Spider Legs

by Piers Anthony

  As if aware of its state, it began to keen so loudly that it masked the approaching sirens from the Coast Guard boats. Rescue was coming at last.

  Nathan could have let the pycno “live” in a tenuous vegetative existence, but instead he reached deep into its body and tore out its last vestige of life, the brain stem. The mass in his hand was gray, slightly wrinkled, the size of a plum. It throbbed, trailing torn nerves and arteries. It pulsed, not because it was still alive, but because the torn nerves continued to provide an ever-weakening electrical impulse. He held the beating organ in his left hand until its metronomic pumping stopped. Then he threw it to the ferry's deck. It flattened like a piece of dough as it hit the wet surface.

  The spider collapsed. Its muscles trembled, went rigid, and ceased to move.

  Off in the distance the sounds of sirens continued, the lamenting wails of Coast Guard boats hopping though the waves like a small school of fish. They grew louder, winding up like an invisible clock spring in the dark autumn air. Reflections from the revolving lights atop the Coast Guard boats cast a red stroboscopic pattern on the deck. The fog looked like a red wounded mist, like blood on a de Kooning painting.

  The passengers did not bother to turn in the direction of the sirens, but merely continued to stare at the man with wild, bloodshot eyes on top of the spider's corpse. The storm clouds, which had covered the sky so densely that no moon or starlight could penetrate, were starting to move southward.

  At first Nathan stood defiantly, gazing up at the dark sky where several beams of moonlight were beginning to shine like rays of hope from a beneficent god. But seconds later he collapsed, fell to the deck, moaned, and was quiet. He had had the strength of madness, and now it had deserted him. He felt lost.

  Behind him was the dark and broken wreckage of the great pycnogonid. It look ominous in the misty night, like a ghost, a skeleton, a grim reaper, a phantom which never moved but only gazed at the little man who should be bones. No one moved on deck. They just stared. Nathan realized that he now looked like a thin old man, never moving, never caring, lying near the creature's still brain on the deck, frozen on the edge of fallow fields forever.

  Then there was a groan. “Natalie!” Nathan cried, bursting out of his trance. He hauled himself past the brain and lurched toward her.

  Then everyone was converging. “She's alive!” Falow cried.

  “Alive,” Nathan echoed, prayerfully.

  CHAPTER 36

  Decision

  AFTER THE COAST Guard arrived and helped all of the passengers off of the ferry, they secured a rope to the battered craft and started pulling it back to shore with a tugboat. The pycnogonid's body was left to sit alone on the ferry's deck, its long legs trailing back into the sea. Overhead the gulls cried, hoping to get an opportunity to probe at the rotting flesh of the sea spider. Around the ferry, the ocean waves seemed to lift to the stars.

  The ocean water was beginning to take on a rainbow sheen of oil that glimmered like mercury on the twilight sea. Above in the sky was a trailing veil of gold. Dawn was approaching. It had been quite a night.

  From beneath the spider's body there was movement. A hinged door beneath the chitonous exoskeleton opened downward. A hand appeared. The hand's fingers were all the same length, except for the super-long ring finger. Dr. Martha Samules, owner of the largest aquarium store in Newfoundland, crawled from the hollowed-out region in the dark interior of the creature's body. She had on a diving mask and oxygen tank. The skin on her hands looked blistered, as if some of the corrosive substance from the pycnogonid's digestive tract had seared her with some mystical and unknown heat. Her arms were splattered with blood and brains and tiny broken fish bones.

  “Ahh,” she said as she gently pulled herself from some of the creature's muscles and veins, and let the fresh sea air rush into her lungs. Her neck was dotted with large beads of sweat despite the chill of the air.

  The dawn grew colder as quick-moving shadows of clouds skimmed over the water. The drizzle continued. But the woman seemed to notice neither.

  Martha gazed up at the spider's long thin legs, so much like her own fingers, and trembled. She looked left, then right, and saw no one. Her wild, exotic sapphire eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Her inch-long teeth were clenched in a large sharky smile.

