The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

by Martin Greenberg

  At first she tried to pull it from its compartment, but it appeared to be held. But it didn’t matter. Bringing her face against the surface of the sphere she buried her teeth in its thin skin. There was flesh beneath the skin, and blood – a thin, sweet, faintly acid juice. Skreer had, at times, promised her a share of this food when next he won some from a killing platform, but that promise had never been kept. And now Weena had a whole cave of this same food all to herself.

  Gorged to repletion, she started back to pick up the now loudly complaining Shrick. He had been playing with the spear and had cut himself on the sharp point. But it was the spear that Weena snatched, swinging swiftly to defend herself and her child. For a voice said, understandable, but with an oddly slurred intonation, “Who are you? What are you doing in our country?”

  It was one of the People, a male. He was unarmed, otherwise it is certain that he would never have asked questions. Even so, Weena knew that the slightest relaxation of vigilance on her part would bring a savage, tooth-and-nail attack.

  She tightened her grasp on the spear, swung it so that its point was directed at the stranger.

  “I am Weena,” she said, “of the Tribe of Sterret.”

  “Of the Tribe of Sterret? But the Tribe of Sessa holds the ways between our countries.”

  “I came Inside. But who are you?”

  “Tekka. I am one of Skarro’s people. You are a spy.”

  “So I brought my child with me.”

  Tekka was looking at Shrick.

  “I see,” he said at last. “A Different One. But how did you get through Sessa’s country?”

  “I didn’t. I came Inside.”

  It was obvious that Tekka refused to believe her story.

  “You must come with me,” he said, “to Skarro. He will judge.”

  “And if I come?”

  “For the Different One, death. For you, I do not know. But we have too many females in our Tribe already.”

  “This says that I will not come.” Weena brandished her spear.

  She would not have defied a male of her own tribe thus – but this Tekka was not of her people. And she had always been brought up to believe that even a female of the Tribe of Sterret was superior to a male – even a chief – of any alien community.

  “The Giants will find you here.” Tekka’s voice showed an elaborate unconcern. Then – “That is a fine spear.”

  “Yes. It belonged to Sterret. With it I wounded my mate. Perhaps he is dead.”

  The male looked at her with a new respect. If her story were true – this was a female to be handled with caution. Besides—

  “Would you give it to me?”

  “Yes.” Weena laughed nastily. There was no mistaking her meaning.

  “Not that way. Listen. Not long ago, in our Tribe, many mothers, two whole hands of mothers with Different Ones, defied the Judge of the Newborn. They fled along the tunnels, and live outside the Place-of-Little-Lights. Skarro has not yet led a war party against them. Why, I do not know, but there is always a Giant in that place. It may be that Skarro fears that a fight behind the Barrier would warn the Giants of our presence—”

  “And you will lead me there?”

  “Yes. In return for the spear.”

  Weena was silent for the space of several heartbeats. As long as Tekka preceded her she would be safe. It never occurred to her that she could let the other fulfill his part of the bargain, and then refuse him his payment. Her people were a very primitive race.

  “I will come with you,” she said.

  “It is well.”

  Tekka’s eyes dwelt long and lovingly upon the fine spear. Skarro would not be chief much longer.

  “First,” he said, “we must pull what you have left of the good-to-eat-ball into our tunnel. Then I must shut the door lest a Giant should come—”

  Together they hacked and tore the sphere to pieces. There was a doorway at the rear of one of the little compartments, now empty. Through this they pushed and pulled their fragrant burden. First Weena went into the tunnel, carrying Shrick and the spear, then Tekka. He pushed the round door into place, where it fitted with no sign that the Barrier had been broken. He pushed home two crude locking bars.

  “Follow me,” he ordered the mother.

  The long journey through the caves and tunnels was heaven after the Inside. Here there was no light – or, at worst, only a feeble glimmer from small holes and cracks in the Barrier. It seemed that Tekka was leading her along the least frequented ways and tunnels of Skarro’s country, for they met none of his people. Nevertheless, Weena’s perceptions told her that she was in densely populated territory. From all around her beat the warm, comforting waves of the routine, humdrum life of the People. She knew that in snug caves males, females and children were living in cozy intimacy. Briefly, she regretted having thrown away all this for the ugly, hairless bundle in her arms. But she could never return to her own Tribe, and should she wish to throw in her lot with this alien community the alternatives would be death or slavery.

