Spider Legs

by Piers Anthony

  In contrast to Falow's agitated actions, Elmo sat quietly at the table leafing through the local newspaper. Nathan and Natalie looked out another window, Nathan noticing the remarkable ice-sculpted valleys, numerous lake basins, and rounded rock knobs—the classic signs of glaciation. In the distance he saw a few men wearing goggles against the icy wind as they tracked caribou, using snowmobiles.

  “What are those men doing over there?” Nathan asked. From the deep chilly waters of Newfoundland, the men were pulling an unusual treasure: huge, century-old logs of virgin timber.

  “The bottom is covered with pine,” Elmo said. “Thousands of logs sank in the harbor during turn-of-the-century lumber operations. The timber is knotless and fine-grained from slow growth. Worth a lot in today's market. The lumber is well preserved by low oxygen levels and the cold temperatures.”

  “Look over there,” Falow pointed to their left. “It's a MOG canal boat.”

  “Are those solar panels on the top?” Nathan asked.

  “Yep, it has twenty 60-watt solar-cell modules, enough to charge 16 lead-acid batteries.”

  “How long will the power last?” Elmo asked.

  “The batteries should power the boat for 10 hours,” Falow replied. “The boat's not too fast. The 30-foot-long craft is designed for intercoastal waterways and goes only five miles per hour.”

  The ferry ride started to get bumpy. The ship rocked back and forth as if it had Parkinson's disease. Nathan glanced nervously at Elmo.

  “Why's the ride so bumpy?” Nathan asked.

  “Could be the wind,” Natalie said.

  “Shouldn't cause a ship this big to rock,” Falow said. A few of the diners pushed away their food, no longer interested in their hamburgers, french fries, and fish sandwiches. A glass of orange juice fell to the floor and shattered. “I don't like this,” Falow said as he stood up and began to pace again.

  “Look, some of the passengers are going to the rail of the ship,” Elmo said. “Maybe they're seasick or just curious about the rocking motion.”

  “That's the worst place to be if the pycnogonid is in the vicinity,” Nathan said. “What if the sea spider is attracted to the hum of the engines? Should we slow down or speed up?”

  “How can we get those kids away from the rail without causing a panic?” Elmo asked.

  “Get a hold of yourselves,” Falow said. “Set a good example.”

  Before anyone could comment further, the captain's voice came over the ferry's loudspeakers: “We're experiencing some turbulence in the waters and think it best to continue at half our usual speed. No need to worry. The crew will keep you advised when we know more.”

  “Sounds more like an airline pilot than a ship's captain,” said Elmo. “What's he mean by experiencing turbulence?”

  The MOG canal boat, now about a half-mile away, seemed to be unaffected by the water “turbulence.” Whatever the problem was, it seemed localized to the vicinity of the ferry.

  “Sheppard, go to the car and get your gun,” Falow said. “I'll go find the captain and see if he can announce to the passengers that it's best to stay away from the rails.”

  Nathan hoped that would be sufficient. He did not like the feel of this at all. They had come to spy on the sea spider; was it possible that it was spying on them?

  CHAPTER 26

  Captain

  LISA, NOT FEELING easy about joining the others in the coffee shop, because Elmo was there, elected to stay outside and see the sights. She had not been on this route before, and was interested. The sea was fairly calm but had an occasional swirl and swell.

  The large ferry sloshed toward St. Anthony through gathering veils of darkness and mist. She understood that this was actually one of the warmer areas of Newfoundland. For four months of the year, more northern regions were virtually inaccessible. Further south were the lakes and bogs, and then the big cities like L'Anse au Meadows and Parsons Harbor.

  She spied the ferry captain, and approached him. Concerned that he would order her out of his way, she protected herself with her most useful armament: her smile. “Hello,” she said, catching him with it as he turned at the sound of her voice.

  Captain Calamari was a big man, surely rarely fearful. He stood six feet two inches tall on the bridge and was dressed in a seafarer sweater patterned with clipper ships. Emblazoned on the shirt was the proud insignia of the Newfoundland Merchant Marines. With one hand he sipped on a steaming cup of good Jamaican coffee to jump-start his heart. He was clearly satisfied with his job. The roar of the ocean waves invigorated him. Lisa had heard that he was the only captain the new ferry had ever known.

