Spider Legs

by Piers Anthony

  “Just because you found your dream doesn't mean it's all dreams,” Natalie said.

  “I found only one dream here. The other I'm still working on.”

  “You are looking for another woman?”

  “No, the other is a literary dream. I've always wanted to write decent-selling science fiction. I've written hundreds of strange short stories in my spare time, but most of them are too strange for the market.”

  Lisa perked up. “You write science fiction? I read that, sometimes.”

  “You haven't read mine, because only about one in a hundred ever sees print.”

  “What are they about?”

  “Oh, everything. One's about a big black bug that mates with an old computer.”

  “A computer with a bug in it?” Natalie asked. “Are you punning?”

  “Not in this case. This was a BIG bug. It tried to mate with an old broken computer, but that didn't work very well. Then it found a functioning portable computer, and mated, and died. Then hundreds of smaller bugs flew out from it, looking for more computers.”

  “So what happened?” Lisa asked, interested.

  “That's where the story ends. You can figure that there's going to be a whole lot of mischief coming up.”

  “I can't. I want to see it happen.”

  Nathan shrugged. “Maybe that's why that story didn't make it.”

  Lisa wasn't satisfied. “Maybe another one will make more sense to me.”

  “OK. I wrote an absurd and mysterious story about a man who woke up in the center of a big field of cows. Some were real and some were robots. The robot cows protected the living ones from being killed, but didn't worry about little things, such as if the man just cut a bit of meat to eat from a living cow. So he survived, but he couldn't find his way out of the field. The funny thing was that a number of the cows were rather odd, having extra feet or tentacles or whatever. And the man seemed to be gradually turning into a cow himself. He tried to pile the cows into a mountain he could climb to see if there was any way out, but all he could see was more cows. Then he slipped and fell down the mountain and hit his head, losing consciousness.”

  “So what happened?” Lisa asked, as before.

  “That's it. The reader's supposed to work it out for himself.”

  “Not this reader,” she said, annoyed. “I like to read how it ends.”

  “I think we're zeroing on your problem,” Natalie said. “You're not properly addressing the needs of your reader. This isn't like love, where the other party eagerly makes up the difference.”

  Nathan shook his head, frustrated. “I thought I was.”

  “But you never say how it ends,” Lisa repeated. “You just sort of start it, and let it fade.”

  “Hear the voice of your literary critic,” Natalie said without malice. “You know, if you find a way to score on her, maybe you'll have your key to success.”

  Nathan considered. “Very well, let's see if I can score on you, Lisa,” he said with half a smile.

  She was getting used to their banter. “OK, do it to me,” she agreed.

  “What kind of story do you like?”

  “Do you have any with princesses, magic, adventure, and romance?”

  “But that's not science fiction—it's fantasy.”

  “You asked what I like.”

  He pondered. “How about one with a princess, science, adventure, and romance?”

  “OK.”

  “It's the year 2030, and I'm on beautiful Ganymede.”

  “Where?”

  “Ganymede. Jupiter's major moon, about three and a quarter thousand miles in diameter.”

  “How big is that?”

  “You should have told her how big it is,” Natalie said reprovingly.

  “But—”

  “In her terms, dummy.”

  He paused, assessing the situation. “About twice as big as Earth's moon, measured across its disk.”

  “Oh, now I understand! It's big.”

  “Yes. I'm with lovely Princess Tau. We walk toward a green ocean with glittering fairylike nodes of life dancing on its translucent surface.”

  “Yes,” Lisa breathed.

  “We are looking for advanced creatures who might share their food with us. Then five green-skinned creatures come, riding massive black horselike things. We fight.”

  “Yes. Unicorns.”

  “Finally I kill the last one. Princess Tau tends to my wounds. Then we walk on to a Royal Palace. A creature comes out and leads us into a swamp. In time I realize that he is not our friend, and I make ready to fight him. But he attacks first, using a weapon of chaos, and the princess and I are killed.”

  There was a silence.

  “That's it?” Lisa finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But he never even made it with the princess!”

  “Well, he might have, offstage.”

  “And they both got killed.”

