Of course, you might have a woman waiting for you back in your burrows, ready to turn into useful articles all the good things with which this place was filled. But she wouldn’t be with you at such a moment. Women were the custodians of human life and history and all accumulated knowledge. And the magic rituals they recited were the most precious possession of a people, giving them pride and a fundamental sense of identity. Women were absolutely forbidden to engage in any enterprise for which more readily expendable men might be used. They never entered Monster territory.
And yet, according to his uncle, his mother had…
He reached the huge article of Monster furniture and turned left along it. There was just a chance that there would be some Strangers still left where he had met them in the course of his Theft. He could warn them of what was going on in the burrows—they might let him stay with them. Even the companionship of effeminate, talkative, overdressed Strangers would be better than nothing.
As he was about to turn into the dark entrance of the structure, Eric paused. He had been running as he had been taught to run in Monster territory: don’t look up, never look up. Well, he’d looked up once already, in the course of his Theft—and he’d survived. All that he’d been taught: what was it worth?
Therefore he stopped deliberately well outside the entrance. Making certain again that no Monsters were about, be shoved his hands on his hips belligerently, turned and surveyed the enormous burrow. Yes, it was still a little upsetting at first glance. But one got used to it, one got used to it. Given enough time, no doubt even those incredibly oversize bags and containers, those walls stretching up so high that it hurt one’s neck to try to see their upper limits—given enough time, you’d come to notice this place as casually as a narrow storage burrow full of Mankind’s odds and ends.
There was nothing he couldn’t eventually learn to live with, Eric told himself. As long as he could see clearly what it was.
Eyes open. Look at everything. Judge everything for yourself, with your own vision. He would be Eric the Eye.
He traveled cautiously inside the structure. If there were any Strangers about, they might be expecting attack. They might throw first and examine the spear-pierced body for explanations afterward. Certainly, now at least, if Arthur the Organizer had been alerted to what was going on in the burrows, he would have posted sentries.
And the sentries would be nervous.
He encountered no sentries. He heard voices, however, from the moment he stooped and entered the low tunnel. They grew louder and louder as he turned into the right fork. When he emerged into the large, square burrow he was fully prepared for what he saw: dozens of Strangers, suffering from various degrees of personal damage, talk-ing, gesticulating, arguing. Multitudes of forehead glow lamps created a tremendous flare of illumination.
The scene was like the aftermath of a large-scale raid on an entire people. There were men with slight wounds, the blood having long hardened upon their scratches; there were men with bad wounds, who limped about on a crushed foot or who desperately tried to get aid for the red rip in their chest or side; there were men as mortally hurt as his uncle had been, who—having managed to crawl to this place of comparative safety by themselves or having been helped here by friends-lay now, unnoticed and forgotten along the walls, sliding downward through coma after coma until they smashed into the unyielding surface of death.
And everyone—everyone who was at all conscious—was trying to make himself heard.
Those with relatively minor injuries had clustered about Walter the Weapon-Seeker and Arthur the Organizer at the far corner of the burrow, shrilly trying to tell their own experiences and criticizing the behavior of others. Those whose wounds made it impossible for them to jostle in the main crowd, stood on the outskirts or sat on the floor in groaning groups of two and three, and pointed out to each other the defects in Walter’s plans or Arthur’s leadership that had brought them to this pass. Even the dying muttered their recent experiences to the friendly floor and suggested, with their last, gasping breath, alternative courses of action that would have developed far better results.
In a sense, Eric thought, his first impression had been correct. It was an entire people after a battle. He was staring at the people of Alien-Science after the other inhabitants of the burrows had crushed them and spat them out.
But, whatever they were, this was his people now. The only one he had. He shrugged and strode into the sharp-angled, noisy place.
Somewhere in the crowd, a man’s head swung around and studied him. The face broke into a smile. “Eric,” it called out. “Hey, Eric!”
A head that was higher than the others near it. And hair that was loose, not caught by a back strap in the Stranger fashion. A warrior of Mankind.
They elbowed toward each other frantically through the gesticulating debaters, the two beams from their forehead glow lamps making a single line as they kept their’ eyes locked together.
Long before they met, Eric recognized the man. Tall, thin, nervous-bodied—it could be only one person. The member of his uncle’s band who had made his life as an initiate most difficult, the warrior with whom he’d almost fought a duel before setting out on his Theft: Roy the Runner.
Roy seemed to remember none of this as they came together. He threw his bony arms around Erie and embraced him. “A familiar face,” he sang out in delight. “Eric the Only, am I glad to see you!”
Eric stiffened and stepped back out of the hug. “Eric the Eye,” hes aid sharply. “I’ve become Eric the Eye.”
The other man held up both hands placatingly. “Eric the Eye. Sure. Eric the Eye. I’m sorry. I’ll remember it from now on. Eric the Eye. Anything you say, boy. Just be friendly, just talk to me a little. I’ve been going crazy standing here and listening to these fake warriors, these damn half-women gabble at each other. And trying to figure out what’s going on back in Mankind.” He grabbed Eric’s shoulders and begged: “What is going on with our people? How do we stand there?”
“We don’t.” Eric told him his experiences, beginning with the return from his Theft and the discovery that the door slab had been put back into place. “We’re outlaws,” he said, when he had finished. “You, I, everyone in the Trap-Smasher’s band are outlaws. Who else got away?”
“Nobody, so far as I know. I figured I was the only survivor until I saw you come in. The only reason I got away was because I was on sentry duty all the way at the other end of the corridor when the attack came. I heard the noise and ran back. There was Stephen the Strong-Armed’s men slamming it into our band and what looked like a hundred Strangers helping them. They saw me come up and a whole mob of them made for me. I didn’t stop to think. I just took off, warrior’s oath or no warrior’s oath. And believe me, if you ever think you’ve seen me run, you’re mistaken. I picked up each foot and I planted it so far ahead of the other one that I practically split down the middle. And all the time, there were those spears going over my head and past my shoulders and all around me. You never saw so many spears: I bet there was corridor after corridor littered with them.”
“And they all missed you? You don’t show a scratch.”
The Runner shrugged contemptuously. “Strangers. What do you expect? They couldn’t hit fat old Franklin himself if he were sitting at their feet. I was lucky none of Stephen’s men were in that mob chasing me. Besides, like I told you, I ran. I shook most of them off pretty fast: after about a dozen corridors or so, there were only about two or three still following me. Those aren’t such good odds for Strangers, not against a full warrior of Mankind, so they gave up too and turned back. I rested, got my breath back—and came here. I used another doorway to Monster territory, though.”