"How many men have we aboard, Ned?” Drake asked, as soon as the two of them were on the deck.
"Only two dozen,” Hammond told him, “but everything's secure. Shall I send boats to the shore to bring the others back?"
"Aye,” Drake said. “Send the small rowboat with a single oarsman. He's to tell Mr. Ashley to send the pinnace back, with another dozen men aboard. Tell him to bring Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Doctor Muffet too, if he's willing. It's a polite invitation, mind—call it a tour of inspection. If they want to know where I've been, or how it comes about that I'm back on board the Hind, your man has no idea—do you understand?"
"He won't have to tell a lie,” Hammond observed. “Will you tell me what's going on, captain?"
"Yes I will, Ned—but not right now. Have we taken enough supplies on board to offer hospitality to our guest?"
Hammond ran his eyes over the Tahitian chief. “We've water, fruit, and a little bread that was baked ashore,” he said.
"Good,” Drake said. He raised his voice to say: “This man is our friend, and we must offer him the privileges of an honored guest."
The rowboat set off immediately, and the pinnace was not long in setting off on its return journey; Drake's men were experienced enough to keep it ever-ready to take to the water at a moment's notice. Even in the fading twilight, Drake needed no telescope to see that Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Thomas Muffet had both accepted his invitation with alacrity, but he did not know what to read into the fact that Muffet had decided to bring his daughter with him.
"Before our men come aboard,” Drake whispered to Hammond, “I want them to be as sure as they can be that they're not harboring any spiders about their person. I want the order given to everyone that any man who sees a spider on the ship from this moment on must kill it immediately, if he can."
Hammond looked at him curiously, but nodded his head to signify that these instructions would be followed exactly.
When Gilbert and Muffet came aboard, Drake went to greet them effusively—not forgetting Patience—and immediately asked whether Ruhapali was known to them.
"We know Ruhapali very well,” Gilbert said, warily. “Was it to visit Ruhapali, then, that you left the compound, Captain Drake? I wish you had let us know that you were going, for we've been desperately anxious about you. We heard an explosion in the interior of the island, and there seem to be fires burning there."
"I've had quite an adventure,” Drake said, equably. “Had I not known that I'm a madman, ever-prone to the most extraordinary delusions, I might be rather alarmed by what I've seen—but this is an island in the Pacific Ocean, after all, and not the interior of the moon or the hub of the Milky Way.” He tried to measure the quality of the glance that Gilbert and Muffet exchanged, but it was not easy.
"We're very glad to find you safe, Sir Francis,” Muffet said, “and in such good humor."
"Ruhapali and I need to talk to you below decks, in the cabin,” Drake said. “Will you do me the courtesy of accompanying us?"
"Of course,” said Muffet swiftly, almost as if he feared that Gilbert might raise some objection. The doctor immediately turned to Hammond and said: “May I entrust my daughter to your care, Mr. Hammond?"
"Aye, sir,” Hammond answered.
The four men went below. As soon as a candle had been lit to illuminate the cabin and the door had been shut behind them, Drake said: “As you must have guessed, gentlemen, the islanders have attacked Raleigh's valley. Raleigh was struck in the torso by a spear, and may have been killed. The tribesmen are determined to destroy the creatures Raleigh calls celestial spiders and the other creatures they have transformed. Ruhapali offers us the chance to depart in safety, but he refuses to answer for our safety if we will not go. Given what I've seen today, I can understand his fears and his determination, and I'm half-inclined to accept his offer—but I told him that I must hear your side of the story first. What's your opinion, Sir Humphrey?"
Gilbert was evidently ready to reply, but he did not get the chance. “This is absurd,” Muffet said, pre-emptively. “Ruhapali, you are making a terrible mistake. We've relied on your own people to persuade you of the wisdom and virtue of our scheme, but they've evidently failed. You must listen to us now, and stop your assault on the valley as soon as you can. You must allow us time to complete our work, so that its benefits will become fully manifest."
