Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits by David Coy Page A

can’t. We were barely living as it was.”
    “Then
we’ll find a new place, somewhere that bugs hate.   We’ll . . . we’ll steal a shuttle, and we’ll
find a new place just like before.”
    “There’s
no way out of this thing, Rachel. It’s got bars all around it, top to bottom.”
    “Oh, God,
we have to get out.”
    “Rest . .
.”
     
    * * *
     
    As usual,
she ate as if she were starving. Nothing seemed to diminish that peculiar
trait. While John and Donna picked at their food as if it were something
curious, Rachel pounded hers down as though she’d been starved.
    Eddie
didn’t seem to be taking imprisonment too badly, but he had learned early on to
shut his emotions down and just coast when he wanted to—when he needed to.
    “When’s
our trial do you think?” Donna asked.
    “Won’t be
a trial,” Rachel said into her tray between bites.
    Paraphrasing
Rachel’s dream, John explained what she meant.
    “A
dream?” Donna asked when he was done.
    “A
dream,” John said.
    “Why just
us?” Donna asked.
    “Not just
us. Everybody,” Rachel answered.
    Donna got
up from the table and gave John a knowing look. John pursed his lips. Her
dreams were starting to get to Donna. Her eating and her seizures were starting
to get to Donna. This whole mystical, bullshit viewpoint Rachel had was
starting to get to Donna.
    “They’re
gonna kill us, Rachel,” Donna said with an unusual harshness. “Get used to the
idea.”
    “You may
hope they do,” Rachel said.
    Donna
glared at her. “Screw this,” she said. “I’m going to bed. Put your dreams up
your ass.”   Her blue-brown eye flashed at
them like ice in the sun.
    “We’re
not supposed to fight at the table, remember?” Rachel said as a matter of fact.
    “I’m not
at the table. Goodnight,” she said and stomped off.
    Eddie
just hunkered down and hoped the fight didn’t get any worse. He didn’t like it
when they fought. They didn’t do it often, but he still didn’t like it.
    They were
being held in an old, abandoned shelter. It wasn’t very clean inside, but it
was bug-tight and large enough to accommodate them. Donna stomped down the hall
and picked the first bedroom as her own. The bed had sheets on it; and when she
went into the bathroom, she found more items for personal hygiene in the sink,
rather than on it. She picked the items out and put them away. That done, she
sprayed down the dirt inside the shower stall and took a long hot shower. She
hoped she’d run the hot water out for the rest of them.
    It was
barely dusk, and they’d been cooped up in the shelter all day with nothing to
do but sit and wait for Rachel to wake up. Donna wasn’t at all tired, but she
went to bed anyway.
    Eddie
could tell Donna had taken the first room because the door was closed tight.
Rachel and John had the second already so he took the last one, the small one
in the back. Compared to what he was used to, it was nice. He sat on the bed
for a while then climbed up on the bed and looked out through the bars covering
the window. It was almost dark. The bugs were starting to get active; the
jungle was getting noisy. A few of the smaller bugs had started banging into
the screen.
    Eddie was
on the brink of sleep when he heard the voice at the window.
    “Eddie,”
the voice said in a whisper. “Eddie Silk. Hey. Wake up!"
    “Wake up,
asshole,” another voice added.
    “Don’t
call him that,” the first voice said in an apparent desire to protect.
    “Well, he
is one.”
    “Eddie.
It’s Mike. Hey.”
    Eddie
recognized the voice. His first impulse was just to bury himself in the sheets.
    “Eddie,”
Mike said, a little more persistent. “Hey. Wake up.”
    Eddie
figured they’d just keep at him until he answered, so he stood up and put his
head close to the window. On barrels stood Mike and Peter Ho, dressed in net
suits. Mike was smiling at him.
    “Hi,”
Eddie said.
    “Hi,”
Mike said. “We saw them bring you in this morning. You’re a regular