“We were just talking about you. This is Manetho, my chief mining engineer.”
They clasped forearms. Manetho was a squarely built young man with a broad, good-tempered face that was reddened by the sun and wind. He had immense, muscular arms. Niall took an instant liking to him. Doggins said:
“Manetho sailed into port this morning. He’s been away for the past three weeks.”
Niall asked Manetho: “Did you have any trouble with the spiders?”
The young man grinned. “Not a bit. I didn’t even guess there was anything wrong. They detailed a squad to help me unload and sent me back here in a chariot. Now the cap’n tells me we’re supposed to be at war with them.”
Doggins shook his head. “I don’t know what’s supposed to be happening. I’m not even sure that I want to.” He placed his hand on Manetho’s shoulder. “You go and report to Mostig, then get yourself a meal. After that, come over to my house.”
As they emerged into the sunlight, Niall saw half a dozen members of the stadion, including Pybus and Corbin, standing in a circle, obviously engaged in a heated discussion. The hostile glances they cast at Niall and Doggins revealed that they were the subject of the conversation. Doggins took Niall’s arm.
“Feel like a walk?”
“Of course.”
He led Niall behind the town hall, to the road that led out towards the quarry. Many people greeted Doggins, who was obviously a popular figure; even beetles saluted him respectfully. But Doggins responded with an air of abstraction; he was obviously worried. It was not until they were alone, beyond the last of the houses, that he finally spoke.
“It’s worse than I thought. The spiders are sending two ambassadors to meet the Master and the full council. That means they’re determined to make peace.”
“Is that so bad?”
“Bad?” Doggins stared at him in amazement. “It’s a bloody disaster. It means they’re going to order us to destroy the Reapers.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“It’s common sense. They allowed Manetho to come through the port without any trouble. In the spider city, he saw the results of the explosion — it’s flattened half the slave quarter — but they told him it was an accident. Nobody even mentioned our raid on the barracks. That means they’re trying to show us they want to forgive and forget. Their ambassadors are going to say: everything is back to normal, so let’s discuss our disagreements.”
“Perhaps they really want peace.” Niall was surprised by his own words; they seemed to have emerged without his volition.
Doggins snorted. “Of course they want peace — on their terms. They’ll try and persuade the Master to order the destruction of the Reapers and to hand you over.”
“They may not want me handed over. I’ve just talked to one of the charioteers, and he says everyone thinks I’m dead.”
“What?” Doggins looked at him sharply. “Did he tell you why?”
“He said he’d heard it from one of Kazak’s charioteers.”
Doggins frowned, biting his lip. “That’s interesting. So the Spider Lord thought he’d succeeded in strangling you the other day. But he wouldn’t have tried again today unless he’d discovered that he’d failed. That means he knows the beetles won’t hand you over, and he’s determined to get rid of you any way he can. . . And that can only mean one thing — his main demand is going to be the destruction of the Reapers.”
“But surely the Master wouldn’t agree to that?”
Doggins shrugged. “He’s a wise old bird, but I don’t think he even begins to understand the crawlies. He assumes everybody’s as decent as he is.” He lowered his voice, although it was obviously unnecessary. “Between you and me, I’ve never understood how anyone so wise can be so stupid.”
These words aroused in Niall a sudden insight, accompanied by a curious sense of excitement. It was the recognition that there were certain matters upon which Doggins was completely blind. This blindness made him an admirable servant, for it enabled him to concentrate his full attention on practical problems. But it meant that he would never even suspect the existence of a world in which trees enjoyed the caress of the wind and flowers threw off sparks of living energy.
They had arrived at the top of a low hill. The grass on its far slope was brown and withered, and beyond that, there was no grass — only blackened earth. This was the area that Doggins had blasted with his Reaper. A few yards down the slope there was an object that looked like a large boulder; on closer inspection, Niall saw that it was a dead spider, lying on its back, its legs bunched up on its stomach. He touched it with the tip of his sandal; the charred flesh felt like wood.
They walked a dozen yards further across the hardbaked earth. Then, suddenly, the ground at their feet seemed to disappear; they were standing on the edge of a sharp drop, about twelve feet deep, which extended for hundreds of yards on either side of them. At first Niall took it for some natural feature; then, when he saw melted rocks, realised that it had been caused by the blast of the Reaper. It had literally vaporised the earth, as easily as it might have melted ice. For the first time, Niall understood the terrifying destructive power of the Reapers. He drew a deep breath.
“No wonder they’re afraid of us.”
Doggins said grimly. “You know what the crawlies are like. Do you think they’ll be in a hurry to forget this?”
They walked along the edge of the depression. Niall was astonished and shaken at the sheer size of the devastated area; it was at least half a mile in diameter. It was easy to gauge the precise position of the balloon when Doggins had pulled the trigger; the blast had struck the ground like some immense jet of water, cutting a deep valley for several hundred yards from the point of impact. Then, like a jet from a hosepipe, it had spread out sideways, hurling a wall of rocks and loose earth in front of it. Everything around the point of impact had been destroyed or completely vaporised while, further away, the sheer force of the blast had preserved objects by driving them like leaves before a gale. In this area, bodies of spiders lay among uprooted trees and fragments of rock. There was an unpleasant smell of decaying flesh in the air.
As they walked around the circumference of this area of charred earth, neither of them spoke. It was Doggins who finally expressed the thought that preoccupied them both. He pointed towards the buildings of the spider city on the southern horizon. “Just one Reaper could destroy that place in less than a minute.”
“And all the human beings in it.”
Doggins glanced sideways at him. “Almost worth it, wouldn’t you say?”
“No. My family happened to be among them.”
Doggins shrugged. “Oh, I wasn’t serious. Just a thought. . .”
Niall’s foot slipped on something soft. It was a small squid fungus, which had been squashed flat by his sandal. He gave an exclamation of disgust. Then, for the first time, they both noticed that there were dozens of the creatures crawling towards them like grey slugs. One of them reached Niall’s ankle, and extended its grey tentacles to try to climb on to his foot. He kicked it away.
“Strange. I wonder where they came from?”
Doggins pointed. “They’re attracted by the dead spiders.”
It was true. A dozen yards away there was the decaying corpse of a spider, the entrails protruding like balloons from the open belly; hordes of tiny squid funguses were feeding on the flesh like an army of grubs.
Niall kicked away a fungus that was trying to crawl up his leg. They made a wide circuit around the dead spider, and the funguses that had been crawling towards them seemed to lose interest. As they drew close to the point where they had started, Niall paused to look at a charred, rock-like corpse that lay on its back. For a moment, his eyes had deceived him into thinking that it was trying to turn over. A moment later, another movement made them halt again. The body had undoubtedly given a faint jerk. Then, as they both watched intently, a split appeared in the belly. It opened slowly like a wound, and squid fungus crawled out, dragging a fragment of entrail behind it. Doggins grimaced and started to walk on. Niall said: “Wait a moment.”
He walked slowly round the blackened corpse, trying not to breathe in the stench. Doggins stared unbelievingly.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“I can’t understand how it got in.” He gave the body a heave with his foot, and half-turned it over; the back was shiny, like burnt wood.