Colin Wilson - Spiderworld 01 - The Tower

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The Tower
Spider World, Book 02
by Colin Wilson
a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at EOF
Back Cover:
Eight legs good -- two legs bad
Under the bleak 25th Century desert Niall and his family eke out a meagre
existance, hidden from the predatory eyes of the giant spiders that float silently overhead
in their silken death balloons.
For Niall has committed the ultimate crime -- he has killed a Death Spider, and
now it seems only a matter of time before the invincible spiders take their revenge.
However, Niall has one advantage of which the spiders are unaware -- he shares
their gift of telepathy. And when his family is captured, he turns his mind to the task of
liberating humanity from the Spider Lord.
Grafton Books
A Division of the Collins Publishing Group
8 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA
Published by Grafton Books 1988
Reprinted 1988
First published in Great Britain by
Grafton Books 1987
Copyright © Colin Wilson 1987
ISBN 0-586-07288-8
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Collins, Glasgow
Set in Aldus
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.
It was fortunate for Niall that he encountered no predators that afternoon. He was
in a state of shock, and rebellion against fate. He felt that he had been pushed too far, his
emotional resources drained dry. If a scorpion or tiger beetle had blocked his path, he
would have stared at it with a kind of bored disgust, as if it had somehow come too late.
It was pleasant, but a little frightening, to be totally without fear.
He moved fast, following the marks in the sand. The spiders were so light footed
that they left little sign of their passage; it was impossible to guess how many there were.
The footprints of Veig and Siris were quite clear; from their depth in the soft sand, he
could tell that they were carrying burdens -- probably Runa and Mara. Yet although he
continually strained his eyes towards the horizon, he caught no glimpse of them.
The route lay along the western edge of the rocky wilderness between the burrow
and the country of the ants. The main vegetation was thorn and tamarisk; the sand was
strewn with black volcanic pebbles. The countryside rose gradually to a range of
mountains in the distance; to the east lay the black peaks of spent volcanoes. It was a bare
and inhospitable country, and the westerly wind, that had blown over miles of hot grey
rock, dried the sweat as fast as it formed on his body. He took pleasure in his feeling of
grim indifference to these discomforts. The thought of Ulf's bloated corpse made him feel
that physical pain was a boring triviality.
He had lost all sense of time, and was mildly surprised to notice that the sun was
not far above the western horizon. The hills were now closer. The earth underfoot was
red in colour, and there were red rocks stretching into the distance, some of them tall
pillars more than a hundred feet high. It was time to look for a place to sleep. But in this
bleak land, no spot seemed preferable to any other. Eventually, he came upon a great slab
of red stone, buried in the earth at an angle of about thirty degrees. A thorn bush had
grown in its shelter. Niall spent half an hour hacking it out of the ground, then smoothing
the place where it had grown. Then he ate his evening meal -- dried meat and cactus fruit.
The taste of the bitter spring water from the depths of the burrow brought a feeling of
nostalgia, and a sudden desire to burst into tears. He fought it back, clenching his teeth,
and began gathering rocks to make his shelter impregnable to night predators. In this
barren land it seemed an unnecessary precaution, but the activity helped him to suppress
the increasing feeling of sorrow forcing its way through the numbness.
In the early hours of the morning, he was glad of his precaution. He was
awakened by the sound of movement on the other side of the thorn bush. There was now
a faint moon, and he could see the outline of some large creature, probably a scorpion. It
had detected his presence, perhaps by some involuntary movement in his sleep. His hand
reached out and gripped the metal cylinder. He could hear the scraping noise of the
creature's armoured body on the stones. Then the thorn bush moved. He gripped the
nearest branch in both hands, and resisted the pull. Aware of this resistance, the creature
began to circle the bush, looking for a point of access. Niall forced himself into a half-
sitting position, his head pressed against the sloping rock above; hearing his movements,
the creature redoubled its efforts. The moon was reflected briefly from a multifaceted
eye. It was attempting to force a gap between the piled rocks and the top of the thorn
bush, using its armoured shoulders as a wedge. Niall felt the light touch of a feeler
against his foot. Leaning forward, he pressed hard on the side of the cylinder; with a
click, it slid open; at the same time, Niall jabbed with all his strength. There was a hiss of
pain, and the thorn bush was pulled several feet. Expecting at any moment to feel jaws
closing on his flesh, Niall again jabbed into the darkness with his spear. It connected
again, sinking into something soft. Then the creature turned, and he saw the glint of
moonlight on its scaly back as it scuttled off. Whatever it was, it had decided that its
intended prey had a dangerous sting. Niall dragged the bush back into position, then lay
down again, the spear beside him. When he opened his eyes again, it was dawn. He lay
and watched the sun rise, shivering in the chilly air, then ate some dried meat, washed it
down with water, and set off once more towards the hills.
