Dominant Species Omnibus Edition

by David Coy

  “Aw, Christ!” Phil said.

  Reluctantly, he handed the bow to the Indian. Seseidi reached up gently and yammered softly and plucked an arrow out of the quiver. It took him a second to fit the end of the arrow properly against the flat bungee cord, but he did, then drew the bow back and let the arrow fly at the opener on the rear seam now some thirty feet away. The arrow stuck nearly in the center of the organ with a solid smack. Though the arrow had hit almost dead center, Seseidi shook the bow as if punishing it and his yammering took on the unmistakable tone of a complaint.

  Phil, Mary and Ned exchanged looks as if they’d just seen a toad with wings. When he glanced back at the seam, it had parted open and was twitching as if electric current was going through it.

  “Okay, so he can shoot, but how would he know what to shoot at? How would I tell him?”

  “You could just point,” Mary said. “Anyway, he can figure out what to shoot. I don’t think he’s stupid.”

  “Yeah, but can he follow orders?” Phil asked.

  “No, but he can shoot those arrows like a sonofabitch,” Ned added and coughed.

  Phil thought about it a second more, then stripped off the quiver, kept some darts for himself and handed the quiver and the frog basket over to the little Indian. Seseidi smiled a big white-toothed grin and put the quiver over his shoulder.

  “What is your name?” Phil asked.

  Seseidi yammered something, and Phil scowled at him.

  “Fuck it,” Phil said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t his fault; he hadn’t done anything. Still, they might think he had blundered the search for the phone, if only because he didn’t yet have the phone.

  Nor did he know if the traitors were still alive, but it was safe to assume they were.

  When he opened his hand to look at the little sliver, he noticed that his hand was numb as if it had fallen asleep. It was an odd sensation and he guessed right that they had treated it with some chemical; something obtained from the ship. He would have to tell the alpha about it and show it to him, but the thought of doing that made him swallow hard. The aliens would be very, very upset at this. This development, combined with the problem with Bailey and the phone might cause them to review their relationship to Gilbert as well.

  He pumped a great open-mouthed swallow that made a sound not unlike a brief, wet fart.

  He waddled along the central tube toward the alpha’s chamber trying to think how he could explain it all without being blamed. It’s not good to be blamed for things.

  * * *

  “How are we doing on time?” Phil asked Bailey.

  She took a look at her watch and thought a minute.

  “By the time we get to the access tube, we’ll have about ten minutes to get everybody down and through the other side before the next shuttle arrives.”

  “That’s cutting it close.”

  They couldn’t get the rear seam closed after the Indian had put the arrow in the opener, but it didn’t matter, their captors would know which way they’d gone in any case. There were only two possible destinations from that rear seam; one was the shuttle bay and the other was the larvae cache in what Phil now knew was the stern of the ship.

  The plan was to retrace Bailey’s tracks. On the way to the shuttle bay, he’d worked out just how to get everyone down the wall. They’d lower Ned, the heaviest, first, then Phil, then Mary, then Bailey, alone, would hold for the Indian. Bailey could climb down herself last. She’d bottled a full gallon of water to replenish herself afterwards.

  The hardest part would be getting Ned down. He was at least two hundred and fifty pounds, maybe more, and Phil worried about the strength of the hose.

  “How ‘ya doing?” Phil asked him.

  “I’ve been better,” Ned replied. His face was the color of a gray sky. Phil was amazed that the big man was still on his feet.

  “Ready?”

  “I guess so.”

  The others braced themselves as Ned got down on his knees backwards then slipped awkwardly over the edge with a look of wide-eyed fear on his face. Phil could tell that the activity was putting a strain on his wound.

  They let out the hose through their hands, letting it slide a little at a time until they felt the strain evaporate as Ned’s feet reached the floor.

  “I’m down!” he called out.

  Phil moved to the front and got ready. The others took hold of the hose and braced themselves. As the others took up the slack, Phil backed over the edge and started down.

