Zero Recall

by Sara King

  Joe grunted and looked up.

  Jer’ait was watching a live news feed from Koliinaat. It was a crisp, no-frills view of the inside of the Regency, with almost all the Representatives in attendance. At the center of the screen, the three Tribunal members—the First Citizen Aliphei, Prazeil representing the Jreet, and Mekkval representing the Dhasha—sat presiding over the trial of what looked like a quivering, semi-translucent green slime spread over a boxlike apparatus.

  “The Ayhi damn the ignorant vaghi to the deepest Jreet hells!” Jer’ait shouted. “He set the noose and they’re crawling into it!” He hurled the platter of delicacies across the room and bent to yank a towel from a pool chair.

  Having never seen the Va’gan display more than quiet irritation at anything, every head in the room turned to stare as Jer’ait upended a table of pool supplies across the damp stone. Towels and bath soaps rolled into the pool. Jer’ait kicked them for greater effect, skittering a flotation pad out across the water.

  “Uh…Jer’ait?” Joe asked curiously.

  “Look,” Jer’ait snarled, gesturing at the screen. “They’re giving him what he wants. He could take down everything. The Regency, the Tribunal, everything.”

  The Baga buzzed over to land on a chair in front of the vidscreen, cocking his buglike head at the screen. “Is that the Geuji?” he asked, curious.

  “No,” Jer’ait snapped.

  The Baga hesitated. “It says it’s the Geuji. Live feed from Koliinaat.”

  “It’s not,” Jer’ait snapped. “The Geuji is black and does not have eyes.”

  “So…” Daviin said, as the Jreet wove over to take a look, “if that’s not the Geuji, who is it?”

  “It’s a forgery,” Flea said, scrabbling closer. “Like Joe’s brother. If you look close, that jiggly pattern repeats itself. Like it’s on a timer.”

  “A farce,” Jer’ait agreed. “A complete fucking fraud. Merciful dead! Were I there, that trial would not be happening. But of course he knew that. The damnable furg Aliphei lured me off to steal money and play games so he could have access to the Geuji unimpeded. I thought that Ghost file had been too close to the surface.” He hurled a vase of rare flowers into the pool, where it shattered against the far edge. “Damn. Fucking damn.”

  “So,” Joe said slowly, “what’s happening?”

  “They’re faking the trial,” Flea said, “…on the floor of the Regency.” He seemed stunned. “Isn’t that, like, illegal?”

  “Turn it up,” Daviin commanded. “The Aezi is talking.”

  “Tell us again, for the record, how you came to be, Geuji.”

  “My people live in a faraway galaxy, and we often come to scout out your progress and determine the best ways to stop your impending threat to the stability of our great nation. Until now, we were never caught.”

  “And you conspired with the Huouyt to destroy Aez and initiate the war on Neskfaat to weaken us?” Prazeil demanded.

  “Admittedly, it failed. But yes, that was our plan.”

  “Why did you attack Aez?” the Jreet Representative urged. “Why not Vora or Welu?”

  “The Aezi were our greatest threat,” the greenish slime-creature told them. “They are the greatest warriors of Congress. We had no choice but to neutralize them.”

  “He dares?!” Daviin screamed, rearing up in fury.

  “It’s a fake,” Joe said, watching the screen with curiosity. “That’s not Forgotten.”

  Daviin frowned as the Jreet Representative continued to interrogate their subject. “And Prazeil knows it’s a fake?”

  “How can he not?” Jer’ait demanded. “They had the real Geuji testify against Rri’jan in a closed session. Forgotten looks nothing like that…thing.”

  “A Jreet knowingly participates in such a dishonor?” Daviin snarled.

  “There’s nothing you can do about it,” Joe said tiredly. “It’s just more politics.”

  “I could challenge,” Daviin snapped. “Look at them! They spew lies about Aez. They say the Aezi warriors could best a Voran, and that’s why the Aezi had to die.”

  “A fake, furg,” Jer’ait repeated.

  “But all of Congress sees it!” Daviin retorted. “They’ll take it as sooth, because it came from the mind of a Geuji!”

  …which was true. “What do you mean, challenge?” Joe said.

  “For his seat,” Daviin snapped. He began pacing in front of the screen, tek protruding slightly from its sheath, looking utterly enraged.