As the ground rose, the air was cooler; the atmosphere was warm and hazy.
Although the ground was too hard to show traces of footprints, he was certain that his
family had already passed this way; the worn, overgrown track had once been an ancient
road, and was the obvious route to the main pass across the hills. In one place where it
descended into a narrow valley, dust had accumulated, and he could once again discern
clearly the footprints of Siris and Veig, and the lighter marks made by the spiders.
A few miles farther on, he came upon a cistern by the side of the road. It had been
made of large slabs of granite, evidently transported from elsewhere; it was about two
feet wide, its top half covered with a large, flat stone. The water was very clear, and there
was green lichen clinging to the walls below the surface. Niall took his cup from his pack
-- it had been carved out of wood by Jomar -- and dipped it into the water; it was
startlingly cold. After drinking his fill, Niall poured water over his head and shoulders,
laughing aloud with relief and delight as the cold water made channels through the dust
on his skin.
There were also clear signs that his mother and brother had halted there; he
recognised the mark of a sandal they had brought as a present from Sefna to her sister.
Yet although he searched the ground minutely, he could find no sign of the footprints of
the children.
As he stared into the water, and at the moss-covered stones that had fallen into it,
he experienced a glow of awakening energy, immediately extinguished by the thought of
his dead father. But it was the first time in two days that he had felt that spontaneous
upsurge of pure joy in being alive. He stared into the water, allowing his mind to relax as
if sinking into the cool depths, with their green-shaded lights. He felt as if he were
relaxing into a comfortable bed; yet his mind remained as wide awake as ever. Part of his
consciousness was aware of his wet hair, of the sun beating down on his back, of the
hardness of the ground against his knees; another part was floating in the shadowy
coolness, drifting peacefully as if time had come to a stop.
Then, suddenly, the water had disappeared, and he was looking at his brother
Veig. Veig was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his head propped against the roots of a
tree. He was obviously exhausted, for his mouth hung open and his face looked grey and
lifeless. But he was not dead, for his chest was heaving. Perched close to his head, a few
inches away, was the pepsis wasp. It seemed to be guarding him in his sleep.
His mother was seated nearby, drinking water in tiny sips from a gourd. She also
looked tired, and her face was covered with black streaks where perspiration had mixed
with the dust of travel.
Without being aware of how he knew it, Niall realised that this scene was taking
place at this moment. He noted there was no sign of the two children, and that the four
spiders who were stretched out in the sunlight were brown and not black. By merely
transferring his attention, he was able to examine them as carefully as if he were standing
beside them. Their bodies were covered with brown, velvety hair. Their faces, seen from
in front, looked oddly human, for they had two enormous black eyes under a kind of
forehead. Under these there was a curved row of smaller eyes, and under these, a
protuberance that looked like a flat nose. The chelicerae with their folded fangs
resembled a beard. Both the front legs and the chelicerae looked very powerful. The
abdominal section was smaller and slimmer than in most spiders. When one of them
heaved itself to its feet to turn its face into the glare of the sun, it conveyed an impression
of muscular strength and athleticism. These creatures actually seemed to enjoy the
sunlight.
Niall had never seen a wolf spider before, but it was obvious to him that these
were hunting spiders, who captured their prey by sheer speed. He also observed that there
were two more large, black eyes at the back of the head, giving them all round vision.
The countryside around them was not unlike the country of the ants: a green plain
with trees and bushes; he could see red berries on the nearest bush. There were also palm
trees and tall cedars. But his vision was limited to the area in the immediate vicinity of
the spiders.