  “So one male wasn't enough,” she said. “The big female won't be able to do it alone, either. But what about a hundred—or ten thousand? Suppose three had tackled this boat, coordinated? I think we are almost there.”

  Then she reconsidered, gazing at the hole that had been carved to remove the creature's main brain. “But stronger protection is needed in some sections. May have to implant some steel plates. And the eyes—how can those be shielded? It's a challenge.”

  She walked quietly over to one of the creature's shorter legs and reached into a small crevice in its underside. As she thrust her hand in, she felt hundreds of juvenile pycnogonids in their larval stage of development. She withdrew a handful, and held the writhing tiny bodies in her left hand. She reached into another body cavity and pulled out the creature's cold, dead heart.

  “But we'll have to do something about your taste in prey, too,” she said, as if addressing the dead sea spider. “Can't have you eating all the fish and squid and other creatures in the sea. Maybe we can give you a special taste for human flesh alone. Then you'll have to seek the right prey, even when not guided.” She nodded as she pondered the matter. “Oh yes, there's work to be done yet.” She smiled, looking forward to it.

  Above she heard the cry of a mournful gull. Her hand still held the larvae. Then, as quick and quiet as a ferret, she crawled to the edge of the ferry, gazed over the rusted railing as the noisy surf flung crystal splinters onto her wrinkled face, and then dropped into the dark blue sea filled with golden froth of autumn's russet.

  Epilogue

  The human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but I have some excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very well adapted to raising good people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water. It is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of folks.

  —ROBERT G. INGERSOLL,

  The Ghosts and Other Lectures

  “How DID YOU know about this place?” Lisa asked, her wide-eyed wonder coming naturally.

  “Well, I am the local fishery officer,” Elmo replied as he guided the car along the diminishing road to Cape St. Mary's, at the southern tip of the southwestern projection of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. “This is a sea bird sanctuary, and fish are essential to sea birds.”

  “Oh, of course.” She smiled at him, as she did so often now. He had told her how her first smile had captivated him, and now that was important to her. He did not return the smile, and that was by mutual agreement. Her smiles were performed for both of them.

  He brought the car to a halt. “We'll have to wait here until they catch up,” he said. “They don't know where the sea stack is. I hope you don't mind the delay.”

  “Whatever will we do with the time?” she inquired rhetorically as she unsnapped her seat belt and slid across to hug him. She planted a wet kiss on his cheek. “Am I boring you?”

  “Not unduly,” he admitted. “But you know you really don't owe me anything. I would have tried my best to save you even if you'd been old and ugly.”

  “Well, I do expect to be supported in excellent style for the rest of my life,” she said. “Once you get up the nerve to marry me.”

  “It's not nerve, it's caution. You need time to realize that the loss of one thumb does not make you unattractive to the great majority of men.”

  “But it does make me realize how unimportant hands are,” she said. “Except when they are reaching out to pull a person from freezing, monster-ridden hell. So I can focus on things like decency, security, and commitment.” She kissed him again, this time on the ear. “Love was there waiting for me, only I couldn't see past the—”

  She broke off, for she had spie
d an oncoming car. The other couple had arrived.

  The car pulled up behind theirs. In a moment Nathan and Natalie Smallwood got out. They hadn't wasted any time about getting married, Lisa thought. That was because he had to return to Harvard, and they hadn't wanted to separate. Police Chief Falow would have to hire another policewoman for St. John's, because this one would be working in another state, at least for a while. Natalie had actually gotten married in a wheelchair two weeks after surviving the monster spider. Her first week of marriage must have been good for her, because she was on her feet now. This was technically their honeymoon. They liked going to obscure places together. In fact, they seemed to like anything at all, together. It certainly looked like fun, from Lisa's vantage.

  Lisa and Elmo got out to join the others. “It's a good thing you arrived when you did,” Elmo said. “This teen was getting fresh.”

  Natalie smiled. “Oh? Did she do this to you?” She planted a kiss on Nathan's cheek.

