Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (27 page)

She took the jar back and scribed the name on the label framed in
quotation marks.

“There, one down, a jillion to go. How are you doing with your
tests?”

“Fine. I’ve got most of the media ready for culturing. I think
I’ve got enough.”

“Let’s take a look.”

She walked over to the bench he was using and saw the neat rows of
Petri dishes and a rack of test tubes filled with blood. It looked okay,
surprisingly. She wanted to ask him about his procedure but saved it. It didn’t
matter.

“Good,” she said. “Good job.”

There was so much to do. She placed a call to the clinic just to
see if she could get an answer. Still nobody home. She tried Applegate’s
shelter again, too. Nothing. Her last call was to Joan Thomas. They talked, and
Rachel agreed with her that if Applegate didn’t show up by noon, they’d do well
to put in a missing person's report. It probably wouldn’t mean much, but at
least they could say they’d done it. Joan was worried about her. Rachel wasn’t
so sure yet. She was pissed that she hadn’t shown up; but until they had a
better idea of where she was, she wasn’t going to worry much more about it.

She booted her pad and called up the blank inventory templates.
There were two separate types: the full adult set and the smaller kiddy set.
She’d use the latter, the
Short Forms
,
for her inventory, such as it was. She lacked the time and equipment to conform
to the requirements of the
Long Forms
.
She read the short ones from top to bottom. There were no requirements for
serum studies, animal or long-term tests. That was fine, because she wouldn’t
be able to do them. There were no validation studies required either, and the
sign-offs by the health rep were perfunctory. She wondered who had sucked who
to get these forms into common practice. They were useless. They were nothing
more than affidavits with some boxes to fill in. They were so lame, she could
have filled them out with what she had now, fudged a little, and would have
been done with the damn things.

No. She’d do what was required, do a good job and try to enjoy
doing it. The damned forms were secondary at this point. Maybe she’d fill them
out on some rainy day when she had nothing better to do.

She put her samples aside, went for some more jars and headed back
out. She could take another fifty or so samples easy before lunch. That would
be fun.

She wanted to take a better look at the stuff on the ground, comb
through the litter some and see what turned up. She brightened again as she got
closer to the jungle.

Five meters in was about far enough, she figured. She squatted
down on a pile of decaying vegetation, leaves and bark piled up under a large
tree. Something darted away with a
peep!
Too fast to see. She went after it, hoping to see something other
than an insectoid life form but couldn’t find the thing or its trail.

She’d just started to dig in the pile of vegetation when she
unearthed the worm. It was long, almost as long as her boot, and as thick as
her thumb. It resembled a centipede and had the same hook-like pinching
mandibles. It was shiny and reddish-brown with a single bright yellow strip
running its length.

“Aren’t you the pretty one?”

She grabbed it with the tongs just at its mid-section. Immediately,
the thing twisted violently around, legs and tail flailing so hard against the
tongs, she was afraid it would shake out of her grip. She had been around
creeping, crawling things her whole life but, in spite of herself, this item
really gave her the willies. It twitched with such virulent life, part of her
was tempted to smash it flat, but the scientist in her saw it as a real prize.
It clamped onto the tongs with those mandibles with an audible click and
immediately she saw a drop of pale fluid form at the tips against the steel
tongs and run down it in a thin line.

“Oooo . . . I want some of that.”

She carefully switched hands so she could unfold a container
using her right hand and her teeth. She finally got it open and started to work
the tail end of the centipede into the jar. She got it in about halfway and
thought that when she let go, she could shake it the remainder of the way. When
the tongs released, however, the organism scrabbled up out of the jar and
launched itself into the air off the lip of the jar.

“Whoa!”

It came right at her face, and she fell backwards in an attempt
to dodge it. She landed on her backside and rocked all the way back.

The centipede had landed just at the neckline of her cottons and
scrabbled inside.

“Aaaa!”

She shot upright and froze.

She felt its stiff, cool texture against her skin as it ran down
the inside of her shirt. When it got to the waist line, it twisted and turned
over, and she could feel its sharp legs scratch her midriff as it moved around
the inside of her waist.

“Oh, shit . . .”

It stopped running just at her belly, but it continued to move,
squirming slowly. Then it stopped completely.

She’d had many bugs and creeping, crawling things on her, in her hair,
in her shoes; it wasn’t unusual in her kind of work. But the thing in her shirt
now really scared her.

It inched forward in little squirts of stiff movement. She knew
exactly where it was and was confident she could grab it with her hands and
crush it in her clothes. What she didn’t know was whether or not she could kill
it before it bit her. She was fairly sure the juice she’d seen coming from the
tips of its pincers wasn’t soda, but venom. She weighed the options. She could
try to open her jumpsuit and let it out, but she’d have to move to do that. In
its agitated frame of mind, that probably wasn’t such a good idea.

It moved again, this time pressing its head against the seam of
flesh and elastic waistband.

“Oh, God . . .”

It squirmed and scratched and started down. She couldn’t stand the
idea of it going into her panties.

