The Eye dropped down to the bottom of the pit and nosed close to the wreckage. It sank below the surface and emerged after a minute, dripping with water.

  “Digging machines, all right,” Arnild reported. “Some of them turned over and half buried. Like they fell in, maybe thrown into the hole. All of them Slaver-built.”

  Commander Stane looked up intently. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Sure as I can be when I read a label.”

  “Let’s get on to the village,” the commander said, chewing thoughtfully at the inside of his cheek.

  Dall the Younger discovered where the villagers had gone. It was really no secret; they found out in the first hut they entered. The floor was made of pounded dirt, with a circle of rocks for a fireplace. All the other contents were of the simplest and crudest. Heavy, unfired clay pots, untanned furs, some eating utensils chipped out of hardwood. Dall was poking through a heap of woven mats behind the fireplace when he found the hole.

  “Over here, sir!” he called.

  The opening was almost a meter in diameter and sank into the ground at an easy angle. The floor of the tunnel was beaten as hard as the floor of the hut.

  “They must be hiding out in there,” Commander Stane said.

  “Flash a light down and see how deep it is.”

  There was no way to tell. The hole was really a smooth-walled tunnel that turned at a sharp angle five meters inside the entrance. The Eye swooped down and hung, humming above the opening.

  “I took a look in some of the other huts,” Arnild said from the ship. “The Eye found a hole like this in every one of them. Want me to take a look inside?”

  “Yes, but take it slowly,” Commander Stane told him.

  “If there are people hiding down there we don’t want to frighten them any more. Drift down and pull back if you find anything.”

  The humming died as the Eye floated down the tunnel and out of sight.

  “Joined another tunnel,” Arnild reported. “And now another junction. Getting confused … don’t know if I can get it back the way I sent it in.”

  “The Eye is expendable,” the commander told him. “Keep going.”

  “Must be dense rock around… signal is getting weaker and I have a job holding control. A bigger cavern of some sort … hold it! There’s someone! Caught a look at a man going into one of the side tunnels.”

  “Follow him,” Stane said.

  “Not easy,” Arnild said after a moment’s silence.

  “Looks like a dead end. A rock of some kind blocking the tunnel. It must have rolled it back and blocked the passage after went by. I’ll back out … blast!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Another rock behind the Eye—they’ve got it trapped in that blocked-off piece of tunnel. Now the screen’s dead. All I can get is an out-of-operation signal!” Arnild sounded exasperated and angry.

  “Very neat,” Commander Stane said. “They lured it in, trapped it—then probably collapsed the roof of the tunnel.

  These people are very suspicious of strangers and seem to have a certain efficiency at getting rid of them.”

  “But why?” Dall asked. He looked around at the crude construction of the hut. “What could these people possibly have that the Slavers could have wanted so badly? Those machines we found, it’s obvious that the Slavers put a lot of time and effort into trying to dig down there. But did they ever find what they were looking for? Did they try to destroy this planet because they had found it—or because they hadn’t found it?”

  “I wish I knew,” Commander Stane said glumly. “It would make my job a lot easier. I’m getting a complete report off to HQ—maybe they will have some ideas.”

  On the way back to the ship they noticed the fresh dirt in the grove of trees. There was a raw empty hole where the girl had been buried. The ground had been torn apart and hurled in every direction. There were slash marks on the trunks of the trees, made by sharp blades … or giant claws. Something or somebody had come for the girl, dug up her body and vented a burning rage on the ground and the trees. A crushed trail led to an opening between the roots of one of the trees. It slanted back and down. Its dark mouth was as enigmatic and mysterious as the other tunnels.

  Before they retired that night, Commander Stane made a double check that the ports were locked and all the alarm circuits activated. He went to bed but did not sleep. The answer to the problem seemed tantalizingly obvious, hovering just outside his reach. There should be enough facts here to draw a conclusion from. But what conclusion? He drifted into a fitful doze without finding the answer.

