Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) (18 page)

sue this
thing further? Wasn’t that exactly opposite of what she’d set out to do here?
Phil was gone. She couldn’t bring him back. She looked at George steadily
before she answered. He matched her gaze as if he knew what she was thinking.
“Maybe. I could try,” she said finally.

“I think
we should,” he went on. “The blood and the skin scrap may be the only tissue
samples of an alien intelligence ever recovered. We want them if we can get
them. We’ll have them analyzed at USC. I’ve got some good contacts there.”

“What
about the imprint in the gully?” a studious-looking Beth asked.” Can we go out
and do some analysis on that?”

“Don’t
take this wrong, Beth,” George replied. “But for what? It’s just a big smashed
down area made by something. We may know what we think caused it, and it makes
real good collaborative evidence, but it’s not like you can compare it to a
database of other UFO tracks and determine who made the UFO. No. Flying saucer
prints just don’t cut it. They’re not very meaningful or valuable as evidence.
They can be caused by other physical actions or created artificially. Look at
crop circles, for instance. What we need are those tissue samples. We can make
history with those.”

The
experience had exhausted her, but in the end, she’d painted a picture of such
convincing clarity that even the most steely and objective had been
hard-pressed to find any flaws in the story.

Linda Purdy had done what
she did best. She’d drawn from the facts and derived by logic alone the
inescapable and awful truth of what had happened to Phil Lynch.

*
 
*
 
*

It was
taking some effort to remove the cap on the object, but Phil was convinced it
would be worth the effort. The contents of these things were important.

Lines of
alien writing was scribed diagonally on the surfaces of them like an ornate
design. These were treasured items, and he wanted to find out what kind of
things this horrible race treasured.

The
egg-shaped object was smooth and slippery and he had it down between his knees
to hold it firm. He was fairly sure the cap was screwed on or would have to
turn to be removed, and he was trying his best to turn it with both hands. The
cap was an integral part of the jar with nothing to grab.

“Christ,”
Phil said trying to turn it. “It’s on tight.” He tried again but couldn’t
persuade it. “You try it. Your hands are bigger than mine. I’ll hold it down.”

Phil held
the jar firmly with his hands. Ned went down on his knees and wrapped his hands
around the cap and turned it with a grunt. When he did, the cap turned slightly
and they heard a quick
fitz
like the sound of escaping gas.

“Hey,
look,” Ned said with a note of worry. “We don’t know what’s in here. What if
it’s poison gas or something? I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

“So we
die by poison gas, so what?” Phil shrugged to make his point.

Ned
thought about it. “Yeah, forget it. Why not.” The logic
was
obvious.

He turned
the cap completely around with a grunt and he could feel that it was now
completely loose and would come right off. “Okay,” he said.

“Go
ahead, open it up.”

Ned
slowly lifted the cap off and together they leaned over and looked into the
jar.

“Want a
cookie?” Phil said with a grin.

“Well,
I’ll be damned. It is food. Gotta be food.”

Ned
reached in and gently pulled out one of the thumb sized objects and held it up.
“They must eat these things. I’ve seen these as a kid, not this big—but I’ve
seen ‘em. They’re uh . . . what do ‘ya call ‘em?”

Phil
plucked one out and held it up. It was dark brown and translucent. The shape of
the undeveloped larva under the hard covering could just barely be seen.

“These
are insect pupae.”

“Yeah.
That’s it. Pup..a whatever.”

“Sonofabitch,”
Phil said. “They’re harvesting these fucking things like peanuts. Then they
preserve them in these containers to take back home. That’s why the room is so
cold. That was probably some inert gas like nitrogen we heard escaping from
this thing. They pack them in gas for added freshness.”

Ned held
one up between his thumb and forefinger and shook his head.

“They
must really be nuts about these things.”

“Some
cultures on Earth have delicacies that cost a fortune,” Phil said. “My guess
is these things are worth a mint to them.” He put one in his shirt pocket and
buttoned down the flap. “We’ll take one back. Close it up. Let’s get the hell
out of here.”

Ned put the lid back on,
and they carefully sat the jar back exactly in the same place and lined it up
perfectly with the others. Phil studied the object’s surface. It was covered
with smudges and finger prints. Using his shirt cuff, he wiped and polished
off the smudges as best he could, bobbing his head around the jar to catch any
remaining smudges in the light. “Heck with it. Let’s go,” Ned said. “They’ll
never notice.”

*
 
*
 
*

Mary took
another drag on her smoke, looked over at Gilbert and wondered how a man like
him had lived as long as he had. Why hadn’t someone killed him by now? Tom Moon
was bad enough, but if she had to make a choice between Tom Moon and Gilbert as
to which one to club to death first, Gilbert Keefer would win hands down. It
was as if God or nature or whatever had compiled just the right thin arms,
sagging face and lying eyes as a model of just the look to ignite feelings of
repulsion in the onlooker. Over that disgusting physical foundation, He
overlaid the thin, transparent veneer of religious hypocrisy, then smoothed it
all down with a soft voice that twisted the truth and pulled it into shapes
only
he
could use. Here was a man with no honor, no loyalty, no character and no real
substance. Each time the man spoke, his forked tongue tore a thread from the
fabric of truth, somehow. She’d have used the word serpent to describe the evil
sonofabitch, but she refused to degrade the reputation of a far more noble
creature by drawing such an unfair comparison to Gilbert Keefer.

He was
standing in the tube talking to Tom Moon, and Mary was sure he was aware that
she was watching him. He was just paranoid enough to know precisely the
location of everyone in his vicinity—and whether or not they might be able to
hear what he was saying. He’d turn this radar on and keep it on just in case he
might give something of himself away by accident.

