by Sara King
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.
Besides. He wanted to have a chat with his brother. He had questions for him.
#
Rri’jan hesitated in the corridor of the shabby Jahul apartment complex, listening. For a moment, he thought he had heard footsteps, following him, but as he waited to hear it again, caught nothing but the sound of rain dribbling down the eaves to spatter against the filthy cobbles. Sighing, he looked back at the dilapidated, grimy structure that had been his sanctuary the last three days as he gathered information on the Geuji. It was a low-tech establishment, out near the Outer Line. He wore a Jahul pattern that was even then dripping a combination of excrement and water into the disgusting puddles of murky refuse at his feet. Monsoons were a problem on this planet, something that the Ueshi who owned it were petitioning to fix, though the survival of the primitive native flora and fauna had been stopping up the process with studies and permits for almost a hundred turns. Rri’jan’s current pattern had been one of the scientists charged with collecting genetic material for analysis by Ueshi scientists on Koliinaat.
A Jahul, Rri’jan thought, looking down at himself disgustedly. If there was one pattern a Va’gan hated to take, it was a Jahul. They were the most physically revolting pattern of the Grand Six, if not all of Congress, and spent most of their time walking around in their own shit. That was, however, what had worked in his favor in his escape from Koliinaat. No Peacemaker blockader or Regency agent thought a Huouyt Representative would demean himself enough to take the pattern of a Jahul.
Forgotten will pay for this, Rri’jan thought. Ever since the Geuji’s plans had failed—failed—and Mekkval had somehow linked it back to him, Rri’jan had been plotting Forgotten’s demise.
And now, with his latest information on the Geuji’s whereabouts, taken from an Ueshi mechanic on his death
bed, he was only days from his target.
Slow, he thought again, as he leaned back to pull his front two legs off the ground to reach the opening to his apartment. It will be slow and painful.
As it was, Forgotten was scheduled to be docked in Hub 13 of the Oriath spaceport in one week. Rri’jan had tracked him to this lonely corner of space, and intended to rid the universe of the pest once and for all before he disappeared for good. Probably on an Ueshi pleasure-planet. Kaleu had appealed to him, though it was a bit high-profile for his liking. Tholiba was the smarter choice. Large enough to get lost in the traffic, yet small enough that it wouldn’t be on the Peacemakers’ lists to search.
It was as Rri’jan fiddled with the corroded metal lock to his filthy hideaway that a camouflaged Jikaln paw slapped him across his neck and he felt a sting. Rri’jan immediately moved to contain and neutralize the poison—but not before he was hit in four more places, too many to counter. Rri’jan felt himself losing control, the chemicals dispersing into his system. In a wash of horror, he went limp.
“Jahul befits you, brother,” a Jikaln voice rattled above him. “The shit compliments your lovely eyes.” At that, Rri’jan was being dragged into the apartment he had just unlocked, then shut the door to the waterlogged alley behind them. The Jikaln propped him up against the wall and regarded him, his body blending so perfectly with the wall and shabby shelves behind him that the four-legged alien was almost impossible to see. “Where is he?”
For a startled moment, Rri’jan thought that his attacker had mistaken him for an underling. “Rri’jan went to Kaleu,” he said. “He sent me here as a decoy.”
The Jikaln chuckled, making his shape blur before re-solidifying to that of the wall once more. “Forgotten, brother. I want to know where he is before I take you back to face the Tribunal.”
“I’m not your brother,” Rri’jan snapped, furious that he had somehow allowed his caution to lapse enough for a Congressional lackey to find him. “Watch your pretensions, Peacemaker. When it comes to blood-merit, we are not even of the same solar-system.”
“And that,” the Jikaln-patterned Huouyt said, “is where you are wrong, brother.”
Rri’jan froze, a wash of fury almost twisting him out of pattern with its intensity. “You lie.” The thought that the mutated scum had the audacity to touch him, the royal heir to the Ze’laa… Jer’ait’s days were numbered. Either that, or it was another assassin’s tactic to unnerve him, make him say something stupid.
“Do I?” the Huouyt asked. He moved again, his predatory outline once again blurring against the wall before he faded back into his surroundings, only his yellow eyes showing. “Since you killed all but one brother in your scramble for the Ze’laa throne,” his captor acceded, “I suppose you’re right…the chances are small I would be the one who managed to escape your ambition for all these turns.”
It was the first time Rri’jan had looked his brother in the eyes since his crowning, and it left his zora cold. Jer’ait was not what he had imagined. Four hundred turns had given the reject…presence.
Then, realizing it was just his nerves and overactive imagination, Rri’jan forced himself to laugh. “You won’t kill me. You bow and scrape to the Peacemaster like the lapdog you are.”
The Huouyt continued to watch him flatly. “Why are you seeking Forgotten?”
Rri’jan found his brother’s ignorance to be amusing. “He planned it all, you know. Neskfaat. Aez. Mekkval. Everything.”
Jer’ait cocked his head and his attention sharpened. “Oh?” he asked, his curiosity as painfully clear as a child’s.
The outclassed moron. “Used you like a pawn,” Rri’jan sneered. “The whole time, you danced like a puppet to his whim. All that, everything that happened on Neskfaat, was to pick the team that would kill Mekkval.”
“Which failed.” The furg actually had the lack of discipline to sound confused.
“As the Trith so clearly demonstrated one and a half million turns ago,” Rri’jan laughed, “not even a Geuji can predict the future.”
