The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Eighteen ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

Jeffrey and Brad were highly focused on their third experiment, lifting and bending Mick’s legs as if he were jumping. The neurological fragment sequencer was recording data transmitted from every nerve connecting to Mick’s silver skin and they could observe the composition of each fragment in the output field of the sequencer.

The sound of pounding hooves brought them all around to stare at the doorway. Rojer reached for his weapon and tried to see the danger. The treatment room was stacked. That meant there was an office-type room adjacent to the corridor followed by a room that did auto-diagnoses. That meant there were three doors between the corridor and the treatment room where Mick lay. Jeffrey had been assured there would be a guard on the outer door to prevent interruption coupled to the fact that the Directorate wanted Mick guarded from escape, however remote that possibility might be with the boy unconscious.

“Jordy?” Jeffrey called out. “What’s going on?”

“MagC activation. The Ba’Neesh have decided to go to your location, as a group. Mael and Xasper are chasing them and Thorne and I are right behind.”

Elias pushed himself upright on the adjacent bed. “Can’t sleep for shit in here.” He complained, stretching and staring toward the entry. “We getting company, Rojer?”

“You can hear as easily as I can.” Rojer said abruptly, his stomach was telling him things he didn’t want to hear.

“Stay out!” He yelled.

They heard the outer door open in spite of his order.

“Should I shoot them, Elias?” Rojer waved his stunner around, hunting a target.

“I wouldn’t.” Elias answered. “Let’s see what is causing the commotion before you kill anyone, okay?”

Brad was surprised at how placidly Elias was handling Rojer. The second door opened and now they could hear the Ba’Neesh, honking and whistling and calling out to each other in Neesh, their language.

“Looks like we have company, Rojer. Be polite but don’t act like a coward, okay, unless you want to be gored.” Elias continued, his own stunner was out and he’d taken a position facing the door with Mick in between. Technically Rojer was on the point side of the protection detail, closest to the door.

“Gored. Fuck no.” Rojer backed up until his back pressed into the treatment table.

Jeffrey just stood there. It appeared their treatment session was being interrupted, likely with cause.

The Ba’Neesh entered first, heads swinging to sweep the room hunting for something and then they focused on the silver Soek sprawled on the table. It was their first up close and personal view of Mick.

“He’s silver.” Moira announced.

Old One Horn pushed forward to sniff deeply. “He isn’t in there yet? How long do you expect Her to wait before She intervenes?” She looked over at Jeffrey.

“I’m treating him.” Jeffrey prickled defensively. In truth, the machine had just begun collecting data and from the amount collected so far, they had days or months to go at this rate of collection.

“Ba’Neesh are not known for patience toward Soek.” She answered.

Jeffrey nodded, he was well familiar with that truism.

With the addition of five more Soek the treatment room was jammed. “You can’t all stay in here.” Jeffrey said. “Some of you must leave.”

“The MagC is ramping up.” Jordy answered. “We believe She will manifest here.”

“Where, on top of the table?” Jeffrey was master of this space. “Three Ba’Neesh and three additional Soek. You choose but move now.” He lifted his hand and pointed, shifting to Speech. “Not chosen must leave now.” He articulated carefully.

It was intriguing to watch both the Ba’Neesh and Soek identify the chosen from how the compelling speech acted upon them. Most fun was with the Ba’Neesh who honked and yelled in active dismay to discover they were dismissed. No Soek dismissed a Ba’Neesh. Yet, Master Jeffrey was right, there wasn’t room. They decided they could move to the adjacent auto room on one side and into the lab through another door. So, they moved where they could still see and be nearly inside the room. Jeffrey contained his urge to smile. The Soek were nearly as bad. It turned out that Mael, Jordy and Xasper were chosen, not Thorne. This pushed Thorne into the same group of Ba’Neesh hovering in the doorway. He glowered, obviously believing that Jordy should be there or even Xasper. It did open up some room around the table.

Old One Horn had never moved, she was back to sniffing Mick with some curiosity and mumbling deep in her throat. Anya and Moira were the other two remaining Ba’Neesh.

“Move away from the table so you won’t confuse the readouts coming from the sensors.” Jeffrey made swishing motions with his hands. Brad facing Jeffrey, nodded. “Do we want to do the arms next?” He asked. They were doing large muscle groups first. It was important to divert the Ba’Neesh as much as entertain them. The treatment had become an entertainment. He sighed.

“Yes.” Jeffrey refocused on the treatment and shifted to stand next to Rojer while Brad moved next to Elias, moving the guarding two toward Mick’s legs.

