Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) (38 page)

She was
lying on the ledge that circled the chamber, and Gilbert was sitting next to
her. He was so close; she could feel his butt against her thighs. She drew them
back from the moist warmth of his nasty bottom.

Gilbert
was breathing deeply through his mouth and he swallowed and removed his hand
from under her shirt as if his hand were an object and not really his hand.

“It’s not
that I don’t like you,” she said kindly. “But I’m not feeling very sexy right
now. I’m sure you understand.”

Gilbert
didn’t understand. He looked at her and wondered how many cocks she’d
sucked—how many suck-sores she’d had. He felt a pang of something, a yearning
that twisted in the pit of his stomach. He put his hand on her full thigh and
kneaded it. He liked the way it felt and he decided that if she asked him to
stop this time, he would refuse. It was God’s will that she was there with him.

“Stop,”
she said and pushed his hand off. She knew that the longer he groped her, the
harder he’d be to cool down. “Please,” she added.

Gilbert
looked at her mouth and wanted to crawl in it, to experience its wet, sweet
warmth all around him. He leaned over and tried to put his loose lips over
hers. As he did, his hand rested on her strong ass, and he squeezed.

It was
the hand on her ass that did it. It felt like a giant spider had stuck to it.

“Get off me, goddam
it!”
she yelled, then bumped him off the ledge with her thigh. Gilbert
lost his balance and fell on his butt, then continued down onto his back with
his feet in the air and a strained look on his face.

With a
growl of disgust, she scrambled away from the spot and the bad breath that hung
in the air. She got up and brushed her butt off where he’d touched it in case
he’d left something nasty on it. When she looked down at him, he still had the
stupid, bug-eyed look on his face as he tried to lift himself up by the ledge.

He didn’t
need it, but she reached down and helped him to his feet anyway. She could feel
the little string of muscle in his arm under the mushy covering. When he stood
up, she took his temperature by flashing a look at his crotch. She didn’t want
to, but she saw the bulge of his nasty little boner making a little tent in his
pants. She groaned inwardly.

“Sorry,
my king,” she tried to say warmly. “I’m just not in the mood, I guess.”

He didn’t
seem very discouraged by the embarrassing fall, and that worried her. He should
have been apologizing for his behavior about then, but instead, he put his arms
around her real fast as if she were trying to get away. She could feel the hard
little stick of his pecker against her belly. That, combined with a new blast
of his breath, set her off completely. She pushed and wrenched herself free and
tried to slap his face. He ducked away, and the blow glanced off his forehead
and loosened his glasses. He kept ducking in slow motion long after the blow
was gone and wound up turned ninety degrees away from her. When his face came
back up and stopped moving, she slapped him again right across the mouth. The
blow was so strong, she felt her palm strike his teeth.

The slap
knocked his glasses the rest of the way off his head and he just stood there
and stared at her.

When he
grinned at her, his teeth were red with blood. It was a lascivious grin, and
she got the feeling that he’d enjoyed the slap.

Whoops.

“I guess
you didn’t hear me,” she said. “I’m not in the mood.”

“You
mean, not in the mood for me,” he said thickly.

She was
relieved to hear his voice. If he’d talk, she might be able to reason with him.
“That’s not what I said.”

“But
that’s what you meant.”

Bailey
smiled back. “Look, it’s not you,” she lied. “I don’t enjoy sex very much is
all? And this is a bad time for me. It’s not like we were in a nice romantic
hotel room with wine and . . . and music, is it?”

The
sphinx smiled a red smile.

“You’re
used to handsome men, aren’t you?”

“No.
That’s not it . . .” she lied again.

“Men who
excite you physically?”

“No!” she said.
Of course you asshole!

“No?”

“Look.
You’re no . . . Greek god, okay? But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn to like
you.”

“The
Greeks were evil and sinful.”

“Whatever.
It’s just that you have to take it slow with a girl like me, that’s all.”

“You find
those statues, those marble statues of naked men and women exciting don’t you?”

“Not
very,” she said matter-of-factly, crossing her arms. She flashed a look at his
crotch; the little boner was gone.

Gilbert stared at her with
his bloody mouth partially open, then swallowed without closing it. He did it
that way to try to hide the fact that he was swallowing in the first place. In
order to do it, he had to stretch his lips back over his teeth just slightly
and grimace a little like a chimp. The effect was utterly disgusting to her.
It was the ugliest human gesture she’d ever seen. “We’ll see,” he said.

*
 
*
 
*

The hiss
down the tube was the signal he’d been waiting for. Phil didn’t know for sure
he was up next, but the timing seemed about right. The plan was a simple one.
He would resist the hiss from the big bastard and make it come into the hole to
get him. It would be out of view of its partner just long enough to grab Phil’s
ankle and drag him out. He would have only a few seconds to plunge the pen into
the big bastard’s chest. He wanted to get the poison as close to the heart as
possible, if not right in it. He’d have to jab it in and pull it out—he didn’t
want to leave a poison tipped pen stuck in its chest for the aliens to find.

If it
worked, and the bastard died as quickly as Phil hoped it would, they’d have an
effective weapon. The pen would leave a small hole with very little blood. It
would be hard to spot against the folds and convolutions of the big bastard’s
chest. It would take them hours to figure out what killed it, if they ever did.

If it
didn’t work, Phil would probably get the shit kicked out of him and carried off
to the labs. In its rage, the big bastard might literally pull him to pieces on
the spot. On balance he had little to lose.