"You must go,” Ruhapali replied, adamantly.
"Perhaps, Dr. Muffet,” Drake said, smoothly, “we might be better placed to settle the matter if you would explain to us exactly what the purpose of your work is. I suppose that appearances might be deceptive, but I've seen men transformed by spider-bites, who lie down to let monstrous parasites suck their blood and carry it away into a spider's-nest the size of a town, apparently at the command and behest of invaders from another world—and it seems to me that Ruhapali and his people have been exceedingly patient in waiting so long to take up their arms. Raleigh admitted to me that you and he dared not begin this work in England, and I'm inclined to agree with him that it would have been direly dangerous to do so."
"Superstition is a difficult enemy to fight,” Muffet said, “Whether one encounters it in the Church, the Royal College of Physicians or the prejudices of ignorant men. You've found that yourself, I think, in trying to persuade your fellow Englishmen that what you discovered in the moon and beyond is real."
Drake did not want to waste time pointing out that he would have found that task far easier had Tom Digges or Walter Raleigh confirmed his story. “Be specific, doctor,” he said, “and be brief—we have no time for a long discourse."
"Very well,” Muffet said. “I doubt that you're acquainted with the principles of medicine, but you've probably heard mention of four bodily humours analogous to the four elements of inanimate matter, which must be kept in balance if the body is to remain healthy. I'll not attempt to describe all the complications introduced into that fundamental system as a result of the New Learning, hoping that it will suffice to say that there are at least as many subsidiary substances making up the components of living bodies as there are different kinds of solids, liquids, and essences, and that their various malfunctions defy easy appeasement by the remedies contained in herbals or those at the disposal of Galenist or Paracelsian physicians. We have but few defenses against sickness and injury, Captain, and they're by no means reliable.
"As I explained to you last night, spiders are unlike most other creatures in consuming food exclusively in liquid form. Even earthly spiders, which are exceedingly primitive, have developed complex methods of immobilizing their prey and transforming the flesh they will consume into liquid form. On worlds in which spiders, rather than insects and molluscs, have acquired intelligence and have become dominant species, they've become masters of the alchemy of flesh, whose secretions accomplish far more than mere liquefaction. The most advanced have become experts in induced transmutation, remolding other species internally and externally to their own designs. Our own alchemists have long searched for the elixir of life as well as the secret of transmuting base metals into gold and silver, but they've made even less progress in the former quest than the latter. The celestial spiders have achieved far more.
"The insects and molluscs that constitute the vast majority of intelligent species within the sidereal system do not like spiders, because they consider them dangerous predators, but that is because the spiders native to their own worlds are as primitive as the spiders of ours. In a more general sense, too, the masters of the galaxy have inherited the mentality of prey species and cannot understand the true logic of predation as a way of life. Humans, being omnivores who owe our own intelligence, culture, and civilization to hunting and animal husbandry, can understand, if we will only make the effort to overcome our silly prejudice. That's why we're natural allies of the celestial spiders, and why they're prepared to optimize us as a sibling species rather than a subject one.
"We humans have been alchemists of the flesh ourselve
s, in transforming all the species on which we depend: the livestock we keep to supply us with meat, milk, and eggs, the horses we use for transportation on land, and the dogs we employ in hunting. We change them to the best of our ability, tailoring them to our needs, optimizing them for the production of those qualities we desire in them—but we can only do so indirectly, by selective breeding. The celestial spiders are cleverer by far, employing all manner of elixirs that work directly upon the flesh of other species. They've used their intelligence very wisely in the investigation and deployment of their intrinsic abilities in this regard, and have become great experts in the calculated modification of their various domestic stocks—but they've not been content with that, either in their own worlds or in others they've found and visited.
