Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series)

by Coy, David

  The raft would need a frame made of one central piece and at least two cross members. They wouldn’t have to be huge; just light and tough. She chose the straight stalks of the same pulpy plants she used for her tents. She picked one and bent it back and forth until it broke, then twisted it and worked it around until it tore off close to the ground. She started to trim off the smaller limbs but left them in place; they could only help to hold the leaves in place.

  She ripped a few more stalks out of the ground and laid them out in a design she thought would do, adjusted them, added another one, played with it, and finally got what she thought would work. By the time she was finished, her already bruised and blistered hands ached even more.

  The structure would have the shape of a canoe with outriggers. She would lie prone on the middle part and paddle gently with her arms in the spaces between canoe and outriggers. She would cover the entire raft with a canopy, like a floating blind. If she were quiet, it might just work. If she could stay in the shallows, she could use a pole and shove her way along. A pole with a hook on one end to grab with would be even better, quieter.

  She started to gather her building materials in great armfuls. There was no shortage. In an hour, she’d stripped all the pulpy leaves she could reach from the plants in the area and had a pile almost as tall as she was. Vines were next; and before she stopped to eat, she had miles of thin, tough vines to work with.

  She started by binding the cross members together as tightly as she could. Then, layer at a time, she strapped rolled-up bundles of leaves to the cross members, lashing each one on tight. She worked until her hands were stiff and her arms ached. By dusk, the thing actually looked as she’d imagined it. When she lifted one corner, it felt light and strong; she would have no trouble hauling it to the water. She’d widened and flattened the middle part enough so that when she lay down, she would have a comfortable platform to support her. She could even roll over and lie on her back if it turned out she’d have to spend the night on the raft.

  She decided to start on the canopy in the morning since it was getting dark. She walked down to the swamp’s edge and pulled up some of the onions she’d seen earlier. She washed them off and plucked a few bundles of grapes. It wasn’t gourmet eating, but it was filling and hydrating.

  That night she heard more of the violent movement going through the tangle around her. Whatever it was didn’t sound friendly. It seemed to come from the same direction as the night before, and she counted at least six of the whatever-they-were's passing through. One sounded low, almost touching the yurt as it stormed past. She couldn’t tell if they were flying or running.

  She slept deeply that night, and dreamed a nightmare of awful creatures that chased her down and ate her alive. She awoke with a start to the pale, silent light of dawn, and once again was thankful for the safe passing of the night.

  By mid-morning, the raft was nearly finished. The domelike canopy wasn’t as tight as she would have liked, but it would serve to hide her from above, as planned; and by blocking the light, it would at least slightly hide her arms from below when she paddled. She had a good window up front and one on each side. These she could seal with a leaf if necessary. The canopy was open in the back so she could enter, and she included an extra bundle of leaves and vines to seal it once she got onboard. She also stacked a thick bundle of leaves as a rest for her head as she paddled. As a final touch, she tied clusters of sticks and branches and pieces of vines to the outriggers. Once she was afloat, she could tie them off, pointing down into the water as additional camouflage for her arms.

  She made a rough net to hold a larder of grapes and onions; this she filled to overflowing and lashed to the left outrigger.

  The last item was the pole, made of the same tough stalks she’d used on the raft’s cross-members. She lashed one side of a forked branch to the end, backwards, as a grappling hook.

  To haul the contraption down to the swamp, she tied a vine across the front of the outriggers, stepped inside the loop, put it against her hips and pulled. The going was better than she thought. The lightweight craft slid easily over the plants and grass in the mud flats. Once or twice, the raft jammed against a stump, but she easily freed it and soon had it against the fallen tree—her launching point.

  After she climbed up on the tree, she tugged and yanked the raft along, trying to keep it from binding against the moss-covered trunk. When she reached water and the craft actually began to float, she tied it off.

  It was high in the water. She rocked it with her foot; it rocked stiffly. She was going to make it.

  She pronounced her handiwork, “Very seaworthy”, and patted it.

  I hope.

  * * *

  It was almost mid-day. If she launched now, rather than waiting until the next morning, she would lessen the chances of making it across before nightfall. She thought about it. The idea that she might be able to spend the night in the clearing on the other side, rather than in the jungle helped her decide. She’d go now.

  She wasn’t exactly overjoyed about having to slog through the mud and shallow water behind the raft to climb on board, but she didn’t have a choice. She moved back on the trunk, sat down and checked to make sure that her pants legs were sealed shut. She slid slowly off the log and into the goop.

  Her feet sank into the mud up to her knees; and in a panic, she spun and threw her arms over the trunk.

  “Aaaah! Shit!”

  The mud continued to pull her down, then mercifully stopped as her grip on the trunk tightened. Grunting and pulling slowly, she worked her legs out of the suction and put one leg over the log, then the other.

  She sat on the log and considered the problem. She’d have to put something over the mud to walk on. Either that or float the raft into deeper water, jump in behind it and climb on board.

  The first option was nearly impossible; the mud was too soft to support anything she could find to put over it. She’d have to jump in the water and climb on.

