Fulcrum

by Doug Rickaway

  He pressed a tentative finger to the skin; the warmth and tightness had also dissipated. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, Letho looked around, taking in the room in which he was being held. It was small, but not uncomfortably so. He stood beside a sparse but comfortable cot, made more so by the fact that it was roughly twice as large as he needed. In the corner stood an oversized plumbing device that vaguely resembled a toilet, or perhaps some kind of shower; he wasn’t sure. The walls were barren and seemed to be made of a metal similar to what was used for the walls in his domicile. These walls bore many scars and contusions from long, hard use. Or perhaps the metal panels had never been replaced.

  Letho’s mind seized as though someone had reached into his head with an inquisitive index finger and prodded the gelatin found between his eyes. His entire body spasmed, and he began to vomit onto the floor. His body continued to shake, and his feet tapped out a schizoid rhythm that would fill any Eursan freeform musician with envy.

  It was at this moment that Letho knew he was going to die. He had never known anything with greater certainty. There was a tightness in his chest, almost as if an unseen hook was tugging on his ribcage in an attempt to remove it from the meaty confines of his chest cavity. His heart was beating much too fast, and cold, stinking sweat had begun to pour from his body in rivulets.

  The head-shock, as Letho would come to know it, came back in a thunderous recapitulation; everything he saw shuddered and shook as though a slave bear had him by the shoulders and was flinging him from side to side. He vomited again from the wave of vertigo the head-shock brought with it. Unfortunately, there was nothing left in Letho’s stomach; his body heaved and spasmed, causing his back and stomach to seize up with searing pain. At least the white-hot pain daggers lessened the intensity of the brain scramble—to a degree.

  This is it. I am going to die. In this place.

  He thought of his friend Deacon, who was probably searching for him, questioning the people in the Red Sector as to his friend’s fate.

  He just went crazy and attacked a bunch of station inspectors then fell down a maintenance hatch. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that your friend Letho is dead, Mr. Gall might say.

  Imaginary Deacon collapsed to his knees, his body wracked with sobs, and Letho was moved to tears at the sheer outpouring of emotion from this representation of his friend.

  Letho’s vision began to swirl and collapse upon itself as the spasms that wracked his body crescendoed into a thrumming seizure. As Letho faded out of consciousness, his élan vital rose from his body, just as it had done when he had attacked the station inspector. He saw his torso shaking, his legs kicking, as though he were attempting to outswim a sea beast.

  I just have to get to my sleep capsule. It will make me feel better. Then when I wake up in the morning all of this will have been a bad dream and I can take my blue and red pills, and everything will be all right…

  Then Letho heard music, as though some ethereal choir were singing. The sonorous beauty filled his head in bittersweet counterpoint to his hellish surroundings and the current state he found himself in. The soothing nature of what was being sung began to ameliorate the violent surge of stupid signals from his brain.

  As he slipped into darkness, he realized that the tongue in which the choir sang was entirely foreign to him, yet somehow he knew what they were saying, or at least the gist of it.

  They’re going to place me on the bed now…

  …was the last thought that flashed across his mind before he felt enormous hands, possessed of strength that could crush boulders, swaddling him in the leathery pads of thick fingers. Just before he passed out again he felt the brush of coarse fur against his cheek, and the sweet musk smell returned to usher him into blissful oblivion.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  Letho’s eyes opened.

  I’m alive!

  To his relief, the head-shock had been reduced to a mild annoyance, and his leg no longer ached. However, his entire body was sore from the series of seizures that he’d suffered. He found himself slumped in a chair much too large for his Eursan frame.

  I’m in a different room.

  Panicked, he sat up—and his eyes fell upon the slave bears. Many slave bears.

  They were lined up along the sooty walls, some sitting on low pipe racks, others standing, massive arms crossed upon their chests. Some were tall, while others were shorter; although even the shortest ones were still at least two heads taller than Letho. He thought that the shorter ones might be females, though he had no way of knowing that for certain. He didn’t know if they reproduced by sex or pollination, for that matter.

