The centipede was two feet long, small by giant standards.  Shiny brown segments with black bands formed the length of its sinuous body, while busy legs rippled along each side like a wave of oars.   It examined Steve Burton’s boot inquisitively with long feelers, then scuttled away as he kicked out. 

       Nothing could ever accustom him to the sight of insects, sometimes the size of cats and dogs, swarming underfoot in and out of every dark hole.  When the little people were forced to run fast, they could hardly avoid treading on them.  The crack of bodies breaking and the sudden rush of hungry hoards to eat their fellows sickened Steve.  They all hated the insects.

He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands, weighed down by the intolerable burdens of leadership and responsibility.  The others all looked to him for decisions, support, and guidance, but where did he have to look? Nowhere, except within himself, and his reserves of that kind of strength were fast running dry.  It had been six months.  Six long months of running and hiding like hunted animals, with no end in sight.  They were still no nearer to finding a way back to Earth than on the day the Spindrift crashed.

Steve started at sudden noise, but the soft footfall was only Dan’s.  The co-pilot appeared from behind a cluster of large, glossy leaves, swinging a razor-blade axe idly from one hand.

He came up to the boulder Steve was seated on, with a quick glance around and up for danger.  The habit had become second nature to them all.  “Steve, old buddy, what are you doing out here alone?”

“Nothing.  Just thinking.”

There was something in his tone that worried Dan.  “Are you all right?  Are you still hurting?”

“No, I’m fine.”  The gopher-creature’s claw had left an angry scar along Steve’s side, but he no longer felt more than the odd twinge. 

Dan looked unconvinced, but he pursed his lips and said nothing.  He came closer and leant on the rough stone beside Burton.  “So what’s on your mind?”

“Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to give ourselves up to Kobick and get it all over with.”

Dan frowned, even more worried by that remark.  “Steve, you don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?”

It was so unlike the captain to display anything other than grim determination, even in the face of terrible odds, he hardly knew what to say.   Concerned, he patted his friend’s arm.  “You’re just tired, Steve, we all are.  Sometimes we don’t get enough to eat, and we’re strung up like a wire half the time.  It’s a wonder we aren’t all out of our minds by now.”

“Meaning I am?”

“No, meaning nothing, except maybe you should let me take your shift for a couple of nights and get some decent sleep.”

The Spindrift’s captain objected to the inference that he was incapable of doing his job.  “I’m not that decrepit yet.  When I am, I’ll let you know.”

“You’re carrying all of us, Steve.  You do all the worrying.  Let me take some of it, delegate more to me, that’s what I’m here for.  Let me help.”

“You do, Dan, believe me.  You do your share.  Nobody pulls their weight more than you do.”

Steve knew well enough they would never have made it this far without the black co-pilot.  They had been friends a long time; partners in crime they used to laughingly call it.  Pilot and co-pilot for seven years, and when the opportunity arose for Dan to take promotion he’d let it slip by, unnoticed.  They worked well together, sharing the same sense of humour, appreciating each other’s skills.  Steve trusted Dan with his ship and his life, and he’d never been let down.  He knew he would never find as good a partner again.  Even the fact that they both coveted the lovely blonde stewardess Betty Hamilton, seemed unlikely ever to come between them.

Steve managed an uneasy friendship with Mark, but the engineer was hard to like unreservedly.  Perhaps they were too much alike; each wanting to make the final decisions, vying for leadership and fighting to get their own way.  They had come to blows too many times.  It was hardly the best way to survive in this wilderness.

Conscious of Dan’s puzzled scrutiny, Steve pulled his thoughts back to the never-changing pressures of daily life.  “Is everyone okay back there?”

“Fine.  The girls are hanging out some washing, Fitz and Barry are getting the hunting gear together, and Mark is working on the generator.  Everything’s in order, Captain, take a break.  You worry too much.  No one needs you.”  His dark face grinned, belying his words.

Steve tried to relax, but it was hard.  Half his mind was always listening for trouble; giant noises, distant footfalls, or predators.  There was no place to be free of it.

They sat there a while longer, enjoying the brief moment of peace.  Steve felt the late afternoon sun warm on his head and back.  They had suffered the rigours of a giant winter, now at least the weather was on their side.

“Steve?”  Dan’s query was tentative.  “You coming back?”

He smiled wryly.  “You mean I have a choice?  It’s all right, Dan, I’m coming back.  Where else would I go?”

Although Steve had come out by a little-used track, he had not gone beyond shouting distance of the Spindrift.  None of them ventured far alone.  On the way he had passed a new crop of giant mushrooms sprouting beside a rotting tree-stump, and he pointed them out to Dan.  They should send a party back to cut them.  The mushrooms spoiled quickly, but made wonderful eating when they were fresh.  Almost as good as steak.

Mark met them outside the ship with better news.  The power cells were recharging steadily with no fluctuation, and he had already used some of the energy to re-charge a few minor articles; flashlights, the pocket radios, and the cannibalised cutting tool.  Steve’s uncharacteristic depression lifted as they discussed the possibility of taking off and heading deeper into the wood, further away from Giant habitation, where they might hide out in greater safety. 

