Arviks, Remuns, and the Begorian Spider

INTRODUCTION

There were certain criteria set forth by the founders. These were the adventurers who traveled through our sun’s system in search of suitable planets for seeding with life. The whole idea of engineering the simply complex genes of which all life was made appealed to these renegade youngsters. Not a one of the founders was over a thousand years old at the time they passed through here. Before they left their home planet, when their parents and other family members realized that this rowdy bunch planned to seed the universe with life, the rumor-mongers were whispering about them behind their hands. What they planned to do was scandalous by societal standards. “What can one do?” their people asked. “There comes a time when each life must find its own way.” (Coincidentally, that was also the message the founders spoke to one another each time they left a seeded planet without the absolute certainty it would survive.)

There were two planets that held promise in our sun’s (Yolo-5’s) system. The planet they called Earth was perfectly situated, ready for transformation. It was all rock and water. This was no different from a hundred other planets the founders had seeded. The main consideration was whether the temperature of the planet could be gerrymandered enough to give the basic forms a foothold.

Yolo-5’s planets balanced one another well. The 8 primaries and several secondaries were elegant in the way

they drew from the sun’s magnetic energies. The founders had hoped for two life-ready planets. Earth was good to go. They tried Mars as the second planet. Its gravity was not strong enough to hold an atmosphere. Next they tried Venus, but it was too hot.

Not easily dissuaded from their writ-in-stone plan, these playful drifters began to look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn for possibilities. One of Saturn’s moons was identical in size, mass, and composition to Earth. It was a mirror image; thus, they called it “Mirror.” It was frozen, but thawing it would be no problem. PLACEMENT would be the problem.

The founders theorized every permutation of which they could think. Their strong preference was for these two life-carrying planets to become trade partners once they discovered one another. They felt it was necessary to place the planets in some kind of synchronous orbits that would be close enough to accommodate such trade. When all possibilities were computed, Earth’s was the only logical orbital path. Mars or Venus would have been better for trade purposes. Since those had been excluded, they accepted the next best thing. The founders moved Mirror onto Earth’s orbital line, set the spin exactly the same as Earth’s and worked some of their magical math to guarantee Mirror would always be 180° across the sun from Earth and added a moon. There remained hope within their ranks that Earth and Mirror would someday discover one another.

Because of their identical orbits, it would be easy to drop cargo in space where the trade partner would pick it up 6-months later.

This was an experiment, which was great fun for the explorers. They wanted two entirely different sentient species to populate Earth and Mirror. They had found that Manx cats and long-tailed cats developed differently simply because the tail was a diversion. The Manx’s lack of a tail allowed them to learn more. They looked outward while long-tailed cats were pre-occupied with a wiggly curiosity that focused their attention inward during a crucial developmental period. (Boys and girls -- same thing.) Similarly, bi-pedal life forms on Earth would necessarily be different from Mirror’s three-limbed forms.

Earth’s bi-pedal primates were geared to become ‘mankind,’ while Mirror’s three-limbed primates would evolve into ‘Arviks.’ The founders cavorted and laughed and played several games of mental gymnastics before moving on to another star. Maybe they forgot about us. Let us not worry over them. They are almost certainly having a grand time wherever they are.

If we do not know what has happened on Earth, it is our own fault. The writers of history may be wrong when it comes to specifics, especially if bending the story fed their vested interests. It matters not whether the written history is accurate. What’s more important is that it IS written.

Reading a lie is better than not reading. Remember, a faulty conclusion is superior to no conclusion at all, if only because we reject and correct said conclusion. Argument should always be preferred over thoughtlessness.

If you need schooling on Earth’s past, go to the library. Not only will you find better lies than I can tell you, it is not my intent to tell you anything about Earth. I have come to tell you about Mirror and its inhabitants.

Copyright © May of 2010 by Wilmer D. Cavanaugh

This is the first of two currently in this series.

The second is 33% longer: “Arviks, Prilotoma, and the
Pokaniki.”













Mirror
Just as on Earth, there are myriads of life forms on Mirror. If it becomes necessary to the story to talk about a mosquito-like form, I intend to take the liberty of saying ‘mosquito.’ There are no mosquitoes, per se, on Mirror. If a plant form on Mirror resembles an oak tree, let us not quibble. Allow me to call it an oak, but deep down inside you must know it is not. You may have already guessed that this book will focus on three of the major life forms of Mirror. There are too many stories to tell, even when narrowing the focus to just these three.

Spiders are NOT the same universe-wide. Begorian Spiders have 8 legs, like the ones with which you are familiar. They are, however, the same size as Arviks. Why they make webs is a puzzle. Their preferred diet is banana leaves. Arviks are nice and crunchy, so they WILL eat them. Maybe that’s the reason for the webs. They hardly ever eat a Remuns. When a Remuns gets caught in their web, they usually abandon the web.

Remuns are the same size as Begorian spiders and Arviks. They are a moth, not a butterfly. Their bodies are plump, and their flight is fast. They fly in the banana forests where the Begorian spiders live. They are carnivores. Nearly
everyone on Mirror lives on land and nearly all the land lies on Mirror’s equator, providing the best temperature for banana-growing.

Arviks are the only primate species. They are the thinkers. If they ever get their act together, they may become builders of more than the crude banana-leaf thatched huts they have always constructed in hasty and messy fashion. Probably the main reason for such hasty construction is that both spiders and Remuns like the taste of Arviks. Begorian Spiders like the crunch. Remuns like how juicy they are. Arviks are complete pacifists -- living solely on fruit. The word ‘pacifist’ might lead you to believe they are sedentary. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I told you that Remuns are fast. Their wing-span gets in the way of their reaching optimum speed as they flit through the forest, being careful to not strike their wings against the trees through which they fly. Arviks are not so careful as Remuns. Nothing gets in the way of the speed of Arviks.

Arviks, as I said, are tri-pedal. Now THAT’S a complete misnomer. In fact, I would be the first to say that they are not ‘pedal’ at all. That is, they do not have feet. What they have that passes for feet are hands on the ends of armlegs. The trunks of their bodies are disk-shaped with one faceted eye bulging out on each side of the body. They have 3 mouths -- on the edge of their disk between each of their evenly-spaced armlegs. Their muscular armlegs have elbows similar to ours, but that bend in any direction. I prefer to not elaborate on their digestive or reproductive tracts. Use your imagination if it’s that important to you.


It is our form that dictates we were slated to walk upright. The form of the Arvik demands for it to roll. They may never develop motorized means of transportation. Their cartwheels carry them as fast as our cars carry us.

For the most part, cart wheeling is a safe way to travel. There are occasional problems when an armleg falls into a hole and they get a mouth full of dirt. If a Remuns gets hungry for an Arvik meal, they have learned to frighten a family of Arviks by appearing suddenly. Remuns can camouflage on the ground. They are pretty slow when they travel this way, but it’s an effective method of sneaking up on an Arvik group. By rising into the air mere feet from a tribe of Arviks, the panic-driven Arviks roll hastily to escape, sometimes fatally crashing into a tree. It’s really better this way. They would much rather not be eaten while conscious.

For hundreds of years, there has been a balance between the populations of these three life forms. Arviks are much more prolific than Remuns and Begorian Spiders. Thank God for that. They are sentient, but they are definitely ‘prey.’ Most Arviks marry by the age of thirteen or fourteen. Because of the huge number of predators, their life expectancy averages five years old. Very early death has always been the norm. The lucky females who live to maturity are expected to give birth three or four times a year. Gestation is sixty days. The males help in the feeding of the very young.

Before Pritak, Arviks spent all of their time eating, cavorting, sleeping, populating, and fleeing. Their ears are large protuberances adjacent to their eyes, looking much like odd-shaped eyebrows. If they stand on the proper armleg, their ears serve to shade their eyes. Ever on the alert to keep from being eaten, a shaded eye is a good thing.























Chapter 1: Pritak

Pritak was the first Arvik to consider a more efficient way to avoid being eaten.

Remuns’ long bony legs are made for walking -- not for climbing. They must eat on the ground. Pritak considered this one day as he (the short beard opposite side of the eye from the ear told his gender) contemplated the large numbers of parrots he saw every day. How did they escape the Remuns and the spider? They were crunchy; they were juicy; they could not fly, but they could CLIMB!! Actually, they COULD have flown. Because they had never learned to use their wings for flight, they did not KNOW they could fly and so could not.

Pritak had always been fascinated by the climbing parrots. The beak of the bird served as a third hand. It would make purchase of the bark or limb above it with that beak. Holding its weight with its beak, it would lift its legs, grab as high as possible with its talons, and reach for a higher point to grab with its beak. Like an inch worm, the parrot would again and again grab with beak, bring feet up, grab higher with beak, until it reached the nut or fruit it was climbing to eat.

Pritak never accepted that Arviks were land-bound. They walked on the ground, slept on the ground, and ate on the ground. They were also eaten on the ground. ‘What would happen,’ he asked of himself, ‘if the race of Arviks learned

to climb and spent most of their time off the ground?’ No Arvik had ever attempted climbing before.

Pritak was considered to be a dreamer. His family and friends made fun of him as he constantly talked about his ‘what-ifs’. ‘What if we used berries to stain escape paths on the ground so we would not run into trees when Remuns attack? What if we could find a way to steal webbing from the Begorian Spider and put that web between trees on our escape route -- high enough for us to go under, but low enough to snag the Remuns when they are flying to catch us?’

‘You are a dreamer, Pritak!’ they taunted. ‘How do you suggest we climb a tree to tie the web? In case you have not noticed, we don’t climb.’ Others would say to him, ‘If your suggestions were good ideas, they would already have been thought of by Arviks before you. You are arrogant to believe you can think anything original.’

After a period of time, Pritak learned his lesson. What is the point of talking about an idea? The best thing to do, to avoid ridicule, was to try out his ideas before letting anybody else know what he was thinking.

Thus it was that on this day, immediately after studying the climbing parrots, Pritak found a tree that fit precisely what he needed. There was a limb within reach from where he stood on the ground. He noted that other limbs were evenly

spaced above that lowest limb and decided he might be able, if he were patient, to climb from one limb to the next until he would be quite high off the ground.

With a hand on the end of each armleg, it was easy to grab the limb. His disk-shaped body could bend in any direction. Arviks were very muscular, and the muscles were capable of bending their torsos in half.

Once Pritak grabbed the limb, he lifted his other two hands and grasped on either side of the first hand. He flexed his body, gave a little upward tug with that first hand, and catapulted himself into an upright position as he released the limb with the middle hand. Unused to balancing on a limb, Pritak became frightened and fell, but held on to the limb with two hands, so no damage was done. He decided to try again. This time, by controlling his fear and grabbing the limb above him, he maintained his balance.

Pritak reasoned, ‘So long as I hold onto a limb, I am safe. There is really nothing to fear.’ With such certainty in mind, he began to look above him for a target object. There were fruits and melons high above the forest floor. He began to climb. He was so excited when he arrived at a cluster of fruit that he began to call one of his friends.

“Lotalotala-TEEE!” he cried, sounding like a yodeler. He held one of his hands to the talking mouth and quelled a giggle. “Lotalotala-TEEE!”

Lota came rolling into the area below Pritak’s tree. She moved her protruding faceted eyes around and around, trying to locate Pritak. Unable to contain his mirth any longer, Pritak began to laugh. Lota could hear Pritak, but with no reason to believe he could possibly be above her, she could not find him. “Where are you, Pritak?” she cried.

“Look up,” he laughed. “Would you like a watermelon?” he asked, holding onto the limb above him while pulling the melon loose with his other two hands, dropping it in a practiced way into a thick, low-lying hedge beside Lota. “There you go.”

Lota’s mouths flew open. “What are you doing up there, Pritak? How did you get up there? You are scaring me. Can you get down from there without killing yourself?”

Pritak had charted his course ahead of time. Like a coin flipping down through the branches, he swung down, grabbed the limb below him with one free hand, swung off that limb, grabbed the next lowest limb with two free hands, and so forth till he dropped from the lowest limb onto the ground and rolled over to Lota, laughing non-stop.

“Come on, Lota. Let me show you how to do that.”

“Oh, no, Pritak. I have never climbed a tree in my life, and I am afraid to try it now.”


“Okay, just watch me, then. Come over and watch what I do. I learned how to do this by watching the parrots. Maybe you can learn by watching me.”

“I’ll watch, but I’m not making any promises. You know me, Pritak. Unless it’s really easy, I’m not going to take any chances.”

“Okay, okay. Just watch.” he rolled over to the low limb where he had begun before. Now that he knew the ropes, he climbed really quickly. This time he targeted a cluster of grapes. Within less than a minute he had climbed to the target. He stood, holding a limb above him and a limb below him, reaching with his third hand and popping grapes into one mouth while talking with his talking mouth. “Come on up, Lota. These grapes are delicious.”

“I’ll try, Pritak, but you are going to have to talk me through this. Okay, I am grabbing the limb where you started. Now what do I do?”

“Lift your other two armlegs and grab the limb on each side of the first hand.” When she had done that, he said, “Now, be sure to hold onto the limb with the two hands. Flex your whole body, release your first hand, and when you are on top of the limb, grab the limb above you with your free hand. If you were to lose your balance and fall, all you have to do is hold on to the limb below you. You can never fall more than one limb. Try it. I did not succeed on my

first try, so if you don’t make it the first time you can try again.” He watched as Lota awkwardly went through the same motions he had gone through. Sometimes it is easier for the second person who tries a new thing because the first person learned what mistakes to avoid. Pritak had not been prepared to grab the limb above him. Lota was.

As soon as she was standing on top of her limb, grabbing the limb above and clutching desperately the limb below, Lota began to laugh nervously. “I’m scared, Pritak.”

“Why? The worst thing that can happen is for you to swing below the limb. Unless you let go with all three hands, you are NOT going to fall. Come on up.”

Lota may have been afraid, but she was much better than Pritak had been on his first try -- probably because she had a coach.

She was soon standing on another limb adjacent to Pritak when he popped a grape into her mouth. “Ooh, Pritak, that’s delicious. We have NEVER been able to eat tree-top grapes off the vine. By the time they fall to the ground, they are over-ripe.”

They were having a wonderful time when a Remuns flew through the branches of the tree they were in, brushing their bodies with its wings as it passed. He could not have eaten them in the tree, but it scared them nonetheless.

“Oh, no, Pritak. That Remuns is headed to the new village. Marbek’s people were so in hopes that their new thatched huts would be safe, if only because they built in a new place where the Remuns had not eaten before. Shall we climb down and try to help?”

“Not this time, Lota. Maybe Marbek and Toti and their 13 children will escape. You have learned more than how to climb, I fear. Never in my life have I heard an Arvik speak of helping during a Remuns attack. I am not eager to engage a Remuns until we all get together and make a new plan. Now that you and I have learned to climb, maybe we can come up with a strategy to keep from getting eaten by the Remuns so often.”

The two friends were not far from Marbek’s and Toti’s new family village. They could hear frightened shrieks coming toward them as a tiny child rolled down the path in their direction. Pritak decided to prepare himself, just in case the Remuns were to chase the child to a position below them. He moved from the grapes to the limb where he had picked the melon. Sure enough, one of the children was rolling slowly down the path with a Remuns in close pursuit. Like a cat playing with an injured lizard, the Remuns was in no hurry to catch the little Arvik.

Lota saw what Pritak was up to. She moved to a limb within easy grasp of a watermelon, also. Just as the Remuns reached with his spindly legs and caught the baby Arvik,

Pritak plucked a melon and lobbed it down toward the Remuns. It struck the moth’s body behind the head. The Remuns did not release its hold on the poor child.

Anger overcame Lota. She had no children of her own, but she had all the maternal instincts of any Arvik mother. Without thinking, she plucked a melon. Holding that melon under one armleg, she used her other two hands to grab one limb after the next and swing down to the ground. Once she reached the ground, it was difficult to cartwheel with two hands while holding the melon in the third, but before the Remuns had time to recover from Pritak’s melon, Lota was on him.

The Remuns was ready to pierce the body of his victim with his straw-like beak. If he had time to break the skin with his beak, he would have sucked all the juice from this baby Arvik in seconds. Shaking with rage, Lota lifted the melon above her body and brought it down with force, striking the Remuns just behind its head and breaking its head from its body.

Pritak was stunned. He could hardly believe what he had just seen. Nobody had ever stood up against a Remuns, let alone kill one. Females were known to be much braver than males, of course, but Lota was the bravest Arvik ever. Pritak began his yodeling again as he came out of the tree end over end, grabbing limbs as he came. “Lotalotala -- TEE!! Bravest of the brave LO-TEE!”

Down the trail from the direction the now-safe child had come, the entire Marbek-Toti family came. They were mournful, moving slowly. They sang a funeral dirge as they came:

“Little Preeco plays with her brothers past,
Little Preeco laughs again at long last.
She is gone from us, she went so fast;
We will think of her, put her in a cast.”

