At the end of the sleep period, as soon as the chief had awakened and
yawned, thus proclaiming the dawn, Thomas the Trap-Smasher's band
started on its trip.
Eric, still officially surnamed the Only, carried the precious loin
straps of manhood in the food knapsack the women had provided for a
possible journey of several days. They should return before the next
sleep period, but when one went on an expedition into Monster territory
anything might happen.
They stepped out in full military formation, a long, straggling single
file, each man barely in sight of the warrior immediately ahead. For
the first time in his military career, Eric was wearing only one set of
spears--those for himself. Extra weapons for the band--as well as extra
supplies--were on the back of a new apprentice, a stripling who marched
a distance behind Eric, watching him with the same mixture of fright
and exhilaration Eric himself had once accorded all other warriors.
Ahead of Eric, momentarily disappearing as the dim corridor curved and
branched, was Roy the Runner, his long, loose-jointed legs purposefully
treading down the mileage. And all the way in the lead of the column,
Eric knew, was his uncle. Thomas the Trap-Smasher would be striding
cautiously yet without any unnecessary waste of time, the large glow
lamp on his forehead constantly shifting from wall to wall of the
uninhabited burrow and then straight ahead, the heavy spear in each
brawny hand ready for instant action, his mouth set to call the warning
behind him if danger materialized.
To be a man--this was what it was like! To go on expeditions like this
for the rest of one's life, glorious, adventure-charged expeditions
so that Mankind might eat well and have weapons and live as Mankind
should. And when you returned, triumphant, victorious, the welcoming
dance of the women as they threaded their way through the tired ranks,
giving you refreshment and taking from you the supplies that only they
could turn into usable articles. Then, after you had eaten and drunk
and rested, your own dance, the dance of the men, where you sang and
acted out for the tribe all the events of this particular expedition,
the dangers you had overcome, the splendid courage you had shown, the
strange and mysterious sights you had seen.
The sights you had seen! As Eric the Eye, he would probably be entitled
to a solo dance any time his band came across anything particularly
curious. Oh, how high Eric the Eye would leap, how loudly, how proudly,
how melodiously, he would sing of the wonders the expedition had
encountered!
"Eric the Eye," the women would murmur. "What a fine, fine figure of a
man! What a mate for some lucky woman!"
* * * * *
Harriet the History-Teller this morning, for example, before they
started out. She had filled his canteen for him with fresh water as if
he were already an accredited man instead of an initiate going out to
face his ultimate trial. Before the eyes of all Mankind she had filled
it and brought it to him, her eyes down-cast and light purple blushes
on the rosy skin of her face and body. She had treated him the way a
wife treats a husband, and many warriors--Eric thought gleefully--many
full warriors with their Thefts long behind them had observed that Eric
was likely to join the ranks of the Male Society and the married men
almost simultaneously.
Of course, with her unlucky red hair, her bustling, domineering mother,
Harriet was not exactly the most marriageable girl in Mankind. Still,
there were many full warriors who had not yet been able to persuade
a woman to mate with them, who watched Franklin and his three wives
with unconcealed hunger and envy. How they would envy Eric, the newest
warrior of all, when he mated the same night he returned from his
theft! Call him Only, then! Call him singleton, then!
They would have litter after litter, he and Harriet, large litters,
ample litters, four, five, even six at a time. People would forget he'd
ever been the product of a singleton birth. Other women, mates of other
warriors, would wriggle to attract his attention as they now wriggled
when they caught the eye of Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. He
would make the litters fathered by Franklin look puny in comparison,
he would prove that the best hope for Mankind's increase lay in his
loins and his loins alone. And when the time came to select another
chief....
"Hey, you damned day-dreaming singleton!" Roy the Runner was calling
from the burrow ahead. "Will you wipe that haze out of your face and
pay attention to signals? This is an expedition to Monster territory,
not a stroll in the women's quarters. Stay alert, will you? The band
captain's sent down a call for you."
Amid the chuckles ahead and behind him--damn it, even the new
apprentice was laughing!--Eric took a firmer grip on his glow torch
and sprinted for the head of the column. As he passed each man, he was
asked the name of the girl he'd been thinking about and pressed for
interesting details. Since he kept his mouth tightly shut, some of the
warriors hypothesized out loud. They were painfully close to the truth.
His uncle wasn't much gentler with him. "Eric the _Eye_!" the
Trap-Smasher growled. "Eric the Eyebrow, Eric the Closed Eyelash,
you'll be known as, if you don't wake up! Now stay abreast of me and
try to _act_ like Eric the Eye. These are dangerous burrows and my
vision isn't as sharp as yours. Besides, I have to fill you in on a
couple of things." He turned. "Spread out a little farther back there,"
he called out to the men behind him. "Spread out! You should be a full
spear-cast from the backside of the man in front of you. Let me see a
real strung-out column with plenty of distance between each warrior."
