Bartoc Secret

by Clara Woods

  “How big is that?” Corinna asked, her tone hushed and voice shaking.

  “I estimate it is at least four times your size, and not humanoid,” Zyrakath whispered back, even though they were at least two clicks away.

  “So, what is it? Are there Bartoc this big?” Lenah asked.

  No one answered, it seemed not even Zyrakath had an opinion about that.

  Martello cleared his throat. “No matter, as long as it doesn’t come in our direction.”

  “We have to move more carefully,” Lenah agreed. “Anyone against still going for that silver pipe?”

  “We came this far,” Cassius panted. “Let’s go.”

  Martello and Doctor Lund nodded, though the latter looked scared and was clutching his holobook as if it were a shield.

  “I agree,” Zyrakath said, louder this time. “We must maximize the information we can gain about this planet.”

  They moved on, now even more cautious. Earlier, Lenah had been glad to get out into the open where nothing could ambush them. Now, she felt exposed. They might be able to spot attackers from a distance, but anyone else could also see them. That, combined with the uncomfortably little knowledge they had about this planet, had Lenah jump at the slightest sounds, even if it were only Doctor Lund stumbling over a stone.

  After a long while—the sun had crossed over the zenith—they reached the tube, made of silver material, decayed in many spots and stretching in a perfectly straight line from east to west. Whatever it had transported, it seemed to have gone out of use ages ago; with chunks of the material fallen to the ground, never being picked up by anyone. Was that an indication intelligent life had abandoned this world?

  “That’s…a…building,” Doctor Lund stuttered, pointing toward their right where the plateau ended in a formation of steep rocks reaching several hundred meters into the air.

  “It is,” Martello agreed. “Should we?” He turned to Lenah.

  She nodded and took the first steps, walking alongside the pipeline. Another group of the lizard-like aliens had been hiding in the shade under the pipe. They came scurrying out, but one stopped, its intense green eyes staring up at Lenah out of a tentacled face.

  “This sustenance looks abhorrent,” Zyrakath commented, also hovering close.

  Ignoring him, Lenah squinted at the creature, bending down slightly to get a closer look. Its mouth opened slowly, almost leisurely, and a long tongue shot out. Something flashed faster than Lenah could see, then pain exploded on her foot. She yelled and stumbled back. Liquid hit the ground where she’d just been standing.

  “Acid!” Doctor Lund yelled, and Cassius was there to pull Lenah away. The pain in her foot was pulsing through her as she stared at the creature. One tentacle had deflated and fallen off its head. But instead of staying uselessly in the ground, it moved like a flat snake toward the shore of the lake. The bright light of laser fire blinded Lenah as more acid spewed out of the creature’s mouth and onto the ground. Then it stopped moving, charred from the heat of Martello’s laser. Halfway back to the shore, the loose tentacle collapsed.

  “Outstanding,” Zyrakath said, staring from the tentacle to the dead creature.

  “Lenah!” Cassius said. His sweaty face entered her field of vision. He swayed.

  Corinna pushed him out of the way, then grabbed Lenah by one arm. “Sit,” she said in such a commanding voice, Lenah simply complied. “Doctor Lund, remove her shoe.”

  He obeyed at once. Lenah stared down at what was left of her boot. A hole had eaten itself through the material and the skin, blistered and red, shone through.

  “Does it hurt?” Corinna asked.

  “Like touching a star with my bare hand.” Lenah was almost breathless.

  Corinna smirked. “Good. You can still make your dumb jokes. It can’t be too bad.”

  Doctor Lund took off Lenah’s shoe and sock and tossed both to the side. The top of her skin shone pink, clearly burned, but it hadn’t penetrated through. “You were lucky,” Doctor Lund commented. “Give me water.”

  Corinna handed him her water bottle, and he poured generous amounts over Lenah’s foot, then some over her shoe as well. Lenah’s pain eased instantly, only to come back the moment the water stopped flowing. What she wouldn’t give to be at home on Astur in her comfortable pilot’s chair and with a whole battery of ice packs.