  “Careful!” hissed Tekka. “We are approaching Their country.”

  “You will—?”

  “Not me. They will kill me. Just keep straight along this tunnel and you will find them. Now, give me the spear.”

  “But—”

  “You are safe. There is your pass.” He lightly patted the uneasy, squirming Shrick. “Give me the spear, and I will go.”

  Reluctantly, Weena handed over the weapon. Without a word Tekka took it. Then he was gone. Briefly the mother saw him in the dim light that, in this part of the tunnel, filtered through the Barrier – a dim, gray figure rapidly losing itself in the dim grayness. She felt very lost and lonely and frightened. But the die was cast. Slowly, cautiously, she began to creep along the tunnel.

  When They found her she screamed. For many heartbeats she had sensed their hateful presence, had felt that beings even more alien than the Giants were closing in on her. Once or twice she called, crying that she came in peace, that she was the mother of a Different One. But not even echo answered her, for the soft, spongy tunnel walls deadened the shrill sound of her voice. And the silence that was not silence was, if that were possible, more menacing than before.

  Without warning the stealthy terror struck. Weena fought with the courage of desperation, but she was overcome by sheer weight of numbers. Shrick, protesting feebly, was torn from her frantic grasp. Hands – and surely there were far too many hands for the number of her assailants – pinned her arms to her sides, held her ankles in a vicelike grip. No longer able to struggle, she looked at her captors. Then she screamed again. Mercifully, the dim light spared her the full horror of their appearance, but what she saw would have been enough to haunt her dreams to her dying day had she escaped.

  Softly, almost caressingly, the hateful hands ran over her body with disgusting intimacy.

  Then— “She is a Different One.”

  She allowed herself to hope.

  “And the child?”

  “Two-Tails has newborn. She can nurse him.”

  And as the sharp blade found her throat Weena had time to regret most bitterly ever having left her snug, familiar world. It was not so much the forfeit of her own life – that she had sacrificed when she defied Sterret – it was the knowledge that Shrick, instead of meeting a clean death at the hands of his own people, would live out his life among these unclean monstrosities.

  Then there was a sharp pain and a feeling of utter helplessness as the tide of her life swiftly ebbed – and the darkness that Weena had loved so well closed about her for evermore.

  No-Fur – who, at his birth, had been named Shrick – fidgetted impatiently at his post midway along what was known to his people as Skarro’s Tunnel. It was time that Long-Nose came to relieve him. Many heartbeats had passed since he had heard the sounds on the other side of the Barrier proclaiming that the Giant in the Place-of-Little-Lights had been replaced by another of his kind. It was a mystery what the Giants did there �
� but the New People had come to recognize a strange regularity in the actions of the monstrous beings, and to regulate their time accordingly.

  No-Fur tightened his grip on his spear – of Barrier material it was, roughly sharpened at one end – as he sensed the approach of somebody along the tunnel, coming from the direction of Tekka’s country. It could be a Different One bearing a child who would become one of the New People, it could be attack. But, somehow, the confused impressions that his mind received did not bear out either of these assumptions.

  No-Fur shrank against the wall of the tunnel, his body sinking deep into the spongy material. Now he could dimly see the intruder – a solitary form flitting furtively through the shadows. His sense of smell told him that it was a female. Yet he was certain that she had no child with her. He tensed himself to attack as soon as the stranger should pass his hiding place.

  Surprisingly, she stopped.

  “I come in peace,” she said. “I am one of you. I am,” here she paused a little, “one of the New People.”

  Shrick made no reply, no betraying movement. It was barely possible, he knew, that this female might be possessed of abnormally keen eyesight. It was even more likely that she had smelled him out. But then – how was it that she had known the name by which the New People called themselves? To the outside world they were Different Ones – and had the stranger called herself such she would at once have proclaimed herself an alien whose life was forfeit.