* * * * *
To Eric, he muttered, once the maneuver had been completed: "Good.
Gives us a chance to talk without everyone in the band hearing us. You
can trust my bunch, but still, why take chances?"
Eric nodded, with no idea what he was talking about. His uncle had
become slightly odd recently. Well, he was still the best band captain
in all Mankind.
They marched along together, the light from the strange glowing
substance on Eric's torch and his uncle's forehead spreading a
yellowish illumination some hundred feet ahead of them. On either side,
underfoot, overhead, were the curved, featureless walls of the burrow.
From the center of the corridor, where they marched, the walls looked
soft and spongy, but Eric knew what tremendous labor was involved in
digging a niche or recess in them. It took several strong men at least
two sleep periods to make a niche large enough to hold a handful of
Mankind's store of artifacts.
Where had the burrows come from? Some said they had been dug by the
ancestors when they had first begun to hit back at the Monsters. Others
claimed the burrows had always been there, waiting for Mankind to find
them and be comfortable in them.
In all directions the burrows stretched. On and on they went,
interminably curving and branching and forking, dark and silent, until
human beings stamped into them with glow lamp and glow torch. These
particular corridors, Eric knew, led to Monster territory. He had been
along them many times as a humble spear carrier when his uncle's band
had been dispatched to bring back the necessities of life for Mankind.
Other corridors went off to more exotic and even more dangerous places.
But were there any places which had no burrows?
What a thought! Even the Monsters lived in burrows, big as they were
reputed to be. But there was a legend that Mankind had once lived
outside burrows, outside the branching corridors. Then what had they
lived in? Just trying to work it out made you dizzy.
They came to a place where the burrow became two burrows, each curving
away from the other in opposite directions.
"Which one?" his uncle demanded.
Eric unhesitatingly pointed the right.
Thomas the Trap-Smasher nodded. "You have a good memory," he said as he
bore in the direction that Eric had indicated. "That's half of being an
Eye. The other half is having a feeling, a knack, for the right way to
go. You have that too. I've noticed it on every expedition where you've
been along. That's what I told those women--Rita, Ottilie--I told them
what your name had to be. Eric the Eye, I told them. Find a vision for
the kind that corresponds to it."
* * * * *
He was so shocked that he almost came to a halt. "You picked my name?
You told them what kind of vision.... That's--that's--I never heard of
such a thing!"
His uncle laughed. "It's no different from Ottilie the Omen-Teller
making a deal with Franklin to have a vision showing him as the new
chief. He gets to be chief, she becomes the Chieftain's First Wife and
automatically takes over the Female Society. Religion and politics,
they're always mixed up together these days, Eric. We're not living in
the old times any more when Ancestor-science was real and holy and it
worked."
"It still works, Ancestor-science, doesn't it?" he pleaded. "Some of
the time?"
"Everything works _some_ of the time. Only Alien-science, though, works
_all_ of the time. It's working for Aliens, for the Monsters. It's got
to begin working for us. That's where you come in."
He had to remember that his uncle was an experienced captain, a
knowledgeable warrior. Thomas the Trap-Smasher's protection and advice
had brought him, a despised singleton, an orphaned child of parents
that no one dared even talk about, to his present estate of almost full
thieving status. It was very fortunate for him that neither of his
uncle's wives had yet produced a son which survived into the initiate
years. He still had a lot to learn from this man.
"Now," the Trap-Smasher was saying, his eyes still on the dimly
illuminated corridors ahead. "When we get to the Monster burrows, you
go in. You go in alone, of course."
Well, of course, Eric thought. What other way was there to make your
Theft? The first time you stole for Mankind, you did it all alone, to
prove your manhood, your courage, also the amount of personal luck you
enjoyed. It was not like a regular band theft--or organized stealing of
a large amount of goods that would last Mankind many sleep-periods,
almost a tenth of an auld lang syne. In a regular band theft, assigned
to each band in rotation, a warrior had to be assured of the luck and
skill of the warriors at his side. He had to know that each one of them
had made his Theft--and proved himself when completely alone.
Stealing from the Monsters was dangerous enough under the best of
conditions. You wanted only the cleverest, bravest, most fortunate
warriors along with you.
"Once you're inside, stay close to the wall. Don't look up at first or
you're likely to freeze right where you are. Keep your eyes on the wall
and move close to it. Move fast."
