Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (95 page)

If someone, someday, could ever fuse the two, the battle courage and cleverness of front-burrow tribes with the knowledge and imaginative valor of the back-burrowers, what glories might humanity then accomplish!

He looked up at Rachel. She had been studying him for some time. Her arms were crossed on her chest and her eyes were staring down at him intently.

"Do you know?" she said. "You're not at all bad-looking."

"Thank you, Rachel. This neutralizing device—you say the information about it was vital to the future of your people. In other words, it's part of a plan to hit back at the Monsters?"

"Of course. But so is everything that human beings do these days. Do you have a mate?"

"No, not yet. What kind of a plan? I mean, is it an approach through Alien-Science or Ancestor-Science?"

She fluttered her left hand impatiently. "In the Aaron People we have nothing to do with either of those superstitions. We gave them both up a long time ago. Our Plan to hit back at the Monsters is real and entirely new. It's different from anything you've ever heard of, and it's the only one which will work. How come a healthy, handsome young warrior like you doesn't have a mate?"

"I've only been a full warrior for a short time—I just passed my initiation ceremony. If your plans are neither Alien-Science nor—"

"Is that the only reason for your not having a mate? The fact that you've just celebrated your initiation ceremony?"

Eric rose with dignity. "There are—well, some other reasons. But that's a personal matter. I'd rather not discuss it. What I am interested in is this Plan your people have to hit back at the—"

She smiled and shook her head. "Men and women. Practically two different species. If it weren't for sex, they'd have
nothing
in common. Now I can't tell you any more about my people's strategy with the Monsters—I've talked too much already—but what I do want to canvass with you is the subject of mating. Mating, and nothing but mating, is our agenda, as far as I'm concerned. Mating, the pros and cons, the shades, the nuances, all about mating. What are those other reasons, Eric? I have to know."

He hesitated. "I'm a singleton," he said at last. "An only."

"A
what
? A singleton—Oh. You mean you weren't part of a litter. Your mother had just the one child—you. And the girls back in your tribe were afraid the condition might be hereditary. Well, that's not what I call a problem. Anything else?"

"No, nothing else," he told her angrily. "How can you say it's not a problem? What's worse than having no decent litter potential?"

"Many, many things. But let's not go into them. Among the Aaron People, you may be interested to know, small litters are quite prevalent. Twins are about it for the average woman. For the very largest litters you have to go to the Wild Men, whose women never come up with less than six at a birth. I think it has something to do with the amount of genetic distance from our ancestors. Or, perhaps, the differing infant mortality rates. But me, I'll be quite satisfied with a singleton delivery—especially here, with no midwives from the Aaron People to help me at the confinement."

Eric gaped at her. "Confinement? Here? You mean what you're thinking about—what you're suggesting—"

"My dear barbarian stalwart, I am not thinking and I am not suggesting. I am proposing. I am proposing an alliance betwixt me and thee, from this day forward, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health. Do you accept my proposal, or do you not accept my proposal?"

"But why? You've never seen me before—you don't know anything about me—we come from different peoples. Look, Rachel, it's not that I'm trying to raise objections. But—but, I haven't been in the cage long, and you're moving kind of fast. Too fast for me to understand you. There must be a reason."

"Yes, there is. In fact, there's more than one reason. Let's skip lightly over the fact that I'm not getting any younger and a girl has to think of her future. Let us also merely note in passing that your appearance pleases me and your personality pleases me and that you don't seem to have any vicious characteristics. All well and good, but not crucial. The following, however, is crucial."

She moved closer to him and took his hand. Eric felt excitement begin to build inside his body as he appreciated the girl's nakedness now. All his life he'd been surrounded by girls conventionally naked. But it was different when you realized that very shortly you and she...

"The important reasons," Rachel said softly, "have to do with saving lives. Your life, and probably mine. There were three other boys from the expedition up here with me originally. I saw them taken out, one by one, and I saw them being—each one was—oh, you know. You've seen it."

"I know, all right," Eric told her fiercely. "I saw what they do to us."