“Individually first, like with the legs?” Brad continued, knowing they were playing to an audience.

“I will work his left arm first.” Jeffrey was equally aware of the many horns and antlers at his back, all glistening with Vrill. “We are watching the neurological fragment sequencer for collection of memory fragments.” He pointed to the area of the holo documenting their efforts.

“Why is Mick silver?” One of the Ba’Neesh asked.

“We dipped him in a sensory skin so that when his nervous system responds the skin picks up the data and transmits it to the sequencer telling us we have captured data.”

“Does it itch?” Another asked.

Jeffrey straightened. They were distracting. He thought back to his day in the skin. Yes, it had itched later when the removal liquid used to scrub it off peeled a layer of real skin along with it. He tailored his response. “He doesn’t itch now. Removing the film is irritating to the skin and it removes all of the body’s short hairs and some of the long. That does itch a bit.”

“It will take his eyelashes?” The same Ba’Neesh asked. Jeffrey was pretty sure it was Lemista, she was strongly interested in physical appearance.

“Yes, likely. They will grow back over time.”

“His eyebrows too?” She continued.

“Likely. Now, Lemista, I need to focus on generating more fragments and sequences. If you don’t mind.” Jeffrey was politely telling her to shut up.

Lemista sniffed while Perisee, ever at her shoulder, giggled. “Told you.” She said in a soto voice whisper everyone could hear. Several of the Ba’Neesh forced into the doorways also snorted.

Jeffrey tried not to feel them at his back. He was safe, he told himself, no reason to gore him.

“Let’s try his right arm now.” Jeffrey flashed a hasty look at Brad who nodded calmly.

Brad, of all of the Soek, felt no threat from the Ba’Neesh. So, they could kill him. Stand in line. He had been at war with death literally from the day of his birth. To die on the tip of an antler or horn wasn’t a bad thing, in fact, he hoped to go out by Ba’Neesh when he neared the end of his battles. Until then, they were merely Ba’Neesh, amusing, terrifying and ultimately any one of them might be his mother or sister or grandmother or aunt. They were family. They were his.

Brad used the gentle settings on his exo arm to bend Mick’s right arm at the elbow, working it several times. He wondered if the kid’s muscle memory was recalling something as mundane as eating or more likely, the muscles used in game playing. He knew as well as Jeffrey that they were only getting trickles of data, no where near enough to attempt to boot a brain. So, the MagC was ramping up, that was vastly more interesting. The She, as the Ba’Neesh insisted on calling Her. The She was coming otherwise they wouldn’t have muscled their way down here so fast. That simply meant they wanted in on the fun. He hoped that fun didn’t include massive amounts of spilled blood, a Ba’Neesh favorite.

He carefully placed Mick’s arm back on the transparent pins that kept him elevated so the sensors could read the underside of his body.

“Right.” Jeffrey said, as much to himself as to any of them. The trickle from arm bending wasn’t impressive. His sense of failure was growing. Yes, they were collecting tiny fragments of Mick but he had hoped for much more. Like Brad, he was equally concerned that the data collected was lower function stuff. “Let’s do the hands next.”

This exercise produced a much higher transmission ratio and the Ba’Neesh, now leaning in as far as their necks could stretch, jostled and spoke to each other about the flow of the information. A few of them were quite good with technology, Anya in particular, and, they could read the equipment.

“On to your hand, Brad.” Jeffrey reluctantly sat Mick’s left hand down. Likely Mick’s right hand was the top producer if his analysis of muscle usage bore out.

Mick was right-handed so it was no surprise when the data stream collection numbers ramped up nicely. In the midst of this stream a blue hand appeared, moving between Mick and the sequencer as if trying to catch the fragments. Jeffrey watched the numbers shift and escalate, clearly the machine was picking up neurological information from the intruder. He both wanted it to continue and to end, as it was screwing up his collected data. He said nothing and simply watched. The reality was that Mick’s body wasn’t going to produce enough data to recover him. In the off chance he could capture data on Kiena, he let it run. As quickly as the ghostly blue hand had appeared, it vanished.

The room took a collective sigh, Ba’Neesh included. Then Perisee said, “Is She gone then? That was it?”

“Shhh.” Moira said.

“Well, I thought more would happen than Her silly blue hand thing, we’ve already seen that.” Perisee continued, stomping her feet a bit in disappointment.

Quite frankly, Jeffrey was not unhappy with the limited manifestation. He had seen the footage of that hand killing transport ships full of men.

