Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (8 page)

“Shut up. It was one goddamned panel’s all.”

“We got pictures to prove it,” Hewlett said.

Kelly was tiring of the bullshit and looked away with a frown,
hoping it would get Hewlett off the subject.

“Good pictures, too,” Hewlett persisted.

Kelly grunted and took a long drink of coffee. “How’s the work?”
he asked.

“Not too bad. Plenty of it,” Hewlett said.

“Shelters mostly, huh?”

“For now,” Hewlett said. “They’re supposed to be bringing down
some reactor parts next week, but nobody’s seen nothing on that yet. We put
together some earth movers last month, that’s about it.”

“Any women?”

“Just Hinkle here,” Hewlett said. “You can greez him up anytime
you want.”

“Shut up,” Hinkle said.

Hewlett laughed and made kissy noises at Hinkle.

“Oh, there’s some,” Hewlett said. “Mostly spoken for or married,
though.”

That don’t matter,
Kelly thought.
Not one damn bit.

“There won’t be no whores until next year, I’d say. Hinkle here’s
got a woman, ain’t that right, Hinkle?”

“Some people call it that,” Hinkle said.

Hewlett found that funny and laughed loud. “
It.
I like that.
It.
So she’s a
it,
huh? I like that.”

Kelly grinned just to act a little polite.

She will be when I get through with her.

He took another long drink of the shitty coffee.

The dispatcher, Frank Wallace, walked out of the toilet, tucking
in his shirt. He nodded at Kelly as he walked past them. “New guy, Frank,”
Hewlett said. “He just got in.”

“Henry Kelly,” Kelly said.

“Yeah, he’s on the list,” Frank said, pouring coffee and not
looking at Kelly. “Looks like you come highly recommended, Kelly.”

“Maybe,” Kelly said.

“You got tools?”

Just one.

“Nope.”

“You got clothes, except what you’re wearin’?”

“I got clothes. Bag’s on the dock.”

“You better get it before it walks off.”

“It ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Frank walked past him still not looking at him. “Suit yourself,”
he said. “I’ll get you checked in. Looks like you got a roommate, Hewlett.”

“It don’t matter to me,” Hewlett said.

Kelly needed a few things from the store and headed down after he
got settled in. It would give him a chance to check things out; to get the lay
of land and find out what was around. He didn’t think there were any cops yet,
but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look just to be sure.

His shelter was located in roughly the middle of the cluster.
Walking in and out would give him a good view of what there was, but that could
work both ways; they could see him just as easily as he could see them. There
was nowhere to hide between the rows of flat-sided shelters.

He walked through the cluster, going first left, then right,
trying to cover as much ground as he could, looking. As he got to the end of a
row, he saw one in the kitchen window of the last shelter. She was working at
the sink, and he could hear the garbage grinder working. Tight-cropped brown
hair, nice neck, strong shoulders.
Perfect
.
He smiled up at her as he passed.

“Howdy,” she said with a brief smile.

He smiled back real nice.

He noticed the names as he passed the door: “William Habershaw
/Joan Thomas.”

He wouldn’t forget the location of that one. When he got a few meters
past the shelter, he turned around as if he’d lost his way just to see how the
shelter was situated; where the windows were and who could see what. She was
at the end of the last row. That was good; if he came in from the jungle, it
would be damned hard to see him. He could duck in a few hundred meters down and
make it in no time.

“Are you lost?” she said as he walked back by.

“Must have got turned around, but I’m never lost.”

“Where were you trying to go?”

“I thought I was going to the store.”

Joan pointed with a fork. “That way to the end, then turn right.
You’ll see it.”

“Thank you.”

"Sure."

Nice smile. I’ll have to take care of that.

He picked up a few items he didn’t need
—
aspirin,
toothpaste, razors, and a pair of cotton socks
—
and
carried them to the counter. The clerk rang it up and debited his account.

“Got any copper wire?”

“No copper. Just silver. Why do you need copper, anyways?”

Kelly hated question-asking bastards like this one. For a moment
he thought he might make an exception and do him one night, too—just for the
hell of it. There was a lot of meat on him.

“It’s traditional,” Kelly said with a grin.

“Well, I don’t have copper wire. Never even seen a spool of it.”

“Then give me twenty meters of twelve gauge silver wire.”

Davis disappeared into the back and reappeared carrying a spool of
wire on his forefinger.

“Thirty meter spool’s all I got.”

“That’ll do.”

He walked back along the same route, hoping to get a glimpse of
the prey again, but she was nowhere to be seen. He thought about knocking on
the door to see if she’d answer the knock, just to get another look at her, but
changed his mind. It wouldn’t do to get too friendly right off; she might get
spooked. Besides, being friendly wasn’t his strong suit.

When he sat down at the table to eat, he took one look at
Hewlett’s empty tray across from him and the smeared food all around it and got
right back up.

Messy bastard.

He took his tray into his room. The less contact with Hewlett, or
anybody, the better. He locked the bedroom door. The last thing he wanted was
that asshole coming in on him unexpectedly.

He went to the closet and pulled the long bag out and hefted it up
on the bed. He loved the feel of the bag’s smooth leather and the weight of it.
He untied the straps holding it shut and pulled the smooth lips of the bag open
gently as if spreading a flower.

He stripped naked, stepped in front of the mirror and stretched
and twisted his arms, legs and torso. His entire body was tattooed in black and
green swirls. He’d had them done years ago, but time hadn’t dulled their
magnificence. When he twisted, the shapes seemed to come alive and writhed with
an obscene life of their own. It made him smile.

