by William Tenn
He turned his head and peered down the pipe in front of them, examining its top with the beam from his forehead glow lamp. There, above the wild splashes of water and the somersaulting chunks of offal and rubbish, was that it—a dim patch that seemed to be rushing swiftly in their direction?
Eric narrowed his eyes and strained to see. Yes. It was a joint.
"Roy!" he sang out and brought his arm in a wide motion over his head, pointing with his whole hand. "Do you see it? We'll take that one."
The beam from the Runner's glow lamp crept along his own and focused on the patch in the pipe top, now only a short distance away. "I see it," Roy called. "Get ready. Here we go."
He swung his hook up as they sped under the joint, catching an edge of it. For a moment they paused, swinging from side to side in the noisy, cascading water. Then they were on their way again. The hook had slipped out.
Roy cursed himself bitterly. "I didn't get a grip on it! I almost—damn it, I didn't get a good grip on it! I should be sewered alive."
In spite of their predicament, Eric found himself grinning. That was exactly what was happening to the Runner! But he didn't bother to point it out. "My fault," he told him instead. "I didn't give you enough warning. I'll let you know earlier next time."
But he was worried. The cold from the water had begun to numb his body. The other two were no doubt losing sensation as well: that would make it more difficult for Roy to hold on with his hook. How had the ancestors ever been able to survive low temperatures in the Outside? According to Rachel, some had even thrived on it and taken recreation especially in cold weather. What heroes there must have been in those days!
Well, he was no hero: he found the cold crippling. And it was getting worse every moment. Also, the current was observably much faster than when they had started. If Roy managed to hook the next pipe joint, Eric decided, he couldn't be expected to cling to it for long. They'd have to move very fast indeed.
With this in mind, he reached down to his waist strap and pulled out the knife he'd taken from Jonathan Danielson's body in the first cage a long, long time ago. He cut the thongs that bound him to Rachel. Now, only his arms were holding them together, but he'd be able to do his part of the job much more rapidly.
"How are you, darling?" he asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that she had been silent for some time. This was a pregnant woman, after all. She didn't reply. "How are you?" he demanded more urgently.
"I'm cold," she said in a low, dull voice. "Eric, I'm cold and I'm tired. I don't have much left."
Frantically, he turned his head again to scan the top of the pipe. The next chance would be their last. He'd better give Roy plenty of opportunity to prepare. And this time Roy had better—
The moment Eric saw the faint trace of a patch in the distance, he called out and pointed. The Runner located the joint, set himself. "I won't let go—I promise you!" he said between clenched teeth.
As the joint passed overhead, he thrashed wildly with his legs, rising slightly out of the water. He slammed the hook into a crack that ran along an edge of the joint—and twisted it. The curved end of the hook slid and locked inside the joint.
"Up to you, now, Eric," he gasped. "Go ahead!"
Rachel was still tied to Roy, but Eric, depending solely on his grip, was almost torn loose by the suddenness of their stop. It was by one hand only, a hand slipping up her arm to her throat, that he still held himself to her. He threw the other arm around her again and pulled himself close.
Then, reaching past her to Roy, he hauled himself up and over both of them, clambering across their madly jerking bodies until he stood on the Runner's shoulders. These were wet and slippery, but he was able to grab the middle of the hook with his left hand and steady himself. He whipped out his knife and went to work, ferociously, on the joint. Under him, the Runner fought for air, as with Eric's full weight upon him, his face would go slightly below the level of the water, slightly above it, then slightly below again.
Eric knew exactly what he had to do. He had been over this sequence in his mind dozens and dozens of times. He had been reviewing it while in the water, while looking for a joint in the distance, while climbing over Rachel to stand on Roy's shoulders. He had to reverse the process of opening a joint that he had used when standing on the floor of the burrows.
It should work.