Nothing new here. Every initiate learned over and over again, before
he made his Theft, that it was terribly dangerous to look up when you
first entered Monster territory. You had to keep your eyes on the wall
and move in the protection of it, the wall touching your shoulder as
you ran alongside it. Why this was so, Eric had no idea, but that it
was so he had long ago learned to repeat as a fact.
"All right," Thomas the Trap-Smasher went on. "You turn right as you go
in. _Right_, do you hear me, Eric? You turn right, without looking up,
and run along the wall, letting it brush your shoulder every couple of
steps. You run forty, fifty paces, and you come to a great big thing, a
structure, that's almost touching the wall. You turn left along that,
moving away from the wall, but still not looking up, until you pass an
entrance in the structure. You don't go in that first entrance, Eric;
you pass it by. About twenty, twenty-five paces further on, there'll be
a second entrance, a bigger one. You go in that one."
"I go in that one," Eric repeated carefully, memorizing his uncle's
words. He was receiving directions for his Theft, the most important
act of his life! Every single thing his uncle told him must be listened
to carefully, must not be forgotten.
"You'll be in something that looks like a burrow again, but it'll be
darker, at first. The walls will soak up light from your glow lamp.
After a while, the burrow will open out into a great big space, a real
big and real dark space. You go on in a straight line, looking over
your shoulder at the light from the entrance and making sure it's
always directly behind you. You'll hit another burrow, a low one this
time. Turn right at the first fork as soon as you go in, and there you
are."
"Where? Where will I be? What happens then?" Eric demanded eagerly.
"How do I make my Theft? Where do I find the third category?"
Thomas the Trap-Smasher seemed to have trouble continuing.
Incredible--he was actually nervous! "There'll be a Stranger there. You
tell him who you are, your name. He'll do the rest."
* * * * *
This time Eric came to a full stop. "A Stranger?" he asked in complete
amazement. "Someone who's not of Mankind?"
His uncle grabbed at his arm and pulled him along. "Well, you've seen
Strangers before," he said with a weak laugh. "You know there are
others in the burrows besides Mankind. You know that, don't you, boy?"
Eric certainly did.
From an early age he had accompanied his uncle and his uncle's band on
warfare and trading expeditions to the burrows a bit further back. He
knew that the people in these burrows looked down on the people in his,
that they were more plentiful than his people, and led richer, safer
lives--but he still couldn't help feeling sorry for them.
They were nothing but Strangers, after all. He was a member of Mankind.
It wasn't just that Mankind lived in the front burrows, those
closest to the Monster larder. This enormous convenience might be
counterbalanced, he would readily admit, by the dangers associated
with it--although the constant exposure to dangers and death in every
form were part of Mankind's greatness. They were great despite their
inferior technology. So what if they were primarily a source of raw
materials to the more populous but less hardy burrows in the rear? How
long would the weaponsmiths, the potters and tanners and artificers of
these burrows be able to go on with their buzzing, noisy industries
once Mankind ceased to bring them the basic substances--food, cloth,
metal--it had so gloriously stolen from fear-filled Monster territory?
No, Mankind was the bravest, greatest, most important people in all the
burrows.
But that still wasn't the point of it all.
The point was that you had nothing more to do with Strangers than was
absolutely necessary. They were Strangers. You were Mankind. You stayed
proudly aloof from them at all times.
Trading with them--well, you traded with them. Mankind needed
spear-points and sturdy spear-shafts, knapsacks and loin-straps,
canteens and cooking vessels. You needed these articles and got
them in exchange for heavy backloads of shapeless, unprocessed stuff
freshly stolen. Mating with them--well, of course you mated with them.
One was always on the lookout for extra women who could add to the
knowledge and technical abilities of Mankind. But these women became a
well-adjusted part of Mankind once they were stolen, just as Mankind's
women were complete outsiders and Strangers the moment they had been
carried off by a foreign raiding party. And fighting with them, warring
with them--next to stealing from the Monsters, that was the sweetest,
most exciting part of a warrior's existence.
You traded with Strangers, coldly, suspiciously, always alert for a
better bargain; you stole Stranger women whenever you could, gleefully,
proudly, because that diminished them and increased the numbers and
well-being of Mankind; and you fought Stranger men whenever there was
more to be gained that way than by simple trading--and periodically
they came upon you as you lay in your burrow unawares and fought you.
But otherwise, for all normal social purposes, they were taboo. Almost
as taboo and not-to-be-related-to as the Monsters on the other side of
Mankind's burrows. When you came upon an individual Stranger wandering
apart from his people, you killed him quickly and casually.