  Bailey and the little Indian then held the hose for Mary who, true to form, sent herself down the hose a little too fast, cursing and fighting the whole way.

  The Indian weighed no more than a hundred pounds so Bailey was sure she could hold him. She braced herself with her feet against the roof of the tube with the hose wrapped around her waist. She signaled to the Indian to start down.

  Before he could get himself in position, the bellow of the goon filled the chamber below them.

  “We’ve got company!” she heard Phil yell up to her.

  “Shit!” Bailey said. She pulled the Indian away from the opening and looked down.

  The goon must have entered through the large opening to the shuttle bay and was standing just a few feet from it, cutting off their escape completely. It moved laterally and closed the distance, tightening them to the wall. Bailey didn’t see it at first, but when the goon lifted it to take aim, she gasped.

  Phil saw it, too, and his heart pounded as the muzzle of the burr weapon rose in their direction.

  There was a sound from above like a dull twang from a loose guitar string. Phil saw the arrow streak in at the goon; and when it struck, the goon jerked as if stung and the burr weapon discharged with a phoop. Phil caught a glimpse of the burr as it flashed at them and he heard it whack into the rubbery wall of the chamber a few feet above their heads.

  The dart couldn’t have been better placed and Phil marveled at the shooting skill of the little Indian. It was at least a seventy-five foot shot. Nailed dead center, the goon attempted to take aim again, but discharged the weapon into the floor in front of itself. Then it fell forward crushing into the weapon with a crunch.

  When the Indian stuck his head out of the opening above, Phil gave him a big thumbs up.

  Phil ran up to the goon with hopes of gaining its weapon as his own. To his disappointment, the goon had shattered the weapon as if it had been run over with a truck. The magazine holding a row of perhaps a dozen burrs was broken open, leaking dull liquid.

  He turned and signaled for the Indian to start down. When he hit the floor, Phil patted him on the back.

  “Thank you!” he said. “Thank you!”

  Seseidi was glad to have killed the giant spirit, but it was the white warrior after all who had lured it to its death. Seseidi was happy but a little embarrassed at the attention.

  “Send down the stuff!” Phil yelled up to Bailey.

  Bailey yanked the slack hose back up in big grabs, sending it flailing behind in loops. She tied the quivers, darts, bow, pack and the other supplies into a neat bundle with the end of the hose then lowered the entire war machine to the floor.

  When they’d untied it, she yanked the hose up one last time, stripped, threw her clothes down and started to slime her way down the sheer wall of the alien chamber.

  “Look at that shit . . . ” Mary said with a smile, watching Bailey inch down the wall like a snail. “What the fuck . . . ?”

  When she reached the bottom, Bailey picked up her clothes and started to put them on. Phil and Ned turned away, but Mary and the Indian looked on unabashed. The Indian was wide-eyed and yammered to himself under his breath. Bailey went right for the big bottle of water and swilled it down like she’d never had water.

  “That’s amazing,” Mary said.

  “I know,” Bailey said, catching her breath. “Quite a little trick, huh?”

  Mary just shook her head.

  “Let’s
move!” Phil said. “Bailey, you know the way. Get moving!”

  The white witch is a snail spirit, Seseidi thought. Surely it must be so.

  As they were double timing it out of the shuttle bay, Mary paused to look at the shuttles clustered like gigantic, gleaming insects. When she glanced at the control panel, she could feel the probe up her arm and an odd sense of longing filled her. Escape from this grotesque place lay in the direction of those living vessels. She had to remind herself that escape now would be a fool’s journey. Trotting after the others she said it out loud to herself.

  * * *

  Gilbert had been careful to point out that the goons had been careless, not he, and that he had nothing to do with the cause of the error. On hearing the story, the alpha had summoned the others from their adjoining chambers at once.

  The aliens were agitated and whistled and squealed with such vigor it was all Gilbert could do to keep from almost smiling at first, but the sound took on an ominous note that sobered him, and he swallowed and stared instead.