On the burrows floor, you first tugged the covering plate to the right. Therefore, operating from underneath and using the knife, Eric pried it to the left. He switched the knife to the other side and pried to the right. Now, at exactly the right moment, while the heavy plate was still sliding, pull down on the knife handle, making the knife into a lever—and pray it doesn't break!
The plate moved upward. Eric let go of the hook with his left hand and grabbed the edge of the plate through the open space he had created. He pushed with all his might. The plate rolled off to one side.
He pulled himself out of the water and through the open joint. Crouched uncomfortably now on top of the pipe, he had flooring directly above him. The question was, what kind of flooring—Monster territory or of the burrows? And if it were burrows flooring, had there been human beings nearby to cut an opening through it?
There had, and he slumped for a moment in abject relief as he saw the familiar outlines of a slab. They could get out! Again he jabbed his knife in the thin space where edge met edge and used it as a lever. Once the slab lifted a bit, he put his shoulders under it, bracing his feet on the pipe—and straightened, pushing up. The slab rose and fell away from the opening, rattling the floor with its weight.
Eric, standing fully upright, could see curved walls and low ceilings all around him. The blessed, blessed burrows!
He scrambled back down and lay on the surface of the pipe, reaching through the joint. The Runner's face was bluish and Rachel's head lolled limply against his back. "Can't help—you much," Roy panted from the water. "You'll have to—all by yourself, if you can. I'm—I'm finished."
Eric got his hands under Roy's armpits and tugged. The Runner and Rachel came up easily about halfway, but there, with no more water to buoy them, they became suddenly far too heavy for him to lift any more. He held on desperately. Then Roy made a last effort. He got his elbows, still tied to the dripping hook, over the top of the pipe and heaved. It was just enough to make a difference. Eric was able to pull them both on to the pipe. They rested for a moment, then Eric and Roy together dragged themselves and Rachel through the opening to the burrows floor.
There they lay, exhausted.
But Eric was a commander—and a husband. He had responsibilities. He forced himself upright and cut Rachel loose from Roy, Roy loose from the hook. Then he addressed himself to his mate.
Her appearance frightened him. She was barely breathing, and her body was cold, very cold. With his own teeth chattering, he began rubbing her body furiously. He massaged her chest, he worked her arms back and forth, he chafed her feet. "Rachel," he called in agony. "Rachel, Rachel darling!"
After all this, to lose her!
Her eyelids fluttered open. "Hello, sweetheart," she said weakly. She took her first deep breath. She took another and managed a smile. "Hello," she said again in a voice a bit more like her own. "We made it!"
"We made it!" Eric joyfully agreed. He hugged her and kissed the paleness from her face. Then he put the joint cover back in place, and returned the slab to its socket in the floor. He was paying respect once more to the human housekeeping habits of the burrows.
"Take my equipment, Roy. Rachel, put your arms around my neck. I'm going to carry you."
"Where?" the Runner asked, picking up Eric's gear and getting heavily to his feet. "Why do we have to move?"
"Because we don't know what kind of tribe may use that particular sewer opening—or how soon they're liable to use it again. We're going to get a distance away and find a safer spot before we begin resting."
Rachel was fairly heavy now, and Eric's weariness hurt all along the calves
of his legs and the muscles of his shoulders. But he couldn't ask her to walk so soon after the experience she'd undergone. She went to sleep, nestling her head against his chest.
He didn't go far—just a few burrow turnings, past a couple of intersections. "This is where we'll sleep." he said, putting Rachel down carefully. "I hereby declare it night."
"We made it out of Monster territory," Roy marveled. "Out of the Cages of Sin, out of the sewers themselves. We're alive and safe and warm."
"And we have no idea," Eric reminded him, "where the hell we are."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Coming awake, Eric paused for a while and thought before announcing the dawn. He caressed his wife as she lay against him, her head on his right shoulder, her mouth nuzzling his chest. Rachel still looked very tired. He decided to stay in this spot and give her another day of rest.
