Read Online Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) by David Coy - Free Book Online

thought it would burst when the sound started. Sometimes they’d pass by her
hole and stop at someone else’s and whistle them out, not her. Then sometimes
Gilbert would walk past and cast a sober, priestly look in at her to let her
know that he knew she was all right this time. He did that to everyone,
though, just to puff up his own importance. Sometimes he’d walk along and pare
his nails with the tiny little knife he’d found. Sometimes he would nod to her
in greeting and she was oddly encouraged by that. There wasn’t a lot in the way
of normal human decency in the ship so even the sanctimonious nod of greeting
from a hypocrite was strangely welcome if the timing was right.
    On the times when she was passed over, she would hear the whimpering
pleas for it not to be them this time and she would fill with guilt. Sometimes
she would see Gilbert standing there not listening to the begging. Sometimes he
would seem to listen, then he’d tell them it would all be all right, but they
had to go along—or die. Then he’d give them some “God this” and “God that.”
    She tried not to come out once when the goon stood there and
whistled to her. When she didn’t move, the goon came in after her. It didn’t
like doing that, and she could tell it was pissed and that she’d made a big
mistake. The goon could barely fit through the opening. It grabbed her by the
ankle with its enormous hand and pulled her out so roughly she thought it was
going to pull her leg off. Gilbert took the opportunity to lecture her in front
of the goons, even though they probably didn’t understand a word of it. He
told her that she was very lucky to be alive and that if she ever did that
again she wouldn’t live long enough to regret it. Useless stuff like that. But
that was the last time she didn’t move when a goon whistled for her.
    There were about as many holes as there were people in this
section of the ship. She knew there were more people than just the ones along
this tube because she had seen them being pushed into the small stinging cells.
She had also seen many different faces in the big chamber where they did the
cutting and probing. She had once imagined that the ship was ten or fifteen
miles wide. She didn’t think it was, but had no way of knowing it wasn’t. It
was much bigger than this little section, though, she was sure of that.
    Mary had a fairly comfortable hole as holes went. She had put a
little extra effort into the bed, which was the only meaningful accoutrement.
They were allowed access to the blankets and the abundance of sleeping bags in
the dump on a regular basis. It was always warm in the ship, and she couldn’t
stand the idea of sleeping in a sleeping bag because of it. But the idea of
being uncovered while she slept bothered her so she had a nice soft bed made of
several sleeping bags as a mattress and a light blanket over that. She’d seen a
pillow in one of the other holes once and had thought about copping it, but
couldn’t bring herself to, so she’d made do with yet another sleeping bag
rolled up as a pillow. There were other things in the dump, too, most of it
completely useless. Tents, pot and pans, lawn furniture, coolers, kitchen
stuff like silverware, and of course an abundance of can openers. There were
occasionally cigarettes and matches or lighters to stoke them up with, too.
That was a big plus. Sometimes, cigarettes would show up in the grocery, too.
She couldn’t understand why the hell they gave them cigarettes.
    The dump was the only source of what human stuff they had. The really
curious thing was that it had all been carefully and strangely filtered by the
goons. The goons job, from what she could see, was number one, to catch them
and, two, to keep them fed and alive. She had once seen a garden hose in the
dump and wondered how they thought a godamned garden hose could help them stay
one wit more alive in this place. One of the few times she’d smiled since she
had been abducted