Homo Inferior

by Mari Wolf

snarls from her hair. But itdidn't make her attractive to him. It only made her less unattractive.

  "Will you always have to go away every night?" she asked guilelessly.

  "I suppose so."

  He looked down at her and smiled, wondering why he came. There was stillan air of unreality about the whole situation. He felt numb. He had feltthat way ever since the first day, and the feeling had grown, until nowhe moved and spoke and smiled and ate and it was as if he were someoneelse and the person he had been was gone completely. He liked cominghere. But there was no triumph in being with these people, no sense ofhaving found his own kind, no purpose, nothing but a vague contentmentand an unwillingness to search any farther.

  "You're very quiet," Lisa said.

  "I know. I was thinking."

  She reached out and touched his arm, her fingers strong and muscular. Hesmiled at her but made no move toward her, and after a moment she sighedand took her hand away.

  "Why are you so different, Eric?"

  "Perhaps because I was raised by the others, the normal ones. Perhapsjust because I've read so many books about the old race...."

  They came up to the boulders that blocked the entrance of the littlegorge where the hut was. Lisa started toward them, then stoppedabruptly.

  "Let's go on up the hill. I want to talk to you, without them."

  "All right."

  He followed her without speaking, concentrating all his effort onscrambling over the rougher spots in the trail. She didn't say anythingmore until they had come out on a high ledge that overlooked the wholecanyon and she had sat down and motioned for him to sit down too.

  "Whew," he panted. "You're a mountain goat, Lisa."

  She didn't smile. "I've liked your coming to see us," she said. "I liketo listen to you talk. I like the tales you tell of the old ones. ButMag and Nell are upset."

  He knew what was coming. His eyes met hers, and then he looked away andreddened and felt sorry for her and what he would have to tell her. Thiswas a subject they had managed to avoid ever since that first day,although the older women brought it up whenever he saw them.

  "Mag says I must have a man," Lisa said. Her voice was tight. Hecouldn't tell if she was crying because he couldn't bear to look at her.He could only stare out over the canyon and listen and wait.

  "She says if it isn't you I'll have to find someone else, later on, butshe says it ought to be you. Because _they're_ dangerous, and besides,if it's you our children will be sure to be like us."

  "What?" He swung around, startled. "Do you mean that if one parent werenormal the child might be too?"

  "Yes," she said. "It might. They say that's happened. Sometimes. No oneknows why we're born. No one knows why some are one way and someanother."

  "Lisa...." He stopped.

  "I know. You don't want me. I've known that all the time."

  "It isn't just that."

  He tried to find the words to express what he felt, but anything hemight say would be cold and cruel and not quite true. He felt thecontentment drain out of him, and he felt annoyed, because he didn'twant to have to think about her problem, or about anything.

  "Why do they want you to have a child?" he said roughly. "Why do theywant our kind to go on, living here like animals, or taken to thevalleys and separated from each other and put into institutions until wedie? Why don't they admit that we've lost, that the normals own theEarth? Why don't they stop breeding and let us die?"

  "Your parents were normal, Eric. If all of us died, others would beborn, someday."

  He nodded and then he closed his eyes and fought against the despairthat rose suddenly within him and blotted out the last of thecontentment and the unreality. He fought against it and lost. Andsuddenly Lisa was very real, more real even than the books had everbeen. And the dirty old women were suddenly people--individuals, notsavages. He tried to pity them, to retreat into his pity and hisloneliness, but he couldn't even do that.

  The people he had looked for were imaginary. He would never find them,because Mag and Nell and Lisa were his people. They were like him, andthe only difference between him and them was one of luck. They weredirty and ignorant. They had been born in the mountains and hunted likebeasts. He was more fortunate; he had been born in the valley.

  He was a snob. He had looked down on them, when all the time he was oneof them. If he had been born among them, he would have been as theywere. And, if Lisa had lived in another age, she too would have soughtthe stars.

  Eric sat very still and fought until a little of the turmoil quietedinside of him. Then he opened his eyes again and stared across thecanyon, at the rock slides and the trees growing out from the slopes attwisting, precarious angles, and he saw everything in a new light. Hesaw the old race as it had been far earlier than the age ofspace-travel, and he knew that it had conquered many environments onEarth before it had gained a chance to try for those of space. He felthumble, suddenly, and proud at the same time.

  Lisa sat beside him, not speaking, drawing away from him and letting himbe by himself, as if she knew the conflicts within him and knew enoughnot to interrupt. He was grateful both for her presence there besidehim and for her silence.