While it was still light, Dan took Fitzhugh and Valerie back to gather the mushrooms, followed closely by Barry and Chipper, the pair inseparable as usual.  Steve watched them go with a half-smile as Chipper snapped at Barry’s heels and the boy picked him up, tucking him under one arm as he ran to catch the others.  Much as he sometimes wanted to make the pestilential little dog into soup, Chipper’s loss would have broken the boy’s heart.  They had little enough normality to cling to in this monstrous world.

Dan was well armed and perfectly able to defend himself and the others, but Steve was always aware of the people out of sight when his party split up, like a small nagging toothache in his mind.  Maybe Dan was right; he did worry too much.  But if he didn’t worry about them, there was no one else around to do it for him.

They would only be gone a couple of hours, and Steve shelved his concern for them as he joined Mark, no premonition of danger disturbing his concentration as they went over their plans to lift the ship.  They were in the pilot cabin when Fitzhugh’s frantic call came over the radio with startling suddenness.

“Captain!  Help us!  Come quickly, it’s got Dan!”

Shocked, Steve snatched up the receiver.  “Where are you?  What’s happened?”

Fitzhugh’s voice dropped to a strained whisper, as if he was afraid of being overheard.  “It’s a giant spider.  It killed a mouse and now it’s killed Dan!”  His voice rose an octave.  “It’ll find us next!  Captain!”

Steve’s stomach turned to ice.  “Where are you, damn it!”

“Near the mushrooms. . . ”

“Stay there.  Don’t move.”

Mark was already snatching up an axe, beating the captain to the hatch by two paces.  Steve shouted at Betty to stay by the radio, not giving her a chance to refuse, though the mention of Dan had brought her white-faced into the cabin. 

They sprinted back to the mushroom patch, tripping and stumbling over roots and debris and scattering a colony of small ants.  The first thing Steve saw was Fitzhugh, crouched under a giant leaf, clutching a struggling Valerie.  Barry was hugging Chipper, white-faced and trembling. 

“What’s happened?” he shouted.  “Where’s Dan?” “Oh Steve,” Valerie sobbed, “The spider got him.  It was terrible, we’ve got to help him, it’s killed him . . .”

“Where is he?”

“The hole, over there, it took him down.”  Tears streaked her face as she threw herself into Mark’s arms, on the verge of hysteria.  “It was a monster!  A yard across!  It leapt out of the bush over there and jumped on the baby mouse we were watching, it kept biting it and wrapping it in a sheet of web, and when it pulled it into the hole.  Dan was trying to get us away, but it saw him move.  It pounced on him and bit him just like the mouse and wrapped him up . . .”  She buried her face against the engineer’s chest and burst into tears.

Mark was shaking her, his voice harsh.  “Where is he now?  Val, where is he?”

“It dragged him down the hole.  He’s dead Mark, he’s dead!”

“You don’t know that!”  Steve said sharply.  “Fitzhugh, is this true?”

“It’s true, Captain,” said Barry in a shaky voice.  “Just like she said.  He didn’t have a chance.”

Steve grabbed a handful of Fitzhugh’s shirt, hardly able to believe the horror he was hearing.  “You let that thing take him away without lifting a finger to help?”

The older man was in shock, visibly trembling.  His voice shook.  “There was nothing we could do, Captain, it all happened so fast.  He was dead in a few seconds.”

“How do you know he’s dead?”

Fitzhugh cringed, his face pale and beaded with sweat.  “If you’d seen it, you’d know.  If you’d seen what happened to the mouse.  It was dreadful, Captain, dreadful.  What else could I do, unarmed and alone and with Valerie and the boy to protect?  I could do nothing without putting their lives in jeopardy.”

“Or your own.”  Steve pushed him away, seeing nothing but the dark hole and the horror of what lay inside. 

They had seen one of the giant ground-spiders before.  A great, shaggy thing which spun no web but lived underground, darting out at unsuspecting prey and sinking its fangs into them, wrapping them into a neat parcel before dragging them away to feed.  It hid at night and hunted in the daytime.  It had caught the little people off guard on its way back home. 

“Steve, come back here!”  Mark’s first attempt to stop his headlong rush failed as the Captain fended him off, striking him a glancing blow with the haft of the axe.  Then both Mark and Fitzhugh caught hold of him, trying to stop him reaching the hole.

For the first time in his life, Steve completely lost his head.  Hardly aware of what he was saying or doing, he heard himself shouting incoherently, struggling against the two men, oblivious to everything except the fact that he had to get past the spider and find Dan.  It took all their strength to drag him back a few paces to the shelter of an overhanging boulder. 

Mark grabbed a handful of his red jacket and rammed him back against the stone.  “Shut up, Steve!” he snarled.  “Are you trying make it come out and get us all killed?  Pull yourself together, man, there’s nothing we can do to help him now.  We can’t do anything for him.  He’s dead, and that’s all there is to it.  We’re getting out of here right now, we can’t risk any more lives.”  He shook Steve hard, banging his head against the unyielding rock.  “Pull yourself together!”