  “Yes. They miscalculated. Life is rough on Ganymede.”

  “Too rough. That's not a romance, that's a tragedy.”

  “I fear you aren't scoring,” Natalie said.

  Frustrated, Nathan faced Lisa squarely. “How would you write it?”

  She concentrated. “Gee, I don't know. I'm not a writer.”

  “Suppose he arrives on Ganymede, determined to explore it and claim it for his country,” Natalie suggested. “And there's Princess Tau, who looks—well, like Lisa. But she's really an enemy, so he better watch out.”

  “Yes,” Lisa agreed. “So she's out to seduce him, to get his guard down, so he can be killed, like Samson and Delilah.”

  “Only every time she starts to really tempt this innocent slob,” Natalie continued, “something happens to interfere.”

  “Like those five green-skinned ogres he has to fight,” Lisa said.

  “And at the end she finally succeeds in seducing him, and absorbs his body into hers,” Natalie said. “He realizes as he expires that this is how she mates.”

  “So it was true love after all,” Lisa finished triumphantly.

  “But he dies!” Nathan protested. “I thought you didn't like that.”

  “But he dies romantically,” Lisa said. “If you wrote a story like that, I would like it.”

  “See—you can score with Lisa,” Natalie said. “All you have to do is die for love.”

  Nathan sighed. “I'll think about it.”

  They laughed. “Maybe we have just shown him the way to ultimate literary success,” Natalie said. “He will be world famous, and no one will ever hear of us women, his true reason for greatness.”

  “Maybe,” Lisa agreed, enjoying it.

  They drove on, and it really didn't seem like four hours before they reached the town of Twillingate, where the ferry to St. Anthony and points north was.

  Elmo met them there, with Joseph Falow, the police chief. They had come by boat. Elmo seemed hardly to notice Lisa. Had she been wrong about him? She hoped Nathan and Natalie would not embarrass her by saying anything about the matter.

  They walked to the ferry. Lisa was always surprised by the size of such crafts. In childhood she had somehow confused a ferry with a tugboat, and had a mental picture of a brave little boat trying to haul monster ships into the harbor. In reality the ferry was massive and powerful, capable of forging through the sea waves at amazing speed.

  But the monster that had attacked her brother's boat had been huge and horrible indeed. Suppose it attacked the ferry? Lisa shivered, fearing the very thought.

  She saw that a number of other people were boarding, including a party of teenagers. But they were not from St. John's, and she didn't know any of them. So she preferred to stay fairly close to Natalie Sheppard, if she could.

  It was early evening, and the cold sea air was closing in. Lisa was glad she had had the sense to put on blue jeans and a waterproof jacket. Some of those other teens were bound to get cold before the ferry trip was done.

  Soon they were all aboard, and the b
oat cast off its line and moved out of the harbor. They were on their way.

  But on their way to what? she wondered. Now she hoped that they would not after all find the monster.

  CHAPTER 24

  Hunt

  THE PYCNOGONID QUIETLY waited beneath the ferry lane between Twillingate and St. Anthony on the Island of Newfoundland. The creature was hungry: its multiple eyes trembled as they surveyed the environment for signs of food. Fish were becoming scarcer.

  Above the sea spider was ice—red ice. Internal pigments in tiny plants called phytoplankton on the bottom surfaces of the ice gave it a reddish hue and the appearance of a raspberry ice pop. Beneath the ice was a brilliant three-dimensional cosmos overflowing with a zoo of translucent organisms. Some looked like jellyfish which glittered like jade. Others called tintinnids looked like glass paraboloids. The tintinnids propelled themselves with hundreds of thin evanescent tentacles. Tiny krill also swam about and fed on the red phytoplankton. The krill could live without food for a year and survive, a much needed defense against seasons in which phytoplankton were not plentiful. Unfortunately for the pycno, these organisms were too small to satisfy its hunger.

