Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (88 page)

Eric walked out of earshot. Loneliness crouched on his chest.

When the expedition started again after the night's rest, Eric found Roy even more unbearable. The Runner had found a small strap somewhere and had bound his hair on the back of his head, Stranger fashion.

And there were three of them now in the scouting party that led the advance through the archway into the next great burrow. Arthur had detailed Walter the Weapon-Seeker to accompany Eric and Roy. The heavy, squat man with the huge, gnarled hands was the only member of the expedition who had penetrated farther into Monster territory than the larder. In search of alien artifacts which could be turned into usable human weapons, he had journeyed many, many times into unbelievably distant Monster burrows.

Roy found this fascinating. He refused to let go of the subject. "This funny little tribe I used to go around with—they'd have called you a back-burrower, they'd have thought you weren't up to them in guts or anything a warrior ought to have. But not one of them had ever gone as far as you, or taken the chances you've taken. The bravest band leader in this tribe, he'd have thought he was really something if once in maybe two or three auld lang synes he'd have gone to the edge of the Monster larder and poked his head into the next burrow."

"We turn right," the Weapon-Seeker said as they came to the end of the archway. "Watch out for traps. There are always a couple at the larder exit."

"I'll bet you've seen traps that his old band leader—" Roy jerked a thumb in Eric's direction, "—never even knew existed. And
he
was supposed to be a Trap-Smasher. Hey, Eric," he inquired solicitously, "doesn't all that hair get in your face? It's not good for an Eye to get hair in his face."

"I manage," Eric said shortly.

"Well, you know. You're an Eye. At least around your people you're an Eye. You're supposed to lead on expeditions, to show the way to the rest. But Walter here, he's only a Weapon-Seeker, he's not an Eye, but he knows the way we're going better than you. That's because Walter and his people, they're the kind of guys who really—"

"Do you want me to move up ahead?" Eric asked the Weapon-Seeker. "How about I act as point?"

"Good idea, young fellow. Your vision's better than mine. We'll just be going along this stretch of wall until the next rest period. If you see anything suspicious, stop right away and signal."

Eric edged around the two of them, the tall, bony Runner and the short, muscular Weapon-Seeker. He moved rapidly off about thirty paces ahead and kept going. At this distance, their low voices were barely audible. He began to feel better immediately.

And he realized how accustomed he had become to the fantastic spaces of Monster territory. It was still difficult to look up and out into the dazzling white illumination—every time he tried it he felt as if his mind were about to wander away and get lost—but he could jog along with the wall brushing his right shoulder, peering all the way ahead and experiencing only the slightest discomfort.

Three times he came to small obstacles which could possibly be traps. Then he signaled to the men behind him, who did the same to the main expedition in the rear. After that, it was a matter of walking cautiously away from the wall in a wide semicircle to avoid the obstacle and continue on his way. He still felt as frantic as ever until he got back to the wall and had to fight hard for self-control. Something about being out in the open in all that spacious whiteness made him want to scream and panic and run madly in absolutely any direction.

He tried hard to analyze the feeling and come to grips with it. He was an Eye, after all: some day it might be necessary for him to lead a group right into the middle of a Monster burrow where there was no wall to provide bearings and a sensation of solidity. But the hysteria seemed to remain in spite of all his efforts; each detour caused by a possible trap was as frightening as the one before it.

After passing the last obstacle, he noticed an odd buzzing sound from the wall. Eric stopped and considered it. A new kind of trap, an invisible one? A warning system that the Monsters used to tell them of the approach of humans? He indicated the sound to Walter and Roy by pointing. The Weapon-Seeker listened too, then shrugged and waved Eric on.

But suddenly the stretch of the wall between Eric and the man behind him developed a fissure. It widened rapidly, as if the fabric of the wall were being rolled back. And then the wall in their immediate neighborhood was no longer there, and they were staring into another great white burrow—and at a Monster who was walking placidly in their direction!

Despite all his warrior training, Eric froze. His arms and legs seemed locked into place. He knew, somewhere in his brain, that he hadn't been noticed, but he stood there, unable to move, while one of the six great legs began to come down immediately over his head. The creature was merely strolling from one Monster burrow to another—it might not even realize it had stepped on a human being.

