by William Tenn
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 person.
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 realized he was terribly tired. He'd done his Theft, made the long trip to and from Mankind's burrows and fought what amounted to a full battle—all without any sleep.
He curled back against the wall and napped. It was a warrior's nap, with senses fully alert for the approach of an enemy. His mind submerged only partially into unconsciousness, absorbing rest but preventing full slumber. The part of his mind that remained awake peered restlessly into the future, examining alternatives, making plans.
By the time he arose, stretched, yawned, he had reached a decision.
Eric walked a few steps, putting 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, where there were no illusions to treasure and no help to be expected, into this place he would go.
Behind him lay the dark, safe, intricate burrows. They were tunnels 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.
Could humanity really hit back at the Monsters—in any way at all? Weren't they like a swarm of roaches in the storage burrow who felt they should declare war on a cook busy at preparing 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?
But suppose a roach stopped crawling greedily and aimlessly with his kind? Suppose he hung in a dim crevice and watched his enemy day after day and learned all there was to know about him? Suppose he wiped out of his mind everything that learned fools and ignorant tradition had ever taught him, concentrating exclusively on a totally new way to hit back at his enemy, a totally unexpected quarter from which to mount his attack?
Suppose he operated not from any belief, any preconception at all, but only from a soldier's bitter necessity?
"I'll grow up fast, Uncle," muttered Eric the Only, Eric the Eye, Eric the Outlaw. "I'll grow up fast—I have to."
Then he stepped through the doorway into Monster territory.
PART II: SOLDIERS FOR THEIR VALOR
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The old trap that Thomas the Trap-Smasher had long ago dismantled still hung uselessly on the other side of the wall. And none of the huge creatures was abroad.
That horrifying white, white light again! This insane spaciousness!
Eric turned right and ran along the wall, counting paces. He took the same route as he had on his Theft. Fear made him breathe heavily, but he kept reminding himself that here he ran the same risks, no more and no less, as any other human being. Here, every man was an outlaw, an object of the chase, a thing marked for death. In Monster territory, you enjoyed no special advantages if you still belonged to a people.
Of course, you might have a woman waiting for you back in your burrows, ready to turn into useful articles all the good things with which this place was filled. But she wouldn't be with you at such a moment. Women were the custodians of human life and history and all accumulated knowledge. And the magic rituals they recited were the most precious possession of a people, giving them pride and a fundamental sense of identity. Women were absolutely forbidden to engage in any enterprise for which more readily expendable men might be used. They never entered Monster territory.
And yet, according to his uncle, his mother had...
He reached the huge article of Monster furniture and turned left along it. There was just a chance that there would be some Strangers still left where he had met them in the course of his Theft. He could warn them of what was going on in the burrows—they might let him stay with them. Even the companionship of effeminate, talkative, overdressed Strangers would be better than nothing.
As he was about to turn into the dark entrance of the structure, Eric paused. He had been running as he had been taught to run in Monster territory: don't look up, never look up. Well, he'd looked up once already, in the course of his Theft—and he'd survived. All that he'd been taught: what was it worth?
Therefore he stopped deliberately well outside the entrance. Making certain again that no Monsters were about, he shoved his hands on his hips belligerently, turned and surveyed the enormous burrow. Yes, it was still a little upsetting at first glance. But you got used to it, you got used to it. Given enough time, no doubt even those incredibly oversize bags and containers, those walls stretching up so high that it hurt one's neck to try to see their upper limits—given enough time, you'd come to notice this place as casually as a narrow storage burrow full of Mankind's odds and ends.
There was nothing he couldn't eventually learn to live with, Eric told himself. As long as he could see clearly what it was.
Eyes open. Look at everything. Judge everything for yourself, with your own vision. He would be Eric the Eye.
He traveled cautiously inside the structure. If there were any Strangers about, they might be expecting attack. They might throw first and examine the spear-pierced body for explanations afterward. Certainly, now at least, if Arthur the Organizer had been alerted to what was going on in the burrows, he would have posted sentries.
And the sentries would be nervous.
He encountered no sentries. He heard voices, however, from the moment he stooped and entered the low tunnel. They grew louder and louder as he turned into the right fork. When he emerged into the large, square burrow he was fully prepared for what he saw: dozens of Strangers, suffering from various degrees of personal damage, talking, gesticulating, arguing. Multitudes of forehead glow lamps created a tremendous flare of illumination.
The scene was like the aftermath of a large-scale raid on an entire people. There were men with slight wounds, the blood having long hardened upon their scratches; there were men with bad wounds, who limped about on a crushed foot or who desperately tried to get aid for the red rip in their chest or side; there were men as mortally hurt as his uncle had been, who—having managed to crawl to this place of comparative safety by themselves or having been helped here by friends—lay now, unnoticed and forgotten along the walls, sliding downward through coma after coma until they smashed into the unyielding surface of death.
