Spider Desert

by Ernst Vlcek

  1/ BENEATH THE WEB

  On this far planet a turning point had been reached in the saga of Fratulon:

  Gortavor was a savage young world where Arkonide civilization and untamed Nature made provisional peace in a sort of mutual symbiosis. Inasmuch as the Arkonides had no particular interest in cultivating the planet or entering into a systematic colonization here, the area surrounding the spaceport was the only main centre of their activity, supported merely by a minimal industry and the most indispensable of technical installations. By contrast, the maps of Gortavor indicated vast regions and lands unknown, which no Arkonide

  had ever explored.

  Although an effective civilization had never taken hold here—or for that very reason—the planet experienced a lively influx of quasi immigrants and settlers representing a wide variety of peoples and races who hailed from all parts of the Greater Imperium as well as from distant regions of the galaxy beyond.

  This questionable traffic consisted almost exclusively of irresponsible adventurers, frustrated misfits, lost derelicts and shady drifters of every description. It was such as these who stamped the overall character of the haphazard colonization, making of the planet a central distribution point for smugglers and undercover operators, a Paradise for thieves and swindlers, an asylum for murderers, outlaws and fugitives from justice in every walk of life.

  Gortavor was located on the far flung outer ramparts of the Greater Imperium, which was why Fratulon had come here, as hunted as any man alive. Orbanoshol III, Imperator of the Arkonide Empire, had a very long arm, but apparently it had failed to reach this far. At least until now, Fratulon had remained beyond its grasp.

  As personal physician to Armanck Declanter, he enjoyed both a great prestige and a certain degree of immunity. Armanck was referred to as the “Tatto”, which was an official title given to all Arkonide planetary administrators, and as such he shielded him from danger.

  However, even though Fratulon had lived thus in relative security for almost 13 years, he had never ceased to be wary and alert. His life was burdened the shadows of the past, by memories which ticket constantly inside of him with the persistence of a time bomb. And one day this bomb was going to ignite.

  But the day and the hour had not quite arrived when that past could be brought to life. He would still have to maintain his silence. His secret would have to remain buried for just a while longer. But how much longer Days, weeks, years?

  No! Of this he was certain: before this present year was ended, he would have to reveal the truth to Atlan.

  Ere long now, the day and the hour would be at hand…

  * * * *

  Behind us, Tarkihl lay on the horizon. Ahead lay the vast wasteland of the Spider Desert beneath its eerie silvery roof.

  I sat tensely in the driver’s seat of the dunerover. The seat next to me had been taken by old “Sawbones?” as I was wont to call my mentor, Fratulon. His face was expressionless as he stared out of our cockpit enclosure. I would have given much to know what was stirring in that bald cranium of his.

  As I looked at him askance, he glanced at me briefly with his yellowish eyes—still without expression.

  “Are you thinking of the distress call, Fratulon?” I asked, merely to be saying something.

  “I’m merely thinking?” he answered, “that some humans out there are in trouble, and we have to help them.”

  I refrained from pressing him further. His silence didn’t bother me. On the contrary, I was actually glad to be able to concentrate on our journey. To drive a dunerover was comparative child’s play. The tractor vehicle was low in contour, not much higher than a man and about as wide with a length of 18 feet. Its ground traction was such that it could negotiate almost any obstacle, and for this reason it was especially suited for travel through desert sands. But even so, there was a certain element of risk in making this thrust into the Spider Desert.

  Aside from countless unknown dangers, there was a constant menace here which had given the desert its name. At an average height of 2 meters over the ground was a vast net of silvery strands as thick as an arm which stretched across the entire desert region. No one knew who had placed the net here or what purpose it served originally. It was suspected, however, that its designers had been those same beings who had created Tarkihl.

  Many a soldier of fortune had set out to find the end or beginning of the mysterious net, but none of them had ever returned. The silvery strands still retained their secret. But one thing had been learned concerning their nature. At times this apparently selfcontained network would begin to hum and vibrate. The eerie sound of the vibrations gripped all forms of life in some sort of a trance, causing hallucinations which had been fatal to countless desert wanderers.

  I myself had never experienced the humming song of this spidery web, but I couldn’t imagine how a person could fall under its spell if one were to exert the necessary force of will against it.

  When I once expressed these thoughts to Fratulon, he had answered: “Many who were older and stronger than you have fallen prey to it, Atlan.” This had been earlier, on another occasion, but at the time it had vexed me because it seemed that he underestimated my abilities.

  Since then he appeared to have altered his opinion of me. Nowadays it often seemed to me that he regarded me as an equal. Like this morning when the distress call had reached Tarkihl from somewhere in the desert. He had not objected to my taking the controls of the rover. I considered it as a form of silent recognition and it filled me with pride. Therefore I determined to substantiate his newfound confidence in me and to bring the machine safely to its destination.

  In the seat behind me, the chretkor monstrosity stirred uncomfortably. “It’s hot in here?” he grumbled. “At this temperature I’m liable to melt away.”

