine psychic—”

Kihgl scoffed.

“Anyway,
I didn’t take it to heart.  And look.  Here I am.  It wasn’t a cave with naked
people.  It was a shipful of aliens with a bunch of little kids.  Maybe she
told me it would be naked people because kids are innocent and don’t carry all
of the burdens of adults.  So maybe instead of destroying your soul, the Trith
was telling you something’s about to happen that’s gonna be really emotional,
earth-shattering.  Like you lose your mom or something.”

Kihgl stared at him so long Joe
flushed and started to fidget. 

“
Even if I cared about my
mother, a Trith is not going to leave its planet and track me down to a sootbag
bar out near the Line just to tell me she’s going to die.
”

He had
a point.

Kihgl slapped the wall again,
once more allowing the door to drip open beside him.  “
Go find Nebil.  Let
me deal with this in peace.
”

Joe didn’t want to go.  He wanted
to dig that little snot-ball back out of the closet and get a really good
look.  It had to be some sort of mistake.

…Didn’t it?

But then he caught the utterly
serious—utterly
creepy
—look Kihgl was giving him.  In that moment, Joe
realized, again, that he was just an alien to this creature.  An extra
recruit.  A cull. 

Joe quickly backed to the door
and left.

CHAPTER
9: 
Kophat

“
Kophat is an Ooreiki home
planet.  The air is low-oxygen and high in organic content, so you Humans will
have to struggle a bit to breathe.  That’s what Ooreiki sudah are for.
” 
Small Commander Linin touched the little frills running down either side of his
neck.  “
Today’s class will consist of Ooreiki anatomy, customs, and
planets.  Feel free to ask questions, because as soon as you step off of this
ship, your training focus will become tunnel assaults.
”

Joe’s heart spasmed.  “Tunnel
assaults?”

Ignoring him, Commander Linin and
the battlemasters passed among the children, allowing them to examine them
up-close for the first time.  Continuing his lesson, he said, “
Aside from
the Dhasha and the Ueshi, Ooreiki have the most planets in Congress—three
thousand and twenty-three full members, six hundred and fifty-nine more
applicants, all terraformed.  We outnumber Humans ten thousand to one.  Only
the Ueshi are a more populous species.
”

“These are your fingers?” Maggie
asked, tugging on the four little extensions of Linin’s muscular arm, careful
to avoid the prickly stinging growths on the bottom.  “Why are they so soft?”

“They don’t have bones, Mag,” Joe
replied.

“
We don’t have bones,”
Linin said, casting Joe a glance,
“But we do have special fibers we can
stimulate into rigidity with electrical impulses.  That is how I am standing
here in front of you instead of pooling at your feet.
”

“I
heard you guys came to Earth a long time ago and evolved into apes.”

Joe
glanced at the kid who had spoken, wondering if he was an idiot.

The Ooreiki’s slitted pupils
narrowed.  “
Whoever told you that was wrong.
”

“My dad told me that,” the boy
said defiantly.

Yep,
Joe thought,
Definitely
an idiot.

“
Feel
his arm,” Maggie
said.  “He doesn’t have any hair, stupid.”

“
Hair is a primitive trait,
”
the Ooreiki agreed.  “
More advanced species simply evolve ways to prevent evaporation
and stave off freezing.  Hair is not very effective, since only minor
fluctuations in temperature can cause catastrophic damage.
”

“What are these?” Scott asked,
touching the frills on the Ooreiki’s neck.

The Ooreiki jerked back.  “Never
touch those.  Sudah are an Ooreiki’s air supply.  Many of my comrades would
kill you for touching their sudah.
”

Battlemaster
Nebil grunted his agreement.

“So
you’ve got gills?” a girl said.

The Ooreiki stiffened.  “
No,
they are not gills.
”

“They
sure look like gills,” Joe said.  “Hey, they even got the little red
thingies!”  He pointed.

Scott added, “You know, on
our
planet, it’s the
fish
that are the primitive ones.”

The
Ooreiki scowled at Scott for so long that kids started to back away from him
nervously. 

“
This
lesson is over,”
Small Commander Linin barked.
  “Return to your rooms
until your next class is ready for you.
”  Then Linin turned and marched
away, leaving the battlemasters to take charge.

“High
five,” Joe said, grinning.  “That was kickass.”  Scott met his hand loudly, his
impish face dimpling.  Then they caught Nebil watching them with acute interest
and their chuckles died in their chests.  Scott cleared his throat and began to
inspect the glossy black floor.

“Fourth
Platoon, form up,”
Nebil said, still watching
Joe. 
“Ground leaders, march your teams to the chow hall.”

Joe
could still feel Nebil’s gaze itching at his shoulder blades long after they
were out of sight.

#

Joe was running one of the
numerous errands Tril had found for him that evening, errands that just
happened to cut into his sleep time, when an Ooreiki tentacle touched his
shoulder.  Joe spun.

Battlemaster Nebil stood watching
him, in one of his silent moods.

“
Kkee, oora?
” Joe asked
nervously.  The last thing he wanted tonight was to go back to his groundteam a
mass of bruises so he couldn’t get comfortable in the last hours he had to
sleep before they docked at Kophat the next morning.

“
A battlemaster is never
called ‘oora,’ Zero.  Call us ‘hiet’ or ‘rogkha,’ but never that.
 
‘Oora’
means ‘souled one.’  Do you know why, Zero?”

Joe found the conversation odd,
especially since Battlemaster Nebil had rarely spoken more than two words at a
time to him without cuffing him along with it.  “No.  Why?”

