"Colin Wilson - Spider World 01 - The Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Colin)

For Sally, Damon and Rowan



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My chief debt of gratitude is to my friend Donald Seaman, with whom this book was originally
planned as a collaboration. The idea was abandoned at a fairly early stage, but I had the benefit of his
suggestions and advice throughout. I am also deeply grateful to Professor John Cloudsley-Thompson,
England's leading expert on deserts, for his invaluable advice on the first section of this book. It also
owes a great deal to the warm encouragement of my editor John Boothe.
CW
Cornwall, 1986




As the first cold whisper of the dawn wind blew under the flat stone that covered the burrow,
Niall placed his ear against the crack and listened with total concentration. Whenever he did that, it was
as if a tiny point of light glowed inside his head, and there was a sudden silence in which every noise was
amplified. Now, suddenly, he could hear the faint sound of a large insect moving across the sand. The
lightness and speed of its movements told him that this was a solifugid, or camel spider. A moment later,
it crossed his field of vision -- the barrel-like, hairy body glistening in the sunlight, the immense jaws
carrying the remains of a lizard. In a moment it was past, and there was no sound but the wind in the
branches of the euphorbia cactus. But it had told him what he wanted to know: that there was no
scorpion or tiger beetle in the area. The camel spider is the greediest of creatures; it will eat until its
stomach is so distended that it can hardly move. This one had looked only half-fed. If there had been any
other sign of life in the area, it would have abandoned its half-eaten prey to attack.
Cautiously, he brushed aside the sand with a double movement of his hands like a swimmer; then
he slid his underfed body through the gap. The sun was just beginning to show above the horizon; the
sand was still cold from the frost of the night. His objective lay fifty yards away, at the edge of the cactus
grove: the waru plant whose green flesh, as thick and almost as yielding as an earlobe, formed a cup to
capture the dew. For the past hour he had lain awake, his throat burning, and conjured up the joy of
dipping his lips into the icy liquid. There was water in the burrow, water gathered by the slave ants fifty
feet below the surface of the desert; but it was red in colour, and tasted of mineral salts. By comparison,
the cold dew of the waru plant was like champagne.
Its cup, formed of two curling leaves, was half full, and there were crystals of ice at the edges.
Niall knelt on all fours, lowered his face into the cup and took a long, deep draught. The pleasure made
his muscles tingle and relax. For the desert dweller, icy water is one of the greatest of all luxuries. He was
tempted to drink every drop; but his training forbade it. The shallow roots of the waru needed this water
to live; if he drank it all, the plant would die, and one more source of water would be gone. So Niall
stopped drinking while the cup was still half full. But he continued to kneel there, staring into the cold
liquid as if drinking its essence, while a chilly wave of delight ran from his shoulders down to his feet. In
the depths of his being, strange racial memories stirred: memories of a golden age, when water was
plentiful, and men were not forced to live under the floor of the desert like insects.
That mood of deep quiescence saved his life. As he raised his eyes, he saw the balloon against
the pale eastern sky. It was about half a mile away, and moving swiftly towards him. Instantly and
instinctively, he controlled the reflex of terror. The inner-calm of a few moments ago made it easier. At