Spider facts!

  Category: Behavior

  Subcategory: Locomotion

  It is hard to describe the breathtaking speed of a jumping spider in motion, and almost as difficult to capture it on camera. Many species can jump thirty or even fifty times their body length in a fraction of a second. Extrapolating to human scales carries obvious flaws in reasoning, but would make their speed comparable to a human accelerating to jet engine speeds in under a second.

  Jon prepared for the leap, his heart pounding.

  His brain was running so fast it felt like it was trying to escape his skull. Skull? No skull. Trying to escape his carapace. How far could he jump? Was he going to jump too far? That lake hadn’t looked big, and there were so many rocks in it.

  He couldn’t remember how far most spiders could jump. He heard Zach’s voice in his head stating something about fifty times their body length, but cut it off.

  Jon remembered a video Zach had shown him back in college of a bold jumping spider attacking a fly. The thing looked like it had teleported to its prey.

  Was Jon that fast? None of the rabbits had been able to react to his jumps. They were bunnies, probably focused on speed and agility. Even that alpha hadn’t hit him before he got a bite. That kick only happened because he had been so surprised when his claws failed. He hesitated. Just like he was doing now.

  So many people died falling. He’d seen a lot of people die from falling. Roofs. Ladders. Trees. Even Fences. You didn’t have to fall far to die. People outside medicine just didn’t know, didn’t know how fucking dangerous it was to fall.

  It’ll be like hitting concrete. That’s what they always said, hitting water was like hitting concrete if you get high enough. Not true, but maybe true enough. Aerate the water, that’s what the Olympic high divers did. Was that for spotting the water though, or did it really affect the density enough to reduce the impact? Did it really break the surface tension? That waterfall would churn the water well. Was it good enough?

  All of these thoughts ran through his head in seconds, only interrupted when he felt a rising sense of panic from Oregano. The screeches were approaching the bend in the tunnel behind them.

  Go time.

  Jon aimed for a point two meters past the curtain of water. He braced his freshly-healed back leg, placed his anchor, lifted his front legs slightly, and blasted off.

  He had a fraction of a second in the air, then Jon was in the water.

  As he had expected, the drag line snapped immediately. It was the first time since Jon had taken this new form that he could remember a true free fall. He was tumbling, whirling, flailing, and then with an all-mighty splash he felt himself blasting down into the water.

  Jon realized a miscalculation. He had no idea how to swim as a spider. He felt Oregano squirming against his chest, panic flaring as the water filled his carrier. Jon began trying coordinate his movements to swim as best he could, moving all his legs simultaneously towards his abdomen.

  It did very little, but he felt himself beginning to bob upwards, and he breached the surface like a chitinous beach ball. Jon found himself washing up against a set of large rocks, and he managed to latch on to one with his claws. He plastered the hairs on his feet to the surface, and swiftly clambered up.

  A moment later he felt an impact in front of him, and saw one of the lobster cherub’s striking the site with its bony spurs. Jon noted another flatter rock to the side, and immediately leapt to the spot. As he jumped he yanked on his dragline, spinning in the air to end up facing his opponent again.

  As he took in the scene, he realized he was about fifteen meters off shore, and from there was probably five to ten meters to the trees. The cherub had gotten its spurs stuck in the rock.

  What the hell were those spurs made of to bore into solid rock?

  Jon felt and saw movement from behind. He lashed out at the second cherub with his psionics, and it fell between the rocks into the water.

  As the effort of the blast registered, Jon figured he could hit like that maybe four more times before he was mentally spent. The cherub ahead of him managed to disengage one of its spurs from the rock, and Jon made a decision to try for the shoreline.

  He jumped as hard as he could, fearing another bout of helplessness in the water, but fearing the cherubs more.

  Thankfully, he landed easily on the shore. He was around halfway to the trees, which put his range somewhere between seventeen and twenty meters. As he landed, he heard an angry chittering from back on the rock, and the cherub made its way free, flapping its way towards him.

  Jon prepared to blast this cherub as well, hoping to knock it into the water as it left the rock. Before Jon could act though, a spray of foam blasted out underneath the cherub, and a gigantic form breached the surface. The cherub tried to reverse course as it let out a surprised screech, but it was too late. A massive tongue lashed out and the cherub disappeared into the maw of its attacker as it landed on the rock.

  Jon hesitated, taking in the lightning blue salamander now laying on the rock. The bone spurs of the cherub were poking out of the edge of its mouth. They were still wriggling as the salamander made a full body contraction, swallowing the prey whole. The salamander had to be the size of a small van, but Jon couldn’t be sure as it remained halfway in the water.

  A horrible, deep shriek echoed out from the cavern above, and the waterfall was disrupted, blasted out in a wave with the spray landing all around them. Jon felt a bizarre sense of resonance as the wave passed overhead, but he didn’t have time to investigate the feeling; the area behind the falls was only a few stories up, and he noted a rocky path leading directly to the shoreline he landed on. The salamander jumped back into the water, and Jon decided that was his cue to leave.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  He activated the I.O.U. card, checked that Oregano was still in his pouch, then booked it in the direction the light bid him.

  Jon was now near the base of the massive pillar he had seen across the cavern when he entered. It was weird, the light from the spear was no more intense here than it was back then. The heat was the same as well, coming in slow waves, pleasantly warm.

  The light from his card was bright and clear as it led him directly to the base of the column.

  Even with the pressing circumstances, Jon felt a moment of pure rage and irritation with the turtle.

  Would it have been too much to have just said “head for the column?”

  Remembering his situation, Jon shook off the wasteful thoughts.

