Zero Recall (63 page)

The Geuji had only been
given six hundred turns before they were locked away on Levren.  Six hundred turns
and they had created what Congress considered the pinnacles of its two and a
half million turn existence.

Knowing that, Jer’ait found
his breja writhing at the very fact that he was sitting deep within one of
their creations, run by a creature of their own design.  The only artificial
life form that was, unquestionably, sentient.

Where do his loyalties
lie?
Jer’ait wondered of the Watcher.  Such things bothered him, now that
he had the Peacemaster’s seat.  The fact that every power-player in Congress
placed his life in the Watcher’s hands every second of every day did not escape
his notice.

And yet,
none
of
the Geuji’s creations had initially been for the purpose of war.  They had,
until Forgotten, never been accused of murder or war.  Biosuits had been
created to protect its users on space walks and high-danger jobs.  Nanos had
been created for medicine and safer, more versatile, life-saving ships, using
the Geuji’s own bodies as inspiration.  And ekhtas had been created for mining
difficult-to-penetrate, mineral-rich asteroids and planetoids.

“Sir?”
Orbil asked
again, hesitantly.

“Tell them I will meet
their summons,” Jer’ait said, “but I will have no answers for them.”

Because the Watcher had
no direct access to the Peacemaker Sanctuary on Koliinaat, Jer’ait had to leave
his office, walk through the interrogation suite, past the cell block, down the
long maze of corridors to the outer foyer, then summon the Watcher to take him
to the Tribunal.

The moment the Watcher
arrived in the room with him, it was as if the mental density of the air itself
seemed to thicken.  Instead of immediately teleporting him, however, the
Watcher asked,
“Are you sure about this, Jer’ait?”

Jer’ait froze, thinking
he had misheard.  Was he…sure?  Jer’ait, who in a hundred turns of working
between Koliinaat and Levren had never had to give the Watcher a command more
than once, felt his breja twist upon his skin in sudden, acute unease.  Knowing
what he knew about the Geuji, and his research of the Geuji’s betrayal by the
Trith and Congress, he could not be sure if he were speaking to a friend or
foe.  Carefully, though the Watcher maintained no image or face, he stared
straight at the far wall and said, “Why would I not be sure?”

“The journey will be
long, and you might not like what you find,”
the Watcher replied. 
“Sending
an Eleventh Hjai would give you more rest at night.”

Every breja across his
entire body flexed into rigidity at those words.  Knowing that the Watcher held
Jer’ait’s life in his hands—the same hands that held every Representative of
Congress—Jer’ait asked, “Are you working with Forgotten?”

The Watcher scoffed. 
“My
primary duty is to protect the Regency.”

“Are you?” Jer’ait asked.

“Could you stop me, if
I was?”

The cold threat in the
room left Jer’ait silent for several moments.  Then, “Are you?” 

The room around him
seemed to chuckle. 
“Jemria has not contacted me, but his workings are easy
enough to see.  Shall I transport you, Jer’ait, or will you find someone else? 
Keep in mind, the Geuji’s plans hinge on your involvement.”

Jer’ait felt his
attention sharpen.  “Then they are not yet complete.”

“Oh, not by far,”
the Watcher said, sounding amused.

“And what is his goal?”
Jer’ait demanded.

The Watcher laughed. 
“For
now?  Entertainment.  Later?  Freedom, I’m sure.”

Jer’ait eyes narrowed at
‘entertainment,’ realizing that the Watcher was, in essence, an artificial
Geuji.  “You’re sure or you know?”

“I know that Jemria
just set off a series of events that will not see their completion until over
five hundred turns from now,”
the Watcher said. 
“And he wants you to be
part of it.”

“That much,” Jer’ait said
bitterly, “is obvious.”

“Isn’t it, though. 
Shall I transport you, Jer’ait?  Being forewarned, of course, that all you must
do to bring his entire plan to a crashing halt is to tell one of your
underlings to take this call for you?”

Jer’ait stiffened. 
“Don’t toy with me.”

“I merely state a fact. 
Jemria expects you to help him.  He did not expect me to tell you as much. 
This gives you an unforeseen advantage.  I thought it only fair.”

Jer’ait cocked his head. 
“You can out-think him.”

His reply was an amused,
“Of
course.”

“How do I end his destruction?”
Jer’ait said.  “Geuji were never meant to do violence.  He’s gone rogue.  Tell
me how to stop him.”

