theenormous snare, following a logarithmic spiral with absolute exactitude.It was a spider's web whose cables stretched hundreds of feet; whosebird-limed ropes would trap and hold even the monster insects of thisworld. And Hallet was caught in it.
* * * * *
He'd tumbled from the cliff-edge as fungoid soil gave way under him.He'd bounced against a sloping, fungus-covered rocky wall and withfragments of curdy stuff about him had been flung out and into thesnare. He was caught as firmly as any of the other creatures on whichthe snare's owner fed.
His shrieks of horror began when he realized his situation. Hestruggled, setting up insane vibrations in the fabric of the web. Heshrieked again, trying to break the bonds of cordage that clung the morehorribly as he struggled to break free. And the struggling was mostunwise.
"We want to cut the cables with torches," said Moran sharply. "If we canmake the web drop we'll be all right. Webspiders don't hunt on theground. Go ahead! Make it fast!"
Burleigh and the others hastened to what looked like a nearlypracticable place by which to descend. Moran moved swiftly to where onecable of the web was made fast at the top. It was simple sanity to breakdown the web--by degrees, of course--to get at Hallet. But Hallet didnot cooperate. He writhed and struggled and shrieked.
His outcry, of course, counted for nothing in the satanic cacophony thatfilled the air. All the monsters of all the planet seemed to makediscordant noises. Hallet could add nothing. But his struggles in theweb had meaning to the owner of the trap.
They sent tiny tremblings down the web-cables. And this was the finemathematical creation of what was quaintly called a "garden spider" onother worlds. _Epeira fasciata._ She was not in it. She sat sluggishlyin a sheltered place, remote from her snare. But a line, a cord, asignal-cable went from the center of the web to the spider's retreat.She waited with implacable patience, one foreleg--sheathed in ragged andsomehow revolting fur--resting delicately upon the line. Hallet'sfrantic struggles shook the web. Faintly, to be sure, but distinctively.The vibrations were wholly unlike the violent, thrashing struggles of aheavy beetle or a giant cricket. They were equally unlike thoseflirtatious, seductive pluckings of a web-cable which would mean that anamorous male of her own species sought the grisly creature's affection.
Hallet made the web quiver as small prey would shake it. The spiderwould have responded instantly to bigger game, if only to secure itbefore the vast snare was damaged by frenzied plungings. Still, thoughthere was no haste, the giant rose and in leisurely fashion traversedthe long cable to the web's center. Moran saw it.
"Hallet!" he barked into his helmet-phone, "Hallet! Hold still! Don'tmove!"
He raced desperately along the edge of the cliff, risking a fall moreimmediately fatal than Hallet's. It was idiotic to make such an attemptat rescue. It was sheer folly. But there are instincts one has to obeyagainst all reason. Moran did not think of the fuel-block. Typically,Hallet did.
"_I've got the fuel-block_," he gasped between screams. "_If you don'thelp me--_"
But then the main cable nearest him moved in a manner not the result ofhis own struggles. It was the enormous weight of the owner of the web,moving leisurely on her own snare, which made the web shake now. AndHallet lost even the coherence of hysteria and simply shrieked.
* * * * *
Moran came to a place where a main anchor-cable reached bed-rock. It ranunder yeasty ground-cover to an anchorage. He thrust his torch deep,feeling for the cable. It seared through. The web jerked wildly as oneof its principal supports parted. The giant spider turned aside toinvestigate the event. Such a thing should happen only when one of themost enormous of possible victims became entangled.
Moran went racing for another cable-anchorage. But when he found wherethe strong line fastened, it was simply and starkly impossible to climbdown to it. He swore and looked desperately for Burleigh and Brawn andHarper. They were far away, hurrying to descend but not yet where theycould bring the web toppling down by cutting other cables.
The yellow-banded monster came to the cut end of the line. It swungdown. It climbed up again. Hallet shrieked and kicked.