  Now, spying Lisa's smile, he softened somewhat. “What can I do for you, Miss?”

  “Lisa. I'm Lisa James. I'm here with the—the monster-hunting party. But I'm really just a spectator. I was just admiring the ferry. It's such a nice boat.”

  If her remark lacked something in precision, it nevertheless evoked a warm response.

  “She's on her last ride of the evening,” the captain said affably. “She's a Norwegian-built UT-904 ferry combining the speed of a catamaran with the smooth ride of a hovercraft when traveling at faster speeds. Two fans beneath the craft create a five-foot air cushion that is trapped by the rubber skirts at the bow and stern section. She's a slim 128-foot-long craft that slices through the water with little drag. She could theoretically hold 360 passengers, and her top speed is fifty knots, about fifty-seven miles per hour.”

  “Really?” Lisa asked with her eyes evincing rapt wonder. It wasn't entirely an act; she was impressed despite her inability to follow all of the description.

  Calamari shrugged. “Such high speeds, however, are rarely attempted in the icy waters.”

  Lisa forced a laugh. “Maybe if the monster chases us.”

  The captain pulled a cord which activated a horn to produce one long whistle followed by three shorts. The whistle echoed weakly against nearby cliff walls. For almost half a minute the reverberations could be heard from the tall pine trees. The echoes rolled off the fragile houses cradled between the wind-scoured land and the wind-tossed waters of the Labrador Sea.

  “That's something,” Lisa breathed. “It just goes on and on.”

  “I don't like all the fog around my ferry,” Calamari confided. “Thick fog, created when the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Current come together, occurs between March and June. Today's fog in autumn, however, is unexpected and unusually murky. Fog used to be the quiet killer of the sea, robbing sea captains of their most important sense: vision. Although I prefer to use my own two eyes, the ferry is equipped with two radar scopes to help me at times like this. Today nature seems alive, like a phantom or an angry predator.”

  “You know so much,” Lisa said. “No offense, but I thought someone who ran a ferry wouldn't be, well, smart.”

  The ensuing discussion evoked the captain's life history. Calamari was the son of a Somerset Quaker and lived at Westson-super-Mare in England during his childhood before coming to Newfoundland. His schooling was fortunate, having several exceptionally gifted teachers who imparted to him a keen interest in the sea and a love of good literature. Quiet and studious by nature, Calamari was also athletic, playing cricket and enjoying long bike rides through the Mendip Hills. When he was 15 his family had moved to Newfoundland, where they remained ever since.

  Meanwhile, he was busy running the ferry. He let Lisa tag along as he did, and she appreciated that. She was learning a lot, and much of it was interesting in ways she hadn't expected.

  A bank of fog now stretched ahead of the bow of Calamari's ferry. He strode back to the wheelhouse, issuing orders to the engine room to reduce speed to 20 knots. Although a ferry's captain was evaluated on his ability to meet the ferry schedules, he explained, the tent of dense fog and waves demanded caution. The danger of actually running into an object and sinking was remote, since the ship contained eight watertight steel doors below the A deck. This compartmentalization made the ship v
irtually unsinkable should they hit something. The ferry theoretically could remain afloat if three adjacent chambers were flooded. The steel doors would keep the remaining compartments dry. That was comforting to know, because Lisa knew that the monster was truly awful and powerful.

  As Calamari looked out to sea a light drizzle began to mist down. He reached for his binoculars, which he said combined an infrared range finder and an electronic compass. Even with his high-tech instrument, he could see very little into the night. His spirits, like the Titanic, were sinking rapidly. Lisa's worries were increasing accordingly.

  Up on the bridge, Calamari stared at the sonar screen but did not see any signs of the sea spider. If it was periodically flattening itself out near the ocean bottom with its legs spread wide, it might avoid the sonar. So he wasn't at all sure that this monster chase would work. But he didn't like that inexplicable bumping they had felt; that had never happened before.