Niall was also interested to observe that he was aware of what was taking place in
the minds of the drowsing wolf spiders. Because they hunted their prey, rather than
waiting for it to blunder into a trap, their mental outlook seemed closer to that of human
beings rather than to that of web-building spiders, and their thought processes were
somehow active rather than passive. This velvet-brown spider whose face was now
receiving the force of the midday sun was thinking about how many days it would take to
get back home again. Niall tried to grasp what it meant by "home", and glimpsed a
bewildering picture of an immense city full of towers -- incredible square towers, full of
windows. Between these towers stretched spider webs, their strands as thick as his grass
rope. And in one of these strange towers lurked a being whose name filled everyone with
fear. When Niall tried to grasp the source of this fear, he seemed to find himself in a vast,
dark hall across which stretched hundreds of grey cobwebs. And from somewhere in its
darkest corner, down a tunnel of cobwebs, black eyes were watching him with the cold
curiosity of a death spider.
Now, suddenly, Niall began to experience a disquietude that made his flesh crawl.
Until this moment, he had felt himself a detached observer, bodiless and therefore
invulnerable. Now, staring into the eyes that watched him from among the cobwebs, he
felt for the first time as if he were actually there in the dark hall, being studied by a totally
merciless intelligence. As the disquietude hardened into dread, Niall instinctively closed
his eyes; the vision immediately vanished, and he found himself looking once more into
the clear water of the cistern, and at the slimy green moss that had grown on its sides.
He looked round nervously, and was relieved to find himself alone. In spite of the
heat of the day, his body felt icy cold. And although he was now back in the country of
barren red sandstone, he continued to feel that the black eyes were watching him from
amid the tangle of cobwebs. It took several minutes for this impression to fade.
As his skin began to absorb the sun's heat, he realised with surprise that he was
hungry. In the stress and misery of the past two days he had felt little or no desire for
food. Now his appetite was back again. He ate slowly, crunching some of the dry, biscuit-
like bread they had brought from Dira, and enjoying the luxury of washing it down with
draughts of cold water.
When he had refilled the gourd with spring water, he relaxed in the shade of a
thorn tree -- first jabbing between the roots with his spear to make sure there were no
centipedes. Lying there, staring at the milky blue sky through the branches, he became
aware that his natural optimism had returned with his appetite. It was plain to him now
that, since his father's death, a cloud had descended on his mind and turned him into a
sleepwalker. Now it was as if he was awake again, and his powers of reason had begun to
reassert themselves.
Ever since he had left the burrow, his energies had been directed to a single
purpose: to join his family. Without thinking about it clearly, he had accepted that this
would involve allowing himself to become a captive of the spiders.
But then he had made the natural assumption that his family were in the hands of
the death spiders. Now he knew this was not so, the situation looked altogether less
hopeless. If he allowed himself to be taken prisoner, the brown hunting spiders would be
in a position to watch his every movement. But while he was free, he could watch them --
and watch for an opportunity to free his family. . .
Before he could do that, he had to catch up with them. Reluctantly -- for his body
still ached with tiredness -- he heaved himself to his feet, pulled on his pack and resumed
the climb to the top of the pass.
The road wound upward between columns of weatherworn sandstone, which in
places lay across the road as if hurled there by an earthquake. The higher he climbed, the
steeper the path became. From this height, he could look back on the route he had
travelled; on the far horizon lay the great plateau, surrounded by desert. He seemed to be
the only creature alive in this immense, empty landscape. For a long time he stared at it --
the land in which his whole life had so far been spent. Then he turned and forced his
aching legs to climb the last thousand feet to the summit.
Suddenly he felt the breeze blowing cool against the sweat on his body; it was
being channelled between high sandstone cliffs, and it carried a smell that he had never
encountered before -- a sharp, clean scent that made his heart lift. Ten minutes later, he
was looking down on a strip of green plain, beyond which lay the immense expanse of
the sea. Even at this distance, the strong, sharp wind carried the smell of salt spray. An
enormous exultation made his heart expand. He felt that he was looking at a land that he
had known in the remote past, at a time long before spiders were lords of the earth.
