heard you and him talking."
"Hammerstone has no _light_, I fear. He tells me he lost it when he
was _shot_. But he can see in the dark better than _we_, Auk. Better
than _any_ biological person, in fact."
Auk, who could see nothing in the pitch blackness, said, "I got
eyes like a cat."
"_Do_ you really. What have I in my _hand_, in that case?"
"My needler." Auk sniffed; there was a faint stench, as though
someone were cooking with rancid fat.
"You're guessing." Hammerstone sounded closer. "You can't see
Patera's needler 'cause he's not holding it. You can't see my slug
gun either, but I see you and I got it aimed at you. Try to stick
Patera with that thing, and I'll shoot you. Put it up or I'll take it
away from you and bust it."
Faintly, Auk heard the big soldier's rapid steps. He was running,
or at least trotting.
"Bird see," the night chough muttered in Auk's ear.
"You don't have to do that," Auk told Hammerstone. "I'm putting
it up." To Oreb he whispered, "Where is he?"
"Come back."
"Yeah, I know. Is he as close as that shaggy butcher?"
"Near men. Men wait."
Auk called, "Hammerstone! Stop. Watch out!"
The running steps halted. "This better be good."
"How many men, bird?"
"Many." The night chough's bill clacked nervously. "Gods too.
Bad gods!"
"Hammerstone, listen up! You can't see much better'n Patera. I
know that."
"Spit oil!"
"Only I can. Between you and him, there's a bunch of culls,
waiting quiet up against the wall. They got--"
The sound that filled the tunnel was half snarl and half howl. It
was followed by a boom from Hammerstone's slug gun, and the ring
of a hard blow on metal.
"Hit head," Oreb explained, and elaborated, "Iron man."
Hammerstone fired twice in quick succession, the echoing thunder
succeeded by a series of hard, flat reports and the tortured
shriekings of ricocheting needles.
"Get down!" Auk reached for a place where he thought Dace
might be, but his hand met only air.
A scream. Auk shouted, "I'm coming, Jugs!" and found that he
was running already, sprinting sightless through darkness thicker
than the darkest night, his hanger blade probing the blackness
before him like a beggar's white stick.
Oreb flapped overhead. "Man here!"
Auk slashed wildly again and again, half crouched, still advancing,
his left hand groping frantically for the knife in his boot. His
blade struck something hard that was not the wall, then bit deep into
flesh. Someone who was not Chenille yelped with pain and surprise.
Hammerstone's slug gun boomed, close enough that the flash lit
the vicinity like lightning: a naked skeletal figure reeled backward
with half its face gone. Auk slashed again and again and again. The
third slash met no resistance.
"Man dead!" Oreb announced excitedly. "Cut good!"
"Auk! Auk, help me! Help!"
"I'm coming!"
"Watch out!" Oreb warned, _sotto voce_. "Iron man."
"Get outta my way, Hammerstone!"
From his left, Oreb croaked, "Come Auk."
His blade rang upon metal. He ducked, certain Hammerstone
would swing at him. Then he was past, and Oreb exclaiming from
some distance, "Here girl! Here Auk! Big fight!"
"Auk! Get him off me!"
A new voice nearly as harsh as Oreb's demanded, "Auk? Auk
from the Cock?"
"Shag yes!"
"Pas piss. Wait a minute."
Auk halted. "Jugs, you all right?"
There was no reply.
Someone moaned, and Hammerstone fired again. Auk yelled,
"Don't fight unless they do, anybody. Old man, where are you?"
His own fighting frenzy had drained away, leaving him weaker
and sicker than ever. "Jugs?"
Oreb seconded him. "Girl say. All right? No die?"
"No! I'm not all right." Chenille gasped for breath. "He hit me with
something, Auk. He knocked me down and tried to... You know.
Get it free. I'm pretty beat up, but I'm still alive, I guess."
