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accus-tomed to much of it. But there must be many sinister things in this world, things which he would be
ill-pre-pared to cope with because he would not understand their nature.
He went on. The torches were burning ships falling in the night. Darkness split ahead of them and
fused be-hind them. And the stillness and silence continued.
After a while, Ishmael got the impression that the darkness was breathing. It was as if the
darkness were itself an entity, a gigantic animal without form which lived on all sides of them.
Ishmael looked back at the doorway. It was a block of light -- but not the solid block it had been
after he had burned off the web.
The web was back.
Namalee, who had also looked back, gasped.
The others turned their heads too.
"It may be some small animal which spins a web as soon as it is broken," Ishmael said. He tried
to say it as if he meant it.
He turned away and began walking forward again. It would have been easy to panic then and
dash toward the doorway and the web. Perhaps, though, that was what the spinner hoped they would
do. In any event, they must go on.
Something whooshed by his head.
He spun, batting at it with his torch.
A round body, grayish in the light, with six thin legs and a round head with a big eye and a slit
mouth from which a long sharp tooth stuck, sailed away into the darkness. Its body was about the size of
his own head, and something very thin and slimy was emerg-ing from its back. Then he realized that the
thin slimy thing was a line, and that the other end was attached to the ceiling somewhere up there in the
black. The creature had leaped out, probably from high up on a wall, and swung down and made a pass
at his head.
He said, "Get down! Look above!" and got down on one knee. "Don't scream, whatever
happens!"
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These beasts might be quite harmless except as watch dogs to frighten away intruders or to cause
them to make a noise which would alert the human sentinels.
The next creature came out of the darkness on the end of its line so swiftly that there was no
defense. It shot out into the light and fastened its legs around the head of a sailor near Ishmael. The
impact knocked the man backward, and his short spear clattered on the stone. The man next to him
stabbed his spear into the creature, which spread out its six legs and fell off its victim's head. It lay on the
floor, kicking.
The sailor did not get up.
Ishmael shook him and placed his head against his heart and then peeled back an eyelid.
"He's dead."
There were three little red marks on the man's neck where the claws at the end of the legs had
scratched.
Something dark gray shot out of the darkness, and another sailor impaled it on his spear.
The spear was torn out of the man's grasp, but the thing was dead.
About thirty seconds later, another arced over their heads, but it went on into the darkness.
That the creatures didn't swing back showed that they were ending their swing on something
hanging down from the ceiling.
Ishmael counted to twenty slowly and then told everybody to roll a few feet to one side
immediately. At approximately thirty seconds after the last thing had swung over, another zoomed over
them. It was lower to the floor than the previous one but not low enough because of the change of
position of its intended prey.
There might be thousands of them -- a chilling vision -- but they seemed to be taking turns at
thirty-second in-tervals.
Ishmael leaped up and threw the torch high into the air.
It turned over and over, lighting up only darkness, until it came to the top of its arc. It briefly
illuminated the ends of three thick strands of grayish stuff hanging down from the darkness. The ceiling
was still out of sight. But on each strand, clinging to it, was one of the creatures.
Ishmael could not see it, but he suspected that a grayish line coming from the back of each
creature was attached at the other end to the hanging strand. It seemed likely that the line was coiled
inside the thing's body and could be controlled for the distance needed for the deadly swing at its prey on
the floor. The creatures did not drop; they seemed paralyzed by the torchlight.
But there must be many others outside the light who were not frozen by it.
For some reason, through some complex of interac-tions, uncoiling from their instincts, which
were habits formed and fossilized millions of years ago, they dropped at thirty-second intervals.
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Something passed through them, releasing them at stated intervals like so many wooden cuckoos.
Ishmael told the crew in a low voice that they were to run. But they should imitate him, and when
he leaped to one side, they must do so too. And when he dropped to the floor, they must do the same.
He set out immediately, starting his count at fifteen, which was his rough estimate of the time it
had taken him to give his orders. At thirty he threw himself on the floor, reaching out at the same time to
seize the fallen torch, which had landed about thirty feet from where he had cast it.
The gray six-legged thing arced over him and into the darkness.
Ishmael got up, counting under his breath, and ran forward. At the count of thirty, he gave two
tremen-dous leaps to the left, and the torches showed a dark body hurtling through the light and on up.
The next time he slashed upward, and his spearhead, though it missed the creature, severed the
line from its back. It was just starting the upward swing and so flew out of sight. But a moment later,
having dashed ahead, Ishmael saw it. It was staggering around, two of its thin legs bent outward. Even
so, it scuttled awayand would have been lost if a sailor had not thrown a torch after it. The brand hit the
floor, bounced, cart-wheeling, and its flaming end struck the thing. An odor of burned flesh was wafted
to them; the thing folded its unbroken legs to its body and died, or pretended to die. Ishmael made
certain with his spear.
All that time, he did not cease counting. And so it was by the numbers that he led his band to
safety, to the entrance to another room which was also cov-ered by a glittering web. He burned this and
ran through. The last thing to swing down made a desperate effort which brought it with a splopping
against the wall just above the lintel. It fell down shattered, oozing a pale green liquid in the light of the
torch thrust over it by the last man. Ishmael spoke softly but urgently, telling him not to waste time.
The next room did not reveal to the thrown torch anything like they had just left. It seemed to be
noth-ing except a black emptiness. That did not mean the room was bare: the light had not reached the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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