Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (25 page)

She started by binding the cross members together as tightly as
she could. Then, layer at a time, she strapped rolled-up bundles of leaves to
the cross members, lashing each one on tight. She worked until her hands were
stiff and her arms ached. By dusk, the thing actually looked as she’d imagined
it. When she lifted one corner, it felt light and strong; she would have no
trouble hauling it to the water. She’d widened and flattened the middle part
enough so that when she lay down, she would have a comfortable platform to
support her. She could even roll over and lie on her back if it turned out
she’d have to spend the night on the raft.

She decided to start on the canopy in the morning since it was
getting dark. She walked down to the swamp’s edge and pulled up some of the
onions she’d seen earlier. She washed them off and plucked a few bundles of
grapes. It wasn’t gourmet eating, but it was filling and hydrating.

That night she heard more of the violent movement going through
the tangle around her. Whatever it was didn’t sound friendly. It seemed to come
from the same direction as the night before, and she counted at least six of
the
whatever-they-were
's passing
through. One sounded low, almost touching the yurt as it stormed past. She
couldn’t tell if they were flying or running.

She slept deeply that night, and dreamed a nightmare of awful
creatures that chased her down and ate her alive. She awoke with a start to the
pale, silent light of dawn, and once again was thankful for the safe passing of
the night.

By mid-morning, the raft was nearly finished. The domelike canopy
wasn’t as tight as she would have liked, but it would serve to hide her from
above, as planned; and by blocking the light, it would at least slightly hide
her arms from below when she paddled. She had a good window up front and one on
each side. These she could seal with a leaf if necessary. The canopy was open
in the back so she could enter, and she included an extra bundle of leaves and
vines to seal it once she got onboard. She also stacked a thick bundle of
leaves as a rest for her head as she paddled. As a final touch, she tied
clusters of sticks and branches and pieces of vines to the outriggers. Once she
was afloat, she could tie them off, pointing down into the water as additional
camouflage for her arms.

She made a rough net to hold a larder of grapes and onions; this
she filled to overflowing and lashed to the left outrigger.

The last item was the pole, made of the same tough stalks she’d
used on the raft’s cross-members. She lashed one side of a forked branch to the
end, backwards, as a grappling hook.

To haul the contraption down to the swamp, she tied a vine across
the front of the outriggers, stepped inside the loop, put it against her hips
and pulled. The going was better than she thought. The lightweight craft slid
easily over the plants and grass in the mud flats. Once or twice, the raft
jammed against a stump, but she easily freed it and soon had it against the
fallen tree
—
her launching
point.

After she climbed up on the tree, she tugged and yanked the raft
along, trying to keep it from binding against the moss-covered trunk. When she
reached water and the craft actually began to float, she tied it off.

It was high in the water. She rocked it with her foot; it rocked
stiffly. She was going to make it.

She pronounced her handiwork, “Very seaworthy”, and patted it.

I hope.

* * *

It was almost mid-day. If she launched now, rather than waiting
until the next morning, she would lessen the chances of making it across before
nightfall. She thought about it. The idea that she might be able to spend the
night in the clearing on the other side, rather than in the jungle helped her
decide. She’d go now.

She wasn’t exactly overjoyed about having to slog through the mud
and shallow water behind the raft to climb on board, but she didn’t have a
choice. She moved back on the trunk, sat down and checked to make sure that her
pants legs were sealed shut. She slid slowly off the log and into the goop.

Her feet sank into the mud up to her knees; and in a panic, she
spun and threw her arms over the trunk.

“Aaaah! Shit!”

The mud continued to pull her down, then mercifully stopped as her
grip on the trunk tightened. Grunting and pulling slowly, she worked her legs
out of the suction and put one leg over the log, then the other.

She sat on the log and considered the problem. She’d have to put
something over the mud to walk on. Either that or float the raft into deeper
water, jump in behind it and climb on board.

The first option was nearly impossible; the mud was too soft to
support anything she could find to put over it. She’d have to jump in the water
and climb on.

She pulled the raft along the trunk until she thought the water
under it was deep enough. The sun was up high now, and she could see the dark,
soft, silty bottom. She looked ahead and could see the sharp, black place where
the shore dropped into the channel. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought
the water was probably too shallow for the big prick to come up after her where
she was. But you never knew. The tracks of small swamp-bottom crawling
somethings could be seen in the soft mud, crisscrossing in all directions. She
tied the raft off and moved along the trunk back to the bank. She sat down and
tried to think of another option, but there wasn’t one. She would have to
submerge herself in that evil water if she were going to get on the raft.

In her mind, she practiced several times the movements it would
take. Then she set her jaw, steeled her spine and slipped into the water,
making a hook of her right arm and letting it fall over the rear cross-member
as she went down. The water was coolish and went through her cotton clothing as
if it weren't there. As fast as she could she oriented herself so she could
flop up on the centerpiece. She hefted herself up and squirmed and kicked—and
splashed loudly—as she went.

She hadn’t planned on making that much noise. As soon as she was
squarely in position, she put her head on the pillow bundle and froze, barely
breathing. She stayed that way for a full fifteen minutes, listening to the
quiet lapping of water against the outriggers, hoping that if she had
attracted the big fucker, it would lose interest over time and move away.