Walter moved.

He darted away from Roy, who had also become immobilized by terror, and ran around in front of the creature. Then he yelled, waved his arms wildly—and ran straight toward it.

The immense Monster seemed to go into paralysis. It stood rigidly still for a moment as Walter, screaming, waving his arms, his face contorted, kept coming at it. Staring upward, in fear-anguish, Eric could see the flat gray circle that was the underside of its leg—a circle at least twice the thickness of his own body—barely vibrating and poised in the middle of a step as the creature assessed the situation and made up its mind what to do.

Then it reared on its two hind legs, and the entire body, as well as the portion of it that had been about to come down on Eric, went up and up into the dizzying distances overhead. A deafening, low-register, wailing sound came out of it and rolled massive echoes in all directions. It had jumped, Eric realized, and screamed as it jumped. He saw it turn around in mid-air to face the direction from which it had come: the long, long neck with the tiny head at the end strained forward as if to pull the body behind it as far from Walter the Weapon-Seeker as possible. It came down a substantial distance away in the other burrow, and the floor developed incredible solid waves in response to the impact. Eric was flung off his feet and bounced bone-crackingly from wave to wave. When the waves began to dwindle into ripples and then to mere violent vibrations, when the agitated floor was relatively flat again, Eric got his hands on it and lifted his head.

Far off, in the other burrow, the Monster was still running away from them. Its head, held high in the air by the thin and now-rigid neck, was still bellowing mad panic out of an open mouth. Just behind the head, the little pink growths that encircled the neck were standing out stiffly like so many frozen flames. An incredible stink hung in the air. Then the creature rounded a far-distant corner and was lost to sight.

But the fissure that had opened in the wall—through which the Monster had apparently intended to walk—the fissure was closing. And Walter was on the other side of it!

Eric saw the heavy little Weapon-Seeker scrambling frantically toward him. If the wall closed, Walter would be lost to them forever in the unknown depths of Monster territory!

Roy had run up and stood beside Eric. "Move, Walter,
move
!" the Runner breathed. Walter's face was torn with fear as he forced his short legs to their utmost.

The gap in the wall through which they were watching the Weapon-Seeker narrowed smoothly. When he was about a pace and a half away, there was barely enough opening for a man's body to squeeze through.

Without words, both getting the same desperate idea at the same moment, Eric and Roy grabbed the fissure edge at each side and hopelessly tried to keep it from closing further. To their astonishment, no effort was required. The wall stopped coming together the moment their hands were on it: the gap got no narrower.

Walter panted through and flung himself on the floor. Eric and Roy took their hands away. And immediately the wall closed and became solid once more.

Eric poked at it, scratched at it unbelievingly. It was solid enough to break a man's hand if he hit it too hard. And yet it had opened and closed—and temporarily stopped closing when he and the Runner had merely touched it.

And what had been wrong with the Monster? Had it actually been afraid of Walter the Weapon-Seeker, so tiny in comparison with its own fantastic bulk that it could have crushed, squashed, smeared him with one single casual step?

That was exactly what it had been, Walter assured them, once he had gotten back his breath. "Some of the Monsters are scared to death of us, some aren't at all. The ones who are afraid will bolt every time if you run directly at them making a lot of noise. Of course, the trick is to know which will bolt and which won't. The ones who aren't scared will just get a better opportunity to tread on you."

"I've heard of that," Roy said, nodding. "Some of the older warriors sing stories of being trapped outside the burrows by a Monster and seeing the damned big thing turn tail and take off. But there are other warriors who got trapped and didn't come back to sing the tale. You never can tell with a Monster."

"Yes, you can. You know those pink tentacles at the top of the neck, right near the head? They're the things to look for. If they're short and a dark pink, almost red, then the Monster will bolt when a human being runs at it. Those Monsters are as safe to be around as a new-born baby in the burrows. But if the neck tentacles are long and are colored a whitish pink—look out. A Monster with those kind of tentacles isn't afraid of you and will step on you every time."

"Why?" Eric asked. "What's the size and color of the tentacles got to do with it?"

The Weapon-Seeker spread his hands wide. "How should I know? And who cares why? Not even the Aaron People know—with all their piles of records. It's a fact, that's all, a very useful fact."

