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obliging mount.
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"where do you come from? you are warm, not cold like me prey or the
creatures of the forest, you are very tall and thin and you have hair only
atop your head and there very dense." The youngster's partly clad abdomen
brushed rhythmically against the back of Jon-Tom's neck. He assumed it was a
friendly gesture. The fur on the spiderling's bottom was as soft as Mudge's.
"you have funny mouths and your fangs are hidden, may i see them?"
Jon-Tom patiently opened his mouth and grimaced to show his teeth.
The spiderling drew back in alarm, then moved cautiously closer.
"so many. and they're white, not black or brown or gold. they are so
flat, save two. how can you suck fluids with them?"
"I don't use my fangs my teeth to suck fluids," JonTom explained.
"What liquid I do ingest I swallow straight. Mostly I eat solid food and use
my teeth to chew it into smaller pieces."
The youngster shuddered visibly, "how awful, how gruesome! you
actually eat solid, unliquified flesh? your fangs don't look up to the task.
i'd think they'd break off. ugh, ugh!"
"It can be tough sometimes," Jon-Tom confessed, recalling some less
than palatable meals he'd downed. "But my teeth are stronger than yours.
They're not hollow."
"i wonder," said the spiderling with the disarming honesty common to
all children, "if you'd taste good."
"I'd hope so. I'd hate to think I've lived all these years just to
give some friend an upset stomach. I'd probably be pizza-and-coke flavored."
"i don't know what is a pissaoke." The infant bared tiny fangs, "i
don't suppose you'd let me have a taste? your elders aren't watching." He
sounded hopeful.
"I'd like to oblige," Jon-Tom said nervously, "but I haven't had
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anything to eat yet today and might make you sick. Understand?"
"oh well." The youngster didn't sound too disappointed. "i don't
guess i'd like you sucking out one of my legs, either." He quivered at the
thought, "you're a nice person, warmlander. i like you." Jon-Tom experienced
the abdomen caress once again. Then the spiderling jumped down to join his
fellow scamperers.
"luck to you, warmlander!"
"And to you also, child," Jon-Tom called hastily back to him.
Ananthos and several responsible bystanders were finally shooing the
spiderlings away. The children waved and cheered in excited whispers, like any
others, their multiple, multicolored legs waving good-byes.
A greater weight pressured his left arm and he looked around
uncertainly. It was no disrespectful spiderling, however. Flor's expression
was ashen, and she slumped weakly against him. He quickly got an arm under her
shoulders and gave her some support.
"What's wrong, Flor? You look ill."
"What's wrong?" Fresh shock replaced some of the paleness that had
dominated her visage. "I've just been poked, probed, and swarmed over by a
dozen of the most loathesome, disgusting creatures anyone could..."
Jon-Tom made urgent quieting motions. "Jesus, Flor. Keep your voice
down. These are our hosts."
"I know, but to have them touch me all over like that." She was
trembling uncontrollably. "Aranqs... uckkkk! I hate them. I could never even
stand the little ones the size of my thumb, for all that Mama used to praise
them for catching the cockroaches. So you can imagine how I feel about these.
I could hardly stand it on the boat." She moved unsteadily away from his arm.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take, Jon-Tom," and she gestured at
Ananthos, who was marching ahead of them.
They turned up another, broader web-road. "What matters isn't what
they look like," Jon-Tom told her sternly, "but what's behind their looks. In
this case, intelligence. We need their help or Clothahump wouldn't have herded
us all this way." He eyed her firmly.
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"Think you can manage by yourself now?"
She was breathing deeply. The color was returning to her face. "I
hope so, compadre. But if they climb over me like that again..." A brief
reprise of the trembling. "I feel so.. .so icky."
" 'Icky' is a state of mind, not a physiological condition."
"Easy for you to say, Jon-Tom."
"Look, they probably don't think much of the way we look, either. I
know they don't."
"I don't care what they think," she shot back. "Santa Maria, I hope
we finish with this place quickly."
"Oh, I don't know." He noted the way in which the rising sun, bright
despite the intensifying cloudiness, sparkled off the millions of cables and
the silken buildings and webwork walkway they were climbing. "I think it's
kind of pretty."
"The fly complimenting the spider," she muttered.
"Except that the flies are here hunting for allies."
"Let's hope they are allies."
"Ahhh, you worry too much." He gave her an affectionate pat on the
back. She forced a grin in response, thankful for his moral support.
Jon-Tom's attention returned forward, and to his surprise he found
himself staring straight into Talea's eyes. The instant their gazes locked she
turned away.
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He decided she probably hadn't been looking at him.
Probably trying to memorize their path in case they had to try and
flee. Such preparation and suspicion would be typical of the redhead. It did
not occur to him that the glance might have been significant of anything else.
They had climbed several thousand feet by the afternoon. Ahead
loomed an enormous structure. How many spiders, Jon-Tom wondered, had labored
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