Fear That Man

than you might think. It stared down through the trees at us, thirty feet high, its bulbous body burdened by an underslung belly which was slashed, in turn, by a wet, wicked mouth that opened and closed over us like an enormous vise. No long, slow throat-to-stomach affairs. Just open up and—slurp! Spiders make me sick. They are a common mutation, and they are always hideous and revolting. This one made me sicker than usual. There were ugly, cancerous scabs all over it, pus-coated hairs hanging heavily from each ripe disease pocket.

“Don’t shoot yet!” I told Crazy. But he didn’t have to be told. More than once, he had seen these things react reflexively to a shot, leap in and chomp up whatever was holding the gun. A big spider is not as large as it looks, because it is mostly spindly legs which can squeeze together fast into a little ball, drop the spider fifteen feet in height, and let it scuttle in under the trees after you. Spiders are handled with gentle, loving care until you’re ready to kill them. Any other way, they’ll kill you first.

“The rocks,” I said quietly, watching the multi-prismed eye watch me. Very slowly, and with grace, we edged our way along the rocks where I had been setting that particular camera. Tiptoes and marshmallow footfalls…

The spider watched, swiveling its strangely tiny head to follow us, a row of fine hairs atwiddle below its eyes. Except for those hairs, it seemed petrified, immobile. In a split second — even before the splitting could be finished — it could be moving faster than a man could ever run.

The rocks we were negotiating were actually the ruins of centuries, tossed here by the A-blast that had leveled Harrisburg, a provincial capital at that time. It was a vast tumble of caves, valleys, mountains of bricks and stone and powdered mortar.

Moving a tentative step, the spider settled massive legs through the brush with a minimum of noise, keened a bit louder, an out-of-tune harmonica.

Ulysses, you were a punk hero!

We reached a place where the rock broke open, forming a small valley, closing again four hundred feet away and ending at the mouth of a dark tunnel that led further into the ruins — a tunnel too small for a Beast like this, but not too small for Crazy and me. “Now,” I whispered. “Run!”

We turned, loped into the valley, cutting ourselves off from the view of the spider. Crazy reached the tunnel first. His legs are often an asset when speed is needed — but, God, you should see him try to dance!

I was halfway down the valley when the spider mounted the one valley wall and looked down on us. The colossal red eyes glittered accusingly. Supper had run away. Bad, bad. Then the belly appeared, mandibles open and clacking. Clackinty-clack-clack!

Fsstphss! Crazy opened fire with his vibra pistol, caught on of the legs. The spider drew its member up, twiddled it madly. Crazy fired again, caught another leg and blew it completely off. The huge limb bounced over the rocks, wedged between two of them, and continued squirming, not yet aware that it was loose, a thing away from its owner and soon to rot.

I ran.

The spider started down into the valley.

I pressed my aching lungs and screaming muscles to even faster operation.

Crazy fired again, caught the Beast in the side, tore it open. But spiders don’t bleed, and a fist-sized hole wasn’t stopping this baby.

Besides, we had overlooked, in our haste, a very important thing: tunnels make nice homes — for things. Crazy was raising his pistol for a shot at the giant head when a pinkish grub-like creature came wriggling out of the tunnel in defense of its abode, casting off three inch, hard thorns, one of which struck Crazy’s arm, sent him tumbling, his gun lost in the stones.

The spider screeched insanely, head hobbling, stomach clacking.

The grub, suddenly a more immediate danger, hissed, arched its ribbed back, and flung itself forward in spasmodic lurches that were immediately followed by the jerking release of the spines that in some places, were hurled with enough force to penetrate rocks. I ran to Crazy, tried dragging him to the walls where the Beasts could attack only from the front. But dragging three hundred and fifty pounds of unconscious horse-man is harder to do than it sounds — and it sounds pretty damn hard!

I crouched behind Crazy Horse, back to the spider, pulled the spine from his arm. There was a lot of blood pumping out of that arm. Entirely too much blood. Nothing there to stop it with, either. I turned to the grub, looked for a vulnerable spot. Most of its belly was calloused, but the first two segments always seemed to be aloft in the manner of a “running” snake. I aimed my vibra-pistol at these first two soft segments, pulled the trigger and held it down. The worm went kicking into the air, turning over and over, tossing off spines that shot over our heads. It crashed back to the ground when I stopped firing, was very still.

But the spider…

It was at the opposite end of the valley now, having used the grub’s diversions as a chance to make an easy entry. Behind it, anchored to the rubble, was a thin web structure. It was getting ready to snare us.

Crazy moaned, kicked a foot, lapsed into unconsciousness again, blood all over him, face twisted strangely.

The spider leaped.

All those legs just tensed, and it was moving through the air, hitting the ground, running. Silent.

I fired.

The shot caught it in the legs, folded the spindly members up under it, and sent it tumbling backward like a greasy dust ball caught in a strong draft. After it came to rest, it lay still so long that I thought it was dead. But finally it stirred, stood, and clung to the rubble wall, watching me. I was mentally charting all possible pathways of advancement for it, trying to anticipate its next move. But I didn’t expect the silk to come spitting out like liquid smoke from so great a distance. Lazily, it twirled toward us, undulating like a snake formed of mist. The spider could, it seemed, direct two of these lines at the same time, for two of them approached. One struck the wall to the left, curling over a rocky projection halfway up; the second hit an equal height on the opposite wall, lacing through loosely stacked rubble and welding its hold into a solid position. Then the Beast began swinging the lines, wrapping them back and forth from wall to wall, closing us in.

I sat on the ground, braced my back against Crazy, thumbed the controls of the pistol to full power. The web dropped over us, fouled my hand. I had to spend several valuable seconds untangling the sticky mess from the gun and my fingers. When I raised the weapon again, the spider had advanced fifty feet. I fired. But the web was so dense now that it absorbed the blast, diffused it, dissolved it. Still, I could not dissolve it as fast as the spider could make it.

Another filament dropped across my back. Another curled over my right ear, dropped across my shoulder and down to wind at my waist. Crazy was almost covered. I shot it again. The web absorbed it. The web dissolved. The web was replaced. The spider was keening more frantically than ever, no longer quiet in its advance, now assured of victory, now jubilant. Several sticky strands lashed around me, pinning my arms to my chest. More. Still more. I was being cocooned. The gun dropped out of my hands as circulation was cut down in my arms, my hands made numb and useless.

A strand crossed my face, fouled an eye. It was amazingly cool against my skin.

Another strand curled over my lips, drifted upward into my nostrils and stuck there, tickling.

Crazy was invisible beneath a white drift of the snowy thread.

The spider tensed to leap…

III

Lotus when there is danger? A helpless, frightened rabbit of a girl? No. That’s not Lotus at all. Lotus is a girl who comes fluttering over the treetops when a spider is about to devour her friends and leaps onto the spider because she has no gun.

Why no gun? A knife, that’s why. She keeps it in her waistband. Only the red gem handle shows — until she has to use it. Then, lightning isn’t any faster.

I was pinned by the web, watching the hairy black mutant dance across the foggy highway it had built when she came into view in the morning sky and spotted the action. She dipped, swayed with half a second’s hesitation,