command of us panicky whacks Fuhrer -fashion. Sid still looked mostly grateful and inclined to let Bruce keep on talking.
Even Kaby and Mark, those two dragons hot for battle, standing a little in front and to one side of us by the bronze chest, like its guardians, seemed willing to listen. They made me realize one reason Sid had for letting Bruce run on, although the path his talk was leading us down was flashing with danger signals: When it was over, there’d still be the problem of what to do with the bomb, and a real opposition shaping up between Soldiers and Entertainers, and
Sid was hoping a solution would turn up in the meantime or at least was willing to put off the evil day.
But beyond all that, and like the rest of us, I could tell from the way Sid was squinting his browy eyes and chewing his beardy lip that he was shaken and moved by what
Bruce had said. This New Boy had dipped into our hearts and counted our kicks so beautifully, better than most of us could have done, and then somehow turned them around so that we had to think of what messes and heels and black sheep and lost lambs we were—well, we wanted to keep on listening.
8
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world
—Archimedes
A PLACE TO STAND
Bruce’s voice had a faraway touch and he was looking up left at the Void as he said, “Have you ever really wondered why the two sides of this war are called the Snakes and the
Spiders? Snakes may be clear enough—you always call the enemy something dirty. But
Spiders—our name for ourselves? Bear with me, Ilhilihis; I know that no being is created dirty or malignant by Nature, but this is a matter of anthropoid feelings and folkways. Yes, Mark, I
know that some of your legions have nicknames like the Drunken Lions and the Snails, and that’s about as insulting as calling the British Expeditionary Force the Old Contemptibles.
“No, you’d have to go to bands of vicious youths in cities slated for ruin to find a habit of naming like ours, and even they would try to brighten up the black a bit. But simply—
Spiders. And Snakes, for that’s their name for themselves too, you know. Spiders and Snakes.
What are our masters,, that we give them names like that?”
It gave me the shivers and set my mind working in a dozen directions and I couldn’t stop it, although it made the shivers worse.
Illy beside me now—I’d never given it a thought before, but he did have eight legs of a sort, and I remembered thinking of him as a spider monkey, and hadn’t the Lunans had wisdom and atomic power and a billion years in which to get the Change War rolling?
Or suppose, in the far future, Terra’s own spiders evolved intelligence and a cruel cannibal culture. They’d be able to keep their existence secret. I had no idea of who or what would be on Earth in Sevensee’s day, and wouldn’t it be perfect black hairy poisoned spider-mentality to spin webs secretly through the world of thought and all of space and time?
And Beau—wasn’t there something real Snaky about him, the way he moved and all?
Spiders and Snakes. Spinne und Schlange , as Erich called them. S & S. But SS
stood for the Nazi Schutzstaffel , the Black Shirts, and what if some of those cruel, crazy
Jerries had discovered time travel and—I brought myself up with a jerk and asked myself, “Greta, how nuts can you get?”
From where he was on the floor, the front of the bar his sounding board, Doc shrieked up at Bruce like one of the damned from the pit, “Don’t speak against the Spiders! Don’t blaspheme! They can hear the Unborn whisper. Others whip only the skin, but they whip the naked brain and heart,” and Erich called out, “That’s enough, Bruce!”
But Bruce didn’t spare him a look and said, “But whatever the Spiders are and no matter how much they use, it’s plain as the telltale on the Maintainer that the Change War is not only going against them, but getting away from them. Dwell for a bit
Even Kaby and Mark, those two dragons hot for battle, standing a little in front and to one side of us by the bronze chest, like its guardians, seemed willing to listen. They made me realize one reason Sid had for letting Bruce run on, although the path his talk was leading us down was flashing with danger signals: When it was over, there’d still be the problem of what to do with the bomb, and a real opposition shaping up between Soldiers and Entertainers, and
Sid was hoping a solution would turn up in the meantime or at least was willing to put off the evil day.
But beyond all that, and like the rest of us, I could tell from the way Sid was squinting his browy eyes and chewing his beardy lip that he was shaken and moved by what
Bruce had said. This New Boy had dipped into our hearts and counted our kicks so beautifully, better than most of us could have done, and then somehow turned them around so that we had to think of what messes and heels and black sheep and lost lambs we were—well, we wanted to keep on listening.
8
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world
—Archimedes
A PLACE TO STAND
Bruce’s voice had a faraway touch and he was looking up left at the Void as he said, “Have you ever really wondered why the two sides of this war are called the Snakes and the
Spiders? Snakes may be clear enough—you always call the enemy something dirty. But
Spiders—our name for ourselves? Bear with me, Ilhilihis; I know that no being is created dirty or malignant by Nature, but this is a matter of anthropoid feelings and folkways. Yes, Mark, I
know that some of your legions have nicknames like the Drunken Lions and the Snails, and that’s about as insulting as calling the British Expeditionary Force the Old Contemptibles.
“No, you’d have to go to bands of vicious youths in cities slated for ruin to find a habit of naming like ours, and even they would try to brighten up the black a bit. But simply—
Spiders. And Snakes, for that’s their name for themselves too, you know. Spiders and Snakes.
What are our masters,, that we give them names like that?”
It gave me the shivers and set my mind working in a dozen directions and I couldn’t stop it, although it made the shivers worse.
Illy beside me now—I’d never given it a thought before, but he did have eight legs of a sort, and I remembered thinking of him as a spider monkey, and hadn’t the Lunans had wisdom and atomic power and a billion years in which to get the Change War rolling?
Or suppose, in the far future, Terra’s own spiders evolved intelligence and a cruel cannibal culture. They’d be able to keep their existence secret. I had no idea of who or what would be on Earth in Sevensee’s day, and wouldn’t it be perfect black hairy poisoned spider-mentality to spin webs secretly through the world of thought and all of space and time?
And Beau—wasn’t there something real Snaky about him, the way he moved and all?
Spiders and Snakes. Spinne und Schlange , as Erich called them. S & S. But SS
stood for the Nazi Schutzstaffel , the Black Shirts, and what if some of those cruel, crazy
Jerries had discovered time travel and—I brought myself up with a jerk and asked myself, “Greta, how nuts can you get?”
From where he was on the floor, the front of the bar his sounding board, Doc shrieked up at Bruce like one of the damned from the pit, “Don’t speak against the Spiders! Don’t blaspheme! They can hear the Unborn whisper. Others whip only the skin, but they whip the naked brain and heart,” and Erich called out, “That’s enough, Bruce!”
But Bruce didn’t spare him a look and said, “But whatever the Spiders are and no matter how much they use, it’s plain as the telltale on the Maintainer that the Change War is not only going against them, but getting away from them. Dwell for a bit
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