Maybe he could break through the web, burst through to the other side before the spider could reach him. It had to be impossible — there were layers to the web, a great depth of sticky threads before him — but it seemed his only chance.
How could he have been so stupid as to fall into such a trap? He was supposed to be the upfluxer, the wild boy; and yet he’d made one of the most basic mistakes a Human Being could make. Ray and Cris would think him a fool. His sister would think him a fool, when she heard. He imagined her voice, tinged with the tones of their father: “Always look up- and downflux. Always. If you scare an Air-piglet, which way does it move? Downflux, or upflux, along the flux paths, because it can move quickest that way. That’s the easiest direction to move for any animal — cut across the flux paths and the Magfield resists your motion. And that’s why predators set their traps across the flux paths, waiting for anything stupid enough to come fleeing along the flux direction, straight into an open mouth…”
The web exploded out of the sky. He could see more detail now — thick knots at the intersection of the threads, the glistening stickiness of the threads themselves. He turned in the Air and thrust with the board, trying to pick up as much speed as he could. He crouched over the board, his knees and ankles still working frantically, and tucked his arms over his head.
He’d remain conscious after he was caught in the thread. Uninjured, probably. He wondered how long the spin-spider would take to clamber down to him. Would he still be aware when it began its work on his body?
A mass came hurtling over his head, toward the web. He flinched, almost losing his board, and looked up. Had the spider left its web and come for him already?…
But it was the girl, Ray. She’d chased him and passed him. Now she dived, ahead of Farr, deep into the tangle of webbing. She moved in a tight spiral as she entered the web, and the edge of her board cut through the glistening threads. Farr could see the dangling threads brushing against her arms and shoulders, one by one growing taut and then slackening as she moved on, burrowing through the layers of web.
She was cutting a tunnel through the web for him, he realized. The ragged-walled tunnel was already closing up — the web seemed to be designed for self-repair — but he had no choice but to accept the chance she’d given him.
He hurtled deep into the web.
It was all around him, a complex, three-dimensional mesh of light. Threads descended before his face and laid themselves across his shoulders, arms and face; they tore at the fabric of his coverall and his skin and hair, and came loose with small, painful rips. He cried out, but he dared not drop his face into his hands, or close his eyes, or lift his arms to bat away the threads, for fear of losing his tenuous control of the board.
Suddenly, as rapidly as he had entered it, he was through the web. The last threads parted softly before him with a soft, sucking sigh, and he was released into empty Air.
Ray was waiting for him a hundred mansheights from the border of the web, with her board tucked neatly under her arm. He brought his board to a halt beside her and allowed himself to tumble off gracelessly.
He turned and looked back. The tunnel in the web had already closed — all that remained of it was a dark, cylindrical path through the layers of webbing, showing where their passage had disrupted the structure of the web — and the spin-spider itself was making its slow, patient way past the vortex lines on its way to investigate this disturbance in its realm.
Farr felt himself shuddering; he didn’t bother trying to hide his reaction. He turned to Ray. “Thank you…”
“No. Don’t say it.” She was grinning. She was showing no fear, he realized. Her pores were wide open and her eyecups staring, and again she exuded the vivid, unbearably attractive aliveness which had struck him when he’d first met her. She grabbed his arms and shook him. “Wasn’t it fantastic? What a ride. Wait till I tell Cris about this…”
She jumped on her board and surged away into the Air.
As he watched her supple legs work the board, and as the reaction from his brush with death worked through his shocked mind, Farr once again felt an unwelcome erection push its way out of his cache.
He climbed onto his board and set off, steering a wide, slow course around the web.
9
After a few days Toba returned, and told Dura and Farr that he had booked them into a labor stall in the Market. Dura was given to understand that Toba had done them yet another favor by this, and yet he kept his eyes averted as he discussed it with them, and when they ate Cris seemed embarrassed into an unusual silence. Ito fussed around the upfluxers, her eyecups deep and dark.
Dura and Farr dressed as usual in the clothes the family had loaned them. But Toba told them quietly that, this time, they should go unclothed. Dura peeled off the thick material of her coverall with an odd reluctance; she could hardly say she had grown used to it, but in the bustling streets she knew she would feel exposed — conspicuously naked.
Toba pointed, embarrassed, to Dura’s waist. “You’d better leave that behind.”
Dura looked down. Her frayed length of rope was knotted, as always, at her waist, and her small knife and scraper were comforting, hard presences just above her hips at her back. Reflexively her hands flew to the rope.
Toba looked at Ito helplessly. Ito came to Dura hesitantly, her hands folded together. “It really would be better if you left your things here, Dura. I think I understand how you feel. I can’t imagine how I’d cope in your position. But you don’t need those things of yours, your weapons. You do understand they couldn’t really be much protection to you here anyway…”
“That’s not the point,” Dura said. In her own ears her voice sounded ragged and a little wild. “The point is…”
Toba pushed forward impatiently. “The point is we’re getting late. And if you want to be successful today, Dura — and I assume you do — you’re going to have to think about the effect those crude artifacts of yours would have on a prospective purchaser. Most people in Parz think you’re some kind of half-tamed animal already.”
“Toba…” Ito began.
“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. And if she goes down the Mall with a knife at her waist — well, we’ll be lucky not to be picked up by the guards before we even reach the Market.”
Farr moved closer to Dura, but she waved him away. “It’s all right, Farr.” Her voice was steadier now. More rational. “He’s right. What use is this stuff anyway? It’s only junk from the upflux.”
Slowly she unraveled the rope from her waist.
The noise of the Market heated the Air even above the stifling clamminess of the Pole. People swarmed among the stalls which thronged about the huge central Wheel, the colors of their costumes extravagant and clashing. Dura folded her arms across her breasts and belly, intimidated by the layers of staring faces around her.
Farr was quiet, but he seemed calm and watchful.
Toba brought them to a booth — a volume cordoned off from the rest of the Market by a framework of wooden bars. Inside the booth were ten or a dozen adults and children, all subdued, unkempt and shabbily dressed compared to most of the Market’s inhabitants; they stared with dull curiosity at the nakedness of Dura and Farr.
Toba bade the Human Beings enter the booth.
“Now,” he said anxiously, “you do understand what’s happening here, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Farr, his eyes tight. “You’re going to sell us.”
Toba shook his round head. “Not at all. Anyhow, it’s nothing to do with me. This is a Market for work. Here, you are going to sell your labor — not yourselves.”