  Much later, when afternoon shadows had crept well out from the rocks,she turned to him. "Will you take me to the valley someday, Eric?"

  "Maybe. But no one must know about you. You know what would happen ifany of them found out you even existed."

  "Yes," she said. "We'd have to be careful, all right. But you could takeme for a ride in the aircar sometime and show me things."

  Before, he would have shrugged off her words and forgotten them. Now hecouldn't. Decision crystalized quickly in his mind.

  "Come on, Lisa," he said, getting to his feet and reaching down to helpher up also. "I'll take you to the valley right now."

  She looked up at him, unable to speak, her eyes shining, and then shewas running ahead of him, down the slope toward the aircar.

  * * * * *

  The car climbed swiftly away from the valley floor, up between thecanyon walls and above them, over the crest of the hills. He circled itfor a moment, banking it over on its side so that she could look down atthe gorge and the rocks and the cascading stream.

  "How do you like it, Lisa?"

  "I don't know." She smiled, rather weakly, her body braced against theseat. "It feels so strange."

  He smiled back and straightened the car, turning away from the mountainsuntil the great, gardened valley stretched out before them, all the wayto the foot of the western hills.

  "I'll show you the museum," he said. "I only wish I could take youinside."

  She moved away from him, nearer to the window, and looked down at thescattered houses that lay below them, at the people moving in thegardens, at the children.

  "I never dreamed it was like this," she said. "I never could picture itbefore."

  There was a longing in her face he'd never noticed before. He stared ather, and she was different suddenly, and her thin muscular body wasdifferent too.

  Pioneer--that was the word he wanted.

  The girls of the new race could never be pioneers.

  "Look, Eric. Over there. Aircars."

  The words broke in on his thoughts and he looked away from her,following her gaze incuriously, not much interested. And then hisfingers stiffened on the controls and the peacefulness fell away fromhim as if it had never been.

  "Lots of them," she said.

  Aircars. Eight or ten of them, more than he had ever seen at one time,spread out in a line and flying eastward, straight toward him.

  They mustn't see Lisa. They mustn't get close enough to realize who hewas.

  He swung away from them, perpendicular to their course, angling so thathe would be out of perception range, and then he circled, close to theground, as they swept by, undeviating, purposeful, toward the mountains.

  _Toward the mountains._

  Fear. Sudden, numbing fear and the realization of his own ca
relessness.

  "What's the matter, Eric?"

  He had swung about and now followed them, far behind them and off to oneside, much too far away for them to try to perceive him. Perhaps, hethought, perhaps they don't know. But all the time he remembered his owntrips to the canyon, taken so openly.

  "Oh, Eric, they're not--"

  He swung up over the last ridge and looked down, and her words chokedoff in her throat. Below them lay the canyon, and in it, the long lineof aircars, landed now, cutting off the gorge, the light reflecting offthem, bronze in the sunset. And the tiny figures of men were even nowspreading out from the cars.

  "What'll we do, Eric?"

  Panic. In her voice and in her eyes and in her fingers that bit into hisarm, hurting him, steadying him against his own fear and the twistingrealization of his betraying lack of caution.

  "Run. What else can we do?"

  Down back over the ridge, out of sight of the aircars and into thefoothills, and all the while knowing that there was nowhere to run tonow.

  "No, Eric! We've got to go back. We've got to find Mag and Nell--" Hervoice rose in anguish, then broke, and she was crying.

  "We can't help them by going back," he said harshly. "Maybe they gotaway. Maybe they didn't. But the others would catch us for sure if theygot near us."

  Run. It was all they could do, now. Run to other hills and leave theaircar and hide, and live as Lisa had lived, as others of their kind hadlived.

  "We've got to think of ourselves, Lisa. It's all we can do, now."

  Down through the foothills, toward the open valley, and the future, thelong blind race to other mountains, and no choice left, no alternative,and the books lost and the starship left behind, forever....

  Lisa cried, and her fingers bit into his arm. Ahead of him, too close toflee or deceive, was another line of aircars, flying in from the valley,their formation breaking as they veered toward him.

  "Land, Eric. Land and run!"

  "We can't, Lisa. There's not enough time."

  Everything was lost now--even the hills.

  Unless ... one chance. The only chance, and it was nearly hopeless.

  "Get in the back, Lisa," he said. "Climb over the seat and hide in thatstorage compartment. And stay there."

  The two nearest cars had swung about now and paralleled his course,flanking him, drifting in nearer and nearer.

  "Why?" Lisa clung to him. "What are you going to do?"