The spider moved toward him. Of all nightmarish creatures on thisnightmare of a planet, a giant spider with a body eight feet long andlegs to span as many yards was most revolting. Its abdomen was obscenelyswollen. As it moved, its spinnerets paid out newly-formed cord behindit. Its eyes were monstrous and murderously intent. The ghastly,needle-sharp mandibles beside its mouth seemed to move lustfully with alife of their own. And it was somehow ten times more horrible because ofits beastly fur. Tufts of black hairiness, half-yards in length,streamed out as its legs moved.
There was another cable still. Moran made for it. He reached it where itstretched down like a slanting tight-rope. He jerked out his torch tosever it,--and saw that to cut it would be to drop the spider almostupon Hallet. It would seize him then because of his writhings. But notto cut it--
He tried his blaster. He fired again and again. The blaster-bolts hurt.The spider reacted with fury. The blaster would have killed a man atthis distance, though it would have been ignored by a chitin-armoredbeetle. But against the spider the bolts were like bites. They madesmall wounds, but not serious ones. The spider made a bubbling soundwhich was more daunting than any cry would have been. It flung its legsabout, fumbling for the thing that it believed attacked it. It continuedthe bubbling sounds. Its mandibles clashed and gnashed against eachother. They were small noises in the din which was the norm on this madworld, but they were more horrible than any other sounds Moran had everheard.
* * * * *
The spider suddenly began to move purposefully toward the spot whereHallet jerked insanely and shrieked in heart-rending horror.
Moran found himself attempting the impossible. He knew it wasimpossible. The blast-pistol hurt but did not injure the giant becausethe range was too long. So--it was totally unjustifiable--he foundhimself slung below the downward-slanting cable and sliding down itsslope. He was going to where the range would be short enough for hisblast-pistol to be effective. He slid to a cross-cable, and avoided itand went on.
Burleigh and Brawn and Harper were tiny figures, very far away. Moranhung by one hand and used his free hand to fire the blaster once more.It hurt more seriously, now. The spider made bubbling noises of infiniteferocity. And it moved with incredible agility toward the one object itcould imagine as meaning attack.
It reached Hallet. It seized him.
Moran's blast-pistol could not kill it. It had to be killed. Now! Hedrew out his torch and pressed the continuous-flame stud. Raging, hethrew it at the spider.
It spun in the air, a strange blue-white pinwheel in the gray light ofthis planet's day. It cut through a cable that might have deflected it.It reached the spider, now reared high and pulling Hallet from thesticky stuff that had captured him.
The spinning torch hit. The flame burned deep. The torch actually sankinto the spider's body.
And there was a titanic flame and an incredible blast and Moran knewnothing.
* * * * *
A long time later he knew that he ached. He became aware that he hurt.Still later he realized that Burleigh and Brawn and Harper stood aroundhim. He'd splashed in some enormous thickness of the yeasty soil, grownand fallen from the cliff-edge, and it was not solid enough to break hisbones. Harper, doubtless, had been most resolute in digging down to himand pulling him out.
He sat up, and growled at innumerable unpleasant sensations.
"That," he said painfully, "was a very bad business."
"It's all bad business," said Burleigh in a flat and somehow exhaustedtone. "The fuel-block burned. There's nothing left of it or Hallet orthe spider."
Moran moved an arm. A leg. The other arm and leg. He got unsteadily tohis feet.
"It was bessendium and uranium," added Burleigh hopelessly. "And theuranium burned. It wasn't an atomic explosi
on, it just burned likesodium or potassium would do. But it burned fast! The torch-flame musthave reached it." He added absurdly. "Hallet died instantly, of course.Which is better fortune than we are likely to have."
"Oh, that ..." said Moran. "We're all right. I said I was going to killhim. I wasn't trying to at the moment, but I did. By accident." Hepaused, and said dizzily; "I think he should feel obliged to me. I wasdistinctly charitable to him!"
Harper said grimly;
"But we can't lift off. We're all marooned here now."
Moran took an experimental step. He hurt, but he was sound.
"Nonsense!" he said. "The crew of the _Malabar_ went off without takingthe fuel-block from the wreck's engines. It's in a drawer in the_Nadine's_ control-room with a note to Carol that I asked her to readshould something