A Spider Sat Beside Her

by K E Lanning

  Adam looked around carefully and then slowly got up and went over to the body, standing over the rog for a second. He bent and, with a sharp blade, methodically untangled it from the grasping vines, ripping more of the artificial skin away from the metal. He freed it and threw the body over his shoulder, trotting back to his hut.

  He entered the dark hut, placing the limp rog on the dirt floor, and then, using the large knife, he began to dissect Poppy. He opened the main body cavity, looking with wonder at the still-pulsing electronics, and then spat in disgust. Impulsively, he grabbed the rog and threw it into the small fire that burned in the center of the hut.

  Adam smiled as the lights popped and the metal slowly collapsed in the flames.

  CHAPTER 28

  The shuttle slowed, approaching the dock at the ISS. Lowry glanced back at the Earth through the tiny window, wondering if her grandmother had found her mother’s letter on the bed with her note.

  Please keep this until I return from the ISS.

  A small thump signaled that the shuttle had docked, and the interior lights brightened. Lowry unsnapped her seatbelt. A thin smile veiled her inner turmoil as she debarked with the other passengers. She recalled her first arrival to the space station, when she had been anxious but excited for a new adventure. It felt like she had aged since then, the weight of the world bowing her shoulders as the revelation of how things “really work” in life sunk in.

  The passengers drifted into the pod, and Lowry held onto the straps, staring out the window as they moved to the outer ring, the artificial gravity inexorably pulling them down. The doors opened, and she left the pod, walking in stony silence down the corridor to her quarters. She sidled past the cafeteria, averting her face from the diners, and continued down the hall. But before she could get around the bend, a crowd of people spilled out of the cafeteria, running up and surrounding her.

  “You were on the news!” someone shouted.

  The throng pulled her back into the dining area, and they replayed the newscast of her testimony. Lowry gaped at the video of her performance at the trial and her inadvertent role in the conviction of Jean-Luc. The newscast jumped to the reading of the guilty verdict with a close-up of Jean-Luc’s pale, defiant face, but Lowry saw the internal pain in his eyes.

  Lowry couldn’t speak, and in reality, there was nothing she could say. She forced her lips to curl into a smile as she waved to the group of well-wishers, and then she headed back down the hall to her cabin.

  “Lowry, wait.”

  Lowry glanced back at Zoë running up to her.

  Zoë bounded in front of her, grabbing her arm. “Lowry, I’m truly sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

  Lowry chewed her lip, still tasting Zoë’s betrayal. “I know what got into you, but why is the real question.”

  “Ha, ha.” Zoë exhaled, and staring at the floor, she shook her head. Then she raised her eyes, which were brimming with tears. “Lowry, please forgive me. I don’t want this to destroy our friendship.”

  Lowry sighed. “Zoë, Edward was sent up here to gather information for the prosecution to use against the Inuit tribe—by any means necessary. And frankly, I’m sure he enjoyed his work.” She pointed at her. “When he interviewed you, did he ask you anything more than about your involvement with the file that came through the satellite?”

  Zoë knitted her brow. “He said he wanted to ‘interview’ me, and yes, we discussed the encrypted file.” She shook her head, looking at the ground. “But that day you were leaving, he wanted to walk in the Garden, and he asked me about my background. We were sitting under the apple tree, and he touched my prosthetic . . . then his hand moved upward.” She bit her lip. “Lowry, it’s been a long time since a man made love to me.”

  Lowry glanced down at the hard plastic shank peeking from under Zoë’s pant leg. Her relationship with Edward had been a fantasy at best. She was vulnerable and he had taken advantage of her. Was there any difference in what Zoë had gone through?

  Lowry closed her eyes and brushed her fingers against her brow, trying to smooth away her disquiet. Then she opened her eyes and looked into Zoë’s worried face. With a little smile, she said, “Honestly, Zoë, he had no reason to entrap you like he did me. He’s a ladies’ man, and you’re a catch.”