“I already did,”
the Watcher replied.  Then,
“What makes you think Jemria’s gone rogue?”

Jer’ait frowned.  “Then
he didn’t try to kill Mekkval.”

He could feel the
Watcher’s amusement all around him, like a yeeri scholar watching the antics of
a particularly bright toddler.  “Mekkval,” the Watcher said, “recently hired
six new staff members.  One of them eats a melaa a day.  He’s sent the six of
them on a diplomatic mission to Mijor last week.  Before that, it was
Kiji’banu.”

Jer’ait blinked.  Mijor
and Kiji’banu were two Outer Line planets that had each become home to a Dhasha
prince whose loyalties to Congress were on the dangerous side of questionable. 
Each had been stockpiling weapons and slaves and rebuffing Congressional probes
for several turns.  Yet resistance, as of last he’d heard, had inexplicably
ended on Mijor last week.  A couple weeks before that, Kiji’banu had gone
silent.

“And now,”
the
Watcher said,
“I really do need an answer, Peacemaster.  Aliphei grows
impatient.”

Jer’ait glanced at the
entrance back into the Sanctuary and considered.  “And all I have to do to
crush his plans is walk away and let someone else handle this?”

“That would be
correct.”

Jer’ait considered,
thinking of a bomb made for the ease of mining, twisted into something else
entirely once the Geuji were safely entombed in darkness.  “Take me to the
Regency,” he said.  “I look forward to meeting him.”

The Watcher chuckled. 
“You
are perceptive, for your capabilities.”
 

The room vanished around
him and Jer’ait endured the instant of cold, prickly numbed-limb sensation
before he found himself standing in the private Tribunal chambers.  Mekkval,
Prazeil, and Aliphei were all in attendance.

“Have you grown so
accustomed to your station already that you ignore a direct summons from the
Tribunal, Huouyt?” Prazeil demanded, the moment he arrived.  The enormous Aezi
lifted his head high in rage, his creamy, thirteen-rod body coiled beneath him.

“I am Peacemaster,”
Jer’ait replied.  “I have things to attend to.”  He cocked his head at the
Jreet.  “I will also remind you, Jreet, that I do not answer to the Tribunal. 
For, if one of you were to ever be charged, it would be
I
who would
stand in your place to try you.”

The engine-like battlecry
began to form in the Jreet’s chest, but Aliphei interrupted dismissively with,
“Mekkval was attacked on his home of Jakun 5.  Six Congies.  Before they died,
he extracted confessions from them indicating Rri’jan Ze’laa vehn Morinth was
behind the war on Neskfaat.

Jer’ait turned to give
Mekkval a long look.  “Did he.”

Mekkval, to his credit,
returned his stare completely unwavering.

“We attempted to detain
Rri’jan for questioning,” Aliphei said, “but your brother killed our agents and
fled.  Further confirming, of course, his guilt.”

Jer’ait paused to regard
the First Citizen.  “Ah.”

“Ah?!” Prazeil roared,
lunging to loom over Jer’ait.  “We tell you of a conspiracy of your traitorous
blood and your response is ‘ah?!’”

Jer’ait calmly cocked his
head up at the massive Jreet.  “I assume the purpose of this meeting is to
convince me to go bring him back so that you may try him and quite probably do
something unpleasant to the Huouyt for their continuous schemes to rule
Congress.  Further, it does not escape my notice that my brother is a Va’gan
assassin and you are a very large, bulky, ungainly worm.  So, unless you would
like to go hunt him down yourself, Jreet, you will have to be satisfied with ‘ah.’”

Prazeil’s audial-ridges
tightened against his head.  “What did you just say to me?”

Unconcernedly, Jer’ait
turned back to Aliphei and Mekkval.  “I
do
assume that is what you want,
yes?”

Aliphei was giving him a
hard look, his tiny red eyes fierce within his shaggy coat of blue.  “Are you
refusing to do justice, Peacemaster?”

“Oh, not at all,” Jer’ait
scoffed.  “Nothing would please me more than to see my brother have his breja plucked
for Neskfaat.”  He said the last looking Mekkval directly in the big green
eyes.  “I never liked him, anyway.  Unconscionable bastard that he was.”

He thought he saw the
ghost of a smile on Mekkval’s rainbow lips before it disappeared again,
replaced by cool indifference.

