"Vegeta."
"I don't have time for your nonsense right now, Cui. Unless you would like to explain to Frieza why he's been kept waiting." Vegeta's face twisted from its 'resting scowl' into his 'moderately annoyed scowl' the moment that he ran into the purple-skinned alien in the corridor.
"I wouldn't worry if I were you, monkey. Lord Frieza's already given the important job to me! No matter how much you make him wait, you'll still only be the prince of a dead planet, eating my scraps."
Vegeta snorted. "At least people notice that the Saiyans died, Cui. Unlike your race of ugly frogs. A piece of advice, if I were you, I would hold my tongue, before I rip it out of your throat."
"Like you could, Prince of Nothing. You've never beaten me before, and you never will." Cui spat.
"That was simply because you had your cousin watch our fight and stop us when you started losing, weak bastard. I don't have time to waste with you. Goodbye, Cui." Vegeta pushed past Cui without another word.
…
"You took your time, Vegeta. I heard you landed quite a while ago. You know I appreciate punctuality." Vegeta knew that Frieza was teasing him, but even Frieza's teasing was an incredibly dangerous thing to deal with. Something that needed to be handled with care.
"I ran into Cui, my lord. He tends to speak too much." Vegeta threw all of the blame onto Cui without hesitation.
"I see. He told you about Sector Seventy, then? It seems Cui will need to be punished."
"I never said that he says anything when he speaks." Vegeta admitted, "Sector Seventy?"
Frieza laughed, a cold, polished sound that sent a shiver down Vegeta's spine out of the sheer iciness of it. "Yes, Sector Seventy. The same sector where your brother was last seen, if I remember correctly. My latest planetary acquisition has my empire moving in that sector, and it has gotten me thinking about young Table lately."
Vegeta resisted the urge to correct Frieza. "Is that so?" He asked, feigning cold detachment.
In truth, Vegeta had thought about his brother quite often over the last few years. From small things, such as missing that customized scouter that he'd gone to such great lengths to acquire, which was still, nearly a decade later, considered the absolute end of cutting edge, to bigger things.
That rampage he'd gone through on the last planet hadn't been because he was annoyed at being equal to Cui or something. No, it'd been because, somewhere deep down, Vegeta suspected that his brother's power level had kept growing after the day he'd betrayed the Saiyan race… and Vegeta's own power level was beginning to plateau.
In fact, his growth speed had never, not even during his actual physical growth spurt last year, matched the growth he'd seen from his brother all those years ago. It ate Vegeta alive.
"Vegeta, have you ever had that feeling… like flies, buzzing around the back of your head? Irritating little, pesky thoughts, that you cannot get rid of?" Frieza paused, but it was clearly a rhetorical question, not one that he actually wanted Vegeta to answer.
As such, Vegeta simply waited for the Frost Demon to continue. "I have decided to allow you to search the cosmos for more Saiyans, including your brother. Recruit them, or kill them, I will leave that to you, but choose one or the other." Frieza explained dismissively, "I suggest you begin by following the trail that young 'Table' took all those years ago, because I just sent Cui to conquer Sector Seventy for me in its entirety, and I suspect that it will not take him particularly long to get to that one planet where young 'Table' was last seen."
"You… wish for me to gather Saiyans, my lord?" Vegeta realized, his eyes going wide, "My brother… he abandoned the rest of the Saiyans… abandoned his duties…"
"Do not make me repeat myself again, Vegeta. Yes, I have decided that any Saiyans that you find, so long as you can persuade them to follow my own demands, I will forgive of their crimes no matter what or how severe they may be. This is only on the grounds that they are just as obedient as you are, dear Vegeta. Do not forget, I am only allowing this out of the kindness of my heart, and we both know exactly how far that takes us, am I clear?"
Another shiver went down Vegeta's spine. He did know exactly how far that'd take him. Nowhere.
In fact, it was entirely plausible that Frieza was simply having him gather the remaining Saiyans in one place so that it would be easier to keep an eye on them, but that was a risk that Vegeta was willing to take.
Unbeknownst to Vegeta, Frieza's actual intent, basically, was to have Vegeta gather whatever survivors may be hiding under the cracks and rubble together into an observable unit.
The Frost Demon had sent multiple teams, including the Ginyu Force themselves, all over the Northern Galaxy searching for surviving Saiyans. There were actually quite a few… seven years ago.
Nowadays, the number had dwindled to nearly nothing. Finding whatever Saiyans were still crawling around on those primitive planets, tottering around destroying everything in sight like the mindless brutes they were, was proving to be a near-impossible task. There were probably nearly a hundred of the bastards left, spread all across the universe.
Including that Tarble boy who'd killed Dodoria all of those years before. Expanding into the sector where he'd disappeared at, had brought back old memories for Frieza. At the time, he'd been too flustered by the visit from Lord Beerus to put much thought to the child who'd managed to kill one of Frieza's strongest warriors, but now that he was thinking about it again, a mere Saiyan, even with that transformation of theirs, being able to kill Dodoria of all people was rather abnormal. A potential problem… for Frieza's underlings.
Vegeta was rather intelligent, and had a prior connection to the Tarble boy. If he was unable to locate him, then there was little more that Frieza could honestly do, since the last seven years of searching had brought no breakthroughs.
Besides, of all of the surviving Saiyans, the young Vegeta was the only one alive whom the late King Vegeta had confided in about the episode. Nobody knew more about the locations of the surviving monkeys than him.
Whatever he found, it would be one less Saiyan in the lurch. Just that alone suited Frieza well enough.