Zero Recall

by Sara King

  “The condition was that I be allowed to modify my Sentinel oath.”

  Joe frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “There is nothing to get.” Daviin took another swig of his toxic sludge, downing it in one gulp. Then, without lead-up or segue, Daviin pulled a crystal dagger from the leather sheath in his chest and sliced open his scaly ruby hand. He then reached out and grasped Joe’s arm before Joe could pull away. Holding Joe in place, he tore Joe’s coat open and smeared the bluish blood beading on his palm across the bare skin of Joe’s torso. In this, he scratched a symbol with a scarlet claw over Joe’s heart, cutting bloody paths in the skin with a talon. Joe was so stunned he could only sit there and watch the Jreet carve on him.

  “There,” Daviin said, releasing him. “You didn’t flinch. That’s good.”

  “Wait,” Joe said, pulling away. “Now just hold on. What’d you do?”

  “Joe Dobbs, I am now your acting Sentinel.”

  Joe stared. His eyes traveled from his drinking companion’s face down to where his blood was mingling with the Jreet’s over his heart in stinging red-blue pathways. Then he laughed.

  Tics went by and the Jreet’s eyes never wavered. Joe realized he was serious.

  “You’re saying you swore an oath…to obey me?”

  “This was why you were hesitant about having me on the team, am I correct? Because I was a volunteer? Unbeholden to you?”

  “Now hold on!” Joe set his drink down and stood up. “You’re a…my…Sentinel? As in a Representative of Congress Sentinel?!”

  Daviin grinned at him and ordered another drink.

  “Are you nuts?!”

  “The Sentinels thought so, yes. Frankly, though, they could not stop me. A Sentinel chooses his ward.”

  Joe held the Jreet’s eyes for a heartbeat, then threw back his head and laughed.

  “What, Human?”

  Joe pulled up his stool, relaxing. “You just made my job a hell of a lot easier, Jreet. I thought I was going to have to run you off. Now all I have to do is tell you ‘git’ and you have to git.”

  “I told you they allowed me to make my own oath.”

  Joe frowned. “And?”

  “And I made certain provisions.” The Jreet’s crocodile-like jaws opened in a big Jreet smile. “That was one of them.”

  Joe’s brows knotted. “I can’t tell you to leave.”

  “No. You can’t tell me to leave your side, except as strategy in a battle situation.” Then the Jreet cocked his head. “Well, I suppose you can tell me to leave. I just don’t have to obey you.” He stretched his hearing-chambers and displayed his fangs in a big Jreet grin.

  Joe closed his eyes, suddenly having a headache. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Now,” Daviin said. “Is that proof enough of my intent to follow your lead in the tunnels?”

  Joe opened one eye. “I’m checking this out as soon as I get back to the barracks.”

  “Why wait?” Daviin said. “It’s all over the news.” He touched the blank infoscreen with the back of his claw and selected universal news.

  There it was, prominently displayed on the first page, a Jreet had sworn to Sentinel for a non-Representative for the first time in a thousand turns. Names and location had been withheld for privacy. The reasoning the Jreet had given was that it was “mutually beneficial” for both parties.

  “The Mothers’ ghosts,” Joe said, staring. He wondered if the newscast could be faked.

  Apparently reading his mind, the Jreet said, “It’s not fake.”

  Joe took a deep breath, watching the words scroll across the screen. “Jreet, you’re out of your mind.”

  “My name is Daviin.”

  “Daviin.” Joe shook his head. “Ghosts, Daviin. I’m just a grounder.” He felt awed, unnerved, and overwhelmed, all at once. “I’m nobody.”

  Daviin curled his head under his neck in a courteous gesture. “I will enjoy serving you a thousand times more than my brethren enjoy serving their fat, pampered wards on Koliinaat.”

  He swore to me. Voran royalty. As a Sentinel. The fact left Joe dumbstruck. Struggling not to look like an ignorant country bumpkin, Joe pulled his shirt closed over his bloody chest. Taking a steadying breath, he whispered, “All right, you bastard. You win. You’re on the team.”

