by Sara King
“How…?” Syuri whispered, his sivvet still pounding from the emotional overload only moments before.
“I stop thinking,” Forgotten said. “Find other things to think about. Less…shameful…things.” The tidal wave of guilt hit again, staggering Syuri once more.
“Bugger you with a karwiq bulb, stop!” Syuri gasped. Then, once Forgotten had eased his assault once more, Syuri managed, “Glorious ruvmestin balls, is that what you meant by ‘trying to hide it from me,’ Geuji?” He felt a whole new wave of awe for the meddling fungus and hid it by rubbing at his skull with his hands.
“Yes,” Forgotten said. “I’m sorry.”
Syuri believed him. He swallowed and rubbed his head with a groan. “Just what,” he managed, “was that all about?” Now that the pain in his head was lessening, he was once more being faced with the fact that he had just spent four days being interrogated by Peacemakers. On Levren. After Forgotten had sent him there. On purpose.
“I needed to know if I could trust you,” Forgotten told him. As always, his words carried that pang of truth.
Syuri’s chambers gave a startled squeeze. “You set me up?”
“Only once. You passed every test and more, Syuri.”
“That…that was a test?” Syuri shrieked. He remembered his emotional anguish, his four days of sheer terror. “You had them interrogate me as a test?!”
Another rush of guilt. “It was the only test,” Forgotten said. “You have my word, if you agree to work for me, I’ll never test you again.”
Syuri was trembling, on the verge of voiding himself out of fear and rage. “And if I don’t agree to work for you?” he managed in a tight whisper.
“You’re free to go.” A pang of regret. Of sadness.
“You’re lying.”
“I don’t lie.”
Syuri opened his mouth to tell Forgotten he’d lost the only friend he might have had in this pathetic universe, but was forestalled by a wave of unhappiness that almost knocked him over.
He knows what I’m about to say.
Syuri bit his lip, the same loneliness and misery that he had felt in the basement of the Space Academy hitting him from all sides in a gut-wrenching wave. Forgotten clung to the walls in silence, waiting for his answer.
“You want me to say yes,” Syuri said simply.
Forgotten hesitated, and Syuri felt the tangy bite of shock against his sivvet. “Yes.”
Warily, Syuri offered, “So it was a test of my loyalties. I wasn’t in any real danger.”
“Had you betrayed me, they would have executed you,” Forgotten said simply.
Syuri narrowed his eyes. “And you did it because you had to know if you could trust me if I get caught.”
“No,” Forgotten said. “I just had to know if I could trust you. You won’t get caught.” At Syuri’s skeptical look, Forgotten added, “A good agent is worth more to me alive than dead, Syuri. As such, all seven Va’gan sects could put a billion credits on your head and you would be utterly safe in my service.”
Syuri laughed at the idea of the Va’gan assassins coming after him. “So sure of that, are you?”
“Yes.”
Syuri sobered when he realized Forgotten was utterly serious. He voided himself just a little. Cocking his head, he said carefully, “And are they going to come after me, Forgotten?”
Forgotten could have lied, but he said, “Yes.”
Assassins. He hated assassins.
“I know you hate assassins…” Forgotten began.
“Just shut up and let me think,” Syuri snapped. His mind was dull from the lack of nutrient boosts the last four days and it was difficult to concentrate. The assault on his sivvet hadn’t helped. Struggling for some way to politely tell the Geuji to take his offer and shove it up his wastes bin, he managed, “So that Huouyt who interrogated me…he’s your agent?”
“No,” Forgotten replied. “A contact.”
“And the difference is…?” Syuri growled.
“I have no agent,” Forgotten said softly. “I have millions of contacts.”
Syuri narrowed his eyes. “And an agent is…?”
Forgotten waited long moments before saying, “Someone I can trust.” He hesitated again. “Talk to.”
Hagra steal my deodorant, he wants a friend. Syuri peered at the irritating fungus. “You are kidding me, right?”