  When he awoke the cabin was still dark, and he had the feeling something was terribly wrong. What had awakened him? He groped in his sleep-filled memories. A sigh. A rush of air. It could have been the cycling of the air lock. Fighting down the sudden fear, he snapped on the lights and pulled his

  gun from the bedside rack. Arnild appeared, yawning and blinking in the doorway.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Get Dall! I think someone came into the ship.”

  “Gone out is more like it,” Arnild snuffed. “Dall’s not in his bunk.”

  “What!”

  He ran to the control room. The alarm circuit had been turned off. There was a piece of paper on the control console. The commander grabbed it up and read the single word written on it. He gaped as comprehension struck him, then crushed the paper in his convulsive fist.

  “The fool!” he shouted. “The damned young fool! Break out an Eye. No, fire up two of them! I’ll work the duplicate control!”

  “But what happened?” Arnild gaped. “What’s young Dall done?”

  “Gone underground. Into the tunnels. We have to stop him!”

  Dall was nowhere in sight, but there were footprints, fresh crumbled dirt on the lip of the tunnel under the trees.

  “I’ll take an Eye down there,” Commander Stane said.

  “You take another one down the next nearest entrance. Use the speakers. Tell them that we are friends. Tell them that in Slaver.”

  “But you saw what reaction the girl had when Dall told her that.” Arnild was puzzled, confused.

  “I know what happened,” Stane snapped. “But what other choice do we have? Now get on with it!”

  Arnild started to ask another question, but the concentrated intensity of the commander at the controls changed his mind. He sent his own Eye rocketing toward the village.

  If the people hiding in the maze of tunnels heard the message, they certainly didn’t believe it. One Eye was caught in a dead-end tunnel when the opening behind it suddenly filled

  with soft soil. Commander Stane tried nosing the machine through the dirt, but it was firmly trapped and held. He could hear thumpings and digging as more soil was piled on top.

  Arnild’s Eye found a large underground chamber, filled with huddled and frightened sheep. There were none of the natives there. On the way out of this cavern the Eye was trapped under a fall of rocks.

  In the end, Commander Stane admitted defeat. “It’s up to them now. We can’t affect the way this ends. Not one way or another.”

  “Something moving in the grove of trees, Commander,” Arnild said sharply. “Caught it on the detector. It’s gone now.”

  They went out hesitantly with their guns pointed, under a reddened dawn sky. They went, half-knowing what they would find, but fearful to admit it aloud while they could still hope.

  Of course there was no hope. Dall the Younger’s body lay near the tunnel mouth, out of which it had been pushed. The red dawn glinted from red blood. He had died terribly.

  “They’re fiends! Animals!” Arnild shouted. “To do that to a man who only wanted to help them. Broke his arms and legs, scratched away most of his skin. His face—nothing left…” The aging gunner choked out a sound that was half gasp, half sob. “They ought to be bombed out, blown up! Like the Slavers started …” He met the commander’s burning stare and fell silent.

  “That’s probably just how the Slavers felt,” Stane said. “Don’t you understand what happened here?”

  Arnild shook his head dumbly.

  “Dall had a glimpse of the truth. His mistake was that he thought it was possible to change things. But at least he knew what the danger was. He went because he felt guilt for the girl’s death. That was why he left the note with the word ‘slave’ on it. In case he didn’t come back.”

  “What do you mean—?”

  “It’s really quite simple,” Arnild said wearily, leaning back against a tree. “Only we were looking for something more complex and technical. When it wasn’t really a physical problem, but a social one we were facing. This was a slave planet, set up and organized by the Slavers to fit their special needs.”

  “What?” Arnild asked, still confused.