Reality filtered back, and all the fight drained out of Steve in a wave of helpless misery.  He pushed Mark away.  “Let go of me.  When did it happen?  How long ago?”

“Only a few minutes, almost as I called you,” said Fitzhugh.  “What does it matter now, Captain?  He’s dead.”

“We don’t know that,” Burton said stubbornly.

“We saw it happen, Steve,” said Valerie.  “When it bit him he screamed, just once, and then it — it wrapped him up . . .”  Her voice choked off and she began to cry again, holding onto Mark for support.  He put his arms around her.

Mark’s face seemed grey as he looked across Valerie’s bright head.  “She’s right, Steve.  There’s no hope.”

“There’s always hope.”  Steve’s hand tightened on the axe, a bitter fury overwhelming the grief he knew would come later.  “I’m going to find him.”

“It’s useless, it would be suicide.”

“I’ve got this.”  Steve lifted the axe.  “Mark, I’m giving command to you.  I’m not coming back unless I bring him or his body with me.”

Mark looked aghast.  “You can’t do that!  We can’t afford to lose you both, Steve, you’re our pilot.  We have to have one of you.”

“We taught you and Betty enough now to fly her out if there’s ever any chance, and the beacons will take you in if you reach our world again.  This is something I have to do.”

“Steve!”  Mark pushed Valerie away and caught Burton’s arm in a fierce grip.  “You’re not going to do anything so damn stupid, it’s suicide by yourself.  If you have to, we all go.”

“No.  That’s an order, Mark.  My last order.  This is something I have to do.  You can all it selfish, or insane, but you won’t change my mind.  I’m transferring command to you.”

The fair man looked grim.  “Then my first command is for you to stay here.”

“You’ll have to kill me first.”

“He’s lost his mind,” groaned Fitzhugh.  “Dan’s dead, Captain, there’s no point in throwing away other lives needlessly.”

Valerie and Barry began to plead, but Steve hardly heard them.  Mark was still holding on to him, determined to keep him there by force.  “That’s enough, Steve, we’re going back to the ship.”

“Mark, he may be dead, but if he isn’t, he’s living food for that monster.  What if he’s paralysed, but fully conscious? What if it uses its prey to lay its eggs in?”

Mark’s voice hardened.  “Then if it gets you too, it’ll be twice as bad.”

“I can’t live with myself if I don’t find out.”  As he said it, Steve knew that was the simple truth.

“Well what the hell do you think we’re going to feel, if you’re both gone and we never know what happened to you?”

“I’m sorry, Mark, you’ll all have to deal with it the best you can.”

“You’re out of your mind, Steve,” he raged.

A cloud seemed to have descended over the captain’s customary common sense.  “You may be right.  But it’s my decision, Mark, you can’t stop me.”

“Oh yes I can.”

Steve had been on the receiving end of his punch before, and he should have known better, but he didn’t see it coming until too late.  Mark’s fist caught him hard on the jaw and everything exploded into blackness.

When he opened his eyes again, Steve was lying in the shelter outside the Spindrift with Betty bathing his face, her blue eyes swimming with unshed tears.  “Oh Steve, are you all right?”

His head was aching and his jaw felt swollen to twice its size.  He put a tentative hand to it, and winced.

Mark was standing over them, his expression grim.  He held the axe in both hands as if he intended to use it as a last resort.

“I’m sorry, Steve, I had to do that.  You went completely off your head.  I warn you, I’ll stop you any way I can.”

“We need you, Steve,” Betty pleaded.  “You can’t throw your life away.  Mark’s right, there’s nothing you can do.  There’s nothing any of us can do.  He told me what happened.  They all did.”  She blinked hard to stop them, but tears began to trickle down her cheeks. 

Steve sat up slowly and rested his aching head in his hands, gathering his wits.  Somehow he was going to go back and find Dan, there was no question about that at all.

“Steve,” said Mark, his tone a warning.  “None of us are leaving camp again tonight.”

“Whatever you say,” Burton said wearily.  “Split the watch between you, me and Fitzhugh, three hours each.   If you’re so worried about me leaving, you can share mine as well.  Does that suit you?”

He got up and walked away, not caring whether they obeyed or not.  He could feel Mark’s gaze on him, boring into his back.  The engineer followed him.  “Steve?” he said softly.

The pilot turned on Mark furiously.  “Is that your answer to everything?  Knock me out every time you don’t get your own way?  Violence doesn’t get us anywhere.  What about feelings?  What about the man down there?”

“Do you think I don’t have feelings?”  Mark’s voice rose.  “You think I don’t care about losing him?  Dan was a good man, a good friend, if there was some way to help him, don’t you think I would?  But I care first about keeping us all together and alive.”

They were at each other’s throats again, the air charged with the emotion that sparked between them. 

Betty took hold of Steve’s arm, trying to defuse the situation.  “Couldn’t we kill the spider?  We could wait for it and kill it when it comes out to hunt.  Then we can go down into the hole and find Dan . . .”  She trailed off.

“You wouldn’t want to find what it’s left behind,” said Mark coldly.