  I could not suppress a grin as I thought of the creature we had nicknamed “Ice Claw.” His fear of extremes of heat and cold had become almost pathological. However, I did him the favour of increasing the air-conditioning, although at the start of our trip he'd complained about the low temperature and I had turned up the heat.

  “Is that to your liking, noble sir?” I inquired sarcastically.

  “Thanks, Atlan?” said Ice Claw, without taking issue over my tone of voice. “I can feel my bodily structure returning to a solid state.”

  Suddenly a sand dune loomed ahead that reached almost to the silvery net above.

  “Go around it?” said Fratulon.

  But I only laughed. “The rover will have that dune for breakfast!”

  We reached the towering obstruction and I cut in the suction jets. Mounted laterally on the exterior of the caterpillar treads, they served chiefly to clear away such dunes as this. I throttled down our speed while the suction jets began to howl and pull down the slope before us. The sand was conducted through a system of tubes to the rear of the rover where it was then ejected by blowers.

  Suddenly there was a tinkling sound and the jet howl became a thundering roar, causing the dunerover to vibrate.

  “What’s that!?” I cried out in astonishment, glancing questioningly at Fratulon.

  However, before I could get an answer from him I saw through the pall of powdery sand dust ahead and made out several shadowy figures approaching our machine. And then I knew: the sand dune was a trap set up by the desert dwellers.

  Without much further deliberation I backed up the rover, withdrawing completely from the dune. Turning at a 90 degree angle I moved away at high speed. However, I had hardly emerged from the haze of dust before another dune loomed directly in our path. Managing just barely to avoid it I accidentally ran down a desert dweller who had suddenly appeared in front of the tractor. His wide cloak spread out and fluttered momentarily and I saw his tortured face quite p
lainly before he disappeared under the ponderous treads. The rover rolled over him as we reached an open area. Ahead of us were no further obstacles. But I sped onward as though pursued by all the demons of the nether worlds.

  “You can slow down now?” said Fratulon. “The danger is past.”

  I dropped speed and gave him an angry glance. “Why didn’t you warn me before?” I asked irritably. “You knew the dune was a trap set up by the desert dwellers. You must have known they'd hide a lot of junk in the sand so as to foul up our suction jets. Why didn’t you draw it to my attention?”

  “I thought you'd recognize the trap on your own?” answered Fratulon calmly.

  Although he did not speak reproachfully I nevertheless took it as an admonishment. “Alright?” I said, “I didn’t see it as a trap right away, but when the situation became critical I reacted properly. Without any support from you I was able to get this rover out of the danger zone.”

  “Therefore you are deserving of my fullest respect and appreciation?” he replied. “And yet, I have gained from the incident something that is a consolation to me.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked belligerently.

  “The fact that the pupil has not quite surpassed his teacher.”

  We locked glances for a moment, and suddenly we had to laugh. Until now I had only regarded Fratulon as my mentor and guide, as my protector and even as a sort of father. But in this moment I noted that our mutual relationship had changed. It had become a comradeship between two men.

  “I’m cold?” came Ice Claw’s complaint from the back seat. “I fear that my body will freeze into a solid block.”

  I sighed, wiping the sweat from my forehead, and turned the airconditioner to the hot side.

  2/ STRANGE PARTNERS IN A STRANGE LAND

  Fratulon perceived the approaching moment of destiny:

  He had given Atlan a thorough course of training and education. He had instructed him in all branches of science, he had schooled him in all the martial disciplines and shared with him his own vast fund of experience. At age 17 Atlan was now a fullfledged, high calibre specimen of manhood. He no longer needed his training master and could now but increase his development through his own experience.

  Fratulon could not do much more for him. Atlan would have to build his personality from his own reserves and intuition. And yet—it was necessary to make one final manipulation of his fate which was of the greatest magnitude of all. In order to shape his future, Fratulon knew he must conjure up the ghosts of the past…

  * * * *

  “Look there!” exclaimed Fratulon as he pointed ahead.

  The sun had risen by now to an angle where it caused the silvery strands of the net to cast confusing shadows onto the desert sands, and thus my perception of details ahead was difficult. Thinking that my companion had discovered another obstacle, I slowed down abruptly. But then I saw what he was pointing at.

  Through one of the regular openings in the net I could make out the form of a large bird of prey which was perched on one of the armthick cables. It was no longer alive and seemed to be bleached out, withered and more or less mummified.

  I steered the rover underneath it as we drove along.

  Sights such as this were not unusual in the Spider Desert. Although I had not yet experienced the hypnotic effects of the silver strands I had certainly seen many creatures who had become victims of the web in one way or another. Lurking in those shining filaments was a sinister power of death. Whoever or whatever came in contact with them was irretrievably lost. The victim’s blood seemed to evaporate with the swiftness of thought, and that which was left behind was a withered corpse. A fast way of dying but nevertheless terrible.

  I caught myself thinking what might happen to Ice Claw if he were to contact the web. Within his talons was a power that was similar to that of the net above us.

  “Are you hot or cold now?” I inquired of him.

