by Sara King
“The Aezi would have created trouble, so we decided to remove Aez from the equation.”
“Don’t implicate me in that!” Rri’jan snapped, even as the Jreet stiffened and rose from his white coils with rage. “Aez was not my idea! I questioned Aez.”
“Then you were there,” Mekkval suggested, voice utterly cold.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Rri’jan snapped. “I never asked him to get me a throne.”
“Then you admit to the rest of the conspiracy?”
“No, none of this was my idea!” Rri’jan snapped. “He did it all!”
“But you bought his cooperation with a promise to free his people,” Aliphei noted. “And he says your ultimate intent was to rearrange the power-structure of Congress to better suit your liking. With you enthroned at its head, of course.”
“The Geuji is lying,” Rri’jan screamed, slamming his fist into the podium. “Can’t you see that?”
“Odd,” Mekkval replied, “when historically, it is the Geuji who are known for their distaste for lies, and the Huouyt have the reputation of being unable to tell the truth.”
Rri’jan turned to scowl at his peer. “You almost speak as if you have already made up your mind, Dhasha.”
“Oh, I have,” Mekkval said coldly.
It was at that point that, looking at the impassive faces of other two Tribunal members, the horrible truth of the situation dawned upon him. “You’re going to convict me.”
“Shall we skip the rest of the formalities and move on to sentencing?” Aliphei asked. “I have an appointment with my masseuse this evening.”
“We should at least take a vote,” Mekkval said, sounding amused. “Prazeil? Aliphei? I vote to condemn.”
“And I,” Aliphei replied. Rri’jan’s breja fluttered at the finality of what had just happened to him. The Tribunal only needed two to condemn.
“And I,” Prazeil growled, lurching up to almost two rods in height. “Rest assured, Huouyt, whatever sentence is offered you, I will purchase your contract and make you dance on my tek.”
“That might be difficult, considering you no longer have a planet backing you, worm,” Rri’jan snapped, beyond reason, now.
“The sentence,” Aliphei said, “shall befit your crime and station. For your repeated crimes as a species, the Huouyt will be henceforth banned from the Tribunal.”
“Agreed,” Mekkval said.
“Agreed,” Prazeil barked. “May the Huouyt shrivel and die like the sun-fearing cowards they are.”
Rri’jan could only stare. “Did you just say…banned?”
“Shall I look up the definition for you?” Mekkval asked, sounding amused.
“In the history of Congress, no species has been banned from the Tribunal,” Rri’jan snapped. “That’s ludicrous.”
“We thought it was fitting,” Mekkval said, his huge, oblong jaw open in a smirk, showing rows upon rows of triangular black teeth. “You are, after all, the species to come up again and again, in inter-species conflicts.”
Rri’jan ignored the Dhasha’s taunt. “If you’re going to ban the Huouyt, ban the Dhasha, too. It is their rebellions that drain Congressional funds and necessitate the Draft.”
“As far as I was aware,” Aliphei said, “the Dhasha are not on trial, here,”
“The Huouyt have been with Congress since we formed it!” Rri’jan snapped. “You can’t ban us, furgs.”
“I was reading the Tribunal charter last night,” Mekkval said idly, “and it says we can.”
“Further,” Aliphei said, “there is the matter of your personal punishment, Rri’jan.”
“Kill him!” Prazeil roared. “Give him to me and I shall make him squeal like a gutted melaa before he dies.”
“Rri’jan sought money and power,” Aliphei went on. “I vote we send this ambitious vaghi to a place where he can witness both, for the rest of his existence, as a slave.”
“Where were you thinking?” Mekkval asked, his attention sharpening.
“I say we kill him,” Prazeil snapped. “I’ll do the honors myself. I’ll make the coward scream until his grandmothers cringe in their—”
“Yes, we heard you,” Rri’jan snapped, intently focused on the First Citizen and the Dhasha. They were the two he needed to concern himself with. The Jreet was a bumbling clown.
“It would please me greatly to see this selfish furg rehabilitated,” Mekkval offered, meeting Rri’jan’s stare pointedly. “Satisfying, even.”