  “Slaves. The Slavers were constantly expanding, and you know that their style of warfare was expensive on manpower. They needed steady sources of supply, so must have had to create them. This planet was one answer. Made to order in a way. A single, lightly forested continent. With few places for the people to hide when the slave ships came. They must have planted settlements, given the people simple and sufficient sources of food—but absolutely no technology. Then they could go away to let the people here breed. After that they would return every few years and take as many slaves as they needed. Leave the others behind to replenish the stock. Only they reckoned without one thing.”

  Arnild’s numbness was wearing off. He understood now.

  “The adaptability of mankind,” he said.

  “Of course. The ability—given enough time—to adapt to almost any extreme of environment. This is a perfect example. A cut-off population with no history, no written language. Just the desire to survive. Every few years unspeakable creatures drop out of the sky and steal their children. They try running away, but there is no place to run. They build boats, but there is no place to sail to. Nothing works. . “

  “Until one bright boy digs a hole, covers it up, and hides his family in it. And finds out it works.”

  “The beginning,” Commander Stane nodded. “The idea spreads, the tunnels get deeper and more elaborate. The Slavers would try to dig them out—so they started building defenses. This went on—until the slaves finally won.

  “This might very well have been the first planet to rebel successfully against the Greater Slavocracy. They couldn’t be dug out. Poison gas would just kill them—and they had no value dead. Machines sent after them were trapped like our Eyes. And men who were foolish enough to go down …” He couldn’t finish the sentence; Dall’s body was stronger evidence than words could ever be.

  “But the hatred?” Arnild asked. “The way the girl killed herself rather than be taken.” “The tunnels must have become a religion, a way of life,” Stane told him. “They had to be, to be kept in operation and repair during the long gap of years between visits by the Slavers. The children had to be taught that the demons come from the skies, that salvation lay below. Just about the opposite of the old Earth religions. Hatred and fear were firmly implanted so that everyone, no matter how young, would know what to do if a ship appeared. There must be entrances everywhere. Seconds after a ship is sighted the population can vanish underground. They knew we were Slavers since only demons come from the sky.

  “Dall must have guessed part of this. Only he thought he could reason with them, explain that the Slavers were gone and that they didn’t have to hide anymore. That good men come from the skies. But that’s heresy, and by itself would be enough to get him killed. If they ever bothered to listen.”

  They were gentle when they carried Dall the Younger back to the ship.

  “It is going to be some job trying to convince these people of the truth.” Arnild said when they paused for a moment to rest. “I still don’t understand, though, why the Slavers wanted to blow the planet up.”

  “There too, we were looking for too complex a motive,” Commander Stane said. “Why does a conquering army blow up buildings and destroy monuments when it is forced to retreat? Just frustration and anger, old human emotions. If I can’t have it, you can’t have it either. This planet must have annoyed the Slavers for years. A successful rebellion that they couldn’t put down. They kept trying to capture the rebels since they were incapable of admitting defeat at the hands of slaves. When they knew their war was lost, destruction of this planet was an easy vent for their emotions. I noticed you feeling the same way yourself when you saw Dall’s body. It’s a human reaction.”

  They were both old soldiers, so they didn’t show their emotions too much when they put Dall’s corpse into the necro chamber and readied the ship for takeoff.

  But they were old men as well, much older since they had come to the planet, and they moved now with old men’s stiffness.

  ROOMMATES

  Summer

  The August sun struck in through the open window and burned on Andrew Rusch’s bare legs until discomfort dragged him awake from the depths of heavy sleep. Only slowly did he become aware of the heat and the damp and gritty sheet beneath his body. He rubbed at his gummed-shut eyelids, then lay there, staring up at the cracked and stained plaster of the ceiling, only half-awake and experiencing a feeling of dislocation, not knowing in those first waking moments just where he was, although he had lived in this room for over seven years. He yawned, and the odd sensation slipped away while he groped for the watch that he always put on the chair next to the bed; then he yawned again as he blinked at the hands mistily seen behind the scratched crystal. Seven … seven o’clock in the morning, and there was a little number 9 in the middle of the square window. Monday the ninth of August, 1999—and hot as a furnace already, with the city still embedded in the heat wave that had baked and suffocated New York for the past ten days. Andy scratched at a trickle of perspiration on his side, then moved his legs out of the patch of sunlight and bunched the pillow up under his neck. From the

  other side of the thin partition that divided the room in half there came a clanking whir that quickly rose to a high-pitched drone.

