IX

Ottilie, the Chieftain's First Wife, was in the lead. She stopped, just

inside the entrance to the burrow and the others came to a halt around

her.

"Look at them," she jeered. "They're trying to free each other! And

what do they plan to do if they get themselves untied?"

Franklin moved to her side and took a long, judicious look at the two

men squatting back to back. "They'll try to escape," he explained,

continuing his wife's joke. "They'll have their hands free, they

figure, and surely Thomas the Trap-Smasher and his nephew are a match,

even bare-handed, for the best spearmen in Mankind!"

And then Eric felt the searching hands come up out of the knapsack

to which his own arms were tied. Something fell to the floor of the

burrow. It made an odd noise, halfway between a splash and a thud. He

twisted around for it immediately with his mouth open, flexing his

knees in a tight crouch underneath his body.

"You've never seen anything like the burrows of your grandmother's

people," his uncle was mumbling, as if what his hands had just done

was no concern of the rest of him. "And neither have I, though I've

listened to the tales."

"He won't last long now," Sarah the Sickness-Healer commented. "We'll

have to have our fun with the boy."

_All you do_, Walter the Weapon-Seeker had said, _is tear off a pinch

with your fingers. Then spit on it and throw it. Throw it as fast and

as far as you can._

He couldn't use his fingers. But he leaned down to the red blob and

nipped off a piece with his teeth. He brought his tongue against the

strange soft substance, lashing saliva into it. And simultaneously he

kicked at the burrow floor with curved toes, straightening his legs,

jerking his thighs and body upward. Unable to use his arms for balance,

he tottered erect and turned, swaying, to face the leaders of his

people.

_After you spit on it, throw it fast. As fast and as far as you can._

"I don't know what he's doing," someone said, "but I don't like it. Let

me through."

Stephen the Strong-Armed stepped ahead of the group and lifted a heavy

spear, ready for throwing.

Eric shut his eyes, bent his head far back on his neck and took a deep,

deep breath. Then he snapped his head forward, flipping his tongue hard

against the object in his mouth. He forced out his breath so abruptly

that the exhalation became a wild, barking cough.

The soft little mass flew out of his mouth, and he opened his eyes to

watch its course. For a moment, he was unable to find it anywhere; then

he located it by the odd expression on Stephen's face and the fearful

upward roll of his eyes.

There was a little red splotch in the middle of the band captain's

forehead.

What was supposed to happen, he wondered? He had followed directions

as well as he could under the circumstances, but he had no idea what

the scarlet stain, made loose and moist by his saliva, was supposed to

accomplish. He watched it, hoping and waiting.

Then Stephen the Strong-Armed brought his free hand up slowly to wipe

the stuff off. Eric stopped hoping. Nothing was going to happen.

_Strangers_, he had begun to think despairingly, _that's what comes of

trusting Strangers--_

* * * * *

The blast of sound was so tremendous that for a moment he thought the

roof of the burrow had fallen in. He was slammed backwards against the

wall and fell as if he'd been walloped with a spear haft. He remembered

the cough with which he'd expelled the bit of red blob from his mouth.

Had there been a delayed echo to his cough, a gigantic, ear-splitting

echo?

He lifted his head from the floor finally, when the reverberations

in the little storage burrow had rumbled into a comparative silence.

Someone was screaming. Someone was screaming over and over again.

It was Sarah. She was looking at Stephen the Strong-Armed from the

rear. She had been standing directly behind him. Now she was staring at

him and screaming in sharp steady bursts.

Her mouth was open so wide that it seemed she was about to tear her

jaws apart. And with each scream she lifted her arm rigidly and pointed

to the back of Stephen's neck. She kept lifting her arm and pointing as

if she wanted everyone present to know beyond the least doubt why and

how she came to be screaming.

