Three hundred and twelve paces beyond the door was the rendezvous that the Organizer had set with them. Here, a block piece of Monster furniture came close to the wall, a smaller piece than the one they had been in during the night. Eric could see the top of it by twisting his head far back on his neck: it was oddly curved and there were great green knobs sticking out of it. They stopped there, grateful for its cover, and took their first deep breaths. Far off behind them, along the wall, they watched the main body of the expedition trudging a slow single file in their direction. Eric and Roy waved their hands high to indicate that the way was safe.
When the answering waves indicated that the signal had been received, he turned to the Runner and put the question at last. Why this backing and filling, why this talking Arthur up when he was so unequivocally, ridiculously wrong?
Roy thought a moment before answering.
“He’s not wrong. I mean he can’t be: he’s our leader.”
“You know better than that, Roy! Not sending scouts ahead from the beginning, letting the men talk and clump up on expedition, not checking the exit overhang for a Monster trap—how far off can he be?”
“He’s our leader,” the Runner repeated doggedly. “Was your uncle any smarter, with all of his march discipline and trap-smashing? All right, just one mistake—enough to finish him and most of his band. Arthur’s alive.”
“He’s alive because he was safe in Alien-Science Head-quarters all through the blowup.”
“I’m not interested in why, Eric. He’s alive, and he’s the only leader we’ve got. This band’s the only people we’ve got. We’ve got to make the best of it and kind of, you know, show them we belong to them.”
Eric stared past him into the glaring whiteness. Far off, hundreds upon hundreds of paces away, he could make out the dim outlines of the larder sacks in which the Monsters kept their food. Once, the powerful bands of Mankind had come to swarm upon those sacks and bring minute portions of the contents home to their women and their chief. Once, he and Roy had been proud to be reckoned warriors of Mankind. Now were they to start all over again and learn pride at being Strangers? And Strangers on the run, at that, Strangers without even women to guide them, to tell them what was right and what was wrong!
No, he didn’t see it, and he said as much. “I’m not running my head into a spear any more for somebody else and his private plans.”
“That’s you,” Roy agreed. “That’s the way you’ve always been: a rebel, a trouble-maker, an outsider. Me, I’ve always asked only to be allowed to go along with the other guys. Why do you think I became an Alien-Sciencer? Because our band was Alien-Science. If I’d been in an Ancestor-Science band, I’d be backing up the chief right next to Harold the Hurler and Stephen the Strong-Armed and all those reactionary bastards. I’d be carving up people like you and your uncle any time the Female Society told me to. And I’d believe in what I was doing, just as I believed in what I was doing when I followed your uncle and went around saying that Chief Franklin had to go and that the Female Society stood in the way of progress. Being in the center of a bunch of guys that you can trust because you know their thoughts and their thoughts are exactly the same as your thoughts—that’s home, that’s the only home there is. Everything else is hunger and danger and sleeplessness, with no one to guard your back.”
Arthur the Organizer came up at this point, with the rest of the expedition. He gave his scouts orders as to the next advance point they were to reach.
Once more, Eric followed Roy, his senses alert for a sudden change in the environment, his mind busy with personal problems. He couldn’t argue with the Runner: the Runner was right for himself. But would Eric the Eye ever find a home, where friends who thought like him could be trusted to guard his back? He didn’t want to think-like other people—least of all Strangers. Going into great danger to find a weapon which might or might not exist!
The entire expedition camped for the night—once Arthur had officially declared it—in the crevice of a gigantic archway that led out of the Monster larder and into another great white burrow. At least sentries were posted, Eric noticed. They had filled their knapsacks with fresh food from the alien containers in the larder, although Eric’s stomach twitched uneasily at the prospect of eating anything that women had not first examined. And they had filled their canteens from an opening in a fresh-water pipe to which Walter the Weapon-Seeker had led them.
“This tribe I used to belong to,” Roy the Runner commented to a group of men huddling up for sleep. “Mankind, they called themselves—can you imagine that? Mankind!—they had a superstition about only using water from the pipes in the burrows. Once in Monster territory, no eating, no drinking. They could die of thirst—better that than give up the superstition.” He guffawed. “They were afraid their dead ancestors would get mad and—”
Eric walked out of earshot. Loneliness crouched on his chest.
13
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 further 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.