Zero's Return (66 page)

Joe narrowed his eyes,
remembering the three blonds in question.  “If you knew they were dangerous,
why did you let them waltz into camp?”

Twelve-A hesitated. 
I
thought I could help them…not be mean.

Joe snorted.  “Some
people are just rotten to the core.  You’ve gotta accept that.”

No,
Twelve-A said,
glaring at him,
I
don’t
have to accept that, because I see what they
were before society made them what they are.  Before they got sick.

Sick.  Is
that
what he called it.  Well, Joe had a perfectly good way to cure this particular
disease, and it happened to involve a Nocurna plasma pistol and lots of
screaming.  Carefully keeping his mind utterly clear of anything except korja
nuggets and karwiq bulbs, Joe said, “And which one beat you with the stick?”

Them and their friend
,
Twelve-A replied. 
The short one with the limp.

“Right,” Joe said,
thinking of how great his last romp in bed had been.  “I take it the four of
‘em also beat up Nine-G?”  He and the woman had met in a bar before he’d
shipped off to Der’ru, and on a scale of one to ten, it had been an eleven.  Sometimes
he could even forget the fact she’d given her report to the Peacemakers a
rotation later.

Twelve-A’s brow was
creasing in interest and didn’t appear to have heard him.

“Or was that someone
else?” Joe insisted.  “I need to be able to recognize
all
the dangerous
ones.”  Her name had been Nala, and she had utterly rocked his world.  He
thought about just how
well
she’d rocked it, with a little choice
exaggerations here and there.

Sounding totally
distracted, Twelve-A said,
It was the same ones.  They were gonna kill us,
but Mike stopped them.

Good to know,
Joe
thought.  Nonchalantly, he said, “Our visitors last night…  They do anything to
the girls?”

Twelve-A was frowning,
now. 
Two of them were going to, but Mike stopped them, too. 

“Really?” Joe asked,
thinking of Nala’s positional preferences, and how they usually ended up with
her on top, back arched like a sweaty goddess.  “Which two?”

The one with the
pictures on his skin and his brother with the bald head.  What is she doing to
you?

As sternly and offendedly
as he could manage, Joe growled, “Are you reading minds that don’t belong to
you, furg?”

Twelve-A swallowed, hard,
and immediately Joe felt the mental fingers retreat. 
Sorry.

Joe grunted and strapped
an ammo belt to his waist.  “Stay here, keep those bandages clean and dry, and
I’ll be back as soon as I can with some supplies.”  Back in the group of
People, Nine-G stood with him, making Joe hesitate.  As one of the top three
Takki in the food-pen, Nine-G’s act of standing automatically meant three dozen
People stood with him. 

“And keep the big guy
entertained,” Joe added.  “I don’t want him getting in the way.”

Okay,
Twelve-A
said, almost sounding meek about it. 
And Joe?

Joe raised an eyebrow at
the minder, thinking he was going to say something sentimental, like, ‘Watch
your back,’ or ‘Be careful.’

I don’t feel very
good, Joe.

Seeing the blood on his
friend’s lips, knowing how quickly an injury like that could kill, Joe fought
down a wave of fear and said, “Go practice your hugging or something.  I’ll be
back soon.”

Okay, Joe,
Twelve-A said, as if he had been a camp medic giving perfectly good orders. 
Then,
And Joe?

Be careful.

Joe snorted as he
collected up the last of his weaponry.  “I’m not the one that needs to be
careful.”

Twelve-A hesitated,
seeming unsure.

“Granted, you’re a
mind-reading pain in the ass and annoying as soot, but you got somethin’ you do
well, somethin’ you’re really good at,” Joe said, dragging his combat vest over
his shoulders and snapping holsters, magazines, and cartridges into place. 
“Same goes for me.”  He buttoned himself up, then paused, eying the minder over
the sleek black outline of a plasma rifle before he slung it over his shoulder
with the other two.  “’Cept, instead of digging around in people’s skulls, I’m
good at blowing them off.”  He slammed a Human combat knife into its sheath and
gave Twelve-A a fierce grin.  “Let’s just say they pissed on the wrong Congie.”

Please don’t kill
them, Joe,
Twelve-A said, worry giving his mental ‘voice’ a definite bite. 