  “Yes, twice,” Elmo said indignantly.

  “He's lying,” Lisa protested. “The second one was on the ear.”

  Natalie frowned at Lisa. “For shame!” she said severely. “Are you trying to corrupt this innocent man?”

  “I'm trying to get him to marry me,” Lisa said. “But he ignores me.”

  “Keep working on him,” Natalie advised. “It's just a matter of trial and error until you find his weak point.”

  “What was Nathan's weak point?” Lisa asked mischievously.

  “His imagination. It was limited.”

  Lisa was perplexed. “But how could that—?”

  “Never mind,” Nathan said. “Some things must not be revealed.”

  They laughed. Then Elmo led the way to the sea stack. This turned out to be a small steep-sided rocky mountain by the coast. They had to navigate a trail down the cliff-like shore and cross shallow water to reach it, but didn't get their feet wet because there were stepping stones leading to it. There was also a crude path slanting up it, so that they could climb without having to scramble four-footed. That was just as well, because neither Natalie nor Elmo had yet recovered strength for anything beyond routine exertion, and Lisa was not yet fully recovered either. They wouldn't have come out here, if the matter weren't so important.

  “What a place for a mountain!” Lisa remarked. “How did it ever get here?”

  “It was here first,” Elmo explained. “The waves of the sea cut through behind it, washing out the dirt and gravel, causing the cliff to collapse. So it remains as an island, protected by rock that was too solid for the waves to defeat. It's a perfect breeding place for northern gannets, because neither land nor sea predators can conveniently reach it. It's past the birds’ nesting season, but there may be some remaining.”

  Sure enough, as they reached the top several goose-sized birds squawked and took off. The group paused in place, waiting for the birds to settle. Lisa saw one of them swoop down into the sea, going for a fish. “I wish I could do that,” she said.

  “Wouldn't work,” Elmo said. “Your mouth's too small.”

  They found comfortable rocks and sat on them. “Do you think she'll come?” Lisa asked, concerned.

  “She'll come,” Elmo said. “She knows I don't bluff. We disagree philosophically, but we trust each other. My note was clear enough.”

  “Just what did you say to her?” Lisa asked. “I never saw the note.”

  “Because you had to remain anonymous, until this time,” he said. “She would have fired you, if she knew that you and I were comparing notes and fathoming her secret.”

  “And what a secret it is!” Natalie exclaimed. “We never suspected. If it hadn't been for that pycnogonid attack on the ferry—”

  “And for our coincidental acquaintance,” Nathan agreed. “We had a personal as well as professional reason to figure it out.”

  “And when I looked deep into its snout and saw that thing moving,” Elmo said, “I didn't realize its significance right them. But later it registered: there was something inside that giant pycnogonid. Something that wasn't its natural innards. Something that seemed almost independent. That started me thinking, during my recovery. And when Lisa mentioned how my sister was able to train small sea spiders in her lab, I started making connections. It all started coming together, in an amazing way. That's why I mentioned it to you, Nathan, when you visited.”

  “And that got me going,” Nathan agreed. “I would not have believed anything like that was possible, if I hadn't actually seen and fought that monster. Then it was not if but how—and who. Who could have generated what we encountered?”

  “And there was only one person,” Natalie said.

  “So I simply wrote MARTHA—YOUR PET ALMOST ATE ME. MEET ME IN PRIVATE—OR IN PUBLIC.” Elmo smiled. “So she called me, and we said nothing, only agreed to meet on the stack.”

  “You threatened her?” Lisa asked. “She gets mean when threatened.”

  Elmo smiled. “So do I. We know each other. She knows I won't bluff. She knows she has to settle with me, or I'll blow the whistle on her project and she'll be arrested for murder. Because of the people that pycno killed.” He glanced at her. “Like your sister-in-law.”

  Lisa shuddered. How well she understood how savage the monster was! “But won't she come with a gun or something, to—so that you won't tell?”