With an animal grunt, she grabbed the spot with both hands and
squeezed hard. She felt its body crack and spurt wet against her skin. As she
held it there, mashing frantically at it with her hands, she felt a fiery
sting, right where the head would have been.

“You nasty bastard . . . you nasty . . . bastard,” she said with a
crooked smile.

With another grunt, she moved her hand down and squeezed again,
clamping quickly at it time and again between her thumbs and forefingers.

A hot glow radiated from the spot on her lower abdomen.

She clamped at it until she was sure it was dead, then slowly let
go. She opened her suit, dropped it off her shoulders and pulled it down around
her ankles. The forked tail was sticking up out of her panties. A pale and wet,
multicolored stain bled through. She pulled the waist band away and lifted the
crushed and lifeless thing out. Then, she squatted down, picked up the
container and dropped the crushed thing in it.

“Gotcha anyway . . .”

She stood up and pulled her panties down a little farther and saw
the two little puncture wounds where it had bitten her. She’d known they would
be there.

“Got me, you fucker . . .”

Choking back panic, she numbly pulled her suit back on, hefted her
pack and bag and started back to the lab. She’d just have to wait and see.

She didn’t have to wait long.

By the time she got to the jungle’s edge, her hands had started
to tremble uncontrollably and her lower jaw was vibrating as if she were
freezing to death, but she wasn’t cold.

A feeling of visceral sickness overtook her and she retched, her
mouth and head trembling and straining with the effort of it. She wanted to lie
down, to lie down and rest and be told she’d be okay if she just rested.

It was hard to do her kind of work and not experience firsthand
the weaponry nature had to offer. But she never thought she’d die in the field.
Now she was sure she would do just that.

“Help . . .”

She staggered across the clearing, losing more control of her
motor functions with each step. A few steps farther, and she dropped the bag,
her fingers no longer able to hold it.

She had to get to the clinic. Maybe there was something there. If
she could make it to the clinic, maybe she could give herself an epinephrine.
It might be there. If she could do that, she might live. It would boost her
heart, dilate her veins and increase her metabolism. It might keep her from
going into deep shock. It might save her.

The steps leading to the clinic door were nearly impossible to
climb. Her legs were weak and trembled like a foal’s. At the door, she saw the
red emergency knob, but it suddenly blinked out of focus and vanished in a
bloom of soft pink. When it came back, she jammed her vibrating hand against it
and pushed. She heard the klaxon, but the sound was like a distant little
buzzer. The door opened, and she staggered inside and stumbled to the shelves
and cabinets against the wall. She had no idea where to look and began to throw
open drawers one after another. Most were empty, one or two had cotton swabs.
One had a box of gloves. She looked in the shelves and the glassed-in cabinets,
staggering and working her way along the wall.

Nothing.
Nothing here . . . I’m going to die . . .

Then she saw them. In a cabinet, on the bottom shelf was a worn
and scuffed package of epinephrine pens.

The cabinet was locked. She rattled it in frustration then raised
her foot with the help of her hand and kicked out. She heard the sound of
breaking glass and fell backwards onto the floor. She staggered to her feet and
made it to the cabinet, hearing the crush of glass, like a distant crackle,
under her boots. She reached past the broken glass and pulled out the package.

Her hands were trembling so badly, she could barely hold the
package. She got it to her mouth and tore at the plastic wrapping with her
teeth, her head and hands working more or less in unison.

One of the pens came free. She worked it around with both hands,
her eyes trying to focus, her mind trying to figure out which end had the
needle. She found the arrow, turned it, jabbed it into her leg and pressed.

She fell to the floor.

The last thing she saw were the skinny legs of Joe Devonshire
running toward her.

* * *

When she awoke, she was lying flat. It took her a moment to
realize she was on the floor looking up at the bank of lights in the ceiling.
The light hurt her eyes, and she turned away from it. Her head was slightly
elevated on something; and when she turned, she felt the coolness
—
of what? A button against her cheek?
She reached up and touched something clammy on her forehead
—
a damp cloth.

Joe was sitting with his legs crossed a few feet away, his hands
crammed in his lap and his shoulders hunched up.

“What happened?” he asked.

She had to work up some moisture in her mouth before she could
speak.

“Centipede . . . centipede bit me,” she whispered. “Get me an
epinephrine. Hurry.”

“You’ve already had one.”

She swallowed a dry swallow and remembered.

“How do you feel?”

“Water . . .”

He popped up and came back a moment later with a container of
water. He held the plastic tube to her lips and let her drink. She sucked the
water down until the tube gurgled against the bottom.

“Thanks,” she breathed.

She felt like she’d been through a bout of severe influenza. She
ached all over, deep in her muscles, deep in her bones. She moved her arms and
slowly drew up her feet. Her muscles felt stiff and leathery like jerky.

“I didn’t know what to do so I just let you sleep. I thought it
was heat stroke.”

She remembered the fitful, ugly dreams-visions that had darted
through her head like ragged, injured crows.

“I wasn’t exactly sleeping.”

“You looked like you were, anyway.”

“How long was I out?”

“About an hour I’d say. Maybe longer.

“An hour?”