Billy picked out the farthest one first, blew it to spare parts, then the other three, all within the space of a scant few seconds.
Billy looked at Avi.
Avi said, “Okay. Not bad.”
Billy rolled his eyes.
Avi stepped into the open doorway. Billy grasped Avi’s arm, then held held his fingers to his lips, urging quiet.
Avinash Rathmandu and Billy Gostman entered the castle of the madman Mort Prime.
[ 93 ]
Ekka and Bixie were a hundred yards away from the nest when the dynamite went off. The cavern shook and the blast knocked both the women from their feet and sent the sprawling.
Ekka rolled over and got to her hands and feet. Bixie was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear it. She was momentarily deaf.
Ekka responded, “I can’t hear you!”
Bixie shook her head and clearly mouthed, “What?”
Ekka likewise shook her head and Bixie slowly nodded. Together they helped each other to their feet.
There was another series of rumbles coming up through the cavern floor beneath them. They looked at each other, and then into the deep darkness of the cavern.
“Oh shit!” Ekka shouted, knowing that Bixie couldn’t hear her.
The two women turned to regard each other. A communication passed between them by way of expression alone. The spiders were coming.
Together they turned and ran.
There was little point in trying to pick their way along or to try and find the side cavern through which they had found their way into the lair. A glance over their shoulders as they ran revealed the truth. The scant daylight from the distant entryway reflected off of shiny black legs. Hundreds of them.
The egg sack on Bixie’s back jostled as she ran, and Ekka reached over and lifted the sack so that they wouldn’t bounce so hard against the black woman’s back.
Another glance back proved to Ekka that getting to the entrance alone would be a close chance. After that, with no clear plan, the two women would be so much spider food.
“It’s been good knowing you, Bixie!” Ekka shouted.
Bixie turned to regard Ekka as she ran. She had heard her. Their hearing was slowly returning. “We’s not finished yet!” Bixie shouted.
The cavern curved around and there was the light of the Martian day before them, another hundred yards ahead.
With no clear plan aside from that of gaining an exit to the canal beyond and finding possible escape, the two women ran for their lives.
[ 94 ]
Billy reached the top floor of the tower with Avi close on his heels. He had the JPM in his left hand and his Colt revolver in his right. Ahead of them was an open arched doorway, and beyond was a laboratory. The piles and heaps of junk from inside spilled into the outer hallway, almost to the top of the stairs. Billy expected some of the wreckage to come to life and attack, but all was still. He glanced at Avi, then gestured to the waiting laboratory beyond. Avi nodded.
They entered the vast chamber.
Directly ahead was a raised dais and an open window beyond that. On the dais sat an empty leather chair facing the window. In the distance the wide crack of the canal and the slender finger of the tower over the Atmosphere Factory were shrouded in a pall of dust.
“The fight has begun,” Billy whispered.
“Of course it has begun,” a voice called out, and the JPM in Billy’s left hand moved in the direction of the sound. He need not have bothered, however. The voice came from that of a very old and decrepit man, thirty feet away. His hair and eyebrows were white and his seamed face and bent form told a tale of vast age and infirmity. He leaned on a metal cane.
“Mort Prime?” Avi asked.