  All around the pycnogonid were silica-spiked sponges, bright amber spiny crabs, and ultra-thin invertebrate animals that looked like yards of intestines. In the last few years waves of immigrant organisms had begun to colonize the local waters, threatening the harmony and existence of local species. Strange species of zebra mussels, daphnia, and ruffe fish were among the intruders. Most stowed away in the ballast water used to balance and stabilize large ships. As the big freighters loaded their cargos in faraway waters, they filled their ballast tanks with water from the local seas. Later, in Newfoundland, the crew released the ballast and any freeloading aquatic life the ship was carrying into the local waters. The new creatures, initially coming from places like the Caspian Sea and New Zealand, became firmly established along the Newfoundland coasts, competing with and displacing native species.

  The sea spider had changed over the past three years. As the pycno matured, optic nerves were induced to grow out along its long flexible proboscis, 20 feet in length, by various processes of which the pycnogonid was unaware. Just in the last few days, increased cellular activity was occurring at the ends of the nerves. Today the spider felt a tingling along its proboscis and suddenly it had additional sensory input. Each optic nerve now bore a huge eye at its end. The spider could see with less light. It was with these new eyes that it viewed the colorful world in its nearby environment.

  Recently, beautiful red and azure sponges were beginning to dot the ocean floor. They never moved, never visibly responded, even as the sea spider trampled them to death in the mud on the sea bottom. Although the sponges could not flee from the pycno's crushing limbs, they were complex animals with a repertoire of behaviors. Fifty years ago, marine biologists considered the sponge to be a plant. More recent studies showed that the sponges were active animals, their bodies dotted with small holes through which whiplike appendages beat and pumped water. The holes filtered food morsels from the surrounding ocean. For their sizes, sponges were in many ways as voracious as the pycno. Before a sponge could gain even an ounce in body weight, it had to filter a ton of water.

  The sea spider treaded water and began to rise from the deep.

  As it ascended, it fed on drifting jellyfish, white-tipped sharks, a few blue marlins and a rare Chaenocephalus aceratus which wore a crocodile-like nose. It particularly enjoyed the slim male pipefish which carried the fertilized eggs of the female in its stomach pouch.

  As it continued to rise to the surface in search of more food, a fish known as Pseudochaenichthys georgianus swam by. It oozed slime and bared saberlike teeth. The pycnogonid did not stop to ingest the fish. It ignored the fish, not because it feared the fish or found it unwholesome, but because it grew bored with small animals, which could not come close to satisfying its insatiable needs.

  The sea spider finally reached the surface where larger specimens might be more plentiful. Its head and proboscis rose out of the water like a sub with a periscope. It saw a large moving object. Its proboscis began to undulate and twitch, as if it had a life of its own. As if it were a separate, sentient organism.

  The prey was larger than the pycnogonid. Faster than most fish. It was a ferry boat.

  About a mile away from the ferry the spider patrolled a few feet beneath the surface of the sea. Clinging to one of its right legs was a creature that looked like a spiral soda bottle, except that its reproductive system flared away from its body like tendrils of flame. Its eyes were translucent globes filled with a luminescent milky substance. Although the pycno hunted using all of its eyes and keen sense of smell, it was not aware of the spiral creature's presence. Its multiple eyes could not see objects directly beneath its belly.

  The sea spider was not here by accident. It had come up from deep water as dark as blood, attracted by the ferry's lights and engine vibrations. For a minute it became disoriented because it had lost visual contact with the ferry's lights. There was just darkness. Its proboscis began to dance up and down like a child on a pogo stick. Then the creature ascended to the surface so that its eyes poked out of the water. Its whole body began to revolve slowly until its eyes locked onto the ferry, and then the creature began to swim toward the source of the sounds and lights. It followed the ferry for a few minutes.

  Its long legs were built so that it could swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea. Now it was using its swimming prowess to track the ferry. To the pycno, the ferry was a big fish or sea mammal, and the creature followed the boat with one emotion: hunger. Its claws contracted spasmodically. It was not intimidated by the ferry boat's size. The sea spider was built to feed on all the fishes of the sea, even the largest sharks and killer whales.

