That first night, he dreamed of spiders.
There was a depression in the land. A bowl surrounded by rolling hills. At the bottom of the bowl were the shattered prefabs of a battered town. Old people and children in tattered clothes huddled around a smoldering fire at the town center. The lip of the bowl was a snaking line of earthworks. Men and women were there with pulseguns and mortars, rifles and pickaxes, shotguns and knives. They watched the hills.
The hills were moving. The hills were alive.
There were thousands of them: hairy, black, and each twice the size of a man. The air hissed from countless mandibular blades, rubbing together. They descended upon the town, each moving incredibly fast on its eight legs.
The colonists fired.
Pulse blasts and mortar eruptions. The ground and spiders exploding. Flying chunks of red flesh framed by collapsing black legs.
Still, they came. Thousands upon thousands crawling over pulverized bodies and gouged land. They were slaughtered by the thousands, but still they came on. They impacted with the defensive line at several points.
The defenders were overwhelmed. A man tried to crawl away from the perimeter. A spider was on him in a second. It neatly decapitated him with its mandibles.
A woman was standing on top of a heap of spider corpses swinging a double-sided axe. She held them off for a while, but then as she hefted the battle-axe over her head, an attacker plunged its jaws into her abdomen. She collapsed, shrieking, but still managed to split the attacker’s abdominal section.
The survivors fell back to the town but were never to regroup. The spiders danced about the fire and feasted. A child hung twitching from a set of arachnoid jaws.
He awoke with a gasp, legs tangled up in twisted bedsheets. He sat up, damp with cold sweat, and peered fearfully into the shadows.
It was an irrational fear, of course. There wouldn’t be bugs of any kind crawling around a starship, and especially not in the executive cabin. Yet ever since he was a child, he’d wake from nightmares not entirely convinced that consciousness had banished all his subconscious monsters.
Especially spiders.
They could well be in the room, waiting in the shadows, waiting for him to go back to sleep and then...
He shuddered and got out of bed. It was time for a walk. The Pondicherry was on a standard diurnal cycle. It was ship’s night. He padded quietly through the silent, semi-dark passageways in his robe and slippers. Eventually he reached observation port five.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping. Lee Yin and Bob Forrester were there. Outside the viewport was a breathtaking expanse of hard, bright stars dominated by the blue-green crescent of a world.
Arachne.
“Oh, Charles, you’re up. Guess we’re all a bit keyed up about tomorrow,” said Forrester, his chief secretary, from within a blue cloud of pipe smoke.
“Suppose so,” he said, joining them at the viewport. “A new beginning on a new planet is an anxious time. Perhaps this time even more than usual.”
“I know what you mean,” said Forrester, pondering the planet gravely. “Bloody ugly things. It makes me understand a bit.”
“Understand?”
“Everything. All that has happened since we colonized the place. I still shudder when I remember my mother’s stories of the Black Zones of Arachne and how they got there.”
That triggered a memory of his dream. He shook his head to banish the images.
“I know,” he said, “but for this mission, we must move forward.”
“That’s easy to say now,” said Lee Yin. She was his military chief of staff. “I’m not so sure we’ll all be so calm and detached in front of a thousand of them tomorrow.”
“There could be a hundred thousand,” said Forrester. “There are eight million of the eight-legged monstrosities in the capital alone. When you add visitors from the countryside for the installation, well, that’s a lot of spiders.”
He gave Forrester a stern look. Arachnoids were not spiders in the strict sense. A real three-hundred-pound arachnid would collapse under its own weight. They were warm, and red-blooded and gave birth to live young. Earth-spiders built webs and traps to catch and eat troublesome insects. Arachnoids gorged themselves on live animal flesh. They had domesticated a kind of four-armed gorilla for that purpose.
“Charles,” said Forrester thoughtfully after a long puff on his pipe, “what do you think of this spi- arachnoid named Great Spirit? Can we deal with her?”
“I’d worry more about Light Bringer,” said Yin. “He has six thousand armed insurgents in the Klix hills. He’s a menace to the entire Solux region and-”
“He’s just another brigand. They come and they go,” said Forrester, “but this Great Spirit-”
“How many guns does she have?”