She gave a soft moan, and Steve felt sick.  Dan could well be dead.  Even if he hadn’t been when the spider took him, surely he would be now.  He clenched his fists so hard the ragged fingernails dug into his palms.  If only he could be sure of that.  The alternatives were too awful to visualise.  He had to put them out of my mind, or he’d go crazy.

“Don’t worry, Betty,” Steve said quietly.  “The spider’s going to be killed, one way or another.”

Mark put down the axe, still eyeing him warily.  “I’m sorry I had to hit you, Steve, I don’t think I had any choice.”

“We all do what we have to,” he said evenly.

Mark relaxed a fraction.  “We’ll kill the spider.  We’ll entice it out tomorrow and kill it.  But in daylight, when we have some chance of success without losing any more lives.  And then if you must, we’ll go in there and bring him out, and give him a decent burial.  You’ve got to see the sense of that.”  He was waiting for an answer.  “Steve?”

“All right.”  He didn’t know what Mark could read from his expression, but the engineer could hardly see his thoughts. 

Mark said nothing more, and moved away, perhaps feeling Steve was best left to work out his grief in solitude.

Dusk fell with its customary swiftness on the Giants’ planet, and they gathered in silence for their usual evening meal.  Valerie handed Steve a cup of the coffee they roasted from the root of a plant resembling dandelion, hoarding their meagre remains of real coffee for major celebrations.  He could hardly taste its bitter, smoky flavour, and he could feel a tremor in his hands as he held the cup.  They were all still suffering varying degrees of shock.

Steve could eat nothing; none of them had any appetite that night.  Before long the two girls went inside the Spindrift with Barry, keeping close together in a mutual need for comfort, leaving Steve to take the official first watch, to be followed by Mark and then Fitzhugh.

Mark shared the first watch, determined not to let Steve out of his sight.  He paced the area slowly, an axe dangling from his hand, making no attempt to converse with Steve, although his eyes went to him often, sitting alone under the shelter. 

Steve ignored him, wrapped in his own thoughts.  He spent an hour trying to persuade himself not to do what he knew he must.  If he could only feel Dan was dead, if he could really believe it, there was no need to throw away his life uselessly and abandon his duty.  But what he could not live with, was never knowing.  He knew he would wake up every night to see Dan down there, still alive, trapped and dying slowly inch by inch, sucked dry by a monster from his worst nightmares.  Dan had hated spiders, even back home.  No way was he going to leave a friend to that.

“Captain?”

Steve looked up at the tentative voice.  Barry had come out again, his eyes still red from crying.

“He may not be dead, Captain.”

“I know it feels like that, Barry,” he said heavily, “but common sense tells me Mark and Fitz must be right.”

“But if the spider used up all its venom on the mouse, there wouldn’t be enough left to kill Dan, maybe only enough to paralyse him.   I saw it happen, I know how many times the spider bit the mouse.  I know about spiders.  This might not be the Earth, but it’s not that different.”

Steve caught hold of his arm, hard.  “Barry, why didn’t you say that before?”

“Mark was so sure . . .”

“Mark’s always too damn sure.  We all were.  Tell me that again, slowly.”

The boy was eager to air his knowledge.  “Spiders, Earth spiders that is, make poison like a snake.  They inject it into their victims to paralyse them, but if a spider has lots of prey on its web it sometimes uses it all up.  I’ve seen things wriggling to get away, just held there by the web, not even paralysed, even though it bit them.  I used to quite like insects — before we came here.”

 The picture was unpleasant to say the least, but the terrible bleakness lifted for a moment.  “Thank you Barry,” Burton said softly.

“Are you going to find him, Captain?  I’ll come with you if I can help.”

Steve took hold of the boy’s shoulders and hugged him.  “No, Barry.  Just forget we ever had this conversation.  Go back inside and try to get some sleep.”

Barry’s eyes were wide, trying to see what the captain was going to do, but the last thing he wanted was the boy sneaking after him.  He was a good-hearted kid, and not for the first time, Steve was glad he had been on their ill-fated flight.  “Go on, Barry.  And thanks.”

“Yes, Captain.”  He turned away reluctantly, and climbed the ramp.

It was all he needed to know.  There was no more time for weighing decisions, only for action.  When his time was up, Steve nodded curtly to Mark and went back inside the ship. 

He collected a flashlight from the engine room and went into the pilot cabin, easing himself into the control seat.  He and Dan often slept in that vantage point when they were anxious for the safety of the ship.  The darkness outside made the wide viewport window a reflecting mirror, where he saw himself hollow-eyed, lines of strain he had never noticed before etching the corners of his mouth.  The last six months had aged him a year, and the last few hours, more like ten.

He tried to doze, but it was impossible.  He was too worried about what might be happening to Dan.

When he heard Mark look in on him later, he feigned deep sleep.

Steve waited until Fitzhugh had taken his watch and Mark was settled in the passenger cabin, and then crept silently out of the ship.  Mercifully, Chipper was too comfortably asleep in Barry’s arms to do more than prick an ear and half open one eye.  Hearing only a familiar tread, he went soundly back to his dreams. 