"Once they took me out, and I thought it was the end. But after passing me from one green rope to another—four or five Monsters were in a huddle over me—they returned me to the cage. Sammy Josephson—he was the last one left here—Sammy suggested that they might know I was a female and, well, something of a rarity in Monster territory. We talked about it, but before we were sure or had worked out any conclusions, it was Sammy's turn. What they did to him—oh-h! I think that was the worst of them all."

She shook her head heavily from side to side. Eric found himself squeezing her hand. She smiled at him tremulously, nodded, and went on: "And then came the succession of Wild Men, followed by you—all with long, unbound hair, just like mine. It's apparent that the Monsters do know I'm a female, and that they're trying to mate me. Now, Eric, I don't particularly want to cooperate with them in their search for knowledge about human behavior, but on this point and by this time, I'm more than willing to let them have their way. If we don't, they'll take you out of here eventually and tear you apart in an experiment. And they'll probably get tired of waiting and do the same to me. The best I have to hope for, once they remove you, is more and more Wild Men coming in here with their fangs all shiny and that gleam in their eyes which says, 'Food! On two delicious legs, the way it should be!' I'm tired of fighting and killing. That's a man's job. You be my man and do it for me."

Eric adjusted his knapsack straps self-consciously as he absorbed her analysis and her final entreaty. She was right. Given the situation, the only sensible thing was to let the Monsters know they were satisfied with each other and were mating. And he'd fallen into pure luck—Rachel constituted a fantastic prize, far beyond his wildest dreams of a mate. A girl with this much knowledge would outrank anyone in the Female Society of Mankind—probably in most Stranger Female Societies as well. That would automatically mean a tremendous boost to his own rank, if he ever got affiliated with a specific people again.

All well and good. But he was a man and a warrior. And mating was a serious business: it must be conducted with dignity, and according to tradition.

"Turn around," he ordered. "Let me look at you."

Rachel obeyed with complete docility, as he knew she would. Front-burrow or back-burrow, Aaron People or Mankind, there could not be that much difference in the customs of humanity. A man's Right to Examine was everywhere the same.

She stepped away a pace and turned round and round slowly, spreading her hair high behind her with the backs of her hands so that the lines of her body could be completely visible. This also brought her breasts up a bit more prominently: they were by no means the largest breasts he had seen on a girl, Eric noted, but they were pretty enough and would probably do. And while her thighs and hips were a shade too narrow as well, he had to remember that the demands of a singleton birth—the greatest probability here—were much smaller than those of the multiple deliveries a husband usually had to take into consideration.

On the other hand, she had an absolutely lovely, well-shaped rump, which, within the limitations posed by the narrowness of her hips, left nothing to be desired. And her face—he let go of the rump, turned her around again and took hold of her chin with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand—her face was infinitely appealing. Large, glowing brown eyes above a small, impudent nose, a soft mouth full of femininity that held an uncertain smile forever imprisoned at its corners, warm, beautifully curving cheeks, a high, white forehead, and, finally, clouds upon clouds of brown hair that was certainly of decent, adequate length. While her face was the least relevant portion of a woman's attractiveness, Eric had always had certain weaknesses in that respect which he had admitted only to himself. He was glad her face was the best part of her. Add to the face that truly first-class rump, consider that neither her hips, thighs nor breasts were outright failures, throw in the well-stocked mind which provided a magnificent dowry and thus substantial advancement for her man in any conceivable tribe—yes, Eric had to admit that Rachel was a treasure worth shedding blood for.

It would hardly do to tell her so, of course. Members of the Male Society must always maintain a certain essential diplomatic reserve toward members of the Female Society.

He moved back, folding his arms slowly and emphatically on his chest to indicate that the Examination was over.

Rachel relaxed, letting out a huge breath. "Are you satisfied?" she inquired with exactly the proper amount of anxiety. Eric was terribly pleased: he'd been afraid from her jocular manner of speaking that she knew nothing at all of formal behavior.

