Dominant Species Omnibus Edition

by David Coy

  The goon shifted and gave him an auspiciously better view of one of the growths just inside the chamber opening, and he could make out better details, especially the papery surface texture. He could also see hundreds of raised cup-sized scars on the chamber wall. As he watched, one of the growths separated from the wall, waved its thick end back and forth like a caterpillar and re-attached itself. He got a glimpse of a circular row of teeth and of all-too-familiar little arms sticking out of it.

  A brood chamber, he thought.

  He was looking at the aliens’ offspring, stuck like leeches to the living wall of the chamber, suckling the wall itself like parasites. It made sense to him then why the ship seemed so hollow and empty: most of its occupants were foot-long larvae.

  He would have smiled if he had been able.

  Of course, he thought dimly. Why waste the ship’s physical resources on adults when you could transport the seeds for a fraction of the cost?

  He’d assumed that the aliens had overcome the barrier of faster-than-light travel and had reduced the impossible distances they would have had to come by generating equally impossible speeds. It seemed plausible now that they might have only been able to create speeds a mere fraction of light speed, but had overcome the second parameter of travel time, by traveling for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.

  The goon started to move again, and the view of the brood chamber slipped out of his field of vision. A moment later he was aware of being dropped roughly to the floor, but experienced only the sensation of a sudden jolting movement as if he were a video camera suddenly dropped.

  The chamber was dark and the air was suffused with sound, a sound like a hiss coming through syrup. Somewhere there was a deep moan, persistent and pitiful; and, though he couldn’t tell for sure, he thought finally that it was the voices of many joined as one—the very harmony of damnation.

  He lay on the floor, eyes open and staring, looking into Mary’s barely visible face, similarly frozen, staring back at him in the dim light. Behind the frozen mask was fear so profound he felt his gut twist in spite of the paralysis.

  The burr’s drug wore off slowly; and as it did, he was able first to move his toes, then his hands and feet. Finally, he could move his neck and head, and hours later it seemed, he could sit up. He could see Mary’s face twitch and her hand trying to move, but she was recovering more slowly than he. He inched his way over to her and forced his hand to close around the burr stuck in her backside. The brittle spines flaked off in his hands. He worked it out in circles and lifted steadily until the short roots pulled free. He could barely see the twisting roots, but he could feel them knocking and flailing against his fingers. He flung it into the darkness and heard it splat against a distant wall. His torpid brain wandered senselessly to Mary’s algebra lesson about distances, and he gauged the minimum width of the chamber from the imagined distance the burr flew before it struck.

  Meaningless, he thought.

  He rubbed her hands and arms, trying to work feeling and function back into them. She came around slowly. He rubbed her back and legs until she shifted her limbs in big, awkward, unfocused movements and tried like a colt to rise to her feet.

  Their first attempts at speech were more like grunts than words. They grunted at each other not to try to talk and rubbed each other’s hands and arms in the dim light until they were nearly normal. When she was able to work her hands well enough, she pulled the burr out of Phil’s back.

  “Where’s . . . Bailey?” she asked, like a drunk trying to sound sober. “She . . . was . . . burred . . . firsht.”

  “Bailey!” Phil called.

  “Heeeer . . . .” came the weak reply. “I’m heeer . . . ”

  They both scrambled off into the darkness toward the voice on hands and knees until Mary bumped right into her just fifteen or so feet away. Mary lifted Bailey’s head and rested it on her lap. She could make out the burr in her arm. She worked it out and pitched it aside.

  “Where . . . are . . . we?” Bailey asked.

  Mary didn’t know where they were, but this wasn’t good. They had killed several witches. There was no telling what kind of retribution this alien species had in mind.

  “I’d say . . . it’s some kind of brig or jail,” Phil said.

  “No . . . lack of such facilities here,” Mary said, her tongue now working better. “Where’s the Indian?”

  “I think we lost him,” Phil said.

  “What’s . . . that sound?” Bailey asked.

