The Widow Page 15

  We couldn’t go back, even if we wanted to. The passage had narrowed enough that no one but a contortionist could possibly turn around in it and backing all that way, uphill, was a ridiculous notion. Still, my room was easy enough to find on the watch’s display and I knew the counting hall was directly below that. I could only hope that I could navigate us there and that the rooms wouldn’t be in use. If we could hide in one until night fell and everyone went to sleep, we might have a chance.

  I turned what I hoped was the right way at every intersection and as we went deeper, I noticed the walls getting warmer. Had the counting rooms been warm? I couldn’t be sure. I’d been to engrossed in what was going on to notice. As we rounded the next bend, I froze.

  I could hear something, a sort of wet, ticking sound, like a paint roller being pushed along a wall. Whether he heard it to or was simply reacting to my sudden stop, Quince tensed up. I could feel his hand on my ankle tighten and his breathing stopped entirely.

  The sound seemed to come from everywhere, echoing through the tight tube, and my heart beat furiously. If it came upon us from behind, I’d never get past Quince to confront it.

  It rolled out of a branching at the next intersection and I said a silent thank you to whoever was watching out for us. The reason for the sound became obvious. It only had a two legs attached, and they both seemed to be little more than flexible whips lined with suckers. It didn’t notice our presence and I watched it for a moment, transfixed by its odd behavior. The legs pushed it forward into our tube, rolled it up the curved wall, along the ceiling and back down the other side, then they pushed it forward a few feet and began again. Its body was covered in thin flaps of skin, almost like a fishes scales, and they were dripping with the same slime that clung to the walls.

  The reason I’d thought it sounded like a paint roller was because that’s what it was doing, excreting the goo and covering the walls with it. I had no way of knowing why, and frankly I didn’t care. The important thing to me was that it didn’t have any of the more dangerous looking appendages attached and that it seemed to be alone.

  I reached back and pried Quince’s fingers from my ankle. He didn’t resist, but I felt his hand trembling and knew how terrified he must be. Alone in the dark, hearing the thing all around him…

  Either it was so used to humans it didn’t care that I was there or its usual array of sensory apparatus was on a type of leg it hadn’t thought it would need for this job, because it didn’t react to my presence at all until I was close enough to touch it. One of its legs reached out for the wall to move it along, found my shoulder instead and stopped. The slight pause was all I needed, I had no intention of waiting to see how it would react and risking it taking off to go warn its creepy friends of my intrusion. I stabbed into the body with all my strength.

  The screwdriver broke through the skin easily and the thing popped, just like the big beach ball it resembled, sending a spray of noxious fluid and viscera all over me. I was so surprised at the apparent ease with which the thing had died that I nearly let out a whoop of glee. That is, until the first of the legs got ahold of me.

  Whatever the complex relationship between the different parts were, it became immediately clear that not only were the legs capable of surviving without the body, they were also pissed that it was gone.

  One wrapped around my shoulder, twisting itself under my arm and squeezing so tightly that I thought the bone would break. The screwdriver was useless, since I was more likely to stab myself than it, so I dropped it and grabbed for the thing with my free hand.

  I wrenched it free only to have it switch its focus to the hand that was attacking it. One of its suckers made contact with my palm and I felt dozens of tiny, razor sharp teeth that I hadn’t noticed during my cursory examination dig in to my flesh. I clamped my jaw shut to keep from calling out and took it in both hands, bending and pulling and twisting to try to break it. It seemed utterly boneless and unconcerned, lacerating the flesh of my hands with its suckers and twining around them dangerously.

  I switched tactics and released one of my hands, lashing it hard against the wall with the other. I slammed and slammed, and when I saw the second leg wriggling along the ground toward me, I used the one I had like a whip, striking out at the newcomer again and again. The one on the ground didn’t like that at all and latched on to its attacker. I dropped it and let them keep each other busy for a minute while I retrieved the screwdriver.

  Gripping it sent a shooting pain through my damaged hand, but I ignored it and waited for an opening in the writhing mass. When one of them stopped struggling and lay limply on the floor, I stabbed the victor again and again until it was nothing but a pile of mush and then, for good measure, I did the same to the other.

  “Quince,” I called back in a harsh whisper, not wanting to alarm him by backing up into him. “It’s okay, I killed it but I think we should get moving before something else comes along.”

  I heard him moving and a moment later felt the reassuring grip of his hand on my ankle. I moved us forward cautiously, avoiding as much of the mess I’d made as possible, and checked my watch.

  It was telling me to go left, a direction I didn’t care for since it was the way the creature had come. I shrugged and obeyed since I didn’t think it was a good idea to deviate from my plan at this late juncture and anyway, it was reasonable to assume there wouldn’t be two of the things working in the same area.

  Quince followed at my heels and seemed marginally more relaxed, presumably because I’d already successfully killed one. I was suddenly glad that he was so dark and hadn’t been able to see what a pitiful specimen it had been.

