Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (86 page)

"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."

"You knew about this place? You'd been here before?"

"Not inside, not in this particular burrow. But you know, we were all Alien-Sciencers pretty much in the band, some a little more, some a little less. Your uncle had been working on us, converting us, for a long time. Lots of times, when we'd be out on an expedition, stealing food and suchlike, he'd make a special trip inside this structure, and he'd leave us on guard outside. He told us how to get in to the square burrow, how to make contact with the Alien-Science headquarters, in case of an emergency. I figured that's what this was—an emergency—and I came here to get help.
Help!
" Roy the Runner looked around and made a face. "From this bunch of yapping, half-female lunatics? More and more of them kept coming in, all banged up and all talking their heads off. That's the one thing Strangers know how to do—talk, talk, talk, talk."

Eric followed his derisive glances and tended to agree with him. There certainly was a lot of talk going on, a lot of unnecessary recapitulation. But what else was there to do?

A major political and religious movement—with adherents all over the burrows—had just been smashed at one stroke, a concerted blow arranged by chiefs who were normally in a state of unvarying war with each other. The survivors had made for their headquarters, which no doubt had been deliberately placed in Monster territory for just such emergencies as this. Arriving here singly and in small groups, they could bind their wounds, rest and discuss alternatives still open to them. In this dangerous, unorthodox hideaway, they could talk and plan in freedom, relatively secure from attack.

But were they? Among this many men, limping and scuttling to doorways to Monster territory, there must have been a few careless enough to have been followed. All this movement in one direction and at one time could well have been noticed in the burrows. And, if they had been followed, if their activity had been observed, then this hideaway might turn out to be a terrible trap—a vast expedition organized by the chiefs might be on its way at this moment to exterminate once and for all the last remnants of the Alien-Science heresy.

No, not very likely, Eric decided upon reflection. With the immediate danger behind them, with their own Alien-Sciencers killed or in flight, the chiefs would have returned to a state of hostility and suspicion of each other. For a while, in fact, there would be even less communication than usual between the various peoples, while defense plans—which had been exposed to temporary allies—were being hurriedly altered. Mankind, for example, would be worrying right now about what the Strangers in their midst had noted: the total strength of fighting effectives, the location of the great central burrow and the specific corridors that led into it—and, possibly, particularly desirable women who might be worth a raid. Xenophobia would be snarling through the burrows once more, and alliances would be out of the question, especially an alliance as enormous and manifold as an expedition of this sort would require. After all, a people—no matter how great their need of food and equipment—rarely sent more than a half-dozen men into the complex dangers of Monster territory at one time. They were unlikely to risk the greater part of their warrior force in such a place.

While the Alien-Sciencers stayed here, then, they were relatively safe from that kind of attack. But still, sentries should have been posted just in case. It was more military, for one thing. And they would need every bit of military cohesiveness if they were to survive.

Roy the Runner agreed with him. "I told that to the leader—what's his name—Arthur the Organizer—as soon as I got here. But these damn Strangers: what can you expect? They don't know how to run an army. He sort of wobbled his head and asked me if there were any contacts, any secret organization of Alien-Sciencers, in the other bands of Mankind. Here we may soon be fighting for our lives, and he's worrying about secret organizations!"

"Well, he can't help it," Eric pointed out. "He's an Organizer. Just like you're a Runner and I'm an Eye. If you lost your legs or if I went blind, how would we feel? Well, he's an Organizer who's lost his organization. It's a terrible thing to happen to a man."

"Um. Maybe. But that's his problem, not mine. Me, I can still outrun any man in the burrows. He also said that if you or your uncle managed to get here, he wants to ask you a couple of questions: I should bring you to him right away. That's what he's doing with all these beaten-up characters around him—filling in the total picture, he calls it."