(Arviks buried their dead in a plaster cast above ground. There were caves all over Mirror. Many of them had walls that could be scraped for a mineral-rich powder similar to plaster. Adding water to the powder made a paste with which the dead were covered in a cast.)

Lota was pulling the Remuns’ legs off of little Preeco. The claws on the ends of those legs were still holding the child tightly. Pritak was swollen with pride over his friend’s accomplishment. (Arviks actually swell when they are proud. They have air-intake sacs that can, in extreme cases, change them from being disk-shaped to looking like a beach ball. In fact, this phenomenon launched another of Pritak’s ideas of which we shall talk later.) He had never even heard of anyone’s touching a Remuns before. Lota had knocked one’s head off and was now breaking its legs to free a little baby.



“Preeco is NOT dead,” Pritak began to yell toward the family. “She is ALIVE!! Lota killed a Remuns. Lota killed a Remuns.”

Arviks have a wide range of noises they make. Toti began to make a surprised/happy noise that sounded like a slide whistle, going from a mid-range note and sliding to a glass-breaking high note. Once she heard the news and got close enough to see her child alive, she began to quiver while making that noise. Marbek was the first to roll up to where Lota had just removed the last leg. He began to make the male thumping noise. He, too, was quivering so much he could not keep two hands on the ground at once. Toti and twelve of their thirteen children came cart wheeling up close after Marbek. The noise of joy can be deafening.

The Marbek-Toti family must have noticed that Lota’s ears had furled closed. It is considered impolite in Arvik circles to make so much noise as to cause others to furl their ears. One by one, they got their excitement under control and became quiet.

“What happened here?” Marbek asked.

“Lota and I were up in these trees picking grapes and watermelons when we saw the Remuns chasing Preeco. I dropped a melon onto its back, but it was only stunned for a moment. Lota tucked a melon under one of her arms and flipped from one limb to the next till she was on the ground.

I’m not completely sure what happened next. She was furious. She rolled over to the Remuns, lifted the melon into the air, and brought it down hard onto the back of the Remuns’ head. Plop! Its head came right off, like a cherry coming loose from its stem. Then she began breaking off legs to get Preeco free.”

“I don’t believe you, Pritak. You are always coming up with tall tales and taller ideas. I have heard you talk of climbing trees many times before. You are obsessed with this idea. I DO believe that Lota saved my child. The proof of that is right here in front of me. I do NOT believe you and Lota were climbing trees. Arviks have never climbed trees.” Marbek’s color had turned ‘doubter blue’ as he spoke. It was easy to tell what an Arvik was thinking by its color.

Lota, often embarrassed by Pritak’s ideas, now came to his defense. She was still carrying a lot of anger from her confrontation of the Remuns. “Alright, then, Marbek the doubter. How do YOU think a melon fell to the ground without breaking?”

As she spoke, she rolled over to the same limb she and Pritak had used as their first step into the trees. In the space of one climbing expedition, Lota had become an expert arborist. She went from limb to limb going UP almost as quickly as she had come down. She stood next to the cluster of melons and asked, “Who TOLD you we could not

climb trees? The same person who told you we were defenseless against the Remuns, I would warrant. Maybe we would have all done better to listen to Pritak’s outlandish ideas instead of badgering him. HE taught me to climb trees. I was afraid at first, but now that I know how to do it, I not only have lost my fear, but I am ashamed for not listening to him sooner. Many lives could have been saved over the years if we had listened to Pritak.

I would be glad to drop a melon to you. It would probably be better if you come up and get your own, as your doubt has me so angry I might accidentally drop the melon on top of you. It might be safer to keep the children on the ground till they learn how to climb safely.”

She said this while watching one of the children who was trying to mimic her. It could not quite reach the lowest limb. Marbek had changed from ‘doubter blue’ to ‘embarrassed red’ and was now ‘chicken yellow.’

Toti’s eyes were wide open to the possibilities which tree-climbing could afford. Not only could she keep her children safe, but her mouths were watering as she noticed the nearby grapes. She rolled to the limb below which one of her children leaped in an effort to follow Lota. “Show me how you did this, Lota.”

Patiently, Lota talked Toti through the process the same as Pritak had talked her. Female Arviks are much braver than

males. They must be, for it is they who must forage for food. Fear would paralyze them if they were not brave, preventing them from going into forests where enemies might lurk.

Toti made the climb safely all the way to the grapes. She still trembled, scared, but reaching for cluster after cluster of grapes and throwing them down to her children. Her ‘fearful green’ color gradually subsided till she turned back to a normal Arvik brown. Marbek was reticent to join his wife. After all, he had been one of the main people to make fun of Pritak. Now his wife and Pritak’s friend Lota were both making fun of him for being so fearful.

“Throw me a grape, Toti,” he begged.

“Come get your own, you lazy bezerot! You are refusing to climb only because you do not want to admit you were wrong. You shall starve for all I care. Be a man and do the right thing. Swallow your pride, apologize to Pritak, and learn something new. Maybe it’s okay with YOU if my children get eaten by Remuns. It is NOT okay with me. Now! Be an example and teach your children some bravery. This is an easy thing for a grown Arvik. It will require our vigilant attention to teach our children the caution required to climb safely. You know how wild a child can be. Many children die each year through accidentally cart wheeling off a cliff. Tree climbing is more


dangerous than that. If you don’t climb up here right now, I will feed you to the Begorian Spider myself.”

Marbek had heard that tone before. He knew Toti meant it. “Alright, Pritak. I apologize. You are smarter than all the people before you. You are certainly smarter than me. Show me how to get into this tree before my wife feeds me to the spider.

Pritak was very gentle with Marbek. It was hard for Marbek to make it to the top of the first limb, so frightened he was. What made it more difficult was the thirteen children bouncing and cart wheeling all over the place, begging to let them do it. At last, Marbek learned enough to climb safely. He quickly trained himself to grab the limb above while holding the limb below.

“Hey, this ain’t so hard, Pritak.”

“Isn’t!” Toti corrected. “Do not teach our children improper speech, Marbek.”

“I mean, this ISN’T so hard, Pritak. Toti, we need to teach the children how to do this.”

“They are not ready, Marbek. This is too dangerous for children.” Toti spoke with heat in her voice.



“Would you rather they be eaten by Remuns?” he challenged.

“They are too small. They cannot reach the first limb.”

Pritak spoke up as his mind had been working on this very problem. “You know, the parrots grab the bark. Maybe if I show the children how to climb by holding the tree trunk with two armlegs, then scrooching their body up with the lower armleg, they could climb.”

His idea might have worked. He had stated it too late. Preeco, fresh from the jaws of death, had her own ideas. She wanted to be in the trees with her parents. She and one of her brothers (Pilak, I think) were standing under the limb everybody else had gone up. She made Pilak stand on one armleg and make a cradle with his other two hands. She lifted one armleg off the ground and stood in the cradle. “Fro me. Fro me up,” she shouted. Pilak threw her high enough for her to grab the limb. She was ready for this circus act. In less than a second, she was standing on top of the limb.

“Me, too,” Pilak was yelling at his sister. “Help me up, Preeco.”

Preeco swung back down below the limb, grabbed one of Pilak’s hands, and launched him onto the limb. For a non-arboreal species, these little Arviks were soon swinging

through the trees like squirrels. Their antics terrified their parents, but once they had learned, there was no stopping them. What was most interesting was that their lack of fear kept them from getting hurt more than their caution would have done. This whole thing was a game to the children. They fell, and fell often, but without carrying fear they looked for options. They never fell more than a few feet before a limb presented itself for their grabbing hands.

The rest of what promised to be a tragic day turned into a day of fun and celebration. With all the fruit vines growing amongst the tree limbs, everybody was well fed and happy. Pritak was already talking about ways to build a house up in the trees and Marbek was listening. This audacious man for whom all the other men held contempt had become a hero. It was accepted that Toti had slain the Remuns, but it was Pritak’s tree-climbing that had set the stage for the rescue.

Over the course of the next weeks, tree climbing came into vogue with every Arvik on Mirror. One showed another its newly-acquired skill. The children became adept in ways that had the parents turning green most of the day. The youngsters DID have a few mishaps at first -- nothing fatal, but enough to get their attention and teach them caution.

It was months after this wonderful day before the Arviks did anything to minimize the deaths from the Remuns. Begorian Spiders were less of a threat to the species, more because they had a strong preference to stay in close

proximity to a banana grove. In addition to being deadly, Begorian Spiders were lazy. They really loved to catch and eat an Arvik. At the same time, as long as they had an abundance of banana leaves, they only ate Arviks when one rolled into their webs.

Pritak was not a builder. His thatched hut was put together in haphazard and shoddy fashion. Remuns were primarily nocturnal. Over the millenia, they had learned how easy it was to stick their long beaks through the side of a hut and suck the life from an unsuspecting Arvik leaning against the wall inside the house -- asleep. The entire tribe thought every day would be Pritak’s last because of how loosely woven his bamboo and banana leaf dwelling was. What they did not know was that Pritak slept upright, without support, in the middle of his shoddy hut.

All during the night there were screams as someone touched a child or mate, father or mother, aunt or uncle and found that loved one to be cold and hard -- robbed of its juices. Pritak lobbied the tribe to put their homes in the trees. He reasoned that since Remuns could not climb, maybe they would all be safer to sleep off the ground.

“You are more dangerous than the Remuns,” one of the elders of the tribe spoke contemptuously to Pritak. “At least on the ground we don’t roll out of the house and fall to our deaths. I’d rather take my chances with possibly being eaten by a Remuns than certain death by falling.”

That same elder addressed the whole tribe: “Anybody who is foolish enough to listen to Pritak deserves what he gets. He already has the children doing this dangerous climbing. Mark my words, no good will ever come of his heretical musings. He should be run out of town and placed in a Begorian Spider web.”

Soon, the only people who would talk to him were Marbek and Toti and their children and Lota. While the older Arviks had painted Pritak as a villain too late to shame them out of the trees during the day, his warning struck fear into their hearts in regard to building tree houses. Even Marbek, who had been keen on the idea, was unwilling to face ridicule by building a tree house. Pritak lacked the skill to bring his idea into being.

Toti and Lota were the only two who felt the imperative of Pritak’s idea. Every day, Toti badgered her husband. “I know you love the children and me. Pritak makes sense that Remuns cannot climb. Now that we CAN, I would feel much safer staying in the trees all night.”

“Honey, we have to live in this community. Do you have any idea what people would think of us if we lived in TREES? I’m sorry, I cannot live like that. Go back to Pritak and ask him if he has any other ideas that might save our children’s lives. When the other men talk badly about him, at least I don’t join in. What else do you want from me?”

She knew that nothing she said would change his mind. However, he had said one thing that made sense: ask Pritak what else could be done. She wondered how he had escaped the Remuns’ nightly attacks. She and Marbek had lost four children already. Maybe Pritak had a secret for living through the night that would save the other thirteen.

One day, mid-morning, as Toti climbed through the trees eating mangoes, she came across Pritak eating by himself in a cherry tree. “Pritak! Come over here for a minute, would you? I want to ask you a question or two.”

Pritak had become skilled as a monkey in swinging from limb to limb. In no time flat, he was standing on a limb in the tree next to Toti’s. “Hey, Toti. What do you need?”

“You know I believe in your idea of building tree houses. My husband would really like to break from tradition and follow your advice. I hope you do not hold it against him that public opinion means so much to him. Popularity is more important to him than life, I think. Females do not have the luxury of caring so much for others. We have children to think about. Granted, Marbek feeds the children as much as I do, but his heart is not attached to our kids the way mine is.

Since there’s no way I can talk my husband into building a tree house, can you think of any other way we might save our children?”

Pritak grew very still, focusing on an invisible thought that hovered three or four meters away, floating in the trees above him. “You know, Toti, I HAVE been thinking of just such an idea. Remuns are strictly carnivores, as far as we know, so this idea might not work at all. If I were a mother, I would give it a try, anyhow.

Remuns like warm liquids. I wonder… if you picked some melons, dropping them gently into a bush on the ground so they don’t break, you could warm them by rolling them into a sunny spot near your hut. Then at night, place the melons all around the edge inside your house. When the Remuns come, they MIGHT -- and I repeat, MIGHT just suck the juice from the melons. They cannot see through your walls. How would they know the difference? It probably won’t work. The answer to my question is: They would know the difference in taste. It’s worth a try, though.”

Toti thanked her friend, immediately looking for melons to drop into thick, low-lying bushes on the ground. When she had twenty or more melons, she did as Pritak suggested. He might be right. By being warm, they could possibly fool the Remuns into believing they were sucking up Arvik juice.

When Marbek got home that evening, he was in a foul mood. “Where have you been? Have you forgotten we still have Pilak to feed? Not only have I had to feed your child all day long, I’ve had to keep UP with him. Now, what are

all these melons for? You have so many of them stacked inside our house that there’s barely room for us all to sleep.”

She knew that she had to make her husband think this was his idea, or he would never go for it. “I did what you told me to do,” she defended herself. “Did you, or did you not tell me to ask Pritak for some other idea to save our children? Because you care too much about the opinion of others, you will not build me a tree house to keep my children safe. If you were any kind of Arvik, you would set the example yourself and others would follow, but no! You have chosen to be a follower.

I’ll tell you what these melons are all about,” and she did. He was so badly chastened by her tongue-lashing that he objected no more. That very night, Pritak’s idea saved two of Toti’s children from certain death.

All during the night, there were screams from far and near. Some families lost half of their children. The Remuns population was increasing, and no one knew why. Toti was grateful that two empty melons had made their family’s contribution.

The ever-present grief hung over this tribe like a mantel. It wasn’t only the daily death toll, but all the work scraping plaster powder and transporting it to the river where the stiff bodies had been rolled. Even rolling the bodies was

difficult, although the armlegs were usually folded for sleeping. Nobody had figured out how to roll the bodies except by pushing with one hand and walking with the other two. The same was true of transporting the plaster powder. Arviks were simply not build for carrying things.

She would have to be careful in presenting Pritak’s idea to her friends and family. Toti did not want to tell a family who had just lost one of its members that they could have saved that person. Nobody wanted a cure after the patient was dead. Yet she could not keep the melon idea to herself and deprive others of hope for the coming nights. So it was that, without appearing too jovial, Toti told this one and that one how two of the warm melons had stood in proxy for two of her children.

The males, as usual, were derisive of anything that Pritak came up with. The females were much less inclined to find fault. They were too eager to be given hope in any form. They would have tried anything to save their children, and they did.

Not a single Arvik came to Pritak to thank him. The only way he knew they were using his idea was the disappearance of melons. The trees were stripped of their melons in short order. He had not expected thanks. It was thanks enough that the nightly screaming had come to an almost complete halt. Every hut had melons sitting in the sun during the day. Every morning, at least one melon was

picked to replace one that had been hollowed out the night before. It was so nice while it lasted.

Of course the fruiting season never ended in this tropical continent. There were always melons to be had. Once their forest was depleted, it meant traveling some distance to glean them from a further forest. The only reason they objected to foraging further from home was the spiders.

Pritak’s tribe was isolated from other Arvik tribes by many miles. The reason they did not visit distant groups was that they were surrounded by banana groves. The hardwood forest in which they lived was safe from Begorian Spiders by virtue of these abundant buffer zones full of banana trees that encircled their woods. In order to get more melons, they would have to travel past these dangerous groves.

With their own melon supplies depleted, the elders finally came to Pritak for advice. He was not arrogant or sarcastic, though he certainly had the right and the motivation to be. All he wanted was to see his people thrive. “You will not reconsider building tree houses?” he asked.

“Why should we build tree houses, when melons keep us safe? Please do not return to your insane idea, Pritak. What we want from you is to help us find a way past the spiders so we can get new melons.”



He knew it would be fruitless to argue. He also knew that the Remuns were still coming every night. “Whoever wants melons, follow me,” he said. “I will take you safely through the banana groves, past the Begorian Spiders. Do not bring children. They are too curious. They are too hard to control. If we are to get more melons, I need you to follow me exactly. If I get off the trail and go into the banana grove, you get off the trail and follow. If I climb up a tree, you climb. Understood?”

“Yes. We will do as you say. If we are to be safe tonight, we need to leave right away.” The elder heading up this expedition was Aljak the Ancient. It was his voice alone that kept this tribe from listening to Pritak, so it was ironic that he led the expedition in following Pritak to get more melons.

The things Pritak knew were born out of the fact that he paid attention to everything he saw. He knew that there would be numerous abandoned Begorian Spider webs. They would be easy to see. Each web would have at least one Remuns caught in its sticky ropes. If they were careful, they could navigate past all the spiders, using big dead Remuns as their guide.

