black legged spiders
with red hearts of hell
--marquis
LORD SPIDER
"Jesu!" I turned and Sid's face was sticking through the screen like a
tinted bas-relief hanging on a gray wall and I got the impression he had
peered unexpectedly through a slit in an arras into Queen Elizabeth's
bedroom.
He didn't have any time to linger on the sensation, even if he'd wanted
to, for an elbow with a copper band thrust through the screen and dug
his ribs and Kaby marched Lili in by the neck. Erich, Mark and Illy were
right behind. They caught the blue flashes and stopped dead, staring at
the long-lost. Erich spared me one look which seemed to say, so you did
it, not that it matters. Then he stepped forward and picked it up and
held it solidly to his left side in the double right-angle made by
fingers, forearm and chest, and reached for the Introversion switch with
a look on his face as if he were opening a fifth of whisky.
The blue light died and Change Winds hit me like a stiff drink that had
been a long, long time in coming, like a hot trumpet note out of
nowhere.
I felt the changing pasts blowing through me, and the uncertainties
whistling past, and ice-stiff reality softening with all its duties and
necessities, and the little memories shredding away and dancing off like
autumn leaves, leaving maybe not even ghosts behind, and all the crazy
moods like Mardi Gras dancers pouring down an evening street, and
something inside me had the nerve to say it didn't care whether Greta
Forzane's death was riding in those Winds because they felt so good.
I could tell it was hitting the others the same way. Even battered,
tight-lipped Lili seemed to be saying, you're making me drink the stuff
and I hate you for it, but I do love it. I guess we'd all had the worry
that even finding and Extroverting the Maintainer wouldn't put us back
in touch with the cosmos and give us those Winds we hate and love.
The thing that cut through to us as we stood there glowing was not the
thought of the bomb, though that would have come in a few seconds more,
but Sid's voice. He was still standing in the screen, except that now
his face was out the other side and we could just see parts of his
gray-doubleted back, but, of course, his "Jesu!" came through the screen
as if it weren't there.
At first I couldn't figure out who he could be talking to, but I swear I
never heard his voice so courtly obsequious before, so strong and yet so
filled with awe and an under-note of, yes, sheer terror.
"Lord, I am filled from top to toe with confusion that you should so
honor my poor Place," he said. "Poor say I and mine, when I mean that I
have ever busked it faithfully for you, not dreaming that you would ever
condescend ... yet knowing that your eye was certes ever upon me ...
though I am but as a poor pinch of dust adrift between the suns ... I
abase myself. Prithee, how may I serve thee, sir? I know not e'en how
most suitably to address thee, Lord ... King ... Emperor Spider!"
* * * * *
I felt like I was getting very small, but not a bit less visible, worse
luck, and even with the Change Winds inside me to give me courage, I
thought this was really too much, coming on top of everything else; it
was simply unfair.
At the same time, I realized it was to be expected that the big bosses
would have been watching us with their unblinking beady black eyes ever
since we had Introverted waiting to pounce if we should ever come out of
it. I tried to picture what was on the other side of the screen and I
didn't like the assignment.
But in spite of being petrified, I had a hard time not giggling, like
the zany at graduation exercises, at the way the other ones in Surgery
were taking it.
I mean the Soldiers. They each stiffened up like they had the old ramrod
inside them, and their faces got that important look, and they glanced
at each other and the floor without lowering their heads, as if they
were measuring the distance between their feet and mentally chalking
alternate sets of footprints to step into. The way Erich and Kaby held
the Major and Minor Maintainers became formal; the way they checked
their Callers and nodded reassuringly was positively esoteric. Even Illy
somehow managed to look as if he were on parade.
Then from beyond the screen came what was, under the circumstances, the
worst noise I've ever heard, a seemingly wordless distant-sounding
howling and wailing, with a note of menace that made me shake, although
it also had a nasty familiarity about it I couldn't place. Sid's voice
broke into it, loud, fast and frightened.
"Your pardon, Lord, I did not think ... certes, the gravity ... I'll
attend to it on the instant." He whipped a hand and half a head back
through the screen, but without looking back and snapped his fingers,
and before I could blink, Kaby had put the Minor Maintainer in his hand.
Sid went completely out of sight then and the howling stopped, and I
thought that if that was the way a Lord Spider expressed his annoyance
at being subjected to incorrect gravity, I hoped the bosses wouldn't
start any conversations with me.
Erich pursed his lips and threw the other Soldiers a nod and the four of
them marched through the screen as if they'd drilled a lifetime for this
moment. I had the wild idea that Erich might give me his arm, but he
strode past me as if I were ... an Entertainer.
I hesitated a moment then, but I had to see what was happening outside,
even if I got eaten up for it. Besides, I had a bit of the thought that
if these formalities went on much longer, even a Lord Spider was going
to discover just how immune he was to confined atomic blast.
I walked through the screen with Lili beside me.
* * * * *
The Soldiers had stopped a few feet in front of it. I looked around
ahead for whatever it was going to turn out to be, prepared to drop a
curtsy or whatever else, bar nothing, that seemed expected of me.
I had a hard time spotting the beast. Some of the others seemed to be
having trouble too. I saw Doc weaving around foolishly by the control
divan, and Bruce and Beau and Sevensee and Maud on their feet beyond it,
and I wondered whether we were dealing with an invisible monster; ought
to be easy enough for the bosses to turn a simple trick like
invisibility.
Then I looked sharply left where everyone else, even glassy-eyed Doc,
was coming to look, into the Door sector, only there wasn't any monster
there or even a Door, but just Siddy holding the Minor Maintainer and
grinning like when he is threatening to tickle me, only more fiendishly.