“Battlemaster is ‘nkjanii’ in
my language, which means ‘evildoer.’  Ooreiki had given up war by the time the
Fire Gods went to the Jreet and helped form Congress.  War,”
Battlemaster
Nebil said softly,
“is evil, and since battlemasters are the ones who lead
others into war, we are evildoers.  Soulless.  Thus you cannot call us oora. 
It is an insult.  Every Battlemaster since the very first Draft has refused to
allow themselves to be called ‘oora’ because we know we are betraying our own
nature in doing what we do.”
  Then Nebil lapsed back into silence, still
watching him.

Joe
fidgeted under the stare.  He vaguely remembered Commander Tril saying
something similar, but before this, he had never been called on it.  “Sorry.”

The
silence stretched on, grating on his nerves, but Joe knew better than to move.

“Why are you out of your room,
Zero?”
Battlemaster Nebil finally said.

Joe
held up the parcel Tril had given him.  “Commander Tril wants this delivered to
Commander Linin.”  The parcel appeared to be a perfect globe of rock with one
flattened side.  Joe still hadn’t found a way to open it.  “He said it was
really important,” Joe added, hoping Nebil would take a hint.

Battlemaster Nebil snorted. 
“That’s
a paperweight.  Tril bought it on Earth.”

Joe
stared down at the thing in his hand.  The bastard was keeping him awake…just
because.  Then, furious, he lobbed it against the wall.  It hit hard, but did
not give him the satisfaction of shattering.

Battlemaster
Nebil made a froglike chuckle and picked it up. 
“You’ll still have to
deliver it, since I’m sure he’ll ask Linin about it in the morning, but first I
have something important to ask you.”

More important than sleep?
Joe wondered, perturbed.  He took the paperweight back from Nebil and scowled
at it.  “Why’s he hate me so much?”  He said it to himself, so he was surprised
when Nebil answered him. 

“Each new recruit cycle, someone is chosen to
dispose of the culls.  It’s a hard task and nobody wants to do it.  This last
cycle, it was Tril.  It was his first time and you made it very difficult for him.”

Joe digested that in silence.

“This morning Kihgl took you
from the cafeteria,”
Nebil went on after a moment.  His words were
startlingly…tentative.
  “What did he say to you?”

Joe’s eyes lifted from the
paperweight.  Battlemaster Nebil was watching him too closely.  Joe opened his
mouth to lie.

“
Don’t,
” Battlemaster Nebil said with an Ooreiki
sigh.  “
I ask out of curiosity, not spite.  If you’d rather lie, I’ll go.
”

Joe scanned Nebil’s face.  Despite
ruling his recruits with an iron fist, tossing Joe around whenever he didn’t
move fast enough, the alien now somehow felt…trustworthy. 

When he didn’t answer
immediately, Nebil turned to go.

“He didn’t like the drawing,” Joe
said, to his battlemaster’s back. 

Slowly, Nebil stopped and turned,
his eyes dropping to the skin of Joe’s bicep, where the image was mostly gone. 
Commander Tril had forced him to stand in the noxious baths and scrub it until
it was raw and bleeding. 

“Did he say why?”
Nebil
asked, almost softly.

“He’s seen something like it
before,” Joe hedged.

“Ah.”
  Battlemaster Nebil
ran his snakelike fingers along the wall. 
“Was it the one the Trith had
given him?”

Joe
stared at him, stunned and wary.

Battlemaster Nebil’s fingers
stopped moving and he looked at Joe, saying nothing for a long time.  Then,
softly, he said,
“Then he made his choice.  I wonder if you’re worth it.”
 
Without saying a word, he bent and touched the bluish ring around Joe’s ankle. 
When Nebil squeezed, there was a click, and the anklet fell into two halves,
clinking metallically upon the glossy black floor.

“I didn’t see the catch,” Joe
said, feeling stupid.

Battlemaster Nebil picked up the
pieces and tucked them into a pocket of his Congie robe-like uniform. 
“You
can’t.  It is on a different light spectrum, one Human eyes cannot register. 
All the controls on the ship are.”

At
that, he left Joe standing in the hall, staring after him dumbly.

“Come on, Joe.  Please?  I’ll
pay you back.”

“With what money?”

“She’s only gonna be at the
fair another day.  Kyle went last night and he said she gave him the creeps.”

“Why do you wanna go see
someone who gives you the creeps?  I’d rather spend the fifty bucks on a ride.”

“You don’t have to get yours
done.  Just me.  That’s only twenty-five dollars.  I can get you that back in a
week.”

“Man, stop bugging me.  I wanna
see the knife shop.  Dad’s been wanting a Leatherman for Christmas.”

“Mom
said
to let me do what I wanted.  It’s for my birthday.”

“Your birthday was two weeks
ago.”

“Please?”

“Fine, but don’t expect to get
your money back when she turns out to be a hack.”

“Thank you, Joe!  I won’t.  She
won’t be a hack.  I promise.”

“Whatever.  Can I go in with
you?”

“Why?”

“So I can make sure she doesn’t
boil your bones and feed them to the ogre she keeps in her closet.  Why do you think?”

“Think she’d let us?”

“It’s not like it’s a goddamn
doctor’s office.  I’m your brother.  She’d better let me stay.”

“Okay, you pay her.  She won’t
kick you out if you’re the one who gives her the money…  Look, that guy just
came out.  She’s open!  Let’s go!”

“Calm
down.
  Sheesh.  Let go of my arm, I can get through the door by
myself.  Little shit.  Hey, lady, you mind if I hang around while my brother
gets his reading?”

“Does he want you to hear it?”

“He does if he wants
twenty-five bucks.”

“Very well.  Sit down in front
of me, Sam.”

“You
hear
that?  She knew my
name!
”

“It’s on your T-shirt,
dumbass.”

“Oh.”

“Joe, you’re going to have to
be silent if you wish to remain.”