Steve knew from long experience that Fitz would drop off sometime after the first half hour, and this time was no exception.  The erstwhile commander was snoring loudly, propped up against the Spindrift’s ramp, an axe lying beside one outstretched hand.  With a ghost of a smile, Steve slipped away behind the ship under cover of darkness.

It was harder to leave than he had imagined.  The Spindrift had been their home for months, and it remained their only hope of ever seeing Earth again.  Without Dan or himself the others had slim chance of success, despite what he had said to Mark.  They were his responsibility, every one of them, as if the contract had been written in his own blood.  But he had already been through all that in his mind, while he sat sleepless, under the night sky.  He had battled with his conscience, and his common sense, but there was simply no other choice he could make.  He had always believed he could put duty before lesser considerations like personal ties or friendship.  It was sobering to discover he was wrong.

Apart from one axe, all Steve took was his own pocket knife and a newly-charged torch.  They had several, and one would be no great loss.  He left them his lighter and radio.  He could not justify robbing the others of anything else which may never be returned.

He trod carefully through the undergrowth, trying to make as little noise as possible, flashing his light only when absolutely necessary.  He knew he was easy prey for the birds and animals of the night.  The little people rarely ventured out in darkness except in the direst emergency.

The crop of giant mushrooms loomed eerily on his left, like some city built by alien fairies.  The gaps where Dan and the others had hacked down a few were already half filled with new growths, and the fallen caps still lay where they had been dropped, waiting for someone to take them back to camp.

Steve slowed to a stealthy pace, seeing the dark shape of the hole against a bank of lighter earth.  It was almost daylight, and the faint grey of pre-dawn was brightening the Giants’ eastern sky.

Various options were still running through his mind.  Lighting a fire to smoke out the spider; making a noise to entice it out; waiting for it to come out of its own accord.  But if he wasted too much time the others would discover his absence, and he could not be absolutely certain the thing was even in its lair.

In the end he simply crouched behind the cover of a boulder and lobbed a fist-sized stone into the hole.

Quick as a flash a dark furry shape leapt for it, juggled the stone between its clawed fore-legs, then just a quickly discarded it and vanished back into the darkness.  That swift glimpse was enough to fill Steve with horror and despair.  No single man had any chance against such a monster.  The strength in those legs was equal to ten little people and it moved like lightning.  His hands sweated on the handle of the axe as he knelt behind the stone and forced himself to wait.  Sooner or later, it had to come out.

Steve looked at his watch.  The others would discover him missing at breakfast, but that was a good two hours away.  Time enough.

He cautiously moved closer, within easy reach of the entrance, and hid behind a clump of trailing ferns.  It seemed the longest wait he had ever made, his nerves keyed up until he started at every sound.  He desperately wanted the opportunity of getting into the hole before Mark descended on him in fury and the decision to go in alone was taken out of his hands. 

He did not have long to wait.  Within half an hour the spider emerged again, dragging a shrivelled bundle.  It deposited the object outside the hole and scuttled away into the undergrowth. 

Steve’s heart took a double beat.  The bundle was too small to be human.  It had to be.  The single stump of leg which protruded had once belonged to something like a small mammal.  The baby mouse?  Closer, he was certain, but the sight of the pitiful remains made his stomach turn over, and he had to fight down a wave of nausea.

Glancing around just once, he knelt and shone his torch into the entrance.  There was plenty of room to enter as long as he kept his head bent, but the rough walls ate the light, and he could only see a few yards ahead.  Beyond that was a pitch black unknown.

Nothing moved.  Steve paused for a moment with his hand against the soft sandstone, suddenly gripped by an instinctive, basic fear of crawling things in dark holes.  Then he forced it away, along with the thought of what he was going into.  Quickly, before he could change his mind, he ducked and went inside.

Ignoring the sudden feeling of claustrophobia he fixed his thoughts on Dan, and the horror of being trapped down there somewhere, hurt and alone.  It could just as easily have been himself; any one of them.

Steve wiped a hand across his face, sweating freely, although it was not hot.  His shirt stuck to his back under the tight jacket, and his hand was slippery on the haft of the axe.  He rubbed his palms on his thighs and flashed the torch round quickly, but nothing changed.  The light showed no end to the tunnel.  He had no idea if the spider dug its own hole or if it took over someone else’s home; he had never been especially interested in entomology.  There were a lot of things he wished he’d studied now.

Steve stopped, hearing a faint sound from beyond and aimed the light higher.  “Dan?” he said softly.  He held his breath, trying to discern movement.  Dark shapes seemed to form out of the darkness and crawl towards him.   He froze, waiting for a rush of legs.  Did spiders live in pairs?  Was there a mate somewhere, hatching a brood of crab-sized children? Nothing moved.  He was falling prey to his over-active imagination.  The hammering of his heart seemed so loud he could hear it above the silence.

The air smelt bad, an earthy smell of dank decay and a hundred years of mould, like an ancient grave.  Remembering what was likely to come up behind him, he went faster, stumbling and bumping his head on the uneven roof.  He dare not stop his headlong pace for fear of losing what little nerve he had left. 

It was not all that far, maybe sixty feet.  The end was a roughed out semi-circle, almost a small cave, and on each side there were deeper hollows carved out of the earth.  Inside them the ground was littered with misshapen bundles and other debris.  The holes seemed to be its larder. 