  “A Tribunal member?” Joe asked carefully, “Won’t that, oh, I don’t know, get you eradicated?”

  “No,” Daviin snarled. “It is my right.” He continued to pace, failing to elaborate.

  Joe frowned. “I thought that Representatives had to be chosen by the people.”

  “It is different for the Jreet,” Daviin snapped out. “One of our Species Concessions. We challenge. Only the best rule.” The Jreet looked so pissed that he was having trouble forming words.

  “Uh…” Joe said, “you realize you’re only half as big as that guy, right?”

  “I’ve killed Aezi bigger than him,” Daviin snapped.

  Joe’s eyebrows went up. “Really.”

  “Never mind,” Daviin snarled. “It takes a clan ages to put together enough funds to back their greatest warrior and send him to Congress.”

  Joe glanced from the screen, to Daviin, then to Jer’ait, who was watching the Jreet with a narrow look. It was the Baga, however, who said, “Daviin, how much would it cost you to challenge the Welu?”

  “Six billion,” Daviin snapped.

  “You can have mine,” the Baga said.

  “Done!” the Jreet roared. He reached forth and lowered a huge ruby hand over Flea’s back. “Little Flea, you just made the best decision of your life.” He lifted his hand and made a fist. “The Aezi has breathed his last lie. I swear it!” He crossed the room to get a better look at the vidscreen, doubtlessly to get a better look at his enemy.

  Jer’ait gave Flea an irritated look. “Baga, do you have any idea how much money you just threw away?”

  “No,” Flea said. “And I probably don’t want to.” He lifted his caps and flitted his wings, a Baga impression of a shrug. “Besides, if Daviin wins, he can pay me back.”

  “Uh,” Joe said, “you realize that’s probably exactly what Forgotten wants you to do, right?”

  “Oh sure,” Flea said. “That’s why I challenged the Jreet to ka’par. Keep him from spending all his cash.”

  Jer’ait cocked his head at Flea. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh come on!” Flea cried. “You guys didn’t see this coming? Seriously?” Then, looking from Joe to Jer’ait to Daviin, he seemed to deflate. “You didn’t see it coming.” Puffing up with irritation, he said, “Come on, guys. Daviin’s obviously being groomed for the Tribunal. Think about it. He Sentineled a pleb—no offense—and had to live as a commoner for a couple rotations. He starved a bit and had to caper to the whims of a Human—the lowest of the low.”

  “Hey, now,” Joe muttered.

  Flea ignored him and went on, heedless. “He was pulled out of an Aezi gladiatorial ring. On the day—get this—Aez gets blown apart? He’s killed more Aezi than any Jreet alive. And his little guardian angel was keeping him alive on Jeelsiht. For what…to go steal a few billion from Joe’s brother? Of course the Geuji wants him to kill Prazeil.”

  “So you knew Forgotten was setting us up…again…and you just went along with it?” Joe asked, carefully resisting the urge to stomp the little bastard.

  “Well, yeah,” Flea said, sounding confused. “What better way to spend my money than getting myself a friend on the Tribunal?”

  Joe and Jer’ait blinked at each other, then glanced over at the seething Jreet, who had crossed the room and was leaning close to the vidscreen to compensate for his poor eyesight, oblivious to their chat.

  “You know, Flea,” Joe said slowly, “you might be some sort of evil genius.”

  “
Of course I am,” Flea said, crawling up his arm to take residence on his shoulder. “I’m Bagan. Can I have something to eat now? Distracting the Voran sucked.”

  On the screen, the First Citizen was speaking again. “Mekkval, you’ve been silent throughout,” Aliphei noted. “Do you have any questions for the condemned?”

  The enormous Dhasha Representative was scowling at the quivering green ‘Geuji’. “You already know my opinion. You already have decided your votes. I refuse to take part in this farce.” At that, the Dhasha summoned the Watcher and flickered out, leaving only Prazeil and Aliphei presiding.

  “Did you see that?!” Daviin snarled. He grabbed the massive lounge chair beside him and hurled it against the wall, shattering it into thousands of splinters no bigger than Joe’s pinkie and putting a hole in the wall that exposed the contents of the room next door, making the naked Jahul on the other side lunge out of their orgy with a tide of terrified screams. Heedless, Daviin roared at the vidscreen, “The Dhasha has more honor than that vaghi scum!”

