Zero's Return (9 page)

The Jreet’s lack
of reply was all Joe needed.  Swallowing hard, he said, “You think Humans might
not make it.”

Daviin looked
uncomfortable.  “Compared to kreenit, Humans are…”  The Jreet obviously
struggled with a polite way to say ‘insignificant weaklings,’ a sign that he
was actually learning some decorum from his last twenty turns moderating
interspecies incidents in the Regency.

“Meat,” Joe
said.  “Humans are meat.” 

Daviin glanced
away.  “The Watcher has a complete genetic profile of every Human Congie to
enter the Congressional Army.  If your species dies off, it can be
resurrected.”

“Burn that!” Joe
snapped.  “Goddamn it, Daviin, you’ve gotta
do
something!  We had
nothing
to do
with those sootwad furgs back on Earth.”

“I
have
done something, you Ayhi-loving biped!” Daviin roared back, rearing up his
serpentine body to glare at the screen.  “I’ve spent the last twenty turns
arguing with fat, complacent morons who quote rules and legislation made a
thousand generations ago as somehow applicable to our current situation.  I’m
arguing for
leniency
instead of total annihilation.”  Then he lowered
his head in a Jreet appeal for accord.  “I’m also sending a ship for my best
friend.  The life of a Representative is lonely.  Will you join me?”

But with
great responsibility comes great loneliness.
  Joe took a deep breath and
glanced at the ceiling.  He thought of all the Humans who were going to die—and
all the Humans he could save with a well-placed plasma round to the back of a
kreenit skull.  He took another breath and watched an unidentified desert pest
crawl across his ceiling.  Softly, he said, “You’re saying they’re dropping
kreenit on the planet?  You’re sure?”

Daviin nodded
once, wary.  “Mekkval insisted.  Why do you care about—”  Then his scaly brows
tightened.  “Human, don’t tell me you’re thinking about—”

“Thanks for the
warning, Daviin,” Joe said.  “You have always been a good and honorable soul. 
If the Sisters are kind, we’ll walk the ninety hells together and I’ll see you
on the other side.”

Daviin flinched
and stared at him for a full minute, his small golden eyes startled.  Then,
very softly, he said, “Human, when did you learn Voran Jreet?”

Joe frowned.  “I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But Daviin was
staring at him as if he’d suddenly grown mandibles.  For a long, awkward
moment, the Representative said nothing, just stared.  Then, in a whisper, the
Jreet said, “I see now why she told me to find you.  Good luck, my friend.  It
was an honor serving with you.”

Joe felt his
frown deepen.  “Who said to find me?  Phoenix?”  When Daviin said nothing, he
growled, “Daviin, the Ayhi smite you, I have no idea what you’re—”  Then he
realized that the Jreet had not spoken in Congie—and that he had responded in
kind.  Joe felt a chill go up his spine.

Daviin was
staring at him.  For several heartbeats, nothing but silence reigned between
them.  Then, “I revoke my offer of asylum,” the Jreet said softly.  “You are
not meant to rot on Koliinaat.  You have better things to do, Human.”  And, at
that, the feed cut off and Joe was left staring at his wrist like a furg.

CHAPTER
4 – Earth on Trial

Earth’s trial
came a rotation later.  The Tribunal consisted of three elected
Representatives, including Aliphei.  The First Citizen sat all the way on the
right, with the Jreet Representative’s massive ruby coils taking up the center,
and a mastodon-sized, iridescent-scaled Dhasha that had just celebrated its
thousandth turn—sitting on the left.  Representative Mekkval’s lectern had been
removed, and the huge, bobcat-like Dhasha sat on his haunches in all of his
rainbow-colored glory.  The predator’s cold green eyes watched Fred
unblinkingly as Fred fidgeted on his glass dais in the center of the Regency. 
Beside Mekkval, his Huouyt slave—once a fellow Representative of Congress—held
a datapad for his master with quiet devotion, a vivid reminder of what happened
to those who crossed the Dhasha prince.

Like the Ze’laa
slave, Fred wore no chains, but like the Huouyt, he was no less a prisoner of
the Tribunal than if he were still locked within his room.  The Watcher would
instantly teleport him right back to the podium if he tried to flee.  That, or
Mekkval would catch him and tear him to pieces.  The Dhasha looked like nothing
would make him happier.