Stephen the Strong-Armed had no head. His body ended at the neck, and

flaps of skin fell down to his chest in an irregular wavy pattern. A

fountain of blood bubbled and spurted where his head had been. His

body still stood upright, feet planted wide apart in a good warrior's

stance, one arm holding the spear ready for action and the other

congealed in its upward motion to wipe the red blob away. It stood,

incredibly straight and tall and alive.

Suddenly, it fell apart.

First the spear slid slowly forward out of the right hand and clattered

to the floor. Then the arms began to fall loosely to the sagging knees

and the entire great, brawny body slumped as if its bones had left

it. It dropped aimlessly to the floor, an arm poking out here, a leg

twisting out there, in a pattern as meaningless as if an oddly shaped

bag of skin had been flung to one side of the burrow.

It continued to twitch for a moment or two, as the bubbling fountain

of blood turned into a sluggishly flowing river. At last it lay still,

a motionless heap of limbs and torso. Of the missing head there was no

trace anywhere.

* * * * *

Sarah the Sickness-Healer stopped screaming and turned, shaking, to her

companions. Their protruding eyes left the body on the floor.

Then they all reacted at once.

They yelled madly, wildly, fearfully, as if they were a chorus and

she the conductor. Still bellowing, they made for the narrow entrance

behind them. They got through in a pushing, punching scramble that at

one point looked like a composite monster with dozens of arms, legs and

swinging, naked breasts. They carried the guard outside with them, and

with them, too, they carried their uncontrollable panic, screaming it

into existence all along the great central burrow.

For a little while, Eric could hear feet pounding into the distant

corridors. Then there was quiet. There was quiet everywhere, except for

Thomas the Trap-Smasher's interminable mumbling.

Eric forced himself upright again. He was unable to imagine what had

happened. That red blob--the Stranger, Walter, had said it was a

weapon, but it didn't operate like any weapon he had ever in his life

heard of. Except possibly in the times of the ancestors: the ancestors

were supposed to have had things which could blow an object apart

and leave no trace. But this was an alien artifact, a possession of

the Monsters which Walter the Weapon-Seeker had somehow found and

appropriated. What was it? How had it exploded the head of Stephen the

Strong-Armed?

That was to be worked out another time. Meanwhile, he had his chance.

It might not last long: he had no idea when the panic might subside and

a patrol of warriors be sent back to investigate. He stepped carefully

across the red stream flowing from the fallen man's neck. Squatting

down in front of the dropped spear, he managed to get a grip on it with

his bound hands and rose, holding it awkwardly behind him.

No time to cut his bonds. Not here.

"Uncle Thomas," he called. "We can get away. We have a chance now. Come

on, get up!"

The wounded band captain stared up at him without comprehension.

"--corridors like you've never seen or imagined," he continued in a low

monotone. "Glow lamps that aren't on foreheads. Corridors filled with

glow lamps. Corridors and corridors and corridors--"

For a moment, Eric considered. The man would be a heavy liability in

fast travel. But he couldn't desert him. This was his last surviving

relative, the only person who didn't consider him an outlaw and a

thing. And, shattered as he was, also still his captain.

"Get up!" he said again. "Thomas the Trap-Smasher, get up! That's an

order, a warrior's order. Get up!"

As he'd hoped, his uncle responded to the old command. He managed to

get his legs under his body, and strained against them, but it was no

use. He didn't have the energy to rise.

* * * * *

Casting apprehensive looks over his shoulder at the entrance to the

storage burrow, Eric ran to the struggling man. Working backwards, he

managed to get one end of the spear under the crook of his uncle's arm.

Then, using his own hip as a fulcrum, he levered hard at the other end.

It was painful, slippery work, since he couldn't bring all of his

muscles into play and it was difficult to see what he was doing. In

between efforts, he gasped out orders to "Get up, get up, get _up_,

damn you!" At last the end of the spear went all the way down. His

uncle was on his feet, staggering, but at least on his feet.

Dragging the spear awkwardly, Eric urged and butted him out of the

place. The great central burrow was empty of people. Weapons, pots and

miscellaneous possessions lay strewn about where they had been dropped.

