Dominant Species Omnibus Edition

by David Coy

  He estimated that each tentacle was approximately five hundred meters long and three or four meters in diameter. He counted ten of them running like black snakes from the hub through the jungle. The ends of the ones he could see were tapered, adding to the reptilian impression.

  He took some pictures from that angle.

  The hub itself formed a nearly perfect hemispherical dome. A ragged hole gaped like a black mouth in the dead center of it.

  When the thought took final shape in his mind, he was surprised it hadn’t come sooner.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Of course.”

  It was a skeleton; the shell of something that had once been alive—some huge plant or plant-like animal that had grown out from the central hub, snaking into the surrounding jungle as it grew.

  “I gotta get a better look at this.”

  He looked for a place to set down and found it about a hundred meters from the hub in a spot where the jungle thinned.

  He took a locator from the rack, put it in his pocket then switched on the shuttle’s transponder. It was a policy he followed religiously every time he planned on being out of sight of the shuttle. He knew you could get hopelessly lost in terrain like this without even trying. Then, he slipped into the second most important piece of equipment: a net suit. The insect life was primarily nocturnal, and it was mid-morning, but he’d seen some nasty bugs that didn’t seem to care what time of day it was when they got active. Betting it could be dark in the tentacle, he pulled a lamp out its rack and put the strap over his shoulder.

  The last two items were his pistol, a 12mm Arabian Falcon, and his survival knife. He strapped them around his waist and cinched the belt tight.

  He marched in the direction of the nearest arm, spreading vines and branches out of the way as he went. He started to sweat and wished there was an easy way to wipe his face with the net suit covering it.

  When he got out of sight of the shuttle, he tuned the locator to the shuttle’s transponder frequency and turned it on just to see the familiar and comforting indicator come on as he swept the device toward the shuttle.

  The arm was right about where he thought it should be. He walked along it for some distance until he found a good-sized breech in it.

  The walls of the structure were thicker than he’d expected. He pressed against a ragged edge with both hands then leaned and pressed hard until one of the tiles came loose with a crunch. It was light and porous but strong and tough. He worked a few more pieces free until he thought he could easily slide through the hole.

  He went inside.

  The holes in the sides and top of the structure let in plenty of light, and he was tempted to leave the bulky lamp where it was, but decided against it.

  The arm was nearly cylindrical and the curved floor gave him the feeling of walking through an enormous conduit or pipe. A few plants and vines grew up through the floor then snaked out through the top or sides. He noticed that there were circular openings along the arm on each side spaced every ten or fifteen meters, just where the inside wall of the tentacle met the ground. These openings varied in size from half a meter to well over two meters.

  The tube was lined with straight pole-like vertical supports that ran from the ceiling to the floor. They were evenly spaced, the texture of gnarled and polished roots and very strong.

  About fifty meters in, he rounded a bend and could see where the arm emptied into the hub ahead.

  Fascinated, he moved faster.

  When he walked into the dome, it felt as if he’d walked into a dark cathedral. The orange light from the sun poured in through the ragged tear above, giving the chamber a strange and solemn cast. A swarm of insects spun brightly in the light high, near the top.

  It was quiet as death.

  The other arms meshed smoothly with the hub, each gaping tunnel entering at perfectly spaced intervals. The interior walls were virtually featureless, but the same twisted, vertical supports, taller and thicker, were scattered around the chamber, running from the top of the dome to the floor. Some had smaller branches near the base that ran into the floor like roots. The chamber was dominated by a large pit, some four or five meters across, directly in the center of it. Shaped like a deep bowl, its rim was perfectly flush with the floor. Above the pit was a tangle of what looked like thick roots that seemed to have grown out of the wall as single shoots from several locations, then opened out into a mass of smaller, intertwined vines like a nest directly over the pit.

  A heavy and sweet scent filled the air.

  He moved to the edge.