“Both of you shut up,” Charles snapped, pacing in front of the viewport. “We’re here to prevent war, not have fighting among ourselves. Nonetheless, I agree with you Bob. Great Spirit is the more powerful and the fact that she doesn’t employ violence is the precise reason she’ll be so hard to deal with.”
“For now,” he said, yawning and taking one last look at Arachne hanging deceptively calm and serene in the viewport. “I think we should get some sleep. Tomorrow we shall see.”
“Yes, tomorrow,” said Yin dubiously. “Tomorrow we shall see.”
#
Making planetfall on Arachne was one of the most spectacular trips Charles had ever been on. The shuttle from the Pondicherry had wide clear window/ports. After an orbit of the planet, giving his party a full view of this beautiful world, it then made a fast descent through the atmosphere to the Smithville Wasteland, more popularly known as the Black Zones of Arachne.
From space, the wasteland did indeed appear as three round black spots on the western side of the otherwise brown and green major continent of Arachne. It was a vast black plain made of scorched dirt and broken glass. The pilot said they used Smithville as a navigation point. Charles suspected it was also to remind every human arrival of the massacres that destroyed the early settlements. It would also remind the few Arachnoids brought into space that the Terran Fleet would not hesitate to educate the population with fusion bombs again if they ever tried another Smithville.
From the Wasteland, the shuttle sped northeast, cutting a diagonal across the continent. Through the window ports, they saw lush forests, meticulously cultivated fields, immense lakes of pure water, and cities that appeared to be made of the finest crystal.
No wonder Terra prizes this colony above all, thought Charles as he gazed down on the riches of Arachne.
The journey ended at the glass metropolis of Nulix. The shuttle hovered over a central square and slowly set down. As the little ship grew closer to the landing circle, the wondrous planet of Arachne turned into a horror.
The square was much larger than it appeared at first. It was packed with about two hundred thousand, twitching, crawling, arachnoids. They were descending right into the middle of the multitude. Charles had a tremendous urge to jump to his feet and scream at the pilot to get them out of there. He remained in his seat, grit his teeth, and held on to the port banister with white-knuckled hands.
Closer to the ground, he saw that the landing podium and the road out of the square were cordoned by Terran soldiers and planetary militia. The painted brown militia were easily distinguishable from natural black through gray through white of the other arachnoids. He tried to relax. When they touched down, it pleased him to see Yin and Forrester looking as tense as he was.
“Mr. Secretary? Ms. Chief of Staff?” he said with a slight bow and a gesture to the opening hatch. “After you.”
The transfer of power from the old Governor General to Charles was mercifully quick. Like himself, the Gee Gee was dressed in the formal uniform of the Terran Regency. Unlike Charles, he appeared old, tired, and thoroughly beaten. His personal staff seemed preoccupied with fearful glances at the crowds of eight-legged giants.
For their part, the arachnoids were silent and as still as was possible for an arachnoid to be. They were silent for the farewell cheer given by the troops, and they did not flinch at all when a battery of antique howitzers fired off a farewell salute. Charles wondered why they had come.
A staff floatcar took them from the podium down a gauntlet of militia and Terran troops through the city to Government House. The engineering of huge glass structures, which towered above, was arachnoid. His stately seat of government was a Terran designed brick and mortar building.
Charles immediately plunged into his work at Government House. The morning was taken up with meetings with local officials. They were all most co-operative. It was “Yes, Gee Gee” to this and “No, Gee Gee” to that, but what information he got from them was discouraging.
The city was at a standstill. Had been for weeks. The only thing that had prevented a total breakdown of services was that the army and the militia had organized press gangs and created forced labor crews.
News from other areas of the planet was similar. Plantation work had all but ceased and other population centers were in much the same shape as Nulix. There had been no violence of any consequence except in the Klix hills. No Terrans had been killed. Most of the recent violent deaths had been perpetrated through over-zealous attempts to get the arachnoids working again.
