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

by David Coy

“Alleged crimes?” Paul asked, with an emphasis on alleged.

  “That’s right.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “You know, you can stay up there for what? Six years? Maybe nine years, if you conserve resources? Then what?”

  “I self-destruct the orbiter.”

  “Ah,” Paul said, feigning surprise.

  “What have I got to lose?” Smith asked with a frown. “If I come down sooner, you’ll kill me. What’s the advantage?”

  Paul knew Smith would be tough. He was obviously dealing with a man who had negotiated things his way his entire life. Such men lied, cheated, bartered and bargained for everything they wanted.

  “I never said I would kill you,” Paul offered. “All I said was that there are some people down here who expect you to pay for what you’ve done to them. That’s all.”

  “Being led by the crowd mentality, are we, Captain Kominski?”

  “Not at all. I’ve got the final say,” Paul said. “But I do have some other opinions to consider.”

  “Playing all the angles?” Smith said with a sniff.

  “Look, I’ve got eight of the Bondsmen’s highest ranking council members locked up. The rest, as you know, are dead. If you, Wethers and Lindstrom come down now, I’ll negotiate a reasonable sentence with you. You’ll come out of this alive at least.”

  “I don’t want a sentence,” Smith said. “I want a pardon. And in exchange, I’ll leave the orbiter as it is.”

  Paul pretended to think it over. He’d made up his mind where this was going before the conversation started. He sucked air through his nose.

  “You promise to leave the orbiter intact?” Paul asked. “I wouldn’t want you going back on your word.”

  “You have my word.”

  “What about Ashwin, Wethers and Lindstom?” Paul further inquired.

  “I’ll take responsibility for them,” Smith said. “They were following my orders.”

  “I see,” Paul smirked.

  “They are my trusted employees and still work for me. They cannot be held accountable for actions, even alleged ones, they may have committed while under my direct supervision now or heretofore.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Paul said. “Bring them down with you.”

  “Then we have a deal?” Smith asked.

  “We have a deal,” Paul said. “You’ll get your pardon.”

  “Fine,” Smith said, self-satisfied. “Then we’ll be down within the hour.”

  “Nice dealing with you, Mr. Smith,” Paul said. “You’re a tough man. See you soon.”

  “See you soon,” Smith said and closed the connection.

  Paul turned and walked over to the two officers standing by the chamber’s entrance. “Smith’s on his way down with his two bodyguards Wethers and Lindstrom and that little puke of a secretary of his, Ashwin,” he said to them. “Greet them at the landing site. Be nice. Get the orbiter’s system codes from Smith then test the codes. When you’re sure they work, lock the bastards up until I decide what to do with them. If they resist, shoot them.”

  Paul opened his pad, and checked the item labeled “Get control of the orbiter” off his list.

  Plan your work and work your plan, Dad used to say, Paul thought.

  * * *

  “I thought your report to the council was very good Dr. Sanders,” John said wrapping her tight in his arms from behind. “Very…very… good.”

  She wrapped her arms around his. “I think it was accurate,” she said cautiously. “But there are still so many unanswered questions. So much to learn.”

  They were standing just outside one of the monolith’s many entrances, the pool she used to bathe in, deep and cool at their feet. The stream gurgled gently out of the pool’s downstream end. “The last time I jumped naked into that pool, I had rifles pointed at my head a minute later,” she shared her frightful memory, then grinned. “I’ll never look at my little pool the same,” she said with mock sadness.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever look at anything the same again,” John said. “Everything is changed. Change is good.”

  “I’m not so sure about that right now,” she said. “This planet…”

  “This planet is fascinating,” he said. “You said so yourself.”

  “Yes, it’s fascinating. But it’s also deadly. It’s a very dangerous place, and it will do everything it can to kill us. And it will try at every opportunity. It will never stop trying to kill us.”

  “That’s pretty pessimistic,” he said.

  “I suppose it is, but I can’t help it. You’ve seen it yourself. No one could have dreamed that this planet was so hostile.”

  “Then we’ll just have to beat the hostility out of it,” he offered.

  She squirmed around in his arms to face him. “That’s just it, John. You can’t tame a place like this. It won’t be tamed. And on top of the fact that the entire planet is one enormous hothouse that sprouts plant and animal life from every square inch of it, there are the Verdians, a race of beings we’ve never seen and may never see. And the only thing about them we know for sure is that they are advanced technologically and extremely hostile to other species, including ours—especially ours.”

  “Not a pretty picture, I admit,” he relented.

  She sighed. “No. Not a pretty picture.” She turned around and faced the deep green and implacable face of the jungle just a few dozen meters away. “Out there are millions upon millions of square kilometers of the most biologically rich environment ever discovered. John, it’s as if the entire planet were alive through and through, just one big organic ball teeming with life forms. We’ll never fully understand it—the systems, the symbiotic relationships, the billions of species, the predators and the prey. It’s an endless ocean of life. You could spend a lifetime here and never scratch the surface.”

  She was growing agitated, and that was usually a prelude to the mania, and the mania a prelude to the seizure. He felt her through his arms and the front of his thighs for the telltale twitching. It didn’t come.