The finished structure of the Stage stood deserted in front of the

royal mound. And some time before, the bodies of his uncle's wives had

evidently been removed.

The chief and the other leaders had bolted to the left once they had

clawed their way out of the storage burrow. They had apparently run

past the scaffold structure and picked up the rest of Mankind in their

panic.

Eric turned right.

His uncle was a problem. Thomas the Trap-Smasher kept coming to a

bewildered halt. Again and again he began the story of his long-ago

journey to the burrows of the strange, distant tribe. Eric had to push

against him to keep him moving.

Once they were in the outlying corridors, he felt better. But not until

they had made many turns, passed dozens of branches and were well into

completely uninhabited burrows, did he feel he could stop and saw

himself free of his bonds on the point of the spear. He did the same

for his uncle. Then, throwing the Trap-Smasher's left arm across his

own shoulders and clutching him tightly about the waist, he started

off again. It was slow going: his uncle was a heavy man, but the more

distance they could put between themselves and Mankind, the better.

But distance where? Where should they go? He pondered the problem as

they tottered together down the silent, branching corridors. One place

was as good as another. There was nowhere that they would be welcome.

Just keep going.

He may have muttered his questions aloud. To his surprise, Thomas

the Trap-Smasher suddenly said in an entirely coherent but very weak

voice: "The doorway to Monster territory, Eric. Make for the doorway to

Monster territory where you went to make your Theft."

"Why?" Eric asked. "What can we do there?"

There was no answer. His uncle's head fell forward on his chest. He was

evidently sliding into a stupor again. And yet, somehow, as long as

Eric's encircling arm pulled at his body, the man's legs kept moving

forward. There was some residual stamina and a warrior's determination

in him yet.

Monster territory. Was there more safety for them there now than they

could find among human beings?

Very well then. The doorway to Monster territory. They would have to

come around in a wide arc through many corridors to get to it, but Eric

knew the way. He was Eric the Eye, after all, he told himself: it was

his business always to know the way.

But was it? He had not enjoyed the formal initiation into manhood that

was the usual aftermath of a successful Theft. Without that, perhaps he

was still Eric the Only, still a boy and an initiate. No, he knew what

he was. He was Eric the Outlaw, nothing else.

He was an outlaw, without a home and a people. And, except for the

dying man he pulled along, everyone's hand was henceforth against him.

X

Thomas the Trap-Smasher had been badly injured in the surprise attack

that had wiped out his band. Ordinarily, he would have had his wounds

carefully dressed by the cleverness and accumulated experience of Sarah

the Sickness-Healer. Under the circumstances, however, Sarah had done

the reverse.

Now, the strain of escape and the forced headlong flight that followed

it had emptied his body of its last resources. His eyes were glazed

and his strong shoulders hung slack. He was a somnambulist walking

jerkily in the direction of death.

When they stopped to rest, Eric--after listening intently for any

sounds of pursuit--had washed his uncle's wounds carefully with water

from the canteens and had bound the uglier gashes with strips torn

from a knapsack. It was all he knew how to do: warrior's first aid. A

woman's advanced therapeutic knowledge was needed for anything more

complicated.

Not that it would have made very much difference by this time. The

Trap-Smasher was too far gone.

Eric felt desperate at the thought of being left alone forever in the

dark, uninhabited corridors. He tried to force water and bits of food

upon his uncle. The man's head rolled back, nourishment dribbling

carelessly down from both sides of his mouth. He was breathing lightly

and very rapidly. His body had grown quite warm by the time they

stopped.

Eric himself ate ravenously: it was his first meal in a long, long

while. He kept staring at his recumbent uncle and trying to work out a

line of action that would do some good. In the end, he had thought of

nothing better than to hitch the man's arm up over his shoulder again

and to keep going in the direction of Monster territory.