  "They don't know you're with me. They probably don't even know I wentback to the canyon. They think I'll land at the museum, not suspectinganything's wrong. So I'll do just what they expect me to. Go back, andpretend I don't know a thing."

  "You're mad."

  "It's our only chance, Lisa. If only they don't lock me up tonight...."

  She clung to him for still another minute and then she climbed over theseat and he heard the luggage compartment panel slide open and, a momentlater, shut.

  The nearest aircar drifted still closer to him, escorting him west-ward,toward the museum. Behind him, other cars closed in.

  * * * * *

  Walden and Prior were waiting for him at the entrance of the mainbuilding, just as they had waited so often before. He greeted themcasually, trying to act exactly as he usually did, but their greetingsto him were far from casual. They stared at him oddly, Prior evendrawing back a little as he approached. Walden looked at him for a longmoment, very seriously, as if trying to tell him something, but what itwas Eric didn't know. Both men were worried, their anxiety showing intheir manner, and Eric wondered if he himself showed the fear thatgripped him.

  They must know what had happened. By now probably every normal personwithin a hundred miles of the museum must know.

  At the entrance he glanced back idly and saw that one of the aircarsthat had followed him had landed and that the others were angling offagain, leaving. It was too dark to see how many men got out of the car,but Walden and Prior were facing in that direction, communicating, andEric knew that they knew. Everything.

  It was like a trap around him, with each of their minds a strand of thenet, and he was unable to see which strands were about to entangle him,unable to see if there were any holes through which he might escape. Allhe could do was pretend that he didn't even know the net existed, andwait.

  Half a dozen men came up to Prior and Walden. One of them was Abbot. Hisface was very stern, and when he glanced over at where Eric stood in thebuilding entrance his face grew even sterner.

  Eric watched them for a moment; then he went inside, the way he usuallydid when there were lots of people around. He wished he knew what theywere saying. He wished he knew what was going to happen.

  He went on into the library and pulled out a book at random and sat downand started turning the pages. He couldn't read. He kept waiting forthem to come in, for one of them to lay a hand on his shoulder and tellhim to come along, that they knew he had found other people like himselfand that he was a danger to their race and that they were going to lockhim up somewhere.

  What would happen to Lisa? They'd find her, of course. She could neverescape alone, on foot, to the hills.

  What had happened to Mag and Nell?

  No one came. He knew that their perceptions lay all around him, but hecould sense no emotions, no thoughts but his own.

  He sat and waited, his eyes focused on the book but not seeing it. Itseemed hours before anyone came. Then Prior and Abbot and Walden were inthe archway, looking across at him. Prior's face was still worried,Abbot's stern, Walden's reassuring....

  Eric forced himself to smile at them and then turn another page andpretend to go on reading. After a moment he heard their footstepsretreating, and when he looked up again they were gone.

  He sat a while longer and then he got up and walked down the ramp andstood for a few minutes looking at the ship, because that too would beexpected of him. He felt nothing. The ship was a world away now, mockinghim, for his future no longer lay in the past, with the old race, butout in the hills. If he had a future at all....

  He went up the ramp again, toward his own room. No one else was insight. They had all gone to bed, perhaps. They wouldn't expect him totry to run away now.

  He began to walk, as aimlessly as he could, in the direction of theaircar. He saw no one. Perhaps it wasn't even guarded. He circled aroundit, still seeing no one; then, feeling more secure suddenly, he wentdirectly toward it and reached up to open the panel and climb in.

  "Is that you, Eric?"

  Walden's voice. Quiet as always. And it came from inside the car.

  * * * * *

  Eric stood frozen, looking up at the ship, trying to see Walden's faceand unable to find it in the darkness. He didn't answer--couldn'tanswer. He listened, and heard nothing except Walden, there above him,moving on the seat.

  Where was Lisa?

  "I thought you'd come back here," Walden said. He climbed down out ofthe aircar and stood facing Eric, his body a dim shadow.

  "Why are you here?" Eric whispered.

  "I wanted to see you. Without the others knowing it. I was sure you'dcome here tonight."

  Walden. Always Walden. First his teacher and then his friend, and nowthe one man who stood between him and freedom. For a second Eric felthis muscles tense and he stiffened, ready to leap upon the older man andknock him down and take the ship and run. Then he relaxed. It was asenseless impulse, primitive and useless.

  "The others don't know you have any idea what's happened, Eric. But Icould tell. It was written all over you."

  "What did they find, Walden?"