"Where intelligence has emerged spontaneously among spider species, those species have never been content to remain alone; they've always elected to optimize intelligence in brethren species. Nor have they usually been content to restrict that privilege to other arachnids; they've been curious enough to offer the gifts of sentience, speech, and culture to species of very different kinds, including insects and molluscs. Indeed, many spiders believe that the species currently making up the dominant culture of the galaxy must have originated from spider alchemy, and then turned ungratefully against their benefactors, wiping out their makers and attempting to hunt down and destroy similar species wherever they found them, extrapolating their fearful prey mentality.
"There is, as you say, no time for a long discourse, so I shall say only this: the celestial spiders are willing to be our friends and benefactors. They're willing to assist us in the development of cures for very many human diseases, and to help us become far more robust in resisting injury. They can help us live far longer than our traditional allotment of three-score years and ten, and they can give us the power to re-grow lost limbs and damaged organs. They cannot make us immortal, but they can make us a good deal less mortal than we are. They're eager to do this because they've not had the opportunity before to work with natural species of our kind—intelligent vertebrates, that is. They don't know of any world in which spiders have contrived to induce intelligence in vertebrate species, but those that have developed naturally on Earth have far greater natural potential by virtue of their unusual size.
"With the spiders’ assistance, therefore, humankind can take a great leap forward, benefiting from a process of perfection that might require thousands of years if we had to develop our own knowledge of the alchemy of the flesh by trial and error—assuming that we'd be let alone in the meantime by the great fleshcores and their multitudinous subject species. In sum, we need the celestial spiders, and have a great deal to gain from association with them—if we can only suppress and master our stupid instincts."
* * * *
11
Drake had glanced repeatedly at both Ruhapali and Gilbert to see what effect Muffet's explanatory speech was having on them. Ruhapali, apparently, had not been able to comprehend more than a fraction of it, and seemed utterly unmoved in his determination to remove all alien presences from Tahiti, in order that his people might revert to the untroubled existence they had previously enjoyed. Gilbert must have heard similar speeches many times over, with appropriate elaborations, and presumably understood the arguments better than Drake did, but he seemed distinctly unhappy. It was to him that Drake turned now.
"What's your opinion, Sir Humphrey?” Drake asked.
"If I'd been told all this before I set sail from Southampton,” Gilbert said, bluntly, “I would not have left England. I've been strongly tempted to return more than once, but have been torn by conflicting responsibilities. Lately, I've been reluctant to leave because it would have meant abandoning Dr. Muffet and his daughter to a dangerous situation—but now that the situation has become impossible, I wonder whether my duty might be to save them, and compel them to come away. On the other hand, I cannot believe that my men will consent to bring the results of the doctor's experiments in transmutation with us—except, perhaps, for the clever birds—and I might face a mutiny merely by virtue of trying to save the doctor and Patience."
"I can understand all that, Sir Humphrey,” Drake said. “But what do you think of the merits of Doctor Muffet's scheme itself ?"
"I no longer know what to think,” Gilbert admitted. “For a time, it seemed that the potential reward might outweigh any risk, but recent reports we have had from the island's interior have made me wonder whether the real intention of these celestial visitors might be to establish a spider empire on Earth, reducing humankind to the status of mere cattle. If that is their plan, there might only be a narrow interval in which it can be nipped in the bud."
"Nonsense!” said Muffet. “You're allowing unreasoning revulsion to overrule the judgment of reason."
"Even if Sir Humphrey's fears could be set aside,” Drake said, pensively, “and everything you said were actually true, rather than the result of these celestial spiders playing you and Raleigh for fools, there's another danger we shouldn't discount."
"What's that?” Muffet demanded.
"The danger that the great empire whose shores extend even to the interior of our planet's moon might not take kindly to an alliance between two kinds of creatures they dislike. So far as I know, no man in England knows that you are here or what you are doing—and that ignorance will presumably persist until some of us return—but that doesn't mean that your work is secret from the folk that Raleigh and I met when we went voyaging in Master Dee's ethership."
