The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Thirty-Four ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

Warmth moving away from him roused Mick to a discovery he was sleeping on rocks and dirt to a nasty smell. He wrinkled his nose and stretched, discovering all kinds of aches and pains he couldn’t remember the source of. He frowned around the overly-full cave of glaring Ba’Neesh, several were injured and others were washing them with a bit of rag, combing hair with fingers and eyeing Mick with what he thought might be hostility. Wasn’t his fault the stupid Tule Soc had dragged them in the dirt.

Well maybe, he amended thoughtfully, if they hadn’t wasted so much time drinking the water, they would have arrived sooner. The thought brought the laser thing to mind. It felt unreal, like the whole massacre had happened on a vid, not in real life, not to him. He pointed his right index finger at the wall and called out, laser. A blast of rock shattered and sprayed him. He yeowled, yelling “off, off damnit.” Real enough. He brushed and rubbed at the new sore spots.

The cave had become silent. He glared back at the Ba’Neesh, this was all their fault. “What?” He said roughly, pushing himself to his feet. Pee was demanding his immediate attention.

“Fuck.” Edda answered. “Laser fuck.” She laughed and the rest of the Ba’Neesh joined in.

“Shit.” Mick said, hurrying past the large part of the group to head deeper into the dark cave. It wasn’t any better in daytime than the night before. He couldn’t see worth a shit and had to feel his way by reaching his feet out on the uneven floor and listen to the drip. He knew the drip place came before the pee place but the drip made his urgency to pee intensify. He started swearing, wondering how he had managed to get himself into this entire mess. He should be home in his soft bed listening for the ding that the house made when his breakfast was ready. Breakfast.

He peed and some of his angst flowed out with it. That left him thinking about home and why he felt mostly not too much about it. Had the brain wipe separated him from the emotional context of his memories?

He found the water dripping place and waited while a Ba’Neesh whose name he didn’t know washed out a rag. When she finally left he washed his entire head, feeling the bruises like forgotten trophies, the new rock-chip nicks, the filth, the smell of dried blood from dead body splatter. He even washed his hair and noted that he too was finger-combing to straighten it back out. Why didn’t he carry a pocket comb? He did his best and then tied it as neatly as he could at the base of his neck. Long hair. He’d noted that all of the Soek he had met wore their hair long, as did the Ba’Neesh.

His mother had complained, telling him he looked out of place as the current style for men was much shorter and more trim. He never wanted anyone to cut or even trim his hair. His mother. He tried to summon intense longing to see her, be hugged by her, but at best he managed a tepid he would like to, at some point, mostly, kind of feeling.

Elias arrived.

“What’s wrong with me Elias?” He asked. “I don’t miss my mom enough. It’s like she is off in the distance and I don’t even feel like I should tell her I’m alive. That’s wrong.”

“Did you have a good relationship with your foster parents?” Elias asked, going through a near identical process of washing his face, even his hair.

“Yeah, I guess.” Mick found a boulder and sat on it. He could see better now, as if his eyes had adjusted to the dark a bit. “My mom, mostly. She spent the most time with me. She’s part of the Advocacy on Human Rights. They make sure everyone gets a totally fair chance at realizing their potential. She’s really great that way.”

“And, your father?” Elias was finger-combing his long hair too, working out the many knots.

“I don’t know.” Mick played with a pebble. “He’s a Reserves Administrator for three teams. That’s pretty important but he is away half the week and when he’s home all he talks about are this or that problem with his teams or their sites for the week. So boring. He doesn’t bother to even try to understand me. He once told me I was super selfish. I could tell he didn’t think much of me.”

“I never met either parent.” Elias said simply. “Order born, crèche raised and then boarded at Citadel. I had a Comfort Counselor, of course, and then the String, my classmates and a few Masters I liked okay.”

Mick listened, his memory echo of Elias gave him flits of each of these experiences, so different from his own life.

“Why don’t I care more, Elias?” He returned to his own problem. “I feel focused on myself, like my father said, I feel selfish.”

“How do you feel about killing those men yesterday?” Elias asked, finding a boulder across from Mick where he sat down.

“I don’t know.” Mick said, “In the moment I was grossed out and wanted to throw up. Then, it felt sneaky good in a way. I’m not supposed to feel good about killing things, only damaged people feel like that.”

“According to whom?” Elias asked.

“My psychiatrist for one. He said I showed signs of too much detachment from healthy human emotional states.”

“Are you human? Don’t you think your human measure might not relate perfectly to being Soek?” Elias asked.

Mick blinked. “You mean you feel this detachment too?”

