jungle and paused on the edge. There he parted the high
bushes where the jungle ended.
“Subser does not comprehend,” he said then without
looking at me. “He is a Cutter and does not understand.
That is why I have discussed nothing since he joined us.”
He stepped through the bushes and stood gazing across
perhaps a mile of cleared fields from which grain had
been harvested. At the far side, rising some two hundred
feet in the moonlight, appeared the South Gate of Fusa;
a structure of piled stone at whose base, as in a pyramid,
a small dark entrance gaped.
“That is the South Entrance,” said Atta. “It is closed
at night.” He hesitated. “Subser is merely the name of all
the Cutters,” he added with no change of tone. “The
first Cutter was named Subser.”
“And Atta?” I asked.
“My name is Atta,” he said, “as my father’s was before
me and his father’s, and bis father’s. We are of the Maternity Guards and always have been.” He plucked a piece of a long creeper and began chewing it while he
continued to stare at the distant gateway. “I have brought
you here to tell you,” he said at length, “that Subser is
right about the tests. I can be of help to you only in
bringing you before the Great Oval. Beyond that, there
is no such thing as friendship in Fusa. Our cities are not
as you have described yours to me. Do you understand?”
“I understand partly,” I said after a long while.
"It is very simple,” he said. “As a Stranger you are
with me, and I shall vouch for you. But after that it is
for you to go your own way. Wield your ax, ride your
Fabran, and prove that you are a soldier and can be of
service to Fusa. Do you understand me fully?”
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He looked at me with eyes of great intensity until I
nodded.
“Good,” he said. “That is all I can say. As for the rest”
—his voice tightened oddly—“it is something to remember—to think of in the dark hours of the night. That is all.”
Abruptly he threw away his piece of creeper and
truned back into the jungle. And by the glitter of the
moon on his high cheekbones I could see that tears lay
beneath his eyes—tears that I did not understand until
Fusa itself had taught me the reason for them.
Chapter 8
We entered Fusa after sun-up the next morning, and
it still seems remarkable to me that no one challenged
us. Nevertheless Atta gave the password to the soldiers
on duty at the gate, they let us pass with a perfunctory
glance at Subser and Trotta, and almost instantly we
were lost in the pushing crowds of what was plainly a
great city. As a matter of fact, it was the horn when the
planters and cutters go to the fields outside, and a tenth
of the field hands who surrounded us immediately beyond the gateway would have sufficed to swallow up a caravan much more numerous than we were. As I later
learned, some two hundred thousand Fusans go out from
the city every morning; from the South Gate alone over
twenty thousand emerge. It was the full tide of this
crowd that pushed and jostled us in the shiny roadway
inside the gate, and for perhaps ten minutes it was like a
New York morning subway crush.
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103
Then the rush began to subside, and soon long files of
hurrying Fusans took the place of the original vanguard.
These too strode along at a good pace, but one after
another and all on the same side of the roadway, so that
we had plenty of room to go three abreast on our side,
with Trotta following.
downward, like the terminal of some great railway station, and to my surprise the way was not so dark as it had been in the city of the Rubicundians. It was dimly
lighted by a kind of dull gray reflection that came from
the walls—whether by design or not, I am unable to say.
The lanes themselves were simply broad tunnels, and,
though there was no discernible pavement, the way underfoot was hard and dry, without dust or dirt.
At first I was struck by the fact that there were no side
streets or shops at all—only occasional small, irregular
galleries set in the walls, in which bags of aphis nectar
hung upon the benches of what were evidently delicatessen stores or food bars. At such places, here and there, workers stopped, and attendants let them take long
drinks without payment or fuss of any kind. The only
function of the attendant appeared to be to keep an
abundant supply of aphis honey on hand. This he did,
to my amazement, by striking an empty bag sharply with
his feeler, whereupon it moved away and a new and
^ distended bag took its place from somewhere in back of
him. The bags were living carriers of some kind, plainly
bred for the purpose, and quite visible in the narrotv
lane.
