Thank Goddess, we are saved!

That was Goldie’s first thought. But she also had no idea where the sparrow was flying. As she dangled beneath the bird by the slender muscle of the lizard’s tongue, she realized that it wasn’t going to be easy to free herself.

The spider had twisted her body as far as it would go, just to get a good view of what was happening above her. And she realized she couldn’t actually reach far back enough to try and rip herself free from the lizard’s tongue. She experimented with trying to shake her way free, but it was just weak flailing, and the tongue seemed to have an adhesive property.

Oh no! When bird swallows lizard, its tongue will pull me in too.

She wriggled harder, trying to break free to no noticeable effect. Then there was movement from Goldie’s back. A small figure whose presence she had almost forgotten in her panic.

Red!

The smaller spider crawled from Goldie’s body onto the tongue. She couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but she could guess the general idea. Her mate was trying to set them free.

The feeling that she’d had for the last several weeks that they’d been together—that he was trying to protect her and their future offspring—was not an illusion. If Red had wanted to bail and save himself from possibly getting sucked into this bird’s maw, he could have just jumped off of Goldie’s back. Instead, he had crawled into danger—onto the adhesive tongue—to try and free her.

I am a very lucky spider, she thought. It was all her brain could make of the situation. She was so scared and stressed, it was a wonder she could form coherent thoughts at all. Greenery flew by as she waited for something to happen, and she was blind to all of it.

After a few seconds, there was a very clear sense of movement from above her. Not her mate moving, but the lizard’s bungee-like tongue. She felt it lowering her slightly. As if the lizard were extending its appendage out even further for some reason.

Goldie realized what was going on a second before it happened. Then she was falling, tumbling through the air with the tongue still attached to her back, causing her to spin violently as she dropped. Or rather, with part of the lizard’s tongue still attached.

She had imagined her mate might be injecting the lizard with venom to force it to let her go. Instead, he had simply used his mouthparts to chew through the tongue itself, and now that chunk of tongue was falling with them.

Goldie struck a plant’s leaves, and they hit her surprisingly softly. She had almost forgotten how gently arthropods fell, no matter the height. She bounced off of the leaf like it was a diving board and fell through several more leaves until she collided with another plant’s stem. Then she rolled down the side of that plant until she struck dirt. The bit of tongue still stuck to her back gently plopped on the ground next to her.

That was not so bad. Thanks to you. She wished she could send the words to her mate. The more she thought about it, the more she recognized that choosing to be mute was something she would not wish on her worst enemy. She would ask Adon to try and talk to him for her. Act as their telephone. He had offered before. Surely he would not begrudge her that favor now that they were even more closely bonded.

Whether that worked out or not, she would ask Adon to teach her babies to think in words. Goldie’s own limited skills with language derived from a previous life, she knew. But she had no reason to think her children would have the same gift. As far as she knew, most animals could neither think in words nor even make their own selections in the Evolution Store.

Almost every creature she had seen was just a carbon copy of its parents’ species, with identical Adaptations and Skills. Adon was the only special one she remembered ever meeting besides herself. He had clearly chosen his Venom Spines as an Adaptation, since the first time she encountered him, he had no such defenses. Telepathy too.

In all her months of life, Goldie had never seen another insect with Telepathy. She had only rarely encountered butterflies and caterpillars in general, but none of those she had simply watched eating seemed particularly intelligent, and none of those she had eaten had pleaded for their lives.

Now that she thought of it again, she hadn’t gotten around to mentioning that awkward history to Adon yet. It seemed like a potentially friendship-ruining piece of information, and there was no one else who could mention it as long as she kept silent. Her mate hadn’t been with her yet at the time. Some secrets were best left buried. As deep in her subconscious as they could be shoved.

She couldn’t risk losing her friendship with Adon. Even if the price of keeping it was a little strategic withholding.

Though if she told him, she thought he would probably understand. Adon wasn’t like other bugs. That was the bottom line of where her line of thought had been heading. He was special.

Perhaps my hatchlings could be special too, she thought. Was language comprehension the key? Or was a connection to a past life required?

Goldie pulled her mind back to her present situation. What was she doing thinking about her future offspring at a time like this? Maybe the fall had knocked some of her brains loose, despite the fairly soft landing.

She gathered herself and then made a loud hissing noise.

“Hssss!” She didn’t have a wide range of vocal expressions, and she wasn’t trying to communicate much. She just wanted to see if there would be some kind of answer.

For a moment, there was silence. Then a slightly weary, “Hsss!” back.

Goldie wanted to jump for joy. Even if he might have taken more of a hit from the fall than she had—probably because of her weight and that of the lizard tongue piece—her mate was still with her.

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As soon as she pulled herself back to the present, she had been worried that he might have still been attached to the other end of the tongue. A final sacrifice for her and their young.

Goldie took the next several minutes to pull herself and her mate free from the lizard’s tongue. Thankfully, the adhesive quality had weakened quite a bit now that the muscle was detached from its owner. Then they ate the bit of tongue to recover some energy.

Red seemed considerably more energetic after replenishing his Biomass. And Goldie felt pretty good herself. They had accomplished nothing toward their objective, but they had escaped a deadly predator—two deadly predators—and gotten a snack in the bargain. As he hopped onto her back, she thought Red shared her renewed sense of optimism.