  “You do not know,” the voice came again, “how it is that I called myself by the proper name. In my own Tribe I am called a Different One—”

  “Then how is it,” No-Fur’s voice was triumphant, “that you were allowed to live?”

  “Come to me! No, leave your spear. Now come!”

  No-Fur stuck his weapon into the soft cavern wall. Slowly, almost fearfully, he advanced to where the female was waiting. He could see her better now – and she seemed no different from those fugitive mothers of Different Ones – at whose slaughter he had so often assisted. The body was well proportioned and covered with fine, silky fur. The head was well shaped. Physically she was so normal as to seem repugnant to the New People.

  And yet— No-Fur found himself comparing her with the females of his own Tribe, to the disadvantage of the latter. Emotion rather than reason told him that the hatred inspired by the sight of an ordinary body was the result of a deep-rooted feeling of inferiority rather than anything else. And he wanted this stranger.

  “No,” she said slowly, “it is not my body that is different. It is in my head. I didn’t know myself until a little while – about two hands of feeding – ago. But I can tell, now, what is going on inside your head, or the head of any of the People—”

  “But,” asked the male, “how did they—”

  “I was ripe for mating. I was mated to Trillo, the son of Tekka, the chief. And in our cave I told Trillo things of which he only knew. I thought that I should please him, I thought that he would like to have a mate with magical powers that he could put to good use. With my aid he could have made himself chief. But he was angry – and very frightened. He ran to Tekka, who judged me as a Different One. I was to have been killed, but I was able to escape. They dare not follow me too far into this country—”

  Then – “You want me.”

  It was a statement rather than a question.

  “Yes. But—”

  “No-Tail? She can die. If I fight her and win, I become your mate.”

  Briefly, half regretfully, No-Fur thought of his female. She had been patient, she had been loyal. But he saw that, with this stranger for a mate, there were no limits to his advancement. It was not that he was more enlightened than Trillo had been, it was that as one of the New People he regarded abnormality as the norm.

  “Then you will take me.” Once again there was no hint of questioning. Then – “My name is Wesel.”

  The arrival of No-Fur, with Wesel in tow, at the Place-of-Meeting could not have been better timed. There was a trial in progress, a young male named Big-Ears having been caught red-handed in the act of stealing a coveted piece of metal from the cave of one Four-Arms. Long-Nose, who should have relieved No-Fur, had found the spectacle of a trial with the prospect of a feast to follow far more engrossing than the relief of the lonely sentry.

  It was he who first noticed the newcomers.

  “Oh, Big-Tusk,” he called, “No-Fur has deserted his post!”

  The chief was disposed to the lenient.

  “He has a prisoner,” he said. “A Different One. We shall feast well.”

  “He is afraid of you,” hissed Wesel. “Defy him!”

  “It is no prisoner.” No-Fur’s voice was arrogant. “It is my new mate. And you, Long-Nose, go at once to the tunnel.”

  “Go, Long-Nose. My country must not remain unguarded. No-Fur, hand the strange female over to the guards that she may be slaughtered.”

  No-Fur felt his resolution wavering under the stern glare of the chief. As two of Big-Tusk’s bullies approached he slackened his grip on Wesel’s arm. She turned to him, pleading and desperation in her eyes.

  “No, no. He is afraid of you, I say. Don’t give in to him. Together we can—”

  Ironically, it was No-Tail’s intervention that turned the scales. She confronted her mate, scorn written large on her unbeautiful face, the shrewish tongue dreaded by all the New People, even the chief himself, fast getting under way.

  “So,” she said, “you prefer this drab, common female to me. Hand her over, so that she may, at least, fill our bellies. As for you, my bucko, you will pay for this insult!”

  No-Fur looked at the grotesque, distorted form of No-Tail, and then at the slim, sleek Wesel. Almost without volition he spoke.

  “Wesel is my mate,” he said. “She is one of the New People!”

  Big-Tusk lacked the vocabulary to pour adequate scorn upon the insolent rebel. He struggled for words, but could find none to cover the situation. His little eyes gleamed redly, and his hideous tusks were bared in a vicious snarl.