He’s so
goddamned guarded. He’s hiding something. He’s dirty in ways I can’t even
imagine. He’s carrying shit in his pockets. I’d bet on it.

While he
talked, he held one hand daintily to his chest like a woman.

He’s a closet
faggot, too. I’ll betcha money he checks his nails with his palm down.

That
thought turned a corner of her mouth up into a satisfying little smirk.

When
Gilbert turned and walked away, Mary could just tell by the way he walked that
he’d planted some nasty little seed in Tom’s feeble mind. Tom Moon stood there
for a second, then came over to Mary; and under her fixed and hostile gaze,
offered up as friendly a smile as he could muster. Mary raised her eyebrows at
him just once in greeting.

“Thanks
for the watches, there Tom,” she said. It was about the third time she’d
thanked him. It was just something to say to him that she knew he’d understand.

“Yeah,
okay,” Tom said. “Say, Gilbert don’t think it’s a good idea to go exploring
around like they’re doing. He says it don’t look good and it’d probably get us
in a lot of trouble if they get caught.”

“So
what,” she said. “Who gives a damn what he thinks?” Tom’s voice went into slow
speed. “Well, he just said for me to tell you that, that’s all.”

“What? He
can’t tell me himself? You do whatever he says? You his slave?”

“I do
what I please.”

“I bet.”

“I do.”

Fine.

“He
didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already, anyways.”

“So you
think we should just sit on our asses. I find it funny that you and the Holy Roller
there would wait until Phil and Ned were out before you started your little
campaign of sabotage.”

“It ain’t
sabatatch.”

“Why
don’t the two of you just piss off? Go bone yourselves in the ass if you can
figure out how.” She blew smoke in his face to add to the insult. “You
do
know how to
fuck
I take it?”

Tom
thought about it, and his weak mind worked over the possible answers with the
force of a windmill in dead air. Quick retorts never blossomed freely from the
thick husk of his mind. Unable to think of a snappy comeback, Tom shook his
head slow as if he was disgusted, or hurt. “I don’t really care what they do,
really. I’m just telling you what Gilbert said. I’m the one who gave the
watches, anyways. I don’t know why you’re all mad at me.”

Poor sonofabitch
is stuck right in the middle. It’s Gilbert I’m pissed at and I’m lashing out at
this idiot. He’s just the messenger. He doesn’t have a clue. If Gilbert told
the musky fucker to jump off a cliff he’d do it.

“Skip
it,” she said.

“I want
those watches back, too. Later, that is.”

“Sure. No
problem.”

Mary turned around and
hoped that by jumping up into her hole, Tom would get the point and go away. It
worked. She heard him mutter something as he walked away. She smiled and
laughed a silent laugh. She hadn’t laughed or smiled in a long time.

*
 
*
 
*

Tom
wondered why there were people in the world who didn’t have good manners. He’d
lived out on the street since he was sixteen or so, and no matter how bad
things got, he’d always found a way to muster up a smile and a
hello
. His daddy always said that was
the best way to be liked. He wasn’t as good at being liked as his daddy had
been and he knew he’d pulled some crap a time or two but you couldn’t never say
he was
mean
to
anybody. Not like that bitch, that’s for sure.

I’ve known worst people than myself,
he thought.

Tom
crawled up into his hole and flopped down on his bedroll. Gilbert was sitting
directly under the light, reading his Bible. He had his skinny legs crossed
like a yogi.

“What did
she say?” Gilbert asked, not looking up.

Tom
didn’t want to talk about it but figured he might as well. Gilbert wouldn’t
like it if he didn’t tell him what she said.

“She said
for us to go fuck ourselves,” he said.

Gilbert
just stretched his lips into a thin line for a second.

“That’s
the kind of dirty talk I’d expect from a person like
that.”

“Yeah, I
‘spose so.”

“Have you
ever seen the dirt that collects in a sewer? The kind that you can smell and
makes you want to vomit?”

“I guess
so.”

I think
he means the shit,
Tom thought.

“When
people like that speak like she did, I smell that smell, did you know that?”

“Nope.”

“That’s
how much I dislike dirty words.”

“Smells
bad, huh?”

“What
else did she say?”

“She
thinks we’re trying to sabatatch the whole thing.”
Gilbert
thought about it. “Have you ever seen those pictures of the people in the
concentration camps?” he asked. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Well
those people had a right to complain but never did. Did you see what happened
to them because they never complained? Is that what you want to see happen to
us?”

“Nope.”

“Then we
should complain if we don’t like the direction they’re taking us. I know how to
deal with people like that.”

“How?”

“Have you
ever seen those pictures on the wall of the Savior with the crown of thorns?”

“Yeah.”

“I know
what that crown of thorns means, and what we have to do to keep from wearing a
crown of thorns ourselves.” Tom listened and thought what he was hearing made
pretty good sense—mostly, but he wasn’t completely sure. Gilbert was confusing
sometimes.

Tom
rolled over and drew himself in tight. When he thought about how mean Mary had
been to him, it hurt. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt. She was
just like his aunt Mercy, always yelling at him even when he tried to do
something nice like cleaning his shoes real good. He wished she liked him. He
mulled these things over until the thoughts were just empty pictures floating
in the thin, bright fog of Mary’s anger. He mouthed silent words of angst,
tailings of past dialogues between himself, his aunt Mercy, Mary and himself
and he silently mouthed the word
“galumpnuckler.
”