Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) by David Coy

the same time. The goon had him around the neck with
one hand and was shaking him like a doll. It was shaking him and whistling that
childish whistle at him, too, trying to make its point all too plainly. Fred
finally stopped choking and screaming as if he was a strange toy someone just
turned off. The goon shook him a moment more then let him go and he crumpled on
the floor of the tube. The goon watched him for a second, then kicked him a
little with its huge bare foot. The intention was obviously to rouse him, but
the massive foot’s inertia actually moved him two feet across the floor as if
he’d been shoved by the leg of an elephant.
    Gilbert
glided out of his hole and around the two big bastards and squatted down next
to Fred. His Bible, as usual was in his hand. He put his free hand on Fred’s
shoulder and Mary couldn’t hear what he said, but she could imagine it. First
“God this” and “God that.” Then he’d tell Fred he had “to go or he’d die.”
They’d put him down a feed hole and that would be that—if he was lucky. “There
were even worse things, Fred,” he’d say. There wouldn’t be a lot of sympathy in
the thin voice, just reason—the kind of rock-cold reason that gives the
listener only the most impossible of choices. After that, then some more “God
this” and “God that” and Fred would get up and go. He might call it “tough
love.”
    Gilbert
was tight with Tom Moon. They shared a hole. Birds of a feather flock together,
Mary’s mother had taught her.
    Distrust
one, distrust them all.
    It wasn’t
like Fred had a real choice in the matter, anyway. They’d do with him as they
wanted. It was common knowledge that for some reason, once a captive gave up,
he was useless to them and nothing more than meat for the ship. If Fred got up
off the floor now, his choice was made.
    Slowly,
Fred got up on one knee. Gilbert helped him the rest of the way up. There was
very little loose dirt in the ship, but in a show of sudden resolve, Fred
brushed dirt from the legs of his pants and the front of his plaid shirt and
smiled at Gilbert. He held the smile and turned it to Mary. When she saw that
smile, she thought it was the most insane smile she had ever seen. He was
smiling like a mindless, spineless sap who’d just bought a used car he didn’t
want from a smooth salesman he wanted to please. His ministry done, his holy
job finished, Gilbert nodded knowingly to the big bastards that Fred was,
“Okay now boys.” The goons ignored him completely and pushed Fred roughly down
the tube.
    Part of
Mary would rather have seen Fred kick and punch and be killed by the big
bastards than to have witnessed the total, sycophantic surrender she was
seeing. She started to turn away in disgust, then her anger turned her back
like an irresistible force.
    “Why
don’t you just kill him!” she yelled down the tube.
    Gilbert
turned slowly and looked at her like she was an annoying child. Then he held
his hand up like a priest to silence her. Speechless heads appeared in the
openings to the holes along the tube, drawn to the ruckus.
    “Fuck
it!” she said. “Just kill us all!”
    After
venting, she cooled off a bit and thought it best to hold her tongue. She’d
made her point, at some risk to herself, and there was no sense in pushing it
further. She might have pushed too far already. She pulled back into the hole.
    Bailey
had drawn up into a fetal position under the blanket. Mary sat down at her
feet, drew her own legs up and stewed.
    “Fucking
place. Fucking things. God, let me out of here.”
    “Is this
Hell?” Bailey asked her.
    Mary
thought about it then smiled wryly. “At least in hell you’d know why you were
there,” she said. “In this place nobody knows shit.”
    “What do
they want?”
    “Ha,” she
blurted. “Nobody knows what they want. They just want to use our bodies. That’s
all anybody knows.”
    The first
big bastard looked into the hole and glared at them. All of the goons’