  We rounded yet another bend and I paused, sensing something different. I listened carefully, there was a sound ahead, like a party. I couldn’t make out any voices, but there was a general din that I associated with large groups of people. Had we finally made out way back to the human tunnels? I inched forward, then noticed something else and reached up to turn off my implant. It was still dark, but no longer pitch black. I turned my implant back up and went forward even more slowly. Eager as I was to get back to a real hallway, I knew how dangerous the prospect was.

  Around the next bend, the tube widened abruptly and made a sharp turn upward. I crawled forward and rose to a crouch, carefully working the kinks from my horribly cramped spine. Quince released my ankle and did the same, then looked at my damaged hands. He could see, if not very well, and his expression was one of alarm and concern. I didn’t blame him. I was a little alarmed and concerned at their appearance myself.

  The little round welts where the suckers had dug in were slightly swollen and oozing blood. I examined the worst one closely and saw one of the tiny teeth stuck in my flesh. I tried to pull it out with my teeth, but only succeeded in getting a taste of the goo from the walls, which was every bit as bad as the smell.

  Quince took the screwdriver from me and pulled up his sweater. Careful not to make any noise, he poked a hole in his shirt and then widened it with his finger. He worked cautiously, looking around after every tear to make sure no one had heard, but in a few minutes he had several long thin stripes. He wrapped them around both my palms carefully and then tied them at the back, giving me a half shrug to let me know it was the best he could do.

  I smiled, wondering what I’d ever done to deserve such a friend. I knew I never would have come this far without him. I would have taken my chances and done something reckless instead. His presence was not only keeping me focussed, it was keeping me strong. I couldn’t melt down. I couldn’t abandon him.

  We both turned our attention to the the rise ahead of us. It was only a few feet up, at a steep incline and beyond it there was nothing. The end of the line.

  I motioned for him to stay put and wiggled forward, staying as low as I could. Whatever was through the opening, I didn’t want it to see me.

  I
was looking out from a tiny hole high up on the wall of a vast cavern. From the rough ceiling, I decided it was probably a natural formation, but it had been improved upon considerably. The holes in the walls, each of which I imagined leading to a network of tubes like the one we’d just come through, were only one of many additions.

  There were also channels cut down the walls, directing sluggish streams of lava from the top, safely through the maze of tube entrances, and into drains at the floor. That explained the light and heat, but raised another question. They were too regular to be natural, and I wondered how intelligent the creatures were. Clearly smart enough to provide for a central heating system, since it was obviously not the work of men.

  There were also ledges, though natural or crafted I couldn’t tell, scattered around the lower section of the walls and each of these was crowded with its own unique type of limb. They undulated like a wheat field in the wind, swaying in unison, and the sight reminded me of school children, squirming with their hands raised, begging to be called on.

  My eyes traveled down further, to the floor, and I gasped. I had expected spiders or humans, but not both and certainly not like this.

  I felt something move beside me and came back to myself. Quince had obviously gotten sick of waiting and squirmed up beside me. I looked at his face to try to tell if he could see what I had.

  His eyes, normally so open and friendly, were dark and full of rage. I gripped his arm to make sure he didn’t do anything foolish and looked back into the cavern.

  The floor was riddled with deep, long trenches. Spiders walked along the raised areas between them, and inside, naked women sprawled in squalor. As I watched, one of the spider guards tossed something into the trench closest to us and a scuffle broke out among the women there. The winner took her prize, food I guessed, over to a small child huddled in a corner and shared it with her, watching the others warily. They might be caged like beasts, but at least it seemed like they had managed to preserve some small measure of their humanity.

  They didn’t seem fearful of the spiders, but why would they be? Judging my their ages, which ran the gamut from tiny babies to women in their thirties, I doubted any of them had ever known any other life. Nearly half of the women I could see were obviously pregnant. It wasn’t a prison, I realized, but a farm.

  Not as tidy as a cloning lab, but it was getting the job done. I wondered how they were managing it until Quince grabbed my arm so hard I nearly yelped. He pointed to the far side of the cavern and I followed his line of sight. A moment before I would have sworn I couldn’t be more sickened or angry, but I would have been wrong.

  I put my mouth close to his ear.

  “We have to get back up to the top,” I told him. “No matter what.”

  He nodded.

  Somewhere above us, Titus and his minions were undoubtedly still searching, and suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be found.

  Chapter Ten

  Web of Lies

  Quince wasn’t happy about going second, not with a room full of spiders at his back, but when I showed him the map on my watch, he finally handed me the screwdriver and waved me ahead. Not that the map was going to do us much good. There was no way we could simply retrace our path. It had taken too many downward branchings and I knew that the slick coating on the tubes would make traversing those nearly impossible, especially with my awkwardly bandaged and throbbing hands.

  Instead, I went back to my previous plan of finding one of the counting rooms. When I got to the first intersection, I checked my watch again. It had an impressive memory, though its menu system left a lot to be desired, and I scrolled back through all the days I’d been here, watching as it pulled up a tiny image of my movements.