  “Life is competitive, John. Each life form carves out its niche and struggles to keep it. Now here we are, two hundred thin-skinned, soft-bodied, protein-filled morsels, just waiting to be eaten by something—to be used by another species from the outside in or the inside out. This is not a planet that you colonize, John. It’s one you admire from the safety of an air-tight, bug-proof, flying machine for a few hours—then leave it the hell alone.”

  “Well, you certainly seem to have changed your mind about this place,” he said. “I thought you told me once you thought this planet was a paradise. What happened to that?”

  “I haven’t been seeing clearly until just now. Jacob’s presence seemed to somehow…I don’t know…maybe it was the centipede bite…” her voice trailed off.

  “I know,” he said.

  They stood, wrapped as one; heads turned in opposite directions, and silently took in the enormity of the jungle for a moment.

  “I couldn’t have imagined this,” Rachel finally said. “The sheer volume of the biodiversity here. It is awesome and beautiful, yes. But I’ll tell you one thing—this planet will never be conquered. And if yours is the attitude we take we won’t last a decade. So don’t give me that beat the shit out of it horseshit.”

  “I only know one thing, Rachel,” he said holding her tighter. “You have our child—our own little parasite—growing inside you. And I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she survives. Even on Verde’s Revenge.”

  It may not be enough, Rachel thought.

  * * *

  “You seem to have things under control,” Donna said. “I like that.”

  Paul was sitting at his desk in the middle of one of the main sub-chambers he had commandeered as his office. One of his enforcers was stationed at the door, as usual, guarding him, and she’d had to throw the comment around the guard’s body to get it into the room. Donna recognized the guard as Javier
something, a youngish ex-soldier with eyes that flashed from quizzical to predatory with ease. She gave him a predatory look of her own as she swept past him into the room.

  “Well, I’m trying,” Paul said, leaning back in his chair as she came in. “I don’t expect to be in this job too much longer. Someone better-equipped to lead than me should have the role.”

  “Look, I . . . uh . . . I wanted to thank you for saving my life,” she said, sliding one hip onto his desk. “That was very good of you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  “I mean it,” she went on. “I’m in your debt.”

  “That’s a debt you don’t have to repay,” Paul said. “Besides, Mike thinks the world of you. He talks about that little surgery you did on him as if it were a miracle.”

  “Mike’s a good kid,” she said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” he said with a proud look, “And I told our father I’d always look after him. We Kominskis keep our promises.”

  “Nice quality,” she said.

  Donna had something else on her mind and let a beat pass before bringing it up.

  “So, I heard that Smith’s on his way down,” she said. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “What do you want to happen to him?” Paul asked.

  “Well, I have a biased opinion of Smith,” she said with a scrunched smile. “We don’t see eye-to-eye on some things.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “Yes. Smith had those two sonsofbitches he calls assistants pitch me out of a shuttle five hundred meters above the jungle. I survived that little fall—thanks to a very forgiving tree—and hiked for five days back to the compound. Can you imagine what it’s like to spend five full days in the green—without shelter—or even a net suit? No food, no water, just a useless little purse and the clothes on your back?

  “Well, I’ve never carried a purse…” he said wryly.

  She smiled. “Well, it’s no picnic.”

  Paul drew a breath. “I heard about your ordeal. That’s just one other thing Smith will stand trial for.”

  “Stand trial?” she asked, her jaw dropping.

  “Yes. Stand trial,” he repeated. “It’s the thing to do.”

  “Okay, Paul. Put him on trial. But know this… if I get the chance, I’ll kill the sonofabitch—him and those pretty-smelling assistants of his, too. And I’ll do it with a clear conscience.”

  “Look, I know how you must feel,” he said. “And in spite of what I’d like to do to him myself, it’s best for the colony if we at least go through the motions of a trial.”

  Donna thought it over.

  “Fine. Give him a trial. But if he and his bodyguards wind up dead or missing, it won’t be me that's had a hand in it.”

  Paul looked up into that half-blue, half-brown eye as it blazed. He was sure he had never seen a face so bent on revenge. “No. I guess it wouldn’t be you, would it now?” he said knowingly.

  Donna looked him steadily in the eye, pursed her lips and slowly shook her head.

  "Between you and me, I don’t think either of us will have to worry about it,” he said. “Smith’s going to get exactly what he deserves.”

  * * *

  Mike thought the work was going well. He was doing a good job. It had scared him at first because he and Peter were the only expeditors left, and the job had been so big and so important; but now, after a day or two of actually doing the work, things were okay.

  He made a note on the record for the container he’d just inventoried and sat down to give his foot a rest.

  “We’re almost done with this section,” he whispered to himself proudly. “Almost…”

  Paul had given Mike the job of inventorying the containers and of creating a map so they could tell where everything was. He wanted the job done by end of the week, just 3 days away. But the job was going much faster than he thought it would, and he was sure they could finish a day early—easy.

