Bartoc Secret

by Clara Woods

  Something bright sliced in sideways toward the Bartoc. They clicked their pedipalps, dropping what they were sending toward Lenah. She pushed with all her might, imagining pain and exhaustion. The other stream of mind magic, coming from Corinna, wavered and vanished, but she had created enough distraction for Lenah to reach the Bartoc.

  Cassius jumped up again and reached the first creature. It scrambled backward but clicked its pedipalp at him. Cassius caught the attack with his c-nano arm, which he whipped around. He pulled the Bartoc sideways several paces before it let go of his arm. It swung its stinger at him, but he had already stepped out of the way, now driving a fist into the plating at its neck. The mind magic it directed at him never reached Cassius.

  He was moving again, toward the next Bartoc, who upon Lenah’s intrusion had taken several steps back. Its stinger hung limply behind it. Cassius reached it and drove his metal fist toward its face. It connected with the eyes, and Lenah looked away as the creature collapsed.

  Lenah leaped into action toward the two remaining Bartoc. She grabbed one of the knives that had fallen on the floor.

  Cassius was facing off both at once, and one pedipalp got dangerously close to his organic arm. He pushed back like he’d done with his other arm, but the Bartoc wouldn’t move. It advanced further upon him. Cassius ducked, catching Lenah’s eye.

  He jumped behind the Bartoc, and it stumbled toward Lenah.

  She held on to her wall of mind magic, but the creature, apparently concentrating on the fight, wasn’t using any. It came to an unsteady halt in front of Lenah. She used the time it took to rebalance to jump forward and drive her knife straight in between the layers on its neck. She instantly picked up another fallen weapon off the floor, a loaded pistol. When she looked up, Cassius had already taken care of the last Bartoc.

  On the other side of the room, Persia was still holding the three remaining guards in check. On the floor behind her, Zyrakath was crawling, his small form barely visible in the shadows. He tried to pick up another weapon that was on the floor but struggled with the length.

  Cassius broke into the circle like a whirlwind. He shoved two guards to the side and toward Lenah’s waiting knife with one big blow of his arm. Lenah pressed the large trigger and the knife shot out of the tip of the weapon. It hit the guard squarely in the chest and he dropped to the ground.

  The second one tumbled toward her, not giving her time to figure out how to reload her new weapon, but Cassius was there to jerk him away.

  He flung the furry guard against the far wall where he sunk down and stopped moving.

  Panting, Cassius turned around toward the last remaining guard who was still facing Persia. She jumped out of the way, swinging an empty pistol in front of her, even though it didn’t have a weapon. He shot. Persia barely got out of the way. The knife soared through the room, missing Persia by a centimeter, then found another target.

  Corinna, her hair flying loosely around her head, had been trying to get up from the floor. The knife hit her in the chest, and she slumped down.

  “Noooooo!” both Lenah and Cassius yelled at the same time.

  Lenah stumbled toward Corinna, barely caring if there were more incoming enemies. The room had fallen quiet.

  Cassius reached Corinna first, ripping at her jacket and revealing where the knife had hit her in the side of her ribs. Time, noise, everything stopped as Lenah knelt down next to Corinna. She was breathing, the knife lowering and lifting in her chest. Loud noises snapped Lenah back. The Bartoc. They were coming. Corinna’s eyes opened and met Lenah’s.

  Corinna looked calm as she took in a rasping breath. “Lenah. Make it—” she coughed, “—worth it.”

  “We’ll get you out of here.” Lenah promised, trying to find Cassius’s gaze. He nodded once, but the sounds of multiple Bartoc feet clicking over the floor, getting close, made him freeze.

  “We have to leave now,” Lenah urged Cassius and looked down in time to see the familiar cloud of Corinna’s mind vanish.

  “No.” Lenah blinked, dropping her magic. Corinna’s eyes were open, staring back at her. “No!”

  Cassius grabbed Corinna and cradled her in his arms. “Go, Lenah, go!” he yelled, then ran toward the second door.

  Persia, cradling Zyr in one arm, appeared next to Lenah, jerking at her hand and pulling her up. “Lenah!” She dragged harder, and finally, some of the stupor lifted off Lenah. She heard the clicking of feet again and saw a multitude of minds a few meters away. They would be here within seconds.

