Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (101 page)

Eric didn't like it. As he led off after breakfast, he was unpleasantly aware of two situations: Rachel was immediately ahead of Roy where the constant sight of her would likely aggravate whatever was bothering the Runner; and he, Eric, was ahead of Rachel, his back an easy target for a spear cast by an angry, brooding man.

He thought of placing Roy in front of him: as a commander, that was his privilege. But Roy was no Eye, and an Eye was needed to find the way. Damn Roy! Trouble among themselves was the last thing they needed. Eric kept going, alert for any unusual noise behind him.

As a result, he almost led his command directly into destruction. He'd been so intent on what was going on to his rear that he'd failed to be properly aware of the sounds ahead. But as he was crossing an intersection, he heard them clearly. He shot one startled glance off to his left and immediately cupped a hand over his forehead glow lamp to obscure the light. He scrambled backward, shoving Rachel and Roy into the shelter of the branch from which they'd come.

"Wild Men!" he whispered. "A tremendous pack of them coming this way. Get your knapsacks off. We'll have to make a run for it." He wondered how fast Rachel could run. She'd barely been keeping up.

"Let me do it," Roy said, slipping out of his overloaded knapsack swiftly. "You two stay here."

Before they could stop him, he had darted out to the intersection with his forehead light uncovered. He looked off to the left, stiffening as if he couldn't believe what he saw. Then he threw his arms over his head and screamed. He screamed like one gone mad with terror.

The Wild Men heard him and saw him. They bellowed a wall-shaking hunger call in reply.

Roy turned and ran off to the right, screaming as he went. A moment later, the Wild Men roared past the branch in pursuit.

Eric and Rachel had flattened themselves against the left-hand wall. They clung to each other, afraid to breathe, as the horde thundered past the intersection. If only one of these horrible creatures glanced in their direction, they were done for. They'd never be able to get out of their knapsacks in time, to pick up any speed.

But with live meat visible up ahead, the Wild Men concentrated on that alone. From time to time, they threw their heads back—it seemed in perfect unison—and screeched out a repetition of their hunger call. The rising and falling notes bounced savagely off the walls around Rachel and Eric and made their muscles go rigid with terror spasm. That was the main purpose of the call, Eric realized: to freeze the prey in his tracks. It also served to encourage the slower members of the pack and keep them aware of the hunt's direction.

He'd never seen a Wild Man before, but one look down the corridor had been enough to tell him that the legends had all been true and that Rachel's experiences in the cage had been fully as ugly as she had said. They were as Rachel had described them: a chilling throwback to some original version of the primate horde, and yet with overtones of an all-too-human mob. The mass of hairy bent-over figures, their fingertips dragging along the floor, shambling along in a tight pack shoulder to immense shoulder—somehow even the Monsters weren't as upsetting. These things were foul.

Since there were children among them—tiny bits of shrilling ugliness who bounced past as much on the knuckles of their hands as on their splayed feet—the pack had to consist of both males and females. Yet it was almost impossible to tell one from the other. Perhaps the shorter were female. But short and tall, they all looked alike: they all had vast tangled quantities of head hair—and they all seemed to have beards.

They poured past the intersection in a run that was part roll, part hop and part fast walk, and that had a surprising amount of speed to it. Many of them were holding grisly lanterns: torn-off heads which still had the glow lamps of warriors bound above the eyes. But they carried no weapons, they wore no clothing. They merely pounded on the floor with their fists as they ran and reiterated the slobbering screech of their call. And they exuded an enormous, collective stink that seemed to fill the burrows with its fog.

When the last bellowing straggler had scuttled by, anxiously considering its chance of getting a bite of the distant meal, Eric and Rachel each took an opposite strap of Roy's knapsack and, heavily loaded themselves, began carrying it back down the tunnel in the direction of the last place they had slept.

There wasn't much chance they'd ever see Roy again, but if he escaped from the Wild Men, this was the only possible place for him to meet them. They got there, unloaded themselves and sank to the floor in each other's arms.