“Yes! Make him grovel! Then we shall soak the earth in his blood and hunt down his kinfolk for their part in his crimes.”
“I was thinking the same,” Aliphei said calmly.
“Where?” Mekkval asked.
“On a platform in the center of the Regency!” Prazeil cried. “I will sharpen my tek so that he quivers, then cleanse him personally, so all may watch.”
“There are several options,” Aliphei said thoughtfully. “All of which are appealing.”
“An Ueshi pleasure-slave?” Mekkval asked, his scaly face alighting in amusement.
Rri’jan watched Mekkval and Aliphei in fury, promising himself that, wherever the furgs sent him, he would slip free of his wardens’ grasp and return to see them both die painfully. He was not worried about the Jreet. The Jreet he could kill the moment he tried to wrap him in his coils. It was these two who had the intelligence to be the ringleaders in this operation.
“How about a ruvmestin mine,” Aliphei said. “Grakkas, perhaps.”
The furglings send me to Grakkas, Rri’jan thought, fighting a smirk, and I will be back on a shuttle within a night. He schooled his face into the picture of horror. “You can’t do that.”
“His zora must be removed, of course,” Mekkval suggested.
Rri’jan froze, all of his smugness draining out his feet in a wash of horror. No matter where they sent him, he could escape—if he had his zora. If he didn’t, he was just another criminal. Just another stagnant, trapped creature to be ushered about. “That barbaric punishment was outlawed millennia ago,” he blurted.
“Not outlawed,” Mekkval said, sounding amused. “Frowned upon.”
“Why should we bother maiming him?” Prazeil demanded, giving his companions a confused glance. “Are you afraid of this tekless betrayer, Dhasha?”
“I was thinking more of his capacity to elude Congressional forces, once he is tucked away to serve penance,” the Dhasha responded.
“There will be no ‘eluding’,” Prazeil snapped. “He will not leave his trial alive.”
“We’ll see,” Mekkval said, watching Rri’jan intently. “Watcher, remove his zora. Authorized by myself.”
“And I,” Aliphei said.
“As you command, your Excellencies.”
Rri’jan stiffened as he felt something shift within him, then all the sensation of a limb disappeared. With it, he lost everything. The sensory organs that could activate and direct his body were simply…gone.
In that moment, Rri’jan’s life simply crashed down around his shoulders, leaving him naked and terrified before his accusers.
But Mekkval wasn’t done. “I say we let the Huouyt decide,” the Dhasha continued. “Death by tek or rehabilitation by servitude.”
“The craven weakling does not get to choose!” Prazeil snapped. “It was my planet he destroyed. He shall therefore dance on my tek.”
“Choose,” Aliphei commanded, watching him coldly.
And, in that moment, Rri’jan realized that the more pleasant outcome, for him, would be the Jreet’s suggestion.
More pleasant…but infinitely more short.
Rri’jan stared at Aliphei, then Mekkval, humiliated, hopeless, furious that they were going to make him choose between slavery and execution. He, a Ze’laa royal. A Representative of Congress. They had maimed him. Impotized him before the entire universe. He was so stunned and wretchedly degraded that he couldn’t find the words to speak.
“For what it’s worth,” the
Geuji said into the silence that followed, “You never stood a chance, Rri’jan. Bow and accept the terms given. You can still save yourself.”
“Enough!” Prazeil snapped. “The slime-mold is done here. Watcher, remove him to his cell.”
Forgotten had just enough time to say a startled, “But we agreed—” before his disgusting mass vanished. Rri’jan felt a satisfied ripple of his breja knowing that he would not be the only one whose plans were ruined, but it was short-lived. Once again, he was left facing his three cold-eyed peers, facing a choice no Huouyt should have to make. Steeling himself, knowing that alive—albeit humiliated—was better than righteous and dead, Rri’jan whispered, “Send me to Grakkas, you miserable furgs.”
“I hear the ruvmestin mines,” Aliphei commented.
“I’ll buy his contract,” Prazeil retorted. “There will be no Grakkas.”
“You and what economy?” Rri’jan retorted, unable to hold back his disdain. “In case you forgot, Aezi, there is nothing left for you to use to purchase my servitude.”
