There came a time when only male spiders remained (or so, at least, it was confidently supposed), and the great majority of these were in the triangular area, bounded by the two converging rivers and the great mountains from which they sprang. By this time, the toll of life had been so heavy, and the destruction of property so great (for it had become habitual for the spiders to tear apart the houses which they searched for victims, after they had been partly frustrated by barricading devices in the lower rooms), that a proposal to terminate the struggle by evacuating the peninsula until, by process of time, the remaining male spiders should die, was favourably received. This procedure had been followed, in the belief that the last female had been destroyed, and that a comparatively short period would be sufficient to clear the land, there being no reason to suppose that increase of bulk would affect the natural process of age and death.
So the great peninsula had been entirely abandoned, and its spiders had been left to find what food they could in the absence of human prey, and to live to whatever age it might have become natural for them to do; and those that remained in the still-inhabited lands, not being numerous, had been exterminated while many houses still stood and many people remained alive.
Two years later, a number of volunteers had crossed the river in canoes, landing on a bare spit of low land that lay at the junction of the two rivers, and cautiously penetrated for some distance into the interior forest to ascertain whether the spiders still lived.
It was a great hazard for a great stake, for if they were dead there was a wide area, largely of fertile forest land, to be reoccupied by mankind But they did not go far enough to see an adult spider. They saw something worse. They saw two young ones, which could not have left their mother’s back more than a few days, but which were already of a size to cause a very hurried retreat. It was evident that at least one female had been left alive, and that the pests were breeding anew.
Since then, the great triangle of infested land had been left alone, with the precaution of keeping a lookout higher up the stream, where it rose in the distant mountains, and so far down as it might be possible for a spider to cross, but none had been seen (for this was in a region of ice and snow), and none had appeared in any part of the inhabited lands.
To face them again in the region which they had been left to possess might be a dreadful hazard, but there was the encouragement of alternative possibilities: they might find that the spiders had died out, and that they had come into a land of plenty; or, even though that might be called a poor hope, they might have the good fortune to cross the extreme point of the land without molestation, and find their plunder beyond.
CHAPTER VIII: A PLAN AGREED
As confusions of conflicting thoughts gradually cleared and unified, it became evident that, while the main effort would be directed westward, there were some, particularly in the territories adjoining the river, who would prefer the hazards of the eastern venture
Among those who preferred to explore this outlet, a plan gradually took agreed shape by which they would attempt to cross the nearer river, opposite to the end of the peninsula, and either explore its possibilities, or, if the spider peril should seem too great to challenge, cross the second river, and attempt to find food, of whatever kind, in Gleda’s native land.
For this purpose, all available fishing canoes (of which there were many in the upper river, before the two joined) were to be assembled facing the peninsula, where they could make any number of journeys necessary before being dragged across it, and launched on the second river, if it should be decided to go farther.
These canoes were not large. They were laborious to make and only useful for fishing, as landings on the spiders’ bank had ceased during recent years. The whole of them could not convey more than a few score at one time, so that numerous crossings would become necessary should those willing to join the enterprise be adequate for its success.
The chaos of contending telepathies had quietened and unified as the minds of the great majority of the nation, who accepted the western project, withdrew from Gleda’s consciousness, and those more nearly around her separated into their own definite and coherent purpose. Now she became aware that Lemno’s mind, apart from the impact of its contiguity, had become a directing force to which others were consenting, and that it had proposed that those who wished to join the enterprise should assemble on the river bank by the evening of the next day. Then she realized, with keener interest, that he was asserting that he had already captured one of the people of the opposite bank; and that this might have contingent advantages, should they find the spiders still in possession of the peninsula, and adopt the alternative plan.
When this had received a vague but general approval, he went on to give the idea that he had secured her loyal cooperation by making her his wife in place of Destra, with whom he had dealt in what he represented without concealment as having been an appropriate manner.
This information having produced a confused, indeterminate reaction, through which hostile criticism if not condemnation seemed to be gaining force, he went on to propose that the material result of his homicide should be at the disposal of those who would join the expedition. The transaction had to be considered not merely as the slaughter of an unsatisfactory wife, which he would be reluctant to advocate as a general practice, but as having both provided him with a better substitute, and the community with food which was desperately needed to strengthen them for the expedition.
Looked at in that comprehensive manner, it was clear again. The population was the same as before, and they had some meat, if not much, at extreme need. There was no necessity to suggest the further possibility that Gleda might be of the same use, for the scale was already down.
As Lemno’s will asserted itself to secure a general adoption of this view of the matter, he went on to picture the hazardous exploit by which she had been taken, until he won not merely the admiration which he had earned, but an illogical feeling that it had been adventured rather for the community than himself—a bold hazard to provide meat before the expedition should start, and to obtain a source of information and guidance, if they should adventure the crossing of the farther river.
As the tension of telepathic conflict relaxed, and it became possible to reflect without feeling the pressure of other minds, Gleda said: “It is easy to understand the furs now.”
CHAPTER IX: PRELUDE TO PERIL
Soothed by the greater simplicity of Gleda’s mind, she fell easily into deep and restful sleep; yet within, the mind of Marguerite Cranleigh busied itself computing and comparing, matching and measuring and analyzing her strange adventure.
Perhaps she had never consciously turned her thoughts to an examination of mankind as a social entity, a single, multi-celled creature crawling blindly through history. Mankind had, it seemed, always been complacently certain that its present was necessarily superior to its past, and that its future would surely bring it another step heavenward. It always called itself “civilization.” Could this era be called a civilization, when a man could, with impunity, put a knife into his wife’s belly and her kidneys upon the grill?
And yet—was not the great telepathic communion she had witnessed a step forward, a truer democracy than that which she had known in her time? The twentieth-century politician was more concerned with popularity than with leadership, and great, obvious trends, like a falling birth rate or a cessation of essential migration would be ignored, or even condoned, if that should serve his popularity. She recalled the case of a strong man called to lead her nation in a death struggle, who, when the fight was won, was rejected in favour of men who easily pledged themselves to what they could not possibly do.
Then perhaps Lemno’s was a higher culture after all, for it had both the reverence for the mass mind and the ability to follow a strong leader. And yet—where was the strength in a civilization which possessed, through books, the riches of past great technologies, and yet would undertake an expedition against a stronger, more numerous, better-fed