  Rudolph, the engineer, joined Calamari. They stared at the screen for a few more minutes and looked warily at each other like condemned criminals. No, Lisa did not like this at all.

  CHAPTER 27

  Teens

  THE COLD GUSTS of wind made the ship's Newfoundland flags flap like ghosts in a graveyard. Keeping her hands in her pockets to protect them from the chilly air, Natalie Sheppard walked over to the several people near the ferry's cold gray metallic rail. Some were peering out into the mist. Others were actually hanging over the rail and dangling their legs into the fog. “I'm a police officer,” Natalie said. She adopted an aggressive machine-gun-like tone to insure compliance. “Please move away from the rails. The seas are choppy and it's dangerous to stay by the edge of the ferry.”

  They looked at her, and several began to move. Their apparent eagerness to stay near the rail surprised her. Although she made no mention of the pycnogonid, certainly some of the travelers must have read about it in the newspapers or seen the stories on the local TV news. Apparently the stories provoked curiosity rather than fear.

  Natalie gazed at the motley group remaining before her. There was a big man who looked like a lumberjack with a beer belly. His hair glistened with grease, and he drank from a bottle of soda pop. Most others were teenagers. One girl rocked to the acid beat of her radio. She wore a very short skirt, and Natalie could see the blur of her panties as she moved to the music. Another kid was trying to read a book by the dim light provided by the ship's incandescent fixtures.

  One teenager, wearing aviator glasses with dark gray lenses, played a Viotar, a six-stringed instrument that looked like a cross between a violin and a guitar. He played it with a bow, as he swayed back and forth. The Star Trek T-shirt he wore was stained with perspiration. As he played, his glasses fell from his head and onto the deck as a result of his gyrations. The boy was evidently not too skilled. Natalie usually loved Viotar music, but the boy produced sounds like a parakeet being vacuumed out of its cage.

  When the boy finally finished his song a few of the girls clapped. A braless woman, about eighteen years old, bobbed along the ferry's rails toward the boy and then gave him a kiss. He stooped down to pick up his glasses and tucked them into the V of his shirt. He looked around with an expression of amusement. He then popped a few peanut butter candies into the girl's mouth and smiled.

  Natalie was losing patience. With the exception of a few punk teenage girls wearing body fatigues and fluorescent makeup, most of the other travelers had complied with her request to move back from the rail. One of the teenage girls’ pants was so heavily encrusted with rhinestones, it might have stood alone. The girl looked at Natalie and raised her hands in a don't-shoot pose. Then she brushed back some hair that the wind had blown out of place.

  “Are you hard of hearing?” Natalie said. “Move away from the rails.” The girl looked up and said, “Are you going to shoot me if I don't move?” She spoke with a thick, clotty voice with an uneducated accent. If Falow were here, he probably would have picked her up bodily and moved her. Instead Natalie decided to let her do what she wanted.

  “OK, it's your life,” Natalie told the girl, using a tone of voice one might use to intimidate a dog.

  Natalie walked away and then gazed out to sea. The boat started to rock. Then it made sounds like those of a boar being slaughtered. Something was scratching the hull. Natalie backed up a hasty half-step while she looked out to sea. It was so dark out there, so forever. Well, she had done what she had come to do, as far as feasible. She made a hasty retreat back toward the coffee shop.

  Then she spied Lisa, standing near the bridge. Was the girl bothering the captain? She detoured to check on that. But as she got there, she paused, seeing the men distracted by something. She had a sick suspicion what that something might be. She came to stand silently beside Lisa, eavesdropping.

  Inside, she saw Calamari check his sonar screens, and saw a strange green blip on the luminescent sonar display. “What is that?” he said out loud in an expression of bewilderment to Rudolph, a blond, stocky engineer.

  “It's big,” Rudolph said. “And it's moving.” He seemed frustrated by his inability to do anything about the lurking unknown object. Natalie knew that sonar could tell them only so much. She knew that the term “sonar” was derived from the initial letters of the words sound, navigation, and ranging—and it worked by transmitting spurts, or pings, of high-frequency sound waves through the water. By examining the echoes from objects in the water, Calamari could determine their distance and size. Sonar was used in World War II as an antisubmarine device, but the peacetime value of sonar was safe navigation in the presence of shipwrecks, icebergs, and other submerged obstacles.

