Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (32 page)

She spun toward the open shuttle door and heard the creature land
with a thump behind her. A few strides later she leaped high over the edge of
the suspensor field and landed right in it, hoping the thick band of energy
would shield her. She waded forward and, looking over her shoulder, saw the
rain slickened creature ambling spider-like toward the field. She leaned in the
shuttle’s doorway and pulled her feet out of the sticky energy and climbed in.
When she turned again, the creature had stopped against the suspensor field,
its dark, tiny eyes fixed upon her.

“Go through that, you bastard.”

She took off her pack and tried to pull the door closed. It gave a
little creak but wouldn’t budge.

C'mon . . .

She tugged at it again, rattling the handle this time.

“Close, damn you . . .”

The creature began to make its God-forsaken clicking sound and a
moment later another one landed and tumbled behind it, then another and another
until there were a dozen stacked up against the suspensor’s barrier. Each one
had followed the exact path of the last, like ants on a trail.

“Close, damn you!”

She turned and pulled with both hands at the handle, yanking and
tugging at it.

There had to be a trick to it; some simple maneuver that would
send the door into its slot with just a little yank and a twist. She yanked and
twisted at the handle.

“Close . . .”

The organisms were three deep now, and ten across, jammed up like
balls of clay against the suspensor field. Some of them had extended their
appendages into the field as if testing it.

Suddenly, one of them started into it, walking slowly on its soft,
bent legs.

“Close!”

There was a step-by-step instruction sheet pasted to the inside
of the door, and she examined it, gobbled it up as she went from step one to
step two to three using her finger as a pointer. She was doing just what it
said to do!

Close
goddammit!

The creature was halfway to her when another one started through,
one mushy spidery step after the other.

She tugged at the door, twisting and turning at the latch until
the bones in her hands hurt.

The creature was less than a meter away. She hauled back and
kicked the door—and heard a resounding click.

The creature lashed out with a tentacle. It struck her ankle and
wrapped tight around it.

With one last yank, the door broke free and slammed into place
with a bang, severing the tentacle cleanly.

She sagged against the door and pressed the latch down, locking it
in place. Then she bent down and unwrapped the dark tentacle from her leg and
held it up. It dripped dark fluid from the severed end.

“That’s one way to get a sample,” she sighed. She tossed it down with
disgust. She had little interest in its physiology at the moment.

John.

Rachel closed her eyes and tried not to think about his fate. She
could only hope that the poison they used dulled his nervous system
sufficiently before they dragged him into that caustic pit.

God . . .

She moved to the co-pilot’s seat and looked out the side window.
The creatures were drifting away, ambling to the side and dropping off
something like sacks in
two
's and
three
's, apparently aware that their prey had vanished.

As the adrenaline evaporated from her overcharged system, she
sagged in her seat as if she were made of putty herself.

She stared out past the rivulets running down the front window and
into the green beyond. The rain made the jungle even greener.

Her gaze drifted along the rope, still hanging over the side into
the foliage. She’d have to move the shuttle, perhaps fly it all the way back.
The controls looked simple enough. She leaned over and studied the console and
sticks. Well, maybe not that simple. When she moved into his seat, she could
almost feel his aura clinging to it and thought again briefly about how he must
have died. A sense of sadness and loss grew in her as the reality of his death
sank deeper.

God, he’s dead. He’s dead,
she thought
and closed her eyes against it. She opened them a moment later and looked at
the rope again, teary eyed.

Suddenly, a human hand appeared, wrapped tightly around it. Then
another.

“Oh, God!”

She dashed to the shuttle’s door, pulled up on the latch and
yanked it open. She jumped down into the suspensor field and felt herself
splash in it. By the time she got her hands on his arms, he was almost to the
top. She noticed that his clothes were a bloody mess. She continued to yank at
him, tugging him up to the arm’s crest.

“You’re alive . . .”

“Yeah . . . I guess so . . .”

Safe inside the shuttle, he laid down and covered his face with
his arms.

“I feel sick,” he said.

“It’s no wonder. You’ve been drugged.”

“Drugged?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Not that part. I remember being pulled along and not being able
to do anything about it. That’s about all.”

“You’re bleeding. Let me look.”

His
clothes were torn with neat holes in a dozen places over his abdomen, chest and
legs.

“What are
these?” she asked.

“I don’t
know . . .”

She
unzipped his jumpsuit and found what looked like little slits that matched up
to the holes in his clothing. They were open and cleanly made, and didn’t seem
to be bleeding much. She gently spread one open with her thumb and forefinger,
and that caused it to bleed again. Before the little chasm filled with blood
she saw something dark about the size of a peanut down in it.

She
swallowed.

“Stay
put. Don’t move.”

“I’m not
going anywhere.”

Her pack
had the required tools, and she quickly found a pair of small tongs. She dashed
into the head and snatched up a large handful of tissue.