  “Now!” prompted the stranger. “His head is confused. He will be rash. His desire to tear and maul will cloud his judgment. Attack!”

  No-Fur went into the fight coldly, knowing that if he kept his head he must win. He raised his spear to stem the first rush of the infuriated chief. Just in time Big-Tusk saw the rough point and, using his tail as a rudder, swerved. He wasn’t fast enough, although his action barely saved him from immediate death. The spear caught him in the shoulder and broke off short, leaving the end in the wound. Mad with rage and pain the chief was now a most dangerous enemy – and yet, at the same time, easy meat for an adversary who kept his head.

  No-Fur was, at first, such a one. But his self-control was cracking fast. Try as he would he could not fight down the rising tides of hysterical fear, of sheer, animal blood lust. As the enemies circled, thrust and parried, he with his almost useless weapon, Big-Tusk with a fine, metal tipped spear, it took all his will power to keep himself from taking refuge in flight or closing to grapple with his more powerful antagonist. His reason told him that both courses of action would be disastrous – the first would end in his being hunted down and slaughtered by the Tribe, the second would bring him within range of the huge, murderous teeth that had given Big-Tusk his name.

  So he thrust and parried, thrust and parried, until the keen edge of the chief’s blade nicked his arm. The stinging pain made him all animal, and with a shrill scream of fury he launched himself at the other.

  But if Nature had provided Big-Tusk with a fine armory she had not been niggardly with the rebel’s defensive equipment. True, he had nothing outstanding in the way of teeth or claws, had not the extra limbs possessed by so many of his fellow New People. His brain may have been a little more nimble – but at this stage of the fight that counted for nothing. What saved his life was his hairless skin.

  Time after time the chief sought to pull him within striking distance, time after time he pulled away. His slip
pery hide was crisscrossed with a score of scratches, many of them deep but none immediately serious. And all the time he himself was scratching and pummeling with both hands and feet, biting and gouging.

  It seemed that Big-Tusk was tiring, but he was tiring too. And the other had learned that it was useless to try to grab a handful of fur, that he must try to take his enemy in an unbreakable embrace. Once he succeeded, No-Fur was pulled closer and closer to the slavering fangs, felt the foul breath of the other in his face, knew that it was a matter of heartbeats before his throat was torn out. He screamed, threw up his legs and lunged viciously at Big-Tusk’s belly. He felt his feet sink into the soft flesh, but the chief grunted and did not relax his pressure. Worse – the failure of his desperate counterattack had brought No-Fur even closer to death.

  With one arm, his right, he pushed desperately against the other’s chest. He tried to bring his knees up in a crippling blow, but they were held in a vicelike grip by Big-Tusk’s heavily muscled legs. With his free, left arm he flailed viciously and desperately, but he might have been beating against the Barrier itself.

  The People, now that the issue of the battle was decided, were yelling encouragement to the victor. No-Fur heard among the cheers the voice of his mate, No-Tail. The little, cold corner of his brain in which reason was still enthroned told him that he couldn’t blame her. If she were vociferous in his support, she could expect only death at the hands of the triumphant chief. But he forgot that he had offered her insult and humiliation, remembered only that she was his mate. And the bitterness of it kept him fighting when others would have relinquished their hold on a life already forfeit.

  The edge of his hand came down hard just where Big-Tusk’s thick neck joined his shoulder. He was barely conscious that the other winced, that a little whimper of pain followed the blow. Then, high and shrill, he heard Wesel.

  “Again! Again! That is his weak spot!”

  Blindly groping, he searched for the same place. And Big-Tusk was afraid, of that there was no doubt. His head twisted, trying to cover his vulnerability. Again he whimpered, and No-Fur knew that the battle was his. His thin, strong fingers with their sharp nails dug and gouged. There was no fur here, and the flesh was soft. He felt the warm blood welling beneath his hand as the chief screamed dreadfully. Then the iron grip was abruptly relaxed. Before Big-Tusk could use hands or feet to cast his enemy from him No-Fur had twisted and, each hand clutching skin and fur, had buried his teeth in the other’s neck. They found the jugular. Almost at once the chief’s last, desperate struggles ceased.