Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (33 page)

“Damn
it!”

“What?”
Habershaw said.

“I’m
stuck in the air is what.”

“How high
off the ground?” Donna asked.

“Let’s
just say if I was a little taller, I’d be there.”

“Unhook
the harness,” Donna said.

“I tried
that. Got a knife?” he said, closing his eyes in regret. With a knife he could
have cut the straps. He’d carried a knife of some kind his entire life—until
now. His mind raced. There had to be something he could do. This was nuts.

The
rifle. It was one of the series of military-issued GN90's. One of the GN90
variants, if he remembered correctly, had a multi-tool for field maintenance in
the stock. He unslung the rifle, found the tool’s compartment in the stock and
opened it. There was the tool suspended neatly on two clips. He pried it out
and unfolded it. It formed into pliers, and at the base of the pliers’ jaws—the
blades of wire cutters.

“I’ll be
goddamned,” he muttered.

“Say
again?” Habershaw said.

“Nothing.
Stand by.”

He slung
the rifle, positioned his feet so he wouldn’t fall when he hit, put the wire
cutters on the wire at the clip and squeezed. The wire separated with a ping
and sang sharply as it flew toward the ceiling. He landed just slightly off
balance and stumbled backwards against a cart, knocking the contents noisily to
the floor.

He looked
around, sure that someone, somewhere, must have heard the noise. Nothing. The
lab was as quiet as a tomb. He squatted behind a table-like thing and got his
bearings.

“I’m
down,” he whispered.

“What’s
it look like?” Habershaw asked.

“It’s quiet.
Empty. I guess no one’s got the nerve to be in here at night. Not that I can
blame them. This place is straight out of Hell.”

“Can you
see anything that looks like a human medical facility—anything remotely like a
clinic?” Donna asked.

“Not
yet,” he said. He stood up a little higher and looked. There were clusters of
human equipment mixed in throughout the alien stuff. There were tables, carts,
racks and benches everywhere. Some of it was hooked up to the alien devices,
wired in, probing them—the tools used to cut and probe and examine were now
themselves being cut and probed and analyzed by another, equally alien,
science.

Against
the far wall was a group of two-meter-high partitions formed into a maze of
cubicles, clearly human and brightly lit by a framework of lights suspended
from above. His position was slightly higher than the cubes, and looking over
the tops, he could see equipment in some of them. As he watched, he saw a brief
movement, just a flash of blue in one of the cubes to the right, then nothing.

“I’ve got
something here,” he said. “There’s a cluster of open rooms on the other side
that might be something. Somebody’s there. I’m heading in that direction.”

He
unslung his rifle, cycled the bolt and took the safety off. Staying low, he worked
his way toward the cubes. His confidence was up, and he double-timed the
distance. He approached at the point where he saw the movement, stopping behind
an equipment rack just three meters from the doorway. Giving a final look
around, he moved up to the door. Then, clinging close to the wall, he peeked
slowly inside.

He saw
the feet first, at least three of them at the end of the bed. One foot was
gyrating around the ankle, the toes pointed, increasing the impression that he
had stumbled on a couple in a sexual embrace. He was about to turn and find
another way in when he decided to take a better look.

He
blinked to clear his vision because something had to be distorting it.

The thing
was tied down with thick straps that formed a net over it. Each strap buckled
tight to a steel railing that went around the bed, a square platform a meter
off the floor, replete with a soiled white sheet that had shifted and hung down
on one side. The entire apparatus was just large enough to contain the
organism. As the thing struggled, the hooks holding the straps made slight
metallic noises against the railing. Tubes ran into it from bottles above and a
variety of wires probing here and there were connected to a rack of monitors
and recording devices. He’d listened to Habershaw’s descriptions of the things
he and Lavachek had seen dumped into the pit, and in his mind’s eye had seen
those creatures as pitiful. The thing on the table wasn’t pitiful—it was
abominable, monstrous.

He wanted
to move, to run, to distance himself from it. Its form reached deep inside him
and twisted. But he felt some pull from it, some strange tugging at his spine,
and he moved toward it.

As he got
closer, he could see that it was actually three or four human forms blended,
molded together as if each were made of soft wax. The joints were smooth where
one blended with the next. He got the distinct impression that much of the
bones, the supporting structures were missing, giving the creature a squirming,
blob-like appearance. It was difficult to distinguish some of the parts, but he
could make out a shoulder here or ribs there if he tried. There were breasts
and nipples and hands that touched them. Legs wrapped around legs like vines
and arms moved over flesh from unnatural locations. The entire organism was
covered with sweat that ran around and down muscles in rivulets. As the muscles
pulsed and contracted the entire organism seemed to spasm. He could hear the
sound of labored breathing and the heavy scent of human musk filled the air.
The way the organism moved suggested that some grinding, primal force provoked
the motion—but whether the writhing action was the product of sexual desire or
the need to escape was unknown.

“Jesus .
. .” he said.

“What is
it?” Donna asked.

“I’m
looking at one of those things Bill talked about. You wouldn’t believe it. The
people who did this are mad, crazy.”

