Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (29 page)

“No. I’m
not moving. Where’s Rachel?”

Mahoney
looked around. They had walked into a canyon of stacked crates and were
virtually hidden from view.

“You
know,” Mahoney said. “I could beat the shit out of you right here and call it
an accident. In fact, I’ve been wanting to beat the shit out of somebody all
goddamned day.”

“Why
don’t you just beat your dick?” Donna said.

“Okay.
That’s it,” Mahoney said angrily. “I’m gonna have a piece of you two right now.
I don’t give a shit.”

He put
his rifle down and pulled a thin black baton out of its holster. He skipped up
at John, raising the stick as he came.

All John
could think as Mahoney stepped closer was how thoughtless the attack was.

When
Mahoney was close enough, John kicked out smartly with his right foot and
connected with Mahoney’s groin. A dull thud echoed in the crate canyon. The
baton stopped in mid-air. A long, deep, moan came from Mahoney’s diaphragm. He
sank to his knees and fell over on his side. He lay there for a moment, then
began to roll slowly from side to side, his eyes shut tight. “Nice one,” Donna
said. “Now watch this.”

She
stepped up next to the fallen man and looked over at John with her eye ablaze.
Then she smiled down at Mahoney.

“This is
for being such a dumb sonofabitch,” she said. “If you worked for me, I’d fire
your ass.”
 
Then she bit her lip in
determination, jumped straight up in the air, bent her knees and stiffened her
body. She came down like a solid stump with her knees together square in the
middle of Mahoney’s chest. There was a sickening crack and a
hoooof
of escaping air. She fell over grinning, like a child playing a
silly game.

“Christ!”
John said.

Getting
to her feet, Donna said with a smile, “That’ll teach him. That’ll teach him.”

John
looked at Mahoney. The impact must have crushed his ribs and lungs and
certainly damaged his heart. He wasn’t moving. She’d probably killed him with
that vicious dead fall.

Donna was
down on her butt, scratching at Mahoney’s pockets with her hands, trying to get
to the key. John looked at her for a moment, dumbfounded. It wasn’t a matter of
speculation whether or not Donna Applegate was a cold-blooded killer—it was now
an established fact.

“Got it!”
she said, pulling the straight little key out of Mahoney’s shirt pocket. She
got up and backed toward John with it. “Turn around,” she said.

They had
the cuffs off in seconds. John tossed them between the containers.

“We can’t
leave him here like this,” John said, gesturing at Mahoney’s body.

Donna
looked around, thinking.

“Help me
with this container,” she said.

They
hauled one down off a stack, opened it and dumped the contents out on the
floor. Then they hefted Mahoney’s body into the crate, closed the top and
pushed it out of the way.

“There,”
Donna said with another grin. “At least he’s out of sight. If he’s not dead, he
soon will be. Grab the rifle.”

They
crept back the way they’d come and peered around the last stack of containers
toward the opening. It was easily a hundred meters away. The jungle was framed
by the enormous arched portal like a scenic painting. Donna was suddenly filled
with a desperate longing to be in that painting.

“I can
live there,” she said solemnly. “I’ll find a way.”
 

“That’s
some hope,” John said. His thoughts were focused on finding Rachel. The thought
of leaving her in the hands of the Council angered him beyond reason.
 
Putting words to the next thought that
formed, he said, “The first thing is to get the hell out of here until we can
plan something.”
 

“Getting
out’s the easy part,” she said stepping out into plain view. “We just walk out.
Come on.”

She was
right. No one took notice of them. They were background noise, unrecognizable
against the bustle. They weren’t broadly known to begin with; even the Council
member had had to ask who Rachel was to be sure. There were other faces moving
by on foot or on a lift that he’d seen before, and who had seen him, but those
few sparks of recognition were without import and brief.

They
walked briskly, but not too fast. Donna nattered meaninglessly and gestured at
John the whole way, somehow synchronizing their level of activity with their
surroundings and deepening the camouflage. When they walked by the woman Rachel
had greeted, she looked up and smiled.

Dodging
the lifts flowing in and out, they walked up the ramp and headed straight for
the jungle’s edge. Once they were outside, John had to hold back the impulse to
run. On the way, they went by the huge bulldozer again. Habershaw was still
leaning on the railing, stuck in that bent-leg position, looking down at them.
This time, John lifted a hand in a cautious greeting. Habershaw hesitated, then
lifted one in return, crowning the silent exchange. When Habershaw cupped his
hands to yell down at them, John cringed.

“Come on
up!” he said. “You can hide in the rig! Go around the back. They can’t see you
from there!”

They
continued on as if they hadn’t heard him. “Should we take him up on it?” Donna
asked.

“It’s
probably better than sleeping in the jungle,” he replied.

They went
around the back, saw the open-air elevator, got in and shut the gate. John
pushed the button which started the three-story climb with a lurch. When they
got to the top, Habershaw was there to greet them. He turned the elevator off
and locked it in place.

“There,”
he said. “If they want to come up, they’ll have to climb up. This way. Hurry.”

“You
don’t have to do this,” John said.

“Save
it,” Habershaw said.

He
ushered them along the catwalk on the backside of the rig. It ran nearly the
entire length and terminated at the cab.

