Spider World, like the Dolphin and Mists Worlds, is at least a century away from earth. Wanderer describes Spider World as being cold and gray, much like the dominant specie’s personalities. It is inhabited by a brilliant species known on earth as Spiders because of their resemblance to arachnids. Like earth’s spiders, they have segmented bodies and multiple legs.
The Spiders have the most incredible minds of any species the Souls have come across. Each Spider has three brains, one in each of the 3 segments of their bodies. Spiders only see in black and white and have a limited sense of temperature. Spiders live short lives (although they live longer than humans), but the young inherit their parent’s knowledge so that no information is ever lost. They reproduce like insects, with large egg sacks. The planet is a good producer of hosts for the Souls.
Each Spider has four long legs on each body segment and eyes at each juncture where the leg joins the body, twelve legs and eyes in all. Each eye is covered with steel wool-like eye lashes that protected the eye, but the eye has no lid.
Each of the twelve legs has a twelve fingered hand at the end, and each finger has six joints. There is nothing that Spiders could not do with their long, thin digits. The fingers are as strong as steel threads and capable of the most delicate procedures. Their bodies are protected by covering of armor-like scales, similar to fish. They are about the same mass as a cow, but short and lean.
Although thinking and especially math come effortlessly to Spiders, Wanderer did not enjoy her life as a Spider. The lack of curiosity, emotion and color proved too much, and she left after one short life-term.
Spiders are coldly analytical and rarely curious unless they are presented with a complex enough problem. They have very few emotions and no empathy at all. The Spiders knew the Souls were coming, and of all the species were the only ones to welcome the Souls. They were so emotionless that they barely noticed the difference, and when they did, they appreciated the change. The Spiders felt that the Souls gave their lives meaning.
Because of their vast intellect, Spiders are the problem solvers for the Souls. The invasion of the galaxy was truly launched from the Spider World because Spider technology gave the Souls the tools they needed for space travel. The Spider’s ships “dance nimbly and undetectably through the stars,” according to Wanderer.
Spiders were sent to the Fire World to find a dietary replacement for the Fire Eaters.