But, once she was up, she wouldn't hear of it. "I know what you're afraid of. You're worrying about a miscarriage. Darling, if it didn't happen yesterday, it's not going to happen. We women of the Aaron People are just as hardy as the females of any front-burrow tribe."
"There's a long journey ahead. Many, many days of travel."
"All the more reason to start immediately, dearest. We don't have food for many, many days. And we can't spare the time for a detour into Monster territory to pick up more. I'll be all right. If I find I'm giving out, I'll start drooping immediately. I promise not to push myself—I'll droop noticeably and emphatically, all over the burrows floor."
Roy, who had come up and squatted near them, said he agreed with Rachel. "It's not only going to be a long journey, Eric. It's liable to be a meandering one, full of false starts and wrong turnings and going back along the way we came. You said last night you didn't know where we are—it's going to be even harder to find out where we want to go. I say let's start now."
Knowing they were right, Eric nevertheless fought to give Rachel a little more time. First, of course, they had to have breakfast. After that, he ordered their equipment checked and inventoried, their food supply examined for possible damage from the lengthy submersion. He sent Roy off to empty their canteens and then refill them with fresh water from the pipes that always ran parallel to the sewer system. And, finally, he asked for the map that Rachel carried and insisted on examining it thoroughly for clues as to the route they might take to their agreed-upon destination—the burrows of the Aaron People.
Roy was very much excited by the map: he'd never seen one before. Having returned with the canteens, he lounged behind Eric and stared respectfully at it, trying to understand how this odd network of lines could be considered a picture of the burrows in which a man traveled with walls on either side of him and fought or avoided enemies. Eric answered his questions patiently and in great detail: every explanation, every digression, meant that much more rest for Rachel. The girl napped on the floor a little distance from them, her face still somewhat haggard and her hands clasped on a belly that was just beginning to look rounder than normal female plumpness.
But as soon as the Runner understood that the place where they were now was not to be found on the map at all, he lost interest. He moved away and began putting his equipment into expedition-readiness, tightening straps, examining his knapsack for any badly frayed area, assembling his spears in front of him and choosing the one he wanted most readily available in the back sling.
"It's like all the other stuff of the Aaron People," Eric heard him grumble. "Just like the rest of these Strangers. They have things that sound great, that are wonderful to look at—only, please, if you don't mind, we can't use it right now. It's not good in this spot, we'll use it tomorrow, we'll use it next week. Damned mouth-warriors and their phony gear. Maps!"
Eric was irritated and wanted to remind him of the Aaron People gear that had helped them escape from Monster territory: the waterproof cloak they had used to make bladders, the protoplasm neutralizer that was the only piece of metal among them long enough to be bent into a hook. And how long was it since Roy had been so pathetically imitating Stranger dress and Stranger habits of speech?
But the three of them would have to stay close and depend on each other in the long, difficult journey that lay ahead. A commander, Eric had noted long ago, observing his uncle, did not allow himself to get into arguments, unless they involved a direct challenge to his authority or some other form of danger to the group he led. Besides, Eric suddenly smiled to himself, Roy's griping really meant only one thing: he was back in the burrows and feeling like a warrior of Mankind again.
So did he, he realized. And it was good to be practicing your trade again. Until they reached the Aaron People, at any rate...
He jumped to his feet, then, to get away from the thought that had begun crowding in on him. "All right, everybody," he called, in the ancient band call whose last meaningless phrase was supposed to have come all the way down from the ancestors: "Let's hit the road!"
A few moments later, they were going down the tunnel in single file, Eric in the lead and Rachel in the middle. Since their experience of the day before, he found himself constantly aware of something he had taken for granted all of his life: the warmth of the burrows. It was warmth, he knew now, that the Monsters needed and created for themselves. But it was certainly very comfortable for human beings, too. Man and Monsters, he was beginning to understand, had surprisingly many similar needs.
Where was he leading this tiny band? They were completely lost, in totally unfamiliar and therefore very dangerous territory, yet Eric had an idea. He was an Eye, and an Eye should know the way anywhere he found himself—even if he'd never been there before.