  “Morning …” he shouted over the sound, then began coughing. Still coughing, he reluctantly stood and crossed the room to draw a glass of water from the wall tank; it came out in a thin, brownish trickle. He swallowed it, then rapped the dial on the tank with his knuckles, and the needle bobbed up and down close to the Empty mark. It needed filling; he would have to see to that before he signed in at four o’clock at the precinct. The day had begun.

  A full-length mirror with a crack running down it was fixed to the front of the hulking wardrobe, and he poked his face close to it, rubbing at his bristly jaw. He would have to shave before he went in. No one should ever look at himself in the morning, naked and revealed, he decided with distaste, frowning at the dead white of his skin and the slight bow to his legs that was usually concealed by his pants. And how did he manage to have ribs that stuck out like those of a starved horse, as well as a growing potbelly—both at the same time? He kneaded the soft flesh and thought that it must be the starchy diet, that and sitting around on his chunk most of the time. But at least the fat wasn’t showing on his face. His forehead was a little higher each year, but wasn’t too obvious as long as his hair was cropped short. You have just turned thirty, he thought to himself, and the wrinkles are already starting around your eyes. And your nose is too big—wasn’t it Uncle Brian who always said that was because there was Welsh blood in the family? And your canine teeth are a little too obvious so when you smile you look a bit like a hyena. You’re a handsome devil, Andy Rusch, and it’s a wonder a girl like Shirl will even look at you, much less kiss you. He scowled at himself, then went to look for a handkerchief to blow his impressive Welsh nose.

  There was just a single pair of clean undershorts in the drawer and he pulled them on; that was another thing he had to remember today, to get some washing done. The squealing whine was still coming from the other side of the partition as he pushed through the connecting door.

  “You’re going to give yourself a coronary, Sol,” he told the gray-bearded man who was perched on the wheelless bicycle, pedaling so industriously that perspiration ran down his chest and soaked into the bath towel that he wore tied around his waist.

  “Never a coronary,” Solomon Kahn gasped out, pumping steadily. “I been doing this every day for so long that my ticker would miss it if I stopped. And no cholesterol in my arteries either since regular flushing with alcohol takes care of that. And no lung cancer since I couldn’t afford to smoke even if I wanted to, which I don’t. And at the age of seventy-five no prostatitis because …”

  “Sol, please—spare me the horrible details on an empty stomach. Do you have an ice cube to spare?”

  “Take two—it’s a hot day. And don’t leave the door open too long.”

  Andy opened the small refrigerator that squatted against the wall and quickly took out the plastic container of margarine, then squeezed two ice cubes from the tray into a glass and slammed the door. He filled the glass with water from the wall tank and put it on the table next to the margarine. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked.

  “I’ll join you, these things should be charged by now.”

  Sol stopped pedaling and the whine died away to a moan, then vanished. He disconnected the wires from the electrical generator that was geared to the rear axle of the bike, and carefully coiled them up next to the four black automobile storage batteries that were racked on top of the refrigerator. Then, after wiping his hands on his soiled towel sarong, he pulled out one of the bucket seats, salvaged from an ancient 1975 Ford, and sat down across the table from Andy.

  “I heard the six o’clock news,” he said. “The Eldsters are organizing another protest march today on relief headquarters. That’s where you’ll see coronaries!”

  “I won’t, thank God, I’m not on until four and Union Square isn’t in our precinct.” He opened the breadbox and took out one of the six-inch-square red crackers, then pushed the box over to Sol. He spread margarine thinly on it and took a bite, wrinkling his nose as he chewed. “I think this margarine has turned.”