Kazak stared at him. “How?”
“With a kind of spear. . .”
“This?” From under a cushion, Kazak produced the metal cylinder.
“Yes.”
The king held it out to him. “Show me how it works.”
Niall took it from him, located the concentric circle in the metal, and pressed it; the rod slid open. Kazak watched carefully. Niall pressed again; the rod contracted. Kazak held out his hand, and Niall gave it to him. Kazak located the circle, and pressed it with his thumb. Nothing happened. He pressed again and again. Finally he handed it back to Niall.
“Is there some trick?”
“I don’t think so.” Niall pressed, and the rod expanded. Kazak took it from him and tried again. Nothing happened. After trying for perhaps a minute, Kazak dropped it on the floor with a motion of irritation.
“Why do you think you can do it and I can’t?”
“I don’t know.” It had never occurred to him for a moment that the mechanism would not work for other people.
“Tell me the story of how you found it.”
Obediently, Niall repeated the story of the sandstorm, of the ruined city, and of the glittering machine. Kazak reached behind him and found a bleached board and a piece of charcoal.
“Could you draw it for me?”
Niall made a crude sketch of the machine, realising, as he did so, that he had forgotten many details. Kazak stared at it for a long time. He asked:
“Can the rest of your family open and close the rod?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“I. . . didn’t show it to them.”
Kazak nodded sympathetically. “Afraid your brother might want to take it from you?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Tell me about killing the spider.”
Niall repeated the story as he had told it to Merlew. Kazak interrupted to ask:
“Were you looking into its face?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you were still able to kill it?”
“Yes.”
Kazak said: “It is almost impossible for a human being to kill a spider, unless he can take it unaware. They can knock a man down by sheer force of will. Why do you think you were able to kill this one?”
“Perhaps it was dazed from being buried in the sand.”
Kazak shook his head. “No. It still had time to send an alarm signal before it died. Did it not try to resist you?”
“Yes.”
“With its will-power?”
“Yes.”
“Then how were you able to kill it?”
“I don’t know.” To Niall, the question seemed absurd. It had all happened in the blink of an eyelid, and he had not even thought about it.
Kazak refilled his goblet from the jug and sipped it thoughtfully. He looked at Niall from underneath his bristling eyebrows. “Do you begin to understand why the spiders are so interested in you?”
Niall said: “Because I killed a spider?”
“Not because you killed a spider. Because you were able to kill a spider.”
Niall shook his head. Kazak said patiently:
“I will explain. When the body of the dead spider was found, they discovered that it had been pierced through the brain. It had died instantly. Yet it had had time to send out an alarm signal. That meant that its will was fully awake and active. It should have been impossible for you even to raise that spear.” He was staring into Niall’s face, watching for some reaction, but Niall could only nod uncomprehendingly. Kazak went on:
“It was the first time in more than two hundred years that a spider had been killed by some other creature. The murder — because that is how they regarded it — caused a sort of panic. It meant that spiders were no longer invulnerable. They felt they had to find the killer at all costs. That is why they invaded the land of Dira. That is why more than fifty of my people died.”
Niall said: “I’m sorry.”
Kazak sighed. “Regrets are futile. That is also why your father died. It didn’t take them long to find out that you and he were near the fortress at the time.” He avoided Niall’s eyes as he said this. “Now do you begin to understand why they were so anxious to find you?”
Niall averted his eyes. “To kill me?”
He was astonished when Kazak said: “No. Not necessarily to kill you. They think your father killed the spider.”
After a long pause, Niall asked: “What then?”
Kazak said: “If you were the only one, it would make sense to kill you. You see, when things like this happen, they often happen to many people at the same time. I don’t understand why. It seems to be a law of nature. If they kill you, there may still be dozens — perhaps hundreds — more like you.” He stared into Niall’s eyes. “But while you are alive, you can be of use to them.”
Niall shook his head. “How?”
“Do you think you could recognise others like you?”
Even if Kazak’s eyes had not been boring into his own, Niall would have recognised that everything depended on this question. Kazak was asking him to admit that he was different from others, and that he knew he was different. It was a moment when each knew precisely what was in the other’s mind. Niall said finally:
“I think so.”
Kazak’s face relaxed into a smile. He leaned forward and slapped Niall on the shoulder. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” Niall could sense his relief, and it surprised him; there had been no moment when Kazak had not seemed master of the situation.
Kazak moved off the cushions, stretched his legs, then relaxed once more against the wall. “Good, now we can discuss this sensibly.” He refilled his goblet and handed the jug to Niall, who refilled his own goblet but took only a small sip. “But first, let us be quite clear about one thing. Would you be willing to work for the spiders?”
“Work for them?” Niall gaped with astonishment.
Kazak said with a touch of impatience: “Help them locate others like you?”
“But how could I?”
Kazak smiled. “It’s perfectly simple. The spiders will comb the deserts for savages. In fact, they already know where most of them are located.”
“They know?”
“Of course. Why do you think they send out those damn balloons all the time?”
Niall said: “But in that case. . .” He stopped, too bewildered to go on.
“In that case, why don’t they capture them all at once? Because they need the free human beings — the savages, as they call them.”
Niall was puzzled. “In what way?”
“For breeding.” He smiled benevolently at Niall. “That’s what most of my people are going to be used for. Haven’t you noticed what’s wrong with most of the people in this city?” Niall waited. “They’re stupid. Most of them are little better than morons. That’s because the spiders deliberately breed them for stupidity. If a child seems more intelligent or more enterprising than the others they kill him.”
Niall felt his brain was spinning. “But why?”
“Why? Because intelligent human beings are a threat. To begin with, they don’t like being eaten. In the days when human beings were masters of this planet, they used to breed cattle for food. Now the spiders breed people for the same purpose.”
Niall said: “But only the slaves.”
Kazak smiled at him pityingly. “Only the slaves! And what do you suppose happens to the others?”
“They work for the spiders.”
“And when they”ve finished working?”
Already sensing the answer, Niall said: “They are sent to the great happy place.”
Kazak laughed brutally. “The slaughterhouse.”
Niall shook his head. “You mean they’re all going to be eaten — all the servants, all the commanders?” He was thinking of Odina.
Kazak nodded. “That’s right. Everybody who’s not in the secret.” He added reflectively. “I don’t think they’ll bother to eat me — I’m too tough. Or Merlew.”
“Is Merlew in the secret?”
“Of course.”
Niall felt chilled and shocked. It was hard to think of Merlew as an accomplice in this mass deception and murder.
Kazak seemed to read his thoughts. “You have to look at this sensibly. The spiders are the masters. They can do what they like, whether we agree or not. And although you might not believe this, they’re not really as bad as you might suppose. Some of them are quite remarkable people. You should think of them as people, by the way, not insects. They can sense our feelings about them, and don’t like being regarded as insects. So get into the habit of thinking of them as people. And they are the masters. They can do what they like. It doesn’t bother you to eat a dead bird, does it? Well, it doesn’t bother them to eat a dead human. To them, we’re only intelligent cattle. Yet I’ve known people who kept birds as pets — they loved them as much as their own children. The spiders feel the same about human beings. They often get quite fond of us. Now if its a choice between being eaten and being regarded as a pet, I know exactly where I stand. I prefer to stay alive.”