Begorian Spiders were noisy eaters, as well. If their retinue was quiet, all they would need do was look for Remuns up in the air, caught in webs. If the spider had built her new web to the right of the old web, then they would skirt the

danger by going to the left. It was a good bet that the Begorian Spider would be close enough to her new web to see the trigger alarm move the banana leaves where she grazed should her trap catch some animal worth eating.

Sure enough, the first web they came to had not one, but two Remuns caught. The spider had abandoned it and built to the left. Pritak’s party could not see the big black sow. She was buried in the midst of the banana plants as she ate noisily. As long as they could hear her, they were safe. They went to the right.

They were now in nothing but banana trees. Pritak had not traveled this way in some time. He was amazed at how far the banana trees had spread. Most of the spiders, he knew, lived on the outer edges of banana groves, so his group was able to travel quite a distance before running into danger again.

They neared the end of the Begorian Spiders’ forest, unaware there would be no warning web inside these trees. Always the web was erected between two hardwoods at the entrance to their feeding grounds. Pritak could see hardwoods ahead. Aljak the Ancient was talking loudly, joking and regaling the others with stories from his youth when Pritak sensed trouble. “Shhhh,” he said, coming to a dead halt.



“What do you mean, ‘shhh’?” Aljak asked indignantly. “You don’t tell ME to be quiet. Who do you think you are? I am an Arvik of importance. You ASK me -- you don’t TELL me.” He grew louder and louder as he spoke, incensed that Pritak had the gall to correct him. Why, HE was the one to whom all the other Arviks turned for advice. Nobody had ever been so presumptuous as to talk to him like he was a child. He was not going to stand still for this kind of treatment.

It might have been alright had Aljak stopped at that point. Instead, he went past Pritak and took the lead. “You are nothing but a windbag, Pritak. I don’t know why we asked you to lead us. We could have made this trip without you. The only Begorian Spider we saw was at the beginning of this grove. I bet there ARE no more spiders. Come on, everybody, let’s go. We don’t need this smart aleck.”

The problem was that Pritak had not heard anything, but one of his mouths had smelled something -- a spider. Aljak cart wheeled past the tree in front of Pritak and into the waiting jaws of the biggest Begorian Spider any of them had ever seen. They started to run in every direction.

“STOP!!” yelled Pritak. “Be still, I tell you. Come back here to me!” He was using his most commanding tone, and they listened. “I tried to warn you all that there was a spider nearby. Aljak grew too accustomed to his own importance. I am sorry he’s gone, but there is nothing we

can do about it now. While the spider is busy with Aljak, if you follow me you will be safe.”

Nobody spoke again. They followed Pritak around the spider and his lunch, soon arriving at a forest full of melons. The trip back home was uneventful. True to his word, Pritak had figured out how to use sight, sound, and scent to find his way past this nemesis.

During the following days, Pritak became weary of having to lead his tribe to forage for melons. With the death of Aljak the Arrogant, he felt the time had come to revisit his idea of building in the trees. “Look,” he said, “without meaning to be as arrogant as Aljak was, I’m tired of going so far from home and dealing with so many dangers to get melons. In case you don’t know it, the melons were my idea in the first place. You would not listen to my other idea. It was far better than using melons.

“Need I remind you that Aljak advised you to not climb trees? He told you it was impossible for Arviks to climb. He was wrong, wasn’t he? Because we stay in trees during the day, we have been safe except at night. I say we should build our homes in trees. You have all seen the surge in the Remuns population. Every one of you has seen a few Remuns flying through our trees during the day. You have all climbed trees to escape them, where not long ago you would have been eaten. You turned a deaf ear to my pleas, and for what? For the good opinion of others? So nobody

would think you were weird? You died and you let your children die because you did not want Aljak the Fool and those he influenced to think badly of you. Let me put it this way: If you refuse to build your homes in trees, do not come to me for any more advice. If you are so stupid that you won’t listen to reason, then you DESERVE to die.”

It was out of character for Pritak to take such a strong stance, but he had reached the end of his patience. As he spoke, Lota came to his side. “He is right, you know. We have been nothing but bezerots, toadying to the opinion of one whose only claim to fame was his personality. Aljak is gone. Maybe I should say nothing against him, but by the founders I find it hard to believe we were so taken in by the force of his will! Personality and character are two entirely different things. He had no character. We should have abandoned the old fool whose certitude ultimately killed him and stood with this perhaps-weird Arvik who has already saved so many of us. I stand with Pritak.”

Toti stepped forward. “I also stand with Pritak. If my husband will not build a house in the trees to protect my children and me, then I shall build it myself. I have not lived with Marbek all this time and not learned the skills of his trade. If he is too embarrassed to do something new, then I shall embarrass him further by doing his job for him.”




“Oh, no,” Marbek spoke up. “I have learned my lesson. I stand with my wife and with Pritak. If tree house he advises, then tree house it shall be.”

Marbek was a master builder. Once he gained confidence in Pritak’s ideas, Marbek was quick to implement them. He wanted his family to be safe as much as his wife Toti. The building of their tree house became a family game. The houses could not be too big, else a Remuns would come through the doorway and eat the family. Remember, Remuns could not hold onto a tree well enough to eat, but if there was a flat place to land then they could eat quite well.

With the entire race of Arviks completing their own tree houses, Pritak came up with an idea to keep Remuns from being able to come through the doorway. He called it a ‘door.’ Marbek helped with the design. Pritak’s original idea was to devise a way to block the entrance. Mirror’s weather was so friendly that circulation was desirable. There had never been a need for doors. At least, nobody had ever thought of them before. It had never before been possible to escape the Remuns, so why try to keep them out of the house? Their wings were too wide to let more inside than their snouts, anyway. Marbek built the door out of thatch and limbs, with a hole in the ends of three cross-members. He ran the corner post of his hut through these three cross-member holes in the door to effect a hinge. By having a hole in the opposite end of one of the cross-


members, matching a notch in the opposite corner post, the door could be latched.

Security had never been a word in the Arvik vocabulary. The only way to insure the continuation of the species was to have lots of children. Most of them had died before the age of five -- until now. Living in trees was going to change the way Arviks lived in significant ways. Female Arviks were resentful of having to be pregnant so much of their lives. Pritak’s idea of feeding babies by using milk from bovine species had not been introduced during this early stage when women were first thinking of limiting their pregnancies. They fed their babies just like penguins -- regurgitation. It was disgusting, messy, and painful; most of them only did it because they had to.

Living in trees created a more social atmosphere than Arviks had ever enjoyed. The males were more social at first, since they were not expected to protect the children. Now that the females were largely relieved of that burden, except for the care of the smallest babies -- under two years old -- they were learning to thoroughly enjoy the company of one another.

It was during one of these ‘girl gab’ sessions that Toti picked up some very interesting information. One of her girlfriends, Missi, had fifteen children. “I tell you, Toti, I’m so tired of throwing up. I don’t care if I NEVER have


another chap. As soon as I can locate a Memnoc tree, I’m not going to have another child.”

“What does a Memnoc tree have to do with it, Missi? I know where a Memnoc tree is. Why do you need it?”

“The berries of the Memnoc tree prevent pregnancy. I suppose I could refuse to let Binak -- you know -- during the full moon, but I like doing that as much as he. The founders commanded us to be fruitful and replenish Mirror. If all fifteen of my children have children, then it will not be long before Mirror is ‘plenished.’ We need to start thinking of ways to give women a break. My mother told me to never eat Memnoc fruit if I wanted to have a baby. Show me where the tree is. Seems like I STAY pregnant. Not any more, if I can help it.”

These ‘girl gab’ sessions produced all manner of useful information exchange. Living in trees did, indeed, raise the survival rate of the population. At the same time, the lower food supply diminished the population of the Remuns. With less to fear, females demanded smaller families. They loved their children, but wouldn’t it be better to give all that love to a few children rather than be forced to spread it equally among so many? Besides, wasn’t a girl allowed to live at least a little of her life for herself?

Arviks did not cook. There was no reason to cook, with a plentiful supply of fruit. Pritak was even experimenting

with eating the insides of those big hard seeds he called ‘nuts.’ Arviks had seen fire -- usually after lightning struck a dead tree. They feared it. Luckily, Mirror was too wet to support a forest fire.

























Chapter 2: Marbek

During the years since Arviks had learned to climb, Marbek had become Pritak’s best friend. When Pritak’s fertile mind made an observation, Marbek was there to chronicle it, implement it, and usually improve on it. Pritak wanted to harness fire. He reasoned that there might be uses for fire that nobody had thought of. “But Pritak, you know that lightning causes fire. Maybe fire and lightning have an affinity for one another. Isn’t there a danger that when you build a fire it will attract the lightning?”

“I don’t think so, Marbek. I really believe that lightning will leave a fire alone. I have seen lightning strike the same place more than once, but never have I seen it start a fire and strike again while the fire is burning. That may be coincidence, who knows? The only worry I have about fire is that it seems to attract Remuns. Have you never noticed that all moths, including Remuns, fly toward a fire? It scares me that if we start a fire the Remuns will come to it. On the other hand, fire seems to make them crazy. They fly into the fire and kill themselves, so they probably are too crazy to try to eat an Arvik by the fire. Only thing is, those crazy fluttering wings could break an armleg if we get too close to a suicidal Remuns.

I want to tame the fire. Last week, I observed a lightning fire where a big oak tree burned on the sand flats close to the ocean. When the fire burned out, it had melted the sand into clear sheets. You could see through those sandmelts.

I’m thinking we might find a way to melt the sand in round or square shapes that we could put into the walls of our huts. That way, we could look through the wall if something makes a noise outside. The girls could stay inside the house when they want to and watch the children play in the trees. It’s probably a stupid idea, but I was just thinking…”

“Yes, and that’s what you do best, Pritak. Show me these sandmelts. I’m already with you on this.”

Marbek and Pritak climbed out of the trees. In the first year after the discovery of climbing, it was relatively rare to see Arviks rolling along the ground. It was just too dangerous. These days, the Remuns population was so low that the land had grown much safer. The guys rolled happily along, glad to once again be doing what nature dictated.

When they arrived at the burnt tree, Marbek was amazed at the sandmelt. He was much more observant than Pritak. Not only was there molten sand, but iron, too. The sandmelt, which we would call ‘glass’, was interesting. Marbek saw the glass as something ornamental -- maybe slightly useful. He saw the iron ore which Pritak had not seen and instinctively understood that the pool of iron had come from a certain rock. He reasoned, “If we find rocks that look like this and heat them with fire, we should be able to extract iron from it. This stuff is hard enough that we could make tools, weapons, and an endless array of

implements with it. His mind began to do the same thing that Pritak’s mind had always done -- sift through the available facts and let his imagination find a laundry list of uses for every new material. In short, he signed on to the ‘let’s harness fire’ project. “All we have to do now is wait for lightning to strike again.”

“No we don’t, Marbek. Do you see where smoke is still coming from some of these black pieces of wood? Watch this!” Pritak picked up some dry sticks from the area where this tree had fallen. He broke the larger sticks into smaller pieces by stepping on them with one armleg and lifting the ends with his other two hands till they broke. He took one twig, raked a smoking coal from the soot, and piled his dry limbs on top of the coal. When he blew on the coal with one of his mouths, the coal turned red and a wisp of fire came out of it, igniting the pile of sticks. “Quick! Quick! Pile more wood onto the fire. If we can get enough wood -- especially some bigger pieces -- we can make a fire that will last awhile. When it starts to go out, all we have to do is put more wood on it.”

“What do we do when it rains?” Marbek was good about coming up with the right question.

“Oh, doodle-um! I didn’t think about that. How about if we build a thatched hut over the fire?”

“Good idea, Pritak. A big fire will burn the hut.”

“Not if we move the fire close to the river, build a hut over it, and slather the thatch with river mud. When I was a chap, we used to cover one of our hands with river mud and then ease our hand out from under the pile of mud, leaving a tiny little mud hut behind. I remember one time when I did that, the sun shined for days before the rain came. My little mud hut dried so hard that it lasted through five or six rains.”

“Again, Pritak, I applaud your solution. My question (and I think it’s a good one): ‘How do you propose to move the fire?’ We have always had a problem with moving things. Cartwheeling is a fast way of traveling. It is not very effective for moving things. We need all three hands when we cartwheel.”

“The only way I can think to do this offhand is for us to slow down. Let’s keep the fire burning right where it is. Since the fire turned the sand into glass and melted iron from those rocks, maybe I can make a big bowl out of mud like those gourds we use for drinking, only bigger. Let’s see what fire does to mud. Maybe it will make mud into something hard -- something that won’t burn -- something we can put the fire in and drag it to a new place. I’ll put a hole in the front of our mud bowl so we can tie a vine to the bowl. Then I will walk on two armlegs instead of cartwheeling. That will free my other hand to pull the vine and drag the bowl full of fire.”


“Okay, but I’m going to HATE walking. It’s so slow. Let’s go get a big gourd full of mud and bring it back here to try out your plan.”

Before they left, they canvassed the area for any dry limbs, big or small, and built the fire up. They wanted to hurry back, so they cartwheeled to the river, found some big gourds which they filled with red clay mud, and walked back to their fire. Pritak was pretty good at bowl-making. Ever since he made that hand-house, he had been playing with mud and making different things which he dried in the sun. This would be an altogether new thing. He made his bowl with the hole in its handle. It kept falling apart when he tried to move it to the fire. Finally, he decided to mix some straw with it to make it stronger. He reasoned that the fire had made the sand into glass and had rendered iron from the ore; maybe it would burn the straw, but leave the fired clay hard and strong. Sure enough, the straw made the clay strong enough for him to move his wet bowl and set it in the hot coals without breaking it.

Arviks can be very patient. Marbek cautioned Pritak to leave the clay bowl in the fire as long as possible. Both of them kept adding wood to keep the fire burning, making sure to keep the fire in contact with the bowl. The sun was low in the sky, so they decided to build as big a fire as possible, go home, and hope the fire was still going in the morning.


Arviks reach speeds of up to 60 miles per hour when cartwheeling on a flat straightaway. Pritak and Marbek were really excited about their project. They talked while they traveled. They rolled on the trail side by side and conversed as they tried to beat the coming night, but they were in no hurry. They figured they would reach their trees in ten or fifteen minutes. There was still a good forty-five minutes of sunlight left to the day.

There was a spot in the trail where two trees grew too close together for both guys to roll. Pritak said, “You first.” Marbek smiled and rolled between the trees, only to be stopped abruptly. “Aiyeee!” he screamed. Pritak had come to a dead halt to keep from running into Marbek. “I’m caught in a Begorian Spider web, Pritak. A spider built its web across our path after we came from the river. I’ll be dead soon. Go tell Toti goodbye for me, Pritak, and tell the chaps I love them.”

“Not so fast, Marbek. Maybe I can kill the spider.”

“With what? That spider will pounce on you, Pritak, and eat you before he takes his time with me. Save yourself. Thanks for the thought, but don’t be stupid. Roll away from here as fast as you can.”

“I have an idea.”



“Always an idea. Would you quit with the ideas, already? Get out of here and let me die in peace. Would it bother you for once to listen? I don’t want you to watch me being eaten, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Yeah, I’d better hurry, then.” Pritak said the words, Marbek thinking he was going to go around the tree and get back on the path home. Instead he turned and rolled as fast as possible back to the camp fire.

Pritak looked for a limb that had an oily knot on it. Quickly he spotted a burning knot in the fire. The limb was ideal for transporting. He knew that the best way to transport his burning knot was to walk, but there wasn’t time for that. He made the hand holding the limb into a fist and began to cartwheel on his knuckle as fast as he could while watching the burning knot to make sure he didn’t blow the fire out. Within a few minutes he was back at the Begorian spider web. The spider was just that moment coming from a cluster of banana trees. It had been preoccupied with its favorite meal, so it was not hungry. Nonetheless, there was always room for a nice crunchy Arvik. The spider increased her speed with the intention of eating Marbek for dessert.

Pritak got there first. He walked on two armlegs, holding the burning pine knot above his body. The spider made a bee-line for Marbek, oblivious to the advancing Pritak. She had never been threatened by an Arvik in her life. Why

should that change now? “Hold still, Marbek. Don’t wiggle. Every time you move, the spider moves faster. Stay quiet. Let’s see what she does when I do this.”

As he spoke, he lifted his burning brand to the top of the web -- to one of the two cords that held the web to the tree on the right side. The web burned in two, collapsing from the top. The spider appeared confused. She stopped, turned her head toward Pritak as if looking at him, and began a slow advance toward this new meal.

Un-phased, Pritak burned the bottom right cord of the web. Marbek was now free to move a little. He was still stuck to the web and the web was attached to the left tree. The spider stopped again with this new development. Pritak was afraid he had done the wrong thing by burning that last cord. The spider left off coming for Pritak and pounced toward Marbek. Arviks roll -- they don’t generally jump. This time, Pritak jumped. Terrified that his friend was about to be bitten, Pritak stuck the burning end of the limb to the spider’s shiny black round abdomen.