  The pit was filled to within two meters of the top with what, at first, looked like thousands upon thousands of sticks mixed up in thick dark mud. Over the mud was a thin layer of water, perhaps rained in from above. He sensed immediately that the sticks and whiter shapes were bones, but his mind balked at the sheer number and variety of them.

  “What the hell . . . ?”

  He raised his camera and leaned down to get a little closer. When he did, one foot came in contact with the rim and slipped out from under him as if on ice.

  Trying to keep from falling in, he twisted and the other foot came down on the slippery rim, and he fell in, sliding down the inside of the bowl without a sound.

  When his feet hit the mass of stuff at the bottom, they broke through a thin leathery skin on the surface of the mud then sank with a gush into an orange gelatinous mass underneath it.

  “Christ!”

  He was on his back and his feet kicked at the mass of jelly and bones as he tried to keep from sinking farther down. With each kick, he could feel his boots slipping and twisting off the slick bones buried in the goop. He twisted around and scratched and clawed at the side of the bowl. The surface of it, he could see now, was covered with what looked like stiff, hard hair pointing downwards. Slick and providing no purchase, it kept him moving down with each struggling movement.

  Kicking and twisting, one foot finally stomped down on something solid and stopped. By that time, he was on his belly and almost to his hips in the goo. He could feel the stiff hair holding him in place, snagging against the surface of his net suit and his clothing and pushing him relentlessly down. Each time he moved, he could feel himself pushed a millimeter farther down into the muck.

  A perfect trap.

  The purpose of the pit was now clear. An unsuspecting animal would come to the edge, drawn to the scent, and would slip into the bowl. Unable to climb out, it would be digested in the juice at the bottom, a little at a time.

  He felt a slight burning sensation on his legs. It was starting. Panic churned his guts.

  He reached down and unsnapped the strap on his knife and pulled it slowly and carefully out of its scabbard. He knew that if he dropped that knife, he’d stand no chance of getting out. His hand clamped on the handle like a vise.

  He picked a spot just under an arm’s length in front of his face and stabbed in. The surface was hard but the blade sank deep. He sawed back and forth then stabbed again, digging and cutting at the spot. A few whacks later he’d cut a suitable hand-hold. He dug the fingers of his left hand into the slit then stabbed down hard with the knife with his right, driving it in almost halfway.

  He pulled.

  The hair tried to keep him down, gripping tight to his clothing; but by rocking back and forth to lessen the surface contact, he was able to gain some distance.

  He held tight with his left hand and chopped another hole.

  By the time he was able to get his left hand up over the rim, he was thoroughly exhausted. One last stab far out into the floor and he was able to pull, first one, then the other leg up out of the trap.

  He rolled away from it, and slumped face-down, gasping for air. The fingers of his left hand were cramped in a permanent hook shape.

  The slight burning sensation on his legs was no worse than when it started, suggesting that whatever potency there was in the sludge in the trap had long since paled after the organism died.

  He cleaned
off his camera, took a step closer—but not too close—and took a few more pictures.

  “Sonofabitch . . . that was close.”

  On the way back through the tunnel he realized that the circular openings along the cove were how the prey entered, drawn no doubt, by the promise of an easy meal.

  Clever bastard.

  Standing on the shuttle’s ramp, he pulled off his clothes and used some of the on-board water to rinse the goo from his lower body. The stuff left red patches on his skin that stung when he touched them.

  He put on a dirty jumpsuit and his old spare boots from the locker. When he kicked the gooped-up clothing off the ramp and into the foliage, the cotton material split to pieces as if rotten.

  “Damn . . . ”

  He wondered how potent the sludge in the trap would be if the organism was alive.

  He fired the shuttle up and rose slowly through the canopy, letting the shuttle push the branches and vines away as it climbed. When he got completely out, he set his bearing for the valley to the west and accelerated, climbing as he went.