  Then they began to sing. It was over as soon as it had begun, a two-syllable chorus that contained the most beautiful music that Letho had ever heard.

  Why are they singing?

  Letho looked at the varied assortment of slave bears around him. Many of them were glaring at him, hackles raised, lips drawn away from blocky, ivory teeth.

  “Where am I?”

  One of the slave bears, his face craggy and scarred, began to move toward Letho. He was intercepted by a larger Tarsi, who moved in front of him and placed his palm against the scarred slave bear’s chest. Thrumming sing-speak rose from the larger slave bear, and the scarred one answered. The first bear’s song was plaintive, imploring, while the scarred one’s was menacing, almost percussive in nature, the timbre of his voice throaty and gritty. For a moment Letho feared that the two Tarsi were going to come to blows; but after more singing and emphatic hand gesturing, the two nodded at one another and the conflict was apparently resolved.

  Letho noticed that groups within the larger collective were taking cues from these two, watching them for reactions and responding accordingly. The ones who looked upon Letho with reserved calm seemed to be aligning with the larger slave bear.

  The big slave bear at last turned to Letho and spoke. “You are in the heart of the Centennial Fulcrum. We found you near our dwelling. How you survived your ordeal is a great mystery to us.”

  “Okay…” Letho said, flinching at the reedy sound of his own voice. “What’s with the other slave bear?”

  A roiling hiss rose from the slave bears, kicking off a flood of endorphins and adrenaline in Letho. Ancestral trace memories implored him to flee!

  The scarred one covered the distance between himself and Letho in one stride, surprising Letho with the casual fluidity of his movement, which belied the enormity of his frame. He loomed over Letho like a mountain, his gnarled features hard and knurled like hastily etched marble. A nearby safety light cast the slave bear’s face in a garish light.

  The scarred one began to shout-sing in Letho’s face, spraying him with spittle and rattling his eardrums. Letho felt his face contract into an involuntary mask of absolute fear, rigid as dried clay. The notion that this slave bear might kill him for some accidental slight crossed his mind; then the numbing fear was replaced by foolish anger. Letho sprang to his feet with uncanny quickness.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, but enough!” Letho shouted, his own voice taking on a low growl that gave the scarred one pause.

  The scarred one backed up a step, his snarl replaced by confusion and surprise. The larger slave bear stepped forward again, inserting himself between Letho and the scarred one. The two slave bears began to sing together in perfect counterpoint. The scarred one still sang in an agitated rumbling tone, albeit more subdued than his previous outburst. But he kept staring at Letho, and Letho didn’t like the embers he saw in the scarred slave bear’s eyes.

  After what seemed like hours to Letho, the two bears placed their paws on each other’s shoulders and nodded their heads up and down a few times, and Letho suppressed a foolish giggle at the sight. The scarred one turned to join his compatriots, cutting one last burning glance at Letho as he walked away.

  The large bear again turned his attention to Letho, and this time Letho recognized him. “You’re the one from the shuttle,” he said, hi
s voice still reedy, cracking.

  “Yes, Letho. That is correct.”

  “What was that all about? And how do you know my name? Can someone please answer at least one of my questions? I swear to—”

  The slave bear placed a branch-like finger against Letho’s lips, shoving a few tendrils of fur up Letho’s nose in the process. The scent of the bear’s skin was cloying, but not entirely unpleasant. Upon reflex Letho slapped at the bear’s hand—and it moved, but of its own volition.

  The large slave bear gestured toward the scarred one. “That one is called Maka, and he has no love for your kind. You seem to be unaware of how close you came to death at his hands.”

  “Okay, so he hates Eursans, but what did I do to make him so mad all of a sudden?”

  “’Slave bear.’ Letho, you referred to us as slave bears. We prefer to be called Tarsi. It is a name that is derived from the name of our home world.”

  “That’s what set him off? That’s not fair! How could I have possibly known that?”