  “No. She knows I'll have the information documented and primed to be released on my death. But she wouldn't kill me anyway. I'm the one person she would never knowingly harm. Nor would I harm her. We're two of a kind.” He held up one hand, showing the odd fingers. “So we're here to negotiate. In complete, guaranteed privacy.”

  “I don't know,” Lisa said. “I've never seen her give way on something she's set on.”

  “I'm the same way,” Elmo said. “That's why we have to negotiate. She knows that.”

  “You will both have to compromise, you know,” Natalie said. “There has to be some middle ground.”

  “And you and Nathan will be the judge of it,” Elmo agreed. “And Lisa. We'll probably accept what you agree on.”

  “I hope so,” Lisa said, not completely reassured.

  After a while they heard a scraping from the seaward side of the stack. “She comes,” Natalie said. None of them moved.

  A head appeared, and then the shoulders and torso. It was Martha, in her wetsuit. She saw them, and came to sit on a rock facing them all. She looked at Lisa. “So you're part of this,” she muttered. “I should have known.”

  “Her brother's wife was killed by the spider the first week,” Natalie said.

  “I didn't think she had the wit to do anything about it,” Martha said.

  “Lisa's with me, now,” Elmo said.

  “If I had known you were on that ferry—” Martha shrugged.

  “You had to know I'd be looking for the giant pycnogonid,” Elmo told her. “And that I'd find it, sooner or later.”

  Martha sighed. “I had hoped later.” She looked around at the rest of them. “So you all know. What's your deal?”

  “Lisa will explain it,” Elmo said.

  “Lisa can barely explain a sign that says NO REFUNDS. Leave her out of this.”

  “No, she'll do it,” he said, his jaw set.

  “Why her?”

  “Because she will use the simplest, most straightforward language,” Nathan said. “There will be no confusion.”

  Lisa knew that he also regarded it as a good exercise for her to boost her self-confidence. Fortunately he didn't say that.

  Martha nodded. “And no subtlety.” She faced lisa, grimacing. “So?”

  Lisa tried to quell her nervousness. Never before had she faced Martha on any basis approaching anything other than servility. But this time it had to be done. “You're breeding monsters. You have to stop.”

  “Those monsters will stop a worse monster,” Martha said grimly. “The one that's destroying the world. You know that humankind will never cease its overbreeding and consequent p
illage of the animate and inanimate resources of the world until all other life and all usable features of the globe have been extirpated. Then it will be too late. Better to cull that rampant species now, and save the world as we know it.”

  Lisa knew the answer to that; they had discussed it carefully. “That may be true, but this isn't the way,” she said carefully. “If too many monsters attack too many ships, the—the government of some country will strike back. Like maybe by poisoning the water, or setting off bombs. They wouldn't care that it hurt ten times as much as was necessary.”

  “That's not true,” Martha said defiantly. “The governments wouldn't poison their own waters or use bombs. Countries bordering on the oceans know that they need the shipping lanes, the fish, and the beaches for their own economic well being. They'd never drop bombs.”

  “You mean some governments actually care about the well-being of their ecosystems?” Lisa countered. “Why, Martha, how could you say such a thing?”

  Martha snarled, evidently stung by the sarcasm. Lisa was privately thrilled; she had never before dared to speak this way to her employer.

  “Even if you are right that most governments would hesitate before poisoning their waters, not all governments would be careful,” Lisa continued. “And if you actually managed to exterminate thousands of people, there's no telling what the government and local people will do to protect themselves.”

  Martha's lips pursed appreciatively. “I have been too distracted by my work,” she said. “I should have thought of that. The stupid government is capable of doing a hundred times the damage it has to, in pursuit of some shortsighted objective.” She squinted at Lisa. “You didn't work that out yourself, did you, girl?” The tone was insulting.

  Lisa smiled, briefly. She had been primed for this tactic. “Of course not. Elmo did. But it's true, isn't it? Even if no one knows about you, they'll do terrible harm to the environment, trying to kill the monsters. So your program will be—”