Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (Dominant Species Series)

by David Coy

  “Hi,” she said nicely.

  “Hi,” Habershaw replied.

  The layout was so ill-designed that there was virtually no privacy from the eyes in the waiting area. Two patients, one sitting, the other lying down, occupied the tables... A single doctor, dressed in a dingy gown, was examining the one sitting. He looked up long enough to acknowledge Habershaw, then went right back to work. “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll be with you when I can.”

  Habershaw knew the doctor. He was an old and bent, extremely unpleasant sort named Cochran—an old burnout, unable to retire, and the best they could get for the lowly contractors.

  Rachel wasn’t there, that was clear. Habershaw wasn’t crazy about asking the question, but he had to do it.

  “Have you treated a woman for glass cuts this morning?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Cochran said with disinterest, not looking up.

  “That solves that mystery,” Habershaw said lightly to the waiting woman. She smiled, but it was something only passing for a smile.

  * * *

  That left one alternative. If she was getting medical treatment it was down in the plant’s guts.

  When he got back to the rig, Habershaw went straight to the locker and told John and Donna what he’d learned.

  “That’s no medical clinic,” John said with a note of apprehension. “It’s a very weird-assed laboratory just filled with this alien surgical technology.”

  Habershaw knew what he had to tell them wouldn’t go down very easily, but they had a right to know. He told them what he and Lavachek had seen in the last few weeks prior to the migration. When he was finished, John slumped against the wall.

  “What the hell are they doing in there?” he almost whined. “What is wrong with those people?”

  The idea that Rachel might be used for some ungodly experiment made him swoon with dread. He remembered how she had almost fainted when she first saw the lab—how it had made her physically sick to be in it. He looked up and blinked and his mouth turned into a straight, tight line.

  “Hey,” Donna said with a focused look. “We don’t know anything yet. We’ve got a ways to go before we reach any conclusions. Besides, Jacob’s taken some special interest in Rachel . . .”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” John said forcefully.

  “Right—but it doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. Try not to think about it until we have the facts,” she said.

  Sure, John thought. How do I not think about it.

  “I’m as concerned as you are,” she said. “She’s my family, too.”

  Sure.

  “There’s only one way into the lab that we know of,” Donna said to Habershaw. “And that’s through the tunnel you described as tunnel E. John and Rachel have explored it dozens of times.” She blotted her brow on her sleeve.

  “So how do we get in?” Habershaw asked.

  “Create a diversion,” John said. “Then go in shooting and get her out.”

  “No. That won’t work,” Donna said. “I’ve got it. We’ll drop down one of the vertical ventilation shafts from the top of the structure. You know how Rachel thought that big hole in the ceiling of the lab was connected to the vents somehow. I bet she was right.”

  “How? We don’t know which one of those shafts, if any, dumps into the lab,” John said. “And it’s a long drop besides. How are we gonna manage that? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  The fear he felt for Rachel’s welfare was causing his brain to shut down. Donna picked up on it. She’d have to fill in some for him right now. She hoped it was temporary.

  “We’ll use a utility shuttle. We’ll steal it, fly it to the top and winch ourselves down. Simple.”

  “Which one? Which shaft?” John asked.

  “John, relax. We can do this.” She watched him take a breath and waited until he let it out. “That time we were up on top, remember? The first time? We counted what—ten chutes in a ring? We’ll go down each one until we find the right one that’s all.”

  “What about the soldiers in the lab?” Habershaw asked. “Chances are there aren’t any,” Donna said. “They’ve put all their security at the sub-chamber where the material gets dropped off. My guess is they have no need for soldiers in the lab itself.”

  “I know that sub-chamber,” John said. “It’s three or four hundred meters from the lab. If she’s in there, it should be an easy matter to drop in, kill a few bystanders, snatch her and get the hell out before the guards get to us. We know the layout better than they do. We have that advantage. We need some communication equipment. Where can we get some?”

  That’s more like it, Donna thought. I thought we’d lost you.

  “I’ve got some old stuff we once used on the rig,” Habershaw offered. “It doesn’t have any range, but it’ll work.”

  “Good,” John said.

  “What about the shuttle?” Habershaw asked.

  Donna shrugged and looked at John. “That’s the pilot’s job. What do you think, Soledad? Can you fly a shuttle to the top of that thing?”

  “Blindfolded. The problem’s copping the shuttle. That could be tough. But I might be able to convince one of the other pilots to let us borrow one for a while.”

  “Who?” Donna asked.

  “I could check with Paul Mayflower. We were pretty close. I’ve known him for a long time.”

  “You can’t go strolling over to the shuttle pool and say, Howdy, can I borrow your shuttle?” Donna said, “So Bill will have to arrange it. Tell him it’s for his old friend, John Soledad—that kind of thing. See if he’ll buy in. Don’t tell him he won’t be getting the damned thing back. If he doesn’t go along, we’ll kill him and steal it.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” John said with a grin, astonished at Donna's transformation to guerilla fighter.

  “It’s harsh times,” she replied.

  “I’ll handle it,” Habershaw said. He could schmooze with the best of them.