Frantically Steve swung the light around, risking a shout.  “Dan!”  His voice echoed dully, failing to carry.  Dan had to be here.  He had to be still alive. 

One of the bundles moved, scaring him rigid, and a human hand clawed at the ground.

“Dan!”  Steve was beside him in a second.  He was hardly recognisable as human, still half cocooned in a sheet of grey web.  Steve slashed at it with the newly sharpened axe, but it was difficult to cut, and it stuck to his hands as he tried to rip it away.  At last he succeeded in freeing Dan’s arms and legs sufficiently for him to move. 

 “Steve, Steve, a spider . . .”  He gasped and clutched at the captain’s jacket like a drowning man, half out of his mind with shock and fear.

Steve tried to pull the last sticky streamers away from his face.  “It’s all right, Dan.  Let go of me, it’s all right.  You’re safe.  I’ve come to get you out.”

The dark man’s natural colour was grey and muddy in the torchlight; his nearest equivalent of white with fear.  “Steve,” he groaned.  “It was a spider, a giant spider, it bit me.  I came round in the dark and I couldn’t move, I don’t know where I am . . .”

“In its larder,” Steve said grimly.  “We’re underground.  Can you move now?”

Dan’s voice was weak.  “Only just.  I think it paralysed me.  I’ve been trying to get free for hours, it seemed like hours.  Where is it?  Where are the others?”

“It’s out hunting, and the others don’t know I’m here.  We all thought you were dead.”

Dan blinked in the light, tying to make sense of the captain’s words.  “You didn’t come in here alone?”

“I had to.  Come on, we’ve got to get out of here before it comes back.”

“Steve, you’re crazy.”

“So I’ve been told.”  Burton made a swift examination of the bites on Dan’s leg and thigh, finding purple wheals under the torn cloth.  “Can you feel your legs?  Can you get up?  I’ll give you a hand.”

He struggled to his knees and collapsed with a groan.  “Legs are numb.  Pins and needles.”

Steve massaged his companion’s legs quickly, his fear increasing with every minute they were underground.  “I’ll carry you.  Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“I can make it, I can walk.”  Dan staggered to his feet and Steve took most of his weight, transferring the axe to his left hand.  But they had hardly managed two metres at a stumbling run before a faint noise sounded from the darkness ahead.  An ominous scrabble of many feet. 

Dan gasped and clutched his arm.  “It’s coming back!”

“Get down here!”  Steve pulled him back, throwing them both down into the nearest hollow, among the unwholesome contents of the spider’s hoard.

Steve fell on top of Dan among the heap of sticky, anonymous bundles.  He felt rather than heard his companion’s involuntary gasp and the shudder that ran through him.  “Shut up!” he whispered desperately.

Steve froze, half crushing Dan against the crumbling wall, oblivious to the decaying remains they were lying on.  He still had the torch in his hand, sending a broad shaft of light across the passage.  He should have turned it off, but to lie there in the dark hearing it coming, waiting for it to pounce, would have been worse than confronting a death he could see face to face.

The spider walked past them, dragging its new prey, its legs passing within a foot of Steve’s.  At the end of its lair it stopped, lowering its grotesque body over its meal.  It was going to feed.

Steve knew he had never been so scared of anything in his life before.  Being grabbed by his first giant was nothing to this.  He thought for a moment he was going to be physically sick, but he closed his eyes and swallowed hard as the bile rose in his throat.  With his eyes shut it was a hundred times worse.  He could hear it, feel it reaching out for him . . .   He had to look again.  It was still sucking, sitting there clutching a bundle barely recognisable as a giant caterpillar, two of the legs sticking out stiffly at an unnatural angle, twitching slightly.

The torch was still in his hand.  He knew as long as he kept it still, the beast would probably not connect a shaft of light with food or movement.  The trouble was, his hand was shaking so much he could barely hold it steady.

Sweat stung Steve’s eyes and he blinked hard, wanting to bring up a hand to rub them.  His left leg was beginning to cramp but he dared not move to ease his position.  He hardly dared breathe.

He moved his head a fraction towards Dan, invisible in the darkness, and spoke in the barest whisper close to his ear.  “It doesn’t know we’re here.  It’s feeding.  Can you breathe?  I don’t want to move.”

“I’m all right,” he managed.  He didn’t sound it.  “Can you see it?”

Steve wished he couldn’t.  “Yes.  It’ll hear us if we move.  We’re safe here.”

“Until it remembers me,” Dan whispered shakily.

“It doesn’t need us, it’s feeding.”

“Then what?”

“It goes out in daylight, that’s how I got in.  We’ll have to wait for it to leave again.”

“If it’s fed, it might not.”

“Then we wait until it does.”

“What about the others?”

“They don’t expect us to be alive.  They’ll guess where I am, but if Mark’s got any sense he’ll keep them away.”

“Great.”

Dan spoke too loudly.  It heard.

The spider raised its head and stopped still, frozen in a menacing bow-legged stance, and Steve sensed it was going to spring.  He did the only thing he could think of.  With one swift movement he hurled the torch along the passage under its feet. 

