Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (14 page)

“I’m . .
. a . . .” Eddie began.

“Joan was
saying she might be able to speak up for you and maybe get you off.”

Eddie
swallowed. He wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted. “Tell her to save it,” he
said.

“Huh?”

“Tell her
to save it. I don’t want to get off. I’d like to go back to Earth anyways. I
got family there.”

Mike knew
Eddie had no family and everybody knew there was no Earth to go back to.

“There’s
lots of work to get done, Eddie. They say we’re moving the whole settlement to
the ocean. We could sure use your help. Everybody says so. Wish Eddie was here
to do this, wish Eddie was here to do that, they say,” and he smiled. “You sure
do have lots of things waiting for you to get done.”

Eddie
cheered for a moment, but the feeling went out like a snuffed candle.

“Well, I
gotta go,” Mike said. “I’ll come back tomorrow night if you want.”

Eddie
nodded slightly.

“Okay,”
Mike said; and before Eddie could look away, he jumped down from the barrel to the
ground. His weak leg gave in a little when he hit, but he kept his balance. He
turned around and looked up at Eddie with a big grin.

“See?
Didn’t hurt,” he said and limped away.

Eddie
went back to bed and curled up into a tight ball. He’d never felt so alone or
so ashamed. The night felt oddly cold. He lay awake and shivered and thought
nothing. He slept some in spite of his shivering and woke just at dawn and
watched as the sun cast a dull red line along the top of the window. He watched
the red line broaden and brighten as the sun climbed higher, and the jungle’s
sounds, like his thoughts, died to nothing. Finally, when the world was quiet
once more and the heat from the sun had warmed the wall, he rose from the bed.
He was glad the night was over. He hoped Mike would come back the next night so
they could talk.

* * *

Donna
didn’t seem too angry with anybody anymore, and she even smiled a little when
Rachel poured the coffee. Things were back to normal as far as Eddie could see.
They had a big breakfast that John and Rachel made.

“So
what’s it going to be, Rachel?” Donna asked. “How long is Jacob going to keep
us here?”

“A very
long time,” she said without much emotion.

Donna
held her tongue. She smiled stiffly.

The
guards brought food every other day, and plenty of it. They would knock gently
on the door as if they were interrupting. Then the door would open, and one of
the guards would unceremoniously carry in a big box full of meals and drop it
on the floor.

They
weren’t allowed outside except for one brief period every day to walk around,
always under guard. The shelter was a good distance from the rest of the
settlement, and they were kept to the jungle side so they couldn’t tell much
about what was going on in the settlement itself. Flanked by at least two
guards, they’d sometimes walk up to the jungle’s edge and down a ways. Then a
guard, like a slow, two-legged herding dog, would turn them back toward the
shelter. For the most, all they did during these exercise sessions was walk and
kick at stuff on the ground. Sometimes, John would do some jumping jacks and
push-ups, huffing and puffing loudly, just to mock the whole thing. Sometimes,
Rachel would find an interesting "something," usually organic, to
pick up and examine. At times, when Donna was feeling especially nervy, she’d
pop off questions to the guards she knew wouldn’t—or couldn’t—answer, like,
“When do we get to go home?” or “How’s your boss, Jacob?” She never got an
answer, of course, and she’d drift close to Rachel with a snotty look and say,
“Then kiss my ass," under her breath. They’d both giggle.

The
little guard who ogled Rachel was one of the regulars on these outings. He kept
leering at her like he was going to eat her. Rachel ignored him, but it got
under John’s skin. “Hey, why do you keep gawking at her like that?” he demanded
angrily.

The smirk
dropped off the guard’s face.

“It’s
okay, John,” Rachel said. “Never mind.”

“It’s not
okay. The guy’s a dick,” he said loudly.

The guard
just glared at John but didn’t say anything. He also stopped gaping at Rachel.

“That was
weird,” Donna said when they got back inside.

It
puzzled all of them. “I thought he’d at least whack me with his rifle butt,”
John said with a little grin. “I guess I must have scared the shit out of him.”

Rachel
had an idea why there had been no retribution, but kept it to herself. It was
obvious to her that Jacob had told the guards to take good care of them. He
wanted them healthy. It was that simple. She didn’t have to tell the others her
reasoning. They figured it out themselves. The next day on their walk, Donna
decided to give it a real test. She was in one of her foulest moods and the
timing was just right.

As they
walked along the jungle’s edge, she ambled over to within a meter of the little
guard. She crossed her arms, waited a step or two, and then cocked her head at
him. “Do you jack off?” she asked bluntly and loud enough for all of them to
hear.

John
groaned inwardly. Rachel turned away toward John with her eyes and mouth
pinched tight against the impending explosion.

“I’ve
heard it said that if a man’ll lie about that, he’d lie about anything,” she
continued, unabashed. “So? Do ya?”

The
little guard cocked his head right back and ran his tongue around the inside of
mouth before he spoke. “Every day,” he said, without blinking.

“I guess
that makes you an honest man, then,” Donna said, beaming too broadly.

“Not
really,” he said. “I learned to lie at an early age.”

The other
guard chuckled.

“So,
every day, huh?” Donna went on.