With a piercing screech, the spider turned and bit the burning pine knot; screamed again and released it. She did more than recoil as the fire had obliterated her sharp fangs -- she ran.

Pritak was pretty certain the spider would not return, but he was taking no chances. As quickly as he could, he burned

the web free from both anchors at the left tree. Marbek was still stuck to the web. Wanting to make the web less sticky, Pritak reached down to the trail, grabbed a handful of dirt, and powdered the web. He did this again and again till the whole web was no longer sticky. Carefully, he pulled webbing away from Marbek’s body. As he dusted, each strand of web came loose from his friend.

Once Marbek was free, he stood on one armleg and rolled the web around his other two arms. “Toti will never believe this adventure if I don’t take home the proof.” Looping the net of web over his body and around two armlegs, he was free to cartwheel. It was a nervous laugh, but he was laughing. “Thank you, Pritak. I still think you’re an idiot, you know. You could have been killed.”

“Yeah, but you WERE going to be killed. I’m a gambler, my friend. It would have been better to die with you than to leave you to die alone. I thought there was a chance we might both survive, and I was right. Besides, if I had left you with the spider, she wouldn’t be afraid of us. I guarantee she has now lost her taste for Arviks. She bit the fire and burned off her fangs. She might even starve to death. Tell the spider ‘thank you’ for the nice rope.

Come on. Let’s get home. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be someplace SAFE.” He did a 3-mouth laugh, picked up the burning pine knot where he had dropped it, and cart wheeled onto the back of the fist holding the limb.

Marbek couldn’t help but laugh at what this looked like. Who ever heard of an Arvik rolling with a torch. Well, at least they now knew how to transport fire. He could hardly wait for tomorrow to check on the clay bowl. They had learned a lot on this day.

To prove the friends were thinking alike, Pritak said (as he continued to roll), “If we keep learning as much as we learned today, we’ll be flying in the air before you know it.”

Marbek, rolling with his coil of webbing, laughed and added, “I don’t put anything past you, my friend.”

















Chapter 3: Iron Age

The wind always blew on Mirror. Marbek and Pritak had moved their fire close to the river, on a hillock overlooking the flood plains. The wind here was so strong that the fire was blown out several times and had to be re-started from a live coal. The two friends knew that the mud hut idea would solve this problem, but the wind kept blowing between the cracks in the thatching, causing embers to rise from the fire and burning the hut down before it could be covered with mud.

Marbek was becoming quite inventive himself. It was he who came up with the idea of digging a hole in the dirt to shield the fire from the wind. The pieces of flat rock used for digging were effective, though they broke repeatedly. Each time one of his digging rocks broke, Marbek’s mind went back to that flat piece of iron that had melted from the ore back on the beach. After the tenth digging rock broke, Marbek stood on two armlegs and threw the other up in exasperation. “I’m going to get the ironmelt, Pritak. I’m so tired of my digging rocks breaking. There’s got to be a better way.”

“How do you plan to transport that big piece of iron, Marbek? I tried to pick it up the other day, and it’s quite heavy, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. Would you help me carry it if we walk? You don’t seem to mind walking half as much as I do.”

“Sure. I’ll be glad to help you. Only thing is, it’s too big to use for digging. It’s too heavy.”

“Yes, I know. I have been thinking about this. Look, Pritak, this hole is probably big enough to shield the fire. I can wait on the iron. What we probably need to do is to finish this project first. Let’s put the fire in our hole and build the hut today,” he said while building the fire. “Tomorrow, if the hut has not burned down, we can cover the hut with mud and then build a big fire. At least the wind won’t blow the fire so much once we have solid mud walls. I’m thinking about re-melting the iron. Since fire melted it in the first place, maybe it will re-melt it.”

Pritak’s body language was one of deep thought. In a few minutes, he spoke. “Have you noticed how much hotter the fire burns when the wind blows? Let me make a suggestion. We have to keep the wind away from the fire until the mud is set. Help me out, here. Let’s say we get the hut covered with mud and it does not burn. Well, maybe the thatch burns, but the mud doesn’t. If we leave a hole for the wind to blow through, maybe that wind will make the fire hot enough to re-melt the iron.”

“Oh, I like that idea, Pritak. Give me some time to think about that blow-hole you talked about. Come on, help me build the hut. The fire is not blowing out now that we have it down in a hole. If we hurry, we ought to be able to put one layer of mud on before we leave.”

That’s what they did. Each of them was lost in his own inventive thoughts. By constantly working while they thought, rather than talking, they accomplished more on this day than any day before. They had worked together so often that their teamwork skills were amazing. Not only did they get the hut built, but they learned to cartwheel down to the river, grab a big handful of mud in each hand, cartwheel back on their knuckles, and sling mud so accurately that the thatch was completely covered in no time. They put on two layers of mud that first day and were working on the third layer when the evening shadows forced them to stop and go home for the night.

When they returned the following day, the clay mud had hardened into rock -- partly because the thatch had caught fire and super-heated the clay as it burned away from the bottom side of the mud. “Wow! Pritak! We were right. This is the strongest building on Mirror, I bet. I’m glad we made it so big. This could be yours and Lota’s house some day, if you ever ask her to marry you.”

“Ask her? I may be different, but there’s no way I’m going to try to change the social convention of ‘female’s choice.’ She has not asked me, yet, and I’ll be a Remuns’ meal if I’m going to start making hints to her. Have you done any thinking about that ‘blow hole?’”

“Yeah, Pritak, I have. Come over here to the west side. If you notice, the wind always blows from west to east. Here

on the river, the wind is stronger than it is in the forest -- probably because there are not trees to break the flow. We need to make the hole on this side. I think if we cover some of that big bamboo with mud, we can fire it and make some big pipes to bring the wind directly to the fire. See, let’s knock a hole right here in the bottom of the wall.”

Once they knocked a hole with a big rock, they brought a lot of wood to build the fire up again. Almost immediately the hut filled up with smoke. “Uh-oh, Marbek. I think your idea about the wind was a good one. Our problem is, we let the wind come in without giving it a way to go out. Let’s knock a hole on the other side.”

Marbek had a much more detailed analysis of mechanical things than Pritak, though Pritak was better at originating raw ideas. He did not want to hurt Pritak’s feelings, so he made his suggestion humbly. “That’s a good thought, Pritak. Do you think maybe we should knock a hole in the peak of the roof instead? Look at the smoke. It always rises. If we put another hole on the opposite side from our first hole, I’m afraid the smoke will still rise to the top of the room. After all, we DO have a evacuation hole, if you count the doorway. Why isn’t it going out the door?”

“Oh, my gizzard, Marbek. You are so right, but how are we going to climb on top of the house to knock the hole?”



“I have been thinking about that. Do you think maybe we could make an artificial tree that we could lean against the hut? That way we could climb.”

“Hey, that’s a thought. If we cut some bamboo with one of those sharp rocks, we could tie short cross-members across two parallel longer poles. By spacing the short pieces just right, we could make a ‘climber.’”

“Or you could call it an ‘adder’, since you could always ‘add’ more cross-members to make it longer.”

“Yeah, call it a ‘longer adder,’ or just shorten it to ‘ladder.’”

“Yeah, yeah! LADDER! Great name. I still have some of the Begorian spider web. If we wash the dirt off that web, it becomes sticky again. That should make some great lashing for connecting the short pieces to the long poles. You cut the bamboo. Let me cartwheel home for the web. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Pritak found a sharp flat stone with which he cut some nearby bamboo. When Marbek got back with the web, Pritak had already cut the short pieces just the right length. The original clay bowl with which they had intended to move the fire had been moved to this site. It had not been needed for fire, but both friends felt like it might become useful at some point. It was full of water from the rains. Now was the time it would prove its usefulness as they cut

the web into short pieces and washed the dirt off one of them in the bowl.

“Help me, Pritak,” Marbek laughed. “I’m caught in the Begorian spider web again.” It was true. The web had regained its stickiness when it was clean and wet.

Pritak stood on one armleg, holding a long bamboo piece in one hand, making a cross with one of the short pieces. “Here, Marbek. Force the web across these two pieces. You should be able to pull your hands loose once the web is stuck to the bamboo.”

It worked. By laying the web across the intersection of the two pieces of bamboo and pulling downward, he was able to pull his hands loose from the sticky web. To make the connection stronger, he wrapped the web across the bamboo in the opposite direction as well. The criss-crossed web kept the short cross-member firmly attached to the longer piece. It was secure and would not slide.

Once the boys got the other long pole connected to that first cross-member, it did not take long to complete the building of the ladder. With practice, their ladder-building became more and more skillful over the years. This first ladder would win no prizes, but it was good enough for the job at hand.



They leaned the ladder against the hard clay building. It was the perfect length to reach the pointed crown of the hut. “Let me climb, Marbek. You have a family. I am single and can risk doing such a foolish thing.”

“No way, Pritak. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead already, remember? Besides, you are not as strong as I. It will be easier for me to knock the hole.” With that, he cart wheeled up the ladder.

“When did you learn that trick?” Pritak called up to Marbek.

Marbek smiled with all three mouths. “I don’t know. It just came to me. Don’t give me any credit yet, Pritak. I got up here without a hammer stone. I’m coming back down. I don’t think I can cartwheel back up with a hammer stone in one of my hands.”

Pritak picked up a hammer stone as Marbek cart wheeled back down the ladder. “Here,” he extended the stone to his friend. “Put this against your arm.” Marbek did as he was asked, while Pritak washed a short piece of web, dusting his hands with sand to keep it from sticking to him. He placed the web across the hammer stone and wrapped the ends under Marbek’s armleg. “Now the hammer stone is stuck to your armleg. Your hands are free to climb. Once you get to the top, you ought to be able to pull that little piece of web loose to free the stone.”

Marbek furled his ear, indicating amazement. He cart wheeled back to the top of the hut, removed the hammer stone, and knocked a coconut-sized hole in the peak of the building. “What are we going to do when it rains, Pritak? Won’t the rain put out the fire?”

“Oh, doodle-um! You are right. Maybe we should re-mud over that hole you made.”

“Wait a minute, Pritak. That’s it. If you can make another mud bowl just a little bigger than this hole, we can turn it upside down over the hole to keep the rain out. Put some legs from the lip of the bowl to lift it away from the roof, and it will leave an air space between the roof and the bowl so that smoke can go out. If the bowl is wide enough to extend over the hole, it will still keep the rain from putting out the fire.”

“Genius, Marbek. You are a genius.”

Within a short space of time, the friends had made and installed not a bowl, but more a bell-shaped cover for the hole. Its spacers created a big enough air hole around the edge of the bell that smoke billowed out. Pritak went up to inspect their work after his friend came down. “It’s hot enough up here that our top piece will be hard in no time. I hope it sticks to the roof. If it doesn’t, the wind will blow it off. Do you think we should use a little bit of wet web to glue it in place?”

“Yeah, Pritak. Why not? We’ve used that stuff for everything else. It’s a shame those Begorian spiders are so dangerous. They make a good product -- one we’re going to need more of.”

“You tell the truth, friend. Go inside the fire room and see if the smoke has cleared out.”

Marbek rolled through the door and shouted as his friend came down the ladder, “Yes, indeed. Now we need a way to increase the wind when we want a hot fire and decrease it when we don’t need so much heat. The fire will burn slower if we cut down on the wind.”

They were on the same wave length again. Pritak set a flat stone against the hole in the west wall to cut off the moving air. “How’s that?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, Pritak. The fire stopped blowing wildly when you did that. Let’s go get the large bamboo to make the clay pipes. I have an idea to really make the wind blow this fire into a hot enough flame to melt that iron. Could you make another bowl? I want a very big bowl, laid on its side, with the bottom against our west wall hole.”

“I can do that. Do you want me to glue it against the wall with some spider web?”



“Please do. Once you have the wet bowl in place, knock out the bottom. What I hope this does is make a funnel to catch more air than ever. We will still need a flat stone to cut off the air when we are not needing so much heat.

While you work on the outside, I’ll connect my bamboo-covered clay inside here. One end will be connected to the wall. The other end will sit in the fire itself.”

The boys worked independently as well as they worked together. Pritak knew the kind of funnel needed. He made a huge one to catch lots of air. He was not sure that it would harden without heat, but if it didn’t they could always build a fire inside the funnel. Instead of making a bowl and then knocking the bottom out, he put the ‘stopper stone’ in the hole to prevent the wind from blowing into the building and loosely made the funnel around that -- connected to the side of the hut without connecting the funnel to the stopper stone.

Marbek took a hatchet stone with him, strapping it to his arm like Pritak had taught him to do with the hammer stone. He knew roughly how long a piece of bamboo he needed. The first bamboo forest’s plants were too small in diameter for his purposes. The next forest he came to, the bamboo had a hole in the center about the size of a big apple. This was perfect. He chopped down the one he chose and whacked off a piece long enough to reach from the wall to the fire. He had to WALK to get it back to the hut. He

hated walking. Pritak had been considerate in bringing plenty of extra wet clay.

“I knew you hated walking, Marbek, so I brought a lot more clay than I needed. The funnel is finished. You want me to help you cover the bamboo to make a clay pipe, or would you rather ream out the bamboo first?”

“No. You are right about the bamboo’s needing to be reamed. The wood closes off the hole at every joint -- at least part ways. It probably does not matter, though. Once we cover it with clay and put the pipe in the fire, don’t you think the bamboo will burn and leave a hollow clay pipe?”

“Gosh, Marbek. You really ARE a genius. Yes, it will burn up inside the clay. Not only did you impress the punk out of me, you saved us a lot of time. Let’s get busy. I can’t wait to try this out. We might as well go home once the clay-covered bamboo is in the fire. No need to baby sit when we don’t need to.”

“You are so right.” The two continued to converse while they covered the bamboo. They decided that a thin coat would be less likely to break than a thick coat. Without knowing it, they were learning concepts such as ‘thermal shock’ -- where brittle stone shattered if it was heated and then cooled too quickly. This was the beginning of Arvik civilization.


When the work was done, they placed one end of the covered bamboo into the fire. Pritak volunteered to come back later and fire the other end. “Lota and I are going to spend some time together. She will probably enjoy coming to see our project. You know, she’s as smart as either of us -- given the chance. No doubt we BOTH acknowledge that she is braver than either of us, remembering the incident where she killed the Remuns that was chasing your Preeco.”

“You know that I adore your girlfriend. I am NOT ready to call her the bravest. She’s brave, true enough, but so are you. I THINK I remember somebody killing a Begorian Spider. If she really wants to prove her bravery, then she needs to ask you to marry her.”

Pritak laughed. “I HOPE that’s what she wants to talk about this afternoon.”

The two friends rolled back toward what was now being called ‘First Tree House.’ No longer was this a single house, but a community of homes in the trees. For historical purposes, the entire Arvik race wanted to designate this name. Now that all Mirror’s Arviks were climbing trees -- a feat unheard of just months ago -- they wanted to give credit where credit was due by naming this as the FIRST place where houses were built in trees.

Pritak’s house, like Lota’s, was little more than a booth. All they needed, after all, was a roof over their heads and walls

with doors to keep Begorian spiders and nasty little caterpillars away from them while they slept. It would have been nice to have a larger house. Everybody helped in the building of family homes. Nobody thought a single Arvik required help in building such a tiny edifice. After all, there were no children needing room to romp on rainy days.

Pritak had gone all-out on his little tree house. He had added a front porch where he could sit, holding on to a corner post with two of his hands while dangling his third armleg off the porch. Toti wasted no time in making her husband add a porch to their house. She and her husband both loved Pritak, who appreciated their plagiarisms and improvements on his inventions.

The humble inventor was sitting on his porch when Lota came swinging over from her home. This vine, tied firmly to the top of one of the highest trees, had been Lota’s original idea, which underscored Pritak’s comment about how intelligent she was. The vine had stopped bearing fruit, so she saw no harm in cutting it loose at the bottom.

“Hey, you,” she began. “Phew! You smell like smoke.”

“Hey, Lota. I’m sorry about the smell. Would you like to go see Marbek’s and my fire house? That’s why I smell like smoke. We have been working on our fire. We got so much accomplished this morning because I wanted to leave plenty of time to spend with you.”

“I would love to see your new project. Everybody has been curious about what you two are doing. Out of respect for the great inventor Pritak, they don‘t ask.”

“Thanks for the sarcasm.”

In a surprised voice, Lota responded, “NOT sarcasm!! I’m being serious. Don’t you think the whole world of Arviks knows your name? All the guys used to make fun of you for thinking wild thoughts. Now they all copy you. They want to know what you’ll come up with next. Even I want to know what you have come up with. The only difference between me and everybody else is, I don’t MIND asking. Take me to the fire house. I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I just wish you smelled a little better.”