Oh, he’s using
‘please,’ now,
Joe thought, impressed.  “I already told you I won’t kill
anybody unless it’s unavoidable.”  He slapped a pistol into a leg-holster.

Obviously, Twelve-A
sensed something was not quite right about Joe’s attitude.  The titanic mental
clamps came down, relentlessly pinning Joe in place. 
I’m concerned about
your definition of ‘unavoidable.’

Joe sighed, deeply, and
thought of something to shut the minder up.  “Okay.  I won’t kill them unless
I’m unarmed, bleeding, a gun pointed at my head, nowhere to run or hide, nobody
to help me, and a beautiful woman about to be ravished by men of dubious
intent.  Sound unavoidable enough?”

Twelve-A gave a mental
grunt and reluctantly released him. 

Joe grunted and strode
off to retrieve his errant lover and his favorite pair of boots.

#

I lost again,
Shael thought, stunned.  He
couldn’t understand why he had lost.  Despite Shael’s great victories over his
lifetime, all of his opponents seemed bigger than him, stronger, more
battle-hardened.  It shouldn’t have been
possible
…

And yet, that nagging dream of Doctorphilip once
more haunted him. 
“You think you’re Jreet?  You’re just a lab-rat.”

A lab-rat.  A science experiment.  Shael had heard
Joe refer to the People as ‘experiments’ several times, and Shael had
seen
how incompetent the childish furgs were…

No!
  Immediately, he pushed that thought
away.  Shael was
Jreet
.  He was Shael ga Welu, war-leader of his clan!

And yet, the inconsistencies nagged at him.  His
scales hadn’t grown back in.  His talons remained clipped.  His body, which
should have been stronger than even a Dhasha, reacted weakly and without
coordination.  And his
coils
…

Shael had, a few days back, found himself sitting
beside Twelve-A as the minder was distracted with his hat, and he had compared
their coils, ninth by ninth.  They had looked more or less
identical
. 
And yet, Twelve-A was Human, not Jreet.

No
, Shael thought,
desperate, now. 
No.  I am Shael ga Welu!
 

The Voran, oblivious to
his inner struggles, went to tend the minder’s wounds.  Little did the Voran
know that such internal wounds were deadly, especially to frail beings such as
Humans.  Twelve-A was going to die for his mistake.

Part of Shael, the
warrior part, told him good riddance, that the Sisters’ favor did not fall to
weaklings and furgs.  Another part of Shael, the part that had exchanged secret
thoughts with Twelve-A when they were both alone and in the dark, however,
mourned.

It’s my fault,
Shael realized. 
I should have stopped this.
  He had
known
something
bad would happen.  All of his instincts had pointed to it.  And yet, his pride,
his
arrogance
, had not allowed him to see the warriors for what they
were.  He had misjudged his own skills…again.

Shael wondered if perhaps
Doctorphilip’s specialized bed hadn’t been for some other purpose, instead. 
What if, in preparation for their war against Congress, the Humans had been
trying to create their own army of Jreet?  What if they had sapped his talent
and his strength with that machine, then passed those talents on to someone
else?  What if they had taken his
body
from him?  Was it
possible
to transplant a mind from one body to another?  What if, even then, Shael’s
true form, twenty rods strong and full of power, was being used by the tiny
mind of an Earthling?

Feeling sick to his core,
Shael’s head began to hammer with his heart.  It felt like something was
gripping his mind, crushing it, and he realized he had to stop these useless
thoughts before they consumed him.  The facts were clear:  His body was not how
he remembered it.  He was weaker, his skin softer, his coils shorter.  He
almost looked like…a Human…

No!
Shael thought
again, watching as Beda ga Vora wrapped Twelve-A’s head in blanket strips. 
There was another Jreet in the camp, a great warrior, and
Shael
looked
like
him
.  Therefore Shael was Jreet, and his mental agonizing was
merely the whining drivel of a coward.

So some things had
changed.  So Shael was not as strong as he remembered.  So he’d spent a few
turns growing fat on Earth.  He was still Jreet, and he could re-learn all that
he had lost.  He could re-train his body to fight.  He could condition himself,
as he had in the past.  All he had to do was find someone to train him…

Yet the thought of asking
the Voran for help left Shael with a foul taste in his mouth.  He’d rather suck
shit from the dick of a Dhasha than ask a Voran to train him.