“And why should we believe it was the Geuji when you were the one implicated?” Jer’ait asked. He picked at a cloth-covered lump of fermented grain, trying amateurishly to look disinterested in the conversation, which he was in all likelihood recording.
“What better scapegoat for the Geuji’s foiled plans than the Huouyt?” Rri’jan demanded. “His plan—whatever it was—failed, and now he needs to remove himself from the limelight before the universe gets wind of what he’s done.”
“Oh?” Jer’ait asked. “Why would he do that?”
“So he can go back to skulking in shadows like the coward he is,” Rri’jan snapped. “Don’t test my patience, lapdog. The Geuji is setting up the Huouyt as his fall-men so that he can return to hiding. The less the universe knows about him, the safer he is.”
“And what,” Jer’ait asked, lifting the stinking Jahul food-object to look at it distractedly, “would Forgotten have against the Huouyt?”
“Study the history books, furg,” Rri’jan sneered. “This was Forgotten’s way of getting even for what happened to the Geuji on Neskfaat.” There, let that lead his ignorant brother astray.
Jer’ait dropped the cloth bundle back to the shelf. This time, his voice was flat as any Va’gan’s, his intelligence unmistakable. “Then we are to simply overlook the fact you were the one with the most motive, and that Mekkval’s death would have eased your way back to the Tribunal with minimum effort on your part?”
Rri’jan’s face darkened. “The Regency has nothing to hold against me, Jer’ait. They have no proof except the confession of one tortured Human. I was on my way to assassinate the bigger threat. It will hold up before the Tribunal. Release me now, so that I may finish the job, or when I go free, you and Forgotten will both die.”
“Generally, in order to make decent threats, one must have something substantial to back them,” Jer’ait said. He moved forward, hurting the eyes as his outline shifted against the wall. “Tell me what you know of the Geuji.”
Rri’jan smiled, happy to take the Geuji down with him. “I know he will be in Hub 13 of the Oriath spaceport in eight days,” Rri’jan said. “A communications overhaul on his long-distance array.”
For a Peacemaker whose organization had been trying to capture the Geuji for three hundred and four turns, Jer’ait seemed disappointingly unaffected by the news. “Ah.” Then his captor leaned forward and touched him again, and Rri’jan embraced oblivion.
Chapter 32: Going Straight
Eight days after sending Rri’jan back to Koliinaat with an escort of his best men, Jer’ait stood alone against one wall of Hub 13 of the Oriath spaceport, watching the arrival lists for something that stood out from the rest. It was late, and his quarry had not yet shown himself. Several ships had ordered ‘minor repairs’ throughout the day, but all checked out to be legitimate debris hits or minor trading scuffles. Jer’ait was beginning to think that Rri’jan had sent him on a furg’s errand when the Jahul trader Silence pulled into the dock and he felt his attention sharpen.
Communications troubles, was its listed docking complaint.
The ship mated with the hub and the airlock synched and the light above the entrance flashed READY, but for long hours, the door remained closed. No agents came or went. No repairmen went to work on the ship’s exterior. Aside from the flashing READY sign, signaling that the ship had equalized its systems in preparation for passenger exchange, there was no change.
Hours came and went, and still the lock flashed READY.
Eventually, once the crowds had died down for the day and it was only Jer’ait and a few scattered passengers in the hub, the Ueshi docking authority seated in the booth nearby frowned at the flashing light, glanced at the docking manifest, and then opened a line to the Jahul ship. “Are you also experiencing issues with your airlock, Silence?”
“Negative,” a Jahul voice replied apologetically. “I’m waiting for someone, sir.”
> He’s expecting me, Jer’ait realized, with a breja-crushing wave of unease.
The Ueshi chuckled. “It seems your friend needs to synch his time-chip. You’ve been waiting on him for six hours.”
“Has it been that long?” the Jahul replied. “I was busy drafting a letter.” Again, perfect Bovan Jahul.
“More like six and a half,” the Ueshi port master confirmed. “Would you like me to patch you through to a planetside location?”
“No, sir. I’m sure he’s on his way.”
Steeling himself, Jer’ait pushed himself from the wall and took a few steps towards the Geuji’s lonely, flashing airlock, then hesitated in the center of the room, exposed and vulnerable.
When no laser fire singled him out, no plasma cut him down, no assassins lurched forth to strike, Jer’ait took a deep breath and made his way to the Geuji’s lock.
The door opened the moment he stepped within range. If the Ueshi manning the docking booth noticed that Jer’ait had never touched the control screen to activate the door, he never mentioned it. Feeling his breja prickling at the complexities of casually hacking into the port authority’s system, Jer’ait stepped closer and, fighting nerves, looked inside.
Seeing the utterly alien-looking airlock waiting through the open door, Jer’ait had a flash of uncertainty. Forgotten could have installed anything at all on his ship. From robotics to drugs to biological agents to unspeakable alien weaponry. If he proceeded with this meeting, he was, quite literally, placing his life in the Geuji’s hands. Without backup. Without a soul even knowing where he was. He, the Peacemaster, was about to be completely at Forgotten’s mercy.
He continued to hesitate, eying the blackness beyond. This was where he tested his theory. With his life.
Though Jer’ait knew the Geuji could see him and, if he wanted to, speak through the microphones lining the lock, Forgotten said nothing.
Jer’ait steeled himself, then stepped into the airlock.
