She didn’t know what the shape-changer could do, but it should be able to think of something. So, Murchison thought angrily, should she. For a moment she wondered if she was generating her anger just to keep her growing fear at bay.
The sun had set but there was still enough light to see the beach clearly, and the object she had thought was a sea mammal. The smooth, outer covering was opening up to become a series of low, triangular sails resembling those of an old-time Earth felucca, and their supporting masts and rigging were still being raised, and the two flyers had landed and were half carrying, half dragging their gliders towards it. But her party, being closer, would board first. Plainly the spiders were excited because they were making low, cheeping and chittering sounds to each other or calling more loudly to the glider pilots and others on the ship. Suddenly there was an interruption, a sound that had not come from any local throat.
“Speak, Pathologist Murchison,” said the loud, irritated voice of Charge Nurse Naydrad. “If you don’t want to say something, why are you using your communicator? I have work to do. Stop wasting my time.”
Her bearers stopped so quickly that she almost rolled out of the litter, and the spider with her communicator dropped it onto the sand and backed away, chittering shrilly in alarm. Murchison laughed in spite of her problems. It was obvious what had happened because she could see the two indicator lights glowing. The spider who had been fiddling with it had inadvertently turned the reception volume to full as well as switching on the device. But the communicator was active and, even though it was lying in the sand several meters away and at extreme distance for a handset, Naydrad was listening.
The spiders were used to her making loud noises at them, but only when she was communicating discomfort, and now she had to talk loudly to Naydrad. But there was the danger of arousing their suspicions by making noises without a reason, when none of them was touching or therefore hurting her. If they were to get the idea that a conversation was going on, that she was calling for help, then they would immediately silence her or the communicator. They were already trying to do the latter by standing well back from it and pelting it with stones from the beach rather than shooting their crossbow bolts at it. Luckily they had missed it so far, but communicators were not robust instruments.
In an undertone Murchison used language that was unladylike—her only unfeminine trait, according to her life-mate— and thought quickly. There was very little time to send a message, and none at all if one of those rocks connected. She took the deepest breath she could without cutting herself and spoke slowly and clearly while hoping that the excited chittering of the spiders all around her would keep them from noticing the strange noises she was making.
“Naydrad, Murchison here. Listen, don’t talk, and copy. We have been captured by indigenous intelligent life-forms, tentative classification GKSD …”
The spiders weren’t paying any attention to her and were concentrating on their stone-throwing, which wasn’t accurate because the communicator continued to survive and show its indicator lights.
“They appear to be sea raiders of some kind,” she went on more calmly. “They use large sailing ships, unpowered aircraft, crossbows, and there is no evidence of metal weapons. I’ve been tightly restrained but not hurt and am unable to see Danalta …”
She broke off, realizing that her last few words might have been a lie. It was hard to be sure in the dimming twilight, but it seemed that the sand on one side of the communicator was showing wind ripples. Then, suddenly, they were all around it as Danalta did its impression of a patch of sandy beach. A moment later the device and its indicator lights disappeared from sight.
The spiders threw a few more stones, their voices sounding surprised and uneasy rather than angry at this apparent display of magic, but with no target to aim at they were beginning to lose interest. But a few stones would not bother Danalta, whose hide, regardless of the shape it was covering, was impermeable to most classes of low-velocity missiles. The important part was that it had rescued and was protecting the communicator and, when the spiders left the scene, it would be able to contact the medical station which would relay its report to Rhabwar.