[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction October 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The world was divided between the Men and the
Monsters--but which were Monsters and which were Men?
I
Mankind consisted of 128 people.
The sheer population pressure of so vast a horde had long ago filled
over a dozen burrows. Bands of the Male Society occupied the outermost
four of these interconnected corridors and patrolled it with their
full strength, twenty-three young adult males in the prime of courage
and alertness. They were stationed there to take the first shock of
any danger to Mankind, they and their band captains and the youthful
initiates who served them.
Eric the Only was an initiate in this powerful force. Today, he was a
student warrior, a fetcher and a carrier for proven, seasoned men. But
tomorrow, tomorrow....
This was his birthday. Tomorrow, he would be sent forth to Steal for
Mankind. When he returned--and have no fear: Eric was swift, Eric was
clever, he would return--off might go the loose loin cloths of boyhood
to be replaced by the tight loin straps of a proud Male Society warrior.
He would be free to raise his voice and express his opinions in the
Councils of Mankind. He could stare at the women whenever he liked,
for as long as he liked, to approach them even--
He found himself wandering to the end of his band's burrow, still
carrying the spear he was sharpening for his uncle. There, where a
women's burrow began, several members of the Female Society were
preparing food stolen from the Monster larder that very day. Each spell
had to be performed properly, each incantation said just right, or
it would not be fit to eat. It might even be dangerous. Mankind was
indeed fortunate: plenty of food, readily available, and women who well
understood the magical work of preparing it for human consumption.
And such women--such splendid creatures!
Sarah the Sickness-Healer, for example, with her incredible knowledge
of what food was fit and what was unfit, her only garment a cloud of
hair that alternately screened and revealed her hips and breasts, the
largest in all Mankind. There was a woman for you! Over five litters
she had had, two of them of maximum size.
Eric watched as she turned a yellow chunk of food around and around
under the glow lamp hanging from the ceiling of the burrow, looking for
she only knew what and recognizing it when she found it she only knew
how. A man could really strut with such a mate.
But she was the wife of a band leader and far, far beyond him. Her
daughter, though, Selma the Soft-Skinned, would probably be flattered
by his attentions. She still wore her hair in a heavy bun: it would
be at least a year before the Female Society would consider her an
initiate and allow her to drape it about her nakedness. No, far too
young and unimportant for a man on the very verge of warrior status.
Another girl caught his eye. She had been observing him for some time
and smiling behind her lashes, behind her demurely set mouth. Harriet
the History-Teller, the oldest daughter of Rita the Record-Keeper,
who would one day succeed to her mother's office. Now there was a
lovely, slender girl, her hair completely unwound in testament to full
womanhood and recognized professional status.
* * * * *
Eric had caught these covert, barely stated smiles from her before;
especially in the last few weeks, as the time for his Theft approached.
He knew that if he were successful--and he _had_ to be successful:
don't dare think of anything but success!--she would look with favor on
advances from him. Of course, Harriet was a redhead, and therefore,
according to Mankind's traditions, unlucky. She was probably having a
hard time finding a mate. But his own mother had been a redhead.
Yes, and his mother had been very unlucky indeed.
Even his father had been infected with her terrible bad luck. Still,
Harriet the History-Teller was an important person in the tribe for one
her age. Good-looking too. And, above all, she didn't turn away from
him. She smiled at him, openly now. He smiled back.
"Look at Eric!" he heard someone call out behind him. "He's already
searching for a mate. Hey, Eric! You've not even wearing straps yet.
First comes the stealing. _Then_ comes the mating."
Eric spun around, bits of fantasy still stuck to his lips.
The group of young men lounging against the wall of his band's burrow
were tossing laughter back and forth between them. They were all
adults: they had all made their Theft. Socially, they were still his
superiors. His only recourse was cold dignity.
"I know that," he began. "There is no mating until--"
"Until never for some people," one of the young men broke in. He
rattled his spear in his hand, carelessly, proudly. "After you steal,
you still have to convince a woman that you're a man. And some men
have to do an awful lot of convincing. An _awful_ lot, Eric-O."
The ball of laughter bounced back and forth again, heavier than before.
Eric the Only felt his face turn bright red. How dare they remind him
of his birth? On this day of all days? Here he was about to prepare
himself to go forth and Steal for Mankind....
