“No time to think much,” Aybe said. “Ready to run?”

They set off at a good pace. The Sil got out in front right away with their long graceful strides, taking long slow deep breaths as their feet came down. They seemed to have evolved for running. Humans had, too, but not this well. Cliff wondered if their home world, with somewhat lower gravity, had better shaped them for this part of the Bowl. Again he wondered, as sweat collected in his eyebrows and trickled down, stinging his eyes, what the Sil’s agenda was. Getting out from under the Folk, yes. But those big birds ran this place, and a few puny humans surely could not make much difference. A puzzle. But without the Sil, they’d have been nabbed by the Folk long ago. He let it pass.

They made a good fast run across the fields, running close to the curious trees. The Kahalla were upwind of their crossing route, too, so that might be an advantage. Cliff was surprised at how easily he ran. He was in better physical condition now from so long on the run, and the local grav seemed lower here, too. But Quert’s head turned, surveying the whole area, as did all the Sil. They were worried.

The rough rectangular buildings Quert called a hatchery loomed up, two stories high and no windows. They entered the complex, panting and sweaty, and made their way down the main corridor between the buildings. There were no Kahalla around at all. A few zigzag trees lined this main street of the place, their wood worn and gray. The Sil went down side passages, doing reconn, and in a few moments came running back fast. They shouted a word in Sil language and formed a defensive arc facing two passageways. Automatically the humans gathered in behind them, drawing weapons, looking anxiously around.

Only when a Sil launched one of its arm-arrows did they look up.

Things like meter-wide spiders came over the lip of the roof. They were white and clacked as they moved, surging down the wall on flexing black palps. Their legs were bristly and black; big angry red eyes glared at the sides of a squashed face.

The first Sil arm-arrow lanced through one that was halfway over the edge of the roof. It scrabbled at the wall and fell with a smack at their feet. The Sil who had nailed it stepped forward, shot at another of the attackers, hit it at dead center of its circular body—then bent and plucked the arrow out, inserting it quickly back in the air sheath.

The Sil were shooting at the things now, and the humans used their lasers. But there were plenty of the things, and they kept coming.

They move more like crabs than like spiders, Cliff thought as the Sil fell back. He aimed at one of the things and hit it, but it just kept climbing down the wall toward them. His shot had gone through it near its edge, but that was not enough, apparently.

They made small, shrill chippering sounds. They moved sideways with quick sure moves.

Now Cliff recalled a relayed message from Beth when they had broken out of their captivity. “Spidows,” he said.

Irma got the reference. “Those were huge, they said. These aren’t.”

“Local adaptation,” Aybe said. “Our lasers blow through them but don’t kill, most of the time.”

Five of the things took on a Sil. They crawled up its legs and bit deep with claws. The Sil howled. It batted at them and lurched away. That unnerved the other Sil as rivers of the midget spidows rushed down from other roofs and through the lanes nearby. Their high, shrill cries became a shriek. The humans huddled behind a thin line of Sils who were running out of their arm-arrows.

Quert was driving arm-arrows into the spidows but then shouted in Sil and then in Anglish, “Back through!”

Cliff turned and saw a Sil had found, down a side corridor, a big frame door that opened. They all turned and rushed there. The spidows’ shrill cries rose as they came after the running Sil and humans. Several Sil tore branches off the zigzag trees along the way, snapping them off. They got through the doorway and into a big high room. The door slammed. Sil secured it.

Illumination streamed down from a ceiling that simmered with ivory light. The place reeked of some sullen odor. It was damp and warm here, and the humans looked at each other, eyes wide, still surprised by the sudden ferocity of the spidow attack. The Sil muttered to each other. They were all standing under the heat beating down from above, panting in moist air flavored with an odd stinging taste.

“Were … were those spiders?” Aybe asked.

“More like crabs,” Cliff said.

“They have a shell and move with a sideways crawl, lots of legs,” Irma said.

“If there weren’t so many, we could just tromp on them,” Terry said.

“But there are!” Aybe was scared and covered it with anger.

The Sil stirred and murmured and Quert listened to them intently. The humans talked but no ideas emerged. The high keening cries of the spidows came through the walls. They all knew they were trapped, and the shock of it was sinking in, Cliff saw.

“Let’s see what there is here. What this place is,” Cliff said. It was good to get them focused on something beyond their fears. They murmured, shuffled, and started to look around.

Around them stood cylindrical towers with big fat orange spheres arrayed in a matrix. There were some kind of ceramic tubes laced through the crude baked brick frame, and those felt warm to the touch.

“What are these things? A whole room full,” Irma said.

Quert said, “Kahalla eggs. Hatch here,” and took two other Sil to prowl the room. Cliff followed down the line of Kahalla egg cylinder holders. The warm damp air was cloying. Heads jerked toward a scraping noise. They all saw a white carapace of a spidow scuttling away. It left behind a ripped-open Kahalla egg that dripped brown fluids on the red clay floor. The spidow had been eating it. A Sil stabbed it with a shaft of wood it had yanked off a zigzag tree outside. The spidow writhed, worked its claws against the shaft, and died with a faint squealing gasp.

They found another a few moments later. Some had gotten in here, Cliff supposed, and were eating Kahalla eggs. “Food source,” Irma said.

Several of the big orange spheres were already spattered over the ceramic floor, their insides gone. Cliff followed, still dazed by the speed of events. He shook his head, rattled. As the Sil searched the aisles of egg-holding cylinders Cliff kept up, feeling pretty useless, and then asked Quert, “The Kahalla look kind of like us—two legs, same body shape. But they lay eggs?”

“Kahalla way,” Quert said. Its eyes were wary, searching the whole room. “Stack their eggs here. Let hatch. Safe so they can work their fields.”

“Uh, but the spidows—that’s what we call them—they come and eat?”

An eye-click of agreement. “Been so, long time. We call those things upanafiki. Pests, are.”

“They’re smart enough to get into these hatcheries.”

Quert sniffed and gave soft barking sounds with a head-jerk, which seemed to be the Sil equivalent of laughter. All the Sil joined in. Some alien inside joke, Cliff suspected. Or was Sil humor a category outside human comprehension? Quert stopped the quiet barking laugh and said, “Kahalla not smart.”

“Egg layers…” Cliff tried to get his head around all this.

Irma said, “Earthside we have monotremes, mammal egg-layers. They’re very old, Triassic maybe.”

Cliff shook his head. “Forget about parallels to Earth. So: smart egg-layers who are humanoid tool-users. What the hell, with evolution on the Bowl, all bets are off.”

Quert said, “Upanafiki many. Kahalla crave land. Upanafiki keep Kahalla numbers down. Kahalla and upanafiki—” Quert thrust its bony hands together. “Always. Fight. Dance.”

Aybe said, “Where did these Kahalla come from? What world?”

Quert said, “Kahalla means in your tongue One Face Folk.”