“A Congressional Representative would require an inordinately high bid,” Aliphei conceded. “I’m afraid you don’t have the funds, Jreet.”
“Make an exception!” Prazeil snapped. “It was my planet the sniveling vaghi destroyed. I should be able to mete out justice.”
“If Tribunal members flaunted the rules we made, what stability would there be in our great nation?” Aliphei asked pointedly. Then, to Mekkval, “What say you?”
The Dhasha, who had said nothing up until that point, continued watching Rri’jan and said, “Ka-par.”
Instantly, the Jreet reared up with a roar of fury, his ivory scales arching two and a half rods over the proceedings. “There will be no ka-par! The Huouyt is mine.”
For a moment, the room was tense, waiting for the First Citizen to weigh in on the matter. When he did, it was with great reluctance. “The Dhasha are allowed ka-par as part of their species’ cultural concessions,” Aliphei said slowly. “But if he accepts, then the rules of ka-par shall stand. He would take your place if he won, Mekkval.”
“He won’t win,” Mekkval said, the prince’s confidence like an immobile mountain, crushing him.
Rri’jan felt his breja curl at the idea of being indentured to a Dhasha. That Dhasha.
“I will not allow it,” Prazeil snarled. “By the seventh hell, you will not take this prize from me, Mekkval.”
“He is my prize, too,” Mekkval retorted. “It is I that the Huouyt sought to assassinate. It is I who will rise to his challenge. If he is man enough to face the consequences of his own actions.”
“My blood before you steal the Huouyt,” Prazeil snapped. “I will not waste my breath with allowances or compromises. I will be given what is owed.”
“Then I ka-par you first, the Huouyt after,” Mekkval replied calmly, still watching Rri’jan with intensity.
Rri’jan felt himself freeze, along with every other creature in the room. Silence reigned absolute for several moments, the ramification of the Dhasha’s words settling over them like a cold blanket. Then, “You are challenging the Jreet to ka-par?” Aliphei demanded sharply.
“If he has the tek to accept,” the Dhasha replied, sounding utterly calm. He turned to Prazeil. “Do you have the tek to accept, Prazeil?”
Prazeil reared to his full height in a snarl. “How dare you suggest I do not.”
Mekkval made an amused sound. “That doesn’t answer the question, Jreet.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The Jreet continued to tower over them like a sinuous statue, poised to strike.
“Well?” Mekkval said, into the dangerous silence. “I would love to add your…passion…to my retinue. Ka-par?”
Long moments passed. Then tics. Then, in a snarl, Prazeil said, “The Jreet do not caper to the ridiculous customs of Dhasha.”
“Of course,” Mekkval chuckled.
At that, the Jreet snarled, “Do as you will with the Huouyt. It’s obvious you two plan to overrule me. Watcher, my quarters.” At that, the Jreet flashed out of existence, leaving only Mekkval and Aliphei in attendance. For a brief moment, Rri’jan had a flash of hope that he could possibly divide the remaining votes, giving him a non-verdict and possibly a stay of execution.
Then the Dhasha swiveled his huge, rainbow-scaled head back to face him and his deep emerald eyes once again settled on Rri’jan, and Rri’jan felt his breja quiver with his first real fear since the trial began.
“Ka-par,” Mekkval offered.
Rri’jan could not best Mekkval in ka-par. The Dhasha had made thousands, and he had never lost.
“Refuse,” Mekkval warned him, “and I will buy your contract anyway. I own fourteen planets, whereas Prazeil was the chosen politician of one. I could outbid him, even before you destroyed his people.”
Rri’jan shuddered with rage. “I would see you spend a fortune to obtain me rather than give you that satisfaction,” he whispered.
“And, in the end, I will still obtain you,” Mekkval replied. “And your life will be rougher for it.”
Rri’jan glanced to the First Citizen, who was simply watching the proceedings with distracted interest. He glanced at the Jreet’s seat, which was now vacant, then at the darkened walls that hid the rest of the Regency from view. Swallowing, he turned back to the Dhasha, whose gaze had never wavered.
“Ka-par,” he whispered.