He dropped the sharpening stone into his pouch and slid his right
hand back along his uncle's spear. "At least," he said, slowly and
definitely, "at least, my woman will stay convinced, Roy the Runner.
She won't be always open to offers from every other man in the tribe."
"You lousy little throwback!" Roy the Runner yelled. He leaped away
from the rest of the band and into a crouch facing Eric, his spear
tense in one hand. "You're asking for a hole in the belly! My woman's
had two litters off me, two big litters. What would you have given her,
you dirty singleton?"
"She's had two litters, but not off you," Eric the Only spat, holding
his spear out in the guard position. "If you're the father, then the
chief's blonde hair is contagious--like measles."
Roy bellowed and jabbed his spear forward. Eric parried it and lunged
in his turn. He missed as his opponent leaped to one side. They
circled each other, cursing and insulting, eyes only for the point of
each other's spears. The other young men had scrambled a distance down
the burrow to get out of their way.
* * * * *
A powerful arm suddenly clamped Eric's waist from behind and lifted
him off his feet. He was kicked hard, so that he stumbled a half-dozen
steps and fell. On his feet in a moment, the spear still in his hand,
he whirled, ready to deal with this new opponent. He was mad enough to
fight all Mankind.
But not Thomas the Trap-Smasher. No, not that mad.
All the tension drained out of him as he recognized the captain of his
band. He couldn't fight Thomas. His uncle. And the greatest of all men.
Guiltily, he walked to the niche in the wall where the band's weapons
were stacked and slid his uncle's spear into its appointed place.
"What the hell's the matter with you, Roy?" Thomas was asking behind
him. "Fighting a duel with an initiate? Where's your band spirit?
That's all we need these days, to be cut down from six effectives to
five. Save your spear for Strangers, or--if you feel very brave--for
Monsters. But don't show a point in our band's burrow if you know
what's good for you, hear me?"
"I wasn't fighting a duel," the Runner mumbled, sheathing his own
spear. "The kid got above himself. I was punishing him."
"You punish with the haft of the spear. And anyway, this is my band and
I do the punishing around here. Now move on out, all of you, and get
ready for the council. I'll attend to the boy myself."
They went off obediently without looking back. The Trap-Smasher's band
was famous for its discipline throughout the length and breadth of
Mankind. A proud thing to be a member of it. But to be called a boy in
front of the others! A boy, when he was full-grown and ready to begin
stealing!
Although, come to think of it, he'd rather be called a boy than a
singleton. A boy eventually became a man, but a singleton stayed a
singleton forever. He put the problem to his uncle who was at the
niche, inspecting the band's reserve pile of spears.
"Isn't it possible--I mean, it is possible, isn't it--that my father
had some children by another woman? You told me he was one of the best
thieves we ever had."
The captain of the band turned to study him, folding his arms across
his chest so that biceps swelled into greatness and power. They
glinted in the light of the tiny lantern bound to his forehead, the
glow lantern that only fully accredited warriors might wear. After a
while, the older man shook his head and said, very gently:
"Eric, Eric, forget about it, boy. He was all of those things and more.
Your father was famous. Eric the Storeroom-Stormer, we called him,
Eric the Laugher at Locks, Eric the Roistering Robber of all Mankind.
He taught me everything I know. But he only married once. And if any
other woman ever played around with him, she's been careful to keep it
a secret. Now dress up those spears. You've let them get all sloppy.
Butts together, that's the way, points up and even with each other."
* * * * *
Dutifully, Eric rearranged the bundle of armament that was his
responsibility. He turned to his uncle again, now examining the
knapsacks and canteens that would be carried on the expedition.
"Suppose there had been another woman. My father could have had two,
three, even four litters by different women. Extra-large litters too.
If we could prove something like that, I wouldn't be a singleton any
more. I would not be Eric the Only."
The Trap-Smasher sighed and thought for a moment. Then he pulled the
spear from his back sling and took Eric's arm. He drew the youth along
the burrow until they stood alone in the very center of it. He looked
carefully at the exits at either end, making certain that they were
completely alone before giving his reply in an unusually low, guarded
voice.
"We'd never be able to prove anything like that. If you don't want to
be Eric the Only, if you want to be Eric the something-else, well then,
it's up to you. You have to make a good Theft. That's what you should
be thinking about all the time now--your Theft. Eric, which category
are you going to announce?"