“Jeffrey?” Brad asked. “What’s next?”

Jeffrey was studying the mess that was Mick’s bruised face. By rights a healer didn’t press on bruising because it caused pain. But, he needed results and besides, the boy was unconscious and not likely to regain consciousness or feel the pain.

“I’m going to palpate his facial muscles as the information stored there is likely very recent and coded with higher states of energy.”

Brad frowned slightly. Palpate the bruising? Was Jeffrey giving up? True they had only a tiny fraction of the boy. He allowed himself to consider the restless antlers and horns at Jeffrey’s back, easily close enough to gore the Healer from the back. Jeffrey was relatively young, young enough to want to live. Were they getting to him?

“Right.” Brad said, moving his chair to be at Mick’s head, on his right side.

Jeffrey moved along the table wanting to stand above Mick’s head from the top. He ran into someone. He frowned, intending to chasten the Ba’Neesh who was in his way. Then he noticed the sharp intake of breath of everyone around him. He looked at the strangest Ba’Neesh he had ever seen. Clearly her Chimeric aspect was kangaroo, and roe deer, and feline, and monkey? The aspects were far sharper than those he usually witnessed.

“False name Kiena.” Old One Horn said, her voice gravelly and old.

“Name so old it’s forgotten, One Horn.” Kiena answered. “You know I remember your name.”

The Ba’Neesh trilled, both in shock and delight. A remembered forgotten memory. They dearly loved those.

“And I yours…when my brain cooperates.” Old One Horn answered, thudding her hoof against the floor.

“You should be long dead.” Kiena said.

“True. These miserable worthless Ba’Neesh fail to kill me properly. I long to taste death and run in the Afterlife.”

Kiena nodded, as did most of the Ba’Neesh.

“Why do you allow this stupid Soek to linger at healing?” Kiena was clearly speaking to Old One Horn. It took a long moment before Jeffrey realized she was speaking of him.

“I’m not stupid.” He answered, not realizing he was echoing the boy on the table.

“Slow?” Kiena pivoted to face him. “Is slow and malingering better than stupid?” She asked.

“I’m not slow or lingering either.” Jeffrey defended himself.

“Then why haven’t you fixed Mick. You keep playing with his body. What is that? Is he a doll? Fix him.”

Jeffrey stiffened before he answered, “His brain memory is gone, deleted. We are recovering his muscle memory.”

“You suggest the recovered Mick will only know muscle memory? Why? What foolishness is this?” She turned on Old One Horn. “Have you allowed this healer this foolishness? What good is memory within the muscle only? So, Mick will know how to stand up but not know his own thoughts or even why he stands up? Is this your doing One Horn?”

Old One Horn snorted. She was seldom confronted. It was enjoyable that this phantasm of a Neeshatari found her an acceptable adversary. She grinned. “All Soek are stupid but this one less than most.” She stated.

Jeffrey could almost flower in her compliment. He was of the lesser stupid. He snorted in turn. Both the old Ba’Neesh and the apparition looked over at him. Funny, both looked lethal. He remembered Mael’s advice to him once, never show cowardice. He lifted his chin.

“Do you have a better solution to the problem of Mick’s missing neurological sequences?” He asked Kiena. He could feel the Ba’Neesh behind him sneaking forward, his compelling speech obviously failing to hold.

“Why would they be missing?” Kiena asked. “Repair him and, what did you say, encapsulate that worthless crap molcom in his head.”

“As I said, that worthless crap molcom deleted his files. I don’t have the files to reinstall.”

Kiena turned on Old One Horn. “Really?” She said.

Jeffrey had the distinct feeling that Old One Horn was trying to hide something. He turned to look at the watching but silent Ba’Neesh. “What?” He asked. He was gifted with empathy on steroids, as one of his teachers had once said. He could smell an odor of deceit, Ba’Neesh deceit. He knew they loved to play, to trick, to hide, to obscure. But, this was a boy’s life. Not fun. Not funny. “What is not being said here?” He demanded, risking a step toward the apparition. “Tell me why I’m being stupid you Vrill powered replica of a Ba’Neesh.”

Several Ba’Neesh actually giggled.

Kiena swelled, Her presentation gaining both height and solidity. She wanted to play hard and dirty with this Soek, but She actually liked him and his energy quite a bit. He was tasty.

“Use your Ba, you dolt.” She yelled at him.

“My Ba?” Jeffrey blinked.

“You are born of Ba’Neesh, correct. That makes you Ba’Soek of course. Don’t they teach you which combinations produce which offspring?”

