Free Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits by David Coy

bullshit. If they’ll kill us for
that, they’ll kill us for anything.
    When he
stopped speaking, the rubber-clad man holding the flask turned to Jacob for the
signal, and Jacob nodded. The man began to pour the liquid over the head of
Duggings. Duggings blinked as the liquid ran into his eyes, and then he wiped
it away with a disgusted hand. He spat it away from his mouth and just tried to
smile as the stream covered his head and upper body.
    “Fuck
you,” he said, spitting and trying to grin. “Fuck you and your Council, and I
hope you go straight to Hell, since you believe in it so damned much. We all
gotta die of something.”
    “Go now,”
Jacob said to the crowd, “and listen to the profane man die.”
    It was
dusk, and they knew that before dawn, they’d be hearing Duggings scream as the
fecund juice from the Vilaroos plant penetrated his skin and turned his body
into a living incubator for its seeds. Short of being burned or skinned alive,
it was the most grisly death Joan could think of; slow and painful and hideous.
    “Why don’t
they just shoot him?” Joan wanted to know. “Dammit! They could just shoot him,
couldn’t they? Assholes.”
    “Joan,
shut up,” Bill said, “unless you wanna be next in that goddamned cage.”
    Habershaw
happened to glance at Jacob and saw that he was looking their way, and thought
for a brief, gut-churning second that Jacob could hear what he just said.
    Jacob,
they say, had walked in out of the jungle and become an immediate member of the
Bondsmen’s Council. Some said it was just because he was strange, and the
Council itself was strange so they matched right up. Others said it was because
he carried with him a book called The Bible that had been printed almost a
thousand years ago. The Bondsmen’s laws were supposedly based on that book and
much of the original meaning, changed and watered down through the years, had
been re-claimed, and rejuvenated from it. Now they said, they had the authentic
document, the original blueprint. They said the Bondsmen’s scientists looked at
it for a week before deciding it was genuine. There were other rumors about how
Jacob was God’s Chosen One and destined to become High Priest. Almost everyone
believed that one. The stuff about being in suspended animation for a thousand
years got sideways looks most of the time.
    He scared
the hell out of everybody, even the other Council members. That part was true.
    “Somebody
ought to come out here tonight and kill Duggings,” Lavachek said. “That would
be the humane thing to do.”
    “You’d be
right in there with him if they caught you,” Habershaw whispered. “Let’s get
out of here. Maybe he’ll go quick.”
    “They
never go quick,” Joan said as they turned away.
    When
Jacob came along some ninety Verdian days ago, things began to get much worse
and much stranger fast. They couldn’t say or do certain things now and wear
certain clothes—even certain colors on certain days. Rules had been applied to
almost everything. Each day the bulletins would describe some weird-assed thing
to be done. Things they’d taken for granted as commonplace suddenly couldn’t be
done anymore. One of the worst offenses was speaking against the Council, and
Joan constantly walked that razor’s edge. Habershaw worried constantly that
she’d be taken away and executed. Oddly, no women had been executed yet, but
there was always a first time. Habershaw prayed that Joan, with her quick
tongue, wouldn’t be the one to set that unfortunate precedent.
    “I heard
today that Jacob found that thing he’s been looking for,” Lavachek said as they
walked along.
    “You
know, that big-assed plant thing he’s been talking about. They found it over by
the shore.”
    “What
kind of plant thing?” Joan asked. “There're lots of plant things on the
planet.”
    “I heard
it was some huge hive or something. Big. We’re talking a half a kilometer big.”
    “No
plant’s that big,” Joan