  Daviin’s scaly face drew back in a grin. “I knew you would come to your senses.”

  Immediately, Joe said, “But nobody’s gonna know. You get me? As far as the others are concerned, I swallowed my pride and let you back in. I don’t want them to know about…” Joe gestured at Daviin’s palm, which was still bleeding a blue puddle on the floor under the bar.

  “Very well.” Daviin bowed again, the gesture too close to subservience for Joe’s liking.

  Joe glanced around at the gawking aliens surrounding them in the bar. “And hit me.”

  Daviin froze, cocking his head. “Excuse me?”

  “Hit me,” Joe said hurriedly. “Do something a Sentinel wouldn’t do. I don’t want these sooters to get any ideas.”

  Daviin seemed to consider, then swiveled and slammed a meaty arm into Joe’s torso. The blow threw him across the room to land in a heap amongst tables and chairs. Joe’s head hit something hard and his world exploded into stars.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Daviin’s sixty-foot length barreling down on him. All around them, aliens were getting out of their seats, not to help but to get out of the way.

  “How dare you insult my oath of brotherhood, Human?!” Daviin roared above him, towering at least ten digs into the air. “You spit on my customs?! Spit on this!” He wrenched Joe out of the debris and flung him into a startled group of black-clad Ooreiki.

  Thankfully, some of their soft, boneless bodies slowed his fall. Still, Joe was pretty sure he was bleeding internally by the time the Jreet grabbed him by the collar of his coat and began dragging him from the bar.

  “You’re lucky one of my provisions was to remove the part where I could no longer spill your blood,” Daviin said once they were back outside and he was dragging Joe through the streets by his neck.

  Joe didn’t feel very lucky. “I think you broke some more ribs.”

  “Really?” Daviin dropped him suddenly, allowing Joe’s head to connect painfully with the sharp gravel road. “I was trying to be gentle.”

  Joe would have laughed, but it hurt too much. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

  “I’ll try.” Daviin lowered his head so that it was filling Joe’s vision. “You really are fragile creatures, aren’t you? Did I go too far?”

  “Nothing some nanos won’t take care of,” Joe muttered. He struggled to sit up, pushing Daviin back. Groaning, he got to his feet. “Mothers’ ghosts, you pack a punch like a freight train.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah.” Joe began limping towards the barracks. Daviin slid along beside him, a disconcerting back-and-forth weaving motion that left him feeling like he was walking alone one moment and about to be run over the next.

  “I’m surprised, Joe. Someone else in your situation would want everyone know of what I’ve done. Having a Sentinel…that’s quite impressive. Why do you wish to hide it?”

  Joe saw six shadowy Jikaln of a Tox Squad watching them from an alley as they walked. They saw Joe staggering and began to spread out to surround him, but checked their approach when they noticed he was talking to the Jreet. Like six translucent wolves realizing they’d just surrounded a grizzly bear, the lithe quadrupeds wandered off to find easier prey.

  “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll change your mind.”

  “A Sentinel can’t change his mind. You know that.”

  Joe sighed. “Because I know what I am and I know what you are. Don’t get me wrong—I’m proud of my species—but Humans are farmed Takki compared to a Jreet.”

  The Jreet’s huge clawed hand engulfed Joe’s shoulder, drawing him to a halt. “I didn’t choose to Sentinel for you because you’re a farmed Takki, Joe. You ha
d the courage to stand up to me. Not many do.”

  Joe laughed. “You mean the stupidity.”

  Daviin’s scaly face stretched in another fearsome Jreet smile. “Perhaps.”

  Joe peered up at the Jreet, then grunted and kept walking. “Lucky me.”

  “There is one thing I would ask of you for my services, Joe.”

  “What?”

  “Allow me to kill the Huouyt.”

  Joe stumbled to a halt and peered up at Daviin. “What?”

  “The one who helped me find you back on Earth. Let me kill him.”

  Joe squinted up at him. “Why?”

  The Jreet paused a moment, as if considering. “I don’t like his story. He is not here to kill the Vahlin.”

  “None of us are. The chances we’ll get assigned to the Vahlin’s den is like one in a million.”