  She pulled the raft along the trunk until she thought the water under it was deep enough. The sun was up high now, and she could see the dark, soft, silty bottom. She looked ahead and could see the sharp, black place where the shore dropped into the channel. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought the water was probably too shallow for the big prick to come up after her where she was. But you never knew. The tracks of small swamp-bottom crawling somethings could be seen in the soft mud, crisscrossing in all directions. She tied the raft off and moved along the trunk back to the bank. She sat down and tried to think of another option, but there wasn’t one. She would have to submerge herself in that evil water if she were going to get on the raft.

  In her mind, she practiced several times the movements it would take. Then she set her jaw, steeled her spine and slipped into the water, making a hook of her right arm and letting it fall over the rear cross-member as she went down. The water was coolish and went through her cotton clothing as if it weren't there. As fast as she could she oriented herself so she could flop up on the centerpiece. She hefted herself up and squirmed and kicked—and splashed loudly—as she went.

  She hadn’t planned on making that much noise. As soon as she was squarely in position, she put her head on the pillow bundle and froze, barely breathing. She stayed that way for a full fifteen minutes, listening to the quiet lapping of water against the outriggers, hoping that if she had attracted the big fucker, it would lose interest over time and move away.

  Finally, moving as slowly as possible, she sat up and covered the canopy’s rear opening. Then, adjusting each branch and vine to hang down and look as natural as she could make them, she tied off the camouflage for the raft’s underside.

  She stretched out and flapped the vine off the branch that held the raft.

  She was free.

  She reached out the right side port and pushed gently away from the tree. The raft drifted slowly, silently away from the trunk, its slight rocking motion making waves that cast sparkling ripples
through the dark water and onto the dark, spooky swamp bottom. Drifting high above the sunken, algae-covered logs and branches, she suddenly felt a flush of vertigo. She breathed and swallowed and the sense of dizzying height left her.

  It was too deep to pole, so she sunk her arms slowly into the water on each side and with a single quiet thrust, stroked toward the patch of plant growth on the other side of the channel.

  Things swam below; dark undulating things that glided up and over the fallen logs and darted along the bottom in spurts, then stopped. When the shadow of the raft passed over a patch of smooth swamp bottom, something big darted out of the mud, leaving a cloud of silt adrift like a swirling, silent storm. As she watched, a school of brown, fluttering somethings drifted by in a miasmic ball of twisting, vibrating activity. Her imagination couldn’t stretch far enough to imagine that the members of that wicked ball were anything but carnivorous.

  The bottom fell away until it was barely visible, and she knew she was in the big bastard’s channel. The raft started to turn from its intended course, to drift sideways ever so gradually. If she didn’t correct it, she’d be turned all the way around in a few minutes. As she watched her goal drift aside, she began to realize that she could easily lose her sense of direction in the swamp, just as easily as in the jungle. If she lost her bearings, she could drift forever around in circles. To make navigation even worse, being low on the water restricted her view.

  Panic began to build with each degree of rotation. Already, she was having difficulty distinguishing one plant or swamp tree from another. She could remember what the patch of plant stuff on the other side of the channel looked like, but as she got closer, changed angles, it might not be so easy. She began to wish she’d put up some marker, a flag of some kind on the trunk she’d launched from. At least that would have given her a point of reference if she'd needed it.

  She was now forced to do what she dreaded: she’d have to put her arms into the water, in the deep channel, and thrust to change course.

  She put her right arm silently down, feeling the cool pressure of the water as her arm went deeper and she began to stroke, slowly, gently caressing the water with her palm. The raft finally came around and she fixed her bearings on the ragged patch of plants in the shallows. A final stroke with both arms, and she drifted straight for it. She pulled her hands quietly up out of the water and rested them under her chin, trying not to drip.

  She felt it before she saw it. As the creature passed underneath her, the raft rocked slightly on its swell. Its massive back was so close to the raft, she could have reached down and touched it. She froze and watched as the humped shape passed silently beneath her. Dark brown scales, the color of the swamp, as big as dinner plates, covered the surface in an overlapping pattern. A thick undulating tail followed behind, moving slowly like a huge fan. She estimated its length at over twenty meters. It was gone, but she somehow sensed, somehow knew, it was turning for another look, and a moment later, it passed under again. The creature cruised by without a sound, leaving no wake or trace of its passing.

  She held her breath and resisted the urge to draw up her feet and tuck herself into a tight little ball. To do that, she would have to move and that was out of the question. The raft, which had seemed so sturdy a moment before, now seemed flimsy, invisible and useless against the thing’s submerged strength and mass.

  She finally breathed. She was drifting off course again, but couldn’t bring herself to put her arms in the water. She had to wait. She had to know it was gone and its interest firmly held by some other prey before she could put any part of herself in the water.

