The Hero of Downways

by Michael G. Coney

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

Once there was a Hero who confronted the dreaded Daggertooth and slew it. Unfortunately he was also slain by it - but the legend persisted. If it could be done once, then another Hero could be raised to do it again. Because the Daggertooth was dangerous to hibernating humanity. All people - all that anyone knew of - lived far underground in tunnels built for safety and hibernation. The Daggertooth was a mass killer - more so even than the hideous Oddlies, the outcasts of the darker tunnels. So this is the story of John-A, the "vatkid" who was trained to be a second Hero. And the story of "trukid" Shirl who taught John-A what to do. And Threesum, the Oddlies' leader, who scoffed at heroes. And the Elders who frowned at all the risky goings-on. This is the story of a mighty strange world and a mighty strange future...

Release date: May 20, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 184

Sample

“And praise to the Hero, who slew the Daggertooth.”

At this point in his litany the speaker performed a convincing though ritual shudder, causing the sagging flesh on his cheeks to palpitate. His pallid wife shook too, as was customary at the mention of the Daggertooth.

They sat, backs to the wall, on the curving floor of a moist, dim cave. The bluish light of a glowglobe illuminated damp soil, packed tight by the frequent pressure of human bodies. A short distance from their feet was a recess in the wall of the otherwise spherical chamber; within the shadows maggots heaved.

Opposite the couple was the hibeyhole entrance, a circular gap in the wall of barely sufficient size to admit a man. Beside this entrance sat a small girl dressed like her parents in the warm pelt of the blackfur; also wearing an expression of mutinous boredom.

The man paused in his prayer of thanksgiving, detecting a further particle of food nearby. He pronged it with his knife, munched and swallowed, and resumed.

“For had it not been for the Hero, then we poor, timid inhabitants of Downways would have perished before the Daggertooth as the mean maggot perishes before the knife. Timid maggots are we …”

The man’s voice trailed away into ominous silence as he observed his daughter picking her nose ostentatiously. He scowled. “Be still while I repeat the praise, trukid Shirl,” he admonished.

Shirl turned her head away, glancing out of the hibeyhole entrance. Scanning infrared, she detected other trukids passing in the dark tunnel outside. She shifted restlessly. She wanted to go out.

“Look at your trudad when he speaks to you!” shrilled trumum, “Have you no respect?”

Shirl shifted her position again, staring thoughtfully into the light of the glowglobe, her small face serious. She considered the question which had been intended by trumum as rhetorical. She considered it carefully and logically, being that type of child.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said at last, her voice tiny in the outraged silence.

“Not sure what I mean? What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Trumum’s limited vocabulary was becoming strained—a frequent occurrence when dealing with trukid Shirl.

Shirl shifted her gaze from the glowglobe and regarded her parents. “I’ve thought about it,” she said slowly. “You often say I have no respect. I know you think I’m wrong to have no respect. But what does respect mean?”

Trudad spluttered wordlessly. Trumum set up a thin wailing. An interested face peered in at the entrance to the hibeyhole, nocturnal eyes wide with curiosity. One of the eyes winked at Shirl, then the face was gone.

“Does respect mean fear?” asked Shirl determinedly. She wanted to settle this matter once and for all. “If it does, I can’t be frightened of the Hero, because he’s dead. And I can’t be frightened of you, trudad, because you wouldn’t want that. You want me to love you. And I do,” she concluded disarmingly. “Can I go out and play now?”

Her parents glanced at each other; wordlessly her trudad shrugged. “Maybe respect is both love and fear, trukid,” he said more kindly. “Maybe we don’t know what it is—it’s just a word we use to describe how we feel sometimes. One of these days you’ll find out. But meanwhile just try to behave like everyone else, will you?”

Shirl smiled, huge eyes glowing. “I’ll try, trudad,” she said. “See you later.” She jumped to her feet and scrambled out of the hibeyhole entrance. “Courage remain!” she called back. They heard her feet pattering away on the muddy tunnel floor, then the chamber was quiet again.

“You’re too easy with that girl,” said trumum at last.

“Sten spoke to me, yesterwake.”

“Sten?” Shirl’s trumum understood respect; it was in her voice now. Sten was chief of the Downways Council of Elders and consequently a man of importance. Trumum had never spoken with Sten; indeed, if the great man had addressed her in the tunnels, she would have been too awed to reply.

