"Charles L. Harness-The Araqnid Window" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

tightly now that it stuck out into the air.
And yet, Coret had passed untouched through these ghoulish garlands.
He shook his head dizzily. If he were ever going to see his wife alive again, or vice versa, he would
have to get a grip on himself before the strands did.
He had no idea how Coret had managed to evade the filaments. Yet, perhaps he had a few tricks, too.
He took his cape, gloves, and shoe-wraps from the pack and pulled them on. The garments had been
treated with a fluorocarbon polymer so that they could be folded without sticking. The anti-stick property
might now come in handy as protection against the webbing. The pack had been likewise treated, so that
he did not have to worry about losing it to the filaments.
He took a few steps inside, let the cape contact the wall of strands, and pulled it off again readily.
There was no adhesion. He was not going to get stuck.
He opened his pack again, set the orientor, and pulled the bag back again on his shoulders. There
might be many twists and turns and forks. He did not trust his memory to guide him back. If he ever
came back.
He was a hundred meters into the tunnel, with the entrance-light a tiny disk behind him, when he made
his second discovery. The tunnel was made of finished stone, laid with mortar.
This place was not just a natural elongated cave in the side of a hill. Intelligent beings (the Araqnids?!)
had made it. It led somewhere. And for the life of him, he did not know whether that was good or bad. It
would delight Professor Speidel, of course. But just at this moment he felt no great urge to delight
Professor Speidel.
As he trotted, he pulled a lead from the fuel cell in his pack and attached it to his handlight. It would
save the batteries in the light, which would otherwise last only a few hours. The fuel cell was good for
several days. It might be best not to think what would happen when the main cell failed. Even the orientor
would go dead.
How far ahead was Coret? And why was she able to move without getting hung up in this ghastly
mess? Undoubtedly, that creature on her back was doing it, doing something to the strands so that she
could pass. What manner of creature could alter the laws of adhesive chemistry? And it was really worse
than that. What was the nature of this monster who had made this web, and could cause it to synthesize
and release complicated molecules identical to Coret's perfume?
He fought a sudden animal urge to turn and run out as fast as he could.
But he hitched the packstraps over his shoulders and pressed on.
***


* * *


9. The Shaft
***


The next fork astonished him. It was not a right-and-left fork. The bifurcation was vertical. He could
climb up or he could climb down. Either way he would have to grasp loose loops of webbing with his
gloves.
Which way?
A quick survey with the handlight showed no disturbance in either branch, at least as far as he could
see with the light.
Well, there was a thing he could try.
He got the polarizer from his pack. This little instrument gave out a pencil beam of light from an
ordinary tungsten filament. The beam passed through a slice of calcite, which polarized it, and thence it