  “That’s all I can do for you know,” Doctor Lund’s voice ripped Lenah out of her daydream.

  She smiled, blinking into the overly bright sunlight. “That’s fine. We have to move on, anyway. We’ve got a building to explore.”

  16 Bartoc Construct

  The pain in Lenah’s foot had subsided to a numb pulsing when they finally approached the building. It seemed a combination of symmetrical blue squares made of the same material as the rock cliff behind it. The squares were stacked on top of each other, and low, but wide openings served as windows and doors.

  Lenah stretched out her senses. “I feel presences inside, not sentient.”

  The group came to a halt in front of the building. An upward sliding door hung half-open, leaving an opening two meters wide but not even one meter tall. It was clearly not meant for humanoids. To Lenah, it looked like the perfect door for a Bartoc to fit through with their stinger and pedipalp. She shuddered, repelled to go inside.

  Corinna and Doctor Lund crouched next to the door, and Corinna shone the light of her wristpiece, while the doctor was peeking through the opening. Cassius sat down next to them with a tired groan.

  “Just a corridor,” Doctor Lund said after a moment. “I guess we’ll have to go in.”

  “Come and see this!” Zyrakath’s excited voice drifted over. He hovered at the side of the building, leading toward a backyard and a tall rock formation behind. Lenah, who had been about to sink down next to Cassius, turned and saw some overgrowth, the first actual plants they had come across. They were growing on top of a mound. Was that what Zyrakath was pointing out? Nonetheless, Lenah approached. When she was only a few meters out, she realized it was no mound at all but something huge and dark gray. “What...?”

  “It may be the same kind of beast we saw pass by earlier,” Zyrakath said, his high-pitched voice breaking with excitement. “Not a beast at all, but an artificial body.”

  “Ugh.” Lenah came to a halt. It was difficult to see under all the overgrowth, but it looked distinctly Bartoc in shape. She could see a long stinger coming out in the back. It was about two meters tall and over twice that in length. The material was a metal so dark it might have been c-nano, but without any of its shimmer. Lenah had never seen anything like it before. “So, this is some kind of Bartoc robot?”

  “It must be,” Doctor Lund said. He had abandoned his inspection of the building and was carefully approaching the construct.

  “Is it defunct?” Lenah asked. She wasn’t inclined to stay should the thing make the slightest movement.

  “It appears so,” Doctor Lund answered. “For nature on a planet like this to claim it back, this must have been here a long time.” Yet, he approached with great care.

  Lenah, lifting her weapon, gave the doctor a curious glance. He was usually the first one to stay back in a dangerous situation. It seemed that the strangeness of this world was bringing out the archaeologist in him.

  He stepped into the green overgrowth, and needles from what looked like something between grass and cacti crunched under his feet. A hiss sounded, and something long weaved itself away.

  Doctor Lund jumped back, tumbling into Lenah, who caught him and barely managed to keep her own balance. “A snake? Be careful,” she told him, then stepped forward to run the end of her laser gun through the plants. When nothing moved, Doctor Lund approached again, but his steps were more careful this time.

  Zyrakath was inspecting the stinger. “It is a weaponized construction.” He pointed at a cannon mounted on the top of the stinger. It sent a shiver down Lenah’s spine. She didn’t want to see herself on the other end of that sting
er.

  “And it allows passengers!” Doctor Lund exclaimed, apparently already having forgotten his encounter with the snake and sticking his head deep inside the bushes. Lenah, more carefully, leaned in behind him, noting that Cassius and Martello had followed but were hanging back warily, weapons raised.

  Doctor Lund pointed excitedly at a low hatch. It looked barely large enough to fit a Bartoc body, and the doctor was on his hands and knees to inspect it. He leaned against the square outline of the hatch, then knocked on several places while Lenah stepped back to take in the whole structure again. To the side—what at first had looked like a stone—a huge pedipalp hung motionless. Lenah stepped closer to inspect it. It was several times the size of her head and looked deadly.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she whirled around instinctively in time to see a large shadow walk around the corner of the building. It was the same size and material as the decrepit robot they had been inspecting. But this one was very much alive.