Now Goldie looked around a bit more than she had felt safe to do while stuck to a tongue. She scouted the terrain and considered the next direction to travel in. She turned her head left. Then right. She saw unfamiliar plants on both sides. Also a bit of the garden path that she didn’t quite recognize.

We are lost, she realized. In completely unfamiliar territory. That wasn’t saying much for Goldie. Her world was geographically tiny, and she knew and embraced it. At least they were still somewhere in the garden. If I follow the path, eventually find something. Right?

With that idea in mind, she started walking.

Being on the ground again reminded Goldie once more that the world outside her web was scarier than she remembered.

I need to do this to help Adon, she told herself sternly. No point thinking how scary it is. Web collects food far too slowly to fuel recovery.

She moved along the path for a little while, but the wide open space made her nervous after the lizard attack. There were just so many angles a predator could attack from. It could be something like the lizard, coming out from behind cover, or a bird swooping down from the wide blue sky. She would never see the ambush before it started either way.

Finally, she gave in to her fears and moved off the path. It was just too exposed. She began cutting through a slightly thinner patch of greenery. Less likely that prey were hiding there, but almost impossible for predators to conceal themselves.

The idea when she cut through those plants was that she would quickly walk across the ground cover and come back out right next to the path. This was based on Goldie’s mental map. Where she imagined the path led.

But she quickly found she had to deviate from her planned course. As she walked, she saw a gang of ants out on what she imagined was a foraging mission. Most ant excursions were foraging missions on a search for food, she had found in her few encounters with them. They were single-minded that way. A bit like most caterpillars.

She thought about trying to ensnare them, but then Goldie Identified one of them.

Vendetta Ant (Scout)

That species name, and the memories it carried, caused her to duck away. She remembered how Adon had explained that this insane species had chased him all the way to her net. She also recalled capturing and eating them. But she didn’t fancy her chances of managing to run that far on her graceless land legs. The ants might actually be faster than her down here.

Better to look for more isolated prey.

Ideally, she would be finding a species higher on the “natural hierarchy” for Adon to eat anyway. Caterpillars were close to the bottom, but individual ants were scraping the very bottom, only above helpless organisms like earthworms. Ants were only effective in groups.

This means we must be within running distance of web, at least, she thought.

Then she resumed her search for food, and her roundabout movements back to the path.

Her walk continued on for another half hour before she saw something that might be edible.

Do not know how Adon does this. Then she focused her vision on the thing she saw lurking in the shadows. It stood on the opposite side of the path from her, hidden beneath dense shrubbery. A dark reddish brown oval-shaped body, short and thick antennae, six slender legs covered in hair. Flimsy, non-threatening mouthparts. It looked harmless. But something about it gave her a sense of revulsion. She used Identify and understood why.

Resilient Brown Cockroach (Female)

The revelation of the name only intensified her strong feelings of disgust.

I must have hated those, she thought. In other life.

But it was not important. Whatever this thing was, it was a more advanced species than an ant. That would have to be good enough for this round of hunting. Goldie had been out for longer than she was comfortable with anyway. She did not want to be traipsing around the garden at night. Adon had told her things about the nightlife here that she emphatically did not like.

Goldie began circling around, moving out of sight of the cockroach so that she could surprise it and snag it quickly in her net. It did not look like it could do very much to defend itself, but one never knew. And she wanted to save as much of her venom as she could for more threatening foes.

She crossed the path as quickly as she could to get parallel with the cockroach before it could get away—and to minimize her exposure time in that deadly killing ground.

Then she began slowly, quietly maneuvering to get behind where the cockroach was. She had to go carefully. She was still clumsier than most arthropods her size on the ground, even after spending hours out here. She would not make some loud noise and startle Adon’s next meal.

But as Goldie got close enough to see the cockroach, she heard heavy noises. Some large animal was approaching. She would have to be careful about her next move. Goldie could end up as prey just as easily as the cockroach if this large creature was a predator. She had seen a cat in the garden once, years ago. It was horrifying.

The humongous creature stalked the grounds every night, hunting and killing for fun. Playing with its food before it ate. If the cat even consumed its prey. Just as often, it seemed, it would leave the entire body of the dead insects, mice, and spiders lying around for scavengers to eat. Sometimes a whole body would be found, missing its head. Other times, there were just scattered pieces.

Goldie hoped she was not about to witness the emergence of another cat as the heavy footsteps moved closer.

As she hunkered down and tried to be as still as possible, hoping not to be noticed behind a few thin weed stalks, the cockroach stirred to life.

Now?! Really? You were sitting there, completely still and hard to see, for at least twenty minutes. Now you move?

As the cockroach rose from its lowly position under the shrubbery and moved right past her, Goldie wanted to groan and hiss. She wanted to pounce. She wanted to tear this thing to shreds. But as the sound of footsteps drew ever louder, she did nothing.

The cockroach finally seemed to realize it might be in some danger, and it scuttled forward faster.

Then there was a horrible crunching sound.

Goldie took a chance on being seen moving. She turned her head to look.

A giant foot wearing a jeweled green velvet slipper stood where the cockroach had been a moment prior. A human had crushed it.