Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) by Edward M. Grant Page A

They wouldn't be hard. He reached a long fingernail out to the wall, and scratched a note to himself.
    “What do you think, Simon?”
    He turned back, and held the candle high. Simon watched from the far side of the cell. His legs twitched, and he twisted his body from side to side as he studied the equations. He tapped the tip of his legs on the floor, then turned and scuttled back to the thick, white web that filled that corner of the cell.
    “Yeah, you're right. It’s shit.”
    The Brain tossed aside the sharp stone he had been using to scratch the wall, and slumped down in his corner. Simon chewed on a piece of meat the Brain had tossed into the web from his supper the night before. He didn’t even know what kind of spider Simon was, but he’d always been a smart one. Probably a cross between a tarantula from Earth and some of the weird, fat, spider-like creatures back home. Maybe some electronics for good measure. People like genetic meddling back home. Not so much on Hades.
    But, smart as Simon was, who knew how he got into a pod? By the time it landed, the body inside was cocooned in Simon’s web, and the skin stretched over the bones like a mummy, after he had dissolved its insides and sucked them out to eat. The Brain found Simon hiding in a corner under the seat, body bloated from his meal, and his furry legs shaking after the shock of entering the atmosphere and crashing to the ground.
    He seemed to take a liking to the Brain on sight, and liked him even more when he gave Simon fresh meat to eat. He had accompanied the Brain everywhere, ever since. His one and only friend among the scum of the world.
    Speaking of scum, keys rattled in the lock of the cell door. A Guard’s helmeted face appeared briefly as he pulled the door open, then the smell of steam and burning wood filled the air. The Brain coughed as he wafted the smoke away, and blinked as the light of a lantern shone into his eyes.
    The King crouched by the door, and stared in.
    “Have you done it yet?”
    Didn’t he realize what he was asking for? The Brain might be his name, but he couldn’t create miracles. A photographic memory was no substitute for high technology.
    “You must understand, so far we have only the most basic of technology. The iron we’ve made can only handle light loads. To support the weight of such a thing...”
    “I take it that’s a no?”
    “And your power plant is a proof of concept, a truly basic mechanism that’s already pushing the limits of the materials we can build here. Fuelling the kind of machines you demand would need coal, hydrocarbons, or nuclear power.”
    “So, build me some.”
    He’d known people like that back home. They expected to have anything they wanted, whenever they wanted, with no conception of the millennia their ancestors had invested in their progress from pointy sticks to warp drive. To try to recreate that in a few decades was... madness.
    “There are probably coal and oil equivalents here, as we found at home. But we need to locate them, build the mines, extract them...”
    “We have slaves.”
    “And we need hardened steel, smokeless powder, electrical generators, copper wire, automatic guns...”
    “I want it by the end of the year, before the invaders come from Over The Sea.”
    Simon’s eight dark eyes stared at the King from his web, glowing with light reflected from the lantern. The King turned toward him, and Simon scuttled away.
    “If not,” the King said, “we might have to clean out your cell. Get rid of the cobwebs, if you see what I mean.”
    Simon’s web shook at the King’s words. He wouldn’t. No, he would. He’d killed men for far less.
    Lots of them.
    If they left him alone in the cell, in the dark, without even Simon for company, with no-one to talk to except the guard who brought him food—if they were even feeling talkative that day—he'd go mad. Within a week, he'd be slumped on the floor, talking to himself, and smearing shit over the walls.
    Just