  She placed her hand on Zoë’s shoulder. “I’m just pissed that the prosecution team dreamed up a seduction scheme for Edward to manipulate me and ferret out details to help convict the Inuit.”

  With raised eyebrows, Zoë looked at her. “You’re not mad at me?”

  Lowry shook her head. “Nah—end of story.” She waved and walked down the hall. “Let’s have dinner later, Zoë.”

  Lowry continued to her cabin, and once inside, she dropped her bag onto the bed. She shuffled to the tiny window in her cabin and stared out at the empty dark sky, no Earth in view to give her solace. Feeling trapped, she paced around the room as the stress of the last several weeks whirled in her head.

  The monitor in her room lit up with a blue light.

  “Lowry, I heard you were back,” Bob said softly.

  Lowry sighed. “Hi, Bob.”

  “You don’t sound happy—are you all right?”

  Running her fingers through her hair, she shook her head. “No, Bob, I’m not all right.” She whispered, “I’m sick”—she rubbed her hand across her forehead—“from overexposure to the wretched side of the human beast.”

  “But humans are fundamentally good . . . aren’t they?”

  Growling, she burst out of the door and found herself walking toward the Garden.

  Lowry surged through the last sliding door and breathed in the moist atmosphere enveloping her. The tension slowly faded as she strolled along the path to the rocky shoreline of the freshwater lake.

  The sound of birds filled the air over the still water. She sat on a rock hanging over the water, gazing down at her reflection, the scars beneath the surface hidden in a pretty young face.

  She picked up a stone, firing it into her image shimmering on the surface. “Take that, fool!”

  The water rippled out from the impact, and now, with the mirrored surface broken, Lowry saw the plants, fish, and insects beneath the surface, locked in a never-ending battle of life in a simple pool of water. A knot of tadpoles feasted on a dead minnow, bumping it back and forth on the surface as other minnows fed on the algae nearby.

  An acceptance of death.

  Lowry sighed. An acceptance of death, even if that death is of the image you have of yourself. The whimsy that everything will be wonderful, when reality is screaming something else. At some point in your life, you have to wake up and smell the charred flesh as the delusions in your mind are burned away. To really live, there must be an acceptance of truth, no matter how bitter and humbling it might be. The ads promise sparkling white teeth, but once they’re knocked out, it really doesn’t matter anymore.

  Lowry rubbed her temples. There was no returning to a fool’s paradise once the bubble had burst. The wax figure you have conjured up melts into a pool of uncertainty, oozing between your toes. Perhaps you might gaze down, aghast, as you look at the remains of who you thought you were. If you’re lucky, you stumble away before someone shoves you into reality. If you’re not so lucky, you remain frozen at that spot, gazing down, ever-wishing the image would reassemble itself.

  This growing-up crap is for the birds.

  The tadpoles had picked the minnow down to the skeleton. Lowry reached down past the tadpoles and retrieved the stone she had so violently thrown into the water. She stared at the small white rock in her hand and then clutched it in her palm. A tiny perturbation can make big ripples.

  She turned and ran down a path as fast as she could, like a child after a ball. Then, out of breath, she stopped and sat down in the soft grass. Sighing, she lay down and stared up at the domed sky. Who are human beings? Are we animal, vegetable, or mineral? She brushed the sweet grass. We no longer know.

  Lowry reached into her
pocket and brought the carved finger out. Holding it above her face, she stared at the delicate object, wondering how old it was. She imagined an old man or woman lovingly carving the talisman, perhaps sitting near a fire. The ivory had yellowed with age, and there were tiny cracks running along its length—it had to be ancient.

  The sound of footsteps caught her attention, and Adam came into view, lurching down the path with a walking stick in his hand and bungee cargo nets over his shoulder. He stopped at the sight of her and then walked slowly to where she lay. “You’re back,” he said. “I thought perhaps you’d be gone longer.”

  “I just returned.” Lowry sighed. “I don’t know how much you know about it, but the trial of the supposed attacker of the ISS was a farce.” She gazed at Sedna’s finger. “I tried to help the Inuit, Jean-Luc, but . . . he was found guilty.”