  CHAPTER 25

  Ferry

  IN THE COFFEE shop on the ferry's deck, Nathan sat with Elmo and the two police officers Falow and Natalie around a felt-covered table. Natalie's hair caught the light from the overhead bulbs and was illuminated with wild drama. She appeared tense. In this light, she seemed tall and formidable, with a shiny smile that was the softest thing about her. She looked out the windows at the fading panoramic view of turquoise waters and snowcapped mountains, at the wondrously intricate lacework of bays, islands, and coves. A whiff of pungent sea air drifted through the windows. Her dark eyes moved to Elmo's.

  “Do you think all of us going to the scene of the last attack will help?” Elmo said. “What can we learn?” They all felt some of the rough sea winds that swept like lost souls through the open windows of the coffee shop. Nathan rose and closed a few windows.

  “If we can learn how fast the sea spider moves by interviewing some witnesses, it might help us to prepare some kind of defense—or attack,” Nathan said. Their destination was somewhere out in the darkness of the barnacled pilings and rotting timbers of the forgotten Grey Islands 50 miles south of St. Anthony, near the northern tip of Newfoundland.

  As the ferry pulled away from the island, all four of them looked out the window and watched a party of cross-country skiers gather in the hills of Twillingate. The skiers were celebrating the completion of a 40-day, 500 mile journey across Newfoundland, from Cut Throat point in the northern tundra region to Twillingate on the Notre Dame Bay. By sheer luck, they had arrived only two days after the anniversary of that bitter day when British explorer Robert Schmid discovered that Norwegian explorer Gary Login had beaten him to Twillingate by 10 days. Login survived and won fame. Schmid and his five fellow explorers perished and won glory.

  On the other bank were a number of teenagers in snow vehicles. Each vehicle had a large snow ski attached to the front. Half dirt bike, half snowmobile, the vehicles made it possible for the kids to whiz around the hills like hockey pucks on smooth ice. Fog, with a clammy feel of something dying, rolled in from the sea. Pine trees and railroad tracks disappeared as if dissolved by turpentine poured on an oil painting. Faraway
street lamps became tiny eyes which blinked on and off in the gathering gloom.

  Natalie got up and went to the food counter paneled in knotty pine. Behind it was a teenager wearing a red and white uniform. He was brewing some coffee. “Can I get you something?” he asked. The teenager reminded her of some of the perfect faces on a TV show. The boy's name, Bill, was written on his uniform in bright red letters. On the shelf behind Bill were row upon row of fruit drink bottles. The lime green, lemon yellow, and bright orange colors created a miniature rainbow of glass jars which sparkled in the fluorescent counter lights.

  “What's left? Any flame-broiled salmon?” Natalie asked.

  “No, just junk food,” Bill said. “And a few frozen dinners.”

  “I'll take the cookies.”

  “That's a dollar.”

  Natalie withdrew a dollar bill from her pocket, dropped it, and almost banged her hand on the edge of the counter. She then looked back over her shoulder at the three men.

  “There are still some Devil Dogs at the counter, if anyone is hungry,” she yelled to them as she paid the boy for the chocolate snack. “Also some chocolate and honey-glazed doughnuts, Yodels, Ring-Dings, Pez, and other healthy snacks.”

  “No thanks,” the others said in unison.

  Natalie looked up, and Nathan's gaze followed hers. High above the counter was a small color TV. Geraldo was on. Nathan's gaze shifted to the wall on the right where a small plaster crucifix hung. He wondered what that was doing there.

  A poster taped to another wall of the coffee shop caught Nathan's eye. “Look at this,” he called to Natalie. The poster showed Martha Samules, the fish store lady, wearing a floaty peignoir shimmering with large pearls. Around her waist was an African mud-cloth belt. Pinned to her peignoir was her famous red button with the words FISH ARE FUN.

  Natalie walked over, took Nathan's hand, and smiled. “She sure is everywhere,” she said. “I guess this is an advertisement for her tropical fish store.”

  Chief Falow looked out a window and breathed deeply, perhaps hoping it would ease his apprehension. It didn't seem to. They could smell decomposed wood along with the odors of creosote and lime which frequently drifted from the paper mills in Twillingate. Falow began to pace.