Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (28 page)

18

The point-to-point navigation
seemed to be working. As long as she picked out a tree or plant in the distance
that was somehow unique, and remembered its features, she could keep it easily
in view, even if she got off course a little.

Her blind was working, too. She could tell because she was still
alive. She looked like nothing more than an odd, dome-shaped-plant-something
with an appendage that occasionally stuck out front. She’d seen several
creatures that were obviously predatory, floating under her, even in the
shallows. One, a creature much like a crocodile, but much longer, cruised past
and paid her no mind whatsoever. This pleased her immensely.

She had crossed several deep channels but had seen no more signs
of the monster she’d first encountered. She was making what she felt was good
time and was sure she could make land by nightfall. Once she got across the
swamp, it couldn’t be more than a kilometer or two to the clearing.

She reached out and grabbed another clump of weeds with her hook
and pulled. The raft lurched forward then cruised along for a few meters.

For the first time, she was truly confident she would make it
back. Now she had to decide what she was going to do when she did.

She thought about contacting the local security staff, then
thought better of it. They were worse than useless and probably kissing Smith’s
ass already. No, she’d have to get word to the authorities at home.

She wouldn’t have many chances.

She reached out at a clump of weeds and dropped the hook down on
them, just like she’d done hundreds of times that day.

The rod came alive.

“Shit!”

She’d hooked something—or part of something. It splashed and
fought at the end of the rod as she struggled to hang on. If she lost the rod
and hook, she’d be screwed. She caught a glimpse of yellowish, scaled hide,
thrashing, just under the surface.

“Let go! Shit!”

Back and forth it went, the raft pivoting with it. Finally, the
rod tore from her hand and streaked away, leaving a sharp wake in the water.

“Oh no!”

She watched it race away until it submarined completely out of
view..

“No . . .”

A moment later, the pole bobbed to the surface in a glassy pool
just ten meters from where it went down.

“Yes!”

Well, at least she could see it. If she could see it, she stood a
chance of retrieving it. That was good.

There was one hitch: she’d have to paddle to get to it.

She groaned audibly, then squared around and got ready to put her arms
into the water by turning off her senses. She stopped short and checked the
condition of her underwater camouflage. She straightened the sticks and vines,
making sure they were at least in their proper places.

Then, with a sigh of resolve, she put her arms down in the water
and started to paddle. Her hand immediately stroked a slippery underwater leaf,
and she flinched from it as if it were the back of something hungry. The feel
of it sent a chill down her spine.

The water was clear and shallow; perhaps two meters. The bottom
was choked with debris and underwater plants. Things zipped, swam or crawled
along.

She paddled briefly to one side, adjusted her course and came to
bear on the rod, now just five raft lengths away. As she entered the pool, she
watched the bottom drop steeply away to blackness. Memories of the channel
creature filled her head.

She paddled quietly, gently into the pool. The raft drifted across
it slowly and bumped the rod.

As she reached out for it, a chill went down her back like a cool
wind.

Something wasn’t right. Something was down there.

Panic clawed at her, spurred her flanks, goading her to frenzied
action; to splash and flail at the black water, to get away from it, to flee
from it.

She swallowed and heard her own breath coming in shallow puffs.
When she looked down into the water, its darkness seemed to draw her down into
it. Rippling light from the surface danced in quick and ugly patterns in the
blackness like bright demons.

She put her forehead against the pillow and pressed her eyes
closed, praying for deliverance from the thing in the abyss below.

The fear grew instead, replacing nerves with tight wire, and her
blood with ice water. Her mouth was clamped tight, but her mind said the words
clearly.

Help me.
Help.

It was there, she was sure of it, under her, just out of sight,
building up some evil force to unleash in a violent burst and swallow her up.

“Help me . . . goddamn it . . . help . . .” she whispered.

She pushed the panic down, forced it back with a steady pressure
on its mad, grinning head.

Slowly, the fear lifted; and when she finally looked down, she saw
nothing more than the flickering light of ripples in clear, calm water.

She gave herself a moment more to completely regain her composure,
letting it fill her from the guts up.

She reached out toward the pole.

Her fingers closed on it. She drew it in and propped it across the
supports and made it safe. Softly, she paddled for the shallows, the silence around
her pierced only by the sound of the water that dripped like tears from her
strong arms.

Dammit .
. .

She picked another landmark, a tall mangrove-like tree in the
distance, and headed toward it by grabbing one clump of water plants, then
another.

As she poled along she became aware of a change in the light, a
softening of it that filled her with dread. The sun was dropping toward the
horizon.

Where’s
the shore!