Finally, moving as slowly as possible, she sat up and covered the
canopy’s rear opening. Then, adjusting each branch and vine to hang down and
look as natural as she could make them, she tied off the camouflage for the
raft’s underside.

She stretched out and flapped the vine off the branch that held the
raft.

She was free.

She reached out the right side port and pushed gently away from
the tree. The raft drifted slowly, silently away from the trunk, its slight
rocking motion making waves that cast sparkling ripples through the dark water
and onto the dark, spooky swamp bottom. Drifting high above the sunken,
algae-covered logs and branches, she suddenly felt a flush of vertigo. She
breathed and swallowed and the sense of dizzying height left her.

It was too deep to pole, so she sunk her arms slowly into the
water on each side and with a single quiet thrust, stroked toward the patch of
plant growth on the other side of the channel.

Things swam below; dark undulating things that glided up and over
the fallen logs and darted along the bottom in spurts, then stopped. When the
shadow of the raft passed over a patch of smooth swamp bottom, something big
darted out of the mud, leaving a cloud of silt adrift like a swirling, silent
storm. As she watched, a school of brown, fluttering somethings drifted by in a
miasmic ball of twisting, vibrating activity. Her imagination couldn’t stretch
far enough to imagine that the members of that wicked ball were anything but
carnivorous.

The bottom fell away until it was barely visible, and she knew she
was in the big bastard’s channel. The raft started to turn from its intended
course, to drift sideways ever so gradually. If she didn’t correct it, she’d
be turned all the way around in a few minutes. As she watched her goal drift
aside, she began to realize that she could easily lose her sense of direction
in the swamp, just as easily as in the jungle. If she lost her bearings, she
could drift forever around in circles. To make navigation even worse, being low
on the water restricted her view.

Panic began to build with each degree of rotation. Already, she
was having difficulty distinguishing one plant or swamp tree from another. She
could remember what the patch of plant stuff on the other side of the channel
looked like, but as she got closer, changed angles, it might not be so easy.
She began to wish she’d put up some marker, a flag of some kind on the trunk
she’d launched from. At least that would have given her a point of reference if
she'd needed it.

She was now forced to do what she dreaded: she’d have to put her
arms into the water, in the deep channel, and thrust to change course.

She put her right arm silently down, feeling the cool pressure of
the water as her arm went deeper and she began to stroke, slowly, gently
caressing the water with her palm. The raft finally came around and she fixed
her bearings on the ragged patch of plants in the shallows. A final stroke with
both arms, and she drifted straight for it. She pulled her hands quietly up out
of the water and rested them under her chin, trying not to drip.

She felt it before she saw it. As the creature passed underneath
her, the raft rocked slightly on its swell. Its massive back was so close to
the raft, she could have reached down and touched it. She froze and watched as
the humped shape passed silently beneath her. Dark brown scales, the color of
the swamp, as big as dinner plates, covered the surface in an overlapping
pattern. A thick undulating tail followed behind, moving slowly like a huge
fan. She estimated its length at over twenty meters. It was gone, but she
somehow sensed, somehow knew, it was turning for another look, and a moment
later, it passed under again. The creature cruised by without a sound, leaving
no wake or trace of its passing.

She held her breath and resisted the urge to draw up her feet and
tuck herself into a tight little ball. To do that, she would have to move and
that was out of the question. The raft, which had seemed so sturdy a moment
before, now seemed flimsy, invisible and useless against the thing’s submerged
strength and mass.

She finally breathed. She was drifting off course again, but
couldn’t bring herself to put her arms in the water. She had to wait. She had
to know it was gone and its interest firmly held by some other prey before she
could put any part of herself
in the
water.

Turning her head slowly to the side, she watched for it, praying
it had lost interest and moved on. Then, like a shadow, the creature’s head
drifted into view from behind and stopped just a half-meter from the raft. One
of its eyes, round with a vertical pupil, looked right at her, fixed and
unmoving. Whether it saw her as food, or as merely drifting flotsam she didn’t
know. She could only hope that the canopy was making it difficult for it to
make out her shape. She wanted to look away but was afraid to move, even to
blink. With no sign of propulsion, the head moved closer until the frowning,
upturned mouth passed under her at midpoint, easily spanning the width from
outrigger to outrigger. Then the mouth opened, revealing a gray and yellowish
cavern lined with spiny teeth. The water poured into it over the edges in a
smooth roll like a waterfall then splashed over those teeth and filled the pit
with a sound like an enormous bucket filling. She thought she’d fall in and
felt the raft bump and rock against the rim of the thing’s huge mouth as the
water fell out from under it.

Oh, God .
. .

The mouth snapped closed abruptly, sending a wide gush of water up
over her and lifting the raft on its massive swell like a toy.

Christ!

Again the mouth opened, filled then gushed water. If it wasn’t for
the teeth she could have imagined the thing was playing with the raft, but she
knew it was more likely it was just trying to flush something edible out of the
hollow husk afloat in its territory.

It gushed again, sending water boiling up over her, lifting the
raft up and dropping it hard. She clung tight, trying to keep from being washed
away.

Again it gushed and the water erupted up in a flood and covered
her.

“Stop . . .” she whispered.

As if on command, it did.

She watched the beast’s head sink straight down, fade, then vanish
in the dark water. She stiffened and waited for the rush from below that would
send the raft flying and tumbling through the air.