  Mike had recruited Peter and the new girl Jody to help him. Jody was the daughter of the one of the Bondsmen, but she and Peter had become fast friends. The same age as Mike and Peter, she had followed Peter around for a whole day, like a puppy, as Peter explained how the movement of stuff happens. Peter had explained to her that the usual process hadn’t been followed when they moved to the monolith, and she soon understood that everything was so scrambled at the site, they’d never be able to find anything until it were re-inventoried. When she offered to help, Mike told her, “Hey, we can always use a good hand.” It had been the first time he’d acted in a supervisory position, and it felt good to give someone who was smart and ready to help a job. She’d pitched right in, and Mike liked that.

  She told Mike and Peter on one of their breaks that she never liked all the gunk, as she called it, that the Sacred Bond taught in those daily classes. Mike was intuitive and knew that since he and Peter didn’t believe in that stuff, Jody might just be saying it to be friendly. It didn’t matter much to Mike. He would have liked her even if she did believe in it.

  Peter and Jody walked toward him between the stacks of containers. Jody was slapping at Peter’s arm as if he’s said something fresh. Peter was flinching away from her taps and laughing.

  “Hey, Mike,” Peter said. “Jody likes you!”

  “Shut up!” Jody smiled and slapped at him again. “I do not!”

  Mike didn’t know what to say. He smiled shyly, “Oh,” he said.

  “We’re done with the stack on the other side of this one,” Peter said. “Do you want us to start on another one?”

  Mike could tell that Jody was tired from all the walking and scrambling over the containers. She was pooped and probably bored. “Nah,” he said. “That’s enough for one day, I think. It’s getting late, and I’m hungry.”

  “Me, too,” Jody said, brushing her hair behind one ear.

  “Besides,” Mike said. “Paul says he doesn’t want anybody outside when the sun starts to go down.”

  “That won’t be for hours yet,” Peter offered.

  “I know,” Mike said. “But this isn’t the only thing we have to get done. Paul wants us to finish moving the medical gear into the new clinic area. While we're there, we can show Jody how to drive a lift.”

  “Yes! Yes! Let’s do that next!” Jody said, perking up considerably. “That sounds like fun!”

  “Okay,” Mike said. “That’s settled then. Let’s go.”

  The containers were stacked three up in four rows in a staging area that had been carved out of the jungle by the huge dozer. Each row was about five hundred meters long. They walked back toward the monolith through the canyon of containers.

  “I didn’t know there were so many of these,” Jody commented.

  “I know,” Peter responded. “Me and Mike and…some other guys…” his voice trailed off.

  “The other guys we worked with are dead,” Mike said. “The wasps got ‘em. Anyway, they helped us get all these moved from the compound to the monolith. That was a huge job.”

  “Oh,” Jody said.

  Peter brightened a second later and continued his lesson on Logistics 101 for Jody’s benefit.

  The containers, Peter explained as they walked, were spaced far enough apart that the doors on either end could be opened, and the contents removed with a lift when needed. All you had to do was to know where everything was at all times. That was the key. Inside the containers were closed crates packed with supplies. She knew that already, she said. The lifts were designed to interlock with the crates. Everything was modular. A lift could lift two thousand kilos and move at twenty-four kilometers an hour on level ground. She knew that, too, because he’d told her that yesterday, she huffed.

  As they walked past the space between two stacks of containers, something caught Mike’s eye at the jungle’s edge just a few meters away. A big patch of leaves had moved as if something had been startled.

  “Did you see that?” he asked them.

  “What?” Jody asked.

  “Th
e leaves moved,” Mike said.

  “The leaves always move,” Peter said, his eyes scanning the foliage.

  “Not like that,” Mike said. “Let’s get back.”

  “Yeah let’s go,” Jody said. “You’re scarin’ me.”

  Thoroughly spooked, they raced back to the safety of the monolith.

  * * *

  “Thanks for coming, Rachel,” Paul said to her. “I know you’re busy.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I could use a break.”

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  She obliged with a warm look but wondered what the meeting was all about. She hoped it wasn’t about Smith. She’d heard he was in custody, and she wasn’t very interested in being distracted by any business around that particular bug right now.

  “So how can I help you, Paul?” she asked.

  “I haven’t had a chance to ask you about the Verdians in any detail,” he said. “And I need all the information you can give me about them.”

  Rachel thought about it. “Sure,” she said. “I can give you what I know…”

  “I know what you know already,” he interrupted with a consoling smile. “What I really need is what you think!”

  “That’s a tougher question,” she said.

  “I need to know how much of a threat they are, Rachel.”

  Rachel mulled it over a little, shifted in her chair and crossed and uncrossed her legs. The Verdians were a mystery, but she did have some interesting, and disturbing, ideas about them. Most of the ideas she had come to her when she was in her more fright-filled moods. The Verdians scared her. There was something inexplicably wrong about them. Somehow, they didn’t fit. She couldn’t put her finger on it. All she knew was that they occupied a large part of her imagination during every waking hour. They’d even found ways to violate her sleep state; and when they did, they transmogrified any innocent or curious vision she might have been having during her dreams to horrid nightmares filled with pain or fat spiders.

  “Hmm. Okay. I’ll speculate then. How’s that?” she offered and swallowed. Maybe it would be good just to get this off her shoulders and give the burden of these horrid creatures to someone with a lot of guns and explosives to carry for a while.