Zero Recall (38 page)

“I needed to taste for
drugs.  You’re in luck.  He used
vembiridol.
”

“Vemb…?”

“An interrogation drug. 
Leaves its victims alive, able to talk, but blocked from using any motor
functions.”

“So he’s alive,” Daviin
said.  “Good.  Where?”

“I never said he was
alive,” Jer’ait said.  “But if he is, I will find him.”

CHAPTER 20:  Violent Alien Copulation Techniques

Syuri checked the time. 
He had four tics.  Forgotten had made it very clear he would have to leave
after eleven tics or he would not get out in time.  He went to the final door
and willed the vault to open faster.

“Enjoying yourself,
Jahul?”

Syuri spun.

A Huouyt in Peacemaker
black leaned against the wall directly inside the entrance to the hallway.

No,
Syuri thought
frantically,
Forgotten told me I had four more tics.

“Where did you get those
codes, Jahul?”  The Huouyt never moved, but its electric eyes sizzled with
eerie intensity.  Syuri could feel a wave of triumph rolling off of the
creature.  He took a step backwards.

The Huouyt moved from the
entrance to the hallway and strode over to him with all the grace and power of
a stalking Jikaln.  “No matter,” the Peacemaker said, his eerie electric-blue
eyes only a foot away now.  “You’ll have plenty of time to tell me.”

Without taking its eyes
off of Syuri, it reached out and entered in the codes to close the vault Syuri
had just opened.  The sound of the fan disappeared with the thudding of locks
and hissing of seals.  It did not, however, seal off the misery behind the
wall, which continued to seep outwards, staining his soul.

Syuri’s hand strayed
toward the pocket where he had hidden his tranquilizer.

The Huouyt gave him a
flat look.  “Do you really want to do that, worm?”

Syuri swallowed hard at
the cold anger of the creature before him.  Certain Huouyt could isolate
chemicals in their body and neutralize them.  Shooting him with a tranquilizer,
if he was trained, would have no effect.  If he submitted, the rest of his life
would be short and unpleasant.  If he did not, it would be much longer.

“No,” Syuri whispered.

“Very well,” the Huouyt
said.  “Give it to me.”

His fingers trembling,
Syuri handed the device to the Huouyt.

The Peacemaker stuffed it
into his belt and calmly went to the other doors Syuri had opened, shutting
them as well.  Syuri flinched as he heard the doors slam into place, knowing
that he would be next to share the Geuji’s fate.

Then Syuri saw his
opportunity.  The Huouyt had stooped to examine a hissing seal on one of the
doors, irritation in his alien face. 
Forgotten wasn’t wrong,
Syuri’s
mind thought wildly. 
He planned this.  He knew the Huouyt would get distracted.
 
Syuri dodged, running at full speed toward the end of the hallway.  If he could
shut the door on the Huouyt and enter the override code, he would be free.

The Huouyt never stood
up.  Syuri felt the sting of a tranquilizer—his
own
tranquilizer—and crumpled
before he’d even reached the end of the hall.

Slowly, leisurely, the
Huouyt finished his inspection of the door and strode up to him.  Syuri
trembled inside as the assassin paused to stare down at him with cold, lifeless
eyes.  “Like I said.  You will have all the time you need to tell me about your
employer.”

He was wrong,
Syuri thought, losing control of his inner chambers.  A mixture of waste
liquids oozed out over his skin, making the Huouyt’s face wrinkle in disgust. 
Forgotten
was wrong and they’re going to execute me.

As the Huouyt bent to
lift him from the floor, a new, even more horrible thought occurred to him.

Forgotten was
never
wrong.

#

“They’ll separate the
Jreet heirs and their teams will return to the tunnels ahead of schedule. 
Planetary Ops will want them to kill as many Dhasha as possible before they
find each other again and finish what they began in the restaurant.”

“So it is the Jreet we
want?” Rri’jan insisted.

“I’ve told you,”
Forgotten said.  “We need a team of six.  The Jreet might make the killing
blow, but then again, it might not.  A Huouyt has as much chance of killing the
Representative as a Jreet, since the Jreet must remain blind and mute while
invisible and a Huouyt has the added bonus of patience.  However, Mekkval is
notorious for being able to sense intruders, so it might be that the Huouyt and
the Jreet will have to battle Mekkval’s bodyguards while the Grekkon or the
Baga finishes the job with an ambush.”

