Eric the Only turned pale. He knew heresy when he heard it.
His uncle patted him on the shoulder, drawing a deep breath as if he’d finally spat out something extremely unpleasant. He leaned closer, eyes glittering beneath the forehead glow lamp and his voice dropped to a fierce whisper.
“Eric. When I asked you how we’ve been hitting back at the Monsters, you told me what we ought to do. We haven’t been doing a single thing to bother them. We don’t know how to reconstruct the Ancestor-Science, we don’t have the tools or weapons or knowhow—whatever that is—but they wouldn’t do us a bit of good even if we had them. Because they failed once, they failed completely and at their best. There’s just no point in trying to put them together again.”
And now Eric understood. He understood why his uncle had whispered, why there had been so much strain in this conversation. Bloodshed was involved here, blood-shed and death.
“Uncle Thomas,” he whispered, in a voice that kept cracking despite his efforts to keep it whole and steady, “how long have you been an Alien-Science man? When did you leave Ancestor-Science?”
Thomas the Trap-Smasher caressed his spear before he answered. He felt for it with a gentle, wandering arm, almost unconsciously, but both of them registered the fact that it was loose and ready. His tremendous body, nude except for the straps about his loins and the light spear sling on his back, looked as if it were preparing to move instantaneously in any direction.
He stared again from one end of the burrow to the other, his forehead lamp reaching out to the branching darkness of the exits. Eric stared with him: no one was leaning tightly against a wall and listening.
“How long? Since I got to know your father. He was in another band; naturally we hadn’t seen much of each other before he married my sister. I’d heard about him, though: everyone in the Male Society had—he was a great thief. But once he became my brother-in-law, I learned a lot from him. I learned about locks, about the latest traps—and I learned about Alien-Science. He’d been an Alien-Science man for years. He converted your mother, and he converted me.”
Eric the Only backed away. “No!” he called out wildly. “Not my father and mother! They were decent people—when they were killed a service was held in their name—they went to add to the science of our ancestors—”
His uncle jammed a powerful hand over his mouth.
“Shut up, you damn fool, or you’ll finish us both! Of course, your parents were decent people—how do you think they were killed? Your mother was with your father out in Monster territory. Have you ever heard of a woman going along with her husband on a Theft? And taking her baby with her? Do you think it was an ordinary robbery of the Monsters? They were Alien-Science people, serving their faith as best they could. They died for it.”
Eric looked into his uncle’s eyes over the hand that covered the lower half of his face. Alien-Science people … serving their faith … do you think it was an ordinary robbery …
He had never realized before how odd it was that his parents had gone to Monster territory together, a man taking his wife and the woman taking her baby!
As he relaxed, his uncle removed the gagging hand. “What kind of Theft was it that my parents died in?”
Thomas examined his face and seemed satisfied. “The kind you’re going after,” he said. “If you are your father’s son. If you’re man enough to continue the work he started. Are you?”
Eric started to nod, then found himself shrugging weak-ly, and finally just hung his head. He didn’t know what to say. His uncle—well, his uncle was his model and his leader, and he was strong and wise and crafty. His father—naturally, he wanted to emulate his father and continue whatever work he had started. But this was his initiation ceremony, after all, and there would be enough danger merely in proving his manhood. For his initiation ceremony to take on a task that had destroyed his father, the greatest thief the tribe had ever known, and a heretical, blasphemous task at that …
“I’ll try. I don’t know if I can.”
“You can,” his uncle told him heartily. “It’s been set up for you: it will be like walking through a dug burrow, Eric. All you have to face through is the council. You’ll have to be steady there, no matter what. You tell the chief that you’re undertaking the third category.”
“But why the third?” Eric asked. “Why does it have to be Monster souvenirs?”
“Because that’s what we need. And you stick to it, no matter what pressure they put on you. Remember, an initiate has the right to decide what he’s going to steal. A man’s first Theft is his own affair.”
“But, listen, Uncle—”
There was a whistle from the end of the burrow. Thomas the Trap-Smasher nodded in the direction of the signal.
“The council’s beginning, boy. We’ll talk later, on expedition. Now remember this: stealing from the third category is your own idea, and all your own idea. Forget everything else we’ve talked about. If you hit any trouble with the chief, I’ll be there. I’m your sponsor, after all.”
He threw an arm about his confused nephew and walked to the end of the burrow where the other members of the band waited.
2
The tribe had gathered in its central and largest burrow under the great, hanging glow lamps that might be used in this place alone. Except for the few sentinels on duty in the outlying corridors, all of Mankind was here, over a hundred people. It was an awesome sight.
On the little hillock known as the Royal Mound, lolled Franklin the Father of Many Thieves, Chieftain of all Mankind. He alone of the cluster of warriors displayed heaviness of belly and flabbiness of arm—for he alone had the privilege of a sedentary life. Beside the sternly muscled band leaders who formed his immediate background, he looked almost womanly; and yet one of his many titles was simply The Man.
Yes, unquestionably The Man of Mankind was Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. You could tell it from the hushed, respectful attitudes of the subordinate warriors who stood at a distance from the mound. You could tell it from the rippling interest of the women as they stood on the other side of the great burrow, drawn up in the ranks of the Female Society. You could tell it from the nervousness and scorn with which the women were watched by their leader, Ottilie, the Chieftain’s First Wife. And finally, you could tell it from the faces of the children, standing in a distant, disorganized bunch: a clear majority of their faces bore an unmistakable resemblance to Frank-lin’s.
Franklin clapped his hands, three evenly spaced, flesh-heavy wallops.
“In the name of our ancestors,” he said, “and the science with which they ruled the Earth, I declare this council opened. May it end as one more step in the regaining of their science. Who asked for a council?”
“I did.” Thomas the Trap-Smasher moved out of his band and stood before the chief.
Franklin nodded, and went on with the next, formal question:
“And your reason?”
“As a band leader, I call attention to a candidate for manhood. A member of my band, a spear-carrier for the required time, and an accepted apprentice in the Male Society. My nephew, Eric the Only.”
As his name was sung out, Eric shook himself. Half on his own volition and half in response to the pushes he received from the other warriors, he stumbled up to his uncle and faced the Chief. This, the most important moment of his life, was proving almost too much for him. So many people in one place, accredited and famous warriors, knowledgeable and attractive women, the Chief himself, all this after the shattering revelations from his uncle—he was finding it hard to think clearly. And it was vital to think clearly. His responses to the next few questions had to be exactly right.