It was time for food, but neither of them even thought of eating. Food reminded them of the Wild Men—and the Wild Men's hunger.

Eric folded his arms and leaned against the wall near which Rachel was sitting. His ears were alert for any sound indicating the approach of Wild Men, but there was a deep, painful puzzle in his mind. "I've never seen anyone do that before," he said. "I've
heard
of such things, but only to save a tribe or a mate and children. And I thought—I was worried about Roy. He was so upset, so angry."

"He was miserable, darling. The closer we were getting to my people, the more he was brooding about his position once we arrived."

"You mean that he'd be nothing but an ignorant, front-burrow savage? I'm facing the same problem. I try not to think about it."

Rachel made a face. She lifted a foot deliberately from where she sat and kicked at his leg—hard. "You're my mate," she pointed out. "The husband of Rachel Esthersdaughter will automatically be a personage among the Aaron People. And you're not an ignorant savage anymore. At least, you're not ignorant," she added with a tiny, warm smile. "But Roy—he felt he had no skills, no knowledge, which would be useful where he was going, nothing to set him off and give him hope of winning a mate. He's had nothing, really, ever since he joined us in the cage. All the planning was yours, all the leading was yours. You pointed the way to every action and did whatever was important. And you were the one with a mate. Roy was feeling that he was just an extra—not at all necessary."

"He was sure as hell necessary in that escape from the Monsters. You'd never have been able to hook the sewer joint, Rachel, and hold on long enough for me to open the thing."

"But you never told him that, darling. Did you? And if Roy thought about it at all, he probably decided that any full-grown man who happened to be along could have done just as well. Roy wasn't
necessary
: nothing about Roy himself was necessary to anything we've done."

She was right, Eric decided. One hell of a commander he'd turned out to be! Leading and directing were only a small part of the command function, his uncle used to say—it was like making love without caresses.

And now there were only two of them again. How long would it be wise to stay here before giving up on Roy? How long would it be safe?

They heard footsteps coming toward them.

Rachel rose and stood behind Eric, who unslung a spear. The footsteps came closer, grew louder. Roy trotted around a curve in the tunnel.

"Roy!" they yelled, and ran at him with open arms. Rachel hugged him, covering his face with kisses. Eric pounded his back, grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled his head back and forth. "You old Runner, you!" he caroled ecstatically. "You crazy old heroic Runner, you!"

When they finally let him go, Roy shook himself and inquired mildly: "Where's the food? I built up a bit of an appetite."

Catching sight of his knapsack, he strode over to it, opened it and squatted to eat. There was a jauntiness in the Runner's bearing that Eric hadn't seen for many a sleep period.

They sat down next to him. "What happened?" they demanded.

"Nothing much," he said with his mouth full. "I led them around and around and around. Then I put on some speed and lost them. Most of the time I've been spending has been to get back here."

"You're wonderful!" Rachel told him. "You're absolutely wonderful! People will make up songs and stories about what you did."

"Oh, I don't know, Rachel. The whole thing wasn't much of a sprint for a Runner. For a real Runner, that is."

"And that's what you are," Eric said earnestly. "The best damn Runner in the whole twisting burrows! Where did you lose them?"

Roy grinned. "Remember that tribe yesterday? The poisoned people?"

They nodded.

"I led them back there. 'You want to eat people?' I said. 'Here you are. Some people. Eat them.' I hope they get a bellyache they'll never forget."

After the meal, it was a while before they started on their way again. They wanted to continue downhill, but it would be stupid to go back to where they had met the Wild Men. Eric had to find a gradient that ran in a slightly different direction.

He'd been turning an idea over in his mind. Now he took a small quantity of food and squeezed it into a ball. He rolled the ball up and down several corridors. When it rolled freely away from them, he picked it up and followed along the slope it had revealed.

In the next five days, they came across two more exterminated tribes. The situation in each was the same as in the first they had encountered, except that, from the greater abundance of material objects and handicrafts generally, Eric knew that in his own section of the burrows he would have labeled them "Strangers." Death had caught these men and women in mid-gesture also; here and there, a laughing child stood poised on one leg, forever immobilized in its play.