  He’d gone no more than a few kilometers when he saw it. It was another tentacled organism, this one bright green, and alive. It was barely visible through the foliage and had his eyes not been used to the shape, he would have missed it.

  He circled until he found the central hub then dropped down to get some pictures.

  It was alive all right. In sharp contrast to the blackened skeleton he’d just visited, this one’s dome was covered with a short nap of bright and vivid green material, something like moss. There was a round, translucent panel directly in the center of the dome. It looked like an enormous green breast.

  The things were probably quite common. He got his pictures and marked the organism’s location on the map.

  God, I love it here.

  He didn’t see the flurry of dark and frenzied motion near the arm below.

  He flew on, over the green hills that rose and fell like endless waves.

  9

  She sprang up from her terminal with the text of the confirmation still etched in her head. Everyone said Rachel was lucky. Now she believed it.

  What a dream come true.

  Richthaus-Alvarez Mining had taken her contract. She would be Biologist Grade III on Verde’s Revenge. With an addendum: Biologist in Charge; in charge of the biological inventory—her, Rachel Sanders.

  She wanted to jump up and down and scream just for the sheer joy of it, so she did just that.

  Her roommate looked up and eyed Rachel as if she’d gone mad. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m going to that Verde project!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes!”

  “Stop.”

  “Yes!”

  “No—stop jumping, Rachel.”

  She stopped and sat down, then buried her face in her hands. A second later she peeked out through them.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I thought that project paid peanuts.”

  “It does! It doesn’t matter! I’d go for free! I can’t believe it.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow! Shit, I’ve got to pack.”

  She bounced up again and turned in a circle.

  “Clothes. Hot clothes. Clothes for hot weather, I mean. No, all my clothes. Let’s see. They supply the equipment. That’s common practice. Leave mine here. Take my scopes, though. What else? Clothes. Got that . . . ”

  “Rachel, will you please stop?” Jodi laughed.

  “I’m fine. Really, I am.”

  “Relax. Go make yourself some tea and relax.”

  Rachel groaned. “I can’t! Jodi, do you know what this means?”

  “Well, I know it’s important to you. I can tell . . . ”

  “See? You don’t know—you don’t. This is a chance of a lifetime. If I never got another deal, I could die happy. I’ll have my own team and call all the shots. I’d say that I’ve waited my whole life for something like this, but I can’t, ‘cuz it’s never happened before. There’s never been anything like this to wait for." See?”

  “That big a deal, huh?”

  “Bigger. The reports say the entire planet is . . . is . . . teeming with life. It’s one enormous rainforest, thicker and richer than what the Congo or the Amazon used to be. It’s one big jungle.”

  “Sounds inhospitable to me.”

  “Oh, shit. There’s not an ounce of hospitality on it. That’s the beauty of it. It’s pure primal . . . something . . . Eden . . . no wait—it’s before Eden. Prehistoric. No, not even that. It’s Mesozoic. It’s a cauldron for new life.”

  “Cauldron?”

  “Yeah. A cauldron—a boiling cauldron.”

  “Like a witch’s cauldron?”

  Rachel made a face.

  “They say there are millions of insect-like species alone. There could be ten times that many plant species—and who knows what else? There’s no telling. No telling . . . ” Her voice trailed off as the possibilities sank in.

  “It sounds dangerous to me.”

  “Well, it can be. It sure can be,” Rachel said knowingly.

  “I suppose you’ve got your work cut out for you, then.”

  “If you want to call it work, that’s okay by me.”

  She stood up and rubbed her eyes, then shook her head, still in a state of disbelief.

  “I don’t know a biologist in the Commonwealth who wouldn’t kill for this opportunity. It’s a chance to see and classify a jillion species and sub-species. I’ll discover who-knows-what, and there’s no telling. All those discoveries will be mine—I mean ours—the team’s. It’s a lifetime of work. I can just see it now. I am one lucky person.”

  Rachel took a deep breath, then sighed, and all the tension that had built up over the last few minutes went out with it. “I need some tea,” she said.