It pounced and bit at the torch again and again, finally releasing it as it realised the object was inedible and inert.  It had forgotten the men already, only attracted to movement.  After one last stab at the torch it lost interest, and went back to its feeding. 

The torch lay where it had fallen, sending a shaft of light to illuminate the hairy beast, its shadow looming like some nameless monster from the worst of all nightmares.  Its bulbous body was covered with thick, dark fur, and each leg-joint sprouted a tuft of long, red hairs.  As it clutched its prey between two short front legs, curved palps beside its mouth moved in ceaseless agitation.

They were in darkness, but there was no way to move without being heard.  Dan was trembling uncontrollably, as if he had a fever, Steve could feel his whole body shaking against his own.  He inched his hand cautiously to his arm.  “Steady Dan, we’ll make it.”

His thready whisper was unsteady.  “Never could stand spiders . . .”

“I know.  Take it easy.”

Steve wished he could think of something comforting to say, but their only escape was for the spider to go back out again, and to do that it had to pass close to where they lay.  He could hardly believe their luck would be that good a second time, if the creature was actively seeking food.  He hated to be so utterly helpless.  It went against his nature to lie and wait for death to creep up on him.  He still had the axe under his left hand.  At least they would go down fighting.

Steve shifted slightly, trying to ease his cramp and move some of his weight off the co-pilot, and Dan clutched at him.  “Keep still,” he breathed frantically.

Burton answered in an undertone.  “When it leaves, will you be able to make a run for it?”

“Just try me.  I’ll do a four-minute mile.  You won’t see me for dust.”

Steve was glad Dan had managed to retain a shred of his customary dry humour.

“Steve?” Dan whispered, his voice almost inaudible.  “Why the hell did you come down here alone?”

“I couldn’t risk anyone else.”

“I might have been dead.”

“Barry thought it might not have enough venom left.  I had to find out.”

“Give the boy a medal.  You’ll get yourself killed doing damn fool things one day.”

“Probably.”

His hand tightened on Steve’s arm again.  “Thanks, anyway.”

“You can return the favour sometime.”

“Gladly, old buddy, as long as it hasn’t got hairy legs.”

Conversation lapsed and they lay still in the darkness, trying to ignore the discomfort of the stony rubble they were lying on.

Dan was suffering considerably from the pain in his legs, and the poison in his body had only partly dispersed, leaving him weak and light-headed.  Thirst had dried his mouth so much he could hardly speak.  Danger and fear seemed to heighten his senses until he could hear every move the spider made in the distance, every creaking shuffle and crack of its meal being drained.  He knew he might have lost his mind without the solid reality of Steve’s presence.  Without the weight lying against him, half crushing the breath out of him and the feel of a human arm under his hand he would have long since given way to the screaming need to claw his way out of the darkness and away from the thing that lay in wait.

The subjective relativity of time made itself felt with a vengeance.  It seemed as if days had passed while they were trapped in the dark, although logic told Steve it could not have been more than a couple of hours.  The others would have discovered him missing by now.  But the Spindrift seemed a very long way away.

Steve looked over Dan’s head, watching the humped dark shape in the shaft of light.  The spider’s activity had changed.  It had stopped feeding.  It sat still, waiting.  Listening?  He had the awful feeling that it knew they were there and was watching them, waiting for them to make the first move.  One more sound and it would spring like lightning into their dark hollow.

“Don’t move,” Steve breathed.  Dan could barely have heard his voice, but he stiffened, knowing something was wrong.  It was ten times worse for him, lying pinned down, unable to see what was happening behind his head. 

Steve felt as if he were being hypnotised by the monster’s gleaming eyes.  He knew now what an animal felt like, mesmerised by a snake, waiting for it to strike.  The palps waved beside its head, as if they were beckoning.

Then a faint noise rattled far in the distance and it sprang up, alert and quivering.  It moved so fast Steve had no time even to grab the axe before it was on them, moving from light into their own pool of darkness and past them along the tunnel, vanishing towards the entrance.

Steve thought their last moment had come.  It took a second to realise they were both still alive.  Fighting the shock of the spider’s sudden action, he forced his cramped legs to move, staggering to the end of its lair and snatching up the torch.  He flashed it to Dan, on his knees and struggling to his feet.  “Move it!  While we’ve got a chance.”

Dan managed a few steps and half collapsed, his good intentions useless.  “I can’t move fast enough.  Get the hell out of here.”

“Don’t be a fool.  What do you think I came down here for?”  Steve grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet.  “Come on, move your ass.”

He dragged Dan with him, not caring about the noise they made, only determined to reach the entrance before the spider returned.  It was a faint hope, but the only one he had left.

A louder noise stopped him in his tracks, shock turning to despair.  He let Dan sag to his knees and raised the axe, anger and helplessness vying for supremacy.  A light flickered in the distance, brighter than the faint spot of daylight.  After a moment it became a brilliant searchlight, then another, their beams crossing and moving up the tunnel.  The looming shadows behind the Spindrift flashlights were human-shaped.