Forgotten was silent so long that Syuri wondered which unfortunate planetary com system the Geuji was in the process of shutting down. Then, almost timidly, Forgotten said, “A contact is someone I use to monitor my people or perform one of any other millions of tasks I need accomplished on any given day. The Jahul working with your interrogator was another contact, though they did not know it of each other. An agent is…more important. Like I said, I don’t have an agent. None of them passed the sivvet test before you.” Another wash of loneliness, of…fear? “And you, of course, hate me for it.” And resignation. Bitterness. Quiet, unhappy bitterness.
Sensing the same misery he had felt soiling his sivvet in the basement of the Space Academy, Syuri felt some of the pressure on his internal chambers ease. “I don’t hate you for it,” Syuri muttered. “Miserable fungus. I’ll be your damned friend.”
He had said the words before he realized they’d left his lips, and shock hit him so hard it strained something inside, like a blood vessel about to explode.
“Shield it!” Syuri screamed, falling to his knees. “Gods, you slippery corpse-rot, shield it!”
It took longer for Forgotten to contain himself this time, and when he did, Syuri was panting on the floor, seeing stars. Syuri could feel Forgotten watching him in shock as he lay there, trying to stabilize, despite the fact the Geuji had no eyes to stare.
Long tics passed in silence, where the only sound was the beep of electronics. Then, as timidly as a nervous child, Forgotten said, “Truly?”
Syuri groaned and rolled onto his side. “You’re going to learn to stop doing that, or our friendship is going to be very short-lived. I think you just about killed me.”
A wave of horror, this time, but more subdued. “I’m sorry.”
Syuri grunted. Agent to a Geuji. That was certainly not on his To Do list when he wrote up his starry-eyed entrance essay to get into the Space Academy. Then again, neither was impregnating a commanding officer’s daughter on Grakkas, getting thrown in the brig, being stripped of rank, sentenced to manual labor, or stealing a ship and flying against three dozen Ueshi in a brilliant aerial battle to make the only escape from a ruvmestin planet in the last three hundred turns. He supposed working for the Geuji was better than spending the rest of his life trying not to get cheated by Jikaln or swindled by Huouyt.
Into the silence, Forgotten quietly offered, “Syuri, you’re the first Jahul that’s passed the sivvet test. You’re the first of twelve that’s come back to me.”
“Because they turned on you,” Syuri added.
“Yes.”
“And the whole thing was a test,” Syuri repeated, still a bit irritated at that.
“Not all of it.” Forgotten paused. The room flooded with a feeling of anxiety, though at a much lower ebb. “Tell me. What did you feel when you opened the vaults?”
Syuri flinched, remembering the thick hopelessness.
“What’d you feel?” Forgotten prodded.
“Misery,” Syuri said.
A wave of anguish hit him like another sledge before it was quickly shut away. Forgotten said nothing for several moments before softly whispering, “I feared as much.”
“So when are you gonna spring them?” Syuri demanded, sitting up to face the glistening black room that was his employer.
“What?”
“Spring them,” Syuri said, gesturing vaguely. “I’ll help. Just tell me what to do.” So what if the Geuji had locked him in a room with alien interrogators and made him think he was crippled, slated for execution in the bowels of the Space Academy? What the Peacemakers were doing was wrong.
Syuri frowned. “You could do it. I mean, you blew up a planet, Forgotten.”
“Call me Jemria.”
“I like Forgotten better,” Syuri said. “Why haven’t you helped them yet?”
“It’s what I’m doing now.”
“That’s why you blew up Aez?”
“Yes.”
“How does blowing up Aez help you get your people out?”
“I couldn’t possibly explain it to you.”
Syuri wondered if Forgotten was acting superior, then realized he was simply stating the truth. “All right. So what do you want me to do?”
Again, the fungus paused. “You’ll continue to work for me?” Another tingle of hope danced like warm sunlight across his sivvet. “After everything I’ve put you through?”
“I’d be stupid not to.”
“Yes. But not unjustified.”
Syuri scoffed. “I’m a pirate. I deserve a few blows to my pride.”
“You’re a smuggler,” Forgotten corrected. “You don’t have the heart to kill people. Even escaping Grakkas—which was well-done, by the way—you didn’t harm a single soul, which is why I wanted you.”