So that’s why they were so quiet, he thought to himself, looking out a window at the courtyard. That wasn’t an audience in the square. That was a demonstration.
The most interesting report had come from planetary surveillance. It appeared that delegations of arachnoids from all over the planet were converging on Olif Mountain, sixty kilometers from Nulix. Militia detachments had picked up some for questioning and found them unarmed and claiming to be on their way to a peaceful assembly. Present estimates held that over three hundred thousand arachnoids would be at the “peaceful assembly” at Olif by tomorrow.
In the courtyard they were changing the guard. In the dusty red light of sunset, a detachment of arachnoids was being led by their human officers to drop specially fitted pulseguns into a gun box. Another detachment of unarmed militia was arriving to pick up their weapons. Even the trusted militia were not allowed to take their own guns out of human sight.
“Gee Gee, may I interrupt?”
Charles turned to see Bob Forrester smiling in the doorway.
“Very funny,” he said, sitting. “What is it?”
“You’ve had a tough day. This bug’s for you.”
“Bob,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples, “it’s been a long hard day. Just cut the jokes, tell me what it is and get the hell out.”
“Great Spirit is what it is.”
He opened his eyes and let his hand fall to the desk. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Oh, nothing. She’s fine,” said Forrester, clearly enjoying his little surprise. “In fact, she’s outside, waiting to see you.”
#
It was his first face-to-face meeting with an arachnoid. As far as he knew, it was also Great Spirit’s first face-to-face meeting with a human authority. Why she had chosen this moment to contact him, he did not know. What he did know was that this meeting would be crucial for all of Terra’s future plans for Arachne.
He also knew that she scared the pants off of him.
She came into the office with a slow smooth grace, somehow passing through a door that was clearly too narrow for her but touching nothing. When he was young, Charles was forced, on a dare, to hold a live tarantula in his palm. Great Spirit moved like a tarantula, slow and silent on the tips of her eight hairy legs.
He had to suppress a shudder.
Behind Great Spirit was Lee Yin. She maintained a tense stance with one hand resting firmly on her holstered pulsegun. Great Spirit was smaller than the average arachnoid, but she was still large enough to appear menacing. Like all arachnoids of advanced age, she was a snowy white.
“Will we be able to communicate?” he asked.
The Arachnoid made some squeaky noises. A little light blinked on the tiny translator box attached to her back.
“We can speak, Gee Gee,” said Great Spirit’s mechanical voice aid. “Whether we can communicate has yet to be ascertained.”
“Good,” he said, trying to sound firm and confident when what he really wanted to do was scream and dive out the window. “Bob, Yin, you may leave us now.”
Forrester lost his smile to a look of disappointment. Yin’s already grim features hardened with concern.
“Are you sure we should leave?” she asked.
No, dammit, he thought. What he said was, “Yes Yin, I’ll- we’ll be fine.”
Now Charles was alone with a two-hundred-pound version of his worst nightmare.
“You wish to say something to me?” he asked, trying to put all the authority of his office into his voice.
“Yes, Gee Gee,” said the huge white spider in his office. “I am here with a message that is as old as intelligent beings. As old as our practice of enslaving one another. Let my people go.”
“Who are you to say this?” He locked his hands together on his desk to keep them from shaking.
“I am,” she said. He waited for her to finish. She did not.
“Well, you may have to do better than that,” he said. “I’ll tell you who I am. I am the man responsible for maintaining order and government on this planet. Thus far the best method has been Terran rule. Can you prove to me you can do better?”
“Lately, many people with eight legs have suffered violence by those with two. Is this order and government, Gee Gee?”
“You bring it on yourself,” he retorted. Damn! She’s making me argue the very position I’m here to reverse. “It is your refusal to co-operate with authority that has caused the violence.”
“Planet-wide non-cooperation expresses the will and dignity of the people of Arachne. We will resume work when we are approached as equals and shown the mutual benefits of our labors. Thus far, the Terran people have only approached us with pulseguns and clubs.”
Even though he basically agreed with Great Spirit’s motives, there was something disturbing about being accused of inhumanity by a two-hundred-pound spider.
“I suppose we should approach you if we want peace.”
