"Colin Wilson - Spiderworld 04 - The Delta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Colin)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As with the first volume, Spider World: The Tower, I owe a considerable debt of
gratitude to my friend Donald Seaman for comments and suggestions. My children Sally,
Damon and Rowan have also provided some useful guidelines. David Ellis made some
interesting and useful suggestions for the Delta section. And I should like to acknowledge
-- somewhat belatedly -- that the original idea of writing a "children's book" came from
my friend Roald Dahl, who will no doubt be appalled at the outcome of his rash
suggestion.
Cornwall, 1987



INTRODUCTION

For as long as men can remember, the earth has been dominated by giant insects,
and ruled by poisonous telepathic spiders, who breed human beings for food. The Spider
Lord Cheb is reputed to be a hundred-eyed monster tarantula who is virtually deathless.
The few humans who remain free live in underground lairs in the desert, and are
continually hunted by the death spiders, who float overhead in silken balloons, and
whose will-power probes the desert landscape like searchlight beams.
Niall and his family live in an underground lair that once belonged to a tiger
beetle. From his grandfather Jomar, Niall hears tales of the days when human beings
were masters of the earth, but finds them hard to believe. He also hears stories of the
underground city of Dira, the largest colony of "free" humans in existence, and of the
Great Delta, the area of jungle inhabited by man-eating plants and deadly insects.
When two members of the family are killed in the Delta, Niall and his father set
out across the desert for the underground city of Dira, to escort the beautiful Ingeld --
now a widow -- back to her own people. On the great plateau, they take refuge in an
immense ruined citadel, and for the first time, Niall begins to believe that men once ruled
the earth. In Dira, Niall meets his attractive cousin Dona. But it is with Princess Merlew,
daughter of King Kazak, that he falls in love. He is tempted by Kazak's offer to settle in
the underground city, until he realises that Merlew regards him as little more than a
child. Angry and disappointed, he sets out with his father on the long return journey. On
the way, they take refuge from a sandstorm in the ruins of an ancient city, and there find
a strange machine that dates from the twenty-first century. Inside it, Niall finds a
telescopic metal rod, which he can use as a spear. And it is with this rod that Niall kills a
death spider, and so brings upon his family -- and upon Kazak's underground city -- the
wrath of the Spider Lord himself. One day, he returns to the burrow to find his father
dead, and the remainder of his family kidnapped by the spiders.
He follows them, hoping to find an opportunity to free his mother and sisters, but
is himself captured by the spiders. They take him across the sea, to a great city that was
once inhabited by human beings. Now its buildings are crumbling, and vast spider webs
stretch between the skyscrapers. There he learns that human beings are less badly treated
than he supposed. The human servants of the spiders are ruled by women -- since females
are the dominant sex among spiders -- and they live in communes. Men and women are