Free Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) by David Coy

less than a minute to cover the distance from his shelter
to the perimeter. He jumped up on a fallen log at the jungle’s edge then leapt
like an ape into the thick foliage, feeling his blood heat in anticipation.
The cool green branches and rough vines felt good against his bare skin.
    He rubbed the cool metal tube between his legs and grinned. Then
he twisted and cranked his head around and around on his neck and let the magic
wire transform him.
    His naked body and the tool were all that mattered in the
universe. With the magic wire on his wrists and the rod in his hand, he was
invisible and invulnerable. Only his naked camouflaged skin stood between the
inner hunter and the prey he sought. He would have liked a wet and dark spot to
crouch in, to watch and jump from, and this was as good as it came.
    He tromped in about ten meters, batting the leaves and vines out
of the way. Then he turned ninety degrees to the left and paralleling the
shelters, headed toward the far corner of the cluster. He’d have to guess at
the distance but figured he could do that well enough. He stomped on, slapping
at the bugs that landed on him and bending and breaking the soft branches and
vines away as he worked his way through the tangle.
    A din of screeching, chirping and hissing filled the air, and the
tactile sensation of wet leaves and branches and tickling insects soon gave
way to prickling and poking and stinging irritation.
    Maybe I should have worn some clothes this time.
    He felt himself going suddenly downhill and had to hang onto the
soft branches to keep from falling. His feet slid some on the next step, and
the one after that had him flailing and grabbing, then tumbling, rolling and
sliding down the incline head over heels, clutching at the tool to keep from
losing it.
    He rolled to a stop at the bottom and stood up, brushing the
leaves and bugs off his naked body. He stung in a hundred places from scrapes
and cuts. He felt bugs all over him.
    “Goddamn . . .” he muttered in frustration.
    It took him less than two seconds to realize he had no idea what
direction to go in.
    He turned around to try to get his bearings.
    The jungle answered back with a monotony of leaves and branches,
giving no hint of the right direction. The din around him made the idea
hopeless of homing in on some shelter borne beacon of sound.
    He slapped at an especially big and ugly bug and felt its mass as
his hand hit it. It smacked with a noise into a broad leaf some distance away.
    He took his best guess and started to walk. A few meters farther,
and he was going uphill again: a good sign. Encouraged, he picked up the pace.
That was it. He’d fallen into the ravine and started back up exactly in the
direction he’d intended in the first place. Using the vines and branches to
pull himself up, he was up out of the ravine and on level ground in no time.
    He walked a few meters farther and, when he judged the distance to
be just right, turned ninety degrees again and headed for what was surely the
clearing.
    When he reached the point where he should have broken out but
didn’t, the sense of dread built with each step. He continued on until he was
absolutely sure he had gone wrong.
    He stopped, and fear welled up and made him choke.
    Kelly wasn’t stupid. There was a way to do this. He just had to
keep his wits . That’s all , he
reassuredhimself. The way to do it
was to walk in sets of four straight lines of progressively longer distances
turning ninety degrees to the left at the end of each leg. That would do it. He
wasn’t that far from the clearing, he
just didn’t know where it was.
    He started off. The first leg would be one hundred meters and he
paced it off as accurately as he could. He slapped and whacked at the foliage
as he struggled through.
    A hundred paces later, he stopped.
    No clearing.
    He turned left and started counting.
    He stopped at one hundred paces to slap at the insects on his
sweating face and chest. They were getting