“Almost.”

“No pussy,
huh? Things pretty tough around here, pussy-wise?”

“Yep.”

“Better
not let Jacob find out you’re jacking off,” she said.

Chuckles.

“Right
hand or left hand?” she asked.

“Both
hands,” he said. “You know what they say about short guys.”

“Now
there’s a lie!” she said.

They all
had a good laugh over it. The next day, the walk felt a little more fun, and
the guards let them stay outside a lot longer. Within a few days, they knew the
guards' names and were having something resembling conversations with them. The
rules of conduct for the prisoner-guard relationship are universal. At first
the conversations were awkward, but over the course of days, they became more
and more relaxed. The guards, it turned out, didn’t know much, or at least
pretended not to. They were soldiers, mercenaries, they said often, recruited
from Earth and under contract to the Sacred Bond. As long as the Council was in
charge, they’d follow orders, they said, and they didn’t make it a habit to ask
too many questions. Some tidbits did come through, mostly rumors about this or
that, but nothing they could really use. The idea that drifted to them the most
often, frequently through veiled innuendo, was that the Council and most of the
soldiers were one and the same and that the Sacred Bond hadn’t just hired
mercenaries, but had recruited ruthless men and women, or trained them to be
so, from their own ranks, sometimes from their own families, to enforce the
Council’s will with the force of arms. John believed it without blinking. He
said the guards were too dedicated to be anything other than blood kin to the
ranks of the Bondsmen.
 
“I doubt they’re
doing this just for the money,” he said. “Some are maybe, but most of them are
in it because they share the faith.”

Mike came
to Eddie’s window every night and talked to him through the bars. Unlike the
guards, Mike was a pretty good pipeline to the rest of the world, but his
perspective was limited, too. Mike told Eddie everything about the big move or
whatever else sounded important, and Eddie, in turn, would tell the others.
Rachel asked Eddie if she could talk to Mike, but Donna said it was a better
idea if just Eddie did that for now. Donna knew the talks with Mike were
helping them both. Eddie was finally healing—a process that was very important
to her.

They
learned from Mike that the road to the sea was under construction and
preparations were being made to start hauling things over by truck. They had
dozens of trucks to do the job, and Joan said it would take them just a month
or so to get most of the stuff moved over. Mike told Eddie he’d never been so
busy and kept asking Eddie to get out and help them. That always made Eddie
feel good.

Then one
night Mike told Eddie that the road was done and the schedule was in place to
start the move. When Eddie relayed the news, Donna wanted to talk directly to
Mike.
 
Serious questions needed answers
right then, and Mike was the only way to get them. Mike would have to bring
them a pad; the system had the answers—bulletins, schedules, notes. All the plans
were in the system.
 

* * *

The next
night they sat in Eddie’s room with the lights out, waiting for Mike.

“What
time’s he usually get here?” Donna wanted to know.

Eddie
checked his watch. “About now,” he said.

As if on
cue, they heard Mike’s shuffling and grunting and a light bong sound as he
climbed up on the barrel. They all stepped up on the bed and huddled around the
window.

“Mike?
I’m Donna Applegate. Do you remember me?”

“Are you
kiddin’?”

“And this
is Rachel and John.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“We have
some questions for you, and we might want you to find out some things for us.
Do you think you can do that?”

“I’d do
anything for you ma’am,” Mike said.

“Call me
Donna, okay?”

“Okay.”

“These
are very important, Mike, and we need you to find the answers right away, if
you don’t know them.”

“I’ll do
everything I possibly stinkin’ can.”

“That’s
good,” Donna replied, inwardly smiling at his complete willingness. “Now. Do
you know why Jacob is moving the settlement?”

“Nobody
knows that one.”

“Somebody
must know,” John said.

“Everybody
just guesses or makes things up,” Mike said. “People think Jacob is either
crazy or some kind of super leader or something . . . a . . . a . . . what’s
that thing . . . ?”

“A
prophet?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah.
They call him that,” Mike said.

“Mike?”
Donna asked. “Is Jacob the one who's giving all the orders now?”

“He sure
is,” Mike said. “Nothing starts or stops without a order from Jacob.”

Rachel
lowered her head, shook it and chuckled. “When do they start moving things to
the sea?” Donna asked.

“We start
loading the warehouse stuff into the trucks tomorrow.”

“What’s
the mood,” Rachel wanted to know. “What do the people say about the migration?
Are they in favor of it?”

Mike
thought it over. “Well, all the religious folks seem to like the idea as long
as Jacob says it’s okay. The rest don’t like it. My boss hates the idea—almost
everybody does—includin’ me. The guards don’t seem to mind too much. Nobody
even knows what they’re moving into. It sounds pretty weird.”

“It is very
weird, Mikey,” Rachel added. “Mike?" Can you get us a key to the door of
this shelter?”

“Skip it,
Mike,” Donna said sharply to Rachel. “He can’t do that.”
 

“Never
hurts to ask,” Rachel came back in a whisper, and shrugging her shoulders.

“I
wouldn’t know how to do that . . .”

“Forget
it, Mike,” Donna said. “She was kidding.”

“How many
Council members are there?” John asked.