As they made their way through the crowd, the Runner bent down and muttered into Eric's ear: "Let me tell you, Eric, what we need now—in the spot we're in—is not an Arthur the Organizer. We need a first-rate band captain like your uncle. I've seen him when we won and when we lost, he always knew what to do. There was a man, there was a leader! When to push an attack home, when to retreat, when to regroup and attack from a different, unexpected direction—you could really trust his orders. He knew, he just knew." The tall, thin warrior shook his head. "And now he's riding the sewer! It's hard to believe. Eric—what about my woman? Did they do anything to my woman?"

"I don't think so. The only women I saw catching it were the wives of Thomas the Trap-Smasher."

Roy nodded morosely. "Not my wife. Trust her. I'll bet she's where she always wanted to be—in Franklin's harem. The way she'd repeat his name! Franklin, the Father of Many Thieves, she used to say, of
Many
Thieves. Whenever a woman gave birth who'd lain with the chief, Myra would tell me, 'Five in the litter, Roy. Five! Franklin always fathers at least five.' And her eyes would glitter like a pair of glow lamps. So what if I was the fastest runner in all of Mankind, what if I'd once run the whole length of a larder with two Monsters after me and lived to tell the tale? My family never had more than three to a litter, and Myra knew it damned well."

Eric walked faster, pushing through the noisy, wounded men. Three to a litter! The sour taste of his personal curse filled him again. And it wasn't diluted much by the knowledge that, as things stood, he now had very little chance of having a woman, any woman, to himself. The question of his paternal powers might never come up in this huge, all-male band of outlaws. Any woman they found...

Arthur the Organizer strode out from the clump of vociferous Strangers. He extended his arms in a warm greeting, but his peculiar eyes had nothing to do with warmth. They spun and spun in anxious multiple calculations.

"Welcome, Eric," he said. "Welcome, welcome. I've been hearing a rumor about your uncle. I hope, I sincerely hope, it's not so."

"He's dead. Dead and sewered." Eric fought to control a sudden, murderous anger. His uncle, it was true, had used him, Eric, had used his band and his wives, but, after all, these had been his uncle's own: they had been his to use if he so chose. His uncle had been his uncle, and a great one in Mankind.

This man—this Stranger—with his Stranger ambitions, his Stranger contempt, based on pure ignorance, for whatever was truly majestic and noble—what did he know of Mankind? What did he know of what it had meant to Thomas the Trap-Smasher to be chief of such a people?

He gave the Organizer the same recent history he'd given Roy, skipping much of the personal detail. Partly, he knew the Organizer wouldn't be interested in these minor touches; but partly, his rage at the outsider, standing there, nodding and grunting and checking off points to himself, his rage kept creeping into his voice and could only be controlled by cutting the story as short as possible.

Arthur the Organizer heard nothing but the words.
"Well, now I know what happened to Thomas the Trap-Smasher and Mankind. So much for that,"
his attitude seemed to be. Eric felt as if he had been filling a storage pouch with exactly the right amount for the Organizer, who now thanked him, pulled the draw strings tight and dropped the pouch into his haversack.

"Pretty much like the others," Arthur summed up. "Leader killed, all his known followers exterminated, one, maybe two, manage to get away. The whole business a sudden stroke—chief meshing with chief, tribe with hostile tribe—little or no warning. A beautiful job of organization, I'd say, smooth, smooth as hell. Except, of course, for this inexcusably sloppy business of escapees like yourself and Roy here. But that, I'd lay to the lack of any overall coordinating control—there was no single individual running the whole show who was able to see it all in the round and pick out the weak spots. For a piece of what was essentially committee work, nicely done. Very nicely done."

"I'm glad you can enjoy it. Meanwhile, we—the movement—we're smashed, we're through."

The Organizer smiled and put an arm around his shoulder. "Not at all, boy. Not in the slightest. We merely enter upon a new phase. To quote the Ancestor-Science of our enemies: Action equals reaction. At the moment, reaction is dominant, so action—our action—must build up its strength and search for other paths. All human burrows are closed to us, but the Monster burrows are wide open. How about it—are you up to a little expedition?"