  Adam shook his head. “No surprise. He was an indigenous person—did you think he would get a fair trial?” He pointed to the carved finger. “Where did you get that? It looks like an amulet.”

  Lowry sat up. “The shaman of the Inuit tribe gave it to me after I testified.” With the ivory finger in the palm of her hand, she extended her arm toward him. “He said I reminded him of Sedna, a woman from one of their ancient tales.” She sighed. “He’s an incredible man.”

  He furrowed his brow. “A shaman gave it to you as a gift?” Adam shifted the bungees on his shoulder. “I have to go,” he said brusquely and stepped back toward the path, but then he stopped. Puzzled, Lowry watched his head shifting back and forth, as if he were arguing with himself.

  Adam is an odd bird.

  Then he turned to her with a peculiar look on his face. Grimacing, he came back to her side, and holding the bungees and stick in one hand, he reached out to her with the other. “Come, I want to show you something.”

  Lowry blinked in confusion but took his hand, and he pulled her up. He cocked his head for her to follow and then scurried toward the berry bushes. She stepped forward but then froze. He turned to her and waved for her to follow, but she stood still until he disappeared into the brush.

  Why do I feel like Alice following the White Rabbit? She looked down at the talisman in her hand; when she had taken the step toward Adam, it had shifted in her palm and now pointed to where he had vanished. “Here we go,” she mumbled as curiosity overcame her. She slipped the ivory finger into her pocket and ran after him.

  Lowry caught up to him as the path narrowed into a warren of creeping vines. She stopped, studying the maze of berry briars with reluctance.

  “Come on, Lowry,” Adam grunted, gesturing her to follow.

  He crept into the darkness of the tangled brush, and within steps, she could barely see him. Her heart thudded as she stooped over, following him into the shadows. The path faded to an animal trail as they crawled under massive briars with the smell of moist earth hitting her nostrils. She became tangled in the grasping appendages of the bushes and tore them from her clothes. Adam had gone ahead, and she could no longer see him. Fearing she was lost in this bizarre labyrinth, she crawled faster and then knocked into a garden spider’s web. The web covered her head and face, and shuddering with a shriek, she swept it away.

  Adam crawled back to her and smiled. “Almost there.”

  Past the briars, the trail broadened, and they could walk upright. They came upon a small meadow. Lowry shook herself, brushing off the twigs and stickers, relieved to be out of Adam’s secret jungle.

  A bark hut stood in the center of the clearing with a web of woven twine stretched from the top of the hut to several of the tall bushes surrounding the edge of the clearing. Lowry sucked in her breath with a shiver. Dead chickens and rabbits hung from the rope like laundry.

  Adam stood patiently while she perused his domain, but then he motioned her to come to the hut. She edged toward the entrance and crawled through the tiny door. A small fire smoldered in the fire ring, and she sat cross-legged near it. Adam entered behind her and dropped the cargo netting on the floor of the hut. He placed his carved walking stick against the walls of the hut, near the entrance, next to a sack filled with . . . darts. Lowry’s heart beat a staccato. It wasn’t a walking stick; it was a blowgun, and the darts were eerily similar to the one Uncle Nick had found.

  He sat across from her, took a stick, and stirred the fire. Flames leapt up, and in the flickering light, Lowry was able to see the primitive abode with handmade tools and cooking utensils neatly arranged in the tiny space. The flames crackled, and her eyes were drawn to a glittering object hung on a hook above the fire. She gasped. It was Poppy—at least what was left of her. Her undamaged eye glowed in the reflection of the flame, and Lowry trembled in disgust.

  What has Adam done to Poppy? She glanced at Adam. And what might he do to me?

  Adam turned away for a second. Lowry lunged for the door, scrambling across the dusty floor. He leapt after her and grabbed her leg in mid-leap. She hit the ground midway out of the hut and screamed at the top of her lungs, but he jerked her backward, her fingers scratching a trail in the dirt floor. Flailing her arms, she tried to find something to grab, but hit the blowgun, knocking it, along with the sack of darts, to the ground, spilling the deadly barbs around them.