  * * *

  The next day, she got to the port early and had breakfast. It was surprisingly good. It amazed her that anything edible could come out of the filthy little concession. Thousands of people waited there for the morning shuttles that would carry them up to the transports, which would carry them to the off-world projects. The gate for Verde’s Revenge had very few people waiting. The shuttle would be late, according to the status board. She planted herself on a beat-up wooden bench and steeled herself for a two hour wait.

  Good thing I’m always early.

  Bored stiff by the end of the first hour, she counted the passengers at the gate one at a time. Then she counted them again.

  Twenty. Both times.

  That didn’t seem like anything for such a high-rolling project like Verde’s Revenge. It puzzled her.

  She heard her name called on the addressing system, and the pleasant, disembodied voice asked her to please come to the check-in.

  “I’m Rachel Sanders. You called me?” she asked the steward.

  The steward pointed. Rachel followed his finger to the bench behind her. A young man stood up and stepped over in one long, stiff stride.

  “Oh? Rachel Sanders?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hi. I’m your apprentice, Joseph Devonshire.”

  Rachel blinked. She hadn’t asked for an apprentice.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked, at a loss.

  “Joseph Devonshire. Didn’t they tell you?”

  “No. They didn’t,” Rachel said stiffly.

  “Oh. They should have told you. My contract puts me under you as the other member of the bio-team.”

  “The other member?”

  “Didn’t they tell you?”

  The conversation was getting even more confusing. Rachel felt her voice growing an angry edge.

  “No . . . ”

  “They should have, I guess. I’m sorry.”

  He started to dig out his pad.

  “I’ve got my contract right here. It’s signed and everything.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s all legit and everything.”

  “I
’m sure it is.”

  Rachel took him by the arm. The arm felt like a twig under the heavy coat.

  “Let’s go talk about this, shall we?”

  She led him over to a bench and sat down, brushing off some papery trash before she planted herself.

  She smiled a big friendly smile at him.

  “Joe, is it?”

  “Joe Devonshire.”

  “Joe. First of all, I didn’t ask for an apprentice. Second, bio-teams are comprised of six members minimum, and I already have my six people in mind. I haven’t ordered their contracts yet, but they’re people I’ve worked with before, you know. This is a very important undertaking. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Then, I guess there’s been a mistake,” he said.

  Rachel nodded knowingly.

  “Yes. I’m afraid so,” she said.

  “God! That makes me mad,” he blubbered.

  “I’m very sorry . . . ”

  “I was told there was no full, actual bio-team. Just you and me. The facilitator said so. He said . . . ”

  “What?”

  “The facilitator said the bio-team was going to be small. He had your contract right there at the time. He said he could sign me on with you as the lead. There wouldn’t be a problem he said. I knew it was too good to be true.”

  Rachel swallowed. It had to be wrong. It had to be.

  “Can you wait here for a second?”

  “Sure. I don’t have anywhere to go anyways.”

  She moved to a spot a few benches over and pulled out her pad. If it were true, she was going to kill somebody. Goddamned bastards. You couldn’t do a biological survey of a single section with only two goddamned people.

  She turned the device on and fetched her contract. All the seals at the top looked okay. She started to read through, word by word. She felt her heart beat faster with each one.

  Ten minutes later her eyes found the clause she hoped wouldn’t exist. When she saw the words preliminary survey, she had to read them again just to be sure that’s what it said. “Sonofabitch . . . ” she murmured.

  She wanted to laugh. The clause described a biological inventory all right, but not a real one. It was more like a test survey, a preliminary survey, a bullshit survey—and it had no team members except herself and an optional apprentice. The option belonged to Richthaus-Alvarez Mining, not her. She scrolled down and found the addendum that must have been added. There it was. It clearly identified one Joseph Devonshire as her apprentice. She checked the paragraph that defined the contract’s term.