Great Spirit suddenly made a spitting, hissing noise, not unlike that made by an angry cat. He prepared to scream and dive under his desk if she sprang.
“No Gee Gee. I am but a humble servant,” she said, remaining where she was. “But there are good people. Just leaders waiting to be sought out.”
“For a servant, you have a hell of a lot of followers.”
“They listen because I teach what I have learned. I have studied the great people of my planet and yours. People who have made intelligent beings grow through their wisdom. The ones who have brought true liberation.”
“What is it you’ve learned? What is the great truth?”
“Nobody’s perfect,” she said and hissed again. “But more than that Gee Gee. I learned that life is all that is. Death is nothing. The power of death is a lie. Intelligent life must be loved and allowed to mature. I also learned, Gee Gee, that killing yields nothing and there is only one thing truly worth dying for.”
“And that is?”
“Life.”
“Nothing new.” Charles shrugged. “But true, I suppose, though it is a maxim we seldom live successfully.”
“Nobody is perfect, Gee Gee. Still, there is dignity in trying. The alternative is surrender to death.”
He was beginning to feel the charisma of Great Spirit despite his revulsion for her appearance. They had aptly named her. It was an odd feeling. He wanted to prostrate before her and go hunt up a giant fly swatter at the same time.
“Do you think such charity among all our people is possible, Great Spirit?”
“What do you see when you look at me, Gee Gee? I am a nightmare come to life, am I not? Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
“Lunch?”
She hissed and spat. Not a sign of anger after all, he realized. It was a chuckle.
“You are close, Gee Gee, but not quite right,” she said, gently shifting some of her legs. “You are much like our domesticated animals. On earth you have cattle. Imagine if an army of well-armed killer cattle suddenly invaded your Earth.”
He tried to consider the idea seriously, but could not help laughing.
“We found the idea ludicrous also, Gee Gee, until the people started dying. We fought back, but you were too powerful. Now we are trying a better power. But I digress. My point is that you are our nightmare as well. But are we not speaking now as two intelligent beings?”
“I concede that peace among us may be possible, Great Spirit,” he said, “but is it probable? Even among your own people, there are factions and sects. Some of them are quite violent. Can you guarantee that there will be peace if we pull out?”
“I never claimed to be a bringer of peace to this world, Gee Gee. I want my people free. Freedom will bring growth and the struggle to maturity is difficult.”
“But I have a responsibility to maintain peace!”
“Your peace is stagnant. I choose freedom.”
She was starting to make him angry again. He held back his next statement and took a deep breath. He was tired of letting her have the initiative. It was time for Charles to reveal his secret.
“Great Spirit,” he said calmly, contemplating his hands. “I have been sent by my government with a special message for your people. Our councils of state have recognized Arachne’s right to be free. I am here to execute their wishes.”
“However, there are some conditions. Terra does not want to lose a beneficial relationship between our peoples. She wishes Arachne to remain within a newly forming sisterhood of worlds called the Terran Commonwealth of Planets.”
Great Spirit was quiet for a few moments.
“Terrans are not our enemies,” she stated.
“Very good,” he said with a nod. “In that case, I shall convene the Terran Council of Arachne. I will inform them we are beginning negotiations with the Arachnean people toward the goal of independence of Arachne and membership in the Terran Commonwealth of Planets.”
“Terran?”
“The name is a work in progress. We will seek out your leaders, Great Spirit. It will take time, years, but in the end, Arachne will be free!”
Great Spirit was perfectly still for a few more seconds, then she moved toward the desk with those slow graceful steps. She did not stop there. With smooth, deliberate movement, she mounted the large oaken bureau. He could hear the wood groan and creak under her weight. She finally stopped, poised on her four middle legs.
Her front, her face, was only eighteen inches from his. Her forelegs framed his shoulders. He was staring fearfully into her two round black eyes. (Unlike Terran spiders, Arachnoids have only two eyes that are set on thick short stalks just above their mandibular blades.) He leaned his chair back as far as possible.
Great, he thought. After all that has been said, she’s going to bite my face off anyway.