  * * *

  Habershaw found Mayflower later that day, sitting in his shuttle between flights, eating his lunch from a plastic box. He seemed eager to engage in conversation with another contractor, and Habershaw swooped right in. He was sure he’d ridden in his shuttle once or twice and told him so just to get things started. They talked about the weather, the settlement, the plant— and then the move.

  They commiserated about how shitty everything was, sharing anecdotes about the contemptible behavior they saw around them. Habershaw even told him about Joan. The grief and anger he showed was genuine.

  “These damn things hard to fly?” Habershaw asked, finally changing the subject.

  “Takes practice,” Mayflower said. “The damned tests are the hard part. The craft is fairly easy to control once you get the hang of it. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Finally, Habershaw brought the conversation around to John Soledad. Mayflower was very interested in what had happened to him as were all the other pilots. When Habershaw told Mayflower that John was in hiding, Mayflower was both surprised and concerned. When Mayflower asked what he could do to help, Habershaw had no trouble broaching the subject of borrowing the shuttle.

  “I’ll leave it parked right here with the keys in it,” he said. “Take the thing.”

  With that done, Habershaw went back and looked for the ancient head-sets he and Lavachek used to use. He found them stuffed in the old canvas bag he carried from job to job.

  Donna, John and Habershaw met later back in the locker and took inventory. There wasn’t much. They would use the rescue harness from the shuttle attached to the winch to lower one of them down. They had lights and they had the rifle. That was it.

  “Who goes down to get her?” Donna asked.

  “I do,” John said. “No arguments.”

  “How much wire’s on the winch?” Habershaw asked.

  “It’s got a thousand meters on it.”

  “That’s plenty.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we go tonight,” Donna s
aid.

  “Tonight,” Habershaw echoed.

  “Tonight,” John agreed, only wishing it could be much sooner.

  “Then we’d better get some sleep,” Donna said. “By sunup tomorrow, I want to be as far from this place as we can get.”

  15

  By the time John got into his net suit and took up a perch on the rig’s high railing, the night had begun its noisy song. There were lights still on in the monolith that cast long shadows of the equipment parked in front of the opening. Like strange rays, they struck harsh patterns of light and dark across the clearing. John looked down and checked every corner, every dark spot, looking for movement. From where he was, it would be impossible for anyone to move without him seeing a shadow. He watched for ten minutes or more, making sure. All he saw were the tiny, back-lit wings of insects flying in front of the opening, drawn by the lights. They flew like snowflakes in the wind, but never blew inside, constantly repelled by the structure’s remarkable chemical defense.

  Donna came up quietly and looked with him. She didn’t have to touch his arm to know it was taut as a spring.

  “That’s the strangest damn thing, isn’t it?” he said.

  “What’s strange?” she said. “The whole planet is strange.”

  “Look how the insects cluster around the opening and never go in. Look how they seem to bump into an invisible wall just where the opening starts. What’s keeping them out?”

  “Some repellent, like Rachel thought.”

  “But none of them go in. None. It’s fantastic really.” She reminded herself about John’s amateur interest in biology. But he was creating a diversion for himself, going somewhere far away in his mind even if for a moment. She wished she could do the same.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” she said, acting like a good sister. “It’s amazing. I’m no expert, but I’d say that thing has evolved a great way to keep out pests.”

  John checked the moons’ positions. They were just coming up, no more than a few degrees over the horizon. It was dark enough to get started.

  “Did you sleep any?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Neither did I,” he said and huffed a long exhale. “We’d better get going.”

  “Hey,” she said.

  “What?”

  “This could work. It could work real easy.”

  John nodded his head. If one of those holes led to Rachel, he’d find her. That’s all he cared about. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

  They met Habershaw on the dark side of the rig behind the massive track. He was antsy, nervous about being off the rig and out in the open at night. His experience on the road had left a figurative, as well as a literal, impression on him. He constantly brushed the bugs off his net suit—a futile task. One eye was always on the jungle’s edge, waiting for one of those giant grubs to shoot out its grabber at him. John and Donna seemed not to mind, largely ignoring the insects clattering around them.

  Donna saw Habershaw's obvious discomfort. “You get used to it,” she said casually. “They’re only bugs.”

  They moved at a tangent away from the light then circled wide and entered the shuttle pool in near total darkness. There were a dozen or so shuttles parked in an irregular row. Habershaw kept moving until he came to Mayflower’s. When he pulled on the latch, the door opened wide.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Mayflower always was a man of his word.”

  John moved to the pilot’s seat and turned the shuttle on. The instrument panel lit up brightly. He dialed the intensity down just to be on the safe side. When he turned the suspensors on, the shuttle hummed quietly then gently lifted off the ground. He banked right as soon as he cleared the treetops and swung around to the back side of the monolith. He waited until the moons were out of sight and they were in the structure’s shadow before he started his ascent. They moved vertically along the structure’s sheer wall and were at the top in less than a minute.

  “Where are the shafts?” he said. “I can’t see them. Shit!”