“Sten is interested in Shirl.”

“Interested?” There was a sudden edge of suspicion in trumum’s voice. Sten might be chief, but he was an old man; and Shirl was her daughter, her trukid.

Trudad was oblivious to nuances of tone. “He’s been watching her progress at school. He thinks she’s clever. He says she has ideas which are different. He says …” He hesitated. “He says she’s not afraid of anything, or anybody.”

“She hasn’t been rude to Sten!”

“I’ve no doubt she has, but he doesn’t seem to mind. It’s strange the manner he went out of his way to talk about her. It seems he has something in mind for her … when she’s older, of course.”

“How much older?” Distrust of motives is never far from a mother’s thoughts.

“Maybe two longhibes from now. He said he would like her to become a teacher.”

“A teacher?” This would be a step up for the family status. Trudad was a tender of blackfurs, a low herdsman. Trumum was nothing, an empty shell, a woman whose one experience of childbirth had exhausted and sterilized her thin body. If their daughter became a teacher, there would be a whole new class of people whom they might respectfully address in the tunnels. Trumum hitched her blackfur robe about her and stood up. “Let’s go to the Community Chamber,” she said.

“Don’t tell anybody about it,” warned Trudad. “Sten was most particular about that.”

Trumum sat down again with a sigh of disappointment.

Shirl hesitated before the Community Chamber. From within came the hum of conversation as the inhabitants of Downways discussed the events of the waketime in the subdued light of a single glowglobe. Scanning infrared, Shirl glanced around the interior, but detected only the larger heat-sources of adults. The trukids of her acquaintance were elsewhere, exploring, playing, getting into trouble out of their parents’ earshot. She passed on.

Arriving at the Shrine of the Hero in the Chamber of Praise she remembered her trudad’s words and genuflected briefly before the rough pile of stones. It was as well that she did so, for Ned the foundling, a trainee hunter, passed by. He averted his head on seeing her, as was the way of superiors, and made his obeisance to the Shrine before moving off in the opposite direction. Shirl considered calling a greeting after him, but thought better of it.

The fungoid glowglobes became more frequent as she neared the work areas of Downways and it became less necessary to scan infrared in order to avoid collisions with the people passing up and down the tunnels. A few flitterbugs winged overhead. Pausing at a junction, she decided to pay Poto a visit.

“Fortitude, young Shirl.” The inventor looked up from his work as she entered the chamber.

“Poto, what are you doing?” She fingered the stacks of fibrous tubing piled against the wall. “Where did these come from? What are they for?”

The man smiled indulgently. “Why don’t you tell me something instead of asking questions all the time?”

“No, tell me.” The little girl moved over to the rough workbench and began to fiddle with the incomprehensible objects scattered about. She picked up shorter, cut pieces of tubing and other oddly shaped lumps of timber.

“Leave them alone, Shirl. If I told you what they were for, you wouldn’t understand. But if you keep quiet, I’ll let you watch.”

Obediently Shirl stood aside as Poto took a short tube and fitted a cylindrical section of timber inside. “See?” The cylinder slid easily within the tube. Then Poto took up two of the longer tubes; the ends had been fashioned so that one fitted snugly against the other.

“So tell me,” insisted Shirl. “I know you want to.”

Poto dropped on one knee and looked into her face. “Shirl, you tell me this. Of all the jobs in Downways, which is the worst? What is the work the lowest people do? The very lowest?”

Shirl thought. “They carry the water.”

“Right. Now what I am making is a pump, which will pull the water into Downwavs without anyone having to carry it. The water is drawn from the well up the long tubes by the pump. When the whole thing is finished, instead of having to carry skins all the way from the well, people will be able to get their water from this chamber.”

At this juncture Bott the carver entered, bringing more timber which he dropped with a clatter to the floor. He glanced at Shirl and Poto with his vacant, idiot’s eyes, then departed without a word.

Shirl watched him go. Thoughtfully, she said, “After your pump is made and we get the water from here, what will the water-carriers do? What job can be found for them?”

Poto stood up abruptly, staring at her. “You think in a strange way, little Shirl. The wrong way around. First we bring the water here, then we worry about jobs for the water-carriers. That is the way of progress, otherwise Down-ways will never improve.”