Immediate satisfaction tightened the Dhasha’s features. “Ka-par rak’tal,” he said, in the barking Dhasha tongue. “Ka-par accepted. Mahid ka-par.”
Then the Dhasha’s intensity sharpened and all Rri’jan’s hopes of escaping the trial with his freedom intact diminished to nothing.
Chapter 33: Sam
He was in the midst of examining strange inconsistencies between the confession the Geuji had given the Tribunal and the copy the Watcher had logged in Forgotten’s record when he came across a file that made him look twice.
It read, Samuel Dobbs, Human, a.k.a. The Ghost—Illicit Genetics Experiments.
Inside the file, Jer’ait found even more interesting information. Somehow, Joe’s brother had hacked into what was suspected to be an illegal Earth military experiment to duplicate the Huouyt ability to shift form. Peacemakers had been catching hints of illegal experiments on Earth for almost five turns, but capturing Samuel—a civilian—was the first real proof that Jer’ait’s colleagues had that the Human government was participating in unsanctioned genetic alterations with the intent of creating mutant foot soldiers. Which, if it were true, would damn Earth back to its Dark Ages—there were few laws of Congress that, if broken, would spell the swift and violent end for a civilization, but genetic alterations with the intent to create living weaponry was one of them. It was the Second Law of Congress, and if Jer’ait was reading the reports correctly, Humanity was well on its way to breaking it.
With, to all appearances, the intent of breaking the First Law of Congress and using it to incite war against fellow member planets.
Humans, as Jer’ait had discovered through a two-rotation crash-course in Human idiosyncrasies—were stubborn to the point of being stupid, foolhardy to the point of being courageous, and optimistic to the point of being insane.
Bemused, he read on. The moment the Peacemakers detained Sam, they knew he was the key to rooting out the Human experiments. His DNA had become a multi-species stew, and his very existence was dangerously close to violating the Second Law of Congress. With questioning, they discovered Sam had somehow located the Human government files that the Peacemakers had been desperate to find. His information, however, was grudging and sketchy, usually pulled out of him with pain, and the genetic alterations had not only immunized him to interrogators’ drugs, but had also increased his already-extraordinary intellectual capacity to the point he was consistently able to talk circles around his questioners, even Va’ga-trained Huouyt.
From what little Sam had said of the original experiment files, every test
subject had died gruesomely, their genetics regurgitating all Huouyt influence, resulting in a quivering puddle of unidentifiable flesh.
Yet somehow, Samuel had taken the information, modified the experiments, and made them work.
On himself.
Where the others had devolved, he’d stabilized. He was the only test subject to ever do so. Joe’s brother, it appeared, was some sort of genius. Jer’ait read on, intrigued.
What he found deeper within the file, however, left him stunned.
Samuel was still alive.
Peacemakers, desperate to locate the illicit Human military experiments, had faked his death. Jer’ait’s peers wanted to know how he’d succeeded in his experiments, and since Samuel had destroyed all of his records before his capture, they were frantically trying to get the details from him. He was being held in a supersecret facility on Earth—the Peacemakers were so serious about keeping his existence a secret that they hadn’t even taken the chance to ship him to Levren for questioning.
Jer’ait closed the file. Joe’s going to love this.
#
“Oh, Mothers’ ghosts!” Joe snapped, turning on the light. Beside him, the Congie Prime he’d invited over for dinner moaned and rolled in her sleep. “Daviin, can’t you leave me alone for two seconds?”
“Sorry,” Daviin said, looking not at all sorry. “We have orders.”
Joe rolled his eyes and lay back down. “Burn them and their orders.”
“No,” Daviin said. “You’ll like these. Trust me.” He shoved a reader at Joe, who took it tentatively.
At about the same time, the Congie opened her eyes, saw the Jreet, and screamed.
Joe and Daviin, who were both used to this reaction by now, did not even look up. “See?” Daviin said, tapping a claw upon the screen.
“Get your fat finger out of the way,” Joe snapped. “Is this a joke?”
“Nope,” Daviin said. “Leave on Earth. All four of us. Jer’ait pulled some strings.”
“Why?”
“Read further, Joe.”
The woman, who now was over her shock and had realized that she was being ignored, began packing up her things in a huff.