It was already late afternoon; if he wanted to reach the plain before dusk, he
would have to start now. He raised the gourd to his mouth, to moisten his throat before
beginning the long descent. As he did so, a voice in his ear said clearly: "Niall, be
careful."
The shock almost made him drop the gourd; the water he was drinking went down
the wrong way and made him choke. He had expected to see his mother standing behind
him; but there was no one. Neither was there any cover where someone could hide. He
was standing in the middle of the road, the sheer cliffs rising on either side.
He felt so shaken that he sat down on the nearest rock. It was only then, trying to
reconstruct the sensation, that he decided that the voice had not spoken in his ear, but
inside his head.
He stared down at the flat green plain below, with its trees and bushes. He could
see no sign of living creatures. Yet somewhere down there, Siris was watching him. She
must have seen him outlined against the skyline. And if she had been watching for him,
he could be certain that the brown hunting spiders had also been watching.
As he gazed at the plain, trying to guess where the hidden eyes were concealed,
her voice spoke again. "Go back. Go back." This time it was undoubtedly inside his
chest, and it seemed to be an impulse rather than a verbal message.
He looked behind him, over the path he had travelled, and knew it was pointless
to tell him to go back. There was nowhere to go. He might succeed in hiding in a cave or
gulley for a few hours. But discovery would be inevitable. This bare landscape offered no
concealment.
He was left with two choices: to stay where he was, or to go forward. He chose
without hesitation. It was better to act than to do nothing. He swung the pannier onto his
shoulders, and started on the long downhill road to the plain.
As soon as he began to move, he felt surprisingly light hearted. Niall was too
young and inexperienced to know real fear. Faced with the same choice, his father or
grandfather would unhesitatingly have chosen flight and concealment -- not out of fear,
but out of recognition that a man who allowed himself to fall into the hands of the spiders
had virtually condemned himself to life imprisonment. It was Niall's ignorance that
enabled him to march towards captivity without deep misgivings. Because the future was
unknown, it seemed full of promise.
The downhill road was straighter, and therefore steeper, than the southern
approach to the pass; it made the calves of his legs ache. As he descended towards the
plain, the sea disappeared beyond the horizon, and some of the lightness went out of his
heart. But he was excited at the thought of seeing his mother and brother again, and
strained his eyes continually for any sign of movement on the green expanse below.
There were many locations where the spiders might have lain in concealment, and as he
approached such places, his heart contracted with tension. But when, after two hours, the
road became less steep, and the nearest trees were only a few hundred yards ahead, he
began to wonder if he was mistaken to believe the spiders knew of his presence. The
thought brought a twinge of disappointment. Now there were no large rocks ahead, not
even a bush that was large enough to conceal a grasshopper. . .
This thought was passing through his mind as his eye caught a blur of movement
at the edge of his vision. Then he was hurled forward on to the ground with such force
that the breath was knocked from his body. Powerful forelegs seized him and turned him
over; his arms pressed to his sides, he was lifted clear of the ground. He screamed as he
found himself looking into black, featureless eyes, while unfolded fangs were raised to
strike. Instinctively, he froze, hoping to disarm the aggression by immobility. Then claws
seized him from behind; he felt the pannier removed from his back, and a loop of sticky
silk passed around his body, pinioning his arms.
When the first shock had passed, he became oddly calm. It may have been the
humanoid look of the faces that reassured him. They might have been intelligent lobsters,
with the faces of old men. At close quarters, the hunting spiders had a peculiar, musky
smell which was not unpleasant. When unfolded, their fangs were terrifying; but when
folded into the chelicerae, they looked not unlike two elaborately curled bunches of hair
at the end of a beard. After those first few terrifying seconds, when Niall expected to be
injected with poison, he understood that they had no intention of harming him, and
allowed them to see, by his passivity, that he had no intention of trying to escape.
The spider that held him raised his body clear of the ground so the other spider
could tie his ankles. Whilst moist, the silk had an elastic, pliable quality; yet although
scarcely thicker than a blade of marram grass, it seemed virtually unbreakable. Niall's
ankles felt glued together.