At every branching burrow, he paused and took a good long look, first at the sides and in the distance for any lurking enemies, then at the floor. The floor was most important. Once in a while, he would decide a branch looked promising and turn off into it, the other two following and wondering.
The trouble was, he couldn't expect to see what he was looking for: it was more a matter of feel. And for this, this feel, his feet were more useful than his eyes. His feet had to find the way. He tried to see with his toes, to watch with his heels, to peer with his soles. He was looking for any information about the floor of the burrow that his feet could give him.
When they stopped finally for sleep and the only big meal of the day, he pulled out the map and studied it. And he was studying it again the next morning, when he awoke Roy and Rachel; he was memorizing this picture of a burrows network far distant from the one they were in. He could see that it didn't make sense to either of them.
"What are you trying to find, darling?" Rachel asked at last, when, after much cogitation, he led them up a branch burrow and, after shaking his head suddenly, turned around and led them back again to the intersection.
"I'm looking for a slope in the floor," he explained. "Any slope, no matter how slight. Your people are known among Strangers and Mankind as the furthest-back burrowers, the bottommost burrowers of all. Whenever Walter the Weapon-Seeker or Arthur the Organizer talked about the Aaron People, they told how they had gone down to them. Never across to the Aaron People, as when they visited each other's tribes; never up to the Aaron People, as when they traded with Mankind; but always down. It's the only general direction I have. To get to the bottommost burrow, I have to find and stay on a gradient."
"And if you do," she asked from behind him, falling into step once more, "what then? We may get down to the level of the Aaron People's burrows, but they might be ten or twenty days' march on either side of us. We won't even know which side."
"There," Eric shrugged, "I'll be counting on my luck. My luck's been good. And I'll be counting on the map. You see, at that point, the map—"
He froze, flinging up his arms for silence. Rachel and Roy stopped simultaneously in mid-step, staring over his shoulder.
There was a sentry ahead of them. The man was leaning against the burrows wall, facing in their direction, a spear trailing down from his hand to t
he floor. The light from his forehead glow lamp burned directly at them.
Why didn't he give the alarm? Eric and Roy both now had spears in their hands. Why didn't the sentry try to beat them to the throw?
"He's dead," Rachel breathed. "Don't you see? He's standing there, but he's dead. He's been dead for days. You can smell him."
And they could. Across the intervening space, there drifted the unmistakable odor of a corpse.
The man had died suddenly, while on duty. And he had not been sewered.
Very cautiously, one slow step at a time, they crept up to him. His eyes were open and steadfast, fixed on the tunnel he was supposed to guard, but a gray film had formed over them. His body too was gray: a gray liquid seemed to have oozed out of the pores of his skin and covered the powerful biceps, the alert face, the strong warrior's chest.
Eric looked him over, vaguely puzzled by something he could not quite place. The weapons, the equipment, the clothing—all were slightly alien, and all were, at the same time, tantalizingly familiar.
They went past the guard, walking on the balls of their feet, ready to break and run back at the slightest hint of active danger. After a while, the tunnel broadened into what Eric recognized as a central burrow, a large, high-ceilinged chamber very similar to the central meeting-place of his own people. Here, at last, they could relax and walk about easily, without fear of attack.
The central burrow was filled, from one end to the other, with nothing more hostile than corpses. Long-dead corpses.
Everywhere, men, women and children stood or sat like so many statues that had been carved to exemplify the full range of human activities. An old crone squatted at the magic of food preparation. A warrior lay on his belly watching her, a corner of his mouth twisted in anticipation. A mother had turned a small child over her knee and had her hand raised, high and angry, over his naked rump. A young man, lounging against a wall, was smiling ingratiatingly at a young girl going by, who, while totally oblivious of her admirer, apparently had no way of passing him other than cutting in close enough to brush against his folded arms.