The Mad Planet Read online

still clutching the spear which led the writhingcreature from him. Down through space, eyes glassy with panic, the twocreatures--the man and the giant tarantula--fell together. There was astrangely elastic crash and crackling. They had fallen into the webbeneath them.

  Burl had reached the end of terror. He could be no more fear-struck.Struggling madly in the gummy coils of an immense web, which ever boundhim more tightly, with a wounded creature shuddering in agony not a yardfrom him--yet a wounded creature that still strove to reach him with itspoison fangs--Burl had reached the limit of panic.

  He fought like a madman to break the coils about him. His arms andbreast were greasy from the oily fish, and the sticky web did not adhereto them, but his legs and body were inextricably fastened by the elasticthreads spread for just such prey as he.

  He paused a moment, in exhaustion. Then he saw, five yards away, thesilvery and black monster waiting patiently for him to weary himself. Itjudged the moment propitious. The tarantula and the man were one in itseyes, one struggling thing that had fallen opportunely into its snare.They were moving but feebly now. The spider advanced delicately,swinging its huge bulk nimbly along the web, paying out a cable after itcame inexorably toward him.

  Burl's arms were free, because of the greasy coating they had received.He waved them wildly, shrieking at the pitiless monster that approached.The spider paused. Those moving arms suggested mandibles that mightwound or slap.

  Spiders take few hazards. This spider was no exception to the rule. Itdrew cautiously near, then stopped. Its spinnerets became busy, and withone of its six legs, used like an arm, it flung a sheet of gummy silkimpartially over both the tarantula and the man.

  Burl fought against the descending shroud. He strove to thrust it away,but in vain. In a matter of minutes he was completely covered in asilken cloth that hid even the light from his eyes. He and his enemy,the giant tarantula, were beneath the same covering, though thetarantula moved but weakly.

  The shower ceased. The web-spider had decided that they were helpless.Then Burl felt the cables of the web give slightly, as the spiderapproached to sting and suck the sweet juices from its prey.

  * * * * *

  The web yielded gently as the added weight of the black-bellied spiderapproached. Burl froze into stillness under his enveloping covering.Beneath the same silken shroud the tarantula writhed in agony upon thepoint of Burl's spear. It clashed its jaws, shuddering upon the hornybarb.

  Burl was quiet in an ecstasy of terror. He waited for the poison-fangsto be thrust into him. He knew the process. He had seen the leisurelyfashion in which the giant spiders delicately stung their prey, thenwithdrew to wait without impatience for the poison to do its work.

  When their victim had ceased to struggle, they drew near again, andsucked the sweet juices from the body, first from one point and thenanother, until what had so recently been a creature vibrant with lifebecame a shrunken, withered husk--to be flung from the web at nightfall.Most spiders are tidy housekeepers, destroying their snares daily tospin anew.

  The bloated, evil creature moved meditatively about the shining sheet ofsilk it had cast over the man and the giant tarantula when they fellfrom the cliff above. Now only the tarantula moved feebly. Its body wasoutlined by a bulge in the concealing shroud, throbbing faintly as itstill struggled with the spear in its vitals. The irregularly roundedprotuberance offered a point of attack for the web spider. It movedquickly forward, and stung.

  Galvanized into fresh torment by this new agony, the tarantula writhedin a very hell of pain. Its legs, clustered about the spear stillfastened into its body, struck out purposelessly, in horrible gesturesof delirious suffering. Burl screamed as one of them touched him, andstruggled himself.

  His arms and head were free beneath the silken sheet because of thegrease and oil that coated them. He clutched at the threads about himand strove to draw himself away from his deadly neighbor. The threadsdid not break, but they parted one from another, and a tiny openingappeared. One of the tarantula's attenuated limbs touched him again.With the strength of utter panic he hauled himself away, and the openingenlarged. Another struggle, and Burl's head emerged into the open air,and he stared down for twenty feet upon an open space almost carpetedwith the chitinous remains of his present captor's former victims.

  Burl's head was free, and his breast and arms. The fish slung over hisshoulder had shed its oil upon him impartially. But the lower part ofhis body was held firm by the gummy snare of the web-spider, a snare farmore tenacious than any bird-lime ever manufactured by man.