  The alpha held the dart tip in front of Gilbert’s face. Gilbert pushed his glasses up on his nose cautiously.

  “What is the nature of this device?” it asked.

  “I do not know,” Gilbert replied and swallowed.

  The alien continued to hold the sliver up, not moving.

  “Answer or suffer,” the alien rasped.

  Gilbert decided not to show fear and swallowed with his mouth open.

  “I do not know,” he said evenly. “I believe it may contain poison as I said.”

  “How could this poison be produced?” the alien asked menacingly.

  “I do not know.”

  The aliens in the room began to whistle and squeal again. The sound cut through him like a cold knife.

  “How is the poison produced? From what part?”

  “I don’t . . . know.”

  “How much do they have? Answer or suffer.”

  Gilbert swallowed and ventured a brief glimpse into the alien’s face and fear lurched in him suddenly like a heavy black toad. He was in danger so profound that he could not swallow, though he wished to. That look, those alien eyes were the devil’s own. He had just seen into the face of an unfathomable being with the power of life without the reprieve of death and the pain of hell itself at his command. Gilbert felt weak and wanted to sit down but he stayed on his feet and tried not to fall. He felt himself rock forward and back and wished he could make it stop. His new anatomy didn’t help any. He clutched his Bible tightly.

  “I haven’t done anything,” he managed to say dryly. “I am innocent.” His voice trailed off. “I am innocent of this.”

  Gilbert started to pray. Solemnly, calmly he formed the words in his mind as his heart raced and his mind reeled with what could happen next. He prayed that the unfairness would be lifted from him and those who had killed the goons would feel its weight instead. He longed for them to suffer and not he. He prayed to transfer the debt to the others, to let them pay, not he.

  The alien unsheathed its sting and propped its hand like a spider over Gilbert’s face, the sting posed right between Gilbert’s eyes.

  Gilbert continued to pray as the thorn-like sting jabbed down once. The sudden pain blinded him like a camera’s flash, and the prayer was flushed from his mind by his high-pitched scream.

  He went to his knees trembling as the heat radiated out over his face and shoulders like hot tar. He fell to his side and shook. The pain cooled an eternity later, leaving him in shock

  and disconnected.

  “What is the nature of the poison?” the alien rasped. “From what part is it produced?”

  Gilbert heard the question and was dimly aware of whistling and squealing in the distance like an odd sound from a radio turned down too low.

  “I . . . don’t know . . . ” he said weakly and started to pray once more, his lips moving slightly. He prayed that Bailey and Lynch and the queer woman would suffer in his place, not he.

  The alien opened Gilbert’s mouth with one thin-fingered hand and jabbed its sting into the center of his tongue with the other.

  The pain rushed through his head and down his throat like a fierce wind.

  * * *

  No one had mentioned it. They wouldn’t have known how to express it anyway.

  Their lives were expendable. Their flesh and blood were tools; just a means to an end.

  They were moving as fast as they could in light of Ned’s condition. He stopped frequently and leaned against the wall. With each stop, he seemed to lose strength. This one was the worst yet.

  “Hey, Phil,” Ned croaked. “I’m done. You go on without me. I’m done. I can’t help you.”

  Mary put her hand to his head and felt the heat from it as if he’d just come out of the hot sun. She looked over at Phil and shook her head. That was that. A good friend was dying; but, more important, they’d have one less soldier to fight the war. There was a deep depression in the wall of the tube a few feet behind them and Phil and Mary walked him back to it and helped him into it and down on the floor.

  “You wait here,” Phil said. “Take a rest.” He placed his hand on Ned’s shoulder and gripped it. “Take a rest,” he repeated.

  Ned just looked up at them and said nothing because there was nothing to say. There were no words of wisdom or poignant parting shots. Mary patted his big chest then leaned in and kissed his hot brow.

  “So long,” she said.

  “So long,” Ned replied weakly.

  They sat there quietly for a moment more, then Mary and Phil moved away. They knew he wouldn’t be getting up. When Phil glanced over at Mary, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

  Phil fought back tears himself.