Jer’ait turned back to
Aliphei, considering. 
If I don’t go after Rri’jan, he will get away, the
Regency seat will be given to another Huouyt and life will go on.
  And
Jer’ait was the only Peacemaker with the training and skill to find his brother
and bring him back alive.  The Watcher was right.  All he had to do to utterly
ruin the Geuji’s plans was tell the Tribunal he had more important things to do
with his life than chase after his criminally ambitious brother.

Yet he
burned
to
see Rri’jan see justice.  Ever since seeing his brother crowned, when Jer’ait,
the elder, was condemned to death and sterilized, Jer’ait had lived on that
fire.  He had made it through Va’ga powered by that alone.  It had kept him
alive, kept him killing evildoers for the meager Congressional salary of four
and a half thousand credits a rotation, kept him working with the Peacemakers
when Representatives and corporations would have paid millions for his
contracts.  And yet, the Geuji knew that.  If Jer’ait brought Rri’jan back, he
would be playing into Forgotten’s hands, who from the start assumed Jer’ait
would
enjoy
bringing Rri’jan back, considering their history.  And there
were few things Jer’ait hated more than being a pawn. 

At that, Jer’ait had a
brief flash of his aging mentor, Ti’peth, who had sided—and died—with Na’leen,
fifty-four turns ago.  It had been one of the ancient assassin’s mottos. 
A
pawn can wish itself to be a hand for all eternity, but in the end, it will
still do as the hand guides it, for it is still a pawn.
  Va’gans, however
they wished otherwise, were pawns.  Paid to work for the highest bidder, to
accomplish another’s will.

This was Jer’ait’s chance
to be the hand.

Yet, even as he had that
thought, he had to wonder:  Was the hand wrong?

Jer’ait thought of
upsetting the board, of scattering the Geuji’s pieces to the wind.  Then he
thought of Aez, a planet of radical, blood-thirsty zealots clamoring for war,
simply disappearing from the political scene weeks before their insanity could
boil over into the rest of the Old Territory.  He thought of a hundred and
thirty-four princes, all with history of rebellion, all but one with a penchant
for violence and trading in sentient flesh, all lured to the same planet to
die.  He thought of a team of six whose lives were even then being used to kill
what would otherwise have taken millions, in between living in the luxury of a
Tribunal member’s grace.  He thought of a single sentient mold floating
somewhere in the cold, lonely depths of space.  He thought of the architects of
Koliinaat, locked away in darkness and silence, betrayed and forgotten.  Kept
on Levren, rather than Koliinaat, because the Watcher could not be trusted.

 “I’ll do it,” Jer’ait
said.  “But be warned—you might not like where this goes.”

Aliphei made a dismissive
motion with his big paw.  “Just bring Rri’jan back here.  We’ll deal with his
delinquencies as befits his station and crimes.

You grow complacent in
your old age,
Jer’ait thought.  But he bowed low anyway.  He thought he saw
Mekkval’s lip twitch again before he straightened.  “Then I shall leave on the
next flight out, your Excellencies.  If you have further requests, please
approach Koriel or Drannik.”

“An Ooreiki and a Jahul,”
Mekkval said, seemingly bemused.  “You do realize that the Peacemakers haven’t
seen anything but a Huouyt beyond Ninth Hjai in over a million turns?”  The
huge Dhasha cocked his massive head.  “And even then, it was an accident. 
Quickly remedied.”

Straightening, Jer’ait
gave the Dhasha a long look.  “Koriel and Drannik are two of the most brilliant
minds under my command.” 

“So I’ve heard,” Mekkval
replied.  “I also heard you threatened to kill the heads of all thirty-two
Huouyt royal families, if they died, accidental or otherwise, within the next
hundred turns.”

“And interestingly
enough,” Jer’ait said, “they now each have an honor guard of six of the
highest-paid Va’gans in Congress.”

Mekkval clacked his jaws
together in a Dhasha laugh.  “You shake up a system that has worked for
millions of turns, Jer’ait.”  There was no accusation in the Representative’s
words.  Just…interest.  And bemusement.

“Koriel and Drannik have
each spent over two hundred turns as Ninth Hjai,” Jer’ait replied.  “It was
time.”

“Indeed,” Mekkval said,
thoughtfully, at the same time Prazeil snapped, “Go get the Huouyt, imbecile. 
No one cares about Peacemaker politics.”

Jer’ait cocked his head
up at the huge white Jreet, wondering why he was still alive.  “Of course.”  He
bowed again.  “Your Excellencies.”  He turned to go find his brother, actually
finding himself looking forward to the challenge.