When his arms and legs had been secured, Niall was swung over onto the spider's
back, and held there by its pedipalps -- the nearest thing a spider possesses to a pair of
arms -- and then, suddenly, they were in motion, flying over the hard ground at a speed
that made his head whirl. The spider ran with a loping motion, so Niall bounced up and
down with every long stride. When, periodically, he seemed about to fall sideways off the
velvety back, the spider reached up with its forelegs, without breaking its stride, and
readjusted his position. Behind them ran the other wolf spider, carrying Niall's pack.
Niall had often seen the camel spider -- or solifugid -- travelling across the desert
at this speed, looking like a ball of windblown grass; he had never expected to look down
on the ground as it flashed past his eyes at fifty miles an hour. He tried turning his head
sideways and focusing his eyes on the horizon; this made him feel less dizzy, but the
bumping of his head against the spider's back made it impossible to keep his gaze fixed
for more than a few moments at a time. Finally he closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, and
concentrated on enduring the jerky motion that made the blood roar in his ears.
Then, quite suddenly, he was lying on the ground, and there was a face looking
down at him. A moment later, he recognised the familiar smell of his mother's hair as she
held him tight against her and kissed his face. Then Veig helped him into a sitting
position and held a cup with water to his lips. His mouth felt dry, and his throat was full
of dust, so he coughed violently when he tried to swallow. He realised that his hands and
legs were now free, although the skin was torn where the sticky web had been pulled
away.
His senses cleared; he realised he must have fainted. The spider on whose back he
had travelled -- the largest of the four, and obviously the leader -- was standing there,
looking at him with its featureless black eyes; the line between its mouth and the folded
chelicerae looked like a pair of downturned lips, pursed in disapproval, while the row of
smaller eyes below the main ones looked like some curious disfigurement, a row of
shiny, black warts. It was not even breathing heavily.
Veig said: "Do you feel strong enough to walk?"
"I think so." He stood up unsteadily. Siris began to cry.
"They say we have to move on," Veig said.
The contents of his pack, he saw, had been emptied out on the ground, and one of
the spiders was examining them one by one, prodding them with its foreleg or with a
pedipalp. It picked up the metal tube, looked at it briefly, and tossed it down among the
prickly pears and dried bread. At the same time, Niall felt the mind of the big spider
probing his own. It was trying to observe his reaction to this search of his belongings. But
its insight was crude and uncomprehending. It probed his mind as clumsily as the other
spider was examining the contents of his pack, as if prodding with a blunt finger.
Then its attention was distracted; the other spider was looking with interest at the
folded sheet of spider silk Niall used as a sleeping bag. The big spider went and
examined it carefully, and Niall could feel the impulses of communication that passed
between them. Their language was not verbal; it consisted of a series of feelings and
intuitions. Neither of them could say: "I wonder where this came from?" but what passed
between them was a questioning impulse, accompanied by an image of the death spider
that had vanished in the desert. Simultaneously -- their minds seemed to work in concert -
- both spiders recognised that this silk was too old to be the death spider's balloon, and
they immediately lost interest in it.
Suddenly both spiders became alert. Niall could see no obvious reason for this
sudden vigilance. The big spider hurried off to a nearby thorn tree. When Niall looked
more closely, he could see that they had spun a web between the lower branches and the
trunk. A big grasshopper had jumped straight into it and was struggling frantically. It
made no sound -- the spiders in any case were deaf -- but the vibrations of its panic had
instantly communicated themselves.
While they watched, the big spider paralysed the grasshopper with one swift jab
of its fang, detached it from the web by biting through its strands, then proceeded to eat
it. It was obviously hungry.
Niall took the opportunity to ask the question that had been constantly on his
mind. "Where are Runa and Mara?"
"They took them off in balloons."
"And the wasp and the ants?"
Veig nodded towards the spiders. "Inside them," he said drily.
A moment later, a violent blow knocked him forward on his face. One of the
spiders was standing over him, its fangs extended ready to strike. When Veig tried to sit
up, it pushed him down again with a blow of its powerful foreleg. Veig lay passively,
looking up at the exposed fang that hovered threateningly over his face. Once again, Niall
felt his own mind probed by the leader, which had now finished its meal. It wanted to
gauge his reaction to the threat to his brother. Niall was glad that his chief emotion was
anxiety; he felt intuitively that any sign of anger or aggression would have been punished
instantly.