  “Go!” he said to them. “Get moving!”

  * * *

  Gilbert had no idea how many times he had been stung. It felt like an infinite number.

  The alien’s voice echoed in his head. Time and again he’d been asked where the poison came from. He had been truthful and answered that he did not know. Time and again, he answered the same—and time and again, he’d been stung.

  He was lying on the floor as the pain from the last sting was ebbing slowly from his groin. He was aware that the whistling and squealing had stopped and that the aliens were gone.

  Perhaps they’d had enough, he thought.

  He reached over and picked up his glasses and put them on his swollen head. The chamber came into sharp focus. He sat up and turned and saw the teeth of the alpha, and the massive legs of a goon. It was then that he noticed that he wasn’t in the alpha’s chamber at all. This chamber was smaller, darker. There was a sound like a sticky hiss coming from all around and a deeper sound like a groan under it. It was too dark to see the source of it.

  They are finished torturing me, he thought. My pain is over.

  He was too exhausted to get up, and he leaned back on his arms and waited for the goon to help him. It was the least it could do for him after what he’d been through.

  He stared straight ahead and waited to be lifted up.

  The goon did just that and jerked him to his feet then carried him a few feet backwards and sat him down on a strange pedestal. Instantly, vine-like tentacles sprang from the trunk of the seat and wrapped tight around his legs, wrists and hips, holding him fast.

  Gilbert swallowed.

  The alpha stepped up closer to him. In its frail arms was what looked like a large dark vase. Its surface was veiny and iridescent.

  “In the shallow seas of my home world lives an organism with no life of its own,” the alpha began. “It takes from others the life it needs and returns only pain. We call the organism . . .” the sound that followed drained Gilbert’s blood. He’d heard it once before. “. . . it requires little nourishment and can live on an organism with your mass for many hundreds of your years. We reserve the use of this parasite for those who are not truthful. We believe you have not been truthful about many things.”

 
; “I haven’t done anything . . .” Gilbert said through dry cotton. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “I’ve done only as you wanted me to,” he choked.

  “What is the source of the poison?” the alpha rasped.

  “I . . . don’t know . . . ”

  The alien whistled once, and the pedestal next to Gilbert was bathed in light from above.

  The man was sitting on the same kind of pedestal, his legs and waist bound tight by the pedestal’s vines. Perched on the top of the man’s head was an amorphous mass about the size and shape of a cantaloupe. Dozens of pencil-thin tentacles ran out of it and down into the man’s nose, ears, mouth and eyes. Where the tentacles made contact, there was a raised and molded seal as if the tentacle and the man’s flesh were one. The thing on his head pulsed slowly; and as Gilbert watched, the tentacles slid out and in as if probing him continuously. The man was frozen into a posture of extreme pain; the fingers of his hands splayed open and stiff. The man’s skin was sallow and thin, sickly translucent as if he’d been in that state for a long, long time. His spine was bent over in an exaggerated stoop and his head tilted back in a pose of grotesque bearing.

  Gilbert felt his bladder release uncontrollably. Urine pattered out onto the floor.

  The alpha stepped up to the man and pointed to one of the tentacles with a thin finger.

  “The probes sustain the host,” it said. “They sustain and take nourishment.”

  It turned to Gilbert. “How much poison do they have?” it asked.

  Gilbert prayed that his answer would be heard, and he would be set free. “I do not know where the poison came from or how much they were able to produce. That is the truth.”

  The alien reached into the jar and lifted the parasite out. Its tentacles hung limp from the round body like the strings of a wet mop. Fluid dripped from the ends back into the jar with a hollow tinkle. Gilbert smelled a sweet thick scent like the ocean shore at low tide.

  “It is inert until the probes touch living material, then it becomes quite active as you shall see. Answer or suffer.”

  Gilbert pleaded. “I have answered you truthfully. Do as you wish,” he added thickly. “I have no other answer.”