You certainly didn't ask him for advice on your Theft.
* * * * *
Eric was still brooding on the unprecedented nature of his uncle's
instructions when they came to the end of their journey, a large,
blind-alley burrow. There was a line cut deep into the blank wall here,
a line that started at the floor, went up almost to the height of a
man's head, and then curved down to the floor again.
The door to Monster territory.
Thomas the Trap-Smasher waited for a moment, listening. When his
experienced ears had detected no unusual noises in the neighborhood,
no hint of danger on the other side, he cupped his hands around his
mouth, faced back the way he had come, and softly gave the ululating
recognition-call of the band. The four other warriors and the
apprentice came up swiftly and grouped themselves about him. Then, at a
signal from their leader, all squatted near the door.
They ate first, rapidly and silently, removing from their knapsacks
handfuls of food that the women had prepared for them and stuffing
their mouths full, the beams from the glow lamps above their eyes
darting incessantly back and forth along the arched, empty corridor.
This was the place of ultimate, awful danger. This was the place where
anything might happen.
Eric ate most sparingly of all as was correct for an initiate about to
emerge upon his Theft. He knew he had to keep his springiness of body
and watchfulness of mind at their highest possible pitch. He saw his
uncle nodding approvingly as he returned the bulk of his food to the
knapsack.
The floor vibrated slightly underfoot; there was a regular, rhythmic
gurgling. Eric knew that meant they were directly over a length of
Monster plumbing: upon his return, before the band started homewards,
Thomas the Trap-Smasher would make an opening in the plumbing and
they would refill their canteens. The water here, nearest to Monster
territory, was always the sweetest and best.
Now his uncle got to his feet and called Roy the Runner to him. While
the other warriors watched, tense and still, the two men walked to
the curved line and laid their ears against it. Satisfied, finally,
they inserted spear points into the door's outline on either side and
carefully pried the slab back toward them. They laid it on the floor of
the corridor, very gently.
A shimmering blur of pure whiteness appeared where the door had been.
Monster territory. The strange, alien light of Monster territory. Eric
had seen many warriors disappear into it to fulfill their manhood
tasks. Now it was his turn.
Holding his heavy spear at the ready, Eric's uncle leaned forward into
the whiteness. His body twisted as he looked up, down, around, on both
sides. He withdrew and came back into the burrow.
"No new traps," he said in a soft voice. "The one I dismantled last
expedition is still up there on the wall. It hasn't been repaired. Now
Eric. Here you go, boy."
Eric rose and walked with him to the doorway, remembering to keep his
eyes on the floor. You can't look up, he had been told again and again,
not right away, not the first time you're in Monster territory. If you
do, you freeze, you're lost, you're done for completely.
His uncle checked him carefully and fondly, making certain that his new
loin straps were tight, that his knapsack and back-sling were both in
the right position on his shoulders. He took a heavy spear from Eric's
right hand and replaced it with a light one from the back-sling. "If
you're seen by a Monster," he whispered, "the heavy spear's not worth
a damn. You scuttle into the closest hiding-place and throw the light
spear as far as you can. The Monster can't distinguish between you and
the spear. It will follow the spear."
Eric nodded mechanically, although this too he had been told many
times, this too was a lesson he knew by heart. His mouth was so dry! He
wished that it weren't unmanly to beg for water at such a moment.
Thomas the Trap-Smasher took his torch from him and slipped a glow lamp
about his forehead. Then he pushed him through the doorway. "Go make
your Theft, Eric," he whispered. "Come back a man."
V
He was on the other side. He was in Monster territory. He was
surrounded by the strange Monster light, the incredible Monster world.
The burrows, Mankind, everything familiar, lay behind him.
Panic rose from his stomach and into his throat like vomit.
_Don't look up. Eyes down, eyes down or you're likely to freeze right
where you are. Stay close to the wall, keep your eyes on the wall and
move along it. Turn right and move along the wall. Move fast._
Eric turned. He felt the wall brush his right shoulder. He began to
run, keeping his eyes down, touching the wall with his shoulder at
regular intervals. He ran as fast as he possibly could, urging his
muscles fiercely on. As he ran, he counted the steps to himself.
_Twenty paces._ Where did the light come from? It was everywhere; it
glowed so; it was white, white. _Twenty-five paces. Touch the wall with
your shoulder. Don't--above everything--don't wander away from the
wall. Thirty paces._ In light like this you had no need of the glow
lamp. It was almost too bright to see in. _Thirty-five paces._ The
floor was not like a burrow floor. It was flat and very hard. So was
the wall. Flat and hard and straight. _Forty paces. Run and keep your
eyes down. Run. Keep touching the wall with your shoulder. Move fast.