“Do you want me to rub myself with jasmine flowers? That should cover the smell.”

“No -- please! Then you’d smell like smoky jasmine. It will be alright. Once we go into the fire house, I will smell like smoke, also.”

It took little time to dismount from the trees and start rolling down the trail toward the river. “I want to show you the sand melt and iron melt first. Of all the Arviks I know, you are the one who will understand what made me want to master fire.”


Pritak always slowed down when he neared the point where the path went between the two close-set trees. Now that he knew a Begorian Spider could be defeated, he always strapped a sword-stone to his armleg. Fire had been effective against the spider. Instinctively, he knew that a sharp pointed rock would do as well. As they rolled past what he called ‘spider alley’, he let Lota know that this was the place Marbek got his spider web. Not wanting to seem vain, he said nothing of rescuing Marbek, though Toti had told Lota the whole story.

When they got to the area near the beach where the lightning-struck tree still lay partially burned, he showed the sand-melts to Lota. “Are you certain this is melted sand, Pritak? Could it be tree gum instead?”

“I don’t think so, Lota. Tree gum is sticky. This is smooth and not sticky at all.” He picked up one of the pieces of glass and held it up to the light. “See how you can see through it? If I took a rough rock and raked the loose sand off the back side, I bet you could use it as a wall in your house.”

“You’re right. The way the sand sticks to it, I can tell that it IS melted sand. What is this stuff over here? It looks like something melted, too, but I can’t see through it.” She tried to pick up the melted puddle of iron. “It is much heavier than the glass. Toti told me about this stuff. She said Marbek calls it ‘iron.’ Is this the stuff you and Marbek plan

to re-melt? I’m sorry, Pritak. I should have waited to let you tell me about all this. Toti was so proud of her husband that she had to share his story with me. In the process, she spoiled the surprise. I should have pretended not to know anything.”

Pritak’s countenance had fallen slightly. He WAS disappointed that Lota already knew his surprise. It was his own fault, of course. He should have told her sooner. “It’s okay, Lota. There are lots more things to share. Come on. Let’s go to the fire house.”

This time there was no pause in the run toward the river. Pritak did not talk at all, and Lota was feeling a bit sorry about letting him know she had already heard about this part of the adventure. She would be more careful in future. She and Toti had sneaked down to the fire house several days ago, but she was not going to tell about that, either.

The hut held more surprises since Lota’s and Toti’s visit. For one thing, as soon as the pair arrived at the hut, Pritak cart wheeled up the ladder that was still leaning against the roof of the building.

“Wow, Pritak! What is that thing?”

“We call it a ‘ladder.’ You know, the short pieces are added to make it longer. ‘Longer adder’ got shortened to ‘ladder.’ You like it?”

“It’s ingenious. We could make some ladders for our tree houses. They would sure make it easier to climb up into the trees. Show me the rest of this project. I am already stunned that you made a rock house instead of a thatch hut.”

Pritak was ordinarily very humble. He was the master of his emotions, which is why he only swelled with pride just a little bit. “Come inside. You are definitely going to smell smoky, but I think it will be worth it.”

Once inside the building, Pritak explained their theory about the fire and wind. He took a short piece of bamboo and knocked against the clay-covered bamboo in the fire. Sure enough, the bamboo had burned to ash. Pritak pushed the other end into the fire, explaining to Lota what he was doing and the purpose of the pipe. He showed her the hole in the wall, then took her outside the building to show how his wind funnel worked. She was very impressed.

“Shouldn’t we build the fire back up with some of this wood you guys stacked up outside?”

“That would be a good idea, Lota. Are you sure you want to smell that smoky?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

They got busy with putting wood on the fire. When the blaze was roaring again, Lota suggested maybe they should

put some green wood on the fire. “If we cut down one of these green trees with one of your cutting stones, wouldn’t it take more time for it to burn?”

“Oh, my gizzard, Lota. That’s a great idea. Marbek and I will cut the trees after we re-melt the iron. He thinks that iron will not break like cutting stones. We plan on re-melting the iron tomorrow. Would you like to come help?”

“Yes, I would. Right now, I want to go down to the river. There is a beautiful boulder down by the water, I noticed. Why don’t we go sit on that boulder and talk for awhile?”

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

The drop-off down the river bank was pretty steep. It was fun to cartwheel over the edge of the bank. The second they hit the drop-off, they lost control of their speed for a little. Fortunately, they were able to stop before rolling into the river, if only barely able.

Pritak let Lota take the lead. She stopped rolling and began walking saucily to a ledge of the boulder perfectly situated for sitting. Pritak sat beside her and waited.

She finally began talking -- sofly at first, but gaining volume as his hoped-for reaction surfaced. “You and I have

been friends for a long time, Pritak. Since we were children, we have talked. All the boys made fun of you because of your outlandish ideas, but I never stopped believing in you. We were lucky not to have been eaten by a Begorian Spider; very lucky to have survived that year so many Remuns hatched and thousands of Arviks were sucked dry. Here we are, still friends.

Your parents are gone. So are mine. You lost all your brothers and sisters, and I did, too. Because of you, Arviks can look forward to living much longer lives, yet here we are -- just the two of us -- alone.

I mean, I know Marbek is your friend, so you are not completely alone. With a friend like Toti, I’m not alone, either. I don’t know about you, but I want more. I want a companion with whom I can live my life. I want somebody with whom I can build a house. Don’t get me wrong, I do NOT want children, but I DO want a husband. I was hoping maybe that husband could be you. Would you marry me?”

He was so happy he could not answer. He lost all control of his emotions and began to swell. Pride may be a terrible thing, but he could envision a life with this beautiful person by his side and he swelled some more. Unable to contain his joy, he began to run. He cart wheeled up the bank as far as his swollen body would allow. He couldn’t help it; his beach ball body turned and cart-wheeled back down the

bank. Unable to stop, because his armlegs were nearly engorged within his swollen body, he went into the river. Still his pride did not abate. He was not loony. He knew what was happening. He continued to cart wheel in the water. By maintaining his prideful state, his air sacs kept him floating and his armlegs guided him in the water like paddle wheels.

Pritak was euphoric. He was going to be a married man, AND he could travel over water. He guided himself back to the bank. Once he was on the shore again, he dispensed with the pride and shrank back to his normal state. “Yes, I will marry you, Lota, but first you need to wash off that smoke smell.”

She was laughing, despite the fear she had felt moments before. Her fiance was once again going to teach her a new concept: bathing. She was able to swell easily enough. Getting over her fear of water was the hard thing. Every time fear overcame pride, she would shrink again. Finally, Pritak got proud with her and held her hand as they both went cart-wheeling into the river.

Laughter and pride can co-exist with ease. The couple came out of the river with tired air sacs, tired laugh muscles, and smelling clean. “It’s going to be so much fun being married to you, Pritak. Could we build a big fired clay house here on the river? I just love this place. Now


that we have starved the Remuns into near-extinction, all we have to worry about is the occasional Begorian Spider.”

Word soon spread to the farthest corners of the ‘First Tree House’ community that Lota had asked Pritak to marry her. As was customary, Toti’s extended group of friends had a congratulatory party for the couple on the following day. The older married men were in charge of refreshments, which consisted of melons, grapes, cherries, and mangoes. Someone had placed gourds full of water on the serving boulders beside the fruit.

For the next month, Pritak was taken from his inventions. Festivities were required by convention. Once a marriage proposal was accepted, the wedding date was automatically set for one month in the future.

Each day had a specific event for the female or assignment for the male. Since the female had asked the question, the male was required to prove that his love was genuine. Otherwise, it would have been too easy for a male to give a cavalier ‘yes’ based on something other than affection. Arviks all over Mirror knew that Lota was a prize catch. She had been the first person to slay a Remuns, after all. Maybe Pritak said he would marry her because he needed somebody to protect him. Let him prove his worth.

The assignments for males were pretty lame, in fact. Pritak had proven his worth many times over, and his bride-to-be

knew that well. She was the one to whom he had to prove his love. He had already done that. Still, it was traditional for the female to dole out challenges. She and Pritak were expected to live together during the thirty-day courtship. Neither of them had a hut big enough for two, so they spent each day together and sneaked to their own huts at night.

Pritak told his friend Marbek that he really hated the stupid conventions of society. “What I really need to do, Marbek, is go to the river and build a big fired clay house for us to live in. If I did what I want to do, all these self-righteous and stupid friends of ours would stop speaking to Lota. We have to spend so much time at parties that we have no time to prepare for our life together. Lota’s girl friends whisper things for me to do into Lota’s ear, and she cannot ignore them or they would turn on her.

In the last week, I have had to twirl around on one armleg till I was dizzy, change from purple to green to red to orange twice, do hand-springs down the mountain (and those are hard to do), and sing ‘Three Blind Mice’ as a round with each of my mouths. It’s stupid, I tell you. I would much rather be back at our fire house helping you re-melt the puddle of iron.”

“Don’t you worry about all that, Pritak. Friends are important. You only get married one time. Enjoy the ride. Toti and the children are helping me at the fire house. As far as we can tell, there are no Remuns left, so it has been a

great pleasure to teach my children all the things you have taught me and other things we learned together. Maybe you needed a vacation from our work. Toti has given me quite a few good ideas. She and the children and I plan to provide a huge surprise for your wedding gift.”

It was the first time in his life that Pritak tried NOT to invent anything. His entire focus had to be on his bride. They spent most of their time with Lota’s female friends, though there were occasional parties where males were among the guests. Invariably, the guys would corner Pritak at these parties and pick his brain. They had heard of how he invented climbing. Some of them even knew of his bout with the Begorian Spider. All of them wanted to hear the stories.

Pritak was aware that the facility for invention lay resident in each person. He was altogether without guile or conceit. He tried to use his new-found fame as a platform for teaching others to listen to their own original ideas. His fame grew mightily through these parties, even though he detested them. By being self-effacing as he normally was, and by building the self-confidence of his audience, people fell in love with him. Usually, he encouraged them to do the talking. Once they began to express themselves without fear, he was surprised at how many of them were far smarter than he. Some of them had incredible ideas which they had repressed till he coaxed them into talking about them.

He had to admit that, although he was resistant to going to a party, once he got there he had a good time. The final party was, of course, the wedding.

An Arvik wedding is more like ‘Ring Around the Rosy’ than a more formal or sophisticated social gathering. The only thing that signaled the importance of the event was the bizarre mulberry stains around the bride’s eyes and the scent of crushed onion surrounding the groom. This neighborhood had always marked the marriage path with flowers. The bride was given a three-second head start. If the groom caught the bride before she got back to the finish line, then they were officially married. The bride always let the groom catch her.

Today’s course ran all the way to the beach where the sand melts had been, then over toward the river. The path intersected the ‘First Tree House’ path just before it reached the fire house, and the pair was expected to turn at that intersection and return to the starting point/ finish line.

Lota stood at the start, smiling broadly at her almost-husband. He laughed out loud at her purple markings. He made a mental note to wash off the onions before they consummated their marriage. Somebody hollered, “Go!” and Lota rolled away at a high speed -- giving the audience the impression that Pritak would have to WIN her if he wanted her. “One, Two, Three, GO!” and Pritak took off after her.

Both Lota and Pritak were enjoying the flowers tied to trees along the way. This was such a joyous day that he was not even thinking about ‘spider alley’ as he neared the spot where he saved Marbek’s life. He was so happy to be getting married that the future almost completely crowded out the past.

He had heard death screams before -- many times. In the years before tree houses, the sound of someone’s yelling as they were eaten by a Remuns was common. The scream he was hearing now brought back thoughts of ‘spider alley.’ Lota would be passing that point right about now, and he knew the scream was her scream and he knew instinctively that it was the higher-pitched scream brought by a Begorian Spider attack. He dug into the ground, bringing his speed to as fast as he could move. He dreaded what he was going to see. Maybe he could get there in time to save her, though he did not have a weapon on his person. It was his wedding day, after all, and such attire would have been frowned upon.

As he rounded the last bend, passing the banana grove where the spider had lived, he saw the spider’s body completely covering Lota. With no thought for his own safety, he lunged onto the spider’s back and began punching it as hard as he could.

“Stop! Stop!” Lota cried. He punched harder. “Stop, Pritak. I’m telling YOU to stop. The spider is just an

empty husk. His skin blew out of the banana orchard onto me. It scared the punk out of me -- that’s all. I’m sorry I screamed, but there was no way I could have stopped myself.” She began to laugh, lying on her side. It was a good thing that Arvik’s eyes were very hard and difficult to scratch. With no eyelid, her eye was against the sand. “I can’t wait to tell Toti that my husband is more dangerous than a Begorian Spider. From the force of your wallops, I’d say that you would have killed the spider if he hadn’t been dead already.”

She sat up on the trail, rubbed the dirt off her eye, and picked up the spider skin. “This must be the spider you fought. Look! Her mouth is burned off. I have never seen a spider skin before.”

“I’m quite sure you haven’t. When a spider dies, other spiders usually eat them. Apparently this old girl lived alone. Let’s keep the skin.”

“Absolutely. Notice how this black skin stretches. I could make something out of this. Hey, I have an idea. If we stretch the mouth open, we can put this skin over my body. She was a lot bigger than I am. Help me. Put the mouth over my eye so I can see. Then you chase me to the finish line.”

“Oh, baby, aren’t you afraid that our guests might beat you to death?”

“Not a chance. They will scatter like the scaredy parrots they are. Let’s get a laugh at their expense. I know it sounds mean, but Pritak, how else are we going to get it back home? I’m serious about wanting to keep this skin.”

“Okay, then,” he agreed as he helped her slip into the skin and pulled the gaping mouth hole over one eye. “Stay close enough so you can hear my voice in case a male Begorian Spider shows up wanting to breed.”

Lota laughed and laughed at the picture this created in her mind. Male Begorian Spiders were eaten after they mated. She could see herself trying to eat a male Begorian Spider.

The skin fit loosely over her body. She was able to cart wheel inside the spider body effortlessly. The trip took longer than it would normally have taken, but their arrival at the finish line was worth the extra time.

Arviks scattered in every direction -- some screaming, others with children attached to their armlegs, some cart wheeling and others walking upright. It was too much comedy for the groom to endure. He laughed and laughed until he could no longer stand upright.

“Help me out of this thing, Pritak. It’s hot in here.”

As Pritak helped Lota out of her spider suit, friends and celebrants cautiously approached the pair. Some thought

the spider had found Lota’s taste disagreeable, so he threw her up. Most of them were simply too puzzled at what they had just witnessed to make sense of it. Toti and Marbek were the first to return. “What is this?” Toti asked.

“We believe this is the skin of the spider that tried to eat Marbek,” Lota said. “We found it on the side of the path. I admit that it scared me, but it did not scare Pritak at all. Look at the scar on its abdomen. It looks to me like there was a burn which healed before it died. Its mouth is obliterated, which fits the story Marbek and Pritak told.”

“What are you going to do with it?” There was a twinge of jealousy in Toti’s voice.

“Keep it, I guess. Maybe when we build our own house we can find a use for it.”

Marbek cleared his throats. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?” he asked his wife.

“We can both tell them.” Toti addressed the relieved crowd with a loud invitation. “All of you follow us. We are taking the newlyweds with us. Our family has a gift to give to our best friends.” Toti did not hesitate. “Leave the spider skin here, Lota. Nobody will bother it. They are all too afraid. I will come get it for you later today. Come on.”



It was the two females who led the band of revelers with
their husbands following closely. Marbek’s and Toti’s children were trying their best to give away the surprise. One of the adults would make a loud noise to interrupt each time a child said, “Bet you don’t know what WE got you.” Children find it difficult to contain their joy and excitement. At the speed with which the group was traveling, the destination was reached before the chaps ruined the fun.

The fire house stood exactly where it had been a month ago. Attached to it was another fired clay hut that was eight or ten times as big. “What’s this?” Lota asked.

“This,” Toti answered, “is our house. Marbek and the kids and I have had so much fun. We love the location of this house. The kids were so good at thatching and mud-slinging that it was complete before we knew it. Preeco helped her older brothers and sisters in making longer ladders, so we were able to make a really big room, which will be great for the kids and their friends on rainy days.”

“This not the surprise,” Preeco interrupted with a pout.

“I guess we’d better show you the real surprise before the chaps give it away. Follow me.” Lota rolled down a newly-stomped trail to the right of her clay home. At the next river bend was a house just slightly smaller than Toti’s.
“Welcome to your new home,” she said, swelling with pride. “The children wanted to do this for you.”

Lota made no effort to hide her joy. She swelled, shrank, blinked various colors, and squealed. “Oh, Toti, this is wonderful. Thank you so much.”