“I care about things, but this last week has made me feel things I never felt before, since I met you and everything happened so fast.” Elias admitted.

“They,” Mick pointed back toward where they could hear the Ba’Neesh, “seem to have fast experiences.”

“I never get the sense they hold onto things emotionally.” Elias agreed, nodding. “Hot and fast. If it happens in the moment then fine, once the moment is gone, it’s like they choose not to dwell on it endlessly.”

“Yeah, like when they had me on the floor and then poof, I was invisible.” Mick said, nodding to himself.

“Exactly.” Elias agreed. “Super short attention span, no lingering trauma. Remember, these Ba’Neesh have been confined and treated badly since birth.” They could both hear laughter coming from the direction of the Ba’Neesh. “And, they are laughing.”

“So, that’s why I find it hard to miss my mother? I mean, I want her to be safe and healthy and all of that, but, I can’t fit my head around going back to a life of laying on the floor of my bedroom playing a game all day. It’s like it didn’t really happen to me but to some other kid.” Mick said.

“I know the feeling.” Elias nodded. “I listened to those classes you played back in the floater and it was like it happened to someone else, not me. I feel like I have had several separate lives and when you showed up, my old life ended again. I resented that, a lot. But, now this feels almost normal.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

There was a long pause and then Mick said, “How old are you anyway. At first I thought you were like thirty or something, but now you feel only a little older than me.”

Elias laughed. “Thirty? Damn. I’m older than Mael is, Mick. I was sixteen when he was nine.”

“No way.” Mick tried to see Elias face to see if he was lying.

“Totally.” Elias said. “I’m thirty-five.”

Mick shook his head. “Do you feel that ancient?” He asked.

“Sometimes.” Elias thought about it a bit. “Mostly, I feel like I just got out of school, still trying hard to learn things and find my way.”

“Like me.” Mick nodded. “I missed my upper school levels. No great loss though, all the classes were so boring.”

“You’re way behind.” Elias said, “Clearly you need all the mastery classes, I didn’t do too well on some of them which is why I voced out. I’ve been uncertain what to share with you as technically, you are an enemy combatant. Except, I can’t make that work in my head anymore. I have no idea what you are except you arrived and I feel compelled to guard you and you end up in the middle of shit.”

“Oh.” It was Mick’s turn to think about it from Elias’ side. Mastery classes. He knew that meant magic stuff. He’d known Elias was hiding that stuff from him as much as he could. It made him feel both a little comforted and uncomfortable all at the same time. He got up. “I’m hungry.” He stated.

“Me too.” Elias answered, “Can’t say I’m looking forward to more semi-raw meat though.”

“Yeah. But the Akaitapi are really good hunters.” Mick replied. “And, did you see how they made that fire so easy last night?”

“No, I didn’t see. That worries me too.” Elias said. “They actually worry me quite a bit, I feel like they are hiding nearly everything from us, even worse than the Citadel Ba’Neesh do and they are bad enough.”

“So it wasn’t just me?” Mick said. “I felt like a stupid Soek last night, an exhausted stupid Soek.

“Me too.”

They arrived to find the fire going again and a new stack of wood lining one side. The smoke masked some of the more unpleasant odors and the local Ba’Neesh were pulling the skins off what looked like large rodents to Mick. He frowned.

“Squirrel.” Elias said, hopeful more than certain.

“Oh.” That didn’t seem much better to Mick than big rats.

His resistance lasted until the smell of roasting meat activated his salivation glands. He frowned. He was primitive as well as stupid. Then he forgot both when Edda handed him a speared squirrel on a stick, hot.

He learned to eat with his teeth and to wait for it to cool some. He found the Akaitapi had returned with a small pile of nuts and berries too, as well as some bulbous roots he couldn’t identify. They were eating these raw so he decided they must be safe uncooked. The nuts were bland, the berries tart and the roots were spicy. Together the meal was surprisingly tasty although he had to return to the drip twice for water to wash all of it down.

When he returned after washing his face and hands, the local Ba’Neesh were seated in a circle with the Akaitapi, also seated, at the end nearest the cave entrance. He wedged in between Elias and Edda, she seemed to be the nicest of the Ba’Neesh toward him.

“They have searchers in the woods.” Aapisowoohta continued. “You will remain inside the cave. We have protections up that will cause them to avoid the area. They are using tracers but the rock operates like a shield and you will fill rocks in the entrance to protect what might leak from the opening. We will be gone, perhaps until tomorrow. You should be safe. You have lasers.” She repeated everything in Neesh after the English version for Elias and Mick.

