Read Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits for Free Online

looking
down at the stranger, as if he weren't there.
    “I’d say
he’s much better actually,” Donna said. “His pulse is normal, his breathing is
regular, and I’ve got his electrolytes well within the normal range. If I could
weigh him, I’d say he’s maybe put on a little weight. I keep getting the idea
he’s trying to move from time to time. I’m thinking about starting some
physical therapy, you know, exercising his joints, but I’m not looking forward
to that.”
    “You mean
you don’t want to lay hands on him?” John teased. “That might be fun.”
    “You’re really
sick,” she smiled. “Far sicker than he is.”   He smiled back. The smile faded, however, when he noticed one of the
patient’s eyes flutter.
    “Check
this,” he said. “He’s trying to open his eyes.”
    Donna
leaned over him and studied the movement. “Come on, Buster. You can do it. Open
those pretty blues or browns, or whatever's.”
      As she watched, one, then the other, of the
patient’s eyes fluttered open, and then closed, several times. Finally staying
open, the eyes stared straight at her and blinked, slowly and thickly. She
reached over and grabbed a small bottle with a little spout on it. “This is
just sterile water, Buster. It won’t hurt.”
    She
flushed his eyes with water and dabbed the excess from his face with a clean
towel. “There. That’s better, huh?” The eyes stared straight at her, and she
was sure now that they saw her. In only an instant, something about them made
her very uneasy.
    The
patient breathed deeply once or twice, and the foul odor that reached her made
her back off and fan the air with her hand. “Gad!”
    “Hey, I’d
say he’s trying to talk,” John said.
    The
patient’s mouth opened slowly and stretched.   It closed and opened, and the tongue worked out and back. She was afraid
to irrigate his mouth because she didn’t know if he could swallow just yet.
Putting liquid in there might cause him to inhale it.
    “You’re
on your own, Mister,” she said. “Come on. Talk to us. Tell us something.”
    Finally,
a sound, thin and shapeless, came up from him like a mist.
    “Helll .
. .” the stranger said.
    “What did
he say?”
    “Quiet,”
Donna commanded.
    “Helll .
. .” he said again
    “Is he
saying hello?” John asked.
    “Quiet,”
she insisted. It sounds more like help. Now shut up!"
    “Helll .
. .”
    A few
more sluggish attempts followed, and Donna thought she saw him swallow,
although his mouth was partially open at the time.
    John
leaned in over Donna’s shoulder. “What’s your name?” he asked loudly.
    “You can
forget it, John,” Donna said. “He can’t hear a thing.”
    “Oh.”
    “Come on,
Buster. Just say anything,” John persisted.
    The
disconcerting blue eyes slowly closed, and the mouth dropped open and stopped
moving altogether.
    “Well, I
guess that’s all we’ll get for now,” Donna said, blotting his desiccated mouth
with a moistened towel. “All that work must have tuckered him out.”
    John
scowled and shook his head. “I don’t know why we’re bothering. He’s useless to
us. Look at him. He’s so emaciated he looks like . . . like . . . he’s dead
already. He can’t hear. He can’t talk. What a waste. I say we just euthanize
him and bury him outside. Or better yet, just leave his carcass out on the
dirt—at least his body would be some use to the bugs.”
    “Sorry.
We can’t do that,” she said to John with a little smile.
    “I
could,” John said with confidence.
    “Oh, I
know you could,” she replied smiling, “And that’s why we can’t leave you
alone with the sorry bastard.”
    She had
to admit the patient was having a peculiar effect on them. These mixed feelings
they were developing were quite pronounced, at least for Donna and Rachel.
John, on the other hand, rarely had mixed feelings about anything.
    “I
wouldn’t murder the sonofabitch if that’s what you mean,” he snorted.
    “Oh, I
see,” she