CHAPTER SEVEN

In Which the Survivors Discover an Alternate Source of Food,

and the Arachnid Makes a Bid for Supremacy

"Hey!" said Church, when he'd had time to think about it, "Aren't incompatible species like Vampire Blood Hounds usually kept separate on shuttle services like this one? Why weren't those suits in their own environments in first class?"

"For that matter," said the dumpy female, who told everyone, now that they had noticed her, that her name was Polydora, "Why weren't you in first class, Cynthia?" (The Stellar Beauty Queen's registered name was Virginia Lola Firebrand, but her mother had called her Cynthia before she was optioned, and she preferred that name).

"First class was all booked up," Cynthia replied. She was doing what so many of them spent many of their waking hours doing; trying to find a way to prepare Fringian mushrooms so that they would not tasted like Fringian mushrooms.

"Booked up?" said Church. "You mean --? Hey, Eloise!" he called across the cabin. Eloise was serving complimentary drinks.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

"Who's in first class?"

"Why, I don't know. That's not my department. First class has its own special Journey Steward to look after our first class patrons."

"You mean -- someone else could be down there? Right now?" asked Cynthia.

"And they could have their own supply of food, or even better --"

"Their own food reproduction unit! Come on!"

Cynthia abandoned the mushrooms. Nobody cared. Eloise followed in the wake of the rush toward the hatch door marked "For Crew Use Only" that led below to the first class cabin, calling after them that the Shuttle Services rules stated very clearly that no one was to go belowdecks from the main cabin to the first class cabin while the shuttle was in transit.

The remains of the first class journey steward were found outside the cabin door. They sent Eloise for a plastic bag to keep her occupied. The cabin door was locked.

Church banged on the door. "Hey! You beings all right in there? We're from the main cabin. As you know, there's been a terrible accident --"

"It is logical to assume," said Pock, who as usual had followed Church, "that they are not answering for one of two reasons, namely --"

"Pock, that's pretty obvious," said Cynthia, and she banged on the door with her shapely hand. "Anyone in there?"

"They're in there," Church decided grimly, "and they've got food. I'm positive."

"Illogical," Pock responded. "Their lack of reply may indicate --"

"I'm telling you!"

"Enough!" rasped the half-breed. "All I want to know is, are they in there, what are they, and are they carrying any live Wortrot snakes -- which I really crave, about half the time, except when all I want is a really thick ham sandwich with cheese and tomato and lots of mustard and lettuce --"

"Oh, stop, stop," begged Cynthia.

"The question is," Polydora said, "are they still in there, and what are they? Because what they are will of course determine what kind of food they are consuming."

"Unless they're all dead," Miranon pointed out.

"I want a banana," the Darthian cried. "Even just one banana..."

"Let's break the door down," said Church.

"But what if they are Rhinopods? Or just Alliandamorians, and their atmosphere is poisonous?" Polydora asked.

"I'm willing to risk it," said Church, "for a steak with onions, a baked potato with butter and peas, and a glass of milk!"

"All right," said Miranon, the Ngon half-breed. "It is a good day to eat potatoes."

"I want some too!" said Axel. "Except for the milk."

"I will assist," said Pock, "though the odds of our success --"

"You'll drink the milk!" yelled Church, "and you will like it!" and he slammed into the door.

After everyone had crashed their shoulders into it a couple of times Polydora wrapped her hand in plastic, picked up the dead journey steward's hand and ran his thumb over the key pad. The door opened. A pleasant rush of cool, fresh, oxygen-based atmosphere rushed over them, followed by an odor that they knew all too well.

"Oh, no," said Polydora. "Not..."

But it was. They stepped inside the first class cabin and found there a whole pod of excited Fringian mushrooms, who had died at the apotheosis of their existence, taking advantage of their unlimited travel allowances, to tour the galaxy.

"Oh CURSE these Fringian mushrooms!" cried Axel.

And they did.

There were those who claimed that they could tell the difference between fresh Fringian mushroom, reproduced fresh Fringian mushroom, and tinned Fringian mushroom. There were also those who said they could tell the difference, but that it didn't matter a rat's ass.

Meanwhile the female Arachnid had been unusually silent of late. Since she was always pretty quiet no one really noticed. The ship had a standard setting for day and night rotations. No one got to vote on these as they were set automatically by the ship's computer and nobody could get onto the bridge to change them, since the bridge was still sealed. Miranon thought that this was probably for the best, since if there had been an open discussion and a vote on how long the days and nights on board ought to be, several beings -- like Cynthia, for example, or herself, who liked a good eight-to-ten hours of sleep at night, could probably commit mayhem if anyone tried to mess with it, while the remaining Snake would probably go mad at the realization that her native forty-day cycle was possible, but that nobody was going to vote with her.

