Kaya landed face down for the sixth time in an hour, the others making sympathetic noises over Naomi’s work. At least this time I landed in the moss, Kaya reasoned, rolling to a sitting position. “I thought I was learning the art of fighting? ”

Naomi cocked her head, arms folded. “Art? I told you this is all footwork and grappling. Hands-on, ugly stuff. Once you have recall this should come easily, but best you have the foundation built by then.”

Dusting herself off, Kaya stood and shook her head. “Well, I’d prefer art.” She raised her hands, a short stick held at the ready. This is brutal, Naomi.”

“It’s a knife fight, sister. They’re never pretty, not unless Wynn’s doing it.”

“Thank you.”

“Shut up, Wynn,” Naomi said. “Pretty doesn’t mean good.”

“Ah, but in my case it does, doesn’t it?”

Kaya blinked. “Why do they get to be pretty?”

Scowling, Naomi ducked out of the clearing and tossed her stick to Wynn. “Show her, topper.”

Kaya was too busy laughing at the delighted look on Tyver’s face to watch Wynn. Wiping tears from her eyes, she turned to see them rolling the stick through their fingers like a baton, watching patiently.

She raised her own stick in the stance Naomi had shown her, edging forward. Wynn kept idly twirling theirs, watching her with a polite smile. Suddenly annoyed, she lunged forward with all the blurring ferocity of a Martyr. Wynn made a precise step to the side, rapping the back of Kaya’s knife hand almost politely before resting the edge of the stick against her neck.

Her mouth pursed, Kaya ducked away and back in, her stick slashing at Wynn’s side. They ducked as well, raising a now empty hand to seize her wrist, deftly brushing the blow aside. Kaya froze, perplexed by the oddly dancelike posture Wynn had taken. Now in their other hand, Wynn’s stick rested against Kaya’s navel.

“You wind up a little whenever you’re about to strike,” they said. “It’s not a hammer: just go for it, Kaya. You’re strong enough.”

Giving in to a sudden, petulant urge, Kaya snapped her hand up to tweak Wynn’s nose, but they only laughed and pulled away. “That was better!”

“Naomi’s right. You are pretty. Why is that? Is it a chit thing?”

“I had a great many dance lessons growing up,” Wynn said. “Naomi’s right about foundations. The recall works with what you have, it doesn’t replace it.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“What do you mean?”

Wynn shrugged. “We four have been practicing together for a while now. Naomi was raised to this, so she’s more endurance and technique than any of us. Gael tends to overcommit: he grew up stabbing fish at sea, and if he wasn’t so blisteringly precise he’d probably get gutted like one in a real fight.”

Tyver, watching from behind, couldn’t see Wynn’s mischievous grin as they waited. Eventually it was too much, and Kaya stifled a giggle as the little thief squirmed impatiently and said “Whatabout I?!”

“You fight like a feral cat, Tyver. I thought that was obvious.”

Tyver nodded sagely. “S’true. Mad cat, I. Blades, only t’prettiness c’n take t’cat.”

“I can take either of you if it comes to fists,” Naomi grumbled. Kaya sniggered as Tyver caught her eye and shook his head. The larger girl glared, but Kaya’s grin only widened. “How about checkers?”

“Let’s make a set!” Gael said eagerly. “Father said checkers was the only game for thinkers.”

“Not chess?” Naomi asked.

“Too long to teach, too long to replace.”

“I think we should make a decision or two first,” Wynn suggested. “We’re not far from Ezek’s camp. We need to decide how to handle this, Gael.”

The excitement drained from Gael’s face and left a mask, his eyes drifting to empty air. A stranger might have been disturbed but Gael’s companions knew better, that this was how he focused. “We should warn them about the apes,” Gael said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Bad, they.” Tyver put in. “Rotten through. T’plan was t’gang ‘gainst ‘em anyway. Why help?”

“My fathers didn’t die so I could save the people I like,” Kaya said icily.

That bought a few minutes of silence.

“The game has changed,” Gael said eventually. “Before the apes, we won by mastering the recall and surviving for a year, until the caretakers collected us. How do we win now?”

“We can’t afford to wait a year.” Naomi said. “Someone needs to warn the Nineteen, the sooner the better.”

“There’s bound to be a relay satellite in orbit,” Wynn said. “We can call for help if we find a transmitter.”

Naomi nodded. “The bunker had one once, I recall. Ruined in a fight long ago. Cannibalized decades before we got here.”

Kaya peered curiously at her. “You’re right. You just know that?”

“I recall it,” Naomi said with a shrug.

“Do any of you ‘recall’ another?”

Kaya sat in the second silence she’d caused that day, then broke it impatiently. “What good is centuries of inherited memory if you don’t remember anything useful?”

“I would like to argue that point,” Wynn said dryly.

“…And?”

“I can’t.”

They all chuckled at that, but Gael considered his patch of air thoughtfully. “We don’t know more than you, Kaya, not really. I remember… starting. It always starts the same way, in the same place. Most vividly I remember these woods, usually alone or following someone. The summer is long here, the winters short and cruel. I… someone broke their back in that patch of rock over there. Someone slept in each of these trees, though that one is best. I’d remember more in more places, in more situations. The more we wander about…” He turned to face Wynn. “The more people we have with us, the more chance we have of remembering something that can get word off this planet.”

Wynn sighed, then nodded. “Agreed. We warn the thugs, Martyrs save us.”

“We,” Gael said firmly. “We save us.”