The Men in the Walls by William Tenn

Author:William Tenn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

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Arthur the Organizer smiled and nodded. “Very well. He could have been a great man. He gave his life for the Cause. Who among us will ever forget Eric the—the—Eric the Store-keeper or something, wasn’t it?”

“The Storeroom-Stormer. His name was Eric the Storeroom-Stormer.”

“Yes, of course. Eric the Storeroom-Stormer. An unforgettable name with us, and an unforgettable man. But that’s another story; we’ll talk about it some other time. You’ll have to be getting back to your uncle very soon.” He picked up a flat board covered with odd markings and studied it with his glow lamp.

“How do you like that?” one of the men working with the unfamiliar materials muttered to his neighbor. “You ask him his people, and he says, ‘Mankind.’ Mankind! “

The other man chuckled. “A front-burrow tribe. What the hell do you expect—sophistication? Each and every front-burrow tribe calls itself Mankind. As far as these primitives are concerned, the human race stops at their outermost burrow. Your tribe, my tribe—you know what they call us? Strangers. In their eyes, there’s not too much difference between us and the Monsters.”

“That’s what I mean. They don’t see us as fellow-men. They are narrow-minded savages. Who needs them?”

Arthur the Organizer glanced at Eric’s face. He turned sharply to the man who had spoken last.

“I’ll tell you who needs them, Walter,” he said. “The Cause needs them. If the front-burrow tribes are with us, it means our main lines of supply to Monster territory are kept open. But we need every fighter we can get, no matter how primitive. Every single tribe has to be with us if Alien-science is to be the dominant religion of the burrows, if we’re to avoid the fiasco of the last rising. We need front-burrow men for their hunting, foraging skills and back-burrow men for their civilized skills. We need everybody in this thing, especially now.”

The man called Walter put down his work and scowled at Eric dubiously. He seemed to be totally unconvinced.

“These arrogant back-burrowers with their ornamented straps and unmilitary manners! Men from different tribes sitting around and talking, when—if they had any sense of propriety at all—they should be killing each other!”

Suddenly, the floor shook under him. He almost fell. He staggered back and forth, trying to grab at the spears in his back-sling. He finally got used to it, managed to find a solid footing in the upheaval. The spear he held vibrated in his hand.

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