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afraid he'd do it again prob-
ably had done it again. She'd inherited some of the meaningless, in the
context of the Choz, revulsion that her father and the other Firsts had felt.
52
The Web of the Chozen
"That Just proves how much we cause our own problems, and other's," I
comforted. "After all, in a human context inbreeding causes problems. Some,
anyway. But not here, not among the Choz."
Where was that aptitude for mental adaptation now? I wondered. Some things
were too deeply in-
grained in certain people for their own good. A lot of misery had been caused
in this way.
"You still should go," I urged. "Why not come back with me? It looks like the
kids in there can take care of themselves."
"Maybe," she replied. "We'll see."
I stayed maybe a week, maybe more, in the town.
Mara was good company; always inquisitive, always wanting to hear stories
about my exploits, which I was never at a loss for. She had several sessions a
day with different younglings, trying to teach them what she could, but it was
a hopeless battle. Few stayed long to hear her, and those that did were only
mildly curious.
I could take no part in these sessions. The language had changed too much.
With each lesson she seemed to become a little more despondent, and a little
more receptive to suggestions to something different, break-
ing free of the mold.
I liked her for that. She had a quick wit and an insatiable curiosity combined
with a naivete that al-
lowed her to accept my boastful stories uncritically.
But, most important, she was frustrated with this dull and boring life, which
was amazing because, un-
like me, she'd known nothing else and didn't quite understand what she craved.
On my tours I also discovered that even though most of the last brood looked
adult, they were really of different ages. The Breed came upon people at
differ-
ent times although at regular intervals.
The next session of the Breed after the inter-
regnum that occurred only once for a short period
53
The Web of the Chozen
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the%20Chozen%20UC.txt every two years was coming fast upon us. Some of the
females were growing sleeker, their color and tex-
ture brightening and heightening, and I could feel strange stirrings within
myself as well. I had landed, it appeared, near the end of one cycle, and now
I was about to go into my first.
The change was as apparent in Mara as in anyone.
It was an indefinable emotional twinge inside. Oddly, the women seemed aware
of it only indirectly, by observing the reactions of the males. Not all of
them turned me on, just a small percentage. If one male had to service five or
more females, it couldn't be done in one cycle, which explained why there
seemed less population pressure than reason had dictated. That did not alter
the fact that this world was headed for collapse, only delayed it a few years.
"Let's go visit George," I urged her one day. "Come on."
"But The Breed!" she protested. "It'll take a week or more to cut south to the
pass."
"Over the mountains, the way I came in, not around and through."
She nervously scanned the hills.
"I don't know," she began hesitantly.
"C'mon!" I urged. "You're bored and frustrated here. You know it. This is a
new experience, an ad-
venture, something different! Come with me. I know he'd love to see you!"
Finally she relented. "I'll do it," she decided. "When do we go?"
"How about tomorrow morning?" I responded.
I dreamed for the first time that night. It was funny
I almost never dreamed, and hadn't yet done so here. Of course, I probably
had, but I never remem-
bered any of them, which amounts to the same thing.
This particular dream was one of those weird ones you can never quite figure
out, but it was filled with the color green and with strange feelings, urges,
and
The Web of the Chozen impulses. Superimposed over it all seemed to be a bright
violet netting, like a honeycomb, active, grow-
ing, reaching out, building, doing things. I seemed to run in and out of the
violet netting, which grew around me, trying to trap me against that green
field, yet there were roughly rectangular holes through which I could crawl
and escape.
I awoke suddenly, feeling funny, as if my mouth were full of mush. I scanned
the room. Mara was still sleeping, snoring slightly, and all was still and
quiet.
I bit down, seeming to snap something spongy as I
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the%20Chozen%20UC.txt did so. I scanned the area ahead of my face and found,
to my surprise, that I had for the first time secreted webbing from the flap
in my tongue and had somehow constructed a tiny web-wall, now hardening. I
could feel the stuff in the canal in my tongue, like a piece of chalk or stick
yet still soft and flexible.
I lay there for some time trying to make sense out of what was happening to
me, before drifting off into a light and uncomfortable sleep.
The next morning I apologized to Mara for the mess. I'd built a low barrier
between us, it seemed.
She laughed, made a joke about my true feelings coming out in my dreams, then
explained to me that it was a common thing and easily corrected, if a bit
messy and hard to clean up.
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The webbing dissolved in urine.
That concept wasn't something I would ever think of, yet it opened up a
possibility in my mind that was exciting: liberating my ship. I had gone out
to that field every day and seen that mound of webbing lock-
ing it in. The ship was still in there, all right I felt sure of it. I don't
know why; it should have been broken down with the rest of the artifacts.
Instead, it had been covered, shielded, and protected.
Two or three minutes, that's all I would need. Two or three minutes and I
could lift off, even without hands.
The Web of the Chozen
Then I recalled George's mentioning that a couple of the early colonists had
made it off the planet in their shuttle. But they had been doomed anyway, of
course, since they couldn't get anywhere in the shuttle and the big ship was
beyond their management. Yet the shuttle had been destroyed only after it
proved a threat. The virus hadn't been able to eat it away in the time it took
to take off, and space had killed the virus clinging to the outer shell.
Why had the virus been so ineffective?
The armor, probably. Spacecraft were made of the toughest materials, not like
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