World of the Drone
Page 6
toward him, had seen what hewas doing. For an instant he froze.
Qanya said hurriedly, "Anyway, _you're_ a beast, Purri. A greedy one.You've had two mates already--why didn't you make them last? And I'venot even had one."
"When you're older," said Purri loftily, her back still turned to thestruggling beetle, "you'll understand more. But you ought to know fromyour schooling that there are some races that mate for life--and amongthem, the males dominate the female. We spiders are above such degradingpractices."
Qanya's eyes flicked momentarily to Dworn, who was wrenching at thefinal knot. "Yes, yes, I know," she said. "But I still say it isn'tfair--"
Dworn came catlike to his feet, ignoring the pain of cramped limbs. Thecord with which he had been bound was looped in his hands. With a singlestride he was upon the unwarned Purri; one hand clamped over her mouth,cutting off outcry, and the other hand whipped the cord tight aroundher. She fought with the strength of a man, but futilely. Dworn ripped alength of fabric from her clothing and improvised a gag; when he wasdone, the spider woman could do no more than kick and gurgle a little.
During the brief struggle, Qanya had watched without making a sound,hands pressed against the girdered wall at her back. As Dworn faced hernow, breathing hard, he saw fear written large in her face.
She whispered, "Beetle, you won't hurt me?"
Dworn hesitated briefly. There was no doubt she had helped him--if onlyout of jealousy of the others. But at the same time she was a spider, anatural enemy. And time was desperately vital. In a flash ofinspiration, he saw that there was one way to make sure of his escape.
"If you're quiet," he promised, "I won't hurt you. Not much, anyway."Then his arm was about her, pinioning her, while his free hand snaked toher waist and plucked the hypodermic from its case. For a moment shestruggled and even tried to bite him, as she saw what he was about todo. Then, clumsily but effectively, he had stabbed the needle into herupper arm and pressed the plunger home.
He felt her stiffen and then relax, shivering, as the drug coursedthrough her blood. He released her and stepped back, watching herwarily.
"How do you like your own medicine, spider?" he demanded harshly.
The girl stood motionless. Her black eyes, fixed on him, seemed to dullas if with sleep.
"Do you hear me?"
"Yes," she said tonelessly.
"Do you obey me if I give you orders?"
"Yes."
Dworn grinned exultantly. It had worked--But there was no time to lose.The Spider Mother might return any moment.
"Where is my machine?"
She answered without expression, "I left it where it was. I didn't wantit, I was only seeking a mate."
Dworn sighed with heartfelt relief. He looked upward, toward thespider-machine overhead: "All right. I command you to take me back tothe place where you left my beetle."
Qanya turned silently toward a slender steel ladder that rose to thebelly of the crouching metal monster. Dworn followed her, his nervesstill strung close to the snapping point, but with hope leaping inhim.... On the floor, the trussed-up Purri stared up with round eyes andmade smothered noises.
* * * * *
They clambered into the spider through a port in its underside, past theengines and the great drums of steel cable which served to snare thespider's prey. The space within was cramped, barely big enough to holdtwo, and its instruments and controls were bewilderingly strange toDworn. The tangle of switches and levers that must govern the mechanicallegs made no sense at all to him, and he felt a moment of near-panic:if the hypnotic injection's magic should fail, he would be quitehelpless here.
Braving it out, he snapped, "Make it go!"
Obediently Qanya touched this and that control. The spider's enginethrobbed with power, and its legs straightened, lifting it so quickly asto cause a sinking sensation in the stomach. From overhead came acreaking, and a band of light appeared and widened, grew dazzling as acircular trapdoor opened on daylight.
Dworn caught his breath. He hadn't reckoned with its being daytime;evidently he had been unconscious longer than he had supposed. But hecouldn't worry about that.
"Go on!" he rasped. "Outside!"