  He hung in his tiny window for a moment, despairing. Then he saw, at alittle distance, the bulk of the monster spider, waiting patiently forits poison to take effect and the struggling of its prey to be stilled.The tarantula was no more than shuddering now. Soon it would be still,and the black-bellied creature waiting on the web would approach for itsmeal.

  Burl withdrew his head and thrust desperately at the sticky stuff abouthis loins and legs. The oil upon his hands kept it from clinging tothem, and it gave a little. In a flash of inspiration, Burl understood.He reached over his shoulder and grasped the greasy fish; tore it in adozen places and smeared himself with the now rancid exudation, pushingthe sticky threads from his limbs and oiling the surface from which hehad thrust it away.

  He felt the web tremble. To the spider, its poison seemed to have failedof effect. Another sting seemed to be necessary. This time it would notinsert its fangs into the quiescent tarantula, but would sting where thedisturbance was manifest--would send its deadly venom into Burl.

  He gasped, and drew himself toward his window. It was as if he wouldhave pulled his legs from his body. His head emerged, hisshoulders--half his body was out of the hole.

  The colossal spider surveyed him, and made ready to cast more of itssilken sheet upon him. The spinnerets became active, and the stickystuff about Burl's feet gave way! He shot out of the opening and fellsprawling, awkwardly and heavily, upon the earth below, crashing uponthe shrunken shell of a flying beetle which had fallen into the snareand had not escaped.

  Burl rolled over and over, and then sat up. An angry, foot-long antstood before him, its mandibles extended threateningly, while itsantennae waved wildly in the air. A shrill stridulation filled the air.

  In ages past, when ants were tiny creatures of lengths to be measured infractions of an inch, learned scientists debated gravely if their tribepossessed a cry. They believed that certain grooves upon the body of theinsects, after the fashion of those upon the great legs of the cricket,might offer the means of uttering an infinitely high-pitched sound tooshrill for man's ears to catch.

  Burl knew that the stridulation was caused by the doubtful insect beforehim, though he had never wondered how it was produced. The cry was usedto summon others of its city, to help it in its difficulty or goodfortune.

  Clickings sounded fifty or sixty feet away. Comrades were coming to aidthe pioneer. Harmless save when interfered with--all save the army ant,that is--the whole ant tribe was formidable when aroused. Utterlyfearless, they could pull down a man and slay him as so many infuriatedfox terriers might have done thirty thousand years before.

  * * * * *

  Burl fled, without debate, and nearly collided with one of theanchoring cables of the web from which he had barely escaped a momentbefore. He heard the shrill sound behind him suddenly subside. The ant,short-sighted as all ants were, no longer felt itself threatened andwent peacefully about the business Burl had interrupted, that of findingamong the gruesome relics beneath the spider's web some edible carrionwhich might feed the inhabitants of its city.

  Burl sped on for a few hundred yards, and stopped. It behooved him tomove carefully. He was in strange territory, and as even the mostfamiliar territory was full of sudden and implacable dangers, unknownlands were doubly or trebly perilous.

  Burl, too found difficulty in moving. The glutinous stuff from thespider's shroud of silk still stuck to his fee
t and picked up smallobjects as he went along. Old ant-gnawed fragments of insect armourpricked him even through his toughened soles.

  He looked about cautiously and removed them, took a dozen steps and hadto stop again. Burl's brain had been uncommonly stimulated of late. Ithad gotten him into at least one predicament--due to his invention of aspear--but had no less readily led to his escape from another. But forthe reasoning that had led him to use the grease from the fish upon hisshoulder in oiling his body when he struggled out of the spider's snare,he would now be furnishing a meal for that monster.

  Cautiously, Burl looked all about him. He seemed to be safe. Then, quitedeliberately, he sat down to think. It was the first time in his lifethat he had done such a thing. The people of his tribe were not given tomeditation. But an idea had struck Burl with all the force ofinspiration--an abstract idea.

  When he was in difficulties, something within him seemed to suggest away out. Would it suggest an inspiration now? He puzzled over theproblem.