Zero Recall (59 page)

“
Mission’s over,
”
Scarab repeated.

“
He’s your
friend,”
Flea snapped.

“
Grekkon don’t need
friends.
”

Flea opened his mouth,
unable to believe what he was hearing.  “
That Huouyt is probably killing him
right now, counter!  Go help him!
”

“
I’m Battlemaster. 
You’re a Squader.  I stay.  Wait for pickup.
”

“
You’re not gonna help
him?  Really?  This is a joke, right?
”

“
Mission’s over,
”
Scarab repeated.  “
Don’t need him anymore.
”

“
What the crack is the
matter with you?!
” Flea screamed.

“
Grekkon don’t need
friends.  Now enough.  Grekkon don’t like talking, either.
”

Flea flew faster.

By the time he reached
their intended pickup zone, Joe and Jer’ait were gone.  He could see Daviin’s
scarlet bulk stretched out in the forest beneath him, as still as a corpse. 
The way he was sprawled out, his back twisted sideways, he was not faking.

Flea gained altitude and
scanned the area.  “
Scarab, which way did they go?
”

Scarab said nothing.  At
first, Flea thought he was dead, then he saw his beady black eyes hunkered in
the darkness of the fighting hole.  Scarab was watching him.

Only a rod away, lying
empty on the dirt, was Joe’s headcom.

Seeing it, Flea spat at
Scarab.

It landed on the Grekkon’s
spearlike arm and solidified, leaving a mottled bump where it had hit.  Scarab
simply backed deeper into the darkness, saying nothing.

“
You bastard!
”
Flea snapped.  “
You’re the spy, aren’t you?!
”

“
No spy,
” Scarab
said.  “
Waiting for pickup.
”

“
So you’re a coward,
”
Flea raged.  “
Scarab, come help me.
”

“
Mission over.  Don’t
need friends.
”

“
Tell me where Jer’ait
took him or I’ll come in there and spit in your eyes, I swear it.
”

The Grekkon hesitated.  “
South.
”

Flea glanced to the
south.  “
Why?
”

Scarab ignored him.

Furious, flea spat a few
more times into the darkness, hoping he hit the Grekkon.  Then he took off
after his Prime.

He caught sight of
Jer’ait less than a tic later, dragging a black Human shape balled up in a
fetal position.

Joe locked down his
suit,
Flea thought, both relieved and worried.  If it was locked down,
there was a chance Joe was still alive.  It also meant he was in mortal danger.

Apparently, the Huouyt
heard the sounds of Flea’s wingbeats.  He dropped his stiff prize and swirled,
a tiny, oblong object in his tentacles.  Flea heard a tiny pop.  An instant
later, a thin black dart whipped past his head, just missing a wing.

Flea twisted in the air,
easily missing the next one.  He pulled out of range and landed on a treetop. 
He and the Huouyt studied each other.

“
Let him go, Jer’ait,
”
Flea said through his chip.

Jer’ait ignored him and
picked up Joe by the elbow again.  He began dragging the Human once more.

Flea watched, curious,
until he realized where the Huouyt was taking their Prime.  An open, gaping
hole stood out in the center of a small clearing, its yawning depths dark and
unobstructed.

He’s taking him to the
Dhasha den,
Flea thought, confused.  He jumped from his branch and caught
up.  The Huouyt swiveled again and shot another dart at him.

“You missed!” Flea
cried.  He was angry, now.  He aimed his spitter and spat.

A wad hit the Huouyt in
the chest and solidified there.  Flea let out a triumphant cry and spat again. 
A miss.

The Huouyt’s eyes never
left Flea as his wormy red
zora
emerged from the slit in his head and he
fed something to them.

Flea laughed and spat at
the
zora.
  Another miss.  He needed to get closer, but if he did, the
assassin would be able to hit him with the dart gun.  He spat twice more before
he realized the Huouyt was changing shape.

When he realized what
pattern Jer’ait had chosen, Flea stopped spitting.  He hovered there, stunned,
fear crawling under his carapace like a cold wind.  Meanwhile, the Huouyt was
growing the heavy, leathery black wings of a
miga.

He was taking the pattern
of the one thing in the world that could outfly a Baga.  A fearsome,
unchallenged predator of the skies, the likes of which no other planet had had
the bad luck to evolve.  When the evil black head began to form, it drew out a
coil of instinctual fear within Flea’s gut.