  Several tendrils of magic were already coming through the door. Lenah built her wall, let herself be pulled by Persia, and tried to block the mind attack coming at them. She stumbled behind Cassius who was already halfway up the stairs.

  At the top, Lenah almost stumbled again, still concentrating on the mind attacks coming after them. She caught hold of the handrail, blinking into the semi-darkness. Two figures were huddling in the shadows. Two humans.

  “You took too long!” an unfamiliar voice accused. Then Penelope’s face appeared next to a young man. They looked startlingly alike.

  “This way. Hurry!” the young woman urged, then ran behind her brother down the corridor. Cassius followed suit, still cradling Corinna. Lenah shot after him. As long as they made it somewhere with medical care within the next few minutes, all would be fine. They would be able to bring Corinna back. She would come back. As she ran behind Cassius, Lenah repeated that message over and over again in her head.

  When they were halfway down the corridor, Penelope’s brother took a sharp left turn, vanishing through a small door that Lenah wouldn’t even have noticed.

  Another corridor lay beyond, the ceiling so low that Cassius had to duck.

  On they ran through several more turns.

  The minds behind them grew more distant, and eventually got too far away to be seen.

  Their guides led them down several flights of stairs, then finally into a shabby elevator. It was low and wide, clearly built for a Bartoc.

  Cassius stood stiffly next to Lenah in the elevator, Corinna’s face buried against his chest.

  Lenah stroked Corinna’s head, tears finding their way out of her eyes.

  The elevator rocked to a halt, and they were running again, taking a maze of corridors. Even if her life depended on it, Lenah knew that she’d never find her way back out.

  They passed a thick metal door that loudly creaked when Penelope opened it, and at last, the light became brighter.

  Five humans were waiting there, their tense faces looked at Lenah, Cassius, Zyrakath, and Persia.

  “We shook them off,” Penelope’s brother panted, and Lenah became aware that she was the only one not out of breath. Persia looked like she was about to collapse, sweat running down her face, and Penelope was holding her side. Even Cassius breathed heavily.

  “We need help with Corinna!” Lenah shouted. Someone appeared with a piece of metal junk big enough to serve as a stretcher. Cassius lowered Corinna gently, then looked around. No one moved.

  “Help her! A doctor!” Lenah demanded, her voice ringing off the metal walls. For the first time, she realized that they seemed to be inside a junkyard. A long row of chambers was stuffed with metal pieces.

  Lenah looked down at Corinna again. Her eyes were closed as if she were only sleeping, and Lenah wondered if Cassius had done that. How many minutes had passed already?

  “She’s gone,” Penelope said. Her voice was careful and soft.

  Lenah shook her head and grasped Corinna’s hand inside her own. She stared down at the woman who had been her idol, her enemy, and finally, her ally and friend. And now she had given her life for this, for Lenah’s desperate idea to bring more mind mages back home.

  Penelope said something about moving further inside, into safety, but the words just trickled by Lenah. She stared down at Corinna, still stroking her hand, and numbness overtook her. Her gaze fell over the knife in Corinna’s chest, buried just where the heart was, and she tho
ught how in the end, it had happened exactly like Wise Ralika had planned. She had succeeded.

  30 Goodbye

  After some time, the group around her shuffled and moved. They were talking, introductions, that they were somewhere hidden but needed to get further inside to be truly safe.

  Lenah shut it all out, listening only to the mechanical clicks in the distance. She stretched out an arm, looking down at her hand grasping the hilt of the knife still stuck in Corinna’s chest. Her hand, looking as if it didn’t belong to Lenah, pulled.

  The knife clanked to the floor, and Lenah arranged Corinna’s clothes again, and she truly looked as if she were merely sleeping, except for the small hole where the blade had cut through the shirt.

  Persia touched Lenah on the shoulder, and she looked over to see her friend’s large and scared-looking eyes. Big tears were streaking down her cheeks.

  But Lenah couldn’t cry. She felt empty, completely spent as if the only thing she had left to do was bury Corinna and then go lie down next to her.