  “One in a thousand. Much, much less if we are assigned more than one den.”

  “You mean if we survive more than one den.” Joe laughed. “Daviin, I hate to say it, but aside from you, Be’shaar’s probably our best bet of getting out of there alive.”

  “It’s not the tunnels I’m worried about, Joe.”

  “Huh?”

  Daviin cocked his head at Joe. “You don’t know who he is, do you?”

  “Who? Be’shaar?”

  “As part of our training, Sentinels are taught to recognize the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the top assassins trained in Va’ga. The idea is for us to recognize them before they get a chance to strike.”

  “And?”

  “I recognize him. His real name is Jer’ait. He was at the top of the Va’ga list when he graduated. Still is.”

  Joe flinched, suddenly feeling dirty all over. “Jer’ait? The Jer’ait?”

  Daviin nodded solemnly.

  Joe whistled. “Well, that makes him even more useful, doesn’t it?”

  “You don’t understand,” Daviin said. “He’s at the top of the lists. Even now. He’s killed more targets than any other assassin living. His specialty is befriending hard-to-reach targets and then murdering them. No remorse.”

  Joe frowned. “He was after my brother?”

  Daviin’s metallic gold eyes narrowed to pinpricks. “If he was, I don’t see why he left Earth.”

  “So he’s after the Vahlin.”

  “If he were after the Vahlin, he wouldn’t tie himself down with the rest of us. He’d simply go and kill him.”

  Joe frowned. “So who’s he after? You?”

  “Joe, I think he’s after you.”

  CHAPTER 11: Daviin Learns to Lie

  Joe stared at Daviin. Instead of laughing, the Human just said, “Why?”

  “There is a prophecy—”

  Joe interrupted him with a foreign curse. “Will that follow me to my grave?! Who told you? Maggie?!”

  Daviin hesitated, cocking his head at his ward, trying to judge how to proceed. Then, he said, “You know of it?”

  “It’s soot,” Joe said viciously. “I told Na’leen to go to hell and we won Kophat back despite what the little gray slimeball tried to tell me. It’s crap. You mention it again and I’ll order you to go suck Dhasha dick, get me?”

  Daviin flinched. “I was talking about the Vahlin. You mean you’ve had other things prophesized about you, Joe?”

  Joe blinked. He looked like Daviin had knocked the wind out of him.

  Hastily, Daviin said, “Every once in a while, maybe once in a thousand turns, a black Jreet will be born. These Jreet are different from the rest. They refuse to fight. And they—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The Human looked confused.

  “Only other Jreet know about the black one. But, since she spoke of you, I suppose you have the right to know. They see the future, Human. They read thoughts.”

  The Human’s face grew angry. “You mean you breed Trith.”

  “What are Trith?”

  Instead of answering, Joe said, “What did she say about me?” He sounded resigned. Angry.

  Daviin analyzed Joe’s reaction, then lowered his voice. “When they’re born, the black ones are taken into seclusion. Worshipped. It is the black ones who ordain the next clan leaders, as well as the Representatives. It was a black one that warned us of the Ayhi thousands of turns before we expanded into space.”

  Joe gave him a suspicious look. “Warned you? From what I’ve seen of the Ayhi, they wouldn’t hurt a Takki.”

  “Exactly. Don’t you wonder why we assign four times as many warriors to defending their Representatives than we give Aliphei himself? It is because the black ones say they will one day need us, and if we are not there to save them, the Jreet will be annihilated to the last.”

  “Why?” The Human was obviously confused, not understanding what it had to do with him.

  Daviin shrugged. “The seers don’t tell us why. They simply tell us that we must do to prevent it.”

  “So this black one said something about me and you’re gonna mindlessly hold it against me just like—”

  “No,” Daviin said quickly. “That’s not the way of it. They never predict the future—only a fool does that. They offer us choices. Before I left the Sentinels, I asked the black one what path I should take to earn a place in my people’s history. She said go to Aez, that my path there would lead me to one who could help me.”

  Joe snorted. “And you think that’s me.”

  “And you do not?”