"I am satisfied," he told her, using the decorous phrases of the courtship formula. "You please me. I want you for my mate."

"Good. I am glad. Now I claim the Right of Invitation. You may not approach me sexually for the first time until I give you leave."

"That is your right," Eric agreed. "I will wait for your call. May it come soon! May it come soon! May it come soon!"

And it was over. They stood apart and grinned at each other self-consciously, observing mutual individuality return as the ritual prototype was sloughed off. Above them, below them, around them, lay the white vastnesses of Monster territory, the transparent cages in which fellow humans awaited fate and the Monsters' pleasure. But here in
this
cage, they were mate and mate, Eric and Rachel, two separate people who would become one, when the girl felt the time was ripe to beckon.

Suddenly Rachel giggled. "I was so nervous! Were you nervous?"

"A little," Eric admitted. "After all, from start to finish, it was a pretty fast mating. One of the fastest I ever heard about."

"I hope we didn't leave anything out, Eric."

"No, we didn't leave anything out. Nothing that was important, anyway. Except," he suddenly remembered with annoyance, "except for a condition I wanted to make. Something I wanted you to agree to do before we went through the ceremony. Then I got so caught up in the ritual responses that I forgot all about it."

"Your tough luck," she sang out and began a mad little dance around him. "Too late, too late! Agreements
before
the mating—never after." At the angry expression on his face, she stopped and took his hands. "I'm only joking, Eric. I have too much of a sense of humor for my own damn good. Among my people, there is a saying: 'Most children are born with a wail. Rachel Esthersdaughter was born with a laugh. And she'll probably die with a laugh.' You tell me what you were going to ask, and I'll do it. Whatever it is. Anything."

"Well." Now that he had come to it, Eric found difficulty in the phrasing. He didn't know if a man had ever asked a woman such a thing before. "I want you to teach me. I want you to teach me everything you know."

"You want me to—you mean, you want an education?"

"That's it, Rachel, that's what I want," he said eagerly. "An education. Knowledge. I don't expect you to tell me the secrets of the Aaron People's Female Society—I'm not asking you to break any oaths. But I want to know what at least the average man in your people knows. About the Monsters, about counting, about the history of our ancestors. How Alien-Science came to be, how Ancestor-Science came to be. How Strangers make the things they do, what the things are used for. How—What—I don't even know what I want to know!" he broke off miserably.

"But I do," she said, gently touching him on the face with an open, caressing palm. "And I'll be very willing to teach you, Eric, very willing indeed, darling. Don't you worry about my Female Society and its secrets: engineering is the last thing we'll get to. Do you want to start now?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed, his eyes shining. "I want to start right this moment!"

"Then sit down." She lowered herself to the floor and took some writing implements from one of the pockets of the nearby cloak. Eric squatted beside her. Now that he'd been able to put it into words, he found himself filled with a hunger such as he'd never known. The hunger for food, the hunger for sex—they were nothing like this. This was a singing hunger that filled your mind and made it want to hear more and more and more of the song.

Rachel looked at him quizzically for a moment. "What a way to begin a mating! With scratcher and repeatable slate. If my friends back in the Aaron People ever heard of this! If
your
friends—But Eric, seriously, I'm very pleased. That was the only thing about mating with you that really bothered me: you being a front-burrow barbarian. In our terms, of course, and who are we to say that our terms are right? But it did bother me. I'll teach you everything I know. Where do you want me to begin?"

Eric leaned towards her, his whole body tense. "Begin with protoplasm. I want to know all there is to know about protoplasm."

Pursuing knowledge, Eric discovered, was like running through the burrows. The corridor you were traveling kept forking off into two or three others. Most of the time, you could only see a little ways ahead; suddenly, you came around a curve into a confrontation that astonished you.

Astronomy, for example, was such a confrontation. At first, it seemed utterly useless: a body of arcane, almost incomprehensible data, unrelated to anything at all real. You learned astronomy by rote, associating the various strange names with little circles scratched out on the repeatable slate.