With a quick, smooth motion, Great Spirit lifted her right foreleg and let it fall gently on the top of his head. Tenderly, she pulled her leg bristles through his hair. He relaxed a little. She was grooming him. The arachnoid version of the Terran hug.
“Thank you, Gee Gee,” said Great Spirit’s translator box. “You have set us on a momentous course. It will not be easy.”
“Freedom is never easy, Great Spirit,” he said, reaching up and stroking her leg hairs in a clumsy attempt at returning her gesture.
“How will we begin?”
“I will call the counsel for two days hence. Will you be speaking to that crowd at Olif?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good. When you finish, tell them I will make an announcement. Then you will end the strike.”
“After you make the announcement.”
“Done.”
They maintained the tableau for a moment. Two beings of entirely different species caught in a moment of mutual understanding and commitment to one another.
Suddenly, Lee Yin and Bob Forrester burst into the room. Great Spirit quickly scuttled off the desk. He had not realized she could move so fast. Lee Yin moved for her pulsegun.
“No, Yin, It’s OK!” he shouted, jumping to his feet, hands raised. Her hand froze on the butt of her weapon.
“It’s a terrible thing,” cried Forrester. “The slaughter! The 134th must be mad!”
“Sir, I must declare myself unfit for command,” said Yin, bowing her head and letting her hands drop to her side.
“What the hell are you two talking about?!” he demanded.
They remained silent. Forrester threw a guilty glance at Great Spirit.
“It is Olif,” Great Spirit’s voice box stated in a flat monotone.
“It was the 134th Terran Marine division,” said Yin gravely. “They acted without orders, but that does not absolve me of full responsibility. Approximately twenty minutes ago, they attacked the camps at Olif.”
“Provocation?” he asked with growing fury.
“None.”
“Casualties?”
“None among the Terrans. The arachnoid dead number in the hundreds.”
He noticed Great Spirit, behind Yin and Forrester, moving toward the door.
“Where are you going, Great Spirit?” he called.
“The only place I can go, Gee Gee,” she said as she negotiated the doorway. “I am going to Olif.”
He watched her leave and then glared at the guilty faces of his subordinates.
“We’re going with her,” he said. Before either could object, he slammed his fist on the desk and shouted, “We are going with her to Olif! Get me a floater. NOW!
#
When he finally got to sleep after that terrible night, Charles dreamed of men with pulseguns, burned flesh, and blood.
The first thing he did at Olif was order the 134th back to Nulix. He called in several regiments of local militia. Hundreds of the brown painted arachnoids arrived from Nulix soon after that.
Great Spirit immediately began treating the wounded. He assigned the militia to help her. Arachnoid first aid is simple and effective. The treater secretes a resinous substance over the wound that speeds the healing process and acts as a sterile bandage.
Terrans could not administer first aid, but they tried to make themselves useful. He did not know when he lost sight of Great Spirit. His memory of most of the evening was a blur of images of mutilated arachnoids. At no point did it occur to Charles that he was standing among thousands of giant spiders. He was only aware of being surrounded by pain and death. They returned to Government House near dawn.
That next day, he interrogated the Colonel of the 134th Marines. A smarmy little bastard named Stewart. Claimed that Light Bringer was behind the Olif meeting, though he could not prove it.
The attack had been all Stewart’s idea. He believed he could show cause after it was over. Evidently, the neat little colonel expected to return to Terra a hero. Charles arranged to have Private Stewart returned to Terra in the closest thing to chains a supposedly humane century would allow.
“Where are we going now?” asked a haggard Bob Forrester from his desk as Charles strode through the outer office.
“Back to Olif,” he called over his shoulder. “Get us a floater.”
It was a bright sunny Arachne afternoon. As the floater sped above the patchwork green fields around Nulix, he thought forlornly about how the carnage he had seen the previous night would mar the beauty of the land around Mount Olif. What he saw when they came within sight of the Mountain took his breath away.
There was no sign of the tragedy of the night before. Instead, gathered at the base of Mount Olif were over a million arachnoids.
He turned to Forrester, who was furiously punching commands into the communications console.