She kept the tree directly ahead and picked up the pace. The idea
of spending the night in the raft chilled her. She couldn’t stand the idea of
lying there in the damp while things sneaked up on her or clamored up on the
just-right texture of the leaf bundles—or onto her wet cotton clothing. She had
to get to shore, and then to the clearing where there was open air and, if not
a breeze, at least clear air devoid of vines and foliage.

She focused on her next destination, its twisted, tortured limbs
extending from a trunk wide and massive, the thick branches reaching out like
arms. As she looked more closely, she realized that the tree was standing
against the thick background of dense foliage. The jungle was right behind it,
marking the end of the swamp. It took her a moment to realize it.

“Thank God!”

The sight of the jungle inspired her to hook and pull faster; to
grab and splash. She couldn’t help herself.

She reached out and hooked one of the tree’s twisted roots and
pulled the raft the rest of the way to it. When the raft bumped the tree, she
lowered her head in relief.

The shore was steeper on this side, not the endless muddy incline
it had been on the other. The bottom was just a few feet below the surface, and
she could have easily jumped in and waded ashore. But, her reluctance to
immerse herself in the swamp’s waters was still strong. She poled the rest of
the way over to the bank and tied the raft off to a limb.
  

With the water just inches deep, she slid out the back, then
high-stepped and splashed to the bank. Pushing the foliage away, she was
actually glad to feel its familiar, cloying textures on her face and neck once
again.

She turned around and gave an appreciative look at the craft that
had delivered her across the swamp.

“Good job,” she said to it.

It would rot to the bottom, right where it was, and a season from
now the swamp would have absorbed it completely. As an afterthought, she
stepped back into the water, leaned in and tore a green piece of leaf from the
canopy and put it in her pocket.

The familiar green light of dusk came over the jungle like a pall.
She could either camp now or try to make the clearing by night. She decided it
was too risky to try to make it; too late in the day. The jungle’s parasites
and other hazards could still kill her if she was out exposed when the moon’s
light invigorated the jungle’s nocturnal denizens.

She looked around and started to gather her building materials.
She’d gotten quite good at it, and soon had just enough to build the yurt. This
one went up in record time and was the best, tightest yet. She gathered some grapes
from a nearby vine; and a quick search of the shoreline turned up a few
clusters of onions that she harvested as well.

She made herself a pillow of spongy leaves as an added extravagance,
just to pamper herself.

Exhausted, but nearly comfortable and, with her appetite
satisfied, she fell into a deep sleep as soon as the buzzing and chirping
started.

When the yurt shook, she bolted up from the dreamless sleep, her
eyes snapping open into pitch blackness. It felt as if the structure had been
bumped and thoughts of the horse-thing came to mind. It shook again, and there
was the sound of moving branches, of shaking and dragging. She rose up and
pulled back a leaf to look outside. The moons were just coming up, casting
their light and multiplying the number of vines and branches by the seeming
millions.

There, in the light was a horse-thing, lying on its side, its big,
glassy eyes staring; its tongue hanging limp. As she watched, the head moved
backwards with a tug, and there was the sound of breaking branches. It stopped
and, as if stuck, began to jerk and shake violently. The horse was dead, or
nearly so. Something else was moving it. Suddenly, the air was filled with a
high-pitched chirping sound that oscillated up and down. It was a hideous noise
that strummed her nerves and filled her with fear.

The sound stopped briefly then started again, gaining in pitch to
a ghastly crescendo that made her scowl. When the sound was as loud as she
could stand, it began to oscillate, dragging her up and down and over its
insufferable auditory peaks like some dark wraith.

It stopped suddenly. Then it started up again. When it reached its
height this time, she put her fingers in her ears.

Finally it stopped.

Then there was another sound; the sound of something moving in the
trees above, then a flash of something dark moving past and a sudden rustling.
Something hit the ground like a sack dropped from above. A shape, dark and
formless, moved through the foliage a few meters away, then a moment later,
another. They glided in and out of the shadows. She tried but could see no
detail or make out a clear form.

The thin walls of the yurt suddenly seemed very much thinner.

There was the sound of more rustling movement, then the fallen animal
was suddenly pulled from view. She looked at the empty spot it had occupied,
watching the insects buzz and fly through it.

Nothing.

She folded the leaf gently back into place and lay back down,
wondering what it was she’d seen, if anything. The incident left her with a
hollow, sick feeling like she’d seen and heard it all in a dreadful nightmare.
Just when she thought she’d seen the worst the planet had to offer, it had
belched up something even more violent and horrible to remind her how menacing it
really was. She saw herself then from far above; a minuscule speck of
protoplasm, cowering under a covering of leaves in the teeming jungle.

Behind the yurt’s fragile walls, she lay down and tried to shut
out the jungle’s horrors. She desperately wanted real walls around her; the
strong, stiff walls of a modern shelter and clean sheets to sleep on and a real
pillow for her head.