  “On second thought,” Flea said, settling into a crouch on Joe’s shoulder as he watched the Jreet’s tantrum with obvious delight, “this is more interesting.”

  #

  Syuri was moving through the crowded hub of Koliinaat’s shipping quarter, trying to determine the best way to steal his friend’s ship, when an angry Voran Jreet voice bellowed across the distance, “You! Food-trader! I have questions about Aez.” The hot wash of Jreet-tinged anger that assaulted his sivvet was immediately followed by the pang of fear from a dozen nearby bystanders.

  Syuri felt his chambers flex, expelling all of his wastes over his skin in a rush of total panic. At the same time, he spasmodically yanked his front legs into a protected tuck and ran.

  Jreet, thankfully, were not a prey species. Thus, the Jreet could only bellow and shove bystanders aside angrily as Syuri escaped at speeds that befitted his humble ancestry.

  Only once he had ducked through six separate hubs, navigated the bustling, narrow-halled services courts, and hurtled down a dozen passageways and busy halls did Syuri find the presence of mind to stop running and steady himself.

  The Voran Jreet. The heir he had rescued on Aez. Here. Blessed Hagra, he had the ill-fated fortune of the Shadyi.

  He couldn’t follow me, Syuri thought, trying to get his chambers back under control. Calm down. Jreet aren’t that fast. You were running for hours. Indeed, when he found the courage to look behind him, there were no massive, sinuous ruby coils sweeping through the halls after him. No enraged Jreet, seeking to skewer him on a glistening tek.

  Somehow, Syuri got his legs to stop shaking. Once he’d panicked, he’d simply discharged everything, covering his skin in a humiliating slime that reeked like the eighth Jreet hell. Even then, travelers were making a wide berth around him, disgust clearly written on their alien faces.

  Embarrassed, Syuri went to the nearest bathroom and began cleaning himself as best he could. The aliens that had been using the sinks and mirrors to freshen-up between trips quickly vacated the area, leaving him humiliatingly alone as he ran woefully inadequate Congressional hand-towels down his back and belly, repeatedly paying the two-credit charge each time he needed a new batch from the dispenser.

  Once he had removed what filth he could and disposed of his clothes in the wastes recycler, Syuri ducked back into the hall, naked. He still stank, but not as bad. His legs weren’t trembling as horribly, but he had lost all of his means of carrying implements and tools necessary to crack the piji shell that was the Geuji’s containment.

  Standing there amidst the flow of curious passengers—many of whom crushed his sivvet with smug disdain for his lack of attire—Syuri felt an overwhelming rush of shame and hopelessness. What was he, a humble, shit-covered Jahul, going to do against the likes of Aliphei and the Tribunal? He was a small-time smuggler who’d attracted the attention of a big fish…

  …a big fish that was now entombed in a massive Congressional battlecrusier, waiting for the Geuji’s long, drawn-out trial to finally come to an end.

  The fact that it was a blatantly fake trial pressurized his chambers every time he thought of it. It had been spread across the news for weeks. They portrayed the Geuji as a huge, green, blubbering wad of mucous who couldn’t even hold his own when pitted against soul-sucking Congressional lawyers with mountains—mountains—of evidence to level upon him. And, brandishing said documentation, the fools caught him in ‘lie’ after ‘lie,’ to which the imposter recanted his words and wove them a story that was nothing at all like what Syuri knew to be truth.

  Little by little, they were portraying the Geuji to be a heartless, malicious career criminal whose only purpose had been to bring about the destruction of Congress so that his ‘people’ could be safe. Billions of them. In some distant galaxy many hundreds of turns away.

  How the Congressional lawyers got hold of Forgotten’s bank records, trading contracts, private communications, and vessel documentation was still a mystery to Syuri. As far as he knew, not even a Bajna could track his funds if he didn’t want them tracked. Which meant the Bajna had been given the records, by the real Geuji.

  They’re torturing him, Syuri thought, in despair.

  The interrogators had gotten everything from Forgotten. Every transaction that the Geuji had made in the last turn and a half, all of it was right there.