  They’d listened to it for hours, but they stopped stock still and listened a moment more to the moaning sound and the barely audible slickering sound that filled the dark air.

  “I’m scared . . . ” Bailey said.

  “I know, we all are,” Mary replied, gently patting her cheek.

  “No. I mean I’m really scared,” she said, her voice tight.

  “It’s okay,” Phil said. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!”

  “Easy . . . ” Mary tightened her hug on Bailey’s head.

  “Phil. Kill me, ” Bailey said evenly. “Please kill me. ”

  “Hey . . . ”

  “Kill me goddamn it! I’ve seen you do it! Kill me!”

  “Stop it!” Mary screamed.

  She started to plead again, and Mary placed her hand over her mouth. Bailey screamed into the hand, wide eyed, for a long time. Her muffled scream was lost to the darkness.

  Phil wondered if killing her wasn’t the thing, the humane thing, to do. He could kill them both and be done with it. The last thing he could do as a human being would be to save these two from the unknown terror in this chamber. It would be quick. With a mind of its own, his hand reached for his belt and felt for the buckle. He got up on his knees and started to loosen it.

  The seam tore open behind them and light poured in. Phil turned and there in the seam was the silhouette of a single witch, somewhat larger than he’d yet seen, aged, bent like an old tree root. Behind it were two goons. The one in the rear was carrying what looked like large dark jars.

  Phil snapped back around at the sound of Mary’s ear- piercing scream.

  There, just a few feet away was Gilbert, his arms out straight as if pleading for help, his entire head and open mouth stuffed with tendrils from the thing perched on his head. The lower part of his white body was wrapped tight with grasping tendrils. The ones from the thing on his head slid in and out of his mouth and ears, slowly, wetly. From the points of entry at his ears, stains of dried blood ran down the length of his torso like thin snakes. The light penetrated deeper into the chamber, and Phil could make out a dozen other similar apparitions, some reduced to mere skeletons, some of them alien but not like their captors. All were stiff like catatonics.

  “Jesus . . . ” Phil said.

  It was as if she had put her foot down in a bear trap. Bailey let out a deep howl of utter dread, a guttural bawl from some deep place unknown even to herself.

  “What are they?” Mary asked cautiously.

  “Usssss . . . ”Bailey said. “Uhnnnnn”

  Bailey was on her feet in a flash and sprinting toward the door. When she got as far as the witch, she scrunched up her arms to make herself narrower and somehow fit through the space: a child’s maneuver. The alien waddled awkwardly aside. The lead goon gave no ground and stopped her with an outstretched arm. Phil could see in the light from the tube that it was the heavily tattooed goon Gilbert had used as insurance when he came to claim the phone. Bailey struggled against the massive arm in her panic, pumping her legs against the goon’s enormous strength. The goon let her struggle for a second then tossed her back into the chamber like a doll. She sprawled on the floor and covered her head with her arms, trying to make them swallow her up. She wailed in fear like an animal.

  “Leave us alone, you bastards!” Mary yelled at the top of her lungs. “Just leave us alone!”

  Phil wished that for just ten seconds he could have his .40 caliber Smith with a full magazine, in hi
s hand. He wanted it so bad he could feel the weapon’s phantom weight. He could drop them all in just that ten-second time span.

  Bailey balled up and continued to whimper. Mary scooted over and laid her body over Bailey’s as a cover.

  “You have caused pain,” the alien croaked.

  It was the first time Phil had ever heard one speak English; and, in spite of the rasping undertone, the syllables were quite clear. The comment was ludicrous, and Phil laughed out loud at it.

  “Good one!” he said. “That’s good. We’ve caused you pain. What a joke!”

  Mary joined in, it was difficult to tell whether she was laughing or crying.

  “You’ve tortured thousands of us, killed us! You plan to kill every last one of us—and we’ve caused you pain! What a joke!”

  Bailey continued to whimper and squirm.

  “You are not important,” the alien said. “The planet has many. You are one.”

