Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (18 page)

The vine was covered with bright
yellow flowers similar to orchids. She leaned in and breathed the scent of one.
The scent was faint but sweet and rich, compelling her to breathe it in again.
The fruit looked not too unlike bunches of grapes, but each individual grape
was egg-shaped and longish and a reddish-orange color. The color put her off,
but if she were going to make it back, she’d have to have nourishment and
water. The fruit in front of her held the potential for both. She reached out
to pick a bunch.

A mean little hiss came out at
her. She snatched her hand back.

She tried to find the offending
organism, peering around and squinting into the vines around the fruit—but saw
nothing. Whatever it was had good camouflage.

She chose another bunch and
slowly brought her hand toward it. The same hiss greeted her when her hand
reached the same distance from the bunch.

She drew back and looked.

Nothing.

She tried again.

A hiss came back.

Once more. This time, she kept
her open hand close to the bunch. The hiss continued unabated for a full minute
until she withdrew her hand.

Nothing has that much air.

She reached up and plucked the
fruit from the vine. The plant hissed briefly then stopped as the bunch
separated from
the
vine. She grinned. The plant itself had made the noise.

Hissimus Applegati,
she thought.

She separated one of the grapes
from the bunch and sniffed it. It had no scent she could detect. She mashed it
in her fingers and juice and meat squeezed out as it split open. She touched
her tongue to the juice that ran down her thumb. It tasted sweet. She
considered it a moment longer, then pinched off a piece of the pulpy meat with
her teeth and munched it around. The piece was almost too small to taste, so
she got a bigger one and nipped around at it. It was extremely sweet and fruity
with a slight citric taste, a hint like orange. She spat it out and waited for
some after-taste that would warn her off it. No weird flavor or sensation
developed. She swallowed.

She plucked another from the
bunch, wrestled the tough stem off with her teeth, put the whole thing in her
mouth and slowly bit down on it. The little globe burst open and a gush of
sweet fruity juice spurted over her tongue. She chewed. There was a small hard
seed in there, and she worked it forward and spat it out. She swallowed.

“Mmm . . . good . . .” she said
just to make it official.

She ate a couple more. Then,
ignoring the objections of the plant, pulled off several bunches and cradled
them in her arms. She carried them back and put them in the hole.

There
were some plants with huge broad leaves against the perimeter, and she yanked
off some and carried them back and stuffed them through the opening.

It was getting dark, and she had
one more thing to do.

She found a thin vine coiled
around one of the tree’s roots. She tore off a couple meters of it and poked it
inside. It was supple and flexible. Just right.

With darkness approaching, she
climbed into her nest. She arranged the leaves under her as flooring and
stacked the grapes up in a neat pile off to the side.

Using her knife, she cut two
pieces of vine about a half meter each in length. Then she tied the vine snugly
around the cuffs of her cottons to seal them off. She zipped the front of the
suit up as high as it would go and checked the fit around her neck. It wasn’t
quite tight enough. She cut another length of vine, looped it around her neck
under the collar and tightened it.

That done, she leaned back
against a root and had some grapes. By the time she’d eaten her fill, it was
nearly dark. She could see glimpses of an occasional flying thing whiz past the
shelter. As it got darker, the jungle came alive with a growing cacophony of
clicks, hisses and whistles until individual sounds were almost
indistinguishable against the background din.

They weren’t kidding . . .

She instinctively drew herself up
against the noise and fluttering, scampering activity. She put her bare hands
between her legs and squirmed back as far from the opening as she could. The
darkness increased and, with it, the sound. She’d never heard so much life. It
was as if the jungle itself had literally come alive.

From time to time, she felt
something crawl over her then vanish. These intruders she left alone. The ones
that crawled or fluttered against her face or neck, however, were greeted with
a fretful slap. Once or twice, she was tempted to turn on the light, just to
see what it was, but she was afraid the light would attract even more bugs to
her position.

As she watched through the
opening she detected an ever so slight brightening to the landscape and was
soon able to discern the tangled roots of an adjacent tree. The moonlight
brought with it visible trails of flying, darting things that zipped through
the air or scampered past. Part of her wished it could have stayed totally
dark.

Finally, she leaned her head
against a root, closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Her bones and muscles
ached, especially her shoulder, ribs and parts of her back that had been racked
the worst by the fall. She put her hands on automatic to brush and whack at
anything that got close to her face or neck.

She dozed only to be awakened
time and again, never quite getting any real sleep. Years later, it seemed, she
raised her head on a stiff neck and looked outside.

Now at their zenith, the twin
moons’ light illuminated a flurry of moving, flying things.

At the edge of the clearing,
something big and dark moved like a shadow brushing against leaves, making them
move.

She thought it was a shadow at
first, but that impression vanished as it moved. It was a monstrous humped
thing that seemed to glide over the ground, one end swinging back and forth as
if on a scent trail. She tried to retrace her steps, praying that if it were on
a trail, it wasn’t hers. She glared wide-eyed at it, praying it would just go
away.

