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

rest of them did the same, and staggered away, eyes streaming and their faces damp with bitter sweat.
It was perhaps half a minute before the beetle emerged, bewildered by the flames and the black
smoke. The movement of the entrance stone had made the hole higher and narrower, so the beetle had to
struggle to extricate itself. Standing above the entrance, his arms raised above his head, Thorg waited
until it was almost clear before he dashed down the heavy rock with all the force of his arms. It struck the
thorax just behind the prominent eyes. Another stone, hurled by Hrolf, smashed a front leg at the joint.
The beetle opened its great striped wings in an attempt to fly, and Jomar darted forward and drove his
spear into the segmented abdomen; the creature twisted in agony, and the powerful mandibles gripped
Jomar's leg. Jomar screamed, and tried to pull himself free. Then another big rock crashed down,
destroying an eye and smashing the tough integument that covered the head. The mandibles released
Jomar, who was bleeding heavily from the thigh. Hrolf drove his own spear deep into the flesh where the
wing joined the body. The beetle gave a convulsive jerk that knocked Ulf and Jomar flat, and landed on
its back several yards away. It continued to twitch for perhaps five minutes more.
It was Veig, peering into the burrow, who noticed a movement behind the burning creosote
bushes. There's another in there!" Instantly, they were all alert, prepared for another attack. But none
came. Jomar limped into the shade of a parasol and took a long drink of water. Hrolf tended the wound,
while the others ignited the remaining creosote bushes and threw them into the burrow. Then, suddenly
overcome by the heat, they lay there, panting, and watched to see what happened. Half an hour later,
when the creosote bushes had burned themselves to ashes, there was a movement in the entrance to the
burrow and the long antennae of a beetle emerged. The female beetle, much smaller than her dead mate,
dragged herself out of the hole, followed by half a dozen larvae, each about two feet long. Describing it
later to his younger brother, Veig said that he suddenly felt sorry for the beetles -- although he knew that
if he ventured too close, even the larvae would attack him. The men watched them drag themselves over
the burning sand, moving towards a gulley half a mile away. They behaved as if some terrible natural
disaster had struck; their only instinct was for self-preservation.
When, later in the day, they explored the burrow, they were surprised to find it was so deep.
Jomar's theory was that it had once been the lair of a family of wolf spiders. It was virtually an
underground cave, the walls cemented with a mixture of sand and the beetles' saliva. Two half dead
larvae lay in its deepest recess, overcome by the smoke; the desert wind, blowing direct on the entrance,
had driven the smoke and sparks in like a poison gas. They killed the larvae and threw the corpses
outside -- the flesh of the tiger beetle had an unpleasant flavour that made it unsuitable for food. Then
they sealed the entrance and collapsed into a long sleep in the cool depths of the lair, which still stank
unpleasantly of creosote and smoke.
The next day, two hours before dawn, Ulf, Thorg and Hrolf set out to fetch the women and
seven-year-old Niall from the cave at the foot of the inland plateau. Jomar and Veig remained in the
burrow, in case the tiger beetles made an attempt to repossess their home -- a precaution that proved to
be unnecessary. Later, they discovered that the tiger beetle has a deep antipathy to the smell of burning
creosote, and would not even cross a strip of land where there was any trace of it.
Niall could still remember the excitement when his father came back. His first intimation was
when Ingeld, Thorg's wife, began to shout, then to wail; she had seen only three men and assumed that
the other two had been killed. Then, when the men arrived and described their new home, she became
hysterical with excitement -- she had always been a woman with poor control of her emotions -- and
wanted to set out immediately; it took a great deal of persuasion to make her understand that none of
them would survive if they set out in the midday heat. Even so, she remained fretful and impatient for the
rest of the day.
When they finally left, two hours before dawn, Niall was the most excited of all. They chose this
hour to travel because most of the desert predators hunted by night; as dawn approached, they made
their way back to their lairs. The temperature was around freezing point; even wrapped in a hide made of
caterpillar skins, Niall shivered uncontrollably. But inside, there was a glowing happiness as he peered
over his mother's shoulders -- for part of the time she carried him in a pouch -- and an excitement that