Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (2 page)

There was another flash, then a long darkness. The next flash saw
her standing stock-still, arms beckoning him, fingers waving, her eyes staring,
and the image went from beautiful to bizarre again.

“Come
to me, Howard.
Come
. . . come,”
her lips said.

“No thanks . . .” he said stiffly and tried to smile at the spooky
humor.

Carla was suddenly jerked out of view like a ragdoll, so violently
her body folded backwards as it flew toward the foliage.

The sound came out of Howard like a grunt, “Hey, goddammit!”

He watched for a few seconds more, frozen, his heart pounding.

The silent image of her flying backwards, vanishing into the
foliage, burned in his head like an afterimage. One second she was there, a
statue of perfect proportions, standing in the driving rain—then nothing.

He dashed on some clothes, grabbed a light and jammed his hand
down on the hatch lock. While the door was swinging down, he took a rifle from
the rack and clicked off the safety. He snatched a locator from the rack and
put it in his pocket, and then, pushed the switch that turned on the shuttle’s
beacon.

“Carla!” he yelled running down the ramp. “Carla!”

* * *

He ran to the spot, shining the floodlight in all directions. He
put the light on the spot of jungle that had swallowed her. The bright, white
light turned the wall of foliage a pasty green.

Nothing.

Water ran in streams off the thick leaves and disappeared into the
foliage below. No sign. No blood. Just the pounding rain and the booming
thunder.

“Carla!”

Something got her. Something big. It’s still
in there.

He stared into the foliage, trying to see something, anything. He
turned the rifle’s muzzle toward the jungle at the ready. He wanted to shoot,
to kill the jungle itself, but was afraid of further endangering Carla—if she
were alive. He crabbed sideways, back and forth, trying to see into the thick
tangle of vines and leaves.

“Carla!”

He started in.

The leaves brushed his face and stuck wetly as he worked his way
into the tangle. He went in no more than two meters when he saw the blood—a
pool of pink in the depression of a broad leaf. The undergrowth was broken and
pushed down and forced back as if a bulldozer had moved through. It wouldn’t be
hard to follow whatever it was with a track like that.

“Carla!”

He picked up his pace, almost at a trot, sweeping the remaining
tangle away as he went. The jungle swallowed the light, giving him no more than
a few meters visibility ahead and casting moving shadows that confused his
eyes, making it difficult to tell phantom branch from real.

The hole appeared out of nowhere, a giant black mouth angling
down into the ground. The suddenness of it bursting out of the green background
made him stop cold in his tracks. Three meters in diameter, it gave a fairly
good indication of the size of the thing that occupied it. Howard moved closer,
letting the light pierce the burrow’s blackness.

There was Carla’s blood, just a few drops, on the ground at the
entrance. He looked closer and found several more a meter or so inside. He
could make out strange tracks like clusters of stab holes in the soft soil. He
moved in cautiously, holding the light high. The angle was steep and the
entrance muddy and slippery. He had to slide part of the way down to a point
where the tunnel leveled off.

The floor was well-packed and worn smooth. He could see more of
the tracks in the dirt. Roots protruded from the tunnel walls and ceiling in
great numbers like stiff and twisted hair. A narrow and muddy stream of water
ran in along the cove of the wall. An odor, sweet and thick, permeated the air
and left its scent on the back of his tongue and made him want to spit.

Standing in the burrow’s muffled quiet, he could hear his pulse
pounding in his head. His breathing was shallow and rapid. Insects, attracted
to the light, buzzed and banged into it. He turned off the hand light, put the
strap over his shoulder, and then turned on the rifle’s sight-light. It cast a
narrower but adequate beam down the burrow. The compromise would be worth it
when it came time to shoot.

The scent grew stronger as he proceeded, so much so that he had to
stop and work up a wad of spit, then with a scowl, silently discharge it onto
the burrow’s floor.

The tunnel bent to the right, and Howard moved tight against the
wall. As he inched around the corner, he felt the thin roots drag against his
face and neck like stiff, thin fingers.

Turning the light on the floor, he saw a trail of red drops almost
in a straight line. If she were alive, she wasn’t bleeding profusely. He knew
the amount of blood on the floor was no indication of her condition. She was
most likely hurt very badly.

He turned another bend, and the light trailed off the brown wall
and into space, illuminating a wide spot on a distant wall.

A chamber.

He turned the light off, pressed himself against the damp earthen
wall and listened.

The silence and darkness were heavy, and his heart still beat in
his ears. He wished he could make the pounding stop so he could better hear. He
couldn’t stand the taste in his mouth and leaned out and spat again.

Then he heard it; a distant but unmistakable sound.