  “Your language is abrasive to us, Letho. In addition, the way you speak and the words you choose show that you have little respect for others,” the large Tarsi said. “Tarsi find this very offensive.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m the only one who’s been talking!”

  The large slave bear only shook his head, a wan smile on his face. “See? My point is proven. You do not listen. I have some advice for you, young Eursan. It would do you well if, from time to time, you might open your ears and close your mouth. There is much you must learn if you are going to survive among us.”

  “What? I can’t stay down here!”

  “Think, Letho. The moment you set foot on the above, the station inspectors will arrest you, and who knows what they might do to you in that temple of theirs. They don’t take kindly to those who assault their brethren.”

  “So I can never leave?”

  “That is for the Elder to tell.”

  “Okay, fine. So when do I get to meet him?” Letho clicked his index finger and thumb together, a habitual response to anxiety. Still no uCom.

  I have to get away, get out of here!

  The large one seemed to sense Letho’s rising ire, and placed a great green-furred hand on his shoulder. This only caused Letho’s blood pressure to spike even higher.

  “Letho, you must remain calm. The bad medicine has not left your system entirely. You could succumb to a condition your people call shock. We cannot answer your questions. Only the Elder may do so, when you are ready.”

  “At least tell me your name! After all, you know mine,” Letho said.

  “My name is Bayorn,” he said.

  The din of singing rose again as the Tarsi began to file out of the large room and down a large corridor lined with racks of pipes and conduits. Letho listened, as Bayorn had instructed him.

  They aren’t singing—they’re talking to one another!

  Bayorn had stopped at the doorway and was watching Letho, a smile across his face.

  “Maka will show you back to your room.”

  “What? Are you crazy? He wants to kill me, remember?”

  Bayorn was already gone. Letho was alone with Maka, the scarred-faced Tarsi. Maka regarded him with a cold expression that was tinged with a slight degree of petulance. He grunted and shoved Letho forward.

  “Easy there, big fella! You don’t have to shove, you know!”

  Maka grunted again and said something low and fast in his native tongue. Letho didn’t have to be a linguistics expert to understand the general slant of Maka’s words.

  Maka grunted again and gestured to a corridor opposite the one through which the other Tarsi had exited. Letho trudged forward, casting a backward glance at Maka. If the Tarsi was going to clobber him in the head, he at least wanted to see it coming.

  And then Maka was opening a door and shoving Letho into a familiar room. The door slammed shut, the crash making Letho wince. He collapsed onto the flaccid gray mattress and wondered what the next day might hold, until at last, a restless sleep claimed him.

  SIX – Tunnel Dog

  “What?” Letho shouted.

  Someone was shaking his leg as though they were attempting to remove it from its socket. Letho sat up from his sweat-stained gray mattress, and the shaking stopped. The Tarsi that had introduced himself as Bayorn stood over Letho, tapping his foot, muscular arms crossed over his broad, barrel chest.

  “Letho. You have overslept. How anyone could sleep through the morning call is beyond me.”

  Letho remembered the white-hot peal of sound that had pierced his ears earlier.

  “No one told me what the alarm was for,” Letho said.

  He looked at Bayorn, meeting his stern gaze for a moment, then casting his eyes back to the floor. Maka was standing just behind Bayorn’s left shoulder, his face still adorned with a scowl. Letho began to click his fingers together, yet his uCom still did not appear.

  “But you heard the other Tarsi nearby rising and moving toward the eating place, did you not?” Bayorn said.

  “Yes,” Letho said.

  Maka snorted and spat on the floor. Letho looked up again at Bayorn, and he got the distinct impression that Bayorn’s eyes hadn’t left him since he entered the room. Letho couldn’t hold his gaze for long, choosing instead to stare at his own feet and pick his toenails.

  “You live among us now. No one can know for how long this will be, save for the Elder. While you dwell among us, you will eat, sleep and work like a Tarsi,” Bayorn said.

