Jonathan Danielson jerked his head impatiently, then winced as the movement hurt him. “Uhh! No, of course not. All of that happened when I was captured. Anything as crude as a kick—that’s the last thing the Monsters are likely to do to you here. You know where you are, don’t you?”
“This cage, you mean?”
“This place. This place where all these cages are. It’s a Pest Control Center.”
“Pest? Control Center?”
The battered face grinned up at him sourly. “You and me. Humans, generally. We’re pests as far as the Monsters are concerned. We steal their food, we upset them, we infest their houses. They’d like to get rid of us. This is a place where they do research on ways and means to get rid of us. It’s a laboratory where they test all kinds of homicides: sprays, traps, poisoned lures, everything. But they need laboratory animals for the tests. That’s what we are, laboratory animals.”
Later, Eric made his way back thoughtfully to the center of the cage where Roy and Walter sat dispiritedly with their arms about their knees.
“People are getting tired, Eric,” the Runner said. “They’ve had a hard day, a real bad day. They’d like to go to sleep. But Arthur just sits there mumbling his prayers. He won’t talk to anyone.”
Eric nodded. He cupped his hands at his mouth. “Listen, everybody!” he called. “You can go to sleep. I hereby declare it night!”
“Do you hear that?” Roy sang out beside him. “Our leader has declared it night. Everybody go to sleep!”
All over the cage, men began stretching out gratefully on the floor. “Thanks, Eric. Good night. Good night, Eric.”
He pointed to Walter and Roy. “You’ll be sentries on the first watch. Pick any two men you trust to relieve you. And give orders to wake me if anything out of the ordinary ppens.”
When they had taken their posts at opposite walls of the cage, he lay down himself and put his arms behind his head. He had a lot to think about, and it was hard to fall asleep.
Pest Control Center… Laboratory animals…
Where they test all kinds of homicides…
16
There was no need to declare it morning. They were awakened by breakfast, quantities of food being dropped into their cage out of a long transparent tube held over the edge by a Monster. Some of the food was familiar to those of them who had seen it freshly stolen from a Monster larder; some of it was new and disquietingly different; but all of it was edible.
After a great pile of the variously colored lumps had rained into their midst, the tube was withdrawn and they saw it inserted in other cages of the rod structure. Shortly after they had finished eating, the Monster brought the tube back and hung it over one corner. Water poured out of it now, so that the men could drink, but it also poured down the sloping floor to the hole in the opposite corner, washing away all leftovers and whatever waste matter had accumulated during the night.
Simple enough, Eric thought. So much for sanitation.
There was a dense crowd pushing and—shouldering around the stream of water—he’d have to organize them better the next time. Meanwhile, it would compromise a leader’s dignity to join their scramble. He gave his canteen to Roy, telling the Runner to fill it and also see that the wounded man had plenty to drink.
When the Runner looked doubtful, he said simply and definitely: “That’s an order, Roy,” and turned away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Runner trot off immediately and follow his instructions. Eric felt relieved—after a night’s sleep and the general recovery of nerve, he’d been afraid that his position might be questioned.
The important thing, he decided, was to give the men plenty to do. It would keep them from worrying and would at the same time emphasize his new status as leader.
Arthur, his predecessor in command, was a good place to start.
The water from the tube abruptly died to a trickle and the tube itself was pulled away from the lip at the top of the cage. Several of the men who hadn’t managed to fill their canteens protested loudly, but the Monster, its pink tentacles holding the dripping tube firmly near its spear-point-shaped head, walked off about its business.
The Organizer brought his canteen down after a long swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. Eric crossed to him, conscious that most of the expedition was watching.
“We have a problem in organization here, Arthur,” he said. “Something for you to handle. We can’t have all the men jostling in a bunch, each man trying to fill his own canteen. That way there’ll always be somebody doing without. Think you could work out a better system?”
Arthur was apparently quite content to have given up the function of command decision in favor of the second-level administration planning which he knew so well. He smiled affirmatively. “Yes. I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t see why we couldn’t—”
Eric gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Don’t tell me. Show me. I’ll leave it completely in your hands.” He had seen his uncle, Thomas the Trap-Smasher, talk to his men in precisely this way—and he knew it worked.
It worked. Arthur began detailing a group of men to act as guards around any future water supply and another group to practice as a canteen brigade. Eric called Walter the Weapon-Seeker to his side.
“I want you to requisition all spare leather straps that the men are carrying. Braid them into experimental ropes. Try it different ways, two strands, three strands, whatever occurs to you. Let’s see how strong a rope we can get.”
The Weapon-Seeker shook his head. “Don’t expect it to work. We can’t do much braiding with the short lengths the men are liable to come up with. I’ve been turning it over in my mind, and that wounded Stranger was right. The kind of straps we have—they’re fine for holding hair in place or even a knapsack, but if you tie them into any kind of length and expect them to support real weight, say three or four men, they’ll just snap.”
“Try it anyhow,” Eric urged. “And use as many men as you can. If they’re busy enough, they won’t have the time to get scared.” He paused. “How come you called the wounded man a Stranger? Isn’t that a front-burrow term?”
“Sure. But we back-burrowers use it too. For people like him.” Walter gestured with his thumb. “I ve seen that kind of skirt before, with pockets all over. You know who wears those skirts? The Aaron People.”
Intrigued, Eric stared in the direction that Walter was indicating. The Aaron People again. The legendary people from which his grandmother had come. The people who had refused to join in the Alien-Science revolution, but who also, it seemed, had not particularly opposed it. The man did not look so very different. He was responding to Roy’s ministrations feebly, but—except for his clothes—he might just as well have been any one of the men in the expedition who had been wounded.
“Why wouldn’t he identify himself? Why keep it a secret?”
“That’s the Aaron People for you. They’re goddam snobs. They think they’re better than the rest of us and that we shouldn’t have any idea of what they’re up to. They’re always like that, the bastards.”
Eric was amused to note again that a back-burrower like Walter was as uncertain intellectually relative to the Aaron People as a warrior of Mankind might be when confronted with the superior material culture of almost any Stranger at all.
But he himself was a warrior of Mankind—and most of the expedition was probably aware of it. How long would they follow a front-burrower?
“Get on with those ropes,” he said. “We may need them. I’m planning on a mass escape.”