Still, as the Voran
gathered up all his hidden weapons and said a few parting words to Twelve-A, it
was clear to Shael that, aside from himself, there
was
only one other
warrior in this group, and he happened to be of the house of Vora.

Perhaps if I offer to
share trade with my clan…
Shael thought, watching him head off up the
hill.  Immediately, he recoiled.  Shael ga Welu did
not
offer trade with
Vorans.  He could learn all he needed by watching.  Watching…and practice.

Then Shael blinked,
realizing why the Voran was stalking off into the forest alone, bristling with
weaponry.  Shael had simply assumed that their friends had been lost, their
blankets stolen, because his senses were not keen enough in this stagnant air
to follow their trail.  During their rush up the mountain to find the kreenit,
however, Shael had noticed that the Voran seemed to have other methods of
tracking his quarry.

He goes to fight,
he thought, stunned. 
And he didn’t ask me to come along!

#

Since he was already
packing six different guns, Joe went after his boots first.  To his surprise,
it wasn’t Mike who had them, but Blondie and his two sisters.  They were seated
on a pile of what looked like gold jewelry and silver coins ten lengths over
the hill, arguing over who got the cool survival gear hidden in the lining,
heels, and toes.  In three silent shots, Joe seared off the first one’s hand,
the second one’s foot, and the third one’s balls.

Still, it took them a
moment to start screaming.

What are you doing?!
Twelve-A cried.

Just how far
is
your mental radar, Pointy?
Joe asked, completely ignoring his question. 
Ten
lengths…  I’m impressed.

You said you wouldn’t
hurt them!
Twelve-A cried.

No,
Joe replied
smoothly,
I said I wouldn’t maim them without cause.
  He fired a fourth
shot, taking the short, stocky stick-wielder in the good knee.  Down in the
camp below, food-sluggish men and women were scrambling out of their dozes,
falling over themselves to get to cover, of which there was little to none. 
Joe scanned them with his scope, seeking the other deviants Twelve-A had named.

You tricked me
,
Twelve-A managed, his mental thunderclap full of shock and disapproval.

Yep,
Joe said.  He
found the tattooed ape and his brother squatting on the wrong side of a
boulder, their backs to him.  He was about to put a beam through both of their
hamstrings when one of them surged up and flew across the hillside like a
Frisbee to impale himself on the top of a pine tree, seemingly of his own
accord.  Joe hesitated at that.  He had counted the People before he
left—they’d only been missing one, plus the brat.

A knot of foreboding
building in his gut, Joe said,
Twelve-A?

Even as the minder
hesitated, guilt oozing across their connection, the second man behind the
boulder was ripped from behind his hiding spot and thrown across the clearing
to land in a tangle of tattooed arms and legs twenty rods away.

Better start talking,
sooter!
Joe snapped. 
What the hell is going on?
  Up until now, he
had assumed that each of the People could only have one ‘special’ gene express
itself at a time.  Yet, if Eleven-C was down there doing the damage…

Then he saw her.  Shael
was completely in the open, striding up the slope with all the authority of a
vengeful Sentinel, about to fully expose her naked body to every gun, knife,
and axe in the vicinity.

What the hell is
she
doing here?!
Joe cried, his heart giving a startled hammer of panic.

She followed you,
Twelve-A told him, brilliantly.

I can see that, furg,
Joe fumed. 
What’s she
doing
here?  I told you not to let them follow
me!

She’s in her
mindspace,
Twelve-A replied. 
I couldn’t stop her.

Deciding to one day soon
ask the minder what ‘mindspace’ was—and if it was the same thing as Shael’s
‘war-mind’—Joe jumped to his feet and took off down the slope at a run, hissing
as his bare soles seemed to catch every twig, stone, and bramble along the
way.  He was bleeding from a hundred different cuts and scrapes by the time he
caught up with Shael, running into her path just as she crested the rise and
came into view of everyone in the enemy camp.  Hearing his approach, she spun,
a crude wooden club raised, her green eyes afire.