  Corinna appeared, rushing toward them, her eyes wide in fear. The second construct caught up to her, and Lenah watched helplessly as Corinna was hurled into the air mid-step by a pedipalp.

  Cassius ran forward, passing Corinna as he fired. Lenah heard a hiss where his laser connected to the hull, but the machine kept coming at him. When they were almost on top of each other, Cassius jumped to the right, barely evading the snap of a pedipalp.

  The construct stopped, and a long stinger whirred to life on its back. The open end of a barrel mounted at its tip turned toward Cassius.

  Lenah yelled a warning, but a loud boom silenced her voice even to her own ears. The ground around Cassius’s feet exploded into multiple chunks of sharp rock, and he stumbled before disappearing inside a cloud of dust.

  Lenah sprinted into the shade of a large rock, knelt, and lifted her weapon. Martello appeared next to her, and together, they showered the machine in laser blasts. The dark metal scorched even darker, but other than that, nothing happened.

  Instead, it passed Corinna who lay sprawled unconscious on the ground, and two huge robotic eyes focused on Lenah and Martello. The tail with the mounted gun swung toward them, and Lenah instinctively threw herself to the side as another loud boom made her ears ring.

  Stone particles sprayed around, several hitting Lenah and cutting through her clothes. She struggled to get up and momentarily felt disoriented.

  Cassius’s running form appeared through the dust, and he positioned himself next to the machine. He kept a careful distance from the pedipalp this time, then started to shoot.

  Lenah imitated him but lost balance as another loud boom sounded. Large rocks rained down from the wall just behind her, and she was forced to sprint forward in a mad dash. A big rock hit her knee from behind, and she stumbled and fell. Her gun clattered onto the ground next to her. The robot swung its tail and started to walk toward her. It was surprisingly fast. One of its eight legs gave out, and Martello, appearing on Lenah’s other side, bellowed a cheer, then targeted the next leg.

  Lenah whipped her gaze back on the machine. Being on seven legs didn’t seem to slow it, but it did turn sideways to look at Martello, which gave Lenah a chance to limp away and find shelter behind another rock. There, she lifted her weapon, now also taking aim at the legs instead of the body. Thin as they were, probably no thicker than Lenah’s arm, and battered as Lenah felt, the task of disabling it seemed harder than it should have been. Even Martello was struggling, and she didn’t see him score another hit.

  Cassius approached again, this time ducking underneath and aiming at its legs. The machine stopped pursuing Lenah and Martello and turned. It was unable to see Cassius, but its gun aimed toward Zyrakath and Lund, who had been gathered close to the hatch of the buried machine.

  “Get out of the way!” Lenah yelled at them, but Zyr moved forward, despite struggling to lift his laser weapon. Doctor Lund stood frozen and was muttering to himself while Zyrakath hovered protectively in front of him, shooting at the approaching enemy.

  “Yes!” Doctor Lund yelled just as a blast of the cannon missed them by half a meter. Lenah was still trying to aim as the machine abruptly stumbled. Cassius had shot another one of its legs. It stopped and then swung its tail around, this time not to aim the weapon but to use it like a whip around his legs. Cassius jumped back, the stinger missing him by several meters. But, as if angered, two pedipalps shot forward, one coming dangerously close to Zyrakath.

  The small drone was forced to drop his gun and surge several meters high into the air to avoid the claw’s reach. Lenah heard a loud snap when the two halves of the pedipalp closed against each other, missing Zyrakath by centimeters.

  Doctor Lund was gone, and Lenah looked around frantically. It took her several seconds to realize he had opened the hatch of the buried construct and crawled inside. “Come! Lenah, come here!” He waved at her.

  The few seconds of inattention and another hit of the cannon fire sprayed Lenah with more rocks. She stumbled, unable to fully support her weight on her weak leg. The attacking machine swayed slightly as it rounded on Lenah.