  Most were impressively dull, and I wished I’d taken the time to go through and delete them. I also wished I’d turned the mapping function on sooner. If I had, I wouldn’t have needed the subterfuge with the hair to tell me they were driving me in circles and I would be able to find the waypoint out on the ice now without Quince’s help, but I’d only gotten the thing put in a few weeks before leaving home and hadn’t had the time to fool with it then. There had been nine months of boredom on the ship, but at the time, the little built in map had seemed like nothing more than a cute and useless gadget. Nothing in my expectations for this trip had prepared me for what I was now facing.

  I found the day I was looking for, when I had slipped away and followed Quince and Sebastian down into the heart of the mountain and did what I should have done before, flipped it on its side. I’d made another in what seemed like an endless series of misjudgments. It was true we were in the same area as the counting rooms, but I hadn’t realized how many flights I’d gone down that night. They were somewhere below us, probably on the same level as the floor of the cavern, I realized.

  I knew there was a way to tag the map and overlay our current position on top of it, but I had no idea how and Quince, crammed into the tube behind me, was tapping at my ankle impatiently.

  I headed to the right, more because it seemed to slope down than because I had any clear idea of where we were, and was rewarded after several turnings with a long, slippery slide that ended painfully as I skidded to a halt at another of the sudden upward swings and Quince slammed into me from behind. The creatures probably shot through the tubes like pinballs, I reasoned, and the abrupt up turns were designed to keep them from going shooting out into rooms.

  Rooms were good. Rooms meant standing and fighting, which was certainly what I was in the mood to do, but they also meant danger. Aware that Quince was probably very uncomfortable, crammed in at an angle behind me, I still took the time to listen closely before moving forward. I heard breathing, obviously human, and crept forward to risk a peek.

  The good news was I’d found one of the counting rooms. The bad news was that it was in use.

  I felt a moments trepidation, seeing the man splayed out and the creature hard at work on him, but then he let out a low moan of pleasure and any qualms I had about attacking while it was on him vanished. This wasn’t a mandatory counting, he was here for recreation, and if he got injured in the process, it served him right. I was prepared to show mercy to those who went along with the system, since it was the only thing they knew, but not the ones who embraced it.

  I wanted to warn Quince, but didn’t dare make a sound. It was going to be awkward enough getting out of the tube without having to fight the thing off while I did it.

  I pulled my knees in as far as I could, preparing to burst out of the narrow opening only to have Quince surprise me yet again. He must have heard the man’s moan and guessed where we were and what was going on, because as I tensed up to spring, he planted his hands firmly on my backside and shoved.

  I shot into the room and landed on the balls of my feet, swinging out with the handle end of the screwdriver and batting the thing off the man. I didn’t want to pop it, as I had the last one, and have all thirty of its legs to deal with individually. The man let out a scream of pain, but I ignored him and hoped anyone within earshot would as well. Judging by the number of missing fingers and other signs I’d seen on the men of the colony, I doubted if injuries were anything new. Sebastian had said as much to Julian the fist time he had led Quince away for a counting, suggesting he should be on hand in case there was a medical emergency. I’d thought they were going to some sort of blood sport at the time and in fact, hadn’t been very far from the truth. How many times had I been close to guessing what was going on only to shy away from the horror of it?

  I couldn’t stop and think about it now. The spider was up on its feet and although it looked a little bewildered at the seemingly new development of someone attacking it, I doubted it was going to stay so hesitant in its actions. At least I didn’t have to worry about the man joining in the fray. He crawled over to a corner, gripping his damaged goods, his eyes huge with fear an
d shock.

  The spider made up its mind about what to do and lunged forward, catching me a glancing blow on my hip but allowing me to grab one of its legs. I held it with both hands and kicked out against the body, trying to wrench it off, but it refused to budge and all of the surrounding limbs began to lash out at me. Several had ridges of barbed spines running down their length and I twisted wildly to avoid them, taking hits from the less lethal ones instead and wondering what the hell I was going to do to disable the thing.

  Quince took advantage of my diversion and came out behind me, creeping around the table to get at its back side. He kicked it hard and it hit the wall. There was a satisfying crack as one of its stationary legs snapped but the other twenty-nine went on as if nothing had happened. Being round, it didn’t seem to care which way it was oriented, but at least it was now having to worry about fighting on two fronts.

  Quince darted in among the slashing and grabbing legs, trying to get his hands on the one that was broken while I brought the one I had a grip on down hard against my knee. It broke off cleanly and the half that was still attached to the creature went berserk, flailing around impotently and splashing hot, grayish blood all over me.

  I paid for the damage I’d done when one of the barbed limbs caught me. My onesie, designed for long distance space flight with its frequent and unexpected gravity shifts, could withstand a pretty good beating. The suckers earlier had failed to punch through it and only been able to latch on where my flesh was exposed, but the barbs had better luck. They tore through the fabric and dug into my flesh, lacerating it as they sliced through.