  With, of course, the glaring exception of Syuri’s payment for Aez, and his subsequent payment for infiltrating the Space Academy. Forgotten, it seemed, was going to be true to his word and leave him his entire estate.

  He’s protecting me to the death, Syuri realized, miserable. Just as I did. He was testing me. Standing there in the crowded hall, naked and covered in his own wastes, Syuri had an overwhelming rush of anger. He knew he couldn’t leave Forgotten to die, as the damnable corpse-rot planned. Come Jreet, Huouyt interrogators, or automated laser cannon, Syuri was going to save him.

  He was, after all, a pirate.

  #

  Flea watched the Jahul clean himself, then scuttle off to a forgotten corner of the hub and order an elevator to the shipping area. Flea followed him inside the chute when it came, crawling across the ceiling where he would go unnoticed. Commander, he said, I just entered Elevator 1442K.

  Yeah, we’re coming. Gotta find a way around for Daviin. Jer’ait?

  Waiting on the other side of the elevator shaft in an Ooreiki pattern. The Watcher was nice enough to transport me to my chambers to make the shift before returning me to the outgoing shaft.

  Must be nice to be a Peacemaster, Joe grumbled. Walking sucks. This place is huge.

  So why do we follow this shit-stinking Jahul? Daviin demanded. I have an Aezi to kill.

  Gut feeling, Joe said.

  Ditto, Flea replied, climbing up the wall of the chute and over to hide behind the light fixture.

  As soon as the doors closed, the Jahul glanced up at him. “Good afternoon,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry about the smell.” He glanced down at his reeking body. “I had a bit of a scare earlier.”

  Flea was surprised, and not only because the Jahul had so easily located him. Most creatures—even Jahul—saw him and immediately thought non-sent. “The smell doesn’t bother me,” Flea said, truthfully. He crawled down the wall a bit to get a better look. Seeing the crusted slime still caking those hard-to-reach places along the Jahul’s back and sides, he gave a buzz of commiseration. “It must suck to be Jahul.”

  The Jahul laughed as he pulled sanitary wipes from the elevator wall and began to clean himself. “Not so much as…” he cocked his head up at Flea. “What are you, anyway? You look like something that would lay eggs on the underside of a Dhasha.”

  Flea snickered, amused. “How do you know I’m not?”

  The Jahul threw wads of sticky green crap-covered napkins into the disposal. “I’m more talented than most. Your emotions are much too refined for something like a flea or parasite.”

  “You might be surprise
d,” Flea said. “I’m Baga. My hive called me Traxxalihania but my groundteam calls me Flea.”

  The Jahul hesitated.

  “So you want to free Forgotten?” Flea asked.

  Very slowly, the Jahul looked up, gripping the wad of rags.

  “I can get you in,” Flea offered. “If you can get us out.”

  Over the link, Jer’ait said, Flea, Elevator 1442K had nothing but a group of Ueshi come out of it. Where are you?

  Flea did not answer, watching the Jahul carefully. “Well?” Flea demanded. “You wanna save him or not?” He cocked his head, waiting.

  “Of course I want to save him,” the Jahul whispered. “Are you one of his agents?”

  Flea buzzed his wings in amusement. “He sent me a note about the wet-eyed Huouyt and Ooreiki taking thirty-two planets from the Baga. Is that a lot?”

  The Jahul nodded, slowly.

  “Thought so,” Flea said. “That’s not really fair, is it?”

  The Jahul gave his head a slight shake, his huge, glistening black eyes wary.

  “I didn’t think so, either,” Flea said.

  “You’re willing to…help…the Geuji?”

  “Sure,” Flea said. “I like him. He’s interesting.”

  “Didn’t he try to kill you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Flea said. “You know where they’re keeping him?”

  Glancing nervously at the elevator door, the Jahul said, “On the battlecruiser Koliinaat Defender.”

  Flea snorted. “That’s the decoy. The real Geuji’s in the main incinerator room. They’re gonna kill him in like twenty tics.”

  The Jahul seemed to stiffen with distrust. “And you know this how?”

  “I watch,” Flea said.

  Chapter 36: With Great Power…

  Jer’ait scowled at the empty elevator. He had scoured it for signs of a struggle, but there was neither Baga glue nor Jahul excretions covering the interior. Flea, he said again, if this is a joke, it is not amusing.