When it had made its point -- that talking was not allowed -- the spider moved
away and allowed Veig to sit up. Then it prodded Niall with its pedipalp and indicated
the contents of his pack; it was clearly an order to replace them. As Niall did this, he
again felt the mind of the leader probing his own. He observed with satisfaction that he
was able to keep his mind empty and passive, and that the spider seemed satisfied.
Five minutes later they were on the move again. Siris looked weary and drained
of emotion. Niall could sense that she was still in a state of shock at the death of her
husband, and separation from the girls. He could also sense that her delight in seeing him
again was neutralised by a feeling of despair that he was now a prisoner. She seemed to
feel guilty, as if this was her fault. Niall longed to talk to her; but under the continual
surveillance of the spiders, this was impossible. The spiders moved fast, and they
expected their prisoners to keep up with them. Now, at last, Niall could understand how
they had covered so much ground. For them, human walking speed was an unbearably
slow crawl. So the prisoners were forced to move at a trot, while the spiders marched
alongside at what was, for them, a leisurely walking pace. At first Niall was hampered by
the pack on his back, which bounced up and down. When the leader noticed this, it took it
from him, and one of the others was made to carry it. It was a relief to be free of the
burden.
With more leisure for observation, Niall would have enjoyed the countryside
through which they were now passing. He had never seen anywhere so green. This fertile
coastal plain had once been rich farmland -- they passed more than one half-ruined
farmhouse -- and had now been allowed to return to its natural state, with many varieties
of trees and tangled grass underfoot. Insects hummed past them -- flies, wasps,
dragonflies -- and grasshoppers chirped in the undergrowth. To Niall it appeared a kind
of paradise, and it seemed ironic that he should be seeing it for the first time as a prisoner.
An hour later, with the sun sinking behind the mountains, they halted for the
night. The humans were all exhausted; they flung themselves on the ground, their faces
turned to the sky, breathing deeply. One of the spiders began to spin a web under the
nearest low tree, while the others basked in the evening sunlight. As the pounding of
Niall's heart subsided, he drifted off into a pleasant state of relaxation. Momentarily, he
felt the mind of the leader probe his own; but it was obviously a matter of routine, and he
could sense its lack of interest. In a semi-dreamlike state, he tuned in to the minds of the
spiders. It was rather like overhearing their conversation, except that he was also aware of
their physical sensations. At the moment, their chief concern was hunger. Spiders, he
now realised, ate only living food, so could not carry their rations with them when they
were travelling. It was not simply that they preferred the taste of fresh meat; there was
something else -- something about the life-force itself -- that they enjoyed and absorbed.
It also became clear to Niall that, compared to human beings, these creatures were
almost entirely the slaves of instinct. For millions of years they had been little more than
food-catching machines whose whole lives centred on seizing their prey and injecting it
with venom. They had no other interest in life. Niall could enjoy the scenery and think
about distant places, use his imagination. The wolf spiders were indifferent to the
scenery, except as a possible source of food, and totally lacked anything that might be
called imagination.
Fortunately, they were surrounded by an abundance of food. Before the light had
faded, the web had caught half a dozen meat flies, two wasps and a butterfly, and these
had immediately been paralysed and handed to the spiders in order of rank. As they ate
their living prey, their minds became a glow of immense satisfaction. Niall realised with
alarm that part of their hostility towards human beings was that they regarded them as
potential food; when they were hungry, it seemed a waste to be escorting these prisoners
instead of eating them. But as soon as they had satisfied their appetite, this irritability
disappeared. They made no attempt to prevent the prisoners from gathering fruit from the
bushes, and watched with tolerance as Niall climbed a coconut palm and tossed down the
green coconuts into Veig's waiting hands. The humans found the slightly astringent milk
deliciously refreshing, ideal for washing down the dried rodent flesh and stale bread.