Everyone nodded. Mick could imagine chopping up intruders trying to break in. Elias shook his head.

“When they come, if they find us, they will use an illegal rocket device to blow into the cave and crush us to death.” Elias said.

“Perhaps.” Aapisowoohta said. “We must consider that strongly. You will build the inner wall as thick as possible. The area has natural Vrill trace from ancient occupation of Ba’Neesh for centuries, working into the environment. It will operate against their devices. We suggest no fire until after dark. The odor and trace of smoke might be sensed. They are not woodsmen. They are loud and awkward in the woods.”

“Where are you going?” Mick asked.

“To Fels. We gather intel.” Aapisowoohta answered. “Rest, you will likely need your strength, later.”

Mick hated that their words were all thoughtful and well-reasoned. He didn’t want to be stuck in a cave all day. But, he could tell he was still tired, too many days of too many problems. He grumbled under his breath.

As it turned out they spent more than two hours after the Akaitapi left filling in the cave opening like a jigsaw puzzle. It was hard work and the local Ba’Neesh seemed to think it was Soek work. So, Elias and Mick did the work, snarking to each other about the Ba’Neesh, secure in the thought that these Ba’Neesh didn’t speak English.

That ended when Edda approached Mick and said, “Lazy?”

Mick had his shirt off and was mopping the sweat off his face. As they closed in the entrance the light inside the cave dwindled and Edda was more a shape of dark-on-dark, he couldn’t see her face or even attempt to read her expression.

“What lazy?” She asked a second time.

He wondered where she got the word ‘what’. He knew where she’d heard the word lazy. “Not wanting work.” He answered, hoping the language barrier would hold up in this instance.

“Not work?” She left out the word wanting.

“Yes.” He said.

She hurried away from him chattering in Neesh, loudly and with some negativity in her tone.

“Shit.” He whispered to Elias. “They learn fast.”

“Yeah.” Elias said. “First profanity and now lazy. Think they will allow us to sleep with them later or not?”

Mick paused. It was weird to think he had slept up against two female bodies the night before and didn’t remember much about it. He was male, so was Elias, they were female.

“So, what’s the deal between Ba’Neesh and Soek?” He whispered.

“You mean sex?” Elias answered directly.

“Well, okay.” Mick said.

“No one knows except maybe Mael and Anya.” Elias answered, “Oh, and the Akaitapi, of course.”

“What do you mean?”

“We artificially constrained reproduction both the Directorate and Tule Soc.” Elias answered. “At the Barrens, the Ba’Neesh were allowed in a room with vials of Soek sperm, frozen. They walked along and then selected one. It was reconstituted and the Ba’Neesh were given the vial. Later, they might become pregnant, or not. The Directorate tried everything but the Ba’Neesh only got pregnant by the vial method, except for Mael.”

“You make exceptions for Mael a lot.” Mick observed. “What happened with Mael?”

“No one knows, exactly.” Elias answered. “When Kirsan took over Barrens they did a spot inspection. Back then that meant they gassed the Ba’Neesh to render them unconscious and walked through their quarters. They found a male infant who was being diaper changed when the inspection happened. He was months old. Typically, the Ba’Neesh gave up male infants three days after birth. Mael was several months old. They checked all of the other babies to be sure they were all female. Then they tested Mael and his paternal contributor was not in the record. No vial. They asked the Ba’Neesh as they could identify her. She apparently shrugged as her answer.”

“So, what happened?”

“He was listed as unknown contributor and sent to crèche. He didn’t get along super well. They called him Mel Barrows back then. Later, much later, Xasper discovered his mentor Albert Strom, dead. He was very old even then, like Ornius old. In fact, Ornius and Albert were best friends. Later still, the Citadel Ba’Neesh told Mel he was Mael Strom. Ornius knew the name. Xasper then described Albert’s body when he found him. They drained his gonads. How, no one will say, but Xasper knows. He gets all dark in the face the few times he will talk about it. He says they took Albert and it killed him.”

“You mean they milked him sexually?” Mick was fascinated. He knew he was behind, by human standards, in being attracted to girls. They were okay, but he knew guys his age who were over the top constantly talking about sex.

“I guess. Xasper won’t say, at least to me.” Elias admitted. “He probably told Mael, they have a tight relationship.”

“So, this all sounds like ancient history. What about now? We are in this cave alone with twenty-eight Ba’Neesh, Elias?”

Of course, Elias didn’t have an answer and his silence echoed the thought in both of their heads.

(Welcome back. Would you like to be blocked into a dim cave with twenty-eight Ba’Neesh?)