Eric stepped back and away from the friendly arm. "An expedition? To deep Monster territory? Why? For what?"

"To get more Alien-Science to back us up. In other words, to practice what we preach. Here we are Alien-Sciencers, and how much Alien-Science can we exhibit to potential converts? A little of this, a smidgen of that. What we have is tremendous—you yourself have good reason to know that—but it's all bits and pieces, not fully connected, not fully understood. Now, I say this," and here his voice rose, and Eric noticed that they had been slowly surrounded by most of the Strangers who could walk. "I say: if we're going to be Alien-Sciencers, let's be Alien-Sciencers all the way. Let's get the best, the strongest stuff the Monsters have. Let's get something that, when we bring it back to the burrows, will be absolutely irresistible, not merely as a weapon to back us up, but as an irrefutable proof of the validity of our beliefs. Let's get some Alien-Science that will blow Ancestor-Science to hell and gone forever."

Tired faces around them lit up under their glow lamps. "He's got it," someone said enthusiastically.

"He sure has. Arthur's found a way out."

"Good old Arthur. The Organizer. The old Organizer himself."

Even badly wounded men began to sit up and grin with excitement.

"What exactly," Eric asked in a cold, practical voice, "what exactly is it that we get?"

The Organizer turned and lifted one eyebrow at him for a long moment. "Now if we knew that," he chuckled and pointed up to the overhanging darkness, "we'd know as much as they, the Monsters, do, and our worries would be over. We don't know
exactly
. But we know of a place, at least Walter does, where the Monsters keep their strongest, most powerful weapons. Right, Walter?"

A nod from the short, chunky Weapon-Seeker as everyone turned to question him with their eyes. "I've heard of it, and I think I can find it. It's supposed to be the last word in Alien-Science."

"The
last word
in Alien-Science," Arthur repeated as if in awe. "Imagine what that must be like. Just imagine! Well, we go there and that's what we come away with. The
last word
! Then let the chiefs and the Female Society reactionaries stand up to us. Let them try. We'll show them what Alien-Science can do, won't we? We'll show them once and for all."

A man threw his spear up into the air and caught it. He whirled on a blood-dripping leg and shook the spear over his head. "Attaboy, Arthur," he yelled. "Let's show them so they never forget it!"

Eric saw that everyone around him, Roy included, was cheering and waving spears. He shrugged and waved his too. Arthur looked at him; his smile grew bigger, more expansive.

"So they'll never forget it," he repeated. "Now, let's get some sleep, and everyone who's able will hit the trail in the morning. I hereby declare it night."

Roy and Eric went to the edge of the crowd and bedded down together, back to back: they were, after all, the only two warriors of Mankind present. Just before he went to sleep, the Runner said over his shoulder: "What a great idea, isn't it, Eric? Great!"

"Well, at least," Eric muttered, "it keeps us busy and takes our minds off the fact that we're outlaws for the rest of our lives."

Wandering about next morning, before most of the others were up, Eric observed with contempt that sentries still had not been posted. He had taken it for granted that the leader of a war band would never let his men go through an entire sleep period without setting up a series of guard shifts to watch and give the alarm if enemies approached. True, he had reasoned out last night that, in the present state of resumed hostility in the burrows, they had little to fear from that direction, but that was only a logical hypothesis: one could not be certain. Besides, if a war band was going to function as a war band, function and survive, it had to go through the motions of discipline whether or not they were necessary.

In the face of such sloppy command work, he and Roy had better set up a personal on/off guard system between themselves every night. They wouldn't lose any rest: it was quite apparent that Strangers required much more sleep than the fighting men of Mankind.

Apparently, they also required much more talk. Never had Eric seen an expedition begin with so much discussion. He squatted off to one side, grinning and chuckling. Roy came over and sprawled beside him. He also found the Strangers hilarious.