Phil
lifted the corner of his bed roll, picked up the pen and removed the cap. He’d
fashioned a thick handle for it out of aluminum foil to better his grip on it.
He moved as far away from the opening as he could get and stretched out on his
stomach with his feet pointed toward the opening. He tucked the pen up under
his chest and waited.

When the
hiss came at the opening, Phil stiffened. The next hiss was louder, more
demanding, and Phil tightened his grip on the weapon. “Fuck off,” he said.

The very
air went out of the tube. Then the light level dropped as the thing’s massive
bulk filled the opening. Phil heard the slight huffing sound as the creature
climbed in after him.

When the
hand came down on his ankle, it felt as if a piece of hydraulic machinery had
grabbed it. The yank that followed was like his leg was attached to a pickup
truck, and he felt himself propelled backwards toward the opening.

Phil
twisted completely around like an alligator and wrenched his booted foot free
of the big bastard’s grip and scrambled to his feet. Caught completely off
guard, the creature made a quick, awkward swipe with a massive hand to regain
the foot. Half way into the hole and down on its knees, the creature lunged
out again at Phil’s legs and missed. Phil kicked the creature’s face with a
resounding
thump.
Stunned, the creature hesitated. Phil kicked again and connected. The big
bastard stopped cold, and Phil thought he’d kicked it unconscious. A shock of
pain went up through Phil’s leg from the force of the impact.

He hadn’t
planned on being able to disable it with a blow, but this was working just
fine. Phil switched legs and kicked its head again as hard as he could. The
massive head went up with a snap from the impact and Phil knew he’d hurt it.
The big bastard just stayed there on its hands and knees, stunned like a
heavyweight fighter. The last thing Phil wanted was for it to fall flat. If it
did, he’d never get the pen into its chest. He gambled and kicked it again.

Phil went
down on one knee in front of the big bastard and put his hand on its back. He
reached under it, stretching around the thing’s massive girth and positioned
the pen just under where he thought the sternum must be. Then he brought the
pen back and keeping the target in his mind’s eye, brought it up as hard as he
could and into the creature’s chest. He felt the hardened tip go deep and
strike bone and knew he’d hit the right spot. He cranked the pen around to get
as much poison as possible into the wound, then yanked downward to remove it.

When he
yanked, the packed foil around the pen slipped off in his hand, and the big
bastard took that very moment to fall straight down flat.

“Christ!”
Phil cursed and jumped back, almost getting pinned by the arm.

The
creature lay there for a moment then started to rise up. It shook its meaty
head and stumbled to its feet. Then it looked down at its chest and seeing the
pen, reached up and daintily plucked it out with two huge fingers. It pitched
the pen aside, and Phil knew he was about to die.

Then the
big bastard just collapsed as if its bone structure had evaporated. The
thump
from the heavy
fall shook the floor.

Phil
shook his fists in victory, retrieved the pen and replaced the cap over the
bloody tip. He moved as far away from the big bastard as he could and slumped
against the wall.

“Gotcha,”
he said weakly.

When the
big bastard’s partner came to the hole a few minutes later, it looked at the
fallen one then at Phil and grunted like an old man. It reached into the hole
and shook the other’s foot a few times and when it got no response, grabbed it
by both feet and tugged it unceremoniously out of the hole as if it was
something to clean up.

It seemed
to take no interest in the cause of its partner’s demise and started right for
the exit seam with it, dragging it by one foot.

Phil
looked out the opening and watched it go. When he looked over at Mary, she gave
him a single thumbs up and a big grin.

“You did it!” she said.

Farther down the tube,
Seseidi watched the huge spirit dragging the dead one and saw the pleased looks
on the faces of the white warrior and his woman

To have killed such a spirit
, he thought,
the white warrior must be very great.

*
 
*
 
*

Now that
they had a weapon that was worth a damn, they could take an offensive posture.

For the
first time since his abduction, Phil felt a spark of real hope. The enemy’s
over-confidence had given them the freedom of movement within their camp. That
was a tactical error on their part. Now fate—and some unfathomable evolutionary
forces—had become confederates. Some more luck could fan that spark into a
flame of victory.

Damn, he
felt good.

“How’s
this?” Ned asked, holding up a small wooden chair.

“Perfect,”
Phil answered. “Break it into pieces. Try to get some slivers under six inches
long.”

The only
thing close to a blowgun shape in the dump was the hollow folding legs of two
cheap aluminum chairs. He couldn’t cut the legs or straighten them so a bona
fide blowgun seemed out of the question. But the problem remained: he needed a
delivery system that would give them some stand-off
distance,
if only a few feet.

If he couldn’t fashion his second choice—a bow and arrow
weapon—they’d be left with spears and hand-thrown darts. That would be okay,
but accuracy would suffer a bit, and the stand-off distance would be
compromised he was sure. What they needed in any case were points—sharp points
to drive the chemical weapon into the enemy’s flesh.

Ned raised the chair up over his head and crashed it against the
rubbery floor. The chair bounced off intact.

“Must be oak,” he said, putting it down on the floor. He then
proceeded to stomp the legs off the chair. Turning it several times to get the
right angles, he stomped it completely to pieces then finished it off by
twisting and breaking off what was left. The little chair didn’t stand a
chance.

“I’ve got some chunks here, but not a lot of slivers,” he said
picking through the chair’s remains.

“We need sharp points, Ned,” Phil snapped.

“Right,” he said sheepishly.

Ned picked a likely looking piece about the right size and using
his can opener, worked and pried a large, ragged splinter off the edge. He held
it up so Phil could see it.