It turned and glided toward her.

She felt herself stiffen as the
thing came to within a meter or two of the shelter. She could feel its mass
pounding the ground like some strange and massive machine.

It stopped.

She sat as still as stone.

The thing glided up and rammed
into the root shelter, sending a shock through it and shaking debris and bugs
loose from above.

It knows I’m here.

She tried to cram herself even
farther back into the cavity, drawing herself up as tight as she could.

There was a huffing, puffing sound
like the thing was trying to suck her out of the burrow. It turned, first one
way then the next, as if trying to decide how best to attack. She got glimpses
of its head, a flattened insect-like protuberance tucked up and underneath a
thick ridge of rolled chitinous material. She could make out huge clawed feet
just under the carapace, mounted on either side of the head. Smaller,
sharp-tipped legs ran the length of the carapace. They pounded up and down
rhythmically as it moved.

The thing came forward and bumped
the shelter again.

“Go away!”

The thing bumped again.

“Shoo!”

It started to dig, sending huge
shovelfuls of dirt back through the clearing. Each swipe with those enormous
claws sent the thing forward with a hollow bump against her sanctuary.

“Shit!”

She appraised the roots
surrounding her. Most of them were as thick as her waist.

The creature continued to dig and
huff against the refuge, creating an enormous crater right in front of her. She
could hear the massive claws ripping and tearing against the roots and could
see light-colored shreds of root littering the ground behind it.

She felt the ground give way
under her feet as a big chunk of the floor slumped out into the crater.

“Shit! Go away!”

She could see the thing’s huge
maw just a meter from her feet, chomping back and forth; waiting for some part
of her to fall within reach.

Another section of floor fell
away and the relentless claws were taking a toll on the barrier that separated
her from the organic machinery below. The thing showed no hint of tiring and
continued to dig like a monstrous engine.

It’s
gonna get me. I’ve got to get out.

There was a separation in the
roots above and behind her head that opened into a dark space. It didn’t look
quite big enough for her to fit through, but she had no choice.

Ignoring the stiffness and pain
from the fall, she got up on her haunches and extended her arms up into the
crevice. She started up, putting her shoulder and head through, trying to stand
up into the space. She pulled her other arm up and through, then exhaled and
sawed back and forth until she got her torso through to the waist. She found a
hold above her head and pulled up and squirmed until her hips started through.

Move faster, faster, pull harder—faster!

The last of the ground fell away
under her feet just as her butt slipped through. She twisted onto her side,
drawing her feet up through the opening.

She wiggled around until she
could see down through the gap. Where the shelter had been was now an empty
cavity surrounded by a lattice of thick roots. The creature was still clawing
away at them, shredding chunks off with each swipe. It would be through the
cage of roots in a matter of minutes.

She couldn’t imagine that the
thing could get to her now. She was at least two meters off the ground. It
would have to dig upwards, and she didn’t think it could do that. There was
nothing to do but try to stay calm, hope for the monster to give up, and wait
for her body pains to lessen
—pains
easily forgotten when pursued by
grinding
terror
.

She munched the last of the
aspirin and rested her hand appreciatively on one of the roots in her new
sanctuary. It was twice as thick as the ones below.

She patted it.

Never, fucker.

She squirmed around until she got
reasonably comfortable. She put her head against her arm and lay there
listening to the creature as it scrabbled against the roots below; trying to
get her—trying to eat her. She could feel the thing’s power through the tree
with each stroke.

A thin, pale, moonbeam, split
into two shades by the larger and smaller moons that were the source of it,
came in through a crack above and illuminated a patch on the root across from
her. As the minutes passed, she watched the double patch of light creep across
the root’s surface. She raised up, leaned over and put her face in the
moonlight, trying to see the source.

She dodged and peered up through
the hole. Finally, she could see both moons, not all at once, but she knew
which one was the big one and which was the small one from their color.

She smiled. She could clearly see
which one was ahead of which.

She remembered lying in her bed
on the first night on Verde. She’d watched the two moons passing over, the
small one chasing the large one directly over the clinic, straight across its
mid-line. The clinic was sitting parallel to the jungle’s perimeter. That
meant that the moons were tracing a path at a right angle, squarely over the
installation.

She got her bearings.

The moons were guiding her home.
She’d been lucky with her little stick compass; she’s been on the right course
since she started out.

All I have to do is stay alive
long enough to get back.

She lay there, safe in her
gnarled womb, listening to the huffing, scrabbling machinery under her.

She closed her eyes and tried to
block out the rhythmic, relentless sound of the creature’s scratching. As the
hours wore on, she began to doubt her castle walls could withstand the constant
grinding. She imagined that the creature could uproot the entire tree, topple
it, then grind away at the root ball until it scratched her out, gnawed her out
a little at a time, like a bit of meat from thick, tough fruit.