The darkness faded, as sudden as shadeup and as faint. A dozen
stades along the tunnel, one of the crawling lights was slowly
rounding a corner. As Auk watched fascinated, it came into full
view, a gleaming pinprick that rendered plain all that had been
concealed.
Chenille was sitting up some distance away. Seeing Auk, the
naked, starved-looking man standing over her raised both hands
and backed off. Auk went to her and tried to help her up,
discovering (just as Silk had a moment before) that his hand was
encumbered by his knife. Gritting his teeth against pain that seemed
about to tear his head to bits, he stooped and returned the knife to
his boot.
"He grabbed my launcher in the dark. Hit me with a club or
something."
Examining her scalp in the dim light, Auk decided the dark
splotch was a bleeding bruise. "You're shaggy lucky he didn't kill you."
The naked man smirked. "I could of. I wasn't tryin' to."
"I ought to kill you," Auk told him. "I think I will. Go get your
launcher, Jugs."
Behind Auk, Incus said, "He intended to take her by _force_, I dare
say. I warned her on that _very_ point. To force any woman is wrong,
my son. To force yourself upon a _prophetess_--" Striding forward, the
little augur leveled Auk's big needler. "I _too_ am of half a mind to kill
you, for _Scylla's_ sake.
"Patera got both gods," Hammerstone announced proudly. "A
couple of you meatheads, too."
"Wait up, Patera. We got to talk to him." Auk indicated the naked
man by a jab of his gory hanger. "What's your name?"
"Urus. Look, Auk, we used to be a dimber knot. Remember that
sweatin' ken? You went in through the back while I kept the street
for you."
"Yeah. I remember you. You got the pits. That was--" Auk tried
to think, but found only pain.
"Only a couple months ago, 'n I got lucky." Urus edged closer,
hands supplicating. "If I'd of knowed it was you, Auk, this whole lay
would of gone different. We'd of helped you, me 'n my crew. Only I
never had no way to know, see? This cully Gelada, all he said was
her 'n him." He indicated Chenille and Incus by quick gestures. "A
tall piece out of the piece pit 'n a runt cull with her, see, Auk? He
never said nothin' about no sojer. Nothin' about you. Soon's I
twigged the sojer walkin', I was fit to beat hoof, only by then he was
goin' back."
Chenille began, "How come--"
"Because you ain't got anything on, Jugs." Auk sighed. "They take
their clothes before they shove 'em in. I thought everybody knew
that. Sit down. You too, Patera, Hammerstone. Old man, you coming?"
Oreb added his own throaty summons. "Old man!"
There was no reply from the ebbing darkness.
"Sit down," Auk told them again. "We're all tired out--shaggy
Hierax knows I am--and we've probably got a long way to go before
we find dinner or a place to sleep. I got a few questions for Urus
here.
Most likely the rest of you got some too."
"_I_ do, certainly."
"All right, you'll get your chance." Auk seated himself gingerly on
the cold floor of the tunnel. "First, I ought to tell you that what he
said's lily, but it don't mean a lot. I know maybe a hundred culls I
can trust a little, only not too much. Before they threw him in the
pits, he used to be one of 'em, and that's all it ever was."
Incus and Hammerstone had sat down together as he spoke;
cautiously, Urus sat, too, after receiving a permissive nod.
Auk leaned back, his eyes shut and his head spinning. "I said
everybody'd get their chance. I only got this one first, then the rest
of you can go ahead. Where's Dace, Urus?"
"Who's that?"
"The old man. We had a old man with us, a fisherman. His name's
Dace. You do for him?"
"I didn't do for anybody." Urus might have been a league away.
Hammerstone's voice: "Why'd they throw you in the pit?" Chenille's:
what I want to know. You're supposed to be in a pit, and you
thought I'd been in one. Was it no clothes, like Auk said?" Incus:
"My son, I have been _considering_ this. You could _hardly_ have
foreseen that I, an augur, would be _armed_." "I didn't even know you
was one. That cully Gelada, he said there was this long mort, and a
little cull with her. That's all we knew when we started pullin' lights
down." "It was this _Gelada_ who shot the bone arrow at _me_, I take it."