But keep your eyes down. Don't look up. Forty-five paces._
He almost smashed into the structure he had been told about, but his
reflexes and the warnings he had received swung him to the left and
along it just in time. It was a different color than the wall, he
noted, and a different-textured material. _Keep your eyes down. Don't
look up._ He came to an entrance, like the beginning of a small burrow.
_Don't go in that first entrance, Eric; you pass it by._ He began to
count again as he ran. Twenty-three paces more, and there was another
entrance, a much higher, wider one. He darted inside. _It'll be darker,
at first. The walls will soak up light from your glow lamp._
Eric paused, gasping. He was grateful for the sucking darkness. After
that terrible, alien white light, the gloom was friendly, reminiscent
of the familiar burrows now so horribly far away.
He could afford to take a breath at this point, he knew. The first, the
worst part was over. He wasn't out in the open any more.
He had emerged into Monster territory. He had run fast, following
instructions until he was safely under cover again. He was still alive.
The worst was over. Nothing else would be as bad as this.
Monster territory. It lay behind him, bathed in its own peculiar light.
Now. Why not? Now, when he was in a place of comparative safety. He
could take a chance. He _wanted_ to take a chance.
He turned, gingerly, fearfully. He raised his eyes. He looked.
* * * * *
The cry that tore from his lips was completely involuntary and
frightened him almost as much as what he saw. He shut his eyes and
threw himself down and sideways. He lay where he had fallen for a long
while, almost paralyzed.
It couldn't be. He hadn't seen it. Nothing was that high, nothing ran
on and on for such incredible distances!
After a time, he opened his eyes again, keeping them carefully focused
on the dark near him. The gloom in this covered place had diminished
somewhat as his eyes had grown more accustomed to it. Yellowish light
from his glow lamp was providing illumination now: he could make out
the walls, about as far apart from each other as those in a burrow,
but--unlike a burrow's walls--oddly straight and at right angles to the
floor and ceiling. Far off there was an immense patch of darkness. _The
burrow will open out into a great big space, a real big and real dark
space._
What was this place, he wondered? What was it to the Monsters?
He had to take another look behind, into the open. One more quick look.
He was going to be Eric the Eye. An Eye should be able to look at
anything. He had to take another look.
But guardedly, guardedly.
Eric turned again, opening his eyes a little at a time. He clamped his
teeth together so as not to cry out. Even so, he almost did. He shut
his eyes quickly, waited, then opened them again.
Bit by bit, effort by effort, he found he was able to look into
the great open whiteness without losing control of himself. It was
upsetting, overpowering, but if he didn't look too long at any one
time, he could stand it.
Distance. Enormous, elongated, unbelievable distance. Space upon space
upon space--that white light bathing it all. Space far ahead, space on
all sides, space going on and on until it seemed to have no end to it
at all. But there, fantastically far off, there was an end. There was
a wall, a wall made by giants that finally sealed off the tremendous
space. It rose hugely from the flat, huge floor and disappeared
somewhere far overhead.
And in between--once you could stand to look at it this much--in
between, there were objects. Enormous objects, dwarfed only by the
greatness of the space which surrounded them, enormous, terribly alien
objects. Objects like nothing you had ever imagined.
* * * * *
No, that wasn't quite true. That thing over there. Eric recognized it.
A great, squat thing like a full knapsack without the straps. Since
early boyhood, many was the time he had heard it described by warriors
back from an expedition into Monster territory.
There was food in that sack and the others like it. Enough food in that
one sack to feed the entire population of Mankind for unnumbered auld
lang synes. A different kind of food in each sack.
No spear point possessed by Mankind would cut through the fabric of
its container, not near the bottom where it was thickest. Warriors had
to climb about halfway up the sack, Eric knew, before they could find
a place thin enough to carve themselves an entrance. Then the lumps
of food would be lowered from man to man all the way down the sack,
warriors clinging to precarious handholds every few paces.
Once the pile on the floor was great enough, they would clamber down
and fill their specially large, food-expedition knapsacks. Then back
to the burrows and to the women who alone possessed the lore of
determining whether the food was fit for consumption and of preparing
it if it were.
That's where he would be at this moment, on that sack, cutting a hole
in it, if he'd chosen a first category Theft like most other youths.
He'd be cutting a hole, scooping out a handful of food--any quantity,
no matter how small, was acceptable on an initiatory Theft--and be
preparing to go home to plaudits from the women and acceptance from the
men. He'd be engaged in a normal, socially-acceptable endeavor.
Instead of which....