He hadn't thought about it very much. "The usual one I guess. The one
that's picked for most initiations. First category."
The older man brought his lips together, looking dissatisfied. "First
category. _Food._ Well...."
Eric felt he understood. "You mean, for someone like me--an Only,
who's really got to make a name for himself--I ought to announce
like a real warrior? I should say I'm going to steal in the second
category--Articles Useful to Mankind. Is that what my father would have
done?"
"Do you know what your father would have done?"
"No. What?" Eric demanded eagerly.
"He'd have elected the third category. That's what I'd be announcing
these days, if I were going through an initiation ceremony. That's what
I want you to announce."
"Third category? Monster souvenirs? But no one's elected the third
category in I don't know how many auld lang synes. Why should I do it?"
"Because this is more than just an initiation ceremony. It could be the
beginning of a new life for all of us."
Eric frowned. What could be more than an initiation ceremony and his
attainment of full thieving manhood?
"There are things going on in Mankind, these days," Thomas the
Trap-Smasher continued in a strange, urgent voice. "Big things. And
you're going to be a part of them. This Theft of yours--if you handle
it right, if you do what I tell you, it's likely to blow the lid off
everything the chief has been sitting on."
"The _chief_?" Eric felt confused. He was walking up a strange burrow
now without a glow lamp. "What's the chief got to do with my Theft?"
* * * * *
His uncle examined both ends of the corridor again. "Eric, what's the
most important thing we, or you, or anyone, can do? What is our life
all about? What are we here for?"
"That's easy," Eric chuckled. "That's the easiest question there is. A
child could answer it:
"_Hit back at the Monsters_," he quoted. "_Drive them from the planet,
if we can. Regain Earth for Mankind, if we can. But above all, hit back
at the Monsters. Make them suffer as they've made us suffer. Make them
know we're still here, we're still fighting. Hit back at the Monsters._"
"Hit back at the Monsters. Right. Now how have we been doing that?"
Eric the Only stared at his uncle. That wasn't the next question in the
catechism. He must have heard incorrectly. His uncle couldn't have made
a mistake in such a basic ritual.
"_We will do that_," he went on in the second reply, his voice sliding
into the singsong of childhood lessons, "_by regaining the science and
knowhow of our fore-fathers. Man was once Lord of all Creation: his
science and knowhow made him supreme. Science and knowhow is what we
need to hit back at the Monsters._"
"Now, Eric," his uncle asked gently. "Please tell me this. What in hell
is knowhow?"
That was way off. They were a full corridor's length from the normal
progression of the catechism now.
"Knowhow is--knowhow is--" he stumbled over the unfamiliar verbal
terrain. "Well, it's what our ancestors knew. And what they did with
it, I guess. Knowhow is what you need before you can make hydrogen
bombs or economic warfare or guided missiles, any of those really big
weapons like our ancestors had."
"Did those weapons do them any good? Against the Monsters, I mean. Did
they stop the Monsters?"
Eric looked completely blank for a moment, then brightened. Oh! He knew
the way now. He knew how to get back to the catechism:
"_The suddenness of the attack, the_--"
"Stop it!" his uncle ordered. "Don't give me any of that garbage! _The
suddenness of the attack, the treachery of the Monsters_--does it sound
like an explanation to you? Honestly? If our ancestors were really
Lords of Creation and had such great weapons, would the Monsters have
been able to conquer them? I've led my band on dozens of raids, and I
know the value of a surprise attack; but believe me, boy, it's only
good for a flash charge and a quick getaway if you're facing a superior
force. You can knock somebody down when he doesn't expect it. But if he
really has more than you, he won't _stay_ down. Right?"
"I--I guess so. I wouldn't know."
"Well, I know. I know from plenty of battle experience. The thing to
remember is that once our ancestors were knocked down, they stayed
down. That means their science and knowhow were not so much in the
first place. And _that_ means--" here he turned his head and looked
directly into Eric's eyes--"_that_ means the science of our ancestors
wasn't worth one good damn against the Monsters, and it wouldn't be
worth one good damn to us!"
Eric the Only turned pale. He knew heresy when he heard it.
* * * * *
His uncle patted him on the shoulder, drawing a deep breath as if he'd
finally spat out something extremely unpleasant. He leaned closer, eyes
glittering beneath the forehead glow lamp and his voice dropped to a
fierce whisper.
