Read Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) Online
Authors: David Coy
Tags: #dystopian, #space, #series, #contagion, #infections, #fiction, #alien, #science fiction, #space opera, #outbreak
Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) (37 page)
Bailey
stepped up very close to Phil and put her hands together under her chin. Phil
stood up. When he did, he heard a deep grunt from the big bastard like a
warning.
Bailey’s
voice was even and modulated, not the excited voice he’d expected. She had a
weird, frozen smile on her face that didn’t change.
She
cleared her throat before she began.
“Okay,
here’s the deal. Gilbert—my king that is—told the aliens what the weather
patterns are like so that when they dump the bugs, they’ll be in just the right
locations so they don’t freeze to death. That’s the only way to make the attack
totally successful. If they didn’t do that, the attack would kill millions of
people, but it wouldn’t exterminate us completely and that’s what they want.
Get it?”
Phil was
listening intently. He knew Bailey enough to know she was telling the truth, and
he felt a tightening in his guts. He looked at the big, stupid coat on Gilbert
and knew from his posture he was holding the Bible with both hands in front of
him. He looked like he might be in prayer, but Phil knew he was listening
closely.
“They had
to know what the weather patterns were before they’d even do it,” she
continued, smiling. “The wasps are their only weapon. If they don’t get enough
on the ground in the right places, they believe they could get attacked from
the Earth. Secrecy and the timing of the release is everything. And they don’t
have that much time. See?”
Phil
heard her words through a fog of hatred.
“How does
Gilbert know the weather patterns?”
“He’s a .
. . a . . . whatchamacallit . . . what are you again my king?” she asked over
her shoulder.
“A prick.
A traitor,” Mary jabbed in, shaking her head in disbelief.
“A
meteorologist,” Gilbert said, not looking up.
“Right. A
meteorologist,” Bailey said with a sudden strained look on her face.
Phil
looked into her eyes and saw the truth there, and the sinking feeling seemed to
pull him right to the floor.
The big
bastard grunted again. It was obvious now that the thing was Gilbert’s
bodyguard. They wouldn’t do that for him unless he had some special value.
“Nuts,
huh?” Bailey said crazily.
“You
sorry bitch . . .” Mary said to her.
Bailey
flashed a strained smiled.
Phil’s
mind raced.
It was
nuts, all right. Skinny, sick-minded Gilbert Keefer could have foiled the whole
invasion by doing absolutely nothing.
Phil was
certain he was looking at a first in the history of mankind. Never before had a
single entity traded so little for the death of so many. It was quite a deal;
Gilbert would have his own little colony of
whatevers
and his seed—his fucked-up seed—would persist in the universe to the exclusion
of all others. He’d have his pick, Phil was sure, of whatever human resources
he was able to preserve from the holocaust. Phil wondered what the human race
would be like in a thousand years with Gilbert Keefer’s genes as the primary
stock.
Phil
wanted to jump up and wring Gilbert’s neck before he was able to spread his
fucked-up seed. If he could have done it before the big bastard killed him, he
would have done just that.
“You
fucked up sonofabitch,” Phil said slowly.
Gilbert
turned around with a self-satisfied look. He’d let Bailey tell it—the whole
battle plan—without censoring it.
Phil’s
mind raced on. He’d wanted her to tell it—then to stand there knowing they
couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Bailey—sweet
not-so-innocent Bailey. What a disappointment.
When he
looked closer at the crown of thorns he wanted to slap it off her head—not for
some show of resentment about her change of allegiance—but because the “thorns”
were waving and squirming like worms. The crown was alive, another
fabrication.
“I want
that . . . thing . . . you have,” Gilbert said.
“What
thing?” Phil asked. “My
dick?”
“That
thing you can call Earth with.”
“He knows
it’s a godamned phone,” Mary said to Bailey. “Why the hell didn’t he just say
it?”
“You do
mean the
phone
thing?” Phil asked.
“Yes,
that.”
It hadn’t
done them much good so far, but he hated to give it up just the same. The phone
was the connection that linked them to the rest of their species.
“Go get
the phone,” Phil said to Mary.
Mary
looked at him as if he were nuts.
“Screw
that,” Mary said.
“Go on,”
Phil said. “Go get it.”
Reluctantly,
she went to get it. No one spoke until Mary returned with it.
“I
wouldn’t go traipsing around, either,” Gilbert said. “It could go very badly
for you if you get caught. It’s best if you stay here and take your medicine.
It really is.”
“Sure,”
Phil said. “Whatever you say.”
Mary
started to hand the phone to Phil. Phil pointed absently to Gilbert as the recipient
of it, not he. Gilbert, not to be out-done by nonchalance, pointed in turn to
Bailey. Mary handed the phone to her.
“The
lengths some whores will go to save their asses,” Mary said.
Bailey
smiled. Phil was sure he heard popping gum.
13
The basket was the one his cousin used. He recognized the pattern
in the reeds. As soon as Seseidi saw the hoppers in the bottom of it, he knew
what the white man wanted to do. The white man looked friendly and didn’t smell
too bad. This was a warrior, Seseidi was sure. He looked strong, and his teeth
were good. The white man wanted to make war with the spirits.
The
hoppers were still fresh. He could tell by the bright color of their skin and
because they were still happy and active. Much poison could be taken from the
backs of such happy, active hoppers, but Seseidi knew the hopper’s poison
would not hurt the spirits. He shook his head.
“What’s
he saying?” Mary asked.
“He’s
saying
no
,” Phil said bluntly.
“You
haven’t asked him anything yet.”
“I think
I did.”