  Without time to question the wisdom of Doctor Lund’s call, Lenah half-crawled, half-stumbled over to Martello, who had ended up unconscious on the floor. She pulled him toward the open hatch. Doctor Lund came out, and together, they pulled Martello in. The old man groaned but didn’t wake up.

  Her back feeling exposed, Lenah turned around, seeing Cassius making a run for her. Their attacker had fully focused on him and swung a blackened tail around its legs, preventing Cassius from doing any damage.

  Zyrakath flew close, targeting the construct’s eyes with his laser. It snapped both its pedipalps at him. Zyr only managed to escape in the last second, but it gave Cassius the chance to catch up to Lenah.

  “Out of the way!” he yelled, then threw himself feet-first through the low hatch. Lenah crawled backward and looked around in awe.

  She was in a low corridor, dim lights had turned on, and faint natural light shone in from a hole in the hull toward the front of the machine. Lenah saw that Doctor Lund had crawled several meters inside to where the corridor opened into a small control room. Two rows of low control stations dominated the interior, while the remaining space featured a series of hooks and straps that Lenah couldn’t explain. Everything looked alien and unaccommodating for humanoid bodies.

  Lenah helped Cassius pull Martello further into the tunnel. “What are you doing?” she asked Doctor Lund over her shoulder. A shower of more rocks sprayed in from the open hatch and Zyrakath appeared there, having once more lost his gun. He flew in so fast, he collided with Cassius’s back.

  A pedipalp snapped after him, only missing because the drone had tumbled to the floor.

  “In, in!” Lenah urged, then dove toward a red hook next to the hatch, the only noticeable mechanism in the area. She pulled it, and, with a hesitant groan, the hatch closed, encircling them in semi-darkness.

  Holding her breath, Lenah waited for the next shot targeting their questionable shelter, hoping it would be able to take the hit by its peer, but the attack didn’t come.

  “Did it stop attacking us?” Cassius finally whispered after two minutes of silence.

  “I think so,” Lenah whispered back. “What do we do now? Corinna is still out there.”

  “We have to get her,” Cassius said. He turned to his moaning grandfather, who was finally stirring on the floor.

  Martello tried to sit up and promptly knocked his head on the low ceiling. “Ouch, not my head again,” he grunted, then duck crawled toward them. “Where the stars are we?”

  “We’re inside the buried Bartoc robot,” Cassius whispered.

  “All of us but Corinna,” Lenah added.

  Cassius took a last look at his grandfather, then crawled toward the hatch. He looked at Lenah and she nodded.

  Using the strange hook, Cassius opened the hatch once more. Lenah could see the tenseness in his body and a slight shiver going through his ar
m as she scooted close to him. Other than that, he seemed better than he had been for hours. Yet, Lenah worried what would happen once the adrenaline rush that kept him going subsided.

  Before she could comment, the hatch had fully opened, revealing the scene outside. The ground was littered with rocks and stones but lay abandoned. Lenah couldn’t see Corinna anywhere. Nor the construct.

  “Where. . .where is it?” Lenah asked.

  Cassius took a deep breath. “I hear its uneven steps in the distance.”

  “It’s leaving? Just like that? And Corinna?” Lenah crawled out.

  Cassius followed, swaying slightly. Lenah shot him a glance. “Are you alright?”

  His nod was quick as he scanned the yard. “Just have a headache.” He overtook Lenah, making it clear that she should stop asking questions.

  “Maybe Corinna crawled into the building?” She stretched out her senses to check. “She didn’t.” Lenah let her senses roam wider. It took her a while, but finally, she felt Corinna’s weak presence moving further away. Lenah sucked in a breath. “She’s leaving…” She stared at Cassius. “That thing, it…”

  “Has her,” Cassius finished Lenah’s sentence.

  “It’s moving fast. I can barely feel Corinna’s mind.”

  “Can you contact her?”

  Lenah shook her head. “That’s not how it works. And she feels weak. I think she’s unconscious.”

  Cassius rounded his shoulders, then looked down on Lenah. “Are you fast enough?”

  Lenah patted her side with her new cybernetic lung. “I think so.”