And everyone—everyone who was at all conscious—was trying to make himself heard.
Those with relatively minor injuries had clustered about Walter the Weapon-Seeker and Arthur the Organizer at the far corner of the burrow, shrilly trying to tell their own experiences and criticizing the behavior of others. Those whose wounds made it impossible for them to jostle in the main crowd, stood on the outskirts or sat on the floor in groaning groups of two and three, and pointed out to each other the defects in Walter's plans or Arthur's leadership that had brought them to this pass. Even the dying muttered their recent experiences to the friendly floor and suggested, with their last, gasping breath, alternative courses of action that would have developed far better results.
In a sense, Eric thought, his first impression had been correct. It was an entire people after a battle. He was staring at the people of Alien-Science after the other inhabitants of the burrows had crushed them and spat them out.
Somewhere in the crowd, a man's head swung around and studied him. The face broke into a smile. "Eric," it called out. "Hey, Eric!"
A head that was higher than the others near it. And hair that was loose, not caught by a back strap in the Stranger fashion. A warrior of Mankind.
They elbowed toward each other frantically through the gesticulating debaters, the two beams from their forehead glow lamps making a single line as they kept their eyes locked together.
Long before they met, Eric recognized the man. Tall, thin, nervous-bodied—it could be only one person. The member of his uncle's band who had made his life as an initiate most difficult, the warrior with whom he'd almost fought a duel before setting out on his Theft: Roy the Runner.
Roy seemed to remember none of this as they came together. He threw his bony arms around Eric and embraced him. "A familiar face," he sang out in delight. "Eric the Only, am I glad to see you!"
Eric stiffened and stepped back out of the hug. "Eric the Eye," he said sharply. "I've become Eric the Eye."
The other man held up both hands placatingly. "Eric the Eye. Sure. Eric the Eye. I'm sorry. I'll remember it from now on. Eric the Eye. Anything you say, boy. Just be friendly, just talk to me a little. I've been going crazy standing here and listening to these fake warriors, these damn half-women gabble at each other. And trying to figure out what's going on back in Mankind." He grabbed Eric's shoulders and begged: "What is going on with our people? How do we stand there?"
"We don't." Eric told him his experiences, beginning with the return from his Theft and the discovery that the door slab had been put back into place. "We're outlaws," he said, when he had finished. "You, I, everyone in the Trap-Smasher's band are outlaws. Who else got away?"
"Nobody, so far as I know. I figured I was the only survivor until I saw you come in. The only reason I got away was because I was on sentry duty all the way at the other end of the corridor when the attack came. I heard the noise and ran back. There was Stephen the Strong-Armed's men slamming it into our band and what looked like a hundred Strangers helping them. They saw me come up and a whole mob of them made for me. I didn't stop to think. I just took off, warrior's oath or no warrior's oath. And believe me, if you ever think you've seen me run, you're mistaken. I picked up each foot and I planted it so far ahead of the other one that I practically split down the middle. And all the time, there were those spears going over my head and past my shoulders and all around me. You never saw so many spears: I bet there was corridor after corridor littered with them."
"And they all missed you? You don't show a scratch."
The Runner shrugged contemptuously. "Strangers. What do you expect? They couldn't hit fat old Franklin himself if he were sitting at their feet. I was lucky none of Stephen's men were in that mob chasing me. Besides, like I told you, I ran. I shook most of them off pretty fast: after about a dozen corridors or so, there were only about two or three still following me. Those aren't such good odds for Strangers, not against a full warrior of Mankind, so they gave up too and turned back. I rested, got my breath back—and came here. I used another doorway to Monster territory, though."
"You knew about this place? You'd been here before?"
"Not inside, not in this particular burrow. But you know, we were all Alien-Sciencers pretty much in the band, some a little more, some a little less. Your uncle had been working on us, converting us, for a long time. Lots of times, when we'd be out on an expedition, stealing food and suchlike, he'd make a special trip inside this structure, and he'd leave us on guard outside. He told us how to get in to the square burrow, how to make contact with the Alien-Science headquarters, in case of an emergency. I figured that's what this was—an emergency—and I came here to get help. Help!" Roy the Runner looked around and made a face. "From this bunch of yapping, half-female lunatics? More and more of them kept coming in, all banged up and all talking their heads off. That's the one thing Strangers know how to do—talk, talk, talk, talk."
Eric followed his derisive glances and tended to agree with him. There certainly was a lot of talk going on, a lot of unnecessary recapitulation. But what else was there to do?
A major political and religious movement—with adherents all over the burrows—had just been smashed at one stroke, a concerted blow arranged by chiefs who were normally in a state of unvarying war with each other. The survivors had made for their headquarters, which no doubt had been deliberately placed in Monster territory for just such emergencies as this. Arriving here singly and in small groups, they could bind their wounds, rest and discuss alternatives still open to them. In this dangerous, unorthodox hideaway, they could talk and plan in freedom, relatively secure from attack.