People had pretty much eaten or slept when they liked, whether the ship had softened the lights to the artificial "night" cycle, or not. Once the first class cabins were liberated (and cleaned up), after a very short discussion that firmly quashed any individual from taking the cabin for themselves, the survivors took to using it as the sleeping quarters, as the seats down there were movable, and the carpeting thicker.

The Arachnid stopped sleeping, but that didn't bother anyone. One "morning" a couple of people began to notice an extremely strong, almost pulsing smell. It got into everything. It was overpowering. Polydora, upon waking that morning, locked herself into one of the bathrooms, turned the fan to "hi" and told everyone who knocked that she was sick. They believed her. Everyone started having the wildest, strangest thoughts and for three or four days no one complained about the food. Everyone just ate, and ate, and thought things about one another, and themselves, and themselves in conjunction with one or another (or more), that were barely anatomically possible, and sweated a lot. Axel, panting, locked himself in the other upstairs bathroom.

The Darthian youth buckled first. He cornered the Snake, who was the only remaining female besides Polydora close to his size, between two rows of seats, and babbling incoherently about species compatibility and the necessity of eating part of the ship, tried to find an opening in which to initiate sexual intercourse with her. The Snake bit him, which no one took exception to. When she kept biting him, biting and biting, and wasn't letting go between bites but was swallowing -- everyone thought they'd both gotten completely out of hand but by then the Darthian was actually dead and the Snake wouldn't stop eating him so they spaced her. The enviro-suit on the hull carried on where the Snake had left off. Eloise remarked that the Darthian orphan had been as good as dead anyway since she had never found the micro-jewel to his ido-family bracelet, and somehow that even made sense to people at the time.

There was a great deal of sleeping around during this time, as though a compulsion had come over all of them. Thus it came as no surprise one morning to find that the male Arachnid's cocoon had been ripped open in the night and the female and male Arachnids were up on the ceiling bestriding one another, very firmly and deeply connected. Everyone tried not to look up.

So it was a long time before they noticed that the female had eaten her mate's head, and was proceeding to devour his body, which was still attached to her. During the next days everyone was fairly groggy as that strange clinging, compelling scent wore off and everyone did a lot of actual sleeping. But then it was difficult not to notice the eggs.

They were everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. They were about the size of a softball and it was difficult not to step on them. Everyone's first polite reaction was pleased and congratulatory towards the Arachnid, but there were more and more and more of these eggs spewing out of her where she crouched, her mate gone, still connected to the ceiling. And then everyone noticed that each single egg contained a little Arachnid, fully formed and waiting to be born.

Polydora was at the forward hatch, filling the airlock and spacing them. The half-breed started shoveling the things toward her. Pock and Church went below and dialed the hatch off the first class cabin, and the Stellar Beauty Queen, Axel and Eloise shoved the things at them as fast as they could gather them up.

"How long do these things take to hatch?" Church yelled.

There was a pause. He thought Pock hadn't heard him. And then, "I do not know," the Pointy-Eared Person said.

"What are you, stupid?" yelled Church.

Pock stomped off -- but it was only because stomping dented the eggs and often killed the little insect inside. Soon they were all stomping and shoveling, shoveling and stomping, while more and more eggs poured from the body of the female Arachnid.

"Polydora says we have one and a half more days before these things start to hatch," the half-breed gasped to Church and Cynthia as she passed more eggs down below. "She says try and stomp the bloated-looking ones. They're the oldest and they'll hatch first."

"But they're on the bottom!" yelled Axel.

"I know! Try!"

"How does she know when they'll hatch?" called Church, loud enough so that Pock would hear. Pock was imperviously stomping. This annoyed Church.

"She's some kind of doctor of science."

"A doctor? She didn't tell us she's a doctor."

"Not a medical doctor," Melanon huffed. "A doctor of science. Philosophy of science. Something like that. It just means she knows a lot."

"What will she do," Cynthia asked Polydora, looking up at the female Arachnid, still pouring out eggs in a seemingly endless supply, "when she realizes what we're doing to her eggs?"

"I don't know," Polydora replied. "A great deal is known, of course, about Arachnid mating and breeding habits, but not under these extraordinary circumstances."

"What do they eat?" Cynthia asked her next. "The little ones, I mean."

"Everything," said Polydora. "Now, hurry."

They won, of course, or an Arachnid would be writing this story, and all the colors would have been described three-dimensionally. They shoveled out the eggs, they crushed the heads of the little ones that hatched and shoved them into the airlock as fast as they could. The enviro-suit on the hull was lost for four days in a storm of pale Arachnid eggs as they fell away into space.

They had to torch the Arachnid and the cocoon to get them off the ceiling. The female Arachnid never moved as they brought her down, broke her up so she'd fit in the airlock, and spaced her remains.

Our heroes sat down then to a huge feast of Fringian mushrooms, and after four days with no time to eat, they were delicious.