Once erect, the Trap-Smasher's feet began walking again, but with a

dragging, soggy quality that became more and more pronounced. After

a while, Eric had to come to a halt: he had the feeling that he was

hauling dead weight.

When he tried to lower his uncle to the floor of the burrow, he found

that the body had become almost completely limp. Thomas lay on his

back, his eyes staring without curiosity at the rounded ceiling upon

which his forehead glow-lamp outlined a bright circular patch.

The heartbeat was very, very faint.

"Eric," he heard a weak voice say. He raised his eyes from his uncle's

chest and looked at the painfully working mouth.

"Yes, uncle?"

"I'm sorry--about--what I got you into. I had--no right.

Your life--after all--your life. You--my wives--the band. I

led--death--everyone. I'm sorry."

Eric fought hard to hold back his tears. "It was for a reason, Uncle

Thomas," he said. "We had a cause. It wasn't just you. The cause

failed."

There was a hideous cackle from the prone man. For a moment, Eric

thought it was a death rattle. Then he realized that it had been a

laugh, but such a laugh as he had never heard before.

"A cause?" the Trap-Smasher gasped. "A cause? Do you know--do you--know

what--the cause was? I wanted--wanted to be chief. Chief. The

only--only way I could--do it--Alien-science--the Strangers--a cause.

Everyone--the killings--I wanted to--to be chief. _Chief!_"

He went rigid as he coughed out the last word. Then slowly, like flesh

turning into liquid, he relaxed.

He was dead.

* * * * *

Eric stared at the body a long time. It didn't make any difference, he

found. The numbness in his mind remained. There was a great paralyzed

spot in the center of his brain that was unable to think or to feel.

In the end, he shook himself, bent down and grabbed the body by the

shoulders. Walking backwards, he dragged it in the direction of Monster

territory.

Something he had to do. The duty of anyone who lived in the burrows

when death occurred in his neighborhood. Now it filled time and used up

energies that he might otherwise have expended in thoughts which were

agonizing.

The energies which it demanded were almost more than he was capable of

at this point. His uncle had been a heavy, well built man. Eric found

that he had to stop at the end of almost every curving corridor and get

his breath back.

He finally arrived at the doorway, grateful for the fact that his uncle

had died so relatively close to it. He also felt he understood why this

had been suggested as their destination. Thomas the Trap-Smasher had

known he had little time left. His nephew would have the responsibility

of sewering him. He had tried to make it as easy for Eric as possible

by going the greater part of the distance on his own feet.

There was a fresh-water pipe in the wall near the doorway to Monster

territory. And wherever there was a fresh-water pipe, the Monsters were

likely to have laid a sewer pipe nearby. It was down this, probably,

that the men killed in the battle with Stephen the Strong-Armed's band

had been disposed of much earlier. And it was down this that Thomas had

known his remains must also go--the closest point at which his nephew

could sewer him in comparative safety.

This much, at least, he had done for Eric's benefit.

Eric located the fresh-water pipe without much difficulty. There was a

constant low rumbling and gurgling underfoot, and--at the spot where it

was most pronounced--he found the slab in the floor cut at the cost of

infinite labor by some past generation of Mankind. Near it, after the

slab was lifted, was another, much thicker pipe, large enough to carry

two men abreast. Like the other one, the hard stuff of the burrow floor

had been scraped away so that a joint lay exposed.

Opening the joint was another matter. Eric had seen it done many times

by his elders, but this was his own first attempt. It was a tricky

business of tugging a heavy covering plate first right, then left, and

getting his fingers under the rim and pulling at just the right moment.

* * * * *

The joint opened at last, and the incredible stink of Monster sewage

poured out as the liquid swirled darkly by. Death had always been

associated in Eric's mind with this stink, since the pipe carried not

only the Monster's waste matter but also that of Mankind, collected

from its burrows every week by the old women who were too feeble for

any other work. All that was not alive or useful was carried to the

nearest Monster sewer pipe, all that might decay and foul the burrows.