“You aren’t sure what
will happen?”

“We aren’t there yet,” Forgotten
said.  “We are discussing the second tunnel crawl.”

“Why?  We already know
the result.  What is there to discuss?”

“We do not know the
result.  One can never know the result unless one is a Trith, and my every
action muddies the future for them so that, in anything pertaining to my plans,
no one can ever know the result.”

“But nevertheless, you
know.”

“I make guesses that
usually prove to be accurate.  Nothing more.”

Rri’jan snorted. 
“Usually?  When have you ever been wrong?”

“Once,” Forgotten said. 
“It was enough.”

The Huouyt’s electric
blue eyes lit up with curiosity.  “When?”

“In my youth.”

“What happened?”

“I miscalculated.”

“How so?”  The Huouyt’s
biorhythmic functions were elevating again, indicating his interest.

“We should continue with
the subject at hand,” Forgotten said.  “Mekkval’s home den is eleven times
deeper than the average den, mainly to deter enemies with ground-penetration
missiles.”

Rri’jan gave him an
annoyed look.  “Who cares about how deep Mekkval’s den is?”

“This particular distance
generates a lot of heat, up to a total of seventy-nine grads standard, which
many species—including yours—cannot withstand without biosuits.  We must take
this added inconvenience into account when we form our teams.”

“You are saying the
Huouyt will not make it to Mekkval’s deep den?”

“No.  I’m saying that the
Huouyt that survive this attack will come better prepared the next time.”

“You’re staging an entire
attack just to determine which groups work best in hot conditions?”

“That will be key to our
success.  For instance, the Grekkon functions best in circumstances at or below
sixty-six grads Standard.  With each grad after that, his extrusion rate will
drop exponentially, reducing his digging ability until it becomes nonexistent. 
An entire team’s survival could depend upon this simple fact.”

“Very well,” Rri’jan
said.  “I suppose only another half a percent of our teams will survive this
next wave?”

“It will be more along
the lines of twenty percent.  We’ve already weeded out the dysfunctional groups. 
Now we’re narrowing the playing field.”

The Huouyt’s eyes
narrowed as it did a quick calculation.  “So of the two thousand surviving
groundteams from the first attack, four hundred will survive the second
attack?”

“Approximately.”

#

“Well, looks like Jer’ait
has things under control,” Joe said, turning away from the smoky, rubble-strewn
restaurant.  “Let’s get outta here before they make us fill out paperwork.”  He
groaned, his eye catching on the pile of shredded tables that had been thrown
through the half-collapsed front of the structure.  The Ueshi proprietor that
had lured Daviin into his doors with half-priced melaa was kneeling beside his
ruined establishment, tugging at his headcrest, wailing in lamentation.  “Mothers’
ghosts, that’s gonna be a lot of paperwork.”

Leila eyed the enormous
gray-blue body it was taking thirty Ooreiki to drag out of the rubble by the
arms.  “I don’t know…  I should probably be there when he wakes.”

“You will be,” Joe said. 
“They’re both gonna be in surgery for hours.  We’ve got time to chat.”

“You think they can
repair their ears?  I heard them use a sound grenade.”

Joe grunted.  “Well, if
they can’t, it’s sure not gonna help for us to stand around and complain about
it.”

Leila finally tore her
eyes away from the scene and looked up at him.  Her eyes had a mischievous
gleam.  “If I didn’t know better, Commander, I would think you were trying to
get me alone with you.”

God hates a coward. 
Joe
winked at her.  “What gave you that idea?”

She laughed.  “One of
your groundmates lies incapacitated not thirty rods away and you’re hitting on
me.”

“I have the feeling this
will be the only opportunity I’ll have some time alone,” Joe said, his eyes
following the gang of Ooreiki as they now dragged the smaller Jreet from the ruined
restaurant and laid him out beside the bigger one.  It took twelve of them just
to move Daviin’s body out into the road.

“Come on,” Leila said,
turning away and pulling him with her.  “Pray your Huouyt dosed them good
enough so they don’t wake like that.”

Seeing the way the two
Jreet were twined like lovers, unconscious bodies flopped against each other’s
chests, Joe hoped he had, too.