But there were individuals who looked frantic, or horrified. And on the further outskirts of these burrows, they found gray statues in running attitudes, whose backs were to their own central burrow. Apparently, there had been some warning—not enough.

They replenished their supplies of food and water at each place. No living thing came across their path, until—a full sleep period past the last of these tribal cemeteries—they saw half a dozen people at the far end of a tunnel. The other group tossed a few spears which fell harmlessly short, and then fled, shrieking.

Refugees from a poisoned burrow, it was obvious, since there were women among them. Refugees fearfully roaming the corridors in a group too small to put up any effective resistance against Wild Men or tribal enemies. Essentially respectable people who had been catapulted into the position of outlaws by the Monsters' pest control program.

"Alien-Science!" Roy commented heavily. "A religion that sets itself up to study the Monsters! Are we supposed to learn how to do things like this?"

"Is Ancestor-Science any better?" Rachel asked him. "You know, Roy, there was a place the ancestors had that they called Hiroshima." She told him about it.

When she had finished, he walked in silence for a few moments. "So they're both filthy. Then what's the answer?"

"The answer lies in a totally different direction. Wait till we get to my people. You'll see. A new kind of answer, a new way of—" She broke off. "Eric, what is it?"

Eric had stopped at an intersection formed by five branching burrows. He walked back slowly, retracing their footsteps to the previous intersection. This one was formed by three branching burrows. He pulled out the map, Rachel and Roy crowding around him.

"Do you see?" he said, pointing to tightly packed and crossing lines at the very edge of the map. "I think this is where we are right now." He smiled at Rachel, flourishing his education. "
Terra cognita,
if you know what I mean."

For a moment, they were all excited. Then Roy said: "There could be lots of places where a five-branch follows a three-branch."

"No, Roy, there aren't very many five-branch intersections in the burrows. You know that. And damned few three-branch ones. Most intersections are a simple cross-through of two tunnels that make four branches. I think we've arrived. We've been on the map for some time."

"Well, if it isn't the Aaron People!" Roy called out, walking up to a section of tunnel wall and holding out his hand in greeting. "How
are
you? and how are all the
little
Aaron People?" He came back to them. "Filthy snobs," he said. "They wouldn't speak to me. They cut me dead." He dodged the mighty punch which Eric swung.

But Eric was right, it became more and more evident. Every tunnel they passed through after this curved the way the map said it should; every intersection now occurred at exactly the right place and forked off in exactly the right manner. Finally, Rachel told Eric to put away the map. She knew the way and could lead them.

They came to an especially long, straight corridor. Three men stood guard at the end of it, two of them armed with long bows and the third with a crossbow. Eric recognized the weapons from Rachel's description of them back in the cage. Such arms could only be used in defense of Aaron People territory. Warriors were forbidden by law to carry them elsewhere; this was partially to prevent their falling into the hands of other tribes who might copy them, and partially to avoid alerting Monsters who might be able to construe these complicated devices as signs of certain human intelligence.

As they came closer, the guards fixed arrows into their bows.

"I'm Rachel Esthersdaughter," the girl called out, stopping a cautious distance away. "Remember me? I went on expedition to Monster territory. Jonathan Danielson was our leader."

The man with the crossbow was evidently the officer in charge. "I recognize you now," he said. "All right—keep coming. But, if you can speak to them, tell those Wild Men behind you to keep their hands high over their heads."

Roy spat angrily. "Wild Men! That's pretty big talk from warriors with such itsy-bitsy spears."

"Take it easy," Eric cautioned him. "Those itsy-bitsy spears can go through you faster and smoother than the longest one you ever saw." Still, it was hard to avoid becoming furious as he raised his hands into the air. Wild Men—it was worse than he had expected. And among these people he would have to live from now on. He was glad that Roy would be with him: someone besides Rachel would consider him human.