“An agent who won’t kill people?” Syuri demanded. “It’s looking like you’re getting the short end of the stick here, Forgotten.”
“An assassin is easy to buy. A friend is not.” Honesty rolled off of the Geuji, heating Syuri’s sivvet. Honesty...and hope.
Syuri’s mouth fell open. He tried to speak, but found he couldn’t. He’s telling the truth, Syuri realized. All this time. He just wanted a friend.
Chapter 26: Piecing it Together
“So,” Jer’ait said as the two of them watched the surgeons put Flea back together, “Tell me what’s wrong with your hand.”
Joe fisted it, his jaw gritting visibly. “Nothing.”
“Daviin tells me you had a problem climbing into the slave tunnels.”
The Human ignored him.
“If it’s a phobia, I can help,” Jer’ait insisted.
No response.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
The Human glanced at him, his expression caught between wariness and desperation. “How can you help?”
“Chemicals,” Jer’ait said. “Regular doses, at least while we’re in the tunnels. Maybe once every four hours.”
Joe snorted. “Sorry if I’m not jumping at the idea of having you drug me again.”
“I’m an expert, Joe.”
The Human met his eyes and Jer’ait saw real anguish there. Longing. Trust. “You really think you can help me?”
“Yes,” Jer’ait said. “I’m sure of it.”
The Human swallowed, hard, his small brown eyes scanning Jer’ait’s face. Then he gave a nervous laugh and looked away. He glanced down at his left hand, which was trembling against his hip, then tightened it into a fist. “All right,” he whispered.
Jer’ait had expected the Human to concede, but still he was shocked. He knew his Prime understood what Jer’ait was capable of. Joe had seen it in the tunnels. He’d fought on Eeloir. He knew exactly what it meant to allow a Huouyt to manipulate his body chemistry. He was putting his life in Jer’ait’s hands, entirely, and he knew it.
Not for the first time, Jer’ait felt a tug of respect for the Human’s courage.
And it was courage, he knew. Even knowing everything about him—Jer’ait’s training on Morinth, his people’s capacity for murder, the Huouyt reputation for switching sides—Joe was willing to let Jer’ait touch him. Drug him.
Another being’s trust—something so easily gained in Jer’ait’s line of work—had never before moved him in any way, and yet here, watching the misery play across his Prime’s features, Jer’ait found himself at a total loss for words. In the silence that followed, the Human’s gaze flickered up to his, sweat glistening on his face. “Stunned?” he said, with an anguished chuckle.
Because he could do nothing else, Jer’ait solemnly touched his paddle to his zora slit above his eyes in a Va’gan salute. “Your trust is not misplaced.”
The Human made a miserable sound and just shook his head.
Jer’ait opened his mouth to try and ease his mind, but the door burst open behind them and they both turned.
“That’s him,” a Jahul in Peacemaker battle garb said, pointing a slender forearm into the room at the table where Flea was being re-inflated by a horde of doctors. A dozen armed Ooreiki grounders trudged in after him, their heavy, boneless bodies sporting full biosuits and tunnel gear.
Both Joe and Jer’ait stiffened.
An Ooreiki Overseer—the only newcomer not wearing a biosuit or carrying a gun—stepped into the room on their heels, scanning both Joe and Jer’ait before his eyes came to rest on Jer’ait. “Are you that Baga’s groundleader?”
“Yes,” Jer’ait said.
Joe sighed and stepped forward. “I’m his groundleader. What’s this about?”
The Jahul Peacemaker stepped forward, interrupting whatever the uniformed Ooreiki was going to say. “Are you aware he has been spying on the Overseer battleroom for the last rotation?”
To his credit, Joe never batted an eye. “Yeah.”
This was obviously not the response the Jahul had expected. The Peacemaker blustered. “You knew and didn’t inform us?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t inform you,” Joe said. “I ordered it.”
You did not, you furg, Jer’ait thought, stiffening. Why are you taking the fall for that little pest?
The Jahul was all but shaking in fury. “Are you aware that the sentence for treason is death?”
“Didn’t see it as treason,” Joe said. “Thought we had a right to know.”
