All in all, it went very well, despite the trap into which he had almost fallen. But he couldn’t help remembering the conversation with his uncle in the other burrow. As his mouth reeled off the familiar words and concepts, his mind kept wondering how the two fitted together. His uncle was Alien-Science, and, according to his uncle, so had been his parents. Did that make them nonhuman, inhuman, antihuman?
And what did it make him? He knew his religious duty welclass="underline" he should at this moment be telling all Mankind about his uncle’s horrible secret.
The whole subject was far too complicated for someone with his limited experience.
When he had completed the lengthy catechism, Rita the Record-Keeper said: “And this is what you say about the science of our ancestors. Now we will find out what the science of our ancestors says about you.”
She signaled over her shoulder, without turning her head, and two young girls—female apprentices—pulled forward the large record machine which was the very center of the tribe’s religious life. They stepped back, both smiling shyly and encouragingly at Eric the Only.
He knew the smiles meant little more than simple best wishes from apprentices of the one sex to apprentices of the other, but even that was quite a bit at the moment. It meant that he was much closer to full status than they. It meant that, in the opinion of unprejudiced, disinterested observers, his examination was proceeding very well indeed.
Singleton, he thought fiercely to himself. I’ll show them what a singleton can do!
Rita the Record-Keeper turned a knob at the top of the. squat machine and it began to hum. She flung her arms up, quiveringly apart, and all, warriors, women, children, apprentices, even the chief himself, all bowed their heads.
“Harken to the words of our ancestors,” she chanted. “Watch closely the spectacle of their great achievements. When their end was upon them, and they knew that only we, their descendants, might regain the Earth they had lost, they made this machine for the future generations of Mankind as a guide to the science that once had been and must be again.”
The old woman lowered her arms. Simultaneously, heads went up all over the burrow and stared expectantly at the wall opposite the record machine.
“Eric the Only,” Rita called, spinning the dial on the left of the machine with one hand and stabbing at it randomly with the forefinger of the other. “This is the sequence in the science of our ancestors that speaks for you alone. This is the appointed vision under which you will live and die.”
3
He stared at the wall, breathing hard. Now he would find out what his life was to be about—Now! His uncle’s vision at this moment, many years ago, had suggested the nickname he came to bear: the Trap-Smasher. At the last initiation ceremony, a youth had called forth a sequence in which two enormous airborne vehicles of the ancestors had collided.
They’d tried to cheer the boy up, but he’d known his fate was upon him. Sure enough, he had been caught by a monster in the middle of his Theft and dashed to pieces against a wall.
Even then, Eric decided, he’d rather have that kind of a sequence than the awful emptiness of a blank vision. When, every once in a while, the machine went on and showed nothing but a blinding white rectangle, the whole tribe knew that the youth being examined had no possibility of manhood in him at all. And the machine was never wrong. A boy who’d drawn a blank vision inevitably became more and more effeminate as he grew older without ever going out on his Theft. He tended to shun the company of warriors and to ask the women for minor tasks to perform. The machine of the ancestors looked at a boy and told exactly what he was and what he would become.
It had been great, that science which had produced this machine, no doubt about it. There was a power source in it which was self-contained, and which was supposed to be like the power behind all things. It would run almost forever, if the machine were not tampered with—although who could dream of tampering with it? In its visions were locked not only the secrets of every individual human being, but enormous mysteries which the whole of Mankind had to solve before it could work out its salvation through the ritual’s and powers of the ancestral science.
Now, however, there was only one small part of Mankind that concerned Eric. Himself. His future. He waited, growing more and more tense as the power hum from the machine increased in pitch. And suddenly there was a grunt of awe from the entire burrow of people as a vision was thrown upon the wall.
He hadn’t drawn a blank. That was the most important thing. He had been given an authentic ancestral vision.
“Scattergood’s does it again!” a voice blared, as the picture projected on the wall showed people coming from all directions, wearing the strange body wrappings of the ancestors. They rushed, men, women, children, from the four corners of the glittering screen to some strange structure in the center and disappeared into its entrance. More and more poured in, more and more kept materializing at the edges and scrambling toward the structure in the center.
“Scattergood’s does it again!” the vision yelled out at them. “The sale of sales! The value of values! Only at Scattergood’s three stores tomorrow. Binoculars, tape recorders, cameras, all at tremendous reductions, many below cost. Value, value, value!”
Now the vision showed only objects. Strange, unfamiliar objects such as the ancestors used. And as each object appeared, the voice recited a charm over it. Powerful and ancient magic this, the forgotten lore of Ancestor-Science.
“Krafft-Yahrmann Exposure Meters, the best there is, you’ve heard about them and now you can buy them, the light meter that’s an eye-opener, a price to fit every pocketbook, eight dollars and ninety-five cents, tomorrow at Scattergood’s, absolutely only one to a customer.
“Kyoto Automatic Eight-Millimeter Movie Cameras with an f 1.4 lens and an electric eye that does all the focusing and gives you a perfect exposure every single time. As low as three dollars a week. The supply is limited, so hurry, hurry, hurry!”
Eric watched the sequence unfold, his hands squeezing each other, his eyes almost distended in reverence and concentration. This was the clue to his life, to what he might become. This was the sequence that the record machine of the ancestors, turned on at random, had vouchsafed as a prophecy of his future.
All knowledge was in that machine—and no possibility of error.
But Eric was getting worried. The vision was too strange. Sometimes there would be a vision that baffled even the wisest women. And that meant the youth who had called it forth would always be a puzzle, to himself and all of Mankind.
Let it not happen to him! 0 ancestors, 0 science, 0 record machine, let it not happen to him!
Let him only have a clear and definite vision so that his personality could be clear and definite for the rest of his life!
“Our special imported high-power precision binoculars,” the voice roared on as a man appeared in the vision and brought one of the strange objects up to his eyes. “If we told you the manufacturer’s name, you’d recognize it immediately. 7 x 50, only fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents, with case. 10 x 50, only fifteen dollars and ninety-five cents, with case. You see further, you see clearer, you pay less. You always pay less at Scattergood’s. Rock-bottom prices! Skyscraper values! Tomorrow, tomorrow„ tomorrow, at Scattergood’s annual Week-After-Halloween Sale!”