With a good meal inside them, their spirits began to revive. A curious atmosphere of
mutual tolerance built up between the humans and the spiders. Niall became aware that
these huge, immensely powerful creatures were the slaves of the death spiders; their
attitude towards their masters was one of respect, but with an undertone of fear and
resentment. They disliked obeying orders and would have preferred to be free to lie in the
sun and catch insects. Even web-building was not natural to them. They did it because it
was the simplest way of catching food; but their natural inclination was to catch their
prey with swiftness and strength. Hunting gave them the deepest satisfaction they knew.
He was so tired that he slept that night without covering, on a makeshift bed of
grass and leaves. When he opened his eyes again it was dawn, and one of the spiders was
already devouring a flying beetle that had been caught in the web. The other spiders were
dozing in the sun; unlike the death spiders, these hunters had no love for the hours of
darkness, and the return of daylight filled them with a drowsy satisfaction. Observing
their lazy, slow-moving minds, Niall was reminded of the ants. It filled him with a
peculiar excitement, this ability to understand the minds of his captors. All his life, he had
been terrified of the spiders. Now some deep intuition told him that this conquest of fear
was the beginning of a far greater conquest.
They ate a breakfast of fruit and dried meat, washed down again with the milk of
the green coconut. The spiders had by this time eaten their fill -- as the sun rose, an
abundance of flying insects blundered into their web. When he came close to this web,
Niall observed that it had a pleasant, sweetish smell; this was obviously what attracted
the insects.
Veig whispered: "I wonder what we're waiting for?"
Niall said: "They're waiting. . ." He hesitated, unable to finish the sentence.
"I know that. But what for?"
"For. . . for someone. For. . . people."
Veig and Siris both looked at him curiously.
"How did you know that?"
Niall shrugged and shook his head. It was a subject he was not willing to discuss
in front of the spiders.
Half an hour went by. The sun was hot, but there was a pleasant breeze from the
north. The humans moved into the shade of a thorn tree, while the spiders continued to
doze in the sun; they seemed to be able to absorb a degree of heat that would have given
a human being sunstroke. One of them rolled on its back, exposing its grey, soft
underbelly to the warmth. The spiders were so confident of their ability to read the minds
of human beings that they felt no need to take precautions.
Niall decided to try an experiment. He was curious to know how far the spiders
would respond to purely mental danger signals. He imagined taking the metal tube out of
his pannier, making it expand into a spear, and driving it into the spider's exposed belly.
The spider showed no reaction. Next, Niall imagined picking up a large, flat stone that
lay nearby, and bringing it down with all his strength on the head of the dozing spider.
Once again, there was no reaction. He was aware that this was because he was merely
toying with the idea, with no intention of putting it into practice. So he deliberately made
a powerful effort of imagination, and tried to envisage what it would be like to stroll over
to the flat stone, then to raise it above his head and dash it down on the upturned belly.
This time, the spider became uncomfortable; it moved its head so its eyes could see in all
directions, and rolled over onto its stomach. It glanced suspiciously at the human beings,
and Niall felt the clumsy probe of its mind. He relaxed his own mind into drowsy
immobility, deliberately creating a mental wave-length of a tent spider. The spider's
vigilance relaxed, and after a few seconds, its mind again fell into the soothing, repetitive
rhythm of physical pleasure.
Then, suddenly, the leader became alert; it sprang to its feet -- Niall again had an
opportunity to observe the swiftness of its reactions -- and stared intently towards the
north. Niall listened, but could hear nothing but the normal sounds of the morning. It was
at least another minute before he was able to detect the sound of movement in the bushes.
Again, he marvelled at the acuteness of the spider's senses.
A moment later, he was amazed to see the figure of a man emerging from among
the trees. At the same instant, the reaction of the spiders told him that this was what they
had been waiting for.
摘要：

TheTowerSpiderWorld,Book02byColinWilsona.b.e-bookv3.0/NotesatEOFBackCover:Eightlegsgood--twolegsbadUnderthebleak25thCenturydesertNiallandhisfamilyekeoutameagreexistance,hiddenfromthepredatoryeyesofthegiantspidersthatfloatsilentlyoverheadintheirsilkendeathballoons.ForNiallhascommittedtheultimatecrime...

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