Fred ducked his head
and kept his gaze fixed on the meager evidence he had managed to drum up from
his weeks in solitary.  He could feel thousands of alien eyes on him, boring
into him from all directions, even below.  The transparent dais Fred stood on
had a small speaker set into the bottom, and it boomed with Aliphei’s
translated voice.

“
Representative
Mullich, we bring you here today as a spokesperson for your planet, which
stands accused of violating the Second Law of Congress.  Humankind has engaged
in genetic manipulations of its own species, with the intent to use those
mutants as weapons.  Second, and perhaps even more importantly, Earth was
planning an attack on its closest neighbor, the resource-rich planet of
Rkaathia, a member of our great Congress.
”

“What proof do
you have against us?” Fred managed.  It was purely ceremonial—he had no
defense.  Earth was already convicted.

This time, it
was the Dhasha that spoke.  Resplendent in his rainbow-colored scales,
Representative Mekkval looked down at Fred like some disgusting substance that
might get stuck to one of his razored ebony talons.  “We captured your ships
and interrogated your scientists.  We found seven experimental dens, each with
more than three hundred living test subjects.  Slave, packet A-1.”  He gestured
with a scythelike black claw at the hologram screen, then waited for the former
Huouyt Representative to project the required evidence packet before continuing
with a sneer.  “The scientists attempted to use these test subjects against
Congressional forces and we responded in kind.”

Fred swallowed. 
“Responded in kind?”

“The scientists
and test subjects are now dead.”  The long pause the Dhasha left at the end of
his words left no question he thought Fred should suffer the same fate.

Still, Fred
breathed a sigh of relief.  If a few dead scientists was all the damage they
were going to do, Earth had gotten off ridiculously easy.

The First
Citizen, however, was not through.  Aliphei’s voice boomed in the speaker at
his feet, making Fred jump.  “
Fred Mullich, Earth stands accused of
violating the Second Law of Congress, with intent to violate the First.  How
does Earth plead
?”

This was Fred’s
most important role in the entire Trial.  If he said guilty, then the Trial
would end and justice would be dealt.  If he said not guilty, then he would be
given a chance to try to prove his case. 

In the last few
weeks, however, it had become appallingly clear that Aliphei had been right. 
During Fred’s imprisonment, Earth had taken over the airwaves in a way unseen
since the Peacemakers’ capers with Ghost over twenty turns before.  The
Galactic News Service, one of the few stations that Fred had been allowed to
access during his confinement, had been there as the Congressional armies
uncovered the secret compounds buried deep within their mountain bunkers.  They
had recorded the dazed states of the experimental Humans, noting the fact that
the experimentees did not even seem to have a language, but were manipulated
like animals with the pain-chips that Human scientists had installed in their
brains.  There had even been coverage of a famous Dhasha commander getting
murdered by one of the Human experiments, his entire rainbow-scaled body
jerking violently as something inside his brain went horribly wrong, then
falling limply to the ground with purple blood leaking from his nostrils. 

That very same
commander, Keval, was a nephew to the Dhasha now sitting before him on the
Tribunal, a well-loved prince who had helped Zero put down the Prime Sentinel
Raavor ga Aez before Raavor and his Huouyt backers could set off an ekhta
towards Koliinaat.  A damned Congressional hero.  And Humans had killed him and
twenty-three others on live broadcast.  About the only ones
not
calling
for an ekhta were the Jreet, mostly due to the fact Earth had spawned the hero
that had led their much-loved Representative and other Sentinels to victory,
time and again.  The Jreet loved a good hero.

Yet, Daviin ga
Vora was only one of three.  Looking from the Dhasha’s stony gaze to the First
Citizen’s unreadable boar-like snout, even then twisted in disgust, Fred knew
that the only mercy they might show Earth was if he pled guilty and spared them
the drama of a centuries-long trial.  Sure, during that time Earth would be
allowed to conduct its business on a probationary basis, but eventually, the
farce would end and Earth would be punished even more harshly for its crimes. 
Nothing Fred could do was going to change the Tribunal’s decision.  He could
only hope to curry some favor by making the Representatives’ lives easier.  