  Letho did not respond, a pouty expression on his face. Maka surged forward and pushed on Letho’s arm, knocking him back to his mattress, which caused it to produce a cloud of flotsam and dead skin cells from some former owner. Maka began to grind the insistent tones of his language into Letho’s face.

  “All right! I’m up already!” Letho shouted.

  Maka’s eyes widened at the outburst, his face darkening again. He raised his hand as if to strike Letho, who in turn prepared himself for the bright flash of light and inevitable darkness; but Bayorn stepped in, placing his hand on Maka’s. Maka nodded and stepped back, muttering to himself.

  “I have something for you,” Bayorn said, producing a bulky, gray-and-black, rubber suit, complete with a fishbowl-like helmet and oxygen re-breather system.

  “This is your envirosuit. It will protect your fragile Eursan body from the temperature fluctuations in the air treatment ducts.”

  “Come again?”

  “As long as you live among the Tarsi, you will work like a Tarsi,” Bayorn repeated.

  “But I don’t know how to do that. I work on computers,” Letho said.

  “Can you read Tarsi?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then you would not be able to work on our computers. Maka will assist you today. He will teach you everything you need to know,” Bayorn said.

  Maka smiled at this, folding his hands together, clenching them, and cracking the knuckles.

  Letho cringed as he studied Maka’s face; a jagged scar traced from the top of his forehead, down across his eye, and to the corner of his mouth. The flesh around his eye was gnarled and hairless, the eye itself a milk-white orb that stared at everything and nothing. Maka snorted, and uttered something in Tarsi. It was dark, low, and thunderous, like a chorus of Chellans and Bassos. Bayorn responded, also in the range of a Chellan, but it sounded less agitated than Maka’s utterance. Maka nodded in assent, and then pointed at Letho. He then gestured toward the envirosuit.

  Grumbling to himself, Letho retrieved the envirosuit and fumbled with the zippers and straps. Maka laughed, pointing at him. Despite the mocking nature of the laughter, Letho couldn’t help but admire the infectious beauty of the laughter’s lilting chorus. It was true music to his ears.

  The envirosuit stunk like a locker room and the thick rubber material was clearly going to make it hard to perform tasks that required any sort of dexterity. Maka handed Letho a series of tools, one by one, which he
attached to the utility belt of his envirosuit, where they were held in place by magnets.

  “It’s like an oven in here. And I think the former owner of this must’ve bathed in armpit sweat. Do I really have to wear this thing?”

  Maka made a gesture like he was lifting a helmet off his head, and then drew a line across his neck with his index finger.

  “Okay, fine. I get it.”

  Maka sneered at Letho. The Tarsi clapped his enormous hand on Letho’s shoulder and nudged him forward. The small gesture sent Letho sprawling, but he didn’t fall.

  “Take it easy!” Letho said.

  Maka responded by cocking his head to the side, an inquisitive look in his eyes. Letho bowed at the waist, and gestured forward with both of his hands.

  After you, kind sir, his gesture said.

  “Letho, one last thing,” Bayorn said. “ Do exactly as Maka instructs and you will be fine. If not, he may kill you.”

  Letho’s eyes grew wide. Maka grunted an affirmative, then lurched forward on flat feet that made thick slapping sounds on the floor. Letho fell in line behind him, anxiety filling his stomach.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  Maka led Letho and a group of about twenty other Tarsi deeper into the core of the Fulcrum station. They passed strange machinery that looked large and ancient to Letho, an odd juxtaposition considering the glossy but worn nature of the Fulcrum’s upper areas. Everywhere he looked, Tarsi were busy welding, adjusting valves, replacing circuit boards. The whole place was alive with showers of sparks, the clang of metal on metal, and the chorus of Tarsi singing while they toiled. It filled Letho’s insides with a sense of well-being, and he felt his steps become a little lighter. Occasionally a Tarsi would stop as he passed, growling through quavering lips, or just observing him with thinly veiled curiosity.