“Mark!  Mark, here!”  Steve’s shout caught in his throat.

The reply was a voice he had never expected to hear again.  “Steve!  By all that’s wonderful, you’re alive.  And Dan!  Come on, you can come out this way, the spider’s dead.”

Steve reached out, half expecting the human form to be a hallucination.  “Dead!  Have you killed it?”

Mark’s wide shoulders filled the tunnel.  “Like you said, it’s not a matter of common sense.  There comes a time when you just have to follow your gut instinct.  It was a joint decision.  We couldn’t abandon you both without ever knowing what happened.”

“Thanks, Mark.  Give Dan a hand, he can’t walk.  Let’s save the reunions until we’re out of this filthy hole.”

Fitzhugh was behind Mark, with Betty was only a few paces behind him, and he caught the glitter of tears on her face.  “Oh Steve, I thought we’d never see you again.”  She had one hand on him, the other trying to help Dan.

Steve tried to see past her.  “Where are the others?”

“Keeping watch outside.  Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right, but Dan’s in trouble.”

“We’ll take care of him.” Mark was in command of the situation, and Steve let him take over, willingly.  At that moment he hardly had enough strength left to get himself out.

The first thing he saw was the corpse of the spider, only a metre from the hole, its body horribly gashed and oozing a pale liquid.  Scavenger ants were already swarming over it. 

“How did you do that?”  He heard the incredulity in his voice.

Mark answered.  “It was Barry’s idea.  We trailed a caterpillar on a long piece of rope back and forth in front of the hole to entice the thing out, and when it grabbed the bait we came from all sides and killed it.  It wasn’t too difficult.”

“Bait on a string, like teasing a kitten.”  Dan began to laugh weakly.  It sounded more like hysteria than humour, but if anyone deserved to let go, he did.  Betty hugged him and he put his arms round her, holding himself up with difficulty.  His uniform was torn and filthy, but miraculously he seemed unhurt apart from the bites on his leg. 

Steve sat down on the nearest stone, feeling the strength drain out of his legs.  His hands were shaking as he laid down the axe.  Dan looked in even worse shape, but he managed a grin, one arm around Betty for support as he limped over and held out his hand.  “Steve, old buddy . . .”

“Don’t say it, Dan, I don’t even want to remember what happened down there.  I think I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we all did,” Mark said dryly.  “We don’t want to repeat that in a hurry.  Now if you can both move, for Heaven’s sake let’s get back to the ship.  We don’t know what other horrors might be looking for an easy meal.”

Even Chipper was overjoyed to see them as they helped Dan limp back to the camp site, bounding around their heels and barking furiously.  Steve did not even chastise Barry for letting him lose.  He took the boy’s hand in a solemn handshake, and thanked him.  “What with telling me about the poison, and thinking up the caterpillar, I think you saved both our lives.”

Barry blushed furiously, overwhelmed at such praise from the man he hero-worshipped.  “I just had some ideas, Captain, that’s all.”

“Well you can go on having them, Barry, any time you like.  I’m proud of you.  We all are.”

They laid Dan under the shelter while the two girls and Fitzhugh fussed around him.  Steve caught Mark’s eye, wondering for a moment how he was going to handle the situation.  He was in no mood for another fight.

Mark held out his hand and took Steve’s with a firm grasp.  “That took a lot of guts, Steve.  I don’t think I could have done it.”

Burton returned the handshake warily.  “I walked out on you all and turned over command to you.”

“And I’m giving it back.  It’s yours, Steve, you earned it a long time ago, and I’m not about to take it from you.”

Steve felt a wave of relief.  “Thanks Mark.  For everything.” He wiped a filthy hand across his face.  His hands were sticky from the web he had torn away from Dan.  “I need to clean up, but first of all I need a drink.”  Not for the first time, he wished their meagre stores contained a few beers, or a bottle of whisky.  Maybe they should seriously consider stealing something alcoholic from the giants.

Steve took a cup of water from their stock of purified rain and sat down wearily, feeling the lack of sleep and reaction beginning to catch up with him.  He drew a long, deep breath, trying to wash away the stale underground air and the lingering taste of fear.  Nothing had really changed.  He had retained some measure of Mark’s respect, and Dan, thank God, was back where he belonged. 

Betty was treating Dan’s leg, smiling down at him through her tears, and the look that passed between them could not be misunderstood.  Steve thought he would probably be receiving consolation of a special kind that night.  He could hardly begrudge his friend that, after all he’d been through.

“Steve?  I think you deserve this.”  He found Valerie kneeling beside him, offering a cup of their precious, real coffee.  “That was very foolish, but it was such a brave thing to do.”

The look embarrassed him as much as her words.  “Damn stupid, you mean.”  He held the cup tightly, relishing its warmth and the wonderful aroma.

“No, I don’t think so.”

He met her direct, china-blue eyes, and read what else she was offering.

She smiled.  “When you feel up to it, we can go for a walk and you can tell me all about it.”

He had already broken all his own basic ground-rules.  What did one more matter?  Steve felt his own smile widening to match hers. 

“Valerie, that sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

CAPTAIN SCARLET STORIES BY FAY SYMES

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