  The alien stepped aside and the goons came in. When the shadow of the big one fell on Bailey, she let out a high pitched whine and drew up tighter. Mary stared up defiantly and wide eyed at it like a bitch defending her pup.

  “In the shallow seas of my home world lives an organism with no life of its own,” the alien recounted once again. “It takes from others the life it needs and returns only pain. We call the organism . . . ” the sound of dry leaves followed ” . . . it requires little nourishment and can live on an organism with your mass for many thousands of your years. We reserve the use of this parasite for those that offend us, as you have done.”

  The sobbing and whining had stopped, leaving only the low moaning sound of those already damned.

  The big goon reached down and pulled Mary up by the arm.

  “Let go of me!” she screamed at it and kicked and whacked at it with her fists. “Let the fuck go! Leave me the fuck alone!”

  When Phil moved up to grab the goon, he was greeted with a sharp sting to his side, just under his ribs that sent him to the floor. His face twisted in a silent scream. He turned and saw the long extended index finger of the alien, and its pointed tip through the red light of scalding pain.

  The goon lifted the kicking and screaming Mary and carried her in a bear hug to an unoccupied pedestal. It sat her down on it and the tendrils sprang to life, cementing her to it as if they’d grown around her.

  The smaller goon moved into the chamber, the containers nested in its huge arms glistened like evil fruit. Through the translucent walls, Mary could see sloshing fluid and ominous shapes afloat in it.

  “Stop, please, stop!” Mary wailed. “Please stop!”

  The sounds from the captive gushed into the mind of the smaller goon and memories of fists and pain and the taste of blood on loosened teeth sprang from some forgotten corner of her psyche like weeds. When the larger goon turned, the smaller one saw the pattern of tattoos on its arms and the word “Buddy” tried to form in a small lump of brain tissue that was still human.

  “Stop. Please. Stop. Oh, God stop, ” Mary pleaded.

  The sound of Bailey’s whimpering rained on the goon’s memories and fed them, gave them form and life. As the rage built, the goon felt the strength in its arms and legs as if for the first time.

  The witch removed the top from one of the containers and reaching in, pulled the spherical mass out, its wet tendrils hanging limp. It moved the parasite toward Mary’s head. Mary leaned back from it as far as physically possible.

  “Ohhhhh God . . . ”

  The big goon clamped its hand around the back of Mary’s neck to hold her still.

  The smaller goon felt it as if the captive’s neck was its own.

  It dropped the containers and they smashed open with a crash, sending water and the remaining organisms sliding across the floor. It reached out and slapped the parasite out of the witch’s hand, sending it flying across the chamber.

  The alpha alien was surprised and puzzled. It turned on the goon with its finger-sting bared.

  The goon snatched the entire bony hand with its own and bent it backwards like so much straw. The alien screamed in a long mew-like scream. Phil, getting his strength back, kicked out in a sweep at the witch’s thin legs, and tumbled it to the floor.

  The big goon lashed out with his enormous fist and hit the smaller’s head, snapping it backwards. The smaller struck with a closed fist nearly as hammer-like, stunning the larger. The two of them stood there flailing at each other’s heads with their huge fists, roaring with each blow.

  Phil was on the alien in a heart-beat, pinning the ruined hand to the floor with his knee and sending his own fist into the thing’s midsection several times. He felt brittle ribs under the loose skin with each punch.

  “Kill it, Phil!” Mary said. “Kick it to death!”

  Phil started to do just that, sending his booted foot into the alien’s head and neck in rapid succession.

  The big goon grabbed the smaller around the head and wrestled it to the floor. Holding it down with its superior weight, it punched its adversary repeatedly in the face with the sound of a sledgehammer against a side of beef. It soon had the smaller subdued, sitting astride it, bringing its hands down on its head with massive hammer blows, clearly trying to crush the smaller’s head.

  Phil moved to Mary’s position and started to pull at the restraining tendrils with both hands. “Bailey! Help me!” he yelled.