"Not at you, Patera. At her. She had a launcher, he said, so he shot,
only he missed. He's got this bow pasted up out of bones, only he's
not as good with it as he thinks. Auk, all I want's to get out, see?
You take me up, anyplace, 'n that's it. I'll do anythin' you say."
"I was wondering," Auk murmured.
Incus: "I _fired_ twenty times at least. There were _beastly animals_,
and _men_ as well." Chenille: "You could've killed all of us, you know
that? Just shooting Auk's needler like that in the dark. That was
abram." Hammerstone: "Not me." "If I had _not_, my daughter, I might
very well have died _myself_. Nor was I firing at _random_. I _knew!_
Though I might as well have been _blind_. That was _wonderful_. Truly
_miraculous. Scylla_ must have been at my side. They _rushed_ upon me
to kill me, all of them, but _I_ killed _them_ instead."
Auk opened his eyes to squint into the darkness behind them.
"They killed Dace, maybe. I dunno. In a minute I'm going to see."
Chenille prepared to rise. "You feel awful, don't you? I'll go."
"Not now, Jugs. It's still dark back there. Urus, you said your culls
took down lights. That was to make a dark stretch here so you could
get behind us, right?"
"That's it, Auk. Getada got up on my shoulders to pull four down,
'n Gaur run them on back. They spread out lookin' for dark. You
know about that?"
Auk grunted.
"Only they don't go real fast. So we figured we'd wait flat to the
side till you went by. Her, I mean, 'n this runt augur cully. That's all
we figured there was." "And jump on me from in back!" "What'd you
of done?" (Auk sensed, though he could not see, Urus's outspread
hands.) "You shot a rocket at Gelada. If it hadn't been for the bend,
you coulda done for our whole knot." "Bad man!" (That was Oreb.)
Auk opened his eyes once more. "Three or four, anyhow.
Hammerstone, didn't you say something about a couple animals
Patera shot?"
"Tunnel gods," Hammerstone confirmed. "Like dogs, like I told
you, only not nice like dogs."
"I got to go back," Auk muttered. "I got to see what's happened to
the old man, and I want to have a look at these gods. Urus, you're
one, and I did for one, so that makes two. Hammerstone says Patera
got a couple, that's four. Anybody else do for any?"
Hammerstone: "Me. One. And one Patera'd shot was still flopping
around, so I shot him again."
"Yeah, I think I heard that. So that's five. Urus, don't give me
clatter, I'm telling you. How many'd you have?"
"Six, Auk, 'n the two bufes."
"Counting you?"
"That's right, countin' me, 'n that's the lily word."
"I'm going back there," Auk repeated, "soon as the lights get there
and I feel better. Anybody that wants to come with me, that's all
right. Anybody that wants to go on, that's all right, too. But I'm
going to look at the gods and see about Dace." He closed his eyes again.
"Good man!"
"Yeah, bird, he was." Auk waited for someone to speak, but no
one did. "Urus, they threw you in the pits. Do they really throw
them? I always wondered."
"Only if you get their backs up. If you don't, you can ride down in
the basket."
"That's how they feed you? Put your slum in this basket and let it
down?"
"'N water jars, sometimes. Only mostly we got to catch our own
when it rains."
"Keep talking."
"It ain't as bad as you think. Anyhow mine ain't. Mostly we get
along, see? 'N the new ones comin' in are stronger."
"Unless they get thrown. They'd have broken legs and so forth, I guess"
"That's lily, Auk."
"Then you kill 'em right off and eat 'em while they're still fat?"
"Not all the time, 'n that's lily. Not if it's somebody that somebody
knows. We wouldn't of et you, see."
