by William Tenn
The worst was over. Nothing else would ever 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 such a relatively 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 toward 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 prearranged, 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 prearranged visions, why not prearranged 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 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 own 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 backward.
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 it. And 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 tha
t were mostly unfamiliar.
All of them leaped to their feet as he trotted in and deployed instantly in a wide semicircle 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—
The tension was broken by a strong-faced, middle-aged man who stepped forward, spear throbbing in an upraised arm, and said cautiously, almost inquiringly: "Safety first?"
Eric began to relax. This was the ancient greeting of peace when warrior met warrior in the dangerous precincts of Monster territory. You said "Safety first!" as recognition of the fact that there were much more fearful creatures than humans about—and as a mutual reminder of what should be uppermost in everyone's mind while they were in this terrible place.
He gave the traditional reply. "Safety above all!" he intoned, announcing his own willingness to observe the truce of Monster territory, to sink any individual belligerence into common alertness and back-to-back protection against the perils that surrounded them.
There was a nod of acceptance from the middle-aged man. "Who are you?" the man said. "What's your name—what's your people?"
"Eric the Only." Then he remembered to add: "I'm destined to be Eric the Eye. My people are Mankind."
"He's expected, one of us," the 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 so in 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 temple-in-exile, the field headquarters of a new faith. The men who sat working on the floor would one day be priests of that faith among their various peoples. And Arthur the Organizer would be Supreme Pontiff.
"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 attending 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 Storekeeper 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're narrow-minded savages—practically Wild Men. 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 leaned against the wall. "And I'll tell you who we need most," he said. "Who we need a hell of a lot more than these front-burrow characters. I said they're one step away from being Wild Men, and I'll stick by what I said. But the Aaron People, if the Aaron People were with us..."
The Organizer's face darkened. He seemed to be remembering one major plan that had gone awry. "Those snobs," he muttered. "Those selfish, stuck-up bastards. Damn them. But listen, Walter. If you think there's no difference between a front-burrow tribe and a bunch of Wild Men from the Outside, you go up to the Wild Men next time a mob of them comes through the burrows and try to start a conversation. You know what will happen?"
"He'll be eaten raw," one of the other men called out. "Torn to pieces and eaten raw. A handful of Walter the Weapon-Seeker for anyone who can grab."
There was a grim laugh in which Eric joined after some uncertainty. He'd heard about the Wild Men, hordes who supposedly poured into the burrows at irregular intervals from some strange place called "the Outside," undisciplined, slavering cannibals who used grunts in place of speech—but he'd always understood them to be merely the stuff of legend. If you were an Alien-Sciencer did you have to make believe that Wild Men really existed?
Real or legendary, though, to be compared with Wild Men was an ugly insult.
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!
And the Aaron People, who or what was this Aaron People, he wondered? A people referred to by these strutting, conceited, dressed-up pseudo-warriors as snobs and stuck-up bastards! He'd never heard of the Aaron People before. He wondered what they would be like.
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 it is that 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 farther away and then died out. "Let's get down to business. Eric, this is Walter the Weapon-Seeker. Walter the Weapon-Seeker of the Maximilian 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, jellylike 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?"