  Turning her head slowly to the side, she watched for it, praying it had lost interest and moved on. Then, like a shadow, the creature’s head drifted into view from behind and stopped just a half-meter from the raft. One of its eyes, round with a vertical pupil, looked right at her, fixed and unmoving. Whether it saw her as food, or as merely drifting flotsam she didn’t know. She could only hope that the canopy was making it difficult for it to make out her shape. She wanted to look away but was afraid to move, even to blink. With no sign of propulsion, the head moved closer until the frowning, upturned mouth passed under her at midpoint, easily spanning the width from outrigger to outrigger. Then the mouth opened, revealing a gray and yellowish cavern lined with spiny teeth. The water poured into it over the edges in a smooth roll like a waterfall then splashed over those teeth and filled the pit with a sound like an enormous bucket filling. She thought she’d fall in and felt the raft bump and rock against the rim of the thing’s huge mouth as the water fell out from under it.

  Oh, God . . .

  The mouth snapped closed abruptly, sending a wide gush of water up over her and lifting the raft on its massive swell like a toy.

  Christ!

  Again the mouth opened, filled then gushed water. If it wasn’t for the teeth she could have imagined the thing was playing with the raft, but she knew it was more likely it was just trying to flush something edible out of the hollow husk afloat in its territory.

  It gushed again, sending water boiling up over her, lifting the raft up and dropping it hard. She clung tight, trying to keep from being washed away.

  Again it gushed and the water erupted up in a flood and covered her.

  “Stop . . .” she whispered.

  As if on command, it did.

  She watched the beast’s head sink straight down, fade, then vanish in the dark water. She stiffened and waited for the rush from below that would send the raft flying and tumbling through the air.

  It never came.

  When she worked up the courage to move, she looked around and took inventory. Only a few of the canopy’s leaves had been lost and her larder was still intact. There didn’t seem to be any damage to the structure itself.

  She looked out the front and now had no idea which way she was pointed. The idea of putting her arms into the water after seeing the maw that wanted to chomp them off was more than she could stand. She gave another look down, peering into the dark, shimmering water, trying to make out the thing’s shape.

  Nothing. She breathed deep. It was gone. She waited anyway.

  Minutes later, she slipped her arms slowly into the water and paddled lightly around, trying to get her bearings. She turned and studied the scenery drifting by. She was relieved when she saw the clump of target foliage, some twenty meters closer than it had been before. She stroked gently, quietly, toward it. As she got closer and the water got shallower, she could begin to see the swamp bottom again. This told her she was out of the deep channel. That was a relief. When she was close enough, she reached out the front window with the hook and grabbed onto a sturdy stalk to anchor herself.

  She fixed the holes in the canopy, tightened the net around the food and got her bearings. The way ahead was bushy with lots of broad floating leaves, but the water was probably shallower, and hopefully too shallow for the thing she’d left behind.

  Using the hook, she could pull her way along for quite a distance from this point. She fixed her sights on a tall tree straight ahead, memorized its shape, then reached out with the pole and grabbed a stalk with it. She pulled, lurched ahead, jammed up against the stalk and stopped cold.

  This would take some doing. She pushed off and tried again, this time grabbing at a mass of floating leaves with viney stems. She pulled, then cut loose at just the right moment. That worked, and she grazed the stalk and drifted over the floating vegetation for a full five meters before bumping into another clump. She sat up, tried it, and found she got much better control that way.

  Sitting cross-legged, she pulled her way along, all the way to the tree she’d aimed for. The reaching, grabbing and pulling with the pole made her arms ache, and she decided to tie off to the tree and rest.

  The water around the base of the tree was deeper than she liked. She looked down into the submerged tangle of thick, dull roots and just knew something horrible was down among them, staring up, panting water, waiting for
her.

  She cut short her rest and pushed gently away from the tree. She felt she had no choice but to get out of the swamp before night.

  17

  "You can start with the tap water. Take some samples and culture them in agar and blood. There’s some old blood in the back of the clinic you can use. Nobody’ll mind. You probably won’t find anything. The shelter’s water filters are pretty good, but look anyway. Then take some samples from any standing water in contact with the ground—puddles, footprints filled with water—that kind of thing. Anything with fecal material near it especially. Runoff from the shelters’ roofs might be worth a look, too, if you can find any. Keep track of where every sample comes from.”

  “Then do the soil and any standing water outside,” Rachel said. “See what you can find.”

  “Okay,” Joe said too confidently. He made a note on his pad, his brow tight and knowing.

  Rachel glanced at him and sniffed. He didn’t have a clue how to start, but she didn’t have the heart or the motivation right then to call him on it.

  “Okay.”

  “You won’t have any problem with preparing the cultures will you? Boiling the agar, that kind of thing?”

  “Nah.”

  “Good.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “If you get anything that looks like bacteria, try to type it. You probably won’t be able to, but it might be useful to try. Just get the charge at least, if you can. You can use my kits, I think I brought enough stain.”

  “Okay.”

  “Take some samples of the soil in the clearing and in the jungle, but don’t go in too far. Make a map showing where you got each sample. Put the samples under a scope and photograph anything that moves or has bilateral symmetry. Jar up whatever you find, then culture the soil. We can do the WM's for them in the next few days. Label everything.”