  Christ, he’s really strung tight, Donna thought.

  “Turn the lights on,” Habershaw offered.

  “That’s risky.”

  “How else you gonna find ‘em.”

  John turned the lights on, and the top of the monolith was suddenly awash in bright light.

  “There they are,” Donna said, pointing. “Right there.”

  Fifty meters ahead was a ring of circular black holes, each about two meters in diameter. John picked the closest one. “I guess we’ll try that one first.”

  He brought the shuttle to rest directly over the hole. It came down with a slight bump. Donna opened the access hatch, a square opening in the cargo area’s floor. A rush of warmish air coming from the shaft lifted her hair. When she looked, she swallowed involuntarily. It was as if the hatch opened into a bottomless black void.

  When they’d first seen the ring of vents, in the bright daylight, they had leaned cautiously over the edge of one and speculated about what function they might serve. Rachel had held to John’s arm and leaned farther out and felt the updraft on her face. “It’s a ventilation shaft,” she’d said, “part of a static cooling system, like a termite mound. It vents heat. That’s why the interior is so comfortable.” It had been difficult enough to look down those dizzying, vertical shafts when there was light around them.

  * * *

  A box—with buttons that attached to an umbilical—controlled the winch, mounted in the ceiling directly over the hatch. Donna plucked the controller from its wall mount, pressed the Down button and reeled some slack off the spool. The winch let out a steady hum as it worked.

  John came back, put his hands on his hips, leaned out a ways and peered down. Donna studied his face and could see the apprehension there.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said. “It’s just a black pit.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  He pulled his light from its holster, aimed it squarely down the hole and turned it on. The light had no effect. The shaft swallowed it as if it never existed. He could see the smooth walls for some distance down when he bounced the beam off them, but the bottom of the shaft just didn’t exist.

  “Deep,” he said.

  He let himself imagine for a moment what it would be like to fall down that shaft. He saw himself tumbling, glancing off the walls as he sped toward some unknown impact below. In an even more gruesome flash, he imagined that the shaft narrowed suddenly, and feet first, he was jammed into a space smaller than his own diameter to be held there in a lingering, claustrophobic embrace.

  He shuddered and stepped back, angry with himself for allowing such a mind-numbing vision to form in his head.

  “Yeah, it’s a deep bastard all right,” Habershaw said. “You sure you don’t want me to go. Hell, it don’t bother me.”

  It was a nice gesture, but a lie. The shaft bothered everybody.

  “No, thanks. I’ll be all right once I start down. It’s my job, not yours.

  John put the rescue harness on, secured it with the straps, attached the cable’s clasp to the ring, then slung the rifle over his shoulder. Donna handed him a headset, and he put it on, adjusting the springy wire until the earphones and mouthpiece were just right. Donna thought he was taking just a little too long, but that was okay.

  Once Donna and Habershaw had put on their headsets, Donna passed the controller to Habershaw. He tested it by running a length of wire up and down a couple of times.

  “It’s not real fast, is it,” he said.

  “Not made for speed,” John said woodenly. “But it’ll lift two thousand kilos easy.”

  “Aw, you don’t weigh that much,” Habershaw said, trying

  to inject some levity. Donna tried a grin that didn’t work.

  “Ready?” Habershaw asked.

  “Sure,” John replied, checking the connection a final time.

  Habershaw took up the slack. John bent his legs, put his weight on the wire then dropped slowly out into the sp
ace over the hole. Turning gently, he rested his hand on the wire and felt its incredible thinness, its tight, rod-like insufficiency. He had to think hard and remember that the braided wire was Coretense steel fiber, half the size of his boot laces, but thousands of times stronger. He’d had the same feeling about it when he was in pilot school, and the students had “rescued” each other in practice. Adrift hundreds of feet over the hard ground of the Mojave, he’d hoped that he’d never have to hang by the thin shit ever again. Oh, well.

  He turned his light on and pointed it downward. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Habershaw pressed down and the winch hummed. They watched as he dropped slowly down the shaft, turning helplessly at the end of the thin, shiny wire.

  “Can you hear me?” Habershaw said into the mouthpiece.

  “Loud and clear,” the answer came back.

  “What’s it look like?”

  “Nothing. It looks like nothing,” John said. He looked up and saw their heads on two sides of a small, lighted square in the center of the black void above. “This is not fun,” he said.

  “Think of it as some kind of ride or something,” Habershaw said, “like at a ride park.”

  “It’s too slow and not fun enough to be a goddamned ride.”

  “Sorry. What’s it look like now?”

  “Still nothing. How far have I gone?”

  Habershaw read the numbers on the winch’s counter. “A hundred and ten meters. You should be about halfway there.”

  John watched the light brown walls drift by and tried not to think about where he was. He made his mind focus on Rachel. He thought about the first time he saw her and about her thick hair. He thought about her smooth skin and her strong limbs. He thought about the first time they slept together. He thought about her being held captive by a highly organized group of religious fanatics. He thought about where they’d taken her. “I wish this goddamned thing would go faster,” he said. “We’ve got nine more of these things to go down.”