At first these irregular galleries were few and far between, but after a while the lanes grew broader, the gallery entrances were more numerous, and rough pillars
began to appear, reaching up to the ceilings of the avenue and giving the pedestrian a kind of side colonnade under which to walk. This left the center roadway freer
and able to take care of increasing numbers of citizens,
some of whom appeared to be food porters, carrying
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huge, solid pieces of grain, burdens of mushroom food,
and even an occasional bundle of the peculiar leaf stalks
that Atta had brought into our fortified home. Such porters appeared in groups, apparently going from one gallery entrance to another, but seldom proceeding for long down the avenue itself. Once a long file of marching
soldiers held us up beside one of these gallery entrances,
and I looked inside. The scene was like that in a huge
medieval courtyard in a southern European latitude, with
open terraces instead of rooms opening upon it and hundreds of Eusans busy at their toilets and having breakfast. Each gallery, so called, was complete in itself, Atta explained as we resumed our progress, and as soon as its
community larder was filled its porters carried the incoming supplies to the next gallery tenement, thus avoiding the inevitable congestion of the avenue that would have
resulted from an attempt to supply all the communties
direct from the warehouses at the same time.
Indeed, despite the apparent confusion, I could easily
see that everything was being done according to a well-
arranged plan, and the impression produced on me was
far different from that given by the citadel of the
Rubicundians. Only two things seemed haphazard and
not calculated as part of a definite scheme of things. One
was the presence in the courtyards of a great number of
animal pets of all sizes, mostly yellow and orange in
color; the other was an occasional squabble on the colonnaded avenue between the porters and what seemed to be dwarfs or thieves.
These dwarfs, for I can only describe them as such,
were incredibly quick in their movements and so small in
size that they were like pr
ecocious beady-eyed animals.
They appeared from low narrow openings at the base of
the avenue walls—openings so small that a full-grown
Fusan could not enter—snatched at the burdens of the
porters, and ran gleefully away, to disappear with their
booty into their inaccessible retreats. They were the
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105
stunted thieves, I judged, whom Atta and Subser had
previously discussed.
Otherwise nothing unusual marred the steady succession of uneven courtyards, galleries, food shops, cross streets, and rough colonnades that met our eyes as we
proceeded deeper and deeper into the city. So exactly
alike, indeed, was each district to every other, aftd so
evidently laid out by plan, that the impression of factorylike sameness of existence in Fusa gradually grew on me until the busy monotony actually assailed my sense of
time. Was I on this corner now, or had I been here ten
minutes before? If a corner precisely like this lay ahead,
then why did I not stay where I was? Or had I in fact
never moved at all?
The only relief from this monotony of time and place
was the occasional appearance of bands of soldiers. I
must say that these were magnificent specimens, with
great heads like Napoleonic shakos and a general aspect
of strength and endurance. They appeared to be wholly
absorbed in their military formations or errands, however, and scarcely glanced at us or even at Trotta, with her load of armor, axes, and lance in plain sight. Considering what curiosity such a sight would have aroused in the streets of any American or European city, I formed
a very low opinion of the powers of observation of the
Fusan military, I stowed away the impression for future
consideration. As a matter of fact I was both correct and
incorrect in my diagnosis, a new sight being somewhat
in the nature of a new idea to a Formican; not only displeasing to speculate on, but literally impossible to consider if outside the realm of inherited beliefs or actions.
Meanwhile such theoretical considerations were far
from my mind. Already we had been proceeding for
over an hour, and the realization that I was committing
myself to a situation from which there could be no escape was beginning to weigh upon me. Street after street, courtyard after courtyard, avenue after avenue, crowd
after crowd of Formicans, until the mass overwhelmed
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the mind! How could a man ever reach the South Gate
again if escape became a necessity?
Apparently a similar uneasiness was present in Subser,
too, although for a different reason. For I noticed as we
went along that he glanced at Atta and me covertly from
time to time in a manner that I could not account for.
Nevertheless I could not imagine that he shared my
thoughts—after all, this was his home town—and nothing
was said by any of us for a long while, until at the corner
of an avenue we paused briefly to allow a procession to
pass on the side street.
This was a group of male community nursery workers,
I judged, with white, grublike infants in their care, and
of no particular importance. But for some reason Subser
stood staring at them as they went by and after they
had passed looked after them for almost a minute, an
expression of anxiety on his broad peasant face. Then he
faced Atta rebelliously and refused to go on with us.
“It is already beyond the time for the Cutters,” he said
to my mystification. “I do not see why I should go
farther.”
For some reason Atta did not seem in the least surprised, “Suit yourself,” he said coldly. “I will be responsible in the Oval.”
“I can still reach the fields in time, down this avenue,”
said Subser stubbornly.
“Then go,” said Atta. “Consider only your cutting.”