And that included, of course, the bodies of the dead.

Eric stripped his uncle's body of all useful gear as he had seen the

women do many times. Then he dragged it to the hole in the burrow

floor and held it by one arm for a moment as the current of the sewage

caught it. He repeated as much of the ceremony as he could remember,

concluding with the words: "_And therefore, O ancestors, I beg you to

receive the body of this member of Mankind, Thomas the Trap-Smasher, a

warrior of the first rank, a band captain of renown and the father of

nine._"

There was usually another line or so--"_Take him to you and keep

him with you until the time when the Monsters have been destroyed

utterly and the Earth is ours again. Then shall you and he and all

human beings who have ever lived rise from the sewers and joyously

walk the surface of our world forever._" But this, after all, was

a pure Ancestor-science passage; and his uncle had died fighting

Ancestor-science. What was the Alien-science equivalent? Was it likely

to be any more potent, any less full of falsehood? In the end, Eric

omitted those last two lines.

He let go of the stiffening arm. The body shot away and down the pipe.

Thomas the Trap-Smasher was gone, he was gone for all time, the way

Eric reasoned now. He was dead and sewered, and that was that.

Eric closed the joint, pulled the slab down and stamped it into place.

He was completely alone. An outlaw who could expect nothing from other

human beings but death by slow torture. He had no companions, no home,

no beliefs of any sort. His uncle's last words still lay, in all their

stern ugliness, at the bottom of his mind. "_I wanted to--to be chief._"

* * * * *

It was bad enough to discover that the religion on which he had been

raised was a mere prop to the power of the chieftainship, that the

mysterious Female Society was completely unable to see into a person's

future. But to find out that his uncle's thoughtful antagonism to such

nonsense was based on nothing more substantial than simple personal

ambition, an ambition murderously unscrupulous and willing to sacrifice

anybody who trusted him--well, what was there left to believe in, to

base a life upon?

Had his father and mother been any less gullible than the most naive

child in the burrows? They had sacrificed themselves--for what? For one

superstition as opposed to another, for the secret political maneuvers

of this person as opposed to that.

Not for him. He would be free. He laughed, bitterly and

self-consciously. He had to be free. There was no choice: he was an

outlaw.

Eric walked a few steps and put his hands on the door to Monster

territory. To shift it out of its socket was a hard job for one man.

He strained and tore his fingers; finally he managed it. The door came

away and he deposited it carefully on the floor of the burrow.

He stared at it for a while, trying to figure out a way of getting

it back after he'd passed through the doorway. No, a single man just

couldn't do that from the other side. He'd have to leave the doorway

open, an incredible social crime.

Well, he couldn't commit a crime any more. He was beyond all rules made

by human communities. Ahead lay the glaring white light that he and his

kind feared so much. Into this he would go. Here, where there were no

illusions to be found and no help to be expected, here he would make

his solitary outlaw home.

Behind him lay the dark, safe, intricate burrows. They were tunnels,

Eric knew now, in the walls that surrounded Monster territory. Men

lived in these walls, and shivered, and were ignorant, and made fools

of each other. He could no longer do these things: he had to face the

Monsters. He wanted to face them and destroy them.

It was like one of the roaches in the storage burrow declaring war on a

cook who came in to make the evening meal for Mankind. The cook would

roar with laughter at such a thought. Who knew what went on in the

mind of a roach--and who cared? Yet the roach would enjoy two special

advantages. He had once and for all stopped crawling greedily and

aimlessly with his own kind; and the enemy he had selected could regard

him with nothing more than heavy oblivious contempt. If he could ever

for a moment find one usable weapon and one vital area on which that

weapon could be used....

He hefted his two special advantages grimly. Then Eric the Only, the

Eye, the Outlaw, Eric the Self-Aware Individual Man, stepped through

the doorway into Monster territory.

* * * * *

[Transcriber's Note: Heading III missing from original publication.]