"Saved your life, that fact did," Roy told Eric. "I'll say it's useful. More useful than most of the facts that your uncle knew—your uncle and the whole people you used to belong to, you know, that bunch you used to call Mankind.
Mankind
, he used to call them," Roy said, turning back to Walter. "As if they were the whole human race!"

"Does anyone have any idea, any theory, why it's so?" Eric kept at the Weapon-Seeker.

Walter glanced back a short distance to where Arthur the Organizer and the rest of the expedition were hurrying up. "What good's a theory? It's only worthwhile if you know something for sure. Something that's usable. Do you remember that other piece of Monster furniture, the first rendezvous back in the larder? Wide and black with green knobs?"

"Yes. I wondered about it."

"So did I. Last auld lang syne, I was leading a band from my tribe on a weapon hunt. The pickings had been poor, we hadn't found anything at all good. So on the way back, I thought: who knows, why not, maybe those green knobs are worth something. I sent one of the younger lads shinnying up the piece of furniture. He got all the way to the top, crawled out near the edge and started working away at one of the green knobs. It turned round and round, and he called down that it was getting looser as he turned it. All of a sudden there was a flash of red from the green knob straight up into the air. The lad comes down in a lump, all black and burned, dead long before he hits the floor. Then, the next thing, all the lights go out. Pitch black in Monster territory, none of that whiteness, nothing. We have to pick our way back to the burrows with our forehead glow lamps. And just before we get to the doorway my people use, the light comes back on, all clear and white, as if nothing had happened. Well, what did happen? I don't know, I don't care. If I could ever figure out a way to turn it into a usable weapon, I might care a lot. Till then, just another Monster doodad."

"Of course, you understand, Eric," said Arthur the Organizer, who had come up and been listening, "you understand that we are interested in the why and wherefore of everything that pertains to the Monsters. As devout Alien-Sciencers, we have to be. It's just that there is, if you follow me, a time and a place for everything. All safe and sound, Walter?"

"Damned well safe and sound," the Weapon-Seeker growled. "It was touchy for at bit, though. Is it all right with you if I keep the kid on point and let him lead us the rest of the way? He is an Eye, a first-class Eye. He heard the buzz of a Monster doorway about to open and warned me. I shrugged it off."

Arthur smiled warningly. "Don't start shrugging at your age. We need you. You know the saying about Monster territory: 'A step in time saves nine in the sewer.'"

Now officially lead-off man for the expedition, Eric received his instructions from Walter the Weapon-Seeker and moved off. He saw Roy scowling. The Runner was to act as liaison between the scout group and the main body: it was evident that he considered it a demotion. Too bad—he just didn't have the blood-line of Eric the Storeroom-Stormer, and he should have learned to live with that fact.

The Storeroom-Stormer had been out somewhere deep in Monster territory with his wife, Eric's mother, when he had been killed. That was what his Uncle Thomas had told him. And it had been on a most unusual Theft. Unusual enough to have called for a woman's assistance. What conceivable kind of Theft could that have been?

Eric stared ahead and around into the bright, white distances of the Monster burrow. Here and there, he could see strange, huge objects, not at all like those in the larder. Were they furniture? Weapons? And had his parents once passed this way and seen the same objects, wondered as he was wondering? Or had they possibly known?

But all the time, his mind was on the alert for danger: that was the prime function of an Eye. And all the time, his mind recorded the route, making whatever deductions, whatever generalizations it could for future use: that was the best part of being an Eye.

He knew so little. Walter, uninterested in theory, knew a lot.

Whenever they stopped for a meal, squatting against the wall, he sought Walter out and explored the older man's knowledge, whatever there was of it. Were there human burrows on the other side of this stretch of wall—how could you tell if there were or if there weren't? That pit out there in the floor, in the middle of Monster territory, could it possibly denote a section of plumbing large enough to sewer a Monster corpse? Why, whenever they saw a Monster humping along in the middle of the floor and froze into absolute stillness in response to Eric's signal, was there no likelihood whatever that it would come over and travel along the wall like humans did? Why did humans journey close to walls and Monsters a substantial distance from them?