“Ba’Soek?” It was the first time he’d ever heard the word. “What does the Ba mean?” He demanded, wishing he could shake the apparition by Her arms, foolish as that thought was.

“Collective. You are all collective. Except for this one.” She reached over to touch Rojer who felt Vrill arc into his body as if he were plugged into a socket. “This one is different. But you, and the rest here, are all Ba.”

Jeffrey did a surprising thing. He dropped to his knees before the apparition and said, “I am Master Jeffrey Kristo, a Ba’Soek. I am here to serve you Kiena not of true name. Please tell me in the simplest of terms how I can use the Ba to save Mick. Please.” He placed his forehead to the floor at her feet. He’d seen the video of Mael doing something similar. It was okay. It was okay to serve. To save his friends he would serve. To save other lives he would serve. What was one service among many?

Kiena liked his strategy and considered taking him. She tilted her head. He might fit Her burgeoning plan nicely. “The Ba.” She turned to look at first Old One Horn and then at the watchful Ba’Neesh. “I care nothing for your secrets, Ba’Neesh. Your games may not be my games.”

There was stomping and gasps both of annoyance and delight. A game was on.

Jeffrey pushed himself to his feet so as not to be accidentally trampled by the live Ba’Neesh now once again crowding forward.

“Master Jeffrey Kristo Healer. I see you.” Kiena said. “The Ba is the collective, an agreement to move the Neeshatari and others into a shared memory state. It is a form of collective immortality. You are Ba. This means you share the memory of all Ba Soek or all nearby non-Ba Soek if you sleepstate within range of their Vrill. Perhaps this worthless molcom crap inhibits awareness of Ba state?” Her speculation grew and bloomed inside of Jeffrey.

She looked over at Elias. “Elias, stupid Soek, this is your molcom. Encapsulate now and kill it.” She ordered, flowing a visual of his molcom, its location in his head and the compelling order. She turned to Rojer, “You, Soek of many names,” She repeated the instruction inside Rojer’s skull. Then she shrugged, her dual-tipped roe horns growing brighter. “To all within range of my Vrill on this submarine. This is your molcom. Find it. Kill it. Encapsulate now.”

Soek and human alike aboard the submarine received the location of their molcoms as both a visual image and a hot spot in their heads. They were shown the way to encapsulate with biological nacre as that was what the body uses naturally to isolate non-compatible intruders. Their body’s attacked the molcom to an accompaniment of screams of pain mixed with a sort of ecstasy at killing the thing.

Kiena flickered back to her blue transparency. She grinned. “The MagC needs improvement.” This she directed toward Thorne. “You will improve it, Thorne who is Kirsan who is known to me as your true name.”

“Master Jeffrey.” She shifted to look at him. “Elias has full Mick in his head. Place Elias hands at Mick’s temples. Think Mick back into Mick’s body.” She said the words slowly and simply.

Jeffrey looked over at Mael, who was standing silent, his expression eager and wary in equal measure. “Mael? How do I get Elias to think Mick?” He asked. To his mind Mael was the smartest and the most intuitive Soek he’d ever met.

“Make Elias focus.” Mael suggested.

“Of course.” The solution seemed too simple. Jeffrey wanted to laugh. His own molcom was dead but he could feel how Kiena had lit it up. It made him want to encapsulate it more. Collective. Shared memories. No wonder all Soek had some form of Eidetical Syndrome. By the Dark Gods, no more wipes, the part of his vocation he hated the most.

It was easy enough to hyper-focus Elias and to place his hands on either side of Mick’s head. Elias knew how to direct his Vrill. The order using compelling speech to send Mick back into Mick was actually done by Rojer, who had the best voice.

Everyone watched as the neurological sequencer spiraled upward toward the massive load that was a totality of Soek memory. When it peaked and the numbers began to decline and then ceased flowing altogether. Jeffrey manually pulled Elias away.

“Cease sending Mick.” Rojer ordered, well pleased to have such a critical job. This would save his father, and the rest of them. He swelled up a bit and realized he wasn’t getting those annoying limiter voices in his head anymore. Kiena had shown him how to kill his molcom. No more threat of brain wipe. He looked over at the blue apparition. She had said he wasn’t Ba. No shared Soek memories in his skull. He rather liked that. He realized he had a growing relationship with this monster, She understood him. It was a strange feeling to be wanted for the very aspects that others deplored. He smiled to himself, not realizing others noticed and took note.

(Welcome back! Well, things are heating up. Are you enjoying yourself in my world? I hope so. Enjoy!)