Donna
noticed the two spots of blood seeping through the back of Habershaw’s shirt.

“What
happened to you?” she asked. “You’re bleeding.”

“Got attacked
by something really nasty,” Habershaw said over his shoulder.

“I’m a
nurse,” Donna said. “You should let me look at it for you.”

“That’s a
deal,” Habershaw said.

He kept
them moving until they were safe in the rig’s little living quarters. John recognized
the Oiler, Lavachek, asleep on one of the bunks. Their footfalls caused him to
come awake and snap around. “Who’s this?” he asked, blinking.

“Friends,”
Habershaw said.

“Yeah,
but who are they?” Lavachek wanted to know.

Donna and
John exchanged looks with Habershaw, waiting for him to make the introductions.
John adjusted the strap on the rifle, just to draw attention to it.

“These
two were with Joan when she died,” Habershaw said to Lavachek and put out his
hand to each in turn. “Bill Habershaw.”

“Donna
Applegate.”

“John
Soledad.”

“We’ve
never officially met.”

“No.”

“This is
Greg Lavachek,” Habershaw said pointing.

Lavachek
sagged and shook his head. “I don’t like this much,” he said. “Being with these
people could get us killed.”

Donna
saved Habershaw the breath and spoke up for him. “That’s fairly ungrateful,”
she said smiling broadly, “considering I saved your life last year, digging
that ugly parasite out of your back and all.”
 
She said it with a big smile, but John saw her disconcerting eye flash
in anger.

Lavachek
swung around and put his feet on the ground and his hands on his knees. “I
remember you all right,” he said.

“Do ya?”
she asked pleasantly.

“Yep.”

“That’s
good. Now remember this,” she said stepping closer to him.

Oh shit,
John thought.

“Don’t
give me any grief, and we’ll get along fine. Don’t give this man here any
grief, either. Do you understand?”

Lavachek
snorted.

“What was
that?” she asked.

“I didn’t
say nothin’.”

Donna
raised her booted foot high; and before Lavachek could move, brought it down on
his sock-covered instep with a
clomp!
Lavachek’s mouth dropped open.

“Wrong!
The answer was
yes!
” she yelled as
John pulled her away. He put his body between her and Lavachek, now holding his
foot with both hands.

“Okay.
Okay,” John said.

“Say yes,
you dick!” she said to Lavachek around John’s shoulder.

“Hey!
Hey!” Habershaw said. “Let’s all just settle down, here.”

“You’re
crazy, lady!” Lavachek finally got out.

“Well,
you figured that out, did you?” Donna asked, relaxing a little. She yanked away
and straightened her clothes.

“It’s
okay,” John said to her.

“Then
tell that bastard not to screw with me.”

“It’s all
right,” John said gently. He tried to soothe her by rubbing her arm. It felt as
tight as a wire. Donna was looking at Lavachek like a terrier focused on a rat,
daring it to move.

Habershaw
puffed air. “Well,” he said. “I could make some coffee.”

Donna
settled down enough to drink the slightly reheated coffee from a dirty and
unceremoniously delivered cup. Lavachek wisely treated Donna like a walking
land mine, avoiding her gaze even after she cheerfully thanked Habershaw for
the coffee. They nursed their warmish drinks in the stuffy little cab. Donna
wanted to close her nose off to the odor of dirty bed clothes and socks that
saturated the air. The musky scent was just so typical of two men living in
tight quarters. Two women wouldn’t tolerate it, even under these conditions.
She took a step closer to the door where the air was a little sweeter.

Habershaw
seemed to read her mind. “Little stuffy in here,” he said. “The shelters aren’t
ready yet, and Lavachek here don’t know jack shit about personal hygiene.”

He slid
the door open a little more for her.

* * *

 
“So they questioned me when I got back to the
rig, but not much,” Habershaw went on as Donna changed his bandages. “They
didn’t seem too interested. I guess they figured since they had the bomb and
captured you, there wasn’t much left to worry about. It wasn’t much of a uprising,
was it?”

“No,”
John said. “Not much.”

Habershaw’s
head bent down toward the floor, and there was a moment of silence. It came
back up with a fake smile. “I thought about cranking up the rig and running a
couple thousand meters of dirt up against that hole, sealing the bastards in.”

“You’re
crazy,” Lavachek said, holding his tongue on the word too, which he almost
added.

Habershaw
ignored him and continued, grinning. “But I figured they’d just find another
way out somewhere and come boiling out like ants to get me.”
 
He laughed a shallow laugh. “Then they’d make
me clear the damned hole, then kill me.”
 

“Life
ain’t fair,” John said. “We have a saying in my family…”

“‘Nobody’s
keeping score’,” Donna finished for him, then added, “except me.”

She taped
down the last bandage and pressed it with her hand. “There. That’ll do for
now.”

“Thanks.
You’re not the only one,” Habershaw said. John’s thoughts drifted to Rachel,
and the grinding impetus to do something—anything—began to build in him again.
He didn’t want to shift attention away from the implied memory of Joan Thomas,
but he had no choice.

“How are
we going to get Rachel out?” he asked Donna. “Who’s Rachel?” Habershaw wanted
to know.