With more leisure for observation, Niall would have enjoyed the countryside through which they were now passing. He had never seen anywhere so green. This fertile coastal plain had once been rich farmland — they passed more than one half-ruined farmhouse — and had now been allowed to return to its natural state, with many varieties of trees and tangled grass underfoot. Insects hummed past them — flies, wasps, dragonflies — and grasshoppers chirped in the undergrowth. To Niall it appeared a kind of paradise, and it seemed ironic that he should be seeing it for the first time as a prisoner.
An hour later, with the sun sinking behind the mountains, they halted for the night. The humans were all exhausted; they flung themselves on the ground, their faces turned to the sky, breathing deeply. One of the spiders began to spin a web under the nearest low tree, while the others basked in the evening sunlight. As the pounding of Niall’s heart subsided, he drifted off into a pleasant state of relaxation. Momentarily, he felt the mind of the leader probe his own; but it was obviously a matter of routine, and he could sense its lack of interest. In a semi-dreamlike state, he tuned in to the minds of the spiders. It was rather like overhearing their conversation, except that he was also aware of their physical sensations. At the moment, their chief concern was hunger. Spiders, he now realised, ate only living food, so could not carry their rations with them when they were travelling. It was not simply that they preferred the taste of fresh meat; there was something else — something about the life-force itself — that they enjoyed and absorbed.
It also became clear to Niall that, compared to human beings, these creatures were almost entirely the slaves of instinct. For millions of years they had been little more than food-catching machines whose whole lives centred on seizing their prey and injecting it with venom. They had no other interest in life. Niall could enjoy the scenery and think about distant places, use his imagination. The wolf spiders were indifferent to the scenery, except as a possible source of food, and totally lacked anything that might be called imagination.
Fortunately, they were surrounded by an abundance of food. Before the light had faded, the web had caught half a dozen meat flies, two wasps and a butterfly, and these had immediately been paralysed and handed to the spiders in order of rank. As they ate their living prey, their minds became a glow of immense satisfaction. Niall realised with alarm that part of their hostility towards human beings was that they regarded them as potential food; when they were hungry, it seemed a waste to be escorting these prisoners instead of eating them. But as soon as they had satisfied their appetite, this irritability disappeared. They made no attempt to prevent the prisoners from gathering fruit from the bushes, and watched with tolerance as Niall climbed a coconut palm and tossed down the green coconuts into Veig’s waiting hands. The humans found the slightly astringent milk deliciously refreshing, ideal for washing down the dried rodent flesh and stale bread. With a good meal inside them, their spirits began to revive. A curious atmosphere of mutual tolerance built up between the humans and the spiders. Niall became aware that these huge, immensely powerful creatures were the slaves of the death spiders; their attitude towards their masters was one of respect, but with an undertone of fear and resentment. They disliked obeying orders and would have preferred to be free to lie in the sun and catch insects. Even web-building was not natural to them. They did it because it was the simplest way of catching food; but their natural inclination was to catch their prey with swiftness and strength. Hunting gave them the deepest satisfaction they knew.
He was so tired that he slept that night without covering, on a makeshift bed of grass and leaves. When he opened his eyes again it was dawn, and one of the spiders was already devouring a flying beetle that had been caught in the web. The other spiders were dozing in the sun; unlike the death spiders, these hunters had no love for the hours of darkness, and the return of daylight filled them with a drowsy satisfaction. Observing their lazy, slow-moving minds, Niall was reminded of the ants. It filled him with a peculiar excitement, this ability to understand the minds of his captors. All his life, he had been terrified of the spiders. Now some deep intuition told him that this conquest of fear was the beginning of a far greater conquest.
They ate a breakfast of fruit and dried meat, washed down again with the milk of the green coconut. The spiders had by this time eaten their fill — as the sun rose, an abundance of flying insects blundered into their web. When he came close to this web, Niall observed that it had a pleasant, sweetish smell; this was obviously what attracted the insects.
Veig whispered: “I wonder what we’re waiting for?”
Niall said: “They’re waiting. . .” He hesitated, unable to finish the sentence.
“I know that. But what for?”
“For. . . for someone. For. . . people.”
Veig and Siris both looked at him curiously.
“How did you know that?”
Niall shrugged and shook his head. It was a subject he was not willing to discuss in front of the spiders.
Half an hour went by. The sun was hot, but there was a pleasant breeze from the north. The humans moved into the shade of a thorn tree, while the spiders continued to doze in the sun; they seemed to be able to absorb a degree of heat that would have given a human being sunstroke. One of them rolled on its back, exposing its grey, soft underbelly to the warmth. The spiders were so confident of their ability to read the minds of human beings that they felt no need to take precautions.
Niall decided to try an experiment. He was curious to know how far the spiders would respond to purely mental danger signals. He imagined taking the metal tube out of his pannier, making it expand into a spear, and driving it into the spider’s exposed belly. The spider showed no reaction. Next, Niall imagined picking up a large, flat stone that lay nearby, and bringing it down with all his strength on the head of the dozing spider. Once again, there was no reaction. He was aware that this was because he was merely toying with the idea, with no intention of putting it into practice. So he deliberately made a powerful effort of imagination, and tried to envisage what it would be like to stroll over to the flat stone, then to raise it above his head and dash it down on the upturned belly. This time, the spider became uncomfortable; it moved its head so its eyes could see in all directions, and rolled over onto its stomach. It glanced suspiciously at the human beings, and Niall felt the clumsy probe of its mind. He relaxed his own mind into drowsy immobility, deliberately creating a mental wave-length of a tent spider. The spider’s vigilance relaxed, and after a few seconds, its mind again fell into the soothing, repetitive rhythm of physical pleasure.
Then, suddenly, the leader became alert; it sprang to its feet — Niall again had an opportunity to observe the swiftness of its reactions — and stared intently towards the north. Niall listened, but could hear nothing but the normal sounds of the morning. It was at least another minute before he was able to detect the sound of movement in the bushes. Again, he marvelled at the acuteness of the spider’s senses.
A moment later, he was amazed to see the figure of a man emerging from among the trees. At the same instant, the reaction of the spiders told him that this was what they had been waiting for.
The man who now marched confidently towards them was a magnificent specimen, well over six feet tall, with powerful shoulders and a deep chest. He wore a woven tunic, and his shoulder-length blond hair was held round his head with a circlet of metal. For a brief moment, Niall thought he was looking at Hamna, then, as the man came closer, knew he was a stranger.
Ten feet away, the man came to a halt, fell on one knee, and made a gesture of obeisance to the spiders. The leader sent out a brusque impulse of acknowledgement that also contained an element of impatience, as if to ask: “Where have you been?” The man’s attitude expressed total subservience. The spider transmitted a mental order that signified: “Very well, let’s go”, and the man again inclined his head.
Niall expected the newcomer to greet them, or at least, to exchange a glance of sympathy. In fact, he ignored them. In response to a gesture from the leader, he picked up Niall’s pannier and slung it on his back, then stood there, waiting for the next order. Niall studied his face with interest. The eyes were mild and blue, and there was a hint of weakness in the downturned mouth and unassertive chin. He moved with a precision that Niall at first took to be self-assurance, but which he soon recognised as the indifference of a well-trained animal.