There are some sounds that cannot be confused with anything else.
They are universally recognizable regardless of the source. Masticating and the
tearing of meat are some of those sounds.

He closed his eyes tight against the gruesome noise, trying not to
imagine what was happening in that chamber.

“Carla . . .”

He took a deep breath, steeled his spine, turned on the sight
light and stepped into the chamber.

He thought it was part of the chamber at first; the rifle’s light
illuminated so little of it. As the light moved across it, he could make out
regular bands of hard and shiny material, rolled like thick brown leather.

He reached for the floodlight and unlooped it from his neck. Then,
holding it high and keeping the rifle ready, he turned it on.

The light flooded the entire chamber with white.

The creature’s back was humped and armored like an armadillo’s,
but there the similarity ended. It took him a moment before he could discern
which end was which. The end with the bloody mass under it was the head.

Her body had been reduced to pulp under that alien maw. It worked
what was left of her with relentless violence, pulling off chunks at a time and
masticating, the mandibles working sideways with machine-like precision and
grinding power. Howard groaned and had the overwhelming urge to turn and run
from the horror of it.

The entire cave was strewn with the remains of other kills; tails,
heads, bones and the thing’s own waste. The reek he’d been breathing was coming
from this very chamber.

The creature was huge and powerful. It seemed not to care that
there was an alien prey-thing shining a light on it; it just continued to eat.

He raised the rifle and put the bright spot of light on the
creature’s head, right where he believed the brain to be.

He fired.

In a blinding flash, the rifle’s blast seemed to tear a hole in
the very air of the chamber. He hadn’t fired a fifty-five-caliber rifle since
the service. He’d forgotten how devastating a ball of lead alloy, moving at
4100 feet per second, could be. Tissue and bone exploded from the creature’s
flat head as if a grenade had been inside it. The monster slumped to the floor
as its short legs collapsed under it.

Howard’s ears were ringing.

“Die . . . you bastard.”

He walked over to it, stepping over the alien body parts and shit.
He made himself go to the head. He stood there for a moment; and when he got
up the nerve, he looked down.

Carla’s face was there, her eyes wide open. He looked away. He
wondered for one grisly moment if she had mercifully been dead when the thing
started to feed. He could only hope—but would never know for certain.

He wanted to pick her up and carry her home, but there wasn’t much
to carry except her head.

He howled with rage.

* * *

He awoke late in the morning from a brief and shallow sleep. A
puzzling sense of dread and loss clouded his mind and persisted for a while
before he remembered it was Carla’s death that caused it. Then images of the
night’s events came back one at a time like waking nightmares; disjointed, ugly
and random. He looked over at her empty, unmade bunk and the sight of it filled
him with blackness.

Carla was gone.

This had been their home; a metal and composite-bound space,
filled with equipment, tools and their few personal possessions. She’d tried to
make it a real home when the desire to nest struck some feminine chord in her. She
had fashioned odd curtains for the shuttle’s bare ports on one occasion, and,
on another, had placed her mother’s antique quilts on the bunks. The quilts
were still there somewhere.

He sat on the edge of the bunk for what seemed like hours, his
head in his hands, letting the memories of her come and go, to wrench his guts
or make him laugh, then weep, at something she’d done or said long ago.

When he stepped out into the planet’s wet air, the scent wasn’t as
sweet as it had been. It was still overcast, and a light fog in the air muddied
the forms around him, turning the splashes of color to mere murky
discolorations against the green and black background.

He hated the planet and everything in it.

This goddamned swamp killed her,
he thought
.

He put about twenty charges in a satchel and walked back to the
creature’s burrow, rifle at the ready. There was something to do before he
left.

He’d vacillated, trying to decide whether or not to retrieve her
head and give it a proper burial or to leave it in place when he brought the
burrow down on itself. He opted for the latter. The thought of carrying her
disembodied head was just too much for him, plus he couldn’t think of what to
put it in that would be appropriate.

He placed the charges at the entrance to the feeding chamber,
laying them out in a pattern he thought would create the right blast pattern.
He didn’t look at her while he did it.

Safely outside, he stood with the detonator in his hand and
lowered his head. He took a deep breath and spoke quickly. He didn’t know
exactly what to say, so he just started talking, his voice wooden.

“Here lies a woman named Carla Verde, my wife. She was a woman who
loved me and that I loved in turn and she was strong and kind and she loved her
work and was not afraid of many things. She worked hard to bring down her debt
and was respected by her colleagues and loved by her family.”

That was all he could get out. The need to weep pushed aside his
artificial resolve like a wave on sand. He fell to his knees, doubled over, and
wept.

“Carla . . .”

When he gathered his composure some time later, he cleared his
eyes and pointed the detonator in the direction of the burrow.