"Eric. When I asked you how we've been hitting back at the Monsters,
you told me what we _ought_ to do. We haven't been _doing_ a
single thing to bother them. We don't know how to reconstruct
the Ancestor-science, we don't have the tools or weapons or
knowhow--whatever _that_ is--but they wouldn't do us a bit of good even
if we had them. Because they failed once. They failed completely and
at their best. There's just no point in trying to put them together
again."
And now Eric understood. He understood why his uncle had whispered,
why there had been so much strain in this conversation. Bloodshed was
involved here, bloodshed and death.
"Uncle Thomas," he whispered, in a voice that kept cracking despite
his efforts to keep it whole and steady, "how long have you been an
Alien-Science man? When did you leave Ancestor-Science?"
Thomas the Trap-Smasher caressed his spear before he answered. He
felt for it with a gentle, wandering arm, almost unconsciously, but
both of them registered the fact that it was loose and ready. His
tremendous body, nude except for the straps about his loins and the
light spear-sling on his back, looked as if it were preparing to move
instantaneously in any direction.
He stared again from one end of the burrow to the other, his forehead
lamp reaching out to the branching darkness of the exits. Eric stared
with him. No one was leaning tightly against a wall and listening.
"How long? Since I got to know your father. He was in another band;
naturally we hadn't seen much of each other before he married my
sister. I'd heard about him, though: everyone in the Male Society
had--he was a great thief. But once he became my brother-in-law,
I learned a lot from him. I learned about locks, about the latest
traps--and I learned about Alien-Science. He'd been an Alien-Science
man for years. He converted your mother, and he converted me."
Eric the Only backed away. "No!" he called out wildly. "Not my father
and mother! They were decent people--when they were killed a service
was held in their name--they went to add to the science of our
ancestors--"
* * * * *
His uncle jammed a powerful hand over his mouth.
"Shut up, you damn fool, or you'll finish us both! Of course your
parents were decent people. How do you think they were killed? Your
mother was with your father out in Monster territory. Have you ever
heard of a woman going along with her husband on a Theft? And taking
her baby with her? Do you think it was an ordinary robbery of the
Monsters? They were Alien-science people, serving their faith as best
they could. They died for it."
Eric looked into his uncle's eyes over the hand that covered the lower
half of his face. _Alien-science people ... serving their faith ... do
you think it was an ordinary robbery ... they died for it!_
He had never realized before how odd it was that his parents had gone
to Monster territory together, a man taking his wife and the woman
taking her baby!
As he relaxed, his uncle removed the gagging hand. "What kind of Theft
was it that my parents died in?"
Thomas examined his face and seemed satisfied. "The kind you're going
after," he said. "If you are your father's son. If you're man enough to
continue the work he started. Are you?"
Eric started to nod, then found himself shrugging weakly, and finally
just hung his head. He didn't know what to say. His uncle--well, his
uncle was his model and his leader, and he was strong and wise and
crafty. His father--naturally, he wanted to emulate his father and
continue whatever work he had started. But this was his initiation
ceremony, after all, and there would be enough danger merely in proving
his manhood. For his initiation ceremony to take on a task that had
destroyed his father, the greatest thief the tribe had ever known, and
a heretical, blasphemous task at that....
"I'll try. I don't know if I can."
"You can," his uncle told him heartily. "It's been set up for you. It
will be like walking through a dug burrow, Eric. All you have to face
through is the council. You'll have to be steady there, no matter what.
You tell the chief that you're undertaking the third category."
"But why the third?" Eric asked. "Why does it have to be Monster
souvenirs?"
"Because that's what we need. And you stick to it, no matter what
pressure they put on you. Remember, an initiate has the right to decide
what he's going to steal. A man's first Theft is his own affair."
"But, listen, uncle--"
There was a whistle from the end of the burrow. Thomas the Trap-Smasher
nodded in the direction of the signal.
"The council's beginning, boy. We'll talk later, on expedition. Now
remember this: stealing from the third category is your own idea, and
all your own idea. Forget everything else we've talked about. If you
hit any trouble with the chief, I'll be there. I'm your sponsor, after
all."
He threw an arm about his confused nephew and walked to the end of the
burrow where the other members of the band waited.