The Jahul sputtered. “Commander Zero, if you think your impressive history will change our—”
“It won’t,” Joe said. “But I also know you’re not going to break up a groundteam that’s single-handedly taken down three princes.”
The Jahul Peacemaker straightened on its four back legs, the dig-long spines on its back bristling into the air. Its two grasping arms were folded back in rage. “You’re sure of that, are you?”
“Yes.”
The Jahul’s tiny black eyes flickered from the Human, then to Jer’ait, then back at the Baga, who was still sprawled in an unconscious pancake. Jer’ait watched the Jahul take the challenge, his tiny mind churning in rage as he mentally prepared his command to disband their team and take Joe to the brig.
“You may leave, now,” Jer’ait said, his eyes catching pointedly on his comrade’s chest. “Ninth Hjai.”
The Jahul hesitated, his inky black eyes settling on Jer’ait in confusion. “Who in Hagra’s name are you? Where’s your rank, soldier?”
Jer’ait gave him a flat stare. “I must have left it back on Levren.”
That made the Jahul twitch, but he obviously didn’t catch the reference. Which meant he hadn’t read the whole team’s file. Which meant he was a furg.
The Jahul narrowed his huge black eyes, then turned to face Joe again, once more ignoring Jer’ait. He opened his mouth to give the order—
“Don’t let it happen again,” the uniformed Ooreiki Overseer interrupted.
The Jahul snapped his greenish head around, glaring at his companion. “Overseer, that almost sounded as if you were going to give him a warning. This is a Peacemaker matter. Commander Zero has committed—”
“Just shut up and go,” the Ooreiki said. “My peers sent me here to talk with him, nothing more.”
“I second that,” Jer’ait said. “Shut up and go. And next time, read the whole file before you start trying to throw around rank, Ninth Hjai.”
The Jahul flinched and his small black eyes scanned Jer’ait’s forehead, the nervous trait Jahul had when they were reading a victim’s emotions. The slick sheen of excrement flowed over the Jahul’s mottled green-gray skin. Then the sextuped turned and stormed off,
leaving the Ooreiki Overseer behind.
In the silence that followed, the Ooreiki cleared his throat. “I appreciate your loyalty to your groundmates, Commander Zero. But the other Overseers don’t. I told them I could put an end to the spying. If it happens again, I won’t be able to stop them.” He hesitated, glancing once more at Flea. “You’re lucky I could sway them. By all rights, the Baga belongs in the brig right now.”
“He belongs on a goddamn Ueshi pleasure planet, enjoying the three mil from his kasja.” Joe stepped forward, until he was face-to-face with the thick, sticky-eyed Ooreiki. “But you’re planning on sending us back until we die. Then you’ll never have to pay up, will you?”
The Ooreiki’s expression hardened. “The Baga told you this?”
“No,” Joe said. “You just did.”
The room seemed to be suspended in silence as the Overseer returned the Human’s stare. Finally, without a word, he turned and departed, taking the nervous Ooreiki grounders with him. The medics finished their re-inflation of the Baga’s carapace, then they, too, left them.
The Human let out a huge sigh and turned back to the Baga’s unconscious form. Shaking his head, he raised his slender, bony fingers to touch his brow.
The Dhasha prince’s final words returned to Jer’ait as he watched the struggle upon the Human’s face.
“You’ve survived three deep dens. He obviously wants you alive.”
Forgotten was playing them all like fools, but he wanted them alive. Why?
It made no sense.
“Joe,” Jer’ait asked tentatively, “Do you know anyone by the name of Jemria?”
Joe dropped his hand from his face and turned to frown at him. “Haven’t heard of her. Why?”
“Just curious. He sometimes calls himself Forgotten.”
“What kind of furg calls himself Forgotten?”
Obviously, the Human did not have the creative capacity to have attracted the Geuji’s interest. Jer’ait’s frustration increased. He wanted to blurt out everything he knew, but he doubted the Human would understand. Nor would he be very happy to find out Jer’ait’s mission there was to kill him.
“What’s wrong, Jer’ait?”
