For several long minutes, I watched in dread, wondering if the spider would let him live, or simply drain him dry, and then go rampaging through the crew, but it didn’t. It raised its head, and then licked over the bite mark, stopping the blood flow from the wounds. Even then, it didn’t let Mack go. It held him, staring at nothing, before turning him so it could look down into his face, and smiling contentedly.
“It is good to know, my dear captain, that even you can feel fear.”
“Fuck you,” Mack muttered, but he didn’t try to break the arach’s hold, and I wondered if he’d been paralyzed by the bite.
“Not a chance,” his captor muttered, “but I could set you aside for when the queen wishes to lay.”
“Why don’t you wait a day or so, and then introduce me to your queen?” Mack suggested, but he sounded tired, and he still hadn’t moved.
The arach let him slide slowly to the floor.
“Perhaps when the mission is done,” the arach murmured, and stood up, making a show of wiping his mouth, before he walked away. “Same time, tomorrow?”
Mack groaned, but the arach did not look back.
“Tell your cook you need something high in iron—or go and see your doctor. Don’t make me go looking for Tens.”
Mack pushed himself slowly into a sitting position, and then paused, as though to catch his breath. The arach glanced over its shoulder and chattered something to the guards around it. Two of them snapped briefly to attention, and then went back to Mack.
“I don’t think I’ve got any to spare, boys,” Mack said, but they hadn’t come to feed.
They picked him up off the floor, and pulled his arms across their shoulders—and the implant faded out. The last thing I saw of Mack, was of him stumbling like a drunk between the arach, as they took him away.
I woke up calling his name, and trying to fight my way free of the chair that held me.
“Mack! What the Hell! Mack!” A rustle of movement caught my attention, and I turned my head. “Who the fuck are you?”
The man-sized wasp beside me tilted its head and regarded me with one of its large, multi-faceted eyes. Its bright orange wings twitched, stretched and then settled flat against its back.
“You have an extremely foul mouth,” it observed, “even for a human.”
I heard buzzing, followed by a whistle. It was untranslated, but the gesture the wasp beside me made in return surpassed the need. I felt my lips twitch into what might have been a smile, if it hadn’t been for Mack.
“Mack,” I repeated, and tried to lift a hand.
It was tied down, and I couldn’t. I also became aware of several points of pressure around my skull.
“What’s this?”
My voice sounded hoarse, like I’d done a lot of talking… or screaming.
“You don’t sleep well.”
No shit Sherlock. I remembered my dreams.
“We have to get to Mack. He…” I couldn’t say it, but the wasp turned to its monitor and clicked at the keyboard.
“We know,” it said, as I heard Mack’s voice.
“I don’t think I’ve got any to spare, boys.”
“The ship has returned to orbit.”
I knew that voice!
“Your majesty.”
The wasp moved out of its seat, and then settled back as a familiar figure came to stand beside our chairs.
“You’re looking better,” the queen said.
I wanted to say I was feeling better, but my words had fled. I stared into her beautiful face, and wondered why.
“Because I can trap your mind,” the queen explained. “Don’t worry. I won’t use it against you.”
“Good to know,” I managed, and found she’d given me back control.
“Mack…” I began, but she moved away and leant over the console of the wasp beside me.
“What have you got, Poli?”
“You were right. The implant went live, and we used it to trace the signal. The arach have hacked the satellites, so they don’t register their ship’s presence.”
“That’s not very convenient.”
I tested the restraints at my hands, and discovered I had some at my feet, as well. Bugger. Talk about not convenient. I didn’t bother fighting, figured I’d be hurting, by now, if they’d intended me any harm. rav bushes, aside—and that had been my own fault, anyway. I tilted my chin, and took a good look around the space I was in, instead.
To my surprise, the wasps were not the only creatures operating the array of computers I could see around the room. And, when I say around, I mean, all around.
I hadn’t known computers could operate upside down—Man, I thought, looking at the wasps tucked along the ceiling and happily operating the keyboards with their front pair of legs, while hanging on with their last two pairs. That would not have worked with human operators.
Speaking of which, the humans worked from standing stations. I spotted three or four of them, and wondered what they were doing here.
“They work for us,” the queen said. “Equal opportunity. Skill and loyalty should be rewarded.”
I looked back to her. Mack valued skill and loyalty.
“Mack…” I said, and had to clear the tears out of my throat.
“We have not forgotten,” she said.
“You don’t understand. Their leader said they were hungry.”
She came over to me, then, and moved her hands across my head, taking away whatever was applying pressure to my skull. I studied her face as she worked, and wondered what she was thinking.
“I do understand,” she told me. “I know the arach very well. My people have fought them for centuries. The ones on the ship are hungry, and they have no intention of sparing Mack, or his crew—especially after the damage he did to their leader. He is fortunate that terror cannot be hidden when it mingles with the blood.”
“It can’t?”
“No,” said a new voice, and the queen and I both looked towards it. “It has a most distinctive flavor.”
“Askavor,” the queen said, as I did my best to climb out of the chair—backwards,