But were they? Among this many men, limping and scuttling to doorways to Monster territory, there must have been a few careless enough to have been followed. All this movement in one direction and at one time could well have been noticed in the burrows. And, if they had been followed, if their activity had been observed, then this hideaway might turn out to be a terrible trap—a vast expedition organized by the chiefs might be on its way at this moment to exterminate once and for all the last remnants of the Alien-Science heresy.
No, not very likely, Eric decided upon reflection. With the immediate danger behind them, with their own Alien-Sciencers killed or in flight, the chiefs would have returned to a state of hostility and suspicion of each other. For a while, in fact, there would be even less communication than usual between the various peoples, while defense plans—which had been exposed to temporary allies—were being hurriedly altered. Mankind, for example, would be worrying right now about what the Strangers in their midst had noted: the total strength of fighting effectives, the location of the great central burrow and the specific corridors that led into it—and, possibly, particularly desirable women who might be worth a raid. Xenophobia would be snarling through the burrows once more, and alliances would be out of the question, especially an alliance as enormous and manifold as an expedition of this sort would require. After all, a people—no matter how great their need of food and equipment—rarely sent more than a half-dozen men into the complex dangers of Monster territory at one time. They were unlikely to risk the greater part of their warrior force in such a place.
While the Alien-Sciencers stayed here, then, they were relatively safe from that kind of attack. But still, sentries should have been posted just in case. It was more military, for one thing. And they would need every bit of military cohesiveness if they were to survive.
Roy the Runner agreed with him. "I told that to the leader—what's his name—Arthur the Organizer—as soon as I got here. But these damn Strangers: what can you expect? They don't know how to run an army. He sort of wobbled his head and asked me if there were any contacts, any secret organization of Alien-Sciencers, in the other bands of Mankind. Here we may soon be fighting for our lives, and he's worrying about secret organizations!"
"Well, he can't help it," Eric pointed out. "He's an Organizer. Just like you're a Runner and I'm an Eye. If you lost your legs or if I went blind, how would we feel? Well, he's an Organizer who's lost his organization. It's a terrible thing to happen to a man."
"Um. Maybe. But that's his problem, not mine. Me, I can still outrun any man in the burrows. He also said that if you or your uncle managed to get here, he wants to ask you a couple of questions: I should bring you to him right away. That's what he's doing with all these beaten-up characters around him—filling in the total picture, he calls it."
As they made their way through the crowd, the Runner bent down and muttered into Eric's ear: "Let me tell you, Eric, what we need now—in the spot we're in—is not an Arthur the Organizer. We need a first-rate band captain like your uncle. I've seen him when we won and when we lost, he always knew what to do. There was a man, there was a leader! When to push an attack home, when to retr
eat, when to regroup and attack from a different, unexpected direction—you could really trust his orders. He knew, he just knew." The tall, thin warrior shook his head. "And now he's riding the sewer! It's hard to believe. Eric—what about my woman? Did they do anything to my woman?"
"I don't think so. The only women I saw catching it were the wives of Thomas the Trap-Smasher."
Roy nodded morosely. "Not my wife. Trust her. I'll bet she's where she always wanted to be—in Franklin's harem. The way she'd repeat his name! Franklin, the Father of Many Thieves, she used to say, of Many Thieves. Whenever a woman gave birth who'd lain with the chief, Myra would tell me, 'Five in the litter, Roy. Five! Franklin always fathers at least five.' And her eyes would glitter like a pair of glow lamps. So what if I was the fastest runner in all of Mankind, what if I'd once run the whole length of a larder with two Monsters after me and lived to tell the tale? My family never had more than three to a litter, and Myra knew it damned well."
Eric walked faster, pushing through the noisy, wounded men. Three to a litter! The sour taste of his personal curse filled him again. And it wasn't diluted much by the knowledge that, as things stood, he now had very little chance of having a woman, any woman, to himself. The question of his paternal powers might never come up in this huge, all-male band of outlaws. Any woman they found...
Arthur the Organizer strode out from the clump of vociferous Strangers. He extended his arms in a warm greeting, but his peculiar eyes had nothing to do with warmth. They spun and spun in anxious multiple calculations.
"Welcome, Eric," he said. "Welcome, welcome. I've been hearing a rumor about your uncle. I hope, I sincerely hope, it's not so."
"He's dead. Dead and sewered." Eric fought to control a sudden, murderous anger. His uncle, it was true, had used him, Eric, had used his band and his wives, but, after all, these had been his uncle's own: they had been his to use if he so chose. His uncle had been his uncle, and a great one in Mankind.