It was as he tried to describe his encounter with the empress plant that he began to experience an increasing sense of frustration. The words seemed to falsify what he was trying to say. Simeon listened without interruption, for which he was grateful; even so, he felt as if he was trying to maintain his balance on slippery ice. When he concluded: “Then I woke up, and it was morning,” Simeon looked startled.
“And that’s all?”
“That’s all I can. . . explain.”
“So you didn’t learn anything that will help us against the spiders?”
Niall was disappointed; he had hoped Simeon had understood.
“No. I’ve tried to explain — we have to learn to live with the spiders.”
Simeon shot him a glance of mild irony.
“And did you learn what we should do if the spiders decide to conquer us?”
Niall struggled for words; he said finally:
“No.”
Simeon said: “Then it seems to me that we’re back where we started, only worse off.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we no longer have any bargaining power. We’ve left our Reapers behind in the Delta, and by now the beetles will have confiscated the rest. The spiders can do what they like.”
“Provided the beetles agree. And the beetles would not allow us to be enslaved.”
“They may have no choice.” He laid his hand on Niall’s shoulder. “Look, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to think about this over the past few days. The beetles have always allowed their servants a lot of freedom, and the spiders have always said that’s a mistake. The spiders say men won’t accept just a little freedom — they always want more. According to them, men are always dangerous unless they’re kept enslaved. And now it looks as though they were right. How can the beetles defend themselves against that kind of logic? They’ll have to admit that men are murderous and dangerous.” He shrugged gloomily. “And we’ve thrown away our only bargaining counter.”
“Nevertheless, we were right to destroy the Reapers. There was no other way.”
Simeon thought about it, his grey eyes averted. He said finally:
“I daresay you’re right. But I don’t like to think what the consequences will be.”
They were interrupted by a shout. They stood up cautiously and moved to either side of the undercarriage. In the next balloon, Doggins was pointing towards the northern horizon; when Niall shaded his eyes, he saw the dim outline of the coast, with mountains in the distance.
A quarter of an hour later, they could clearly discern the coastal landmarks: a line of high, grey cliffs, and, further to the north, a brown island that rose out of the sea like a fortress, with pinnacles of pointed rock. Simeon said:
“We’re heading too far north. The harbour’s on the other side of that.” He pointed to a distant headland in the south.
“Does it make much difference?”
“It means a day’s march back to the city. I hope we don’t meet any spiders.”
The cold air was making Niall shiver. He reached up inside the cloak and turned the thought mirror. The sudden concentration made him feel better; as he focused his mind, he discovered that he could induce a warm glow in his hands and feet. He closed his eyes, and allowed his consciousness to relax and expand. After a moment, he became clearly aware of the porifid above his head, and of the threads of energy that stretched around it into space like an immense spider web. He deliberately allowed his own consciousness to merge with that of the porifid, and with its companions in the other balloons. The result was fascinating: the world around him seemed to change into a gigantic pattern of energy, like a spider web. Space itself seemed to vanish, and to be transformed into energy.
What astonished him were the colours. The energy web had a violet colour, while the porifids seemed to be small blue patches, with trailing threads of transparent blue. Other energies, rather less intense, were streaming up from the sea; these were of a very pale blue colour. Above the distant land, there was a haze of green energy, which changed to grey over the mountains. Simeon, standing a few paces away, was a red mass of energy; but when Niall looked more closely, he could see that this energy was diffused, like smoke, and that it was continually leaking away, so Simeon had to keep on replacing it from his own body.
It now struck Niall that until he had turned the thought mirror, his own energies had also been leaking away. Now his mind was concentrated, he was able to control this waste of his vital force. He was also aware that he was able to absorb energy from the violet web, as well as from the earth and sea. The source of the violet energy lay beyond the southern horizon, and he was aware that this source was the empress plant. It absorbed the green energy of the earth, concentrated it, and then transmitted it, so it could be absorbed by living organisms like the porifid. But the porifid was far too small and inefficient to make proper use of the energy; it could only store up a little at a time. And Simeon, who could have stored large amounts of energy, was almost totally unaware of its existence.
Yet Niall himself could store the energy. He merely had to absorb it, like a fish eating plankton, and then prevent it from escaping again. As he mastered this trick, the glow of warmth inside his body increased, until he felt as if he was sitting in front of a large bonfire. When he looked down at his body, he could see that it had ceased to be a pale, diffused red, but had been transformed into the rich, glowing colour of a ruby.
Simeon touched him on the arm, and brought him back to consciousness of the physical world.
“I’m going to start releasing pressure. The wind should be less strong down there. There’s no point in being carried too far out of our way.” He reached up towards the release valve.
Simeon’s anxiety struck Niall as absurd. He was aware that the wind was merely a crude form of energy and, as such, merely a part of a vast energy pattern of which they themselves were, for practical purposes, the centre. So if they wished to change the pattern, they merely had to make a spontaneous effort of will, like a bird changing direction in flight. Even the porifids knew how to do it.
Niall closed his eyes and fixed his mind on the headland to the south. Then he made an effort to absorb and retain more energy. It was exactly as if he was increasing his own weight, so the spider web of energy began to sag underneath him. This created a vortex of controlled power, which sucked the surrounding energies like a whirlpool. Their balloon shuddered violently, so the connecting rope jerked them sideways; they were forced to cling on to the sides of the undercarriage.
Simeon said: “Sorry.” He was evidently under the impression he was responsible for the turbulence. A few minutes later, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, and slapped Niall on the shoulder.
“Good, I think it’s working.” He waved triumphantly at Doggins in the next balloon.
Niall said nothing. Like a yachtsman, he was concentrating on steering into the cross-currents of energy, preventing them from sweeping him further than he wanted to go. He found this easier if he kept his eyes closed; then he was aware of precisely how much energy he was controlling. When he opened his eyes again, he could see beyond the headland, with its lighthouse, to the massive stone walls of the harbour. Twenty minutes later, they crossed the coast north of the headland; down on their right they could see the harbour and the docks. They were low enough to see men and spiders moving around on the quays; the men paused in their work to stare at the strange sight of three balloons linked together, while Niall experienced the cold sense of discomfort that came from the concentrated gaze of many spiders. But he was also aware of a different quality in the probing beams of will that surveyed them — a quality of caution, even of anxiety. The spiders were learning to fear and respect human beings.
To the north-east, they could see the buildings of the spider city, lying in its shallow depression of hills, and, on the far side of the hills, the twisted red towers of the beetles. Soon the spider city lay below them, and Niall’s heart rose as he saw the white tower glittering in the sunlight. Then, once again he was aware of being watched, and once again he sensed doubt and caution. But from the headquarters of the Spider Lord he was aware of a different quality of observation: a malevolent gaze that surveyed them as a hungry animal watches its intended prey. Here there was no sense of fear: only hatred.