  Bailey had drawn up into a catatonic knot against one wall, but seeing Phil fighting to free Mary shocked her out of it. She scrabbled over and forced her hands under the tendrils, tugging at them with all her strength. The pencil-thin ropes were tough and would scarcely come loose, let alone break free.

  Phil had a handful almost worked loose when the big goon’s fist hit his face like a club, sending him over backwards.

  Bailey screeched and scooted away from the big bastard before it could hit her, too.

  Phil raised up in a stupor and looked over at the smaller goon. It was lying flat on its back, motionless. Their brief ally had been beaten senseless by the larger. Phil tried to get up but felt his legs and arms give way like putty.

  The goon reached down and picked up one of the parasites by the spherical body and lifted it, tendrils dangling, toward Mary’s head.

  “No . . . ”

  There was a sound like a loose guitar string being thrummed and the goon stiffened. When he turned toward the open seam, Phil’s eyes focused and saw Seseidi’s arrow stuck squarely in the thing’s back. Phil heard the sound again, and the goon flinched for the second time, then dropped the parasite with a splat, like the sound of a wet mop. When it turned back, its huge hands were wrapped around the shaft of the arrow stuck in its neck just under its chin.

  The big bastard wobbled and fell like a massive tree, face down on the witch. The crushing thump echoed through the chamber.

  Phil looked at Seseidi, who was standing in the seam, smiled his big white-toothed grin. He yammered something at Phil and waved at them to get out.

  Phil didn’t understand a word, but he agreed about the getting out part.

  The smaller goon rose slowly up and as quick as a fly, Seseidi readied another arrow and took aim at it, squatting partially on his haunches at the ready.

  “Wait!” Phil said, holding his hand up inches from the arrow’s tip. Seseidi relaxed the tension on the bowstring but watched the goon with a wary eye.

  The goon crawled slowly over on its hands and knees to the pedestal holding Mary and started to pull the tendrils off with its powerful hands. The tough material came away like so much string breaking, popping and snapping, the ends fluttering and writhing like headless snakes, sending thick liquid in all directions. When she was able, Mary stood and tugged her leg free of the last one herself with a deep grunt.

  Exhausted now, the goon slumped to the floor and rolled on its side. When Mary looked closer, she could see dark blood running from its ear and sinus openings, evidence of deeper, and probably fatal, hemorrhage inflicted by the brutal hammer
ing.

  Mary couldn’t explain it, but she knew it was so as surely as she knew anything at all: this is a female. And she had saved them all—for the moment at least.

  Mary gently touched the goon’s shoulder. She couldn’t see the goon’s eyes, but she knew they were there. There was a sound, a single deep sound that modulated up then down into the approximation of words. Mary couldn’t make the words out, but she didn’t have to. She rested her hand on the huge distorted face.

  “Thank you, sister,” she said gently.

  Seseidi yammered at them. Motioning them to go. He grabbed Bailey by the arm and helped her to her feet.

  “Bailey, move!” Phil barked, putting a fire under her. Bailey started out of the chamber, darting after the retreating brown form of the Indian.

  They ran down the tube, one after the other as fast as they could go. Seseidi seemed to know exactly where he was going, zipping around corners just within their sight.

  “Where the hell is he taking us!” Phil yelled up.

  “I don’t know,” Bailey yelled back. “I’m lost!”

  They continued on, running from tube to tube, and Phil was finding it hard to believe that the Indian could possibly have known where he was.

  After minutes had passed, Phil was breathing heavily. “Stop!” he yelled. “Stop goddamn it!”

  Seseidi did, and they ran up on him, nearly stacking up one on the next. When Phil got to his position, Seseidi was pointing excitedly forward.

  Phil looked.

  The Indian had led them to the central tube. There was the ship’s spinal column running the length of it, fused to the floor. Looking down at it, they could see that it ran the entire length of the ship. It terminated just a few feet from their position where it ran down into the floor and disappeared.

  “How did he know?” Mary asked puzzled.