  “Too big for a school of fish or a large mat of submerged seaweed.”

  “Perhaps a whale, but it's so close.” Rudolph's pale Teutonic features were slowly taking on the coloration of pimento cheese. Natalie couldn't tell whether his new complexion was due to anger or fear.

  “It's right under us!” the captain exclaimed.

  Natalie had seen enough. “Come on, Lisa,” she said, and started off. But the girl didn't follow. Well, maybe she would be as safe near the captain as in the coffee shop. And now it occurred to her that there were other places she should check before seeking her own comfort.

  Natalie stumbled down the steps to the ferry's parking deck, which contained about twenty cars. Even though the area was enclosed on two sides, she was still constantly assaulted by acid air and brine. The ferry was new, but some of the walls of the parking area looked old: rust bloomed like a skin rash in great brown blotches.

  Natalie moved in and out of the rows of cars with a quiet economy of effort that would have been unusual in a woman not trained for efficiency. Suddenly there was a heavy shaking of the deck that made her lose her footing. She fell across the hood of a canary yellow passenger car and finally steadied herself with one hand against the window of a pickup truck. The truck had a rack holding four bicycles and six pairs of skis. Natalie almost knocked the skis off as she regained her footing.

  “You OK?” a woman asked as she leaned over in the passenger seat of her car. Another family was huddled together in a silver station wagon. They looked at Natalie with nervous eyes.

  “Yes, OK. Thanks,” Natalie said even though she had more than a premonition of danger. The parking lot was taking on a new, manic quality with the approach of darkness.

  Natalie turned to look out to sea—and she saw what had to be the pycnogonid coming toward them. The spider did not seem to hesitate as it treaded water and accelerated. Somehow Natalie realized that the spider had no fear at all and would do as it wished. That would not be what any human beings wished.

  She withdrew her service revolver and ran upstairs to the upper deck. Most of the passengers were looking in the opposite direction so did not see the spider's dreadful approach. She shouted only two words in a voice that could cause a hearing impairment: “It's here!”

  The pycno closed fast astern. As Natalie assumed a defensive position wit
h her legs apart, with her gun pointed at the sea spider, she saw its triangular mouth open and close spasmodically, and she saw its myriad polyhedral eyes. There was another sound: the clicking chop of its chelicera. The spider's head was out of water. The all-swallowing sucker waved in Natalie's direction. It was a hateful organism, bad smelling, a scavenger as well as a killer.

  “Brace yourself,” Natalie screamed to the passengers in the parking lot.

  The pycno reached out of the water and cast a leg onto the ferry's deck. Then it cast more legs, embracing the ship. It hauled its impossibly huge body up close, like a phoenix rising from the burning ashes. But this was the opposite: freezing water. The gross head came up to the level of the deck. It moved its proboscis from right to left as if scanning the deck for signs of life. When it ascertained that the ferry was a virtual banquet of warm-blooded mammals, it seemed to feel something akin to pleasure. Its legs trembled in anticipation.

  Nathan and Falow appeared and ran next to Natalie. No one fired a shot; they waited for the perfect time to aim at the primary brain. They all knew that careless shooting would be worse than none, because it would only aggravate the monster.

  "Colossendeis,” Nathan whispered in a mixture of fear, surprise, and awe. “I know that species. It's a huge Colossendeis.”

  Natalie looked at the creature, as if mesmerized. She couldn't shake the feeling that the huge beast was evil Fate clutching the ship in embodied form. This was Death, Satan, Lucifer, the Grim Reaper, the Beast. She realized her thoughts bordered on madness, and she quickly tried to channel her emotions to something more productive.

  Natalie edged closer to the beast. It seemed to be carefully studying them with the cold black orbs of its multiple eyes. One eye swiveled to Natalie and then the creature reached for her, its multiple legs moving in such fluid harmony that it sometimes seemed more like a perfectly functioning robot than a living, breathing creature.