"We can do nothing about that,” Muffet retorted, “except make sure that, should the insect hordes decide that humankind is dangerous to them, we're as well able to defend ourselves as we can be. That's a further reason to embrace alliance with the spiders, and welcome our own optimization. In any case, we're already committed. If Ruhapali thinks that he can destroy the celestial spiders, or even the Earthly creatures they've so far transformed, he's mistaken. If he refuses to abandon this war he's begun, his forces will be defeated. He should make a treaty with us now, else things will go very badly indeed for his people."
"You will go,” Ruhapali repeated, yet again. “You will give us guns. We will kill the spiders."
"Stay with us, Captain Drake,” Muffet said. “Help us to defend the stockade and our work. If you'll agree to do that, I'm sure that Sir Humphrey will do likewise."
Gilbert was not inclined to confirm or deny that speculation. Instead, he said: “If you should decide to sail away from here, Sir Francis, I shall be happy to accompany you, with as many men as may care to come with me, to whatever destination you might have in mind."
Drake was not grateful for this statement, which seemed to place the entire burden of decision on his unready shoulders. He had no time to figure out a way out of the impasse, though, because Edward Hammond hammered on the cabin door just then and said: “You're needed on deck, Captain—there's movement on sea and shore alike."
Drake hurried from the cabin, assuming that the others would follow him. When he and Hammond arrived on the deck the mate pointed out to sea first. The night was clear, but the moonlight reflected from the sea was not very abundant. Even so, Drake could see that the waters around the Golden Hind were crowded with canoes—more likely hundreds than dozens. They were not, however, making any overtly hostile move toward the ship, and their paddlers seemed to be in a state of considerable confusion. There was a great deal of shouting, which seemed indicative of urgent alarm.
On the shoreward side, the horizon was red with fire and blotched with smoke, but lights of a different sort showed all along the coast, where there was more shouting. The settlement was more brightly lighted than the strands to either side of it, but did not seem quite so full of alarm.
Martin Lyle was in the rigging, with his eye glued to Drake's telescope. “The islanders aren't attacking the settlement, sir,” he called down. “Indeed, I think they're begging to be let in for their own safety's sake—they're being attacked themselves
. Everyone who can seems to have taken to the water, but there must be thousands of natives who can't."
Drake rounded on Muffet, who had come up behind him. “The celestial spiders have mounted their counter-offensive,” he said. “You can make a better estimate of their resources than anyone else—can they be defeated?"
"It's not the visitors!” Muffet protested. “It's the earthly giants—they've not yet contrived to set aside their inconvenient instincts, any more than the islanders have. They're striking back reflexively. If you'll give the celestial spiders time enough, they'll bring the situation under control."
"We don't know for sure that they're still alive,” Drake told him. “The attack was successful enough to wound Raleigh, at least, and it was begun by some kind of petard loaded with black powder. Mr. Hammond! Set men with muskets to port and starboard and have the artillerists stand ready—but the musketeers are not to fire on the islanders unless they're attacked themselves. Lower the pinnace again and send it back to shore, ready to evacuate our remaining men—and Gilbert's too, if they haven't enough boats of their own."
"Wait!” cried Muffet. “I'll go back with them!"
"No,” said Drake shortly. “Ruhapali! Can you judge from the shouting how things are with your own people?"
Ruhapali had already called down to the chiefs who were waiting for him in the canoe that had brought Drake back. “Spiders cannot swim,” he replied, “but some got into boats—they caused much fear. Many people waded into shallow water—they are safe, for now. Sire Gilbert's men must open the gates of stockade to let my people in. They will fight spiders with your people."
"No!” Muffet cried. “They must not!"
Drake's opinion was that this was probably the most sensible option for the men within the stockade—but he knew how difficult it would be for the people currently locked inside to make the decision, given that some of the spiders would probably gain access along with the panicked islanders. He was sorely tempted to go ashore with the pinnace himself, but his own men formed a tiny minority of the company within the stockade, and he could not be sure that the others would take orders from him at present—or from anyone, including Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
Asimov's SF, March 2007 Page 19