  He was still a bit away from the border of the forest, which ran along the river with an uneven shoreline between the two. The earth was exposed with occasional white rocks along the dirt and shrub-like growths scattered around. At spaces it was ten meters from the edge of the water to forest, and at others the two practically touched. The river was too wide to leap at any point, running swiftly between dark grey and blackened rocks.

  Jon estimated there was about four hundred meters to go to the base of the column. He ran for fifty meters, keeping a fearful eye out for more salamanders from the water’s edge while also trying to monitor the treeline. He kept his mental sense pealed as well.

  To his horror, he felt the familiar mental pattern of one of the alpha bunnies closing the distance behind him.

  “How the hell did it even know to look for me?” Jon thought to himself.

  Then he thought of the wave from the tunnel entrance a few moments before.

  Jon considered the possibility of some sort of echolocation again, but discarded the thought. It wasn’t important, and these might be his final moments. He thought of his family, pushing for speed.

  As though things could not get worse, Jon felt two more minds joining in behind the alpha. More cherubs. The bank on his side was getting narrower, leaving him less space to run where he was out of salamander range

  Ahead, he saw an area where the water and forest touched. The trees hung over the edge of the water, and vines descended from the overhanging branches, trailing in the water below.

  There was no way to get across to the opposite bank, the river had narrowed as well, but it was still too wide to jump.

  Jon felt his pursuers drawing nearer as he approached the area where the forest met the river. They had already halved the distance between them.

  His backward-facing eyes were picking up constant flashes of movement from the two fliers, and he could feel the pounding of the rabbit’s feet through his vibratory senses. He took a running leap for the tree overhanging the water, landing about halfway up the trunk, about five meters over the river.

  As he landed, Jon dropped his stickier silk and ran up the tree, feeling it begin to sway up and down with his weight as the trunk narrowed. Jon turned, and saw one of the cherubs diving at the alpha bunny. This cherub was more orange than red, and had a set of bird-like claws rather than the bony spurs.

  The orange cherub dove for the alpha, who dodged to the side before landing a kick on the cherub from its powerful hind legs. The cherub fell within a few centimeters of the shore line, and Jon saw another wave approaching the shore against the current. The orange cherub scrambled back to its feet and launched into the air as a salamander emerged. The salamander whipped its tongue towards the cherub, who evaded the attack by inches.

  The other cherub was a brick red and had bony spurs similar to the one from Jon’s first encounter. It dove from above, trying to pin the salamander with its spear-like feet. The salamander screeched as the cherub injured one of its hind legs, highlighter-yellow blood spraying to the sides.

  The blow had only slashed the outer flesh of the limb, and the salamander whipped its head to the side, grabbing the brick red cherub with its tongue and tossing it into a nearby shrub.

  The alpha began stalking towards Jon, and Jon turned his gaze back to it.

  The huge bunny was less than ten meters away, and Jon prepared his trap. Oregano was in his carrier still, and Jon had been in communication with the rat, who had no better ideas.

  Jon felt another mind appear in the forest to the side, and modified his plan on the fly. He activated his distraction ability behind the bunny using the dragline silk he had left as he leapt.

  The alpha looked confused as the call of a helpless baby bear came from behind it.

  An answering call came from the forest, and a giant wooden bear burst from the treeline.

  The bear was covered in leaves, its toy-like wooden features obscured by countless branches sticking out from the hide. It was accompanied by a carpet of roots which its legs disappeared into, and it looked like the bear was skiing more than running. The alpha spun to face the new foe, its ears pealed back flat against its skull and jaws agape.

  As it opened its jaws, the rabbit roared. Jon felt like he had been punched in the stomach. It was like someone set off a firework at his feet; one of the big ones, the mortars you could hear from two towns away.

  He saw the bear stagger as the rabbit leapt for it.

  The orange cherub made another appearance at this point, diving from over the river towards Jon.

  He lashed out at it with his psionics, not holding anything back, and the orange cherub dropped like a stone towards the water. It didn’t get the chance to impact, as another salamander shot from the river and grabbed it a meter over the river’s surface.

  Jon took his chance to flee. He jumped from the tree, and landed on the bank a few meters from the river. He began to sprint.

  He had planned to lure the bunny to an unstable position and jump away, hopefully letting the bunny fall to the river below while Jon continued to flee.

  His luck continued to hold out though, and it had not been necessary. The bank had opened up again, and he pushed for more speed as he kept to the forest side of the bank as best he could. Jon did not know the forest was safe, but the salamanders were clearly more than he could handle. The pillar loomed ahead, and he felt the minds behind him fading as he sprinted.

  As he cleared a hundred meters from the fighting behind him, maybe two hundred meters from the pillar, the water to his right stirred. Jon leapt forward and to the left, hearing the water splash behind him.

  He felt a tingle along all the hairs on his back, and Jon sent a psychic pulse at the salamander.

  If the cherub was like hitting a lump of dough the size of a person, this was like hitting a car. Despite the feeling, Jon heard the salamander let out a surprised hiss, and the tingling feeling in his hairs disappeared. Jon continued his sprint, his heart pounding and his mental and physical exhaustion building.

  A hundred meters to go, and Jon saw a tributary of the river crossing his path. Barely pausing, he leapt as high and fast as he could over the stream, praying it was not deep enough for one of the salamanders to ambush him.

  Jon landed uneventfully, but felt dread stirring again as the familiar mental presence of the alpha began closing on his trail. The pillar was only seventy five meters away, but Jon knew he was not going to make it without another confrontation. Leaping and whirling on his tether, Jon faced his foe.