He found that he was able to stare at the Monster room now from under
the cover of his hiding place with only a slight feeling of nausea.
Well, that in itself was an achievement. After only a short time, here
he was, able to look around and estimate the nature of Monster goods
like the most experienced warrior. He couldn't look up too high as yet,
but what warrior could?
Well and good, but this wasn't getting him anywhere. He didn't have a
normal Theft to make. His was third category. Monster souvenirs.
Eric turned and faced the darkness again. He walked rapidly forward
into the straight-walled burrow, the glow-lamp on his forehead lighting
a yellow path. Ahead of him, the great black space grew steadily larger
as he pushed towards it.
Everything about his Theft, his initiation into manhood, was
extraordinary. Thomas the Trap-Smasher telling the women about his
special talents, so that he would be accorded a vision and a name
which would fit with them. Visions were supposed to come from the
ancestors, through the Ancestor-science of the record machine. Nobody
was supposed to have the slightest idea in advance of what the vision
would be. That was all up to the ancestors and their mysterious plans
for their descendants.
* * * * *
Was it possible, was it conceivable, that all visions and names were
pre-arranged, that the record machine was set in advance for every
initiation? Where did that leave religion? If that were so, how could
you continue to believe in logic, in cause and effect?
And having someone--a Stranger, at that!--help you make your Theft.
A Theft was supposed to be purely and simply a test of your male
potential; by definition, it was something you did alone.
But if you could accept the concept of pre-arranged visions, why not
pre-arranged Thefts?
Eric shook his head. He was getting into very dark corridors mentally:
his world was turning into sheer confusion.
But one thing he knew. Making an arrangement with a Stranger, as his
uncle had done, was definitely an act contrary to all the laws and
practices of Mankind. Thomas's uncertain speech had underlined that
fact. It was--well, it was _wrong_.
Yet his uncle was the greatest man in all Mankind, so far as Eric was
concerned. Thomas the Trap-Smasher could do no wrong. But Thomas the
Trap-Smasher was evidently leaning toward Alien-science. Alien-science
was wrong. But again, on the other hand, his parents, according to the
Trap-Smasher, his father and his mother had been Alien-sciencers.
Too much. There was just too much to work out. There was too much he
didn't know. He'd better concentrate on his Theft.
The strange burrow had come to an end. The hairs rose on the back of
his neck as he walked into the great dark area and sensed enormous
black heights above him. He began to hurry, turning every once in a
while to make certain that he was staying in a straight line with the
light from the entrance. Here, his forehead glow lamp was almost no use
at all. He didn't like this place. It felt almost like being out in the
open.
What, he wondered again feverishly, was this structure in the world of
the Monsters? What function did it have? He was not sure he wanted to
know.
Eric was running by the time he came to the end of the open space. He
hit the wall so hard that he was knocked over backwards.
For a moment, he was badly frightened, then he realized what had
happened. He hadn't taken his bearings for a while: he must have moved
off at an angle.
Groping along the wall with extended arms, he found the entrance to
the low burrow at last. It was quite low--he had to bend his knees and
duck his head as he went up to. It was an unpleasantly narrow little
corridor. But then there was an opening on his right--the fork his
uncle had told him about--and he turned into it with relief.
He had arrived.
There was a burst of light from a group of glow lamps. And there were
Strangers, there were _several_ Strangers here. Three of them--no,
four--no, five! They squatted in a corner of this large, square
burrow, three of them talking earnestly, the other two engaged in some
incomprehensible task with materials that were mostly unfamiliar.
* * * * *
All of them leaped to their feet as he trotted in and deployed
instantly in a wide semi-circle facing him. Eric wished desperately
he had been holding two heavy spears instead of the single light one.
With two heavy spears you had both a shield and a dangerous offensive
weapon. A light spear was good for a single cast, and that was that.
He held it nevertheless in the throwing position above his shoulder and
glared fiercely, as a warrior of Mankind should. If he had to throw, he
decided, he would spring to one side immediately afterward and try to
pluck the two heavy spears from his back-sling. But if they rushed him
right now--
"Who are you?" asked a strong-faced, middle-aged man in the center of
the semi-circle, his spear throbbing in an upraised arm. "What's your
name--what's your people?"
"Eric the Only," Eric told him quickly. Then he remembered to add: "I'm
destined to be Eric the Eye. My people are Mankind."
"He's expected, one of us," the middle-aged man told the others who
immediately relaxed, slung their spears and went back to what they had
been doing. "Welcome, Eric the Only of Mankind. Put up your spear and
sit with us. I am Arthur the Organizer."
Eric gingerly dropped his spear into the back-sling. He studied the
Stranger.