  The old man sighed, and when he spoke his voice was very tired. "Theyfound two women. They tried to capture them, but the women ran out on aledge. The older one slipped and fell and the other tried to catch herand she fell too. They were dead when the men reached them."

  Eric listened, and slowly his tension relaxed, replaced by a dull acheof mourning. But he knew that he was glad to hea
r that they were deadand not captured, not dragged away from the hills to be bathed and wellfed and imprisoned forever under the eyes of the new race.

  "The old one was blind," Walden said. "It may have been her blindnessthat caused her to fall."

  "It wasn't."

  "No, Eric, it probably wasn't."

  They were silent for a moment, and there was no sound at all except fortheir own breathing. Eric wondered if Lisa still hid in the aircar, ifshe was listening to them, afraid and hopeless and crying over the deathof her people.

  "Why did you come out here, Walden?"

  "To see you. I came today, when I realized how suspicious the councilhad grown. I was going to warn you, to tell you to keep away from thehills, that they wanted an excuse to lock you up. I was too late."

  "I was careless, Walden." He felt guilt twist inside of him.

  "No. You didn't know the danger. I should have warned you sooner. But Inever dreamed you would find anyone in the hills, Eric. I never dreamedthere were any more without perception, this generation."

  Eric moved nearer the car and leaned against it, the cold plastic nextto his body cooling him a little, steadying him against the feverishtrembling that shook his legs and sent sweat down over him and made himtoo weak, suddenly, to want to struggle further.

  "Let me go, Walden. Let me take the car and go."

  Walden didn't move. He stood quietly, a tall thin shape in the darkness.

  "There are other people the searchers didn't find, aren't there? Andyou're going to them."

  Eric didn't answer. He looked past Walden, at the car, wishing he couldsomehow call to Lisa, wishing they could perceive so that he couldreassure her and promise her that somehow he'd still take her tofreedom. But it would be an empty promise....

  "I've warned you too late. You've found your people, but it won't do youany good. They'll hunt you through the hills, and I won't be able tohelp you any more."

  Eric looked back at him, hearing the sadness in his voice. It was realsadness, real emotion. He thought of the years he had spent with Walden,learning, absorbing the old race knowledge, and he remembered that allthrough those years Walden had never once made him feel uncomfortablebecause of the difference between them.

  He looked at the old man for a long time, wishing that it was day so hecould read the other's expression, wondering how he had managed to takethis man for granted for so long.

  "Why?" he whispered. "Why are you helping me? Why aren't you like theothers?"

  "I never had a son, Eric. Perhaps that's the reason."

  Eric thought of Myron and shook his head. "No, it isn't that. My fatherdoesn't feel the way you do. He can't forget that I'm not normal. Withhim, I'm always aware of the difference."

  "And you're not with me?"

  "No," Eric said. "I'm not. Why?" And he wondered why he had never askedthat question before.

  "The final question," Walden said softly. "I wondered how long it wouldbe before you asked it. I wondered if you'd ever ask it.

  "Haven't you ever thought about why I never married, Eric? Haven't youever asked yourself why I alone learned to read, and collected books,and studied the old race?"

  "No," Eric admitted. "I just accepted you."

  "Even though I can perceive and you can't." Walden paused and Ericwaited, not knowing what was coming and yet sure that nothing couldsurprise him now.

  "My father was normal," Walden said slowly. "But I never saw him. Mymother was like you. So was my brother. We lived in the hills and I wasthe only one who could perceive. I learned what it was to be different."

  Eric stared. He couldn't stop staring. And yet he should have realized,long ago, that Walden was different too, in his own way.

  Walden smiled back, his face, shadowed in moonlight, as quiet and asunderstanding as ever. For a moment neither spoke, and there was onlythe faraway sound of crickets chirping and the rustling of the wind inthe gardens.

  And then, from within the aircar, there was a different rustling, thatof a person moving.

  "Lisa!"

  Eric pushed the compartment panel back. The soft light came onautomatically, framing her where she curled against the far wall.

  "You heard us?"

  She nodded. Tears had dried on her cheeks. Her eyes were huge in herthin face.

  "We'd better go, Lisa."

  He reached in to help her out.

  They didn't see the aircar dropping in for a landing until it was almostupon them, until its lights arced down over the museum walls.

  "Hide, Eric. In here--" Lisa pulled him forward.

  Behind them, Walden's voice, suddenly tired in the darkness. "It's toolate. They know I'm here. And they're wondering why."

  The three of them stood frozen, watching each other, while the darkshape of the car settled to the ground some thirty yards away.