“I am indeed a Cutter,” said Subser. And without a
word of farewell he turned and went off hurriedly down
the cross avenue, like a man late for a dentist appointment.
“It is his caste and his duty,” said Atta briefly. “That is
all he knows and all he is likely to know.” And as we
resumed our progress he explained our late guide’s sudden defection. No Fusan, it appeared, could allow a stranger to enter the city unless he immediately brought
the intruder before the Great Oval for approval. Subser
had left Atta to bear alone the responsibility for intro
A T T A
107
ducing me—an act of cowardice in my eyes, but in Atta’s
merely an inevitable product of Subser’s humble role in
Fusa. It was outside Subser’s imagination, he pointed
out, to allow anything to interfere with the work of his
caste, even though two introducers for a Stranger were,
better than one.
“But you don’t have to worry,” he added, giving my
weapons and Trotta a humorous glance. “There is your
real recommendation to Fusa. No one can say there is
personal favoritism in a beast and an ax, or a lance and
a lasso.”
And with that he dismissed the subject. Nevertheless I
could see that he was disturbed, and for the first time it
struck me that I was in the presence of an unusual, perhaps a unique personality, considered from the Formican standpoint. For so far I had seen no evidence whatever
of any real personal relationships between other Formi-
cans. Certainly there was little that one could call even
remotely human about Subser, and among all the Rubi-
cundians I had observed no single instance of personal attraction or even what we call the gentler emotions. All without exception had been moved by what seemed to
me mere mass hysteria. Personal friendship appeared to
be nonexistent. Was it possible that this lack of emotion
was not confined to savage tribes like the Rubicundians,
but was inherent also in civilized nations like the Fusans?
The supposition struck me forcibly as I considered the
nature of the interview ahead of me and reflected on
Atta’s remarks. For these meant, if they meant anything,
that the main consideration in admitting me would be
my fighting value. Any vouching for me by Atta would be
the merest formality; indeed such an act, if too deeply
emphasized, might even cast suspicion upon not only my
ability but his own motives in bringing me. Unquestionably, then, what would be required was proof of my fighting ability. And would the Great Oval be likely to
take my word—or Atta's—for that? In brief, should I not
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A T T A
be required to give some sort of demonstration of my
abilities?
This question walked into my mind as I pondered the
peculiar character of the civilization I was now entering; and after a while it occupied my mind so oppressively that at last I spoke of it to Atta while we waited on a street corner for a gang of workers to pass. But he
passed it off with a shrug. All I would have to do, he
said, was to explain my ax and lance and lasso, put
Trotta through her paces, and let him do the rest. He
had seen me fight and could vouch for that. Even if the
Oval leaders were curious and want
ed a demonstration,
what if I did have to lasso a number of captive gladiators? They were a poor lot, usually worn out by their struggles to provide young Fusans with battle experience. He doubted if I would even get much amusement from them.
This comment, typical of Atta with his love of fighting in any form, seemed to satisfy him, but it did little to reassure me. Indeed, the mention of what sounded like
an arena, so far unknown to me, brought up a picture
that made me rather nervous. But, able to think of no
way of justifying my apprehensions, I resigned myself
to an interview from which I could obviously no longer
withdraw.
It was late in the morning now, I should judge, and
the character of the city neighborhoods had begun to
change. The side courtyards appeared to be of larger and
more noble proportions. No colored pets were in evidence, no Formicans making a morning toilet or sitting at breakfast. Instead, huge shako-headed soldiers guarded
entrance after entrance, and in some of the galleries tests
of strength were in progress between individual Fusans.
Shouts of approval or disgust issued from the little
crowds gathered around these bouts, and I concluded
that we were at last in the neighborhood of the Great
Oval.
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109
“It begins around the next curve,” Atta told me above
the din. “We shall be there shortly.”
“Good!” I shouted back. For I was a little weary now of
our almost endless walk, and I had already begun to
notice that groups of the military were casting sidelong
glances at my weapons and my mount. In fact, I was
about to comment humorously on this to Atta when we
came to a long, open corridor that stretched ahead of
us on our right for perhaps a hundred yards. It had rough
pillars set at fairly regular intervals, and between these I
caught a glimpse suddenly of an open space inside: a
great oval of such extent that it almost stunned me.
Up to that moment I had associated size in Fusa almost solely with walking distances. I had seen no roof hollowed out more than three stories above me in the
medieval courtyards. Now I was forced to change my