They went to a
restaurant, ordered a private booth, and ate good Earth-styled meals while they
discussed war wounds.  Leila had had her own brush with death in the last
crawl, finding herself just as useless as Joe had been after the Dhasha tore up
her groin and thigh through a biosuit.

“I’d love to see those
scars,” Joe said, grinning.

She winked at him and
took another bite of salad.

Joe felt like a school
kid with his first crush.

By the time they reached
the barracks, it was all they could do not to tear each other’s clothes off. 
Trying to regain her composure as they—two Prime Commanders—walked through the
halls under the awed gazes of new grounders, Leila said she would meet him in
twenty tics, his room.

Joe all but danced back
to his room, whistling like a fool.

Joe tried to give the
place a romantic atmosphere.  He hastily shoved his packs of gear aside, put a
little music on over the intercom, turned up the heat, and dimmed the lights,
but it was hard to disguise the small room with its small bed for what it was.

Candles,
Joe
thought. 
We need candles.
  He went to the com unit and dialed up
Leila’s personal unit.  She didn’t answer, so he left a message.  “Hey
Commander Wright, think you could bring some candles along with you?  I’m a
hopeless romantic and I ain’t got—” Joe hesitated, realizing he was about to
say he didn’t have the extra cash to buy candles, thanks to his brief
‘retirement’ and Maggie’s meddling.  He cleared his throat.  “Uh, I think
candles would be really nice, if you think you could handle it.”

Feeling like a furg, he
ended the message and went back to preparation.

About twenty tics later,
his door beeped.  Joe went to it and let Leila inside, somewhat disappointed
she wasn’t carrying candles.  “Didn’t get my message?” he asked, not trying to
pry. 

Leila raised an eyebrow
at him.  “Message?”

Joe coughed.  “Yeah,
uh…”  He blushed, realizing he didn’t really want to explain.  “Think we should
get a room?” he asked, somewhat worried his place was gonna horrify her.  “I
mean, it’s kind of cramped…”

Leila grinned.  “It’s
just fine, big guy.”  Changed, smelling freshly-showered, Leila shut the door.  Then,
without preamble, she met him with a kiss.  Joe groaned and pulled her body
tight against his, trying not to remember how long it had been since he’d been
with a woman.  Leila wrapped her arms tight behind his neck.  They started
undressing each other as Joe carefully backed them towards the bed.

Joe didn’t feel the sting
along his spine until it was too late.

He collapsed like a doll,
their lips parting as he fell.

“I told you you were
marked, Human.”  As if he weighed nothing at all, Leila picked him up and
carried him to the bed.  Joe could not even find the strength to protest as the
Huouyt laid him out and began calmly unfastening the buttons.  It paused when
it saw the Jreet’s markings on his chest. 

It smiled down at Joe. 
“Pity your Jreet isn’t here to protect you.  And your precious Va’ga…”  He got
up and went to the door and Joe heard the horrible sound of bolts falling into
place.  Somehow, the Huouyt had gotten his security code.  Not a soul would
enter this room unless a Prime Overseer ordered it.

Though he couldn’t turn
his head, Joe heard the beepings of the Huouyt accessing the com terminal
beside the door.

“Ah,” the Huouyt said,
stepping back to him.  “He’s watching the Jreet’s operation, which isn’t
scheduled to end for another three hours.”  The Huouyt smiled with Leila’s
lips, mockingly pleasant.  “I wonder why he bothers at all.  It’s not like any
of you mean anything to him.”  The Huouyt glanced at the clock embedded in the
wall and clapped his Human hands together.  “So!  You said you didn’t feel
getting marked.  That means I’ve got two hours to
make
you feel it.” 

Only a moment later, Leila’s
tentative voice came over the intercom, “Hey, uh, Commander Zero?  I got this
weird message about candles…  You…uh…hopin’ ta get frisky?”  She almost sounded
hopeful.

The Huouyt leaned over
his prone body to stroke Joe’s face.  Joe stared back at him, refusing to be
cowed.

“Commander Zero?” Leila
asked.  “You in there?”  He heard her knuckles give a muffled rap on the metal
door.

Mothers’ ghosts,
Joe thought, not sure whether he wanted her to leave or to investigate
further.  He had the feeling the Huouyt would kill them both, if she tried to
interrupt his fun.