“Ah, here it is,” Forrester said triumphantly. “My God, planetary surveillance says they’ve been coming here ever since last night. There are a couple million more on the roads.”
It was up to Great Spirit now. If they turn against us, it will be all over.
“General Lee Yin to Governor General’s floater. Do you read?”
There were large military floaters parked over the multitude. Three giant black disks suspended in the clear blue sky.
“It’s me, Yin,” he said into the transmitter.
“Charles! I’ve been trying to reach you. What should we do about this?”
“Stand by,” he said with a shrug. “Let’s hear Great Spirit. Then we’ll decide.”
Great Spirit stood on a high ledge where she could be visible to arachnoids on even the most distant hills. Before two million of her people and giant war machines suspended in the sky, she began to dance.
To the arachnoids watching, the dance was an elegant language. Humans had to rely on their computers to translate. Forrester and Charles hunched together over the screen, faces awash in its blue glow.
Great Spirit danced.
She danced about sadness. She danced about loss. She danced out her anger and frustration with death. But then she danced of life and the power of life and the power of the living gathered on the mountain.
She danced about her dream.
Great Spirit danced her dream that beings should one day love. She danced for hope. She danced for fulfilment. Finally, Great Spirit danced for joy.
They looked at one another and smiled. Supreme relief washed over them as they watched the arachnoid millions dancing a dance of freedom.
#
“We’re going to what?!” cried the husky man to his right at the council table.
“We are not ‘going to’ Mr. Gilmore. We are already talking with the arachnoids about the eventual independence of their planet,” said Charles. “We have set a timetable for negotiations. Our mandate is five years hence. When the mandate is up, I can assure you gentlemen, Arachne will be independent.”
The room erupted with shouts.
“You can’t do this!”
“It is clearly unconstitutional.”
“I move we vote!”
“He’s mad. Clearly mad!”
“Gentlemen!” Charles shouted, pounding a gavel on the council table. “There will be no vote. This action is being taken on the direct authority of the Terran Commonwealth of Planets!”
The council was a motley assortment of regional governors. They were hard, weathered men. The ones from the equatorial regions wore jungle gear. The ones from the north wore furs.
“You gentlemen have been out of touch for some time.” he said. “There have been changes at home. Terra is not an empire. She never wanted to be one. The solution to the problems of intergalactic government has been to form a commonwealth. Most of the Terran colonies have become independent voting members.”
“But Arachne isn’t human!” cried the smallest of the governors at the table from within a mound of furs.
“Never-the-less independence is coming to this planet.”
“You would free the arachnoid monsters?” asked another.
“Gentlemen,” he said, glaring around the table. “Evidently, you have missed the events of the past few weeks. The arachnoids are free! I am here to end their torment.”
Later that day, Charles made the historic announcement. The arachnoids had been celebrating ever since. The entire planet was dancing. In Nulix, green and orange and pink fireworks blossomed over the gleaming crystal towers. Fancy that. They can make fireworks. Perhaps a Terran had never seen them celebrate before.
He had not seen Great Spirit since the day before. It was said that she had returned to Mount Olif to meditate. Charles was meditating also, in his study, with a bottle of good Scotch. There was a lot to think about.
He had lied to the council when he said that he was ending Arachne’s torment. True freedom and growth cannot exist without torment. There were terrible, bloody days ahead.
Great Spirit would eventually be a victim. People like her always were. The mobs that danced with her today were just as likely to nail her to a tree tomorrow. The people who bring freedom are the first to be blamed for its pain.
Perhaps he would also be a victim. There was murder in the eyes of many of the hard men in the council. Somehow, though, he thought he’d pull through. He had good people working with him.
He had to pull through. Light Bringer was in the hills waiting to pervert his people to his own bloody ends. For every Great Spirit, there is always a Light Bringer waiting in the wings.
My God, what a wonderful thing we have done!
My God, what a terrible thing we have done!
The fire was growing dim in the hearth now. He would finish his glass of whiskey brought all the way from Earth. Then to bed, to have wondrous dreams, and hellish nightmares, about people.