The wire was next. He made neat wraps of it around his wrists and
ankles, tying the soft wire off after exactly the same number of loops around
each time.

That done, he lifted the weapon out of the bag and cradled it with
both hands. It appeared to be just a tube about a meter long and as thick as
his forearm. The device was covered with ghostly, ornate and alien swirls in
the same pattern as those on his own body. Had the device been on quiet,
motionless display in a museum, it could have been admired for its alien
beauty.

If a thing’s beauty could be judged by its function, however, this
one would be one of the most hideous.

Kelly had no idea where it came from, nor did the trader who sold
it to him. No human who had ever come in contact with it knew what its original
purpose was, if any. Most insisted it was a weapon of some kind used in the
most barbaric contests or maybe warfare. Some thought it to be a religious icon
used in some alien rite of passage or sacrificial ceremony.

There was a smooth, beveled hole on the side of the device. When
the tool was held at the ready, the hole would nest the user’s thumb perfectly.
The switch at the bottom of the hole, however, was too deep to reach with the
length of a normal human thumb. A former owner had fashioned an extension of
leather and bone which, when strapped to the user’s own digit, produced the
required length. Kelly held the cool, thick rod under his arm and strapped on
the extension.

Holding the device out and pointed slightly down, he slipped his
artificially lengthened thumb into the hole until the end of it came in contact
with the switch.

He pressed down.

There was no sound of a motor, only the snick and click of hard
metal against metal as the end of the device opened up as if alive, seams
appearing in the perfect construction where there were no seams. The tendrils
came first. Segmented like a string of polished black pearls and ending with
sharp red tips, they snaked out into a pattern like a grasping hand. Next came
the blades, three double-edged rapiers that snapped out to form a wicked triad
in the center of the tendrils. He pushed down a little harder, and the blades
began to machinate in and out and back and forth at random, chewing the air
with the sound of heavy shears. The tendrils grabbed, pierced and held tight;
the blades cut and gnawed at the victim with unstoppable savagery, turning
flesh and bone to puree.

Kelly had no idea what its original use was. But he knew what he
liked, and what he liked was to kill people with it.

He turned it off, and the blades and tendrils vanished back
inside, leaving no outward clue to their existence.

Then he squatted down, extended his arms out on his knees and
waited for darkness.

He replayed the times he’d used his toy in the past, going over
each detail, listening to the screams and grunts and begging as the blades
worked in and out and back and forth, sawing and cutting. Fifteen years of
faces from a dozen planets, each different, yet each the same in their moment
of horror.

He planned out each move he’d make from here to Joan Thomas’
bedside. He’d have to kill the Habershaw guy, too, but that was no problem.
He’d club him, then do Joan. When he was finished with her, he’d work the tool
over Habershaw. He could see them now and feel the grinding, slashing power of
the wand as it worked. No human killer could do what the tool was capable of.
They’d be looking for an alien monster if they looked for anything at all, not
a human killer—just like always.

Off-world law enforcement was its own worst enemy. Kelly had taken
advantage of that and the lack of inter-company communications for fifteen
years. Contract cops were barely able to guard themselves, let alone track a
serial killer from planet to planet. Besides, no one gave a shit what happened
to off-world contractors.

Hank Kelly was good at what he did. Blood splashed on his naked
skin was easily showered off, and a carefully shaved body and head left no hair
or skin as evidence. The key was stealth; not being seen or heard. The tattoos
helped to camouflage him and quiet night was the time to stalk and kill. In the
off-chance they searched his room, they’d find nothing. Just an odd and ornate
alien rod, perfectly clean—a somewhat strange souvenir from a distant world.

He closed his eyes and a sigh of pleasure deep in his guts rose up
his throat and out like a porcine grunt.

He waited until well after dark before he moved.

He crept to the rear door and went outside. The distant sound of
muffled laughter reached him before he closed the door. The twin moons were
high, almost straight up and bathed the ground in pale white light. He’d never
seen such bright moonlight, and he needed to get out of it fast.

Insects flew into him as he ran. He began to think some clothing
would have been a good idea, but the sense of complete nakedness had always
heightened his pleasure when he had his little freelance outings.

It took less than a minute to cover the distance from his shelter
to the perimeter. He jumped up on a fallen log at the jungle’s edge then leapt
like an ape into the thick foliage, feeling his blood heat in anticipation.
The cool green branches and rough vines felt good against his bare skin.

He rubbed the cool metal tube between his legs and grinned. Then
he twisted and cranked his head around and around on his neck and let the magic
wire transform him.

His naked body and the tool were all that mattered in the
universe. With the magic wire on his wrists and the rod in his hand, he was
invisible and invulnerable. Only his naked camouflaged skin stood between the
inner hunter and the prey he sought. He would have liked a wet and dark spot to
crouch in, to watch and jump from, and this was as good as it came.

He tromped in about ten meters, batting the leaves and vines out
of the way. Then he turned ninety degrees to the left and paralleling the
shelters, headed toward the far corner of the cluster. He’d have to guess at
the distance but figured he could do that well enough. He stomped on, slapping
at the bugs that landed on him and bending and breaking the soft branches and
vines away as he worked his way through the tangle.

A din of screeching, chirping and hissing filled the air, and the
tactile sensation of wet leaves and branches and tickling insects soon gave
way to prickling and poking and stinging irritation.