He leaned
in to get a closer look near the area producing the breathing sounds. There
were at least two heads there and two of the mouths were joined as if formed in
a mold, locked in an unending kiss. There were eyes open wide and staring with
urgency as if the entire organism was in flight from some unseen predator. A
set of eyes flashed up at him as he watched, fixed him with the same feverish
hunger; the same burning desire.

Suddenly
a hand shot out from under the net and grabbed his wrist in a sweat-slickened
grip.

“Shit!”

“What’s
happening?”

The
fingers clutched at his skin, kneaded it urgently. He couldn’t tell if the
touch was a plea for help or the result of some appalling desire. He grabbed it
with his other hand and wrenched free of it. The arm disappeared like a snake
in the folds of wet flesh.

“Nothing.
It’s all right. Nothing.”

The
thought that Rachel might be part of that appalling mix made him weak with
fear, and he looked for some evidence of her in it. He looked at the eyes
again, searched them for some sign but saw nothing recognizable.

He looked
again at hands, then feet, then mouths and limbs, looking for some pattern,
some signature of her unique design in that fleshy amalgam.

Finally,
satisfied that none of his lover’s anatomy had contributed to the thing, he
left it there to breathe and writhe.

He moved
to the next room. There was another of the organisms on a similar raised
platform. But this one was different. Where the other one was intensely alive,
squirming and wriggling with seeming abandon, this one barely moved at all. The
limbs flailed in slow motion as if it were a toy that had run down. It was
disconnected from the equipment around it.

“This
place is a nightmare,” he said into the mouthpiece. “They’ve got these things
all over the place. They must piece them together using the Verdian technology,
then move them in here to watch how they do. They’re experimenting.”

“Experimenting
at what?”

“Your
guess is as good as mine. This is some very sick shit, Donna.”

When he
walked into the next room, the rifle in his hands came up instinctively to
point at the blue robe in front of him. The man was turned away from him, but
he could tell from the bent posture and the hearing prosthetics behind the ears
that it was Jacob. He was standing next to a sheet-covered body on a gurney.
John almost smiled. He had the main sonofabitch right at the end of his rifle.

“The one
you just saw didn’t work out so well,” Jacob said, not turning. “Most of them
don’t. But we’ve had some near-successes. I think you saw one of those as
well.”

“Is that
what you call them? Successes?”

“Who’s
there?” Donna said into John’s ear.

“The
Grand Poobah,” John said.

“I suppose
he can hear me,” she said.

“Yes, I
can,” Jacob said.

“Kiss my
ass then,” she said loudly. “Shoot him, John.”

Jacob’s
head rose up slowly and turned away from the sound.

John
stepped around the gurney, keeping the rifle trained on the blue-robed figure.
When he came around far enough, he could see that it was Rachel under the
sheet. The sheet had been pulled down, exposing her thighs. She was
unconscious, and a single tube ran into her arm from a bottle suspended above.
The cuts on her face and chest were gone, and her skin shone as if it had been
polished. She’d never looked more beautiful. The sight of Jacob’s long and
gnarled hand on her smooth belly filled him with rage. “Get your hand off her,”
he demanded.

Jacob’s
sagging eyes met his and the hand slowly drifted off her, trailing long fingers
like dry roots.

“I know
this woman,” Jacob said.

“You
should,” John said. “She saved your sorry ass. If it wasn’t for her, you’d be
dead.”

“God
moved her hand,” Jacob intoned.

“Huh?”

“God
moved in her, and she obeyed. Glory to God.”
 

“God had
nothing to do with it.”

“Shoot
him, John,” Donna said.

 
“God’s hand guides all things great and
small,” Jacob said. “His will is the force of the universe—His glory is the
light and the way.”

“Is that
why you’re making these, these—things—for the glory of God?”

“It is
better to marry than to burn with lust. It is better to cleave to your wife
than to think wicked thoughts.”

“What
does that mean?”

“God has
shown me the way.”

“You’re
nuts—move away from her.”

“You
should shoot him right now,” Donna’s voice said, “and do us all a favor. Kill
it before it breeds.”

“What?”

“Kill it
before it . . .”

“I heard
you,” John said as the thought sank in.

John looked
into the drooping, slack-jawed face before him and was stunned by the profound
perversion behind those black eyes.

“Is that
why you come down here—clear the place out—at night—to mate with these things?”

“Aw,
Christ,” Donna groaned in John’s ear. “Shoot it!”

“Go forth
and multiply,” Jacob said and swallowed with his mouth open. “This is God’s
command.”
 
He reached up and his long
fingers untied the clasp at his neck.

He pulled
the robe off his shoulders and let it drop. Standing there naked, he stretched
his arms out. The sight filled John with a quick squirt of nausea.

“What are
you doing?” John asked.

“What’s
he doing?” Donna asked.

“He took
off his robe. This bastard is nuts.”

“Shoot
it!”

Staring
at John with a glazed expression, Jacob started to climb onto the narrow
gurney—and mount Rachel. The look on his face was a sick mix of sulking fear
and daring, and reminded John of a dog with its tail tucked between its legs,
eyes wide, smelling a shameful spot. “Get off her!” he yelled.

Jacob
continued to position himself, bringing his other scrawny leg up on the gurney.