  Penelope appeared, telling two of the men to lift Corinna on the improvised stretcher, but Cassius hissed at them, and he bent once more to cradle Corinna in his arms, saying that he would carry her like that until they could say a proper goodbye.

  Numbly, Lenah went after them, watching how Cassius carefully held Corinna’s head so that it wouldn’t bounce or fall.

  Persia fell into step next to Lenah, still holding Zyrakath. Even the drone, otherwise never silent, was mute.

  They picked a path through rooms stuffed with the metal junk of trains—windowpanes, doors, and other interior pieces. Strategic openings led like archways through the mess, invisible until you were right in front of them and not accessible for a Bartoc body. A good thing. Safety, Lenah noted like a distant fact.

  They finally entered a large room where dozens of people were waiting. The faces, female or male, melted into each other as Lenah passed them, never distancing herself from Cassius and Corinna.

  These people were all wearing the same beige and shapeless gown, their red hair shining in the glow of the warm light.

  When Lenah had passed, everyone else started to follow behind, and the long procession left the large room to enter another corridor.

  Uz’s green face appeared in front of them. She came running, passed Corinna with a gasp, and hugged Lenah. Martello was right behind her, staring silently down at Corinna.

  “How?” Lenah pressed against Uz’s chest.

  “They found us. Lund and Lorka stayed with the construct, but we came,” Uz muttered into her hair, then broke the hug and hooked her arm through Lenah’s. She didn’t say anything else, but Lenah knew even then how special that kind of support was from a touch-averse Cassidian.

  They continued into a circular room, dark and hot. The opposite wall was part of an oven or smeltery.

  The group stopped there, and Penelope indicated for Cassius to put Corinna at the front. He complied and then stood there with her. His grandfather went to stand next to him, and Lenah and Uz joined them. Lenah faced the group of foreign humans who had brought them here.

  “This is where we unite our death back with the spirit of the Elders,” Penelope said in a festive voice, and someone brought forth several trees made from metal and painted a vibrant purple and green.

  “Cascra trees?” Uz whispered next to Lenah, sounding stunned. Lenah noted that the Cassidian was right, and these trees indeed looked like imitations of the holy trees from Cassidia.

  They surrounded Corinna with the trees. Then everyone knelt and started to chant.

  Uz swallowed loudly and pulled Lenah to kneel as well.

  With a crystal clear voice, Uz joined the chant, a beautiful up and down lilt that seemed to cradle Lenah as it echoed off the walls.

  Lenah looked at Corinna again, then at the group around them. Soft tendrils of mind magic were surrounding Corinna, like a cocoon of safety. The room hummed with the force of all their power.

  Lenah joined them, not knowing what they were doing exactly but feeling that it was right for her to send Corinna a last wave of warmth and friendship.

  She knelt there, letting the chant take her away, feeling astonishment for the first time. This was what they had come for.

  Somehow, they had found not just mind mages but friendly ones.

  Lenah looked around and knew that the only way forward was to convince them to come with her and fight a war that wasn’t yet theirs for people that they didn’t know.

  After a while, the chanting stopped, and Lenah got to her feet. Everyone was looking at her.

  She cleared her throat. “I would like to say a few words,” she croaked and had to clear her throat once more. “This is Corinna Cheung, the strongest woman I have ever met. Some will have thought of her as hard, or even cruel. For a while, I did so as well. But I now know that it was only because she was driven to save her people, never shying away from responsibility. That is a lesson I will always remember. As I will always remember her.” Lenah swallowed a lump. “May she rest in peace.”

  “May she rest in peace,” the room echoed in accented G-Standard. Uz stood up, pulling Lenah even closer to Corinna. Cassius joined them, and someone opened a door to the inside of the furnace. Heat waved against Lenah’s skin.

  Cassius, surrounded by Uz and Lenah, carried Corinna over and placed her gently into the hatch. And then the flames swallowed Corinna’s body, and the room was chanting again. One imitation Cascra tree was pulled forward, and someone put a metal carving knife into Lenah’s hand.

  “Write down her name,” Uz whispered and pointed at a leaf. “It’s a Cassidian custom.”