  Adam sucked in his breath as a dart hit the top of his head, but he didn’t let go, yanking her back from the entrance, his strength belying his small stature. Lowry clutched a dart and twisted around, trying to stab him. He grabbed her arm with a violent wrench, peeled the dart out of her hand, and threw it into the depths of the hut.

  Adam clutched her arms, and she could not move.

  “Don’t leave! I won’t hurt you!” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  Lowry shouted, “Let me go!” She twisted her body, trying to break his hold on her.

  He said calmly, but without releasing her, “Please, you mustn’t leave.” He looked into her face and repeated softly, “I know this is all strange to you, but I will not harm you.”

  She studied his eyes as he stared into her face. He seems sincere. She nodded, and he released his grip, motioning her to come back to the center of the hut. Abruptly, he pushed her down to the floor against the center pole and grabbed one of the bungee nets with his other hand.

  Lowry screamed, kicking out at him, but he dodged her foot, continuing to wind the net around her and the pole. Her arms now trapped, Lowry snaked her head as his arm came around and sunk her teeth into his hand. Adam grunted but did not release his grip on her. He pulled the net tight with one hand, holding it taut with his foot. He pulled her hair back until she released her teeth from his skin. He grabbed the netting with his good hand, wrapping the end of the net around her legs, and then fell back onto the packed dirt floor.

  Adam lay panting, studying her face. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, Lowry.”

  Trussed like a pig for roasting, she spit at him and then slumped against the pole.

  A slight grin passed over his face, but then he looked at his hand where the skin was torn and bloody from Lowry’s bite. He wrapped a bandage over his hand and checked his watch. He scratched in the dirt, uncovering D rings buried in the ground, and snapped the ends of the cargo net to the rings.

  He puttered around the hut, pouring water on the fire and covering it with dirt, and then he walked back into the corner of the hut and picked up another cargo net.

  Lowry snarled, “Let me go, Adam!”

  He returned and squatted in front of her with a gentle smile. “I know you don’t understand as yet, but I am trying to save your life.”

  Adam sat down with his back to hers, and Lowry felt his shoulders move as he calmly lashed himself to the pole just as he had done to her. He attached the ends of the net to the same D rings. Then, in silence, they faced the opposite walls of the hut.

  Lowry said hoarsely, “You are the contact inside the space station.”

  She closed her eyes as he replied, “Yes. And, as I believe the expression goes, the second shoe is about to drop.”


  Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes, staring vacantly at the rough bark walls as the reality of what was happening sunk into her mind. “Adam, why?”

  Adam shifted his body and then whispered, “I come from the A’wa tribe in Colombia, where the native peoples move to the song of the jungle, and the pulse of life is born of blood, not electricity.”

  She cringed as his body swayed back and forth behind her.

  “We work maybe two or three hours a day, and that work consists of hunting, tending the cultivated plants or gathering wild foodstuffs, preparing the food, and caring for the children—all the things you squeeze into a couple of hours. Ironically, what we do every day is what the modern world does as leisure activities.”

  She felt his shoulders move as he sighed, and then he continued wistfully.

  “In the tribe, one spends a great deal of time preparing for ceremonies and dancing. Life began this way. Humans evolved in small groups. In the jungles of South America, families spend most of their waking time together, not spending the day away from one another with strangers instead of a real family. Strangers—who could expect strangers to be a family?”

  His voice became hard. “Humans must demand an end to the insane technological stampede before all that came before is crushed and forgotten. It is said, ‘The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but after them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.’”

  He twisted his head toward her and whispered, “Lowry, you are the only one who understands what I am talking about.”

  “Adam, you are right in spirit. God knows that modern life is out of balance. But violence is not the answer.” Then she asked quietly, “What are you afraid of, Adam?”

  She felt him tense up against her back. “Why do you say I’m afraid?”