  "It's Abbot," Walden said. He paused, intent for a moment, and added,"He doesn't know about you. Get out of sight somewhere, both of you,away from here--"

  "Come on, Lisa--" Eric swung away from the car, toward the shelter ofthe building and whatever hiding place there might be. "Hurry!"

  They ran, and the museum rose in front of them, and the door was open.They were through it and into the dim corridor, and there was no onearound; Walden's figure was lost in the night outside. Beyond thelibraries the great ramp spiraled downward.

  "This way, Lisa!"

  They came out into the bottom of the well and there in front of them thestarship rested. Still reaching upward. Still waiting, as it had waitedfor so many uncounted years.

  Their ship--if only it could be their ship....

  "Oh, Eric!"

  Side by side they stood staring at it, and Eric wished that they couldget into it and go, right now, while they were still free and there wasno one to stop them. But they couldn't. There was no food in the ship,no plant tanks, none of the many provisions the books listed.

  Besides, if they took off now they would destroy the museum and all thepeople in it, and probably kill themselves as well.

  "Eric! We know you're down there!" It wasn't Walden's voice.

  Lisa moved closer. Eric put his arm around her and held her whilefootsteps hurried toward them down the ramp. The council. Abbot and Drewand the others. Prior, shaking his head. Walden.

  "Let us go," Eric cried. "Why won't you let us go?"

  Walden turned to the others. His eyes pleaded with them. His lips movedand his hands were expressive, gesturing. But the others stood withoutmoving, without expression.

  Then Abbot pushed Walden aside and started forward, his face hard anddetermined and unchangeable.

  "You won't let us go," Eric said.

  "No. You're fools, both of you."

  There was one answer, only one answer, and with it, a hot violence inhis blood as the old race pattern came into focus, as the fear and thefutility fell away.

  It was only a few steps to the ship. Eric caught Lisa's arm and pulledher after him and ran toward it, reaching up to the door. In one motionhe flung it open and lifted her through it, then he swung about to facethe others.

  "Let us go!" he shouted. "Promise to let us go, or we'll take off anywayand if we die at least you'll die too!"

  Abbot stopped. He looked back at Walden, his face scornful. "You see?"he said aloud. "They're mad. And you let this happen."

  He turned away, dismissing Walden, and came toward the ship. The othersfollowed him.

  Eric waited. He stood with his back to the door, waiting, as Abbotstrode toward him, ahead of the other councilmen, alone and unprotected.

  "You're the fool!" Eric said. He laughed as he leaped forward.

  Abbot's eyes went wide suddenly; he tried to dodge, gave a little grunt,and went limp in Eric's grasp.

  Eric laughed again, swung Abbot into the ship and leaped in himself. Theold race and its violence had never been nearer.

  He slammed the door shut, bolted it, and turned back to where thecouncilman was struggling to his feet.

  "Now
will you let us go?" Eric said softly. "Or must we take off now,with you--for the stars?"

  For a long moment Abbot looked at him, and then his lips trembled andhis whole body went slack in defeat.

  "The ship is yours," he whispered. "Just let me go."

  Outside the ship, Walden chuckled wryly.

  * * * * *

  The Vacuum Suit was strange against Eric's body, as strange as thestraps that bound him to the couch. He looked over at Lisa and she toowas unrecognizable, a great bloated slug tied down beside him. Only herface, frightened behind the helmet, looked human.

  He reached for the controls, then paused, glancing down through the viewscreens at the ground, at the people two hundred feet below, tiny antsscurrying away from the ship, running to shelter but still looking up athim. He couldn't see his parents or Walden.

  His fingers closed about the control lever but still he stared down.Everything that had been familiar all his life stood out sharply now,because he was leaving and it would never be there again for him. And hehad to remember what it was like....

  Then he looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless above him, and therewere no stars at all. But he knew that beyond the sky the stars wereshining.

  And perhaps, somewhere amid the stars, the old race waited.

  He turned to Lisa. "This may be goodbye, darling."

  "It may be. But it doesn't matter, really."

  They had each other. It was enough. Even though they could never be asclose to each other as the new race was close. They were separate, witha gulf always between their inmost thoughts, but they could bridge thatgulf, sometimes.

  He turned back to the controls and his fingers tightened. The last lineof the poem shouted in his mind, and he laughed, for he knew finallywhat the poet had meant, what the old race had lived for. _We have castoff the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want the stars...._

  He pulled the lever back and the ship sprang free. A terrible weightpressed against him, crushing him, stifling him. But still he laughed,because he was one of the old