“Go inside,” Preeco said, tugging on one of Lota’s lips. “Daddy made places for you put things.”

Sure enough, when Lota and Pritak rolled into their new home, there were shelves and a hinged-lid clay trunk for storing anything of value. The show stopper was the back wall. There were two huge picture windows. Pritak looked at his friend Marbek -- speechless. “How…?”

“Our plan worked, Pritak. Toti helped me build what we now call a ‘fire box.’ The wind blows in, making the fire hot enough to melt sand into glass. It also melts the iron, though that took some doing. I made you a present from Toti and Me. Here!” He handed Pritak a long, thin piece of iron with a split bamboo handle glued to one end. “It is very sharp. I don’t know what to call it. It can be a weapon or it can be a cutting tool. When its edge gets dull, you can sharpen it on a sand stone. I’ll show you how. You can carry it just like you carried that torch, or you can strap it to your armleg with spider web when we can get some more. I used up every last bit of web we had left. Sorry.”

“Oh, Marbek, no apology is necessary. I am speechless. Just our home would have been enough. I am so ready to


live back on the ground. Do you think the Remuns are really extinct?”

“There’s no way of knowing, Pritak. We have not seen them in a long time, but I wouldn’t bet on it. You and Lota go on into your new home and enjoy some private time. Now that we live next to each other, we have lots of time for new adventures. Children!” he called. “Everybody out of Pritak’s and Lota’s house. They need some time to be by themselves.” The children and guests all rolled away. Toti had one last surprise.

“Lota,” she whispered, “Missi left you a clay bowl full of Memnoc fruit. You may want to eat some of it before you and Pritak … you know.” She giggled, closed the door behind her, and left the couple in their new home.

Next morning, when the pair woke up, they were still in awe of this new home. It was strange to be able to look out at the river while still inside. “I wonder if Marbek and Toti have a glass window in their new home.” Lota wondered.

“No, they don’t. Marbek told me we should be careful. They tried putting a window in the children’s room. One of the chaps was playing too roughly. He broke the window and cut himself badly. Marbek says glass is wonderful for adults, but even we should be careful. When this stuff breaks, it has very sharp edges that can be dangerous.”


“Let’s go to the river again, Pritak. We have not been swimming since I proposed. I would like to do it again. After last night, you have PLENTY to be proud of,” she tittered.

They opened the door. There, just outside their new home, was the Begorian Spider hide. “Oh, look! Toti brought the spider skin from where I left it in the tree house village, like she promised. Gosh! That reminds me, Pritak. I want lots and lots more of these skins. Oh, never mind. When I think of how close you and Marbek came to getting killed over this skin, it’s just not worth it. Forget it. I don’t want any more skins.”

Pritak picked up the skin, “Let me put this away in your new chest, baby.” He rolled to the hinged-lid trunk, lifted the lid, dropped the spider skin inside, and closed it. “At least you won’t lose this one,” he said as he rolled back to his wife. “Come on, let’s go for a swim. I need to tell you, though, that Marbek and I really HAVE to get some more spider web. If we are to keep our families safe, maybe we should go looking for spiders. Maybe, with these new iron weapons, we should rouse the men around here and go in search of Remuns, too. You know, we are not certain that they are gone.”

“Uh-HUH!” Lota grunted skeptically. “MEN are going to go looking for trouble? I don’t think so. Look, my love, Toti and I were talking about the safety of our families not

long ago. It’s funny that you brought up the subject. Now that Toti helped Marbek make iron weapons, it’s the women who need to become the hunters. You know that I am not afraid of Remuns. If you will let me use your new cutting tool, I think Toti and I will be able to get all the spider web you and Marbek need for your projects. It’s sweet of you guys to offer, but you know it’s the females who are the bravest.”

“I admit, Lota, that women have always been the bravest of our species. You were certainly the bravest person I ever met. You killed a Remuns with your bare hands and a melon.” They both laughed at the memory. “But you have to admit -- I DID kill a Begorian Spider. I didn’t know I killed it at the time. Marbek and I thought we had just run her off.”

“Just a minute, husband. It was not you and Marbek who did anything. YOU defeated the spider -- by yourself. Now that that’s cleared up, finish your thought.”

“Okay. You’re right. I fought the spider. Actually, I have been WANTING to fight another spider. Now that we have fire AND iron weapons, maybe there is nothing to fear. When I burned that spider’s abdomen, and then her face, SHE was scared of ME. Come on, let’s go for a swim, and then I think you and I should go looking for trouble. Honestly, I think we will make a good team. I would rather go adventuring with you than with Marbek.”

All Lota could do was smile. The path to the river went right by Marbek’s and Toti’s house. The door to the fire house was open as they passed. Toti had the temperature of her fire high enough to make her new iron fire box red, but not high enough to melt it. She was melting sand in a square mold on top of the fire box. “Where are you guys headed?” she asked.

“We are going for a swim in the river, Toti. Would you like to go with us?” Lota wanted to show off her new skill to her best friend.

“Sure. I’ve never heard of an Arvik swimming before, but until you and Pritak convinced us, nobody had climbed trees. Now our people are LIVING in them. Give me just a minute to smother this fire down. You really need to come over later to catch up on all we have learned about fire. Marbek even learned to make fire without lightning.”

The sand had melted and needed to cool, anyway. Marbek came rolling up with sheaths of sticks tied to his armlegs. “Oh, hi. I have been gathering wood for the fire. You see how I used the last of the spider web, I guess. I needed three sticky-ties to attach things to my armlegs so I can roll instead of walk. You know how much I hate walking.”

“Yes, I do. You guys both smell like smoke. Why don’t you come with your wife and go swimming with us.” Pritak was as eager as Lota to show their friends something

new. It was fun to have people with whom to share adventures, and these two had been part of the newlyweds’ lives from the beginning. From the way Toti talked, Pritak knew they had added to the accumulated knowledge. He was eager to be taught what they knew. He also wanted to find out if they might want to join the hunt. After all, two knives would be better than one.

“Sure. Hon, it looks like you have the fire smothered down. Did you tell our friends how easy it is to start a fire?”

“Not yet, father of the world.” It was Toti’s little joke, considering that she had figured how quickly the population would explode if her children had only five children apiece. “Let’s go with them to learn how to swim first. Children!” she called loudly with all three mouths. “Come on, children. Let’s all go to the river.”

She did not have to say it twice. Already the children’s favorite pastime was rolling down the steep embankment. The seventeen Arviks rolled single-file down the hill, veering off at the last minute to keep from rolling into the river. Many a child had drowned at this very spot in years gone by.

“Watch this,” cried Pritak as he continued to roll, engaging his air sacs as he rolled right into the water. Lota squealed with delight and followed suit. They paddle-wheeled around in the water for about a minute before coming to

shore. They were laughing delightedly, especially given the looks on the faces of their friends and the children.

Preeco was the first, jumping up and down, saying, “Show me. Teach me. I want to swim.”

“Okay, children,” Lota began. “Your uncle Pritak taught me how to climb trees, and then he taught me how to swim. First, you must maintain your pride. If you become humble during a swim, you could drown. Next, you must learn to breath with the mouth that is OUT of the water. It’s easy to do. Once your air sacs are inflated, you will float. Use your armlegs to run in the water just like you run on the ground. Hold your breath with whatever mouths are under water, and breathe when your mouth is in the air. If you find your air sac muscles getting tired, get out of the water.”

It was almost more fun to watch them swim than it was to swim yourself. Preeco was a natural. Her favorite little brother Pilak was harder to teach. He finally got the hang of it. It was the youngest ones who would learn to use their air sacs without having an emotional involvement -- without pride.

The morning was still young when the swimming was done. The adults sat around on boulders, talking about all they had learned, while the children played chase. “I think the kids know their air sac muscles are tired. None of them seems to want to get back in the water. This is the best

thing yet, Pritak,” Marbek offered. “I’m almost ashamed of what I have to offer. You always come up with the best stuff.”

“If you can teach me how to make fire without lightning, that is not such a minor thing, Marbek. Besides that, your family has given us some gifts that even the richest Arviks never had before. Whoever HEARD of having a hard window you could see through? And how many of our forebears had such a big rock house with a door to keep us safe from predators? Believe me, friends, we do not see you as less important than we are. Nobody can do it all, nobody can THINK it all. You are as important to me as I am to myself.”

“You know something? You’re right. In fact, I did not invent how to make fire all by myself. Toti was sharpening our machetes -- that’s what she calls those long metal cutting tools. She had picked up a flint stone, which she thought would be good for sharpening your knife and our knives. It was getting dark outside when she was working on the knife, and I saw that every time she hit the flint with the iron, it made a spark like a little ember. I told her what I was thinking. ‘You’re making embers, Toti. I wonder if we could make a fire with those embers.’ She said, ‘Yes, but the embers die too quickly to make a fire.’

She and I brainstormed over this discovery for several days. I don’t even know which one of us decided that maybe the

kindling had to be smaller in order to catch fire. We worked on it together, finally coming up with shavings we scraped from a log and learning to strike the flint with the machete such that we created a big plume of embers. I was making the sparks into the pile of shavings when Toti saw smoke. She’s been tending the fire so much lately that she knew wind would make a better fire. She blew on the tinder where we had seen smoke, and in an instant there was fire.”

Toti appreciated the way her friends had colored-up with the telling of this story. She added, “It was amazing. We have played with this thing a lot lately. Just like the only stones that give us iron are the iron ore stones, the only stones we have found that give us fire are flint stones. It seems the founders have hidden things in each kind of stone. Sand makes glass, iron ore makes iron, flint makes fire. We are having so much fun, and it’s all because you guys showed us how much fun it is to think.”

“You’re going to have to show me how to make the fire, Toti,” Lota said. “How many machetes have you made?”

“Right now, we only have three. It takes a lot of wood to make the fire hot enough to extract iron from the ore. Why do you ask?”

“I guess it’s alright to include our friends in our adventure, huh, Pritak?” Lota looked at her husband, trying to read his body language. He had indicated that he wanted to go on

the spider hunt with just the two of them. The females were much braver than the males, as a rule, but Lota knew there was safety in numbers, especially if they had more weapons.

“I certainly have no objections,” he said.

“Okay, then. Here’s what I’ve been thinking. I have not even told Pritak everything I’m thinking. We need more spider web, right?”

“Right,” said Marbek. “And the sooner the better. The MORE the better.”

“I don’t mean to brag,” Lota continued, “ but I killed a Remuns and Pritak killed a Begorian Spider. Maybe the Remuns are extinct since their main food source has taken to the trees, out of their reach -- I don’t know. I DO know that there are still Begorian Spiders out there. They may be closer to us than we know. Their black shiny bodies are hard to see, and even though they eat mainly banana leaves, they will certainly eat us. Do you think, Marbek, that these new machetes would kill a spider?”

“Well, if they won’t, fire certainly will. Your husband is the master of running with a torch in his hand. Let me get this straight. Are you suggesting we go on a spider hunt?, ‘cause if you are, I’m certainly game. Toti has been practicing cart wheeling with a torch ever since I told her

about the fire. I think she got a little jealous that your husband saved my life instead of her.” He turned to his wife, reading from Lota’s and Pritak’s body language that this was indeed what they had in mind. “You ready to redeem yourself, baby? You want to go get some web?”

“You bet I am. I bet I can kill a spider as easily as Pritak -- or any man, for that matter.”

“Wait a minute, folks,” Lota still had not sprung her main surprise. “I’m not after the web. I mean, I know you guys are wanting web. I want web, too -- don’t get me wrong -- but the main thing I want is more spider skins. Have you felt that skin, Toti? In my mind I have made all kinds of things from that skin. For now, I want to keep my secret, but once we get thirty or forty skins, there’s something huge I have in mind. So, are you guys ready to face death again?”

“Don’t know why not,” Marbek intoned. “We have faced death every day of our lives until recently. When we faced death accidentally, it overtook us quickly. Once we faced death on purpose, we lived rather than died. If you survived the Remuns in order to save our child, Lota; and if you survived a Begorian Spider in order to save my life, Pritak; the four of us together should make a winning team. Let’s go. I know right where there’s a big bitch spider with an egg sac in her web.


You guys have a machete. I have my own machete, with a strap to hold it to my armleg. Toti made one just the right size for her smaller armlegs, and she made herself a spare which will fit you perfectly, Lota. You guys go get your weapon, and we’ll meet back here. Honey, go tell the older kids to watch the babies and tell them what we are doing. If anything should happen, I want them to know why we are not coming back.”

The excitement of the hunt was pervasive. The children wanted to go. It took a bit of persuasion by the older kids along with a healthy dose of subterfuge to keep the babies from following the hunters. They finally convinced Preeco and Pilak to play hide-and-seek down by the river. The quartet sneaked away on their adventure, keeping one eye backward in case the children decided to follow.

Marbek took the lead. He often traveled the path that led past the village. A little over five miles past the tree house village, Toti called for her husband to stop. “We forgot the fire, honey. I brought the flint. Look up at that pine tree. It has a knot that’s leaking resin. Let me climb up there and cut it to use as a torch.”

The only person with straps to hold his machete against his armleg was Marbek. The others had been cart wheeling on their knuckles, holding machetes out to the side of their bodies. They were most eager to collect webbing to make travel easier. Like Marbek, none of them much liked

walking, when cart wheeling was very much faster. If Toti was right about this pine knot, then they would be able to burn the new web into exactly the right lengths for weapon straps. They were thinking ahead. With no water, it would be best to use raw webbing that had not been dusted to make it un-sticky.

Lota wanted to cut off the spider’s head. Burning her would damage the leather. Once Toti returned with the pine knot, all three of her hands held something. She had a machete in one hand, flint in another, and a pine knot in the third. “How far are we from this spider, Marbek? I’m running on all knuckles here. It really hurts to run this way.”

“I’m sorry, baby. Do you want me to carry something?”

“I’m alright. Just tell me how much further we have to go.”

“We’re almost there. You can see the bend up ahead. That sycamore tree you see is hiding the banana grove where I saw the spider. We need to be careful from here on. Do you think maybe we should light the torch before we go any further?”

Pritak spoke up. “Yeah. There’s lots of pine straw here. It ought to be dry enough for kindling, since it has not rained in a couple of days. This will be a good time for you to teach us how to make a fire with the flint, Toti.”

Lota and Pritak set their weapons on the ground and began raking up a pile of pine straw. Pritak ran ahead to get some of the flaking bark from the sycamore tree, which he brought back to Lota. He reasoned that pine straw might make a good start, but they would need something slightly heavier to add once a flame was established.

Toti needed all three hands to complete this assignment. “Okay, you guys. Stand on one armleg. Take the flint in one hand and strike it with the back of your machete like this.” She demonstrated her skill, not trying to catch the pine straw afire. She handed the flint to Lota. “You try it. Do it right over the straw. Be careful. If you use the sharp edge of your machete, you can cut your hand off. Use the back side with force and with a long stroke across the face of the rock. Get close to your straw, and be ready to blow when you see smoke.”

Pritak could not believe his eyes when his wife set the pile of straw afire with her first stroke. Like every other skill, it was easier for the second person than it had been for the one who originated it. Toti was a good teacher. Pritak bent on one armleg and blew on the straw. He added the pieces of sycamore bark once the flames licked upward. Toti took the opportunity to put her torch into the fire, and the leaking resin was set ablaze at once. “Put out the fire, and let’s go,” she said happily.



Gently, Pritak patted out the fire with his bare hands and covered the small black spot it left with dirt he dug up with his machete. By the time he was satisfied the fire was completely extinguished, the other three were far down the trail in front of him. He grabbed his machete and ran after his friends. They all stopped at the sycamore tree.

He had not seen the huge spider web next to the banana forest when he collected the sycamore bark, but it was easily visible from this spot. They could see the spider in the banana grove less than a meter from the web, gingerly chewing a tender sprout. Pritak put his observations of the eating sow in the back of his mind. There was a large decaying banana trunk which had been cut and discarded onto the short green grass beside the orchard. ‘Maybe,’ Pritak thought, ‘the spider cut the big banana tree so that she could eat the tender sprouts as they come back up from the stump.’

It did not matter much, and he wondered why he wasted his time in analysis. She would be dead soon. Whether Pritak was the first to approach the web out of bravado, or if he simply wanted to maintain his reputation in front of his new bride, he was the first to walk (rather than cart wheel) up to the web and yell at the spider. Standing on one armleg and waving the other two wildly, he got the old girl’s attention.

She pounced onto the back side of her web and returned a menacing sound. Marbek motioned the girls to stay back.

He knew Pritak well enough to know there was a tactic involved. He probably read more into Pritak’s actions than existed in fact. It worked out okay, nonetheless. “Be careful, friend,” Marbek warned.

