"I know there was a battle," said Qanya flatly, without looking up from
the controls. "I didn't see it, but the Mother and some others were
prowling at the time, and saw. It was the flying things, which have
given us too so much trouble."
That, if true--and he judged that it _must_ be true--confirmed his prior
suspicion, and killed another suspicion he had entertained for a little
while--that the spiders themselves might have been the ambushers. He
demanded, "What do you know about those night-fliers?"
"Very little. We do not know just what they are or where they came from.
They began appearing hereabouts only four months ago, which was three
months after the Rim collapsed and the Mother decided that we should
descend and try the hunting on this side. Since then they've grown more
and more numerous. They fly by day as well as by night, and attack
everything that moves. They've taken several of our Family, and I think
they've made heavy depredations on the peoples that inhabit this region.
We spiders would have abandoned the location before now, but we feared
to be caught migrating in the open...."
* * * * *
Dworn gazed apprehensively out at the glaring desert that was rolling
past the spider windows. The news that the aerial killers also operated
by day was most unwelcome. But as yet there was no sign of an enemy.
He said, "The little ground machines--unarmored, made of aluminum.
They're allied in some way to the flying ones, aren't they?"
"We think so. Wherever the flying machines have made a kill, the
crawlers appear before long to carry away the spoils. And if they're
attacked--the fliers come swooping down within minutes to defend or
avenge them. So most of the other inhabitants have learned to leave the
crawlers alone; it's extremely dangerous to meddle with them."
Dworn could confirm that fact from his own observation.
Evidently the spider folk, even though they came from beyond the Barrier
as the mysterious others apparently had too, knew little more than he
himself had already discovered. But--there was one more question.
"Do you know," he asked tensely, "where these strangers' home base is?
Where do they fly from?"
The girl looked doubtful. "We're sure only that it's somewhere beyond
the Rim, where we used to live."
That much, too, he had guessed. Dworn subsided into glum silence, as
Qanya impassively guided the machine on its way, covering distance at a
surprising speed.
Then, even by the unaccustomed daylight, Dworn recognized first one
landmark and then another, and knew they were approaching the spot where
he had been trapped last night. A weird return, riding as master in the
monstrous machine that had snared him!
As the great tilted rock hove in view, Dworn strained for the first
glimpse of his abandoned vehicle. When he saw it, lying still overturned
in the shadow of the boulder, he sighed in relief. Its door was ajar,
where Qanya must have dragged him stunned from the machine last night
... but it appeared unscathed. The fear at the back of his mind, that
scavengers might have happened on it--in which case they would have had
it dismantled and carried away by now--was happily unrealized. For that
he perhaps had partly to thank the enemy against whom he had sworn
vengeance, the flying fiends who had decimated and terrorized the
peoples native to this land....
"All right," he ordered. "Stop here!"
The walking machine crunched to a halt, standing almost over the beetle.
Dworn looked at the spider girl, then, in irresolution.
In the pitiless daylight she was still piquantly beautiful, though her
pale face was still smudged with the remnants of her ceremonial make-up
and her eyes were veiled, withdrawn. Yes, she was even desirable....
Dworn put that thought determinedly out of his head. After all, she was
an alien and an enemy; she had sought to make a doomed slave of him.
But now that her usefulness to him was over, he didn't know just what to
do about her. The sensible thing would be, of course, simply to kill
her. Somehow he felt that he couldn't do that. It was one thing to kill
in the impersonal fury of machine combat, a different matter when the
victim was helpless within your reach.... And he remembered that she
_had_ helped him escape.
He could command her to return to her people, to the tender mercies of
the Spider Mother--who would know by now of Qanya's part in Dworn's
disappearance. Damn it, that would probably be worse than killing her in
cold blood! He was wasting time. Angry at himself for his unbeetlelike
softness, Dworn postponed deciding what to do with her till he should
have inspected his machine and made sure it was in shape to travel.
"Come along," he told the girl gruffly. "Outside."
Once more she obeyed unprotesting. The two clambered out of the belly of
the standing spider--Qanya staring before her with sleepwalking fixity,
Dworn nervously scanning sky and horizon for hostile machines. The
sunlit waste was terrifyingly immense bright, and empty. With a physical
ache of yearning he longed for the cramped security of his own
machine's cabin.
He brushed past the girl and ran toward the upside-down beetle--he could
easily right it with a spare emergency cartridge, and then he would be
on his way in a normal world again--
He stopped short with one hand on the beetle's dull-black steel flank.
The world seemed to rock around him.
* * * * *
The girl watched him without expression as his face went slack with
horror, as he completed his arrested movement and dived into the cabin
to confirm the dreadful discovery that first touch had disclosed to him.
When Dworn climbed out he was white and shaking. He took a few steps
away from the beetle and sank weakly down on the sunwarmed sand.
"What's the matter?" asked Qanya.
He turned and looked dully at her. He had completely forgotten that she
was there.