She
blotted the slit she’d just opened with a wad of tissue; and when she could see
down in it well enough, she reached in with the tongs and clamped onto the
thing inside it. It was firmly stuck even as she pulled and worked it back and
forth.

“Does
that hurt?”

“Not
much.”

“Good.”

She took
a firmer grip, worked it back and forth and pulled the thing out. Shaped like a
peanut and hard, it was an immature approximation of the things in the arm
below. Tiny red tendrils squirmed frantically from the anterior end.

“What is
that?” he asked weakly.

“A baby
what'sit
. It looks like part of their life
cycle, the reproductive part, is parasitic.” She got a container from the pack
and dropped it in then considered the thing for a moment. “I guess there’s no
big surprise there,” she snorted.

It took
her just minutes to remove the rest; they were easy to find. The shuttle’s
first aid kit had a sufficient number of bandages and she cleaned each wound
with a topical antiseptic and dressed them.

In the
process, she’d left him nearly naked.

“I guess
they thought you’d make a better incubator for their offspring than soup stock.
That must have been the reason they didn’t dunk you in the pit. You’d be no
good to them dead.”

“I was
lucky.”

“Right.
They’re probably accustomed to much less resourceful hosts, though, not ones
with tongs and Band-Aids and shit like that.”

He
chuckled.

“How do
you feel?”

“Still
sick.”

“Ummm . .
.”

He rose
up and propped himself on one arm. She thought she saw his eyes go out of focus
for a second.

“Can you
fly this thing?”

“Not just
yet. Maybe in a few minutes.”

She
looked out the window. It was still pouring rain, even harder than before. It
hissed against the shuttle’s skin. From time to time, lightning flashed bright
and silent.

She
turned and looked at him.

“I’m glad
you’re still alive.”

“Me, too
. . .”

Thunder
rumbled through, making the shuttle’s loose seams and joints buzz. She wiped
the fog from the window with her palm.

* * *

This
organism was something completely unknown; a species with physical
characteristics she was sure had never been documented. Here were the creatures
of her youthful imagination—the strange and truly alien. Not a mere variation
on an existing species, but something completely new; a new class of organism,
perhaps on its own branch of the evolutionary tree.

These
were predatory organisms, colonial like termites, and living in a symbiotic
relationship with a carnivorous plant. They carried the food to the plant, the
plant provided shelter and shared the pre-digested food. And she’d never seen
such unorthodox mobility—sling-shooting themselves from pole to pole, vine to
vine, branch to branch. It would make sense except that no
known
physiological
mechanism allowed that kind of movement.

This
changes everything.

It was a
rule of thumb, if not a hard and fast law, that if you mixed an oxygen
atmosphere with water and light within acceptable temperature and
gravitational boundaries, you got life eventually. The law held true everywhere
in the known universe. These were the only conditions under which life had
ever been found. There were no ethereal, disembodied life forms, no crystalline
life forms, no silicon-based life forms, no life made from flames or ice or
stone. There were no ammonia breathers, no energy eaters, and no robotoids with
brains of pure logic. There were only the endless varieties of water and
carbon-based life that fell within the kingdoms' flora or fauna—with a few in
between—and the classes, orders, families and species that made up their
respective members. The permutations were nearly infinite; and wherever there
were acceptable ecological niches of any variety, so too were there variations
in physiology—but always within the taxonomy. There were no known living or
fossilized artifacts on any suitable planet that couldn’t be classified within
the existing system in time. The similarities existed; you just had to find
them. There was great variety to be sure, but even greater similarity if you
just looked.

Until
now.

These
things were different. They were carbon-based all right, but physiologically
they were off the scale. If she was right, and if she could classify these
creatures as a new and unique order and a
Class
A Bio-Hazard
—the planet would belong to science. That was the law.

If the
discovery placed the organism on its own evolutionary branch, every ecological
system on the planet would be studied to see how each one supported it. The
planet would become the property of the government until they gave it back.
End of discussion.

There was
something else. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place and a musical note
sounded in her head.

Smith
knows. He knows they’re here, and these may not be the only ones—there may be
other organisms on the planet just as divergent and dangerous as these—maybe
more so.

He hadn't
been miserly or tight-fisted; he’d been hiding the fact of their existence. If
she hadn’t stumbled on them through John Soledad, Smith would have gotten his
write-offs, and with those in hand, he’d have carte blanche to begin his mining
operations. It was clear to her now that he’d been stalling, waiting, figuring
a way to get those certifications.

The
entire project hinged on the surveys—and on the verifiable signatures of
herself and a nurse named Applegate.

The
stakes were enormous.

Now with
some of the pieces fitting together so well, a less obvious fact materialized.
It formed like a crystal, clean and clear with edges sharp and deadly.

Sonofabitch.
He’s killed her. He’ll kill me, too, if I don’t bend.

She doubled
over and buried her face in her hands. She was stuck. She was cut off, without
resources; stuck on a planet tens of billions of kilometers from home where
every communication could be monitored and tracked.