Simeon said: “You are suggesting that we attack the spiders now — even though they are trying to make peace?”
Doggins nodded. “I am suggesting that we try to destroy the Spider Lord before he has a chance to destroy us.”
Simeon frowned; his bushy eyebrows almost obliterated his eyes.
“But can we be sure he wants to destroy us?” His eyes rested on Niall. “You are the one whose life is most at risk. What do you think?”
Niall said: “The Princess Merlew has been trying to convince me that the Spider Lord wants peace. I must admit that she almost succeeded.”
Doggins interrupted: “She intended to convince you. That is what the Spider Lord wanted her to do.” He made an obvious effort to restrain his impatience. “Of course they want peace. And the easiest way to get it is to kill their enemies.” He leaned forward. “I believe the Spider Lord cannot afford not to be treacherous. That is why we must act before he gets the chance.”
Simeon was obviously unhappy; he frowned, shaking his head.
“You say the Spider Lord cannot afford not to be treacherous. But is that true? The Peace Treaty has now lasted for three hundred years, and in all that time there has been no incident of treachery between the spiders and the beetles. You know the Peace Treaty as well as I do. It is a hundred and eighteen paragraphs long. When old enemies draw up a treaty as long as that, they are not prepared to break it lightly.”
Doggins nodded. “What you say is true. I also know most of the treaty by heart. But it was drawn up three centuries ago, and many things have changed since then. The spiders have always known that human beings are their most dangerous enemies. That is why they have always tried to enslave us and turn us into cattle. But they could not enslave the servants of the beetles. They had to allow us a certain degree of freedom. Even so, the treaty forbids us to learn to read or write, or to use any kind of machine — even a simple pressure lamp.” He tapped the table with his knuckles. “Why do you think I was so anxious to find the Reapers? It was not to attack the spiders, but to force them into bargaining. I wanted to be allowed to use my own mind without having to ask the permission of the spiders. That is surely the right of every man. Well, now we have the Reapers, which means we have the means to claim the right to think for ourselves. The spiders know we are determined to gain our freedom at any cost — and that, sooner or later, we shall succeed. They know they’ve finally lost their hold on us.” He turned to Simeon. “That is why they must destroy us if they get the chance. And that is why we cannot afford to trust them.”
He spoke with such passion and conviction that they were all impressed; Niall sensed that he was unconsciously using the power of the thought mirror, and that this gave additional force to his arguments. Yet it was obvious from Simeon’s frown that he remained unconvinced. He said:
“In that case, they must be bound by an even stronger treaty. They must be bound by oaths that they would never dare to break.”
Doggins shook his head emphatically. “I do not believe that such oaths exist.”
Simeon said: “There you are mistaken. My brother-in-law Pandion has spent his life studying the spiders — he was the assistant harbour master for many years, and worked with them every day. Pandion assured me that they believe in their gods and goddesses as much as we do in ours. He told me of an occasion when a wolf spider had gone mad after eating a poisoned assassin fly, and killed four sailors. They succeeded in locking it into the hold of the ship, but when it sailed into port, no one dared to release the spider. Pandion went and spoke to it, and saw that it was mad with pain and close to death. But he promised to release it if it would swear an oath by Iblis, the god of darkness, and Nuada, the goddess of the Delta. And although the spider was in agony, it kept its word and attacked no one. It died in convulsions a few hours later. Surely that proves that a spider can be bound by an oath?”
Doggins said: “An ordinary wolf spider, yes. But do you suppose the Spider Lord can be bound by such superstitions?”
“Yes. Because they do not believe they are superstitions.”
Doggins shrugged. “Which is still no guarantee that the Spider Lord could be bound by an oath. I’m afraid we could go on arguing like this for the rest of the day without reaching any conclusion. And we must reach some conclusion.” He looked round the table. “What do the rest of you have to say?”
There was a silence, which Niall broke by asking Simeon:
“You say there is a goddess of the Delta. Do you mean the Great Delta?”
“Yes. The Delta is one of their sacred places.”
The words caused a tingling sensation in Niall’s scalp.
“Do you know why?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Doggins was making an impatient gesture; he ignored it.
Simeon said: “Perhaps because the Delta is so full of life. Nuada is also known as the river of life.”
Again Niall experienced the feeling like cold water flowing over his skin.
“The river or the giver?”
“The river.”
Niall turned to Doggins; his excitement was so great that he had to make an effort to control his voice.
“Don’t you see? The Delta is the centre of the force.”
Doggins was suddenly alert. “What makes you think that?”
“You remember I said that the force is like ripples on a pond? If that is so, then the ripples must have a centre. That centre must lie in the Delta.” He turned to Simeon. “You’ve been there. Didn’t you feel some underground force?”
Simeon frowned, and shook his head.
“I didn’t feel anything — I don’t seem to be sensitive to that kind of thing. But my wife was. And she always told me there was some kind of underground vibration in the Delta.” The admission seemed to embarrass him. “I always assumed it was her imagination.”
“Why?”
Simeon smiled reminiscently.
“It’s easy to let your imagination run away with you in the Delta. It always made me think of a rotten cheese full of maggots. You get the feeling you’re being watched all the time. Spider crabs follow you, and big dragonflies come and inspect you. Even I used to get the feeling there was some kind of presence. . .”
“Then why couldn’t you believe what she said about the vibration?”
“I like hard evidence.” He frowned meditatively. “Mind, there was one odd occasion. . . We’d just arrived in the Delta one afternoon — we’d gone to collect ortis juice — when there was a tremendous thunderstorm. We were afraid we’d be washed away. When it was right overhead, there was a great flash of lightning and the loudest clap of thunder I’ve ever heard — it made my ears ring. And right after that, we both had this strange sensation that something had happened. I can’t explain it except to say that things felt different. That sense of being watched had vanished. And when the storm was over, the insects were all blundering about as though they’d been stunned. Even the plants seemed to be the same. We saw a dragonfly blunder into a Venus fly trap, and we expected to see it snapped up. Instead the trap closed so slowly that the fly escaped.”
Doggins asked: “What do you think caused it?”
“My guess is that it was something to do with the lightning. But the lightning couldn’t have affected every single plant and insect. It lasted several hours, and we got our ortis juice with no trouble at all — the plant didn’t even try to stun us, and nothing tried to attack us, although Valda tripped over a web-foot scorpion. The next day things were back to normal — we felt we were being watched again.”
Manetho nodded. “I’ve had the same feeling when we landed on the Delta for water — a sensation of being watched. It always gives me a prickling feeling in the back of my neck.”
Niall asked him: “Did you notice this underground vibration?”
Manetho considered it, frowning. “Yes, I suppose I did — although I haven’t thought about it until now.”
Doggins asked Simeon: “Did you talk to anyone about this experience in the Delta?”
Simeon shook his head.
“Why not?”
Simeon shrugged. “It didn’t seem important. The Delta’s a strange place — anything can happen.”
Doggins looked at him with raised eyebrows. “It would have struck me as important.”