A man about as old as his uncle and not nearly as hefty, although
well-muscled enough for normal warlike purposes. He wore the
loin-straps of a full warrior, but--as if these were not enough honor
for a man--he also wore straps laced about his chest and across his
shoulders, though he was carrying no knapsack. This was the fashion
of many Strangers, Eric knew, as was the strap at the back of the
head that held the hair in a tight tail away from the eyes instead of
letting it hang wild and free as the hair of a warrior should. And
the straps were decorated with odd, incised designs--another weak and
unmanlike Stranger fashion.
Who but Strangers, Eric thought contemptuously, would group up in so
an alien place without setting sentries at either end of their burrow?
Truly Mankind had good reason to despise them!
But this man was a leader, he realized, a born leader, with an even
more self-assured air than Thomas the Trap-Smasher, captain of the
best band in all Mankind. He was studying Eric in turn, with eyes
that weighed carefully and then, having decided on the measure, made
a definite placement, fitting Eric permanently into this plan or that
plan. He looked like a man whose head was full of many plans, each one
evolving inexorably through action to a predetermined end.
He took Eric's arm companionably and led him to where the others
squatted and talked and worked. This was no tribal burrow of any
sort: it was quite apparently a field headquarters--and Arthur the
Organizer was Commander-in-Chief. "I met your uncle," he told Eric,
"about a dozen auld lang synes ago, when he came to us on a trading
expedition--back in our burrows, I mean. A fine man, your uncle, very
progressive. He's attended our secret meetings regularly, and there's
going to be an important place for him in the great burrows we will
dig, in the new world we are making. He reminds me a lot of your
father. But so do you, my boy, so do you."
"Did you know my father?"
* * * * *
Arthur the Organizer smiled and nodded. "Very well. He could have been
a great man. He gave his life for the Cause. Who among us will ever
forget Eric the--the--Eric the Store-keeper or something, wasn't it?"
"The Storeroom-Stormer. His name was Eric the Storeroom-Stormer."
"Yes, of course. Eric the Storeroom-Stormer. An unforgettable name with
us, and an unforgettable man. But that's another story; we'll talk
about it some other time. You'll have to be getting back to your uncle
very soon." He picked up a flat board covered with odd markings and
studied it with his glow lamp.
"How do you like that?" one of the men working with the unfamiliar
materials muttered to his neighbor. "You ask him his people, and he
says, 'Mankind.' _Mankind!_"
The other man chuckled. "A front-burrow tribe. What the hell do you
expect--sophistication? Each and every front-burrow tribe calls itself
Mankind. As far as these primitives are concerned, the human race stops
at their outermost burrow. Your tribe, my tribe--you know what they
call us? Strangers. In their eyes, there's not too much difference
between us and the Monsters."
"That's what I mean. They don't see us as fellow-men. They are
narrow-minded savages. Who needs them?"
Arthur the Organizer glanced at Eric's face. He turned sharply to the
man who had spoken last.
"I'll tell you who needs them, Walter," he said. "The Cause needs them.
If the front-burrow tribes are with us, it means our main lines of
supply to Monster territory are kept open. But we need every fighter
we can get, no matter how primitive. Every single tribe has to be with
us if Alien-science is to be the dominant religion of the burrows, if
we're to avoid the fiasco of the last rising. We need front-burrow
men for their hunting, foraging skills and back-burrow men for their
civilized skills. We need everybody in this thing, especially now."
The man called Walter put down his work and scowled at Eric dubiously.
He seemed to be totally unconvinced.
"These arrogant back-burrowers with their ornamented straps and
unmilitary manners! Men from different tribes sitting around and
talking, when--if they had any sense of propriety at all--they should
be killing each other!"
Suddenly, the floor shook under him. He almost fell. He staggered back
and forth, trying to grab at the spears in his back-sling. He finally
got used to it, managed to find a solid footing in the upheaval. The
spear he held vibrated in his hand.
* * * * *
From far away came a series of ear-splitting thumps. The floor swung to
their rhythm. "What is it?" he cried, turning to Arthur. "What's going
on?"
"You've never heard a Monster walking before?" the Organizer asked him
unbelievingly. "That's right--this is your Theft, your first time out.
It's a Monster, boy. A Monster's moving around in the Monster larder,
doing whatever Monsters do. They have a right, you know," he added with
a smile. "It's their larder. We're just--visitors."
Eric noticed that none of the others seemed particularly concerned. He
drew a deep breath and reslung his spear. How the floor and the walls
shook! What a fantastic, enormous creature that must be!