  Lenah noticed that some leaves already held engravings spelled in G-Standard. She knelt and worked on adding an engraving for Corinna Cheung.

  31 The Wailing

  Her crew stayed until Lenah was done carving Corinna’s name into a leaf on the top half of the tree.

  She put down the carving knife, no longer able to stand the heat of the smelter room. Lenah turned and left, throwing one last look over her shoulder.

  Energy was flowing through her, together with the knowledge that now it all depended on her. Her heart beat with the certainty of it. Not on some UPL commander billions of clicks away, not even on anyone else in her own group. Just her.

  The Strikers waited in the next room. Penelope stood at the head of a long table, talking to her brother and an older man who looked up when Lenah entered. Their gazes met.

  His eyes were dark blue, a calming sea of control. He stood upright, broad shouldered—an authority in the room. Mind magic swirled around him, cocooning him in a beautiful aura, but also speaking of the willingness to fight, of danger.

  Lenah stepped forward into the center of the room. “I believe introductions are due,” she said, receiving an almost invisible nod from the man. “My name is Lenah Callo, a mind mage from Astur in the Cassidian sector. With me are my crew, Persia, a fighter, Cassius and Martello, both experienced spacers, Uzara, a mechanic, and Zyrakath, an ancient scholar. And Corinna Cheung, of course, a leader and also a mind mage. We have come in search of you, bringing news from the Cassidian sector.”

  Whispering broke out within the dozen people in the room.

  The older man lifted a hand, and silence fell. “My name is Brons Striker,” he said in almost perfect G-Standard. “And this is my family. You already met my children Penelope and Jann. We are just a few of the Wailing in this sector.”

  “Excuse me,” Zyrakath piped in. “What are the Wailing?”

  Penelope’s eyes widened, but her father nodded. “Of course.” He pointed at the table, a metal rectangle with simple benches on each side.

  “It is customary to sit and eat in memory of a deceased,” he said. “Let us sit, and I will explain.”

  The group in the room approached the table, leaving the center seats free. Brons Striker led Lenah to a space on the bench, then sat down next to her. Persia took a seat on her other side.


  “We will drink clear water in memory of Corinna Cheung,” Brons announced and lifted a weathered cup.

  Lenah grasped hers, lifted it, and took a sip. Persia coughed just as the old and dirty-tasting water hit Lenah’s taste buds. She had to struggle not to follow Persia’s lead. This was clear water? Thirsty as Lenah was, she downed the whole cup at once.

  Persia wanted to say something, but Lenah stepped on her foot under the table.

  “We thank you for the beautiful ceremony.” Lenah swallowed through a lump in her throat. “And for the rescue. We are in your debt.”

  Penelope and Jann, who had taken seats opposite Lenah, exchanged a glance. “We’ve been waiting for you,” Jann said.

  Lenah frowned. “What do you mean?” For the first time, she took a good look at the young man. He was at least ten years younger than her and maybe a few years older than his sister. They shared the same facial features, but where her hair was brown, his was a flaming red. He wore it cut short at the back, but thick strands fell over his forehead and into his eyes. He seemed to have a habit of blowing it out of his face with his mouth. On his chin, he wore a tattoo—nine dots—just like Penelope.

  Lenah looked around the room, almost expecting everyone to have the same tattoo, but saw it only on two others. Something unspoken passed between Jann and his father, and it was Brons who finally answered.

  “The arrival of a savior is something the Wailing have waited for a long time.”

  Lenah shook her head. “We are no one’s saviors. We’re just people. But we did come to bring back any volunteers to the Cassidian sector.”

  More whispers arose in the room.

  “Modesty is part of a savior’s making.” Brons smiled.

  When Zyrakath protested, he silenced the drone with a gesture of his hand. Lenah was impressed; Zyr wasn’t easily quieted.

  Brons continued. “Do not take this from us. We are the Wailing, the mind-bleeders. Here, we live to earn our share with the Sovs.”

  “We do not understand what that means,” Lenah said, trying not to lose patience. She was tired and exhausted—from the fight, from the loss—and barely able to sit upright.