The shiny black foe ran to the top of her ten-foot web. This web was anchored high into the trees above it -- unlike the web that had caught Marbek. Pritak must have thought this spider would pause as the other had done. She had not seen the torch and was not intimidated in the least. She did not stop at the top of her web, but used the elasticity of the top rope to spring into the air. She landed with force, knocking Pritak to the ground under her. She walked with four legs and held her captive with the middle four.

Pritak’s arms were free. The spider was hungry, else she might have stung him with her tail, paralyzing him for a later meal. Rather than waste precious time, she went for his big reflective eye with her jaws. He thought fast and brought his machete up in front of the eye that faced the enemy. Her jaws snapped shut on the blade. Now that she had him with her mouth, she thought, she released his body with her legs and shook the machete this way and that. She had torn many weak Arviks apart with this method.

Pritak held onto his weapon for dear life, Toti coming in full voice, yelling like a banshee. She held the sword in one hand, the torch in the other, and attacked the black menace. She was careful to not burn her friend as she stuck her torch

into the spider’s face. By striking the side of Pritak’s machete with the fire, she guided the torch accurately as it followed the blade to those pinchers and burned the spider’s mouth apart. The resin bubbling from the pine knot sizzled and popped from contact with the spider’s head. Though the spider released her hold on Pritak’s blade, she had not acted soon enough. The red hot resin splattered all over her face, blinding her. She ran screaming to the orchard.

The scream from the spider furled all their ears. “What do we do now?” asked Lota.

“I’ll tell you one thing. I’m going to let that bitch die before I try to skin her. She’s floundering in that banana grove, trying to get some relief. My wife delivered a killing blow. Of that I am certain, but she’s not dead yet. She can still sting, and she could break an armleg with all that thrashing about. We can get the web if you guys will help me put dust on it.”

“Yeah. I’ll help with that, Marbek. You just saved my life, Toti. Gosh, this is a great team to be on.”

“I have to thank you right back, Pritak. You engaged this black balloon without any thought for yourself. All I did was use my motherly instinct. Once she had your machete in a death grip, I was terrified that she was going to sting you or let go of the blade and go for an armleg. I acted on pure nerves. I agree with Marbek that we should leave the

carcass to rot and dry. If we take the egg sac that’s attached to the web, then her babies will not eat her body. Maybe we can come back for the dried skin in a week or two. What do you guys think? Should we burn the egg sac or build a mud hut and start raising the babies?”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, Toti,” Lota voiced. “You know something? Those spider babies are not ready to hatch just yet. You see no movement in the cocoon fibers. If we build a fired clay house, fill it with banana leaves, and seal the eggs inside the house with fresh green leaves, the babies will get too big to get out of that house pretty quickly. We can make a glass wall on one side so we can see how big the spiders are. Either put a tight-fitting hinged door for feeding them, or knock progressively bigger holes that they can’t fit through. What do you think?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Toti picked up Lota’s enthusiasm. “That way we will never have to go searching for spider skins or webs again. We can harvest spider skins we grow ourselves.”

“Oh, my! I have seen brave females before. These go beyond bravery -- all the way to reckless. What ARE we going to do with our women-folk, Pritak? This is your doing, you know. You probably put Lota up to this.” Marbek laughed as he spoke. He knew, as they all did, that it was their combined energy which brought about such a sense of trying new things.

They dusted the web thoroughly before burning its anchors, which made it much easier to wrap around Marbek’s body. He had carried a web once before, and knew just how to wrap it. They used the undusted ends of the webs as straps for carrying the machetes and flint. Toti liked her torch, but was unwilling to cart wheel while holding the fire. She used the loose damp sand on the trail to snuff the fire. It cooled quickly. When she was satisfied that it was cool enough, she asked Lota, “Is there enough sticky web left for you to strap this pine knot to my side? It’s about the same length as the distance across my body. If you can glue it under my eye with spider web straps, I’ll be able to take it with us.”

“Sure. If this works, it’s going to be a neat trick.” Lota dusted her hands to keep the sticky web from sticking to her hands. The straps under the eye worked like a charm.

Pritak had disappeared while the others were wrapping things up. He had the egg ball strapped to an armleg, and he now had a strap for his machete. This was going to be great. He wanted to check on the spider’s whereabouts before they left. He would hate to do all this work and have the spider wander off and be lost. She was lying with her legs folded under her body in the middle of the banana grove. This was a dangerous animal. Pritak knew they were justified in eliminating the problem, but he could not help feeling sorry for her. Stealthily, he pulled his sword loose from its scabbard and moved silently to the side of his

injured prey. She was so badly hurt that all her thoughts were directed inward rather than outward. The swift arch of his machete deftly removed the spider’s head. It was over. There was no quivering, no pain, and Pritak was glad. He dug up a banana sprout by the roots, strapped it in the sheath with his machete, and rejoined his team. Without his telling them what he had done, they all went back home to begin building the spider house.

What an auspicious day this had been. Pritak asked his friend’s advice on where to plant the beginning sprout of a banana orchard. They decided on a patch of deep fertile soil near the top of the river’s flood plain. It stayed moist here, got plenty of sun, and the river rarely rose this high during the rainy season.

Toti knew, if the rest of them did not, that building a big clay hut would be very easy. All she had to do was tell the children they were going to build a spider house. The adults used bamboo struts to form up the frame, leaving a hole in its side the size of Toti’s largest plate of glass. When she told the children that the one who threw the most clay onto the structure would be the first one allowed to see the spiders when they hatched, it took no time before the red structure was ready to be fired.

They took all the dry wood that could be found in the area and stacked it all the way to the roof of the mud-covered hut. Maybe the kids looked forward to having a new

building between their house and their neighbors’ house. At the moment, they were more happy about starting a fire. Toti decided to use this as an opportunity to teach the children. Each of them was encouraged to find flint, take a left-over piece of iron, and try to set the wood pile inside the new structure ablaze. As usual, Preeco’s precociousness paid off.

The fire burned for three days, cooled for two, before the window and hinged feeding door were ready to be put in place. Pritak helped put in the window and door before he ran to the chest where he had placed the spider egg for safe-keeping. He checked it every day, of course, to make sure it had not hatched.

On this last trip to carry the unborn spiders to their final home, he saw movement. The spiders were tiny, microscopic-sized creatures inside their silken cocoon. He hoped the little bit of new growth he harvested from his banana plant would be enough to encourage the newborns to stay inside the building. If only they would stay with the food source, maybe they would grow fast enough to not be able to slip through the tiny crack between the hinged door and the fired clay. He placed the freshly-cut banana leaf in the center of the room and lay the spiders on top of it. Back outside, he could see the egg easily enough. He caulked the crack around the hinged door as an added precaution. He felt that another trip to the banana grove where the dead spider lay was warranted.

The children had been involved in most of this process. They had learned to be more careful with glass, and now had a large window in their dormitory. Many nights, the adults gathered in the play room/ dormitory to share their tales and their ideas with the moon’s bright light shining in. Several of the older children even had their own knives as a result of the burgeoning catalog of shared knowledge. All the children were allowed to go with the adults to help dig banana shoots and carry back the Begorian Spider skin. Pritak thought it wise to also cut several large banana shoots to feed the baby spiders as soon as they hatched.

Upon their return home, Marbek opened the spider house door, knocking the loose mud caulk aside, and lifted Preeco through the opening. “Be careful, little one. Take these banana leaves and put them close to the egg. Look carefully to see whether the babies have left the cocoon.”

She did as she was told, accepting this as the reward she had earned for throwing the most mud and starting the fire. “Daddy! Daddy! They are all over the banana leaf.”

“Are they on the ground, as well?”

“No, sir. They are only on the banana leaf. There must be a million of them. Where do I put these leaves?”

“Lay the leaves gently on top of the spiders, then come on back here. Always remember these are dangerous creatures.

They are not pets. I need to check you over carefully when I lift you back out of the spider house to be sure none of these demons escape by getting on you.”

Preeco had matured a great deal just in the time since Pritak and Lota were married. She enjoyed the attention of her father. “If I see a baby spider on me, I should squash it, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. What should we do now that the door is closed?”

“Caulk it with mud.”

“Right -- at least until the beasts are too big to slip through the crack. We placed this hinged swinging door too high for the little children to reach. It lifts instead of swinging to the side for the same purpose of safety. The third way to protect the little children from their own curiosity is what?”

“ME!” Preeco laughed and clapped her hands.

“Right again. Be sure to tell the other older children to help you keep their little brothers and sisters and cousins safe. We don’t mind visitors, but if anybody won’t obey the rules, they will not be allowed to visit anymore. We don’t want anybody getting hurt, do we?”

“No, sir. You can depend on me.”

The addition of all the extra banana rootings increased that orchard fast enough that the quartet of friends were satisfied there would be plenty of spider food. Watching the spiders was practically a full-time hobby of everyone in this part of Mirror. The children had taught their friends how to swim by using their air sacs. This led to the exploration of the far shore by older Arviks, ready to start a life separate from their parents. Within six months after the children learned to swim, all Arvik-dom saw the same phenomenon as had happened with tree climbing. That’s why all the visitors were coming to see the now-half-grown spiders. So many Arviks from ‘over the water’ were now swimming across.

There was a planet-wide surge in technology when the visitors were introduced to fire houses, fired clay buildings, glass, iron, and now spider houses. Pritak knew what nobody else seemed to acknowledge: many people were as smart as- or smarter than- he. There was no method of monetary exchange on Mirror at this stage. Marbek was happy to share his knowledge, but it was taking more and more of his time to show others how to do what he was doing. Many of them did not even WANT to know. They just wanted him to give them flint, fire, glass, and machetes. It was frustrating.

Fame was frustrating. The four friends had people knocking on their doors all the time -- people they had never met. There was not even time for the two couples to spend private time together.

Preeco and Pilak were inseparable. These days, they were the primary caregivers for the spiders. Pilak would hold the torch, of which the spiders were terrified, while Preeco opened the door and tossed fresh banana leaves into the enclosure. The Begorian Spiders had grown so large during the years since their captivity that they had to be fed a dozen or more times a day. It was becoming a major burden on these last two children of Toti’s still living at home. They, also, were weary of the constant attention that notoriety had brought.

Preeco came up with an outstanding idea to keep from entertaining strangers every minute of every day. She ran to Lota’s and Pritak’s house late one night. Arviks were still frightened to travel at night. Preeco used this fact to spend time with her ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle.’ They were no kin, but as a mark of respect Preeco called Lota and Pritak ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle.’

“I am sick to death of being so popular, you guys. Are you?”

“Oh, by the founders, yes! I have been trying to come up with some way to put some distance between us and them. Pritak does not want to be rude, or I would run them all off with a torch.” It made Lota laugh to say such a thing, but Pritak knew she was not joking entirely.



“Well… I have an idea. I need your help. Since we have not seen a Remuns in years, I believe it is safe to travel at night. I want to surround our shore line with pieces of bamboo. I bet it won’t take even one whole night for you guys, my parents, Pilak and me to cut the bamboo and drive it into the ground across the path and surrounding our houses. Uncle Pritak, you and Daddy are really good at making hinged doors. If you put a hinged door into the line of bamboo, we could come inside, but if we lock the door then nobody else can come in.”

“My gizzard, girl! You are as smart as your mother, aren’t you?” Pritak exclaimed. “Is your mother still collecting pine knots to use for torches?”

“She sure is. Why?”

“’Cause I have a hammer stone that’s begging to be used. With a little torch light, I can use it tonight. Your Aunt Lota and I have no private time, any more. We even came close to putting clay over our window. People just walk up to our house and stare inside through the window. I am so tired of living like this. Your idea makes a lot of sense. Go get your parents. Tell them about your idea, and tell them we are ready to build something together again. Tell Toti to bring some torches for light. I can stand to miss a night’s sleep to reclaim my privacy.”



Preeco and Pilak were delighted at the response of the older folks. Marbek was still the strongest, so he stayed in the bamboo forest and cut. Preeco and Pilak transported the bamboo, whittled each piece to the proper length, and dropped off the ready stakes to Lota and Toti. Lota and Toti alternated taking the stakes and holding them upright for Pritak to drive them into the ground with his hammer stone. It was a very effective assembly line.

The sun came up on a well-built fence. It had no gate on that first day. As it turned out, that was a good thing. The droves of people wanting to see the spiders could not figure a way past the fence. The friends caught up on their sleep while the would-be visitors wondered aloud whether they were at the right place.

Lota was the first to wake in late afternoon. The curiosity seekers had gone away, and her husband and their friends were still asleep. She knew their fence would create peace for only a little while. Their celebrity was too great for the smitten fanatics to give up. She was ready for the next step. Now was the time for her to reveal why she wanted all these spider skins in the first place.

She paced back and forth in front of the spider house. How could she put these spiders to sleep so she could safely harvest the skins she needed and save their webs at the same time? She did not want to starve them, for they would eat each other and she would lose valuable hides. She

thought about knocking a hole in the roof and filling the building with sand, but that would be very taxing and it would take a lot of time. It would probably damage the skins, as well; and who knew whether they would smother even then? Preeco showed up at the point when Lota had run out of ideas.

“Did you get enough rest, Aunt Lota?”

“Oh, hi, Preeco. Yes, I’m pretty much caught up. This is the first day in a long time we did not have to worry about getting so much unwanted attention. You really came up with a good idea with that bamboo fence. Hey, I bet you can solve the problem I am having right now.

Look, Preeco, we brought these Begorian Spiders over here because I wanted their skins. I have two skins now. These spiders, thanks to you and Pilak, are big enough to harvest. Unfortunately, I did not think about how to process them. I’m in no mood to let them out of their cage one at a time and fight them to the death. Talk about unsavory circumstances! We cannot burn them or we will lose their hides, which is what I need. This whole building is full of their webs, too. Your daddy would beat me with a bamboo stick if we do anything to destroy the webs.

I wish I were smarter. Maybe there is some plant that would poison them. I do not know enough about plants. Is there anything you know that might shed some light on my

problem; some solution that I have not thought of? You have watched the spiders every day when you feed them. Is there something in their behavior that might help us? With all this celebrity, I’m ready to get out of here. I need these spider pelts to do that.”

“You have come to the right person, Aunt Lota. It is not my observation of the spiders, but my work in the fire house that will solve your problem. At least, I THINK it may solve your problem.

There is a gum tree that we avoid using in the fire box. We always were aware that this tree is toxic when it burns. One time we put a load of nothing but this wood into the fire box. It knocked my mother unconscious. She didn’t make a big deal about it, but she strongly suggested we not burn that wood any more.

What if we knock a small hole in the bottom of the spider house wall? Put it on the windy side and get Uncle Pritak to mold a clay funnel like he did on the fire house. We could dig a hole and start a fire, using only this gum tree wood for the fire. When the wind blows the smoke into the spider house, if it acts on spiders like it does on Arviks, we will soon know. If it does not work, at least we gave it a good try.”

“Oh, Preeco. You are the best. The good thing is, if that wood doesn’t work, maybe there’s another wood that will.

It could be that the smoke by itself will kill them. Let’s wait till your folks and my husband wake up, and we can try your idea. Is there a lot of that gum tree growing nearby?”

“Oh, yeah, Aunt Lota. That’s the reason we found out about it in the first place. It was growing all over the place -- easy to get. Do you mind if I ask where you plan to go? I sure hope you plan for us to go with you. You are not leaving Uncle Pritak, are you?”

Lota laughed and laughed. “You’re the sweetest child who ever lived, Preeco. I’m GLAD I saved your life when you were a little girl. Yes, I hope you all go with me. No, I do not plan to leave my husband. Let me wait and tell all of you at the same time. What I have been thinking about may be crazy. All I know is, I love how much better my life is since Pritak started trying all this new stuff. I HATE the unwanted attention. I want to go someplace where there are no other Arviks. I’m just not sure where that is.”

The two continued to talk casually, patiently waiting for the rest of their party to join them. During the lulls in their conversation, Preeco began to wonder what Lota had in mind. Go to a place where there were no other Arviks? That had a certain appeal. At the same time, Preeco nor her brother Pilak had yet found a mate. How could they ever get married if they were isolated from others of their species? She could hardly wait for the family to wake up so

she could get some answers. Preeco was old enough to be on her own, but she wanted to be with her people. She did not want them to leave, on the one hand, yet she knew how intolerable the situation had become.

Pilak came wheeling around the corner about that time. “What’s up, Sis?” he asked. Something important was on the air. The body language of these two females told him so.

“We are talking about a spider harvest,” Preeco began. Get your machete and help me dig a hole on the west side of the spider house. I’ll go with you to get my machete as well.”

While the siblings were gone, Lota gave more thought to her plan. It was a little frightening. Even so, something had to be done. Her idea was still the best plan she could come up with. It was time to tell her husband and her friends.