Flea was so stunned that
he didn’t turn to flee until the Huouyt gave his wings a test-flap.  His
smooth, aerodynamic black head stared up at Flea with cold, merciless red
eyes.  Then he launched himself into the air with an unmistakable snap of wings.

Flea ducked under the
canopy and flew for all he was worth.  Unobstructed, the
miga
could
catch up to him in a heartbeat.  Even then, Flea could hear the sharp cracks of
its wings as its backward strokes broke the sound barrier.

Don’t panic,
Flea
thought. 
It’s just a Huouyt.  Just a Huouyt.  He won’t know how to
maneuver…

But he
did
know
how to maneuver.  Flea could hear him getting closer, shooting over the
treetops as he closed the distance.

Crack, crack,
crack!
 
Gotta hide!
  Flea twisted, sank deeper into the canopy, and when he found a
tree big enough, he dropped suddenly and climbed up the yellow bark and over
the underside of a huge limb until he was hanging upside down, hoping the
miga
hadn’t seen where he stopped.

It’s not a
miga,
Flea reminded himself. 
Not a miga.  Just a Huouyt.

But the ancestral terror
was thick in him as he waited, listening to the thunderous cracks get louder as
the
miga
approached.

They feed on our
abbas,
Flea thought in a panic. 
Just one gives them all the energy they need for rotations. 
But they keep killing anyway.  They think it’s fun.  He’s gonna kill me and
feed on my abbas and…

Flea froze when he heard
the
miga
land on the branch he was clinging to.  The whole tree shuddered. 
He wanted to scream, wanted to move away, but knew the sound of his feet
changing position would result in the
miga’s
evil head ducking down and
its demonic red eyes locking gazes with him right before it tore him apart.

The
miga
shifted
on the branch.  Flea watched in terror as its long, glistening black tail swung
down and wrapped around the branch only ninths from where Flea was hiding.

Maybe I can reason
with him,
Flea thought. 
Jer’ait won’t kill me.

But, remembering the wet-eyed
stare of the
miga
as it was getting ready to launch itself after him,
Flea knew he would.  He remained silent, terrified and trembling.

The
miga
launched
itself into the air again, the thundering crack of its wings making Flea’s
carapace thump.  The Huouyt gained altitude, then thundered across the sky for
several tics, backtracking and zigzagging, before it finally gave up and
retreated.

Flea stayed where he was
for a full twenty tics before he dared to move.  He peeked from under the
branch, eying the sky.

No glistening black
shapes with luminous red eyes.

That didn’t mean it
wasn’t there.

Afraid to take to the air
due to the sound it would make, Flea climbed the tree to the top and glanced
around.

The
miga
was gone.

Tentatively, he hovered.

No thunderous wingbeats. 
Just the sound of his buzzing.

Flea glanced up. 
Sometimes,
miga
would dive-bomb their prey to avoid using their wings.

Clear sky.

Flea was stunned. 
He
really gave up.

Which meant he was back
with Joe, dragging him toward the Dhasha lair.

Furious, looking for a
way to distract him, Flea jeered, “
That all you got, you runny Takki crap! 
Come get me!
”

Still, he was a little
shocked when Jer’ait said, “
Flea?  Where are you?
”

“
Why don’t you come
find out, prick?
”

Jer’ait hesitated a
moment, then said, “
Flea, what’s happened?
”

“
I
got away,
that’s what.  Now I’m gonna go back and get Scarab and we’re gonna make you
disappear, just the two of us.
”

“
Flea, I’m back in the
clearing.  Nobody’s here except Scarab, and he’s not answering me.  Where’s
Daviin and Joe?  Where are
you?”

“
Oh, right.  Like I’m
gonna tell you where to find me,
” Flea snapped.

“
Flea,
listen
to me.  There’s a Huouyt somewhere nearby.  He came up to me in Galek’s
pattern.  Knocked me out cold.  Would’ve killed me, if I hadn’t managed to
contain as much of the poison as I had.
”

“
You’re in the pit?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
Stay there.
”

Flea gained some altitude
and went to check on Joe.  The
miga
was gone, the Huouyt back in its
natural form.  It had almost reached the Dhasha den with Joe.

