“Don’t waste your breath, friend Murchison,” he said. “If you speak they will not listen. There are no calm, thinking minds among them. They feel only anger and disappointment, presumably at not being able to harm us, and an intensity of hatred and hostility so great that, that I haven’t felt anything like it since the Trolanni reaction when they thought friend Fletcher was a druul. Let’s return to our patients.”
On their way back Prilicla was walking rather than flying beside Murchison. He saw it looking at his trembling limbs and felt its concern for the empathic pain he was feeling.
“Oh, well,” it said, knowing that he knew its feelings and trying to move to a less painful subject, “at least we gave our bored, convalescent patients a little real-life drama to amuse them.”
Before he could reply, Fletcher’s voice sounded in their headsets.
“There’ll be no shortage of drama around here,” it said, in the calm voice it had been trained to use while reporting calamitous events. “The six spider vessels nearing the other side of the island will join the three already there within the next hour. An additional six units are hull-up on the horizon on this side, and there are two other three-unit fleets, which according to our wind-strength calculations, won’t reach us until early tomorrow. All the indications are that the spiders are mounting a combined land, sea, and air assault. Your patients will have ringside seats.”
CHAPTER 31
Neither the Earth-human DGDGs nor the Trolanni CHLIs were feeling worried by the impending attack because both species were star-travelers and were aware of the effectiveness of the meteorite shield. Terragars officers were feeling concern over the fact that the ongoing first contact with the spiders was not going well, but they were not deeply concerned because the ultimate responsibility for its mismanagement was not theirs and in the meantime they were willing to enjoy the spectacle. The feelings of Keet and Jasam were more selfish, radiating as they did intense relief that they were both alive and likely to remain that way, as well as general confusion at the strange things that were happening to and around them. Murchison, Danalta, and Naydrad had their feelings under control. It was the captain, whose voice was being relayed from Rhabwars control deck, who vocalized its worries by telling them not to worry.
“There is no immediate cause for concern,” it said. “Our power pile will enable the life support and ship’s thrusters to be operated indefinitely; but not so, the tractor-beam units and meteorite protection. In a planetary atmosphere they drain five times the power required for operation in a vacuum, and this ship was designed for speedy casualty retrieval rather than a duration flight.”
“You mean,” said Naydrad with an impatient ruffling of its fur, “that nobody expected us to be fighting an interspecies war with an ambulance ship. How long have we got?”
“Forty-six hours of full shield deployment,” it replied, “after which we’ll have to lift out of here, or remain unprotected until someone rescues us. I shall explain the tactical situation as it unfolds….”
But they didn’t need the other’s continuous evaluation and commentary because they could see everything that was happening for themselves.
The three ships from the other side of the island came into sight, hugging the shoreline and beaching themselves in the spaces between the first three. All six vessels dropped their landing ramps and opened the upper sail-shields where, Prilicla knew from previous observations, the gliders would be launched. There was no other visible activity and very little intership conversation. This was probably due, the captain thought, to all of the battle orders having already being issued so that they were awaiting only the signal to begin. The nearest six-unit fleet, all its sail-shields deployed to catch the wind off the sea, was approaching fast in line-abreast formation. Just above the horizon beyond them, at about fifty degrees lateral separation, two more highflying gliders were performing signal aerobatics for three more fleets which totaled fifteen units. They were still below the horizon and would not, the captain estimated, arrive until early the next day.
The six latest arrivals found gaps in which to come aground and they, too, closed their sail-shields apart from a few ventilation openings, and lowered their landing ramps. The beach was becoming really crowded, Prilicla thought, so that Terragar had disappeared from sight behind a line of giant, greenish-brown molluscs. There came the sound of the senior spiders on each ship using their speaking trumpets, followed by a lengthening silence.