Yet although his new awareness allowed him to blend into the consciousness of the spiders, so that he himself became a kind of honorary spider, he was also aware that all the spiders possessed their own individual consciousness, so that the contents of their minds were hidden from him, just as his were hidden from them. He could betray his thoughts to them, by allowing them to “overflow,” but if he chose to minimize his thought energy, then there was no way in which they could invade the privacy of his mind.
Now, as he stood in silence before the web of the Spider Lord, he understood the proverb quoted by Dravig as the essence of spider wisdom: “Silence allows Time to hear its own voice.” Because they were directly aware of one another’s existence, spiders felt perfectly at home in silence; this was why they could remain silent and motionless for days or weeks at a time. This, he also realized, was why spiders lived so long: the silence allowed them time to renew themselves. While he had been trapped in his own identity, Niall had felt awkward and self-conscious to be standing alone in the middle of the room; now he felt that he could easily stand there for a year without fatigue.
As his attention shifted from the strangeness of his new awareness to the room around him, Niall became conscious of the situation in which he found himself. The web that covered the end of the room like a dark tunnel now seemed transparent, and he recognized for the first time that it was the equivalent of a royal throne, in which the Spider Lord sat surrounded by her courtiers, the ruling council of the spider city; each of these councilors — all were female — had her precise place. The only other occupants of the room, besides himself and Dravig, were six male spiders, who were ranged on either side of the room; these, he now realized, were the prisoners on trial.
As soon as his attention was fixed on them, he was aware that five of the six were nonentities, the spider equivalent of foot soldiers. The leading spirit was the sixth, a captain of the guard who had been Skorbo’s closest friend. This spider was smaller and more compact than the others, although his powerful legs and pincers revealed enormous physical strength. Niall was surprised to realize that this spider, like the others, was nameless — for names would have been pointless when spiders had instant telepathic recognition. If one of them wished to refer to a spider who was absent, he could convey a mental image of the spider’s essential identity. Names such as Skorbo and Dravig had been bestowed on prominent spiders by human beings.
And now that his attention was focused on the sixth spider, Niall also recognized that a name would have been an absurdity. This spider had come from a distant province across the sea, and he had been born into a privileged position, a member of a family whose natural dominance ensured them a certain preeminence. Here, in the spider city, his natural dominance aroused resentment, while his small stature led to him being regarded with a certain lack of respect. And since spiders attached immense importance to being respected, this had engendered a certain rebelliousness.
Skorbo, by comparison, had been coarse and stupid; but he also possessed a high degree of natural dominance, so the two had formed a kind of alliance. Skorbo had never understood his companion’s rebelliousness, for he himself was a born soldier who regarded obedience as a law of nature; but he admired this “aristocrat” among spiders.
As members of the imperial guard, these two had never given cause for complaint; but when they were off duty, they took pleasure in hunting and tormenting human beings. They were not interested in those who were merely fat and succulent, but only in those who possessed a certain strength and enterprise, some degree of leadership quality. These they observed with infinite patience, studying their movements, waiting until the opportunity came to plunge down on them from the sky and seize the victim in all eight legs. This generated an almost feverish intensity of pleasure. The victim’s vocal chords were paralyzed so that he could not cry out, but his limbs were left unaffected, for the essence of the pleasure lay in his struggles. To feel a terrified captive squirming frantically produced a delight that in human beings is associated only with sex. Then he would be taken to a lighted room, and allowed to try to escape. One man had even succeeded in leaping out of an upper window, hoping to kill himself; but Skorbo had been crouching in his web, and had caught him before he struck the pavement. (Spiders were able to increase or decrease their speed of descent at will.) The victim had then been tormented for hours until he had died of terror and exhaustion. His body had been eaten while still warm.
All this Niall knew instantaneously on looking at the guard captain, for it had already been confessed, and was therefore in the minds of his companions. He could also understand why, when the Spider Lord had announced the peace treaty between spiders and human beings, Skorbo and his companion had been so shocked and outraged. They were being deprived of a pleasure that had become the keenest and sweetest sensation in life, something that meant more to them than food and drink. Yet Skorbo was willing to accept the new state of affairs; since it was the will of the goddess, he could see no alternative. It was his companion who rebelled at the idea. Although he too was willing to respect the will of the goddess, the notion of treating human beings as equals filled him with fury and contempt. Humans were vermin, obviously intended by Nature to be the prey of spiders. If the goddess had allowed them to go on killing human beings for centuries, it was surely unlikely that she would suddenly change her mind. No, this new prohibition was obviously the decision of the old Spider Lord, who was impotent and senile. It deserved to be flouted.
In any case, there was no hurry about deciding what to do. Their private larder was well stocked with human flesh. A death spider could inject his prey with a poison that would paralyze the central nervous system without causing death; if precisely the right quantity was injected, the victim might live for six months without being able to move a finger or an eyelid. So Skorbo and his companion continued to dine on human flesh for many months after the peace treaty without feeling that they were breaking the law. Then five NCOs of the imperial guard discovered a forgotten communal larder containing a dozen or so paralyzed human carcasses, as well as some cows and pigs. These were transferred to Skorbo’s larder, and the NCOs joined in the nightly feasts. One night, an NCO brought back the body of a slave who had collapsed during an epileptic attack, and they all agreed that the fresh meat tasted so delicious that it would be absurd to forgo the pleasure of eating the occasional slave — besides, no one really regarded slaves as human. But then, human beings from across the river often wandered around the slave quarter at night, and it was quite impossible to know which was which. And so, step by step, without any intention of breaking the law, Skorbo and his companions had drifted back into the habit of eating live flesh. . .
All these facts were communicated to Niall’s mind within a few moments of the Spider Lord’s greeting; it was unnecessary for them to be communicated serially, one by one, for they existed simultaneously, in the mind of the Spider Lord and of every other spider in this room. But he was also aware that the most important part of the interrogation was still to come — a part that, although purely formal, was still essential to the process of justice.
First of all there was a lengthy silence — the silence spiders believed should precede all affairs of importance. As Niall relaxed in this silence, he experienced an almost electrical sensation of delight. The last time he had experienced this sensation was when he and Veig, and their cousin Hrolf, were exploring the country of the ants, and had encountered a shallow stream that meandered in its rocky bed. For the first time in his life, Niall had immersed himself in water, and then had sat there, staring at the rippling surface, with this same sensation of peaceful ecstasy.
The Spider Lord finally spoke, addressing the prisoners: “You are aware that you have broken the law, and flouted the will of the goddess. What do you have to say for yourselves?”
The accused made no reply. The five NCOs were obviously too ashamed to speak; the captain simply maintained silence.