As an apprentice warrior, he had often stood with the rear-guard on the
other side of the doorway to Monster territory while the band went in
to steal for Mankind. A few times there had been heavy, thumping noises
off in the distance, and the walls of the burrow had quivered slightly.
But not like this. It had never been remotely as awesome as this.
He raised his eyes to the straight, flat ceiling of the burrow
above them. He remembered the dark space further back stretching up
limitlessly. "And this," he said aloud. "This structure we're in. What
is _this_ to them?"
Arthur the Organizer shrugged. "A piece of Monster furniture. Something
they use for something or other. We're in one of the open spaces they
always leave in the bases of their furniture. Makes the furniture
lighter, easier to move around, I guess." He listened for a moment
as the thumps drifted further away and then died out. "Let's get
down to business. Eric, this is Walter the Weapon-Seeker. Walter the
Weapon-Seeker of the Miximilian people. Walter, what do you have for
Eric's tribe--for, uh, for Mankind?"
"I hate to give anything even halfway good to a front-burrow tribe,"
the squatting man muttered. "No matter how much you explain it to them,
they always use it wrong, they botch it up every single time. Let's
see. This should be simple enough."
He rummaged in the pile of strange stuff in front of him and picked up
a small, red, jelly-like blob. "All you do," he explained, "is tear
off a pinch with your fingers. Just a pinch at a time, no more. Then
spit on it and throw it. After you spit on it, get it out of your hands
fast. Throw it as fast and as far as you can. Do you think you can
remember that?"
"Yes." Eric took the red blob from him and stared at it in puzzlement.
There was a strange, irritating odor: it made his nose itch slightly.
"But what happens? What does it do?"
"That's not your worry, boy," Arthur the Organizer told him. "Your
uncle will know when to use it. You have your third category theft--a
Monster souvenir that no one in your tribe has ever seen before. It
should make them sit up and take notice. And tell your uncle to bring
his band to my burrow three days--three sleep-periods--from now. That
will be the last time we meet before the rising. Tell him to bring them
armed with every last spear they can carry."
* * * * *
Eric nodded weakly. There were so many complex, incomprehensible things
going on! The world was a bigger, more active place than he had ever
imagined.
He watched Arthur the Organizer add a mark to the flat board on which
many symbols were scratched. This was another Stranger practice--made
necessary, he knew, by the weak Stranger memory, so inferior to that of
Mankind.
The Weapon-Seeker leaped up and stopped him as he was about to put the
red blob into his knapsack. "Nothing wet in there?" Walter demanded,
opening the bag and rummaging about in Eric's belongings. "No water?
Remember, get this stuff wet and you're done for."
"Mankind keeps its water in canteens," Eric explained irritably. "We
keep it here," he pointed to the sloshing pouch at his hip, "not
splashing around loosely with our provisions." He swung the full
knapsack on his back and stepped away with stiff dignity.
Arthur the Organizer accompanied him to the end of the burrow. "Don't
mind Walter," he whispered. "He's always afraid that nobody but
himself will be able to use the Monster weapons he digs up. He talks
that way to everyone. Now, suppose I refresh your memory about the way
back. We don't want you to get lost."
"I won't get lost," Eric said coldly. "I have a good memory, and I know
enough to perform a simple reversal of the directions on the way here.
Besides, I am Eric the Espier, Eric the Eye of Mankind. I won't get
lost."
He was rather proud of himself as he trotted away, without turning his
head. Let the Strangers know what you think of them. The snobs. The
stuck-up bastards.
But still, he felt damaged somehow, made less--as when Roy the Runner
had called him a singleton before the entire band. And the last comment
he had heard behind him--"These primitives: so damned touchy!"--made it
no better.
He crossed the dark open space, still brooding, his eyes fixed on
the patch of white light ahead, his mind engaged in a completely
unaccustomed examination of values. Mankind's free simplicity against
the Stranger multiplicity and intricacy. Mankind's knowledge of basics,
the important foraging basics of day-to-day life, against the Stranger
knowledge of so many things and techniques he had never even heard
about. Surely Mankind's way was infinitely preferable, far superior?
Then why did his uncle want to get mixed up with Stranger politics,
he wondered, as he emerged from the structure? He turned left and,
passing the small entrance he had ignored before, sped for the wall
which separated him from the burrows. And why did all these Strangers,
evidently each from a different tribe, agree in the contempt with which
they held Mankind?
He had just turned right along the wall, on the last stretch before the
doorway, when the floor shook again, jarring him out of his thoughts.
He bounced up and down, frozen with fear where he stood.
He was out in the open while a Monster was abroad. A Monster had come
into the larder again.