Homo Inferior Read online

Their emotionswere a welter of doubt, of indecision.

  "You've heard the boy," Walden said quietly, thrusting his ownuneasiness down, out of his thoughts.

  "Yes." Abbot hesitated. "He seems bright enough--quite different fromwhat I'd expected. At least he's not like the ones who grew up wild inthe hills. This boy isn't a savage."

  Walden shrugged. "Maybe they weren't savages either," he suggested."After all, it's been fifty years since the last of them died. And a lotof legends can spring up in fifty years."

  "Perhaps we have been worrying unnecessarily." Abbot got up to go, buthis eyes still held Walden's. "But," he added, "it's up to you to watchhim. If he reverts, becomes dangerous in any way, he'll have to belocked up. That's final."

  The others nodded.

  "I'll watch him," Walden told them. "Just stop worrying."

  He stood at the door and waited until they were out of sight. Then andonly then did he allow himself to sigh and taste the fear he'd kepthidden. The old men, the men with authority, were the dangerous ones.

  Walden snorted. Even with perception, men could be fools.

  * * * * *

  The summer that Eric was sixteen Walden took him to the museum. Theaircar made the trip in just a few hours--but it was farther than Erichad ever traveled in his life, and farther than most people everbothered traveling.

  The museum lay on an open plain where there weren't many houses. Atfirst glance it was far from impressive. Just a few big buildings,housing the artifacts, and a few old ruins of ancient constructions,leveled now and half buried in the sands.

  "It's nothing." Eric looked down at it, disappointed. "Nothing at all."

  "What did you expect?" Walden set the aircar down between the twolargest buildings. "You knew it wouldn't be like the pictures in thebooks. You knew that none of the old race's cities are left."

  "I know," Eric said. "But I expected more than this."

  He got out of the car and followed Walden around to the door of thefirst building. Another man, almost as old as Walden, came toward themsmiling. The two men shook hands and stood happily perceiving eachother.

  "This is Eric," Walden said aloud. "Eric, this is Prior, the caretakerhere. He was one of my schoolmates."

  "It's been years since we've perceived short range," Prior said. "Years.But I suppose the boy wants to look around inside?"

  Eric nodded, although he didn't care too much. He was too disappointedto care. There was nothing here that he hadn't seen a hundred timesbefore.

  They went inside, past some scale models of the old cities. The samemodels, though a bit bigger, that Eric had seen in the three-dimensionalview-books. Then they went into another room, lined with thousands ofbooks, some very old, many the tiny microfilmed ones from the middleperiods of the old race.

  "How do you like it, Eric?" the caretaker said.

  "It's fine," he said flatly, not really meaning it. He was angry athimself for feeling disappointment. Walden had told him what to expect.And yet he'd kept thinking that he'd walk into one of the old cities andbe able to imagine that it was ten thousand years ago and others werearound him. Others like him....

  Ruins. Ruins covered by dirt, and no one of the present race would evenbother about uncovering them.

  Prior and Walden looked at each other and smiled. "Did you tell him?"the caretaker telepathed.

  "No. I thought we'd surprise him. I knew all the rest would disappointhim."

  "Eric," the caretaker said aloud. "Come this way. There's another room Iwant to show you."

  He followed them downstairs, down a long winding ramp that spiraledunderground so far that he lost track of the distance they haddescended. He didn't much care anyway. Ahead of him, the other two werecommunicating, leaving him alone.

  "Through here," Prior said, stepping off the ramp.

  They entered a room that was like the bottom of a well, with smoothstone sides and far, far above them a glass roof, with clouds apparentlydrifting across its surface. But it wasn't a well. It was a vault,forever preserving the thing that had been the old race's masterpiece.

  It rested in the center of the room, its nose pointing up at the sky. Itwas like the pictures, and unlike them. It was big, far bigger than Erichad ever visualized it. It was tall and smooth and as new looking as ifits builders had just stepped outside for a minute and would be back inanother minute to blast off for the stars.

  "A starship," Walden said. "One of the last types."

  "There aren't many left," Prior said. "We're lucky to have this one inour museum."

  Eric wasn't listening. He was looking at the ship. The old race's ship.His ship.

  "The old race built strange things," Prior said. "This is one ofthe strangest." He shook his head. "Imagine the time they put in onit.... And for what?"

  Eric didn't try to answer him. He couldn't explain why the old ones hadbuilt it. But he knew. He would have built it himself, if he'd livedthen. _We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we wantthe stars...._

  His people. His ship. His dream.

  * * * * *

  The old caretaker showed him around the museum and then left him aloneto explore by himself. He had all the time he wanted.

  He studied. He worked hard all day long, scarcely ever leaving themuseum grounds. He studied the subjects that now were the mostfascinating to him of all the old race's knowledge--the subjects thatrelated to the starships. Astronomy, physics, navigation, and thecomplex charts of distant stars, distant planets, worlds he'd neverheard of before. Worlds that to the new race were only pin-pricks oflight in the night sky.

  All day long he studied. But in the evening he would go down the windingramp to the ship. The well was lighted with a softer, more diffuseillumination than that of the houses. In the soft glow the walls and theglass-domed roof seemed to disappear and the ship looked free, pointingup at the stars.

  He didn't try to tell the caretaker what he thought. He just went backto his books and his studies. There was so much he had to learn. And nowthere was a reason for his learning. Someday, when he was fully grownand strong and had mastered all he needed from the books, he was goingto fly the ship. He was going to look for his people, the ones who hadleft Earth before the new race came....

  He told no one. But Walden watched him, and sighed.

  "They'll never let you do it, Eric. It's a mad dream."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The ship. You want to go to the stars, don't you?"

  Eric stared at him, more surprised than he'd been in years. He had saidnothing. There was no way for Walden to know. Unless he'd perceivedit--and Eric couldn't be perceived, any more than he could perceiveother people....

  Walden shook his head. "It wasn't telepathy that told me. It was youreyes. The way you look at the ship. And besides, I've known you foryears now. And I've wondered how long it would be before you thought ofthis answer."

  "Well, why not?" Eric looked across at the ship, and his throat caught,choking him, the way it always did. "I'm lonely here. My people aregone. Why shouldn't I go?"

  "You'd be lonelier inside that ship, by yourself, away from Earth, awayfrom everything, and with no assurance you'd ever find anyone at all,old race or new or alien...."

  Eric didn't answer. He looked back at the ship, thinking of the books,trying to think of it as a prison, a weightless prison carrying himforever into the unknown, with no one to talk to, no one to see.

  Walden was right. He would be too much alone in the ship. He'd have topostpone his dream.

  He'd wait until he was old, and take the ship and die in it....

  Eric smiled at the thought. He was seventeen, old enough to know thathis idea was adolescent and melodramatic. He knew, suddenly, that he'dnever fly the ship.

  * * * * *

  The years passed. Eric spent most of his time at the museum. He had hisown aircar now, and sometimes he flew it home and visited with hisp
arents. They liked to have him come. They liked it much better thanhaving to travel all the way to the museum to visit him.

  Yet, though he wasn't dependent on other people any more, and could flythe aircar as he chose, he didn't do much exploring. He didn't have anydesire to meet strangers. And there were always the books.

  "You're sure you're all right?" his mother said. "You don't needanything?"

  "No. I'm fine."

  He smiled, looking out through the sunporch wall into the garden. Itseemed years and years since he'd