"Not a move, masters," he cried, his eyes dancing, "or I'll pin the pack
of you down, marry and amen I will. It is my firm purpose to see the
Place blasted before I let this instrument out of my hands again."
My first thought was, "'Sblood but Siddy is a real actor! I don't care
if he didn't study under anyone later than Burbage, that just proves how
good Burbage is."
Sid had convinced us not only that the real Spiders had arrived, but
earlier that the gravity in the edge of Stores had been a lot heavier
than it actually was. He completely fooled all those Soldiers, including
my swelled-headed victorious little commandant, and I kind of filed away
the timing of that business of reaching out the hand and snapping the
fingers without looking, it was so good.
"Beauregard!" Sid called. "Get to the Major Maintainer and call
headquarters. But don't come through Door, marry go by Refresher. I'll
not trust a single Demon of you in this sector with me until much more
has been shown and settled."
"Siddy, you're wonderful," I said, starting toward him. "As soon as I
got the Maintainer unsnarled and looked around and saw your sweet old
face--"
"Back, tricksy trull! Not the breadth of one scarlet toenail nearer me,
you Queen of Sleights and High Priestess of Deception!" he bellowed.
"You least of all do I trust. Why you hid the Maintainer, I know not,
'faith, but later you'll discover the truth to me or I'll have your
gizzard."
I could see there was going to have to be a little explaining.
* * * * *
Doc, touched off, I guess, by Sid waving his hand at me, threw back his
head and let off one of those shuddery Siberian wolf-howls he does so
blamed well. Sid waved toward him sharply and he shut up, beaming
toothily, but at least I knew who was responsible for the Spider wail of
displeasure that Sid had either called for or more likely got as a gift
of the gods and used in his act.
Beau came circling around fast and Erich shoved the Major Maintainer
into his hands without making any fuss. The four Soldiers were looking
pretty glum after losing their grand review.
Beau dumped some junk off one of the Art Gallery's sturdy taborets and
set the Major Maintainer on it carefully but fast, and quickly knelt in
front of it and whipped on some earphones and started to tune. The way
he did it snatched away from me my inward glory at my big Inversion
brainwave so fast, I might never have had it, and there was nothing in
my mind again but the bronze bomb chest.
I wondered if I should suggest Inverting the thing, but I said to
myself, "Uh-uh, Greta, you got no diploma to show them and there
probably isn't time to try two things, anyway."
Then Erich for once did something I wanted him to, though I didn't care
for its effect on my nerves, by looking at his Caller and saying
quietly, "Nine minutes to go, if Place time and cosmic time are
synching."
Beau was steady as a rock and working adjustments so fine that I
couldn't even see his fingers move.
Then, at the other end of the Place, Bruce took a few steps toward us.
Sevensee and Maud followed a bit behind him. I remembered Bruce was
another of our nuts with a private program for blowing up the place.
"Sidney," he called, and then, when he'd got Sid's attention, "Remember,
Sidney, you and I both came down to London from Peterhouse."
I didn't get it. Then Bruce looked toward Erich with a devil-may-care
challenge and toward Lili as if he were asking her forgiveness for
something. I couldn't read her expression; the bruises were blue on her
throat and her cheek was puffy.
Then Bruce once more shot Erich that look of challenge and he spun and
grabbed Sevensee by a wrist and stuck out a foot--even half-horses
aren't too sharp about infighting, I guess, and the satyr had every
right to feel at least as confused as I felt--and sent him stumbling
into Maud, and the two of them tumbled to the floor in a jumble of hairy
legs and pearl-gray frock. Bruce raced to the bomb chest.
* * * * *
Most of us yelled, "Stop him, Sid, pin him down," or something like
that--I know I did because I was suddenly sure that he'd been asking
Lili's pardon for blowing the two of them up--and all the rest of us
too, the love-blinded stinker.
Sid had been watching him all the time and now he lifted his hand to the
Minor Maintainer, but then he didn't touch any of the dials, just
watched and waited, and I thought, "Shaitan shave us! Does Siddy want in
on death, too? Ain't he satisfied with all he knows about life?"
Bruce had knelt and was twisting some things on the front of the chest,
and it was all as bright as if he were under a bank of Klieg lights, and
I was telling myself I wouldn't know anything when the fireball fired,
and not believing it, and Sevensee and Maud had got unscrambled and were
starting for Bruce, and the rest of us were yelling at Sid, except that
Erich was just looking at Bruce very happily, and Sid was still not
doing anything, and it was unbearable except just then I felt the little
arteries start to burst in my brain like a string of fire-crackers and
the old aorta pop, and for good measure, a couple of valves come
unhinged in my ticker, and I was thinking, "Well, now I know what it's
like to die of heart failure and high blood pressure," and having a last
quiet smile at having cheated the bomb, when Bruce jumped up and back
from the chest.
"That does it!" he announced cheerily. "She's as safe as the Bank of
England."
Sevensee and Maud stopped themselves just short of knocking him down and
I said to myself, "Hey, let's get a move on! I thought heart attacks
were fast."
Before anyone else could speak, Beau did. He had turned around from the
Major Maintainer and pulled aside one of the earphones.
"I got headquarters," he said crisply. "They told me how to disarm the
bomb--I merely said I thought we ought to know. What did you do, sir?"
he called to Bruce.
"There's a row of four ankhs just below the lock. The first to your left
you give a quarter turn to the right, the second a quarter turn to the
left, same for the fourth, and you don't touch the third."
"That is it, sir," Beau confirmed.
The long silence was too much for me; I guess I must have the shortest
span for unspoken relief going. I drew some nourishment out of my
restored arteries into my brain cells and yelled, "Siddy, I know I'm a
tricksy trull and the High Vixen of all Foxes, but what the Hell is
Peterhouse?"
"The oldest college at Cambridge," he told me rather coolly.