  “Look at me, you son of a bitch. I’m a grounder. I’ve been Prime for most of my life, and I’ve got no hopes of climbing the ranks—ever. I’ve got an Overseer who hates my guts and does her damndest to get me executed. I don’t have power, I don’t have money, and you can break every bone in my body by flicking your pinkie. I can’t get you anything you can’t get by yourself.”

  Daviin felt himself liking this Human. He was growing more confident in his decision by the tic. “It’s you. I know it.”

  “Then you’re stupider than I thought.”

  “She said if I chose the path to Aez, I would come across a great and unstoppable foe, an opponent worthy of a Jreet heir—”

  “That’s not me,” the Human snorted.

  “Obviously,” Daviin replied. “She said that I shall one day hold his fate in my hands, and my ward will help me give him the sentence he deserves. Depending on what I decide that day, I will kill the one who would shatter Congress…or I will discover what it means to be forgotten.”

  The Human’s head jerked up sharply. “What?”

  “So I ask you, Human, what is this other prophecy that makes you able to help me stop an unstoppable foe who would destroy Congress without our intervention?”

  To Daviin’s surprise, the Human lunged at him, grabbing him by the sensitive ear-crest and tearing him down until they were eye-to-eye.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Joe said, his oily face ninths from Daviin’s snout. “If I believed in prophecies, I wouldn’t be breathing today. I despise them and everyone who believes in them, and the fastest way to piss me off is to say I’m destined to do something. I’ve had burning enough of that. I hear one more word about a prophecy out of you and you won’t have to wait for some ‘unstoppable foe’—I’ll kill you myself.”

  “I can see why the seers like you,” Daviin said, grinning. He nodded as much as the Human’s grip would allow, pleased.

  The Human released him and backed up, glaring. “You’re lucky I didn’t bring my gun.”

  “One thing I should warn you,” Daviin said. “The Sentinels don’t take it kindly when their wards kill one sworn to protect them. If you do kill me, at least have the sense to make it look like an accident. If you don’t, and the Sentinels catch you—which they will—you’re going to wish yourself dead long before they get around to letting you kill yourself.”

  “Letting me kill myself.” The Human gave him a dubious look.

  “Yes. More shame in it that way. And they’ll do it all without spilling a drop of your blood.
”

  “Classy.”

  “Very. It’s impressive, when you see it in action.”

  “So I take it it’s a common problem.”

  “Only amongst conniving politicians who would kill their own clanmates if it meant their own personal gain.” Daviin grinned down at the Human. “I’m not too worried about you.”

  “You should be,” the Human growled.

  “I can break every bone in your body with my pinkie.” He held it up, for the Human’s clarification.

  His commander looked at the crimson digit that was as thick as his bony Human arm and grunted. “Speaking of that, not to alarm you, considering you’re my new Sentinel and all, but I’m rapidly losing the ability to stand up straight.” As if to illustrate, he began to blink rapidly and weave on his feet. Catching himself on the wall of the alleyway and peered much too intently at the buildings across the road.

  “Funny, Human,” Daviin said.

  “Yeah, I’d think so, too, if I wasn’t all of a sudden feeling like someone was trying to shove a baseball bat through my ear.” The Human kept blinking. “I’m thinking maybe using my head to splinter that chair wasn’t such a great idea back there…”

  Daviin glanced down the road, judging the distance to the barracks. “Can you walk?”

  Joe peered up at him suspiciously. “Or what? Be carried?” He snorted. “Of course I can walk.” The Human straightened, took a step, then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he slumped forward like a wad of wet rags. Daviin caught him before he slammed face-first into the packed gravel.

  “Such delicate creatures,” Daviin murmured. He threw the Human under one arm and made his way back to the barracks, ignoring the stares he received along the way.

  Daviin let himself into Joe’s room and dropped him on the bed. He had just administered the nanos when he heard a voice at the door.

  “So our good Commander resisted your charms again?”

  Daviin stiffened and twisted.

  Jer’ait stood in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame. His features sharpened when Daviin turned to face him. “What happened to your palm, Jreet?”