  “Neither one?” he answered to my surprise. “The temperature is just right.”

  I turned to look at him but had to turn away quickly as though I were Perseus observing the Medusa. Although I was accustomed to his appearance, in such a brief glance it had not been possible for me to distinguish his facial features in the crystal transparency of his head.

  Ice Claw’s nickname was not alone due to the fact that all organic substance that he grasped with his clawlike hands became ice. Also in his appearance he seemed to have been sculptured from a block of ice. His head, body and limbs were completely transparent, and as a consequence his interior presented a startling but colourful maze of muscles, nerve fibres, arteries and vital organs. Moreover, it was not always easy for his closest acquaintances to glean much of his mood or expression from looking at his face. The transparency of his head deceived the eye so that it was difficult to determine whether his various sense organs were interior or exterior.

  His shape was more or less humanoid although dwarfish. When standing at his full height he just came up to my chest.

  Although it seemed incongruous, Ice Claw loved warmth. The warmer it was the more agile he became. Yet he feared any extreme of heat because he suspected that he might melt away. On the other hand, his fear of very low temperatures was equally as great because he believed that under such conditions the slightest jolt might send him shattering into nothing but splinters and crystals of ice.

  His chief concern was always this phobia regarding heat and cold. Because he just couldn’t cope with it mentally he talked about it continually and as far as circumstances allowed he kept on requesting new adjustments of the temperature.

  Inasmuch as the chretkor had no name, or perhaps to defend him against others he might have had, such as “spook”, “Iceman”, or even “Anatomy Chart”, we simply and quite aptly called him Ice Claw.

  “Is that the right temperature setting for you?” I inquired.

  “Yes, quite. I feel excellent at the moment?” he answered brusquely. “Why do you keep on asking? Are you making fun of me?”

  I raised my hands in a mock gesture of defence. But before I could counter his remark, Fratulon interrupted.

  “Are you sure of your course, Atlan?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I waited for him to elaborate on his question but he remained silent. It could well be that something had come to his attention that had escaped me. So I checked all the instruments again but could not detect anything that would indicate a deviation from our course.

  “We’re travelling toward the Marauthanian ruins?” I told him. “That’s the direction the distress call came from.”

  As he nodded, his chubby double chin was noticeable. Fratulon was about a head shorter than I was and fairly corpulent in appearance. He might have been called fat unless one happened to know that his bulk consisted chiefly of muscles and that he possessed tremendous strength.

  His head was bald, but by contrast the lower half of his face was overgrown with a black, luxurious beard. His shrewd yellow eyes were almost obscured by a welter of chubby wrinkles.

  He did not attach much importance to the matter of clothing. If one were to draw comparisons between him and the Arkonide aristocrats who flaunted themselves around Tarkihl in a virtual frenzy of ostentation he might have appeared to be quite pitiably attired. He always wore one and the same set of harness which had obviously been forged a considerable number of years ago. When confronted with the question as to why he would never be separated from his battered and timeworn breast armour, he would only remark that it was a reminder of better days.

  When we were alone together, even I could not elicit any details from him concerning such things. I had long since given up the idea of ever pumping him for his story. If he did not wish to air his secret of his own accord, then he could leave it buried where it was.

  In Tarkihl the wildest rumours circulated concerning Fratulon. Whereas many of them were absurdities of the most shocking kind, still others carried a grain of truth. No one knew where he had come fro
m or what he had been engaged in formerly. But he made no secret of the fact that he had once been a successful gladiator. In connection with those earlier days he had told me the most incredible stories. As a lad I had been so fascinated by them that I had sworn I would follow in his footsteps and even top his heroic deeds.

  It seemed strange to me that when I had taken this oath at the tender age of ten he had nevertheless considered it seriously. I could still remember a remark of his that had made a lasting impression on me.

  “One day when you are a grown man, Atlan?” he had declared, “you will surpass me in everything—of that I am sure. You will be more courageous and intelligent and will have a stronger will and vitality. And you will be in dire need of every bit of it because ahead of you is a thorny and dangerous road. But as much as it lies within my power to do so, I shall arm and prepare you for your task in life.”

  I never did learn what he had meant by these intimations, but he had kept his promise and had been an outstanding teacher and trainer. He had transmitted to me his knowledge as a physician, a scientist and a philosopher, to the point where I had been able to work in Tarkihl as his assistant. He had also taught me how to fight and to use my powers of reason.

  However, when I would press him for specifics of his past he would tighten his jaw and hold his silence.

  I had him to thank for having taken me in from the age of four and raised me. But I could not believe that he knew nothing of my origin. He persistently maintained that I had been a complete orphan with no living or traceable parents at the time he had found me somewhere on Gortavor, but in the very next breath he would make some mysterious allusion to factors that he refused to elaborate on.

  But as I say I had outgrown the time when I would press him with such questions. Now and again, however, when the opportunity presented itself, I would still attempt to trick him by artful and devious means. But even when he failed to see through my deception he would become as silent as the Spider Desert.