"So you got stuck in a pit, riding down in this basket, and you're a
bully cull, or used to be. Found out they'd been digging, didn't
you?" Auk opened his eyes, resolving to keep them open.
"That's it. They meant to dig out, see? Over till they fetched the
big wall, then down underneath, deep as they had to. Ours is about
the deepest, see? One of the real old 'uns 'n one that's near the wall.
They'd dig with bones, two culls at once, 'n more carryin' it out in
their hands. The rest'd watch for Hoppy 'n tramp it down when it
was scattered 'round. They told me all about it."
Hammerstone asked, "You hit this tunnel when you went to go
under the wall?"
Urus nodded eagerly. "They did, that's the right of it. They told
me. And the shiprock--it's shiprock there, it is in lots of place--it
was cracked, see? 'N they scraped the dirt out, hopin' to get
through, 'n saw the lights. They got wild then, that's what they said.
So they fetched rocks 'n chipped away at the shiprock, just a
snowflake, like, for your wap, fill you can wiggle through."
Incus grinned, exposing his protruding teeth more than ever. "I
_begin_ to comprehend your plight, my son. When you had _accessed_
these horrid tunnels, you found yourself _unable_ to reach the _surface_.
Is that not correct? The fact of the matter? _Pas's_ justice on you?"
"Yeah, that's it, Patera." With an ingratiating grimace, Urus
leaned toward Incus, appearing almost to abase himself. "Only look
at it, Patera. You shot a couple friends of mine just a minute ago,
didn't you? You didn't lend 'em no horse to Mainframe, did you?"
Incus shook his head, plump cheeks quivering. "
I thought it best
to let the gods judge for _themselves_ in this instance, my son. As I
would in _yours_, as well."
"All right, I was fixin' to kill you. That's lily, see? I'm not tryin' to
bilk you over it. Only now you 'n me ought to forget about all that,
see Patera? Put it right behind us like what Pas'd want us to do. So
how about it?" Urus held out his hand.
"My son, when you possess such a needler as _this_, I shall consent
to a truce _gladly_."
Auk chuckled. "How far you gone, Urus? Looking for a way out?"
"Pretty far. Only there's queer cheats in these tunnels, see? 'N
there's various ones, too. Some's full of water, or there's cave-ins.
Some ends up against doors."
Chenille said, "I can tell you something about the doors, Hackum,
next time we're alone."
"That's the dandy, Jugs. You do that." Painfully, Auk clambered
to his feet. Seeing that the blade of his hanger was still fouled with
blood, he wiped it on the hem of his tunic and sheathed it. "Things in
these tunnels, huh? What kinds of things?"
"There's sojers like him down this way." Urus pointed to
Hammerstone. "They'll shoot if they see you, so you got to keep listenin'
for 'em. That was how I knowed he was a sojer in the dark, see?
They don't make much noise, not even when they're marchin', but
they don't sound like you 'n me, neither, 'n sometimes you can hear
when their guns hit up against 'em. Then there's bufes, what he calls
gods, 'n they can be devils. Only this cull Eland caught a couple
little 'uns 'n kind of tamed 'em, see? We had 'em with us. There's
big machines, sometimes, too. Some's tall asses, only not all. Some
won't row you if you don't rouse 'em."
"That all?"
"All I ever seen, Auk. There's stories 'bout ghosts 'n things, but I
don't know."
"All right." Auk turned to address Incus, Hammerstone, and
Chenille. "I'm going to go back there and have a look for Dace, like
I said."
He strolled slowly along the tunnel toward the lingering darkness,
not stopping until he reached the point at which the men and beasts
shot by Incus lay. Squatting to examine them more closely, he
contrived to glance toward the group he had left. No one had
followed him, and he shrugged. "Just you and me, Oreb."
"Bad things!"
"Yeah, they sure are. He called 'em bufes, but a bufe's a
watchdog, and Hammerstone was right. These ain't real dogs at all."