Flea frowned and sped
toward the clearing.  He dropped into the trees to mask his approach, then,
twenty rods out, he crawled on the ground the rest of the way.

Jer’ait was standing in
the pit, watching the sky.

Flea jumped into the air
and buzzed toward him.  “
Jer’ait, somebody took Joe.  He’s wearing your
pattern…
”  He landed on the edge of the pit facing the Huouyt, out of
reach, still not quite sure it wasn’t a trick.

Jer’ait’s face
contorted.  “
What of the Ooreiki?
”

“
I haven’t seen him.
”

“
And Daviin?
”

Flea took to the air.  “
This
way.
”

Jer’ait followed him to
the place where Daviin sprawled in the underbrush, a mass of scarlet against
the deeper red of the alien foliage.

Jer’ait cursed as soon as
he saw him, then crouched beside the Jreet’s bulk.  As Flea watched, Jer’ait’s
hand shifted shape, becoming a hard, scythelike claw.  He pried up a
cream-colored underbelly scale.

“What are you doing?”
Flea asked, wary.

“I need to sample his
flesh,” Jer’ait said.  He proceeded to jam the claw into the skin and twist,
using a sawing motion to carve out a piece of flesh almost as big as Flea’s
head.  Blue Jreet fluids ran out from the wound, dripping from the scales and
spattering the ground below.

“He still bleeds,”
Jer’ait said, letting the belly scale flop back into place.  “A good sign.”

“So he’s not dead?” Flea
asked.

“You can never tell with
a Jreet.  They’re almost entirely immune to poison.  Only a very few work on
them, and I’m praying the fool who’s pretending to be me doesn’t know which
ones work the best.”  Jer’ait glanced up at Flea, his violet eye serious. 
“Listen to me, Flea.  I’ve got to taste his flesh to determine which poisons
were used, but the moment I place it upon my
zora,
I will have to
struggle to stay whole.  There are very few creatures in the universe a Huouyt
can’t use as a pattern, but a Jreet is one of them.  If I lose my
concentration, I could die.  Do you understand?”

“Sit down, shut up,” Flea
said.  He landed on a branch and capped his wings.

“Exactly.”  Jer’ait
returned his attention to the dripping piece of flesh he held in his hands.  He
visibly steeled himself, then pushed his
zora
out to touch it.

Flea held perfectly
still, watching in morbid fascination as the Huouyt’s body began folding in on
itself, like its skin was just a thin membrane containing several live
creatures trying to get out.

After several moments of
struggle, the Jer’ait relaxed.  He tossed the flesh aside and crouched beside
Daviin again.  He slid his tentacle under a scale near Daviin’s head.  Then,
after only an instant of contact, the Huouyt stood up and pried open one of the
Jreet’s enormous yellow eyes.

Flea watched, fascinated,
as the Jreet blinked.  Then blinked again.  Then his massive golden eye rolled,
found the Huouyt, and his entire body stiffened.  He lunged, and no sooner had
Jer’ait opened his mouth to explain was he pinned to the ground, the claws of
the Jreet’s right hand buried in his chest, the claws of the left buried in his
face.

“Wait!” Flea shrieked. 
“That’s the real one!”

“Where’s Joe?” Daviin
demanded.

“The
other
Huouyt
is dragging him to the Dhasha den.”

Daviin glanced up at
him.  “Other Huouyt?”

“That’s Jer’ait.  Use
your chip.  The other one can’t hear us.  That one can.”

“
Besides,
” Jer’ait
said, “
Even if I had been trying to get on your good side by administering
an antidote only tics before you went permanently comatose, I could easily
poison you with something more deadly as you hold me here.
”

“You didn’t kill him?”
Daviin demanded.

“Joe’s not dead,” Flea
said.  “The other Huouyt is dragging him.  He’s curled up, protecting his
face.”

“
Probably protecting
his nose and mouth,
” Jer’ait said.  “
He must’ve known he was being
poisoned.
”

The big Jreet released
Jer’ait reluctantly.  He glanced up at Flea.  “Where’s Joe?  Take me to him!”

“Let’s get Scarab first,”
Flea said.  “One of you needs to talk to him.  He wouldn’t listen to me.”

“He’s not going to listen
to any of us,” Jer’ait said as his face and torso mended.  “Grekkon don’t have
emotions.  He won’t care.”