Mary
tried her hand at pantomime and made like a blow- gun with her hands and puffed
through them. She followed through with an arc of her finger forward a couple
of times to indicate the flight of a dart. She made a
ffft
sound each time.
Seseidi
shook his head.
“Ask him,
Why not
,” Mary said.
“How am I
supposed to do that?”
Phil knew
how dangerous the poison from a poison dart frog was. Gram for gram, it had no
equivalent in the natural world. In fact, just a part of a gram—say, as much as
an aspirin— if you could get that much together in one place, would kill
thousands of people. He also knew it was a neuroblocker and that if you got it
in your system, even by absorption through the skin, it could easily kill you
in minutes by stopping your heart. The Indians coated the tips of their arrows,
and darts with it, and it was stable enough to last for years. It went on as a
liquid, he thought, and was allowed to dry. It was a remarkable little compound,
perfect for dispatching prey as large as a tapir with a single dart. There were
several varieties of South American poison dart frogs. Each was remarkable by
its bright color.
Phil knew
a lot about them.
Just
about the only thing Phil didn’t know about South American poison dart frogs
was which part of the frog the poison came from. He seemed to remember that it
was taken from a gland, but wasn’t sure. He was equally unsure that it came
from the frog’s tongue or from its urine.
The
little Indian seemed to hold all the cards.
“Ask him
to show you how to do it,” Mary added, as if Phil just hadn’t asked the
question yet.
Phil
looked askance at her.
“What the
hell do you think I’m doing?” he said.
He took
the Bic pen out of his pocket, removed the cap and dabbed it at the frogs, then
pretended to spear the air—and Mary—with long jabs of the pen.
“Poison.
Poison,” Mary said plainly. “Make poison arrows.”
Seseidi
shook his head.
“You
cannot kill the spirits with the hopper’s sweat,” Seseidi said in his native tongue.
“It will not hurt them, and you will insult the hopper.”
“He’s
talking,” Mary said.
Phil
sighed. “No shit.”
“What did
he say?”
“He said
for you to shut up.”
“Fine.”
Phil
looked directly at Seseidi and smiled openly. Sitting with his legs crossed and
his arms folded, Seseidi smiled back. Imploringly, Phil extended the basket and
the pen to him.
Seseidi
considered it.
Phil
jiggled the basket and smiled. A frog hopped inside it.
Seseidi
stared at him.
“Threaten
him,” Mary suggested.
“Be quiet,” Phil seethed under
his breath.
Phil
tried again. When he reached out and tapped Seseidi’s arm, Seseidi felt the
power and forcefulness in the touch as if it could pierce him. The white man
was smiling, but his hands were not.
Seseidi
considered it, then reached out and took the basket from Phil’s hand.
“Yes!”
Mary barked.
“He
hasn’t done anything yet.”
Seseidi
shook his head quickly, nervously. He swung around and sat on his knees, then
shook a frog out of the basket. It landed on its back, flipped over and sat
there like a red jewel against the dark rubbery floor. Phil had the urge to
move away from it.
“This is
not good,” the Indian said. “This is not good. You are crazy. The spirits are
strong.”
“What’s
he saying?”
“I’d say
from his tone that he’s grumbling about it.”
“Make
poison. Make poison arrows,” she said.
“Let him work,
Goddamn
it!” Phil implored.
Seseidi
looked at the tip of his index finger and made a big point of examining it
carefully. He held it out to Phil for him to look at, too, tapping it with his
other finger.
“If you
have a cut on your finger, the hopper’s sweat can kill you,” he said solemnly.
“What’s
he saying?”
“I’m not
sure. Will you please shut up?”
Seseidi
reached out and pinned the frog’s foot to the floor with the index finger. The
frog tried to hop away, then stopped
in a stretched-out position.
“He’s
touching it. Won’t it kill him?”
“I said
shut
up
. . .”
Seseidi
reached out and took the pen from Phil, and still holding the frog captive by
its foot, he wiped the side of the tip of the pen across the frogs back a few
times, twirling it as he did.
He handed
the pen carefully back to Phil.
“This
will now kill you, but it will not kill spirits,” he said.
“What’d
he say?”
“I think
he said to be careful with this.”
Phil
handed the pen to Mary. She held it daintily with her fingertips. “That’s it?”
she asked.
“That’s
it,” Phil said. “It’s in the frog’s skin.”
Seseidi
put the open basket up close to the frog and tapped its butt with a finger. The
frog made a single hop right back in.
“Thank
you,” Phil said and bowed his head to the little Indian. Seseidi had no idea
he’d come within inches of dying at the white man’s hands.
Seseidi
wiped his finger on his nylon shorts to clean it. He wiped and wiped to stress
the point.
Phil put
the cap back on the pen and slipped it in his pocket. It wasn’t a firearm, or
even a knife, but he got the sense of being armed as if he’d strapped on a
pistol.
“Now
what?”
“Now we
test it.”
“On
what?”
“I’ll see if I can find
something,” he said. “Get the frogs. Let’s go.”
*
*
*
Bailey
thought it was a small animal crawling on her at first. She was on the very
brink of flailing around to get it out of there when she realized it was
Gilbert’s bony hand groping around under her shirt.
She’d
been groped before, but never more poorly. She’d been groped by drunks and
groped by kids. She’d been groped by her uncle and groped by the cable man.
She’d been groped by her teacher and groped by the butcher. She’d even been
groped by her sister, once. But this, this stiff-fingered, limp-wristed,
pawing, all wrapped up in the stench of the nasty bastard’s breath was more
than she could stomach. She went into her grope-defense mode. “Cut it out,” she
said firmly.