“How does Earth
plead?” Mekkval snarled.  His tone had the challenge of someone who was looking
forward to a fight—and the disemboweling that would come afterwards.

“Guilty,” Fred
whispered.

Mekkval
flinched.  The Jreet lifted his head startledly, obviously having expected him
to plead innocent.  All around them, the Regency fell into uproar so loud it
threatened Fred’s eardrums.  In the chaos that followed, Aliphei raised one
shaggy blue paw.  “
You realize you will be given no trial?
”

Fred felt
himself sweating again.  “Yes, your Excellency.  Earth deserves no Trial.  We
have failed Congress and humiliated ourselves before the Regency.  It is not my
place to make excuses for furgs.”

Immediately, the
Regency burst into alien laughter, as Fred had hoped it would.

The First
Citizen eyed him a moment, his tiny red eyes hard, then turned to confer with
the Dhasha and the Jreet.  The Justices argued amongst themselves at length,
their microphones switched off.  When they finally pulled away, the Dhasha was
clacking his obsidian teeth with rage.  Ignoring him, Aliphei said,
“Your
wise decision has convinced Daviin and I to allow Earth to remain within the
Congress.”

Fred let out a
pent-up breath.

“
However,
”
the First Citizen continued, “
Earth’s crimes cannot be ignored.  Congress’s
rules are not made to be broken.  You Humans act like spoiled children.  You
swore to obey our laws and you broke your oaths.  You must be punished.
”

Fred fought his
relieved grin and schooled his face into a picture of concerned attentiveness,
knowing that the punishment would be something as simple as trade embargoes,
maybe a few extra children drawn away each year for the Congressional Army.  No
big deal.

Because of this,
he had to ask Aliphei to repeat himself when the First Citizen recited Earth’s
punishment.

“
You are
hereby given a sentence of a Sacred Turn to consider your wrongdoings,
” the
First Citizen intoned again.  “
Your technology will be destroyed with
electromagnetic pulse.  Your cities, your universities, your centers of culture
and science will all be annihilated.  Your ships will be confiscated, your
armies returned without equipment of any kind.  You will start over, and
perhaps when Congress returns to Earth after you are done serving your penance
in
six hundred and sixty-six turns, Earth will take its vows seriously.
”

Fred couldn’t
believe what he was hearing.  For long moments, he just stared.  When he found
the breath to speak again, it was a horrified whisper.  “You’re going to throw
us back into the Dark Ages?!”

“Stone Age, more
like,” Representative Mekkval snapped.  “And if it weren’t for the sentimental
worm, you wouldn’t even be allowed that.”

“If you’d like
to settle this out of court,” the massive ruby-scaled Jreet said calmly, “I
would be happy to strangle myself another prince.”

Mekkval snarled
something in the Dhasha tongue and the Jreet chuckled and settled back into his
huge serpentine coil.

Ignoring the
other two Representatives, Aliphei held Fred in place with cold red eyes.  “
Representative
Daviin has convinced us to give you Humans time to think about your crimes. 
You discovered all of your sciences once before, so you can discover them
again.  Maybe in a Sacred Turn, you will further discover how to honor your
oaths.  This, as witnessed this day before your peers, is our Judgement.
”

He was being
merciful, Fred knew, but Fred still trembled with despair.  Everything Humans
had learned, everything they had accomplished…gone.  Almost eight hundred and
twenty Earth-years in intellectual squalor.  All because some ambitious Human
politician had decided he wanted more land.

“
Do you have
any questions before we mete out justice?
” Aliphei demanded.

A thousand
questions ran through Fred’s head, questions of war, of politics, of death, of
mercy, of weaponry, of genetics, of technology.  But all Fred could say was,
“What about me?”

Aliphei
laughed.  “
You will remain here as Representative of Earth until Earth sends
another delegate.
”

Fred blinked. 
“It will take hundreds of turns.  Thousands.” 

Aliphei’s sneer
was unmistakable.  “
Then I suggest you take up an interesting hobby to pass
the time.
”  At that, Aliphei nodded his tusked blue head at the Watcher,
who immediately transported Fred to his room.  This time, his door was open and
his outgoing feeds were back online.

The Trial was
over.