It did not take long for the youngsters to get back and start digging the hole. Once the hole was dug, they rolled to the back side of the fence, pulled up several of the fence stakes to give them passage into the forest, and began chopping down the toxic gum trees. The noise must have wakened Pritak, Marbek, and Toti, for they showed up at the spider house shortly after the chopping began.



“What are our children doing?” Toti asked. “And why did they make a hole at the end of the spider house? All of us need to be careful not to fall into that hole.”

Lota told her husband and her friends why the children dug the hole and why they were in the forest. It was time to get the spiders ready for skinning. They had all been expecting this for some time, as the spiders were fully grown and fat as they could be.

The men said not a word. Marbek ran for a hammer stone while Pritak took his original clay ‘sled bowl’ down to the river to get enough mud to make the funnel. By the time Pritak walked back with the mud, his friend had knocked a hole in the building.

Pritak had perfected his clay sculpting by this time. He mixed the right amount of straw with his clay and made a funnel. It was geared to perform its smoke-gathering function. The top lip of the funnel reached far out over the hole where the fire would be. Toti took over from there.

“We need enough dry tinder to start the fire. We must keep the fire at a minimum and the smoke at a maximum. Lota, tell the children I do not need much green wood from the gum tree. What I really need is its green leaves. We do not want to COOK the spiders. We want to smoke them. There is enough dry wood to keep a good fire. The smoke will


suck right into the spider house because of Pritak’s perfect funnel.”

It all went according to plan. The spiders were euthanized without complaint or quiver. There were forty-eight carcasses lying on the floor of the house. With the two skins from earlier conquests, that made fifty.

It might have been better had they not waited the three days to be certain the spiders were dead. By the time they felt safe in knocking a bigger entrance, obliterating the small hinged door, there was a noticeable sickly sweet stench coming from the bodies. It became even worse as Pritak went around the room cutting off their heads. He was nothing if not thorough.

Toti had the most scientific mind of them all. She went from spider to spider, milking poison from their stingers. She found it strange that there was no odor at all attached to the greenish sticky poison which exuded from their posteriors as she grasped around the barb with her fingers and squeezed the liquid into a glass bowl she had made from melted sand. If her thoughts about possible uses for this poison worked, Marbek would be proud to be her husband.

All that remained to be done was to wait for the spiders to evaporate, leaving behind only their pelts. The crowds still

came to the newly-tooled gate that Pritak helped Marbek put into the fence where the path came toward their homes. Designing a fool-proof latch for the gate took some doing, but the quartet was tired of fools, so they had to come up with an absolutely Arvik-proof latch, and they did. Preeco and Pilak had repaired the place in the fence where they had pulled up stakes. The tops of the stakes were pointed, which meant that newly-acquired climbing skills did not help trespassers to scale the fence. There was enough sense of common decency to prevent curiosity seekers from knocking the fence down and coming on in.

Our four friends went into the now-lifeless spider house to collect the remaining webs along with the spider hides. Marbek wrapped up the majority of webs the first time, when Pritak was beheading the creatures. The smoke had rendered the webs non-sticky. He harvested a pile of webs high as his head on that occasion, placing them in a corner of his fire room to keep them safe and dry. He added to that pile on this day.

Toti helped Lota gather the hides. “When are you going to tell us what you plan to do with these?”

“As soon as we clean out this building and sweep down the dirt and smoke and webs from the ceiling with pine boughs, I will share my thoughts with all of you. Be sure that Pilak and Preeco are here. I want you all to help with this plan, though I doubt if Preeco and Pilak are going to want to participate.”

Toti told the others what Lota had said. Their curiosity caused a rash of quick work, and the building was soon clean enough to use as a dwelling. The room got quiet. All eyes turned toward Lota.

She cleared her throats and began: “Folks, you know me to be a thoughtful woman -- not given to flights of fancy nor delirious temperament. I have been thinking on something since the day Pritak taught me to swim. The fact that we have become famous and are worried night and day by adoring fans, whom we are coming to hate, is only the spark that pushes me toward my plan. Yes, I am tired of strangers who invade our lives, but only because they are interrupting our natural bent as inventors. We are no longer free to come and go, thinking up and implementing new ideas. There seem always to be people wanting to look over our armleg shoulders, prying into our affairs, and impeding our progress.

I want to leave. If I could leave Mirror and go to another planet, I would probably do that. Since that is not possible, I have thought of another place.

You see the river. It flows all the time, carrying a load of dirt it has cut from the mountains and streams of our continent. The continent on which all Arviks live, as far as we know, is the land that circles our world’s equator. Now that Arviks can swim and climb, we realize our kind inhabit all this land. My point is, we cannot get away from our

celebrity status as long as we remain on this wide strip of land.

Where does the dirt from the rivers go? It must settle somewhere. As many years as our rivers have flowed, there must be an island out there somewhere -- an island our people don’t know about. The dirt has built up for centuries. That island, or those islands, must have plants growing on them. You see all these plants like dandelions whose seeds float on the breeze. Even some trees have floating seeds. Acorns float on the water. I bet my hypothetical island has its own forest. I want to go there.

Our air sacs cause us to swell. When we are full of air, we float. Now that Marbek and Toti have created cutting tools and fire tools, I believe we can fashion a big ball from the spider skins, using wet webbing as adhesive to glue the skins together and make them water-proof. We could sew ourselves inside that bag, roll ourselves into the river, and let the wind carry us to that island. It’s there. I just KNOW it’s there. I don’t think there are any Arviks on my island, but if there are, they have never heard of us.

So that’s my idea. I have nothing left to say, except to ask you to think about it before you say I’m crazy and you don’t want anything to do with me. I’m going to my house now. I hope you and your husband come with me, Toti. I guess I should have said something to MY husband before now. He might even decide to stay here. I hope not, ‘cause

I’m going. It will take some time to glue the hides together, and we will need supplies and food, but when all is said and done, I am committed to sail in my bubble to a new land. Let me know what you decide.”

With that, Lota cart wheeled out of the door-less portal, along the river bank, and back to her home. ‘Home,’ she thought. ‘That’s what this is all about to me. Home should be someplace safe, yet with room for adventure. I never knew what home was about until Pritak. He is the one who gave my life back to me. He is the one who defines what home means in my heart. He is my safety, my security, my co-adventurer, my friend. I don’t know what I will do if he refuses to go with me.’

She didn’t have long to wait for her answer. Pritak came into their house mere seconds after Lota. He rubbed his body against hers, placing his eye against hers and holding two of her hands in two of his. “Baby, why didn’t you say something to me sooner? I knew you were unhappy being an icon to our people. So am I, but I had no idea you were thinking something so radical.”

She started to interrupt. He put a hand over each of her mouths. “Shhh. I haven’t finished. I LOVE the idea. It’s exciting, which goes without saying. If you think of it, it’s a foregone conclusion that it will be exciting. My only objection is in taking the youngsters with us. Preeco and Pilak need to find mates. I also doubt that Marbek and Toti

will want to leave their children. They already have grandchildren by some of their older kids. Don’t you think they might want to be with their families? Sign me up. I’m going with you, but don’t get your feelings hurt if the rest don’t feel the same.”

“On, no, Pritak. Each person must do what she or he thinks best. I probably should not have sprung this on everybody as suddenly as I did. You are right. I’m pretty certain they won’t go. How do YOU feel about that, if they don’t. Can you stand to live the rest of your life on a deserted island with only me for company?”

“Baby, you’re the only person in my life NOW. Marbek and Toti are wonderful friends, but I never think about what they will think before I do something. You are the only one whose opinion has ever mattered to me. Remember when I was a child and all the older boys picked on me for being different? I did not care -- mainly because my best friend Lota was always on my side.

How long do you think it will take to make the spider skin vessel? By the way, how are we going to see where we are going? That skin is pitch black.”

“I thought we might glue some glass windows into the sphere. Do you think that will work? Besides, if the wind blows us to my island, we’ll know we’re there when we stop moving even if we cannot see.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Okay, let’s start work. I saved quite a bit of the spider webs myself, and you have all the hides stacked in a corner of the spider house. There’s a huge round boulder by the river that we could use as a form for this ball. Cut the skins, piece them together over the boulder, and glue them together. Once the top is done, we can simply glue together a flat bottom, covered with bamboo. That should make it easier to ride in, don’t you think?”

“Yes. I hope my island has iron ore stones. Yours and Marbek’s fire house is something I can re-create, now that Toti taught me all she knows. Let’s wait till first thing in the morning to start. I want to give our friends time to think about this. If they choose to NOT go, I want them to have time to decide their level of involvement in the project.”

They left it at that. For the rest of the day, the couple went out the gate and revisited all the memorable places of their lives. They climbed the first tree they had climbed, though it was much bigger now. The fruiting vines in the tops of the trees were not the same as before, but produced grapes and melons that were just as delicious. They even visited the ‘spider alley’ and the banana grove where the spider egg had come from. Last, but not least, they visited the beach where the lightning-struck tree had long since decayed and been washed clean by the tides. In all their travels, they did not come across a single Remuns. Their old enemies were dead. Their future might uncover new enemies, but for now

all it held was hope and adventure. Marbek and Toti had been generous in giving machetes to all the villagers. When the story of spider slaying spread through the community, it wasn’t long before they were rid of all the spiders in the adjacent banana groves. Everyone wanted to be a hero.

A month passed before the big black air-tight tent was ready to sail. As they suspected, Marbek and Toti opted to stay behind. They had too many ties to the homeland. Preeco and Pilak were still too young to go on such an adventure, especially without having experienced their birthright -- romance.

“We are not ruling out the possibility of coming to join you in a year or two,” Marbek told their friends, repeating a private discussion he and Toti had often. “The wind is blowing to the south pretty strongly at this time of year. If I know Toti, she will want to come see you in a year or two. I mean, we are not making any promises, but if we ever decide to look for you, we will try to leave on this same day so there will be a chance, at least, that the wind will blow us to wherever you landed. Preeco and Pilak will be grown in a couple of years. Look for us then.”

Both families spent every waking hour working on the project. The big boulder that was used as the form for the dome of spider skin was far enough upriver that none of the ever-present retinue of fans had found them. Times were peaceful. The friends left home each day before dawn -- before the throngs had gathered; they came back late enough that the crowds had left.

Marbek quickly discovered how to use his air sacs to inflate the dome of skin. The first time he inflated himself in many months, he analyzed what happened as he deflated. There was a valve in his body that released the air after the pride had gone. The day of inflation gave one of the most amusing pictures in the history of Mirror. All six Arviks inflated and deflated in rapid succession, filling the dome with their expended air. It took three days to inflate the skins. Marbek -- genius that he is -- had placed a double door in the vessel. The inner door was glued shut, allowing no air to escape as it was being aired up. The outer door was open. When the time came to launch, Lota and Pritak would step inside the bubble between the inner door and outer door. Once inside, the outer door would be glued shut. They would then open the inner door and step inside the spider dome.

Somewhere along the line, Toti had discovered how to make windows from tree resin. Certain resins, when cooked on top of the fire box, solidified into a clear sheet that was still flexible. It was not quite as flexible as spider leather, but welding the transparent sheets to the spider skins was easy. The adhesive wet spider webs held the two dissimilar materials together seamlessly, keeping air in and water out.

The final concern for the bubble ship was air -- breathing air. The pair could not breathe the same air over and over without smothering. Preeco came up with the solution. She used a long, thin piece of metal to cut the woody center from a long section of bamboo. This was punched through the wall of spider skins and sealed to the vessel wall with web. To keep from losing floatation air, the inside end of these bamboo breathing tubes was sealed with a clump of wadded-up webbing. It would be uncomfortable, but Lota and Pritak would be able to breath outside air during the trip.

The day of farewell arrived sooner than was comfortable. What should have been a happy occasion was somber instead. The dome was full of food, knives, big bamboo buckets, canteens of water made from left-over spider leather, seeds for planting in the new world, and flint. Thinking ahead, Toti had fashioned spider-skin ponchos for her friends, in case the new land was colder than it was here. The wind had changed and was blowing due south.

With heavy hearts and high hopes, Pritak and Lota pushed the dome into the water with help from their friends. The river almost ripped the vessel away from them before they had a chance to jump through the outer door, seal it, and open the inner door into a chamber they would inhabit for a long time -- maybe forever. There was enough air for breathing without resorting to the breathing tubes for now. Someone had suggested making bamboo mats to cover the bottom of the vessel and keep their armlegs from sinking into the limp bottom of the bubble. They stood, looking through the resin windows, waving goodbye to their friends.

Pritak came up with an improvement to the breathing tubes. He could tell when the breathing air level was getting low. He did not want to be tied to a breathing tube at the edge of the dome the whole trip. Instead, he taught Lota how to use their evacuation valve. When breathing air got low, each of them took the web stopper from a breathing tube and let a lot of air out of the dome. To replenish the air, they attached the bamboo tubes to their air-sac inlet valves. For about an hour, they inhaled exterior air into their air sacs and evacuated that air into the dome till the air was good again. It was a bit of a problem, but much better than being tied to the breathing tubes all day long.

The wind quickly carried the spider ship out of sight of land. Late on the first day, Lota’s theory was proved correct. All they had seen so far was water. Then they saw the line of green in the distance. It was an island. “Oh, doodle-um, Pritak. I never thought about the problem of steering. That island is huge. It is exactly what I dreamed of. There’s no way of getting to it unless we abandon this vessel and all our seeds and equipment and swim to the island. I really want to stop here, but I do not want to lose our tools.”

“Patience, my dear. If there is one island, there will be others. There may even be another large continent. If we get out on a small island, there may not be all the raw materials we need to survive. What we CAN do is start learning to steer this dome.

The wind is blowing all the time. Come over on this side of the bubble. Grab the skin above you as high as you can. You grab one place, I’ll grab another about ten feet from you. When we pull a big dent into the curve of the dome, it should affect the direction the wind blows us.”

His mind never stopped. Lota wondered how Pritak came up with solutions out of thin air. Sure enough, by pulling a dent into the outer skin of the dome, they were able to affect their course. Had they wanted, they could have stopped at that first island. Once they learned to go left or right, they accidentally learned how to back up. They were no longer at the mercy of the wind. They controlled the wind.

Lota relaxed. She liked adventure, though there were times when she panicked. Her panic now past, she enjoyed the scenery. The oceans were not only waves of water; there was lots of life out here. From almost the beginning of the journey, they saw whales, porpoises, water fowl, floating vines and flowers, jellyfish and other things that glowed at night. To Lota, the adventure was already worth the trip, even if they drowned before finding land.

Arviks never have inner-ear trouble. Thus, they had no seasickness. A little over two weeks after they embarked on the water, their vessel washed ashore on a sandy beach. Quickly, so as to avoid being washed back out to sea, the couple ran out the inner door, closing it behind themselves so the dome wouldn’t collapse, and opened the outer door.

They jumped into the surf, which was wrist-deep at this point, and dragged their skin tent ashore. There was much to do, much to explore. For now, the couple stood on the banks of the ocean as the sun peeked over the horizon. ‘Home,’ Lota thought. ‘This is our new home.’

The two of them stood on the bank of the ocean, looking toward this new continent’s very different plant forms. Several small trees, covered in fist-sized bright orange fruit, grew in a line so straight they could have been planted there. The couple rolled in tandem, in perfect rhythm, up the slope to those trees. Pritak wanted to taste the fruit first, in case it was poisonous.

Juice dripping down his mouth, he said, “I believe this is the most delicious persimmon I have ever eaten.”

Lota thought, ‘Oh, well, if it kills my husband then I might as well die with him,’ and she picked one and ate with him. “Delicious, Pritak. Maybe we won’t starve. This land is not as warm as back home. We should dry some of the fruit we find, in case the weather gets too cold for growing things.”

“Look at the grass in front of us, Lota. And look at that high ground in the distance. I wonder why those hills are white on top. Maybe those are sand hills. At least we have shelter. Would you like to help me drag our bubble into the middle of this grassy field? It will shelter us from the elements until we decide where we want to build.”

“Yes, my husband. Tomorrow we need to investigate the forest on the other side of this field. There is much to do if we plan to support a family in this new land.”

“Family? I thought you did not want to have children.”

“Yeah, that’s the way I felt back home. We were surrounded by other Arviks’ children. When we starved the Remuns to the point that they seemed to be extinct, all of the children lived and multiplied. I was completely satisfied to share the children of others.

Now that you and I may be the only Arviks on a new continent, we must fall back on the imperative given by the founders. If you are willing, I believe we need to multiply. Besides, I didn’t bring any Memnoc with me -- neither fruit nor seeds.”

With a glint in his eye, Pritak took her hand. “I am always willing to make an effort at multiplication, my dear. Do you want to start now?”

Lota chuckled lasciviously. “Let’s get the bubble up the hill and stake it to the ground. THEN we can start talking about our future.”

It was going to be a good life.
Ó2010 Wilton Dupepe