The machine clambered stiffly out of its burrow; sand crunched under itssteel feet. Blinking at the sun, Dworn saw that the trap opened on astretch of boulder-strewn wasteland; it must not be far from the foot ofthe great slide. The trapdoor was coated with sand to make it appearonly a half-buried rock, and in the near distance were other, closelysimilar outcroppings that were very likely the entrances to otherspiders' burrows.
"Get us away from here! Quick!" ordered Dworn shakily.
Still wordlessly, her face smooth and mask-like, the girl set thewalking machine in motion. It moved with a queer rolling gait which madeDworn dizzy, though it stilted over the irregularities of the groundwith scarcely a jar. Dworn felt nakedly exposed, riding high above theground in broad daylight, but he gritted his teeth and tried not tothink of the probability of attack by some day-faring marauder. Hesupposed the spider girl, accustomed likewise to a nocturnal life, wouldhave felt the same fear of the light, if she hadn't been hypnotized.
Under the drug's influence she apparently couldn't speak unless spokento. However, there were questions he wanted to ask her.
First--"What do you know about the attack on the beetles last night?"
"I know there was a battle," said Qanya flatly, without looking up fromthe controls. "I didn't see it, but the Mother and some others wereprowling at the time, and saw. It was the flying things, which havegiven us too so much trouble."
That, if true--and he judged that it _must_ be true--confirmed his priorsuspicion, and killed another suspicion he had entertained for a littlewhile--that the spiders themselves might have been the ambushers. Hedemanded, "What do you know about those night-fliers?"
"Very little. We do not know just what they are or where they came from.They began appearing hereabouts only four months ago, which was threemonths after the Rim collapsed and the Mother decided that we shoulddescend and try the hunting on this side. Since then they've grown moreand more numerous. They fly by day as well as by night, and attackeverything that moves. They've taken several of our Family, and I thinkthey've made heavy depredations on the peoples that inhabit this region.We spiders would have abandoned the location before now, but we fearedto be caught migrating in the open...."
* * * * *
Dworn gazed apprehensively out at the glaring desert that was rollingpast the spider windows. The news that the aerial killers also operatedby day was most unwelcome. But as yet there was no sign of an enemy.
He said, "The little ground machines--unarmored, made of aluminum.They're allied in some way to the flying ones, aren't they?"
"We think so. Wherever the flying machines have made a kill, thecrawlers appear before long to carry away the spoils. And if they'reattacked--the fliers come swooping down within minutes to defend oravenge them. So most of the other inhabitants have learned to leave thecrawlers alone; it's extremely dangerous to meddle with them."
Dworn could confirm that fact from his own observation.
Evidently the spider folk, even though they came from beyond the Barrieras the mysterious others apparently had too, knew little more than hehimself had already discovered. But--there was one more question.
"Do you know," he asked tensely, "where these strangers' home base is?Where do they fly from?"
The girl looked doubtful. "We're sure only that it's somewhere beyondthe Rim, where we used to live."
That much, too, he had guessed. Dworn subsided into glum silence, asQanya impassively guided the machine on its way, covering distance at asurprising speed.
Then, even by the unaccustomed daylight, Dworn recognized first onelandmark and then another, and knew they were approaching the spot wherehe had been trapped last night. A weird return, riding as master in themonstrous machine that had snared him!
As t
he great tilted rock hove in view, Dworn strained for the firstglimpse of his abandoned vehicle. When he saw it, lying still overturnedin the shadow of the boulder, he sighed in relief. Its door was ajar,where Qanya must have dragged him stunned from the machine last night... but it appeared unscathed. The fear at the back of his mind, thatscavengers might have happened on it--in which case they would have hadit dismantled and carried away by now--was happily unrealized. For thathe perhaps had partly to thank the enemy against whom he had swornvengeance, the flying fiends who had decimated and terrorized thepeoples native to this land....
"All right," he ordered. "Stop here!"
The walking machine crunched to a halt, standing almost over the beetle.Dworn