“I don’t see why we can’t think about everything at once.” Losing interest, Shirl moved away. Outside the chamber again, she noticed the joined lengths of tubing snaking, away down the side of the tunnel. She began to follow the direction of the pipeline idly, her bare feet sinking into the moist soil.

“May courage remain with you,” the inventor called after her.

Shirl had always been a solitary child, most happy in her own company. When she told her parents—and even herself—that she wanted to go out and play, what she really meant was that she wanted to get away from the family hibeyhole. Her parents had frequently commented on the fact that she rarely joined in the games of other children; this worried them. Like all parents they wanted a child genius who was nevertheless a conformist. Shirl was no genius—in the region known as Downways such people find no outlet for their talents—but she found the stereotyped games of her small contemporaries boring, and preferred to wander around exploring and observing. In a different society she would have been described as an advanced child, but in Downways she was merely recognized as a loner.

Except by Sten the Elder.

He came across her walking along the tunnels, holding a fragment of glowglobe before her, head down, seemingly examining the floor.

“What are you doing, Shirl?”

She looked up, startled, dropping her glowglobe into the mud. The tunnel hereabouts was dark; few luminous fungi grew from the moist walls. Scanning infrared, she recognized his warm outline. “Oh, Sten,” she said, confused. “I … I was following the tube of Poto.”

Sten smiled. “Why? Or need I ask? You were just inquisitive as usual, I suppose.”

“Poto says the tube will draw water from the well, and I wondered how. So I thought I would follow it.”

They moved aside to allow two water-carriers to shuffle past with a bulging, swaying skin slung from a pole between them.

“Aren’t you afraid, being here on your own?” asked Sten, walking beside her, matching his pace to hers.

“Afraid?” They were passing a growth of glowglobes and she looked at him curiously; there had been a strange eagerness in his tone. “You’re with me, Sten. I’m not alone.”

“But supposing I hadn’t met you. You would still have come here. The tunnels hereabouts are dark. They’re a long way from the hibeyholes. It’s just possible you might meet”—he paused for effect, watching her carefully—”the Dagger-tooth.”

She met his gaze calmly. “There is no Daggertooth. The Hero slew it.”

In face of her childish certainty, Sten deemed it unwise to pursue the topic. He accompanied her to the well in silence.

After a while the glowglobes became more numerous again and a muted tapping sound carried up the tunnel. Rounding a corner, they came upon a team of men hacking at tendrils with knives. This was a task which had to be carried out frequently in the vicinity of the well; if not kept back, the strong filaments would eventually block the tunnel.

Sten spoke almost to himself. “They are more numerous,” he murmured worriedly. He examined a cut end which exuded white liquid.

“Pale blood,” observed Shirl. “The monster behind the tunnels is moving closer, drinking our water. One day, Ros was down here, and she told me a tendril gripped her ankle. I wouldn’t like to see the monster’s face when he breaks through.”

“Monster?” echoed Sten. “What nonsense you trukids talk.” Nevertheless he gazed at the wall nervously. The men had stopped work and stood watching the pair silently and with some awe, being several classes below Sten. The Elder addressed one of them abruptly. “Do the tendrils move?” he asked.

“They move, Sten,” replied one. “But slowly, in the time between longwakes. Much slower than the jumbo worm, even. I think the trukid was mistaken.”

“I remember ten longhibes ago,” Sten ruminated, “there were few tendrils. Only in the Chamber of Snakes, far away up the tunnels could one see such things. But they were thicker, and didn’t move.”

Shirl was fidgeting with impatience; the speech of the Elder often affected her like this. It tended to become slow and pedantic, almost like the Relitalk used in Praise. “Like this,” she said, indicating Poto’s pipe which ran past their feet. “These tubes came from the Chamber of Snakes. Poto told me.”

“I must go,” said Sten. “This matter must be reported to the Council.”

“Soon it won’t matter,” remarked Shirl “When Poto’s pump is finished, we won’t need to go through here.”

“I wish I shared your confidence in Poto, young Shirl,” said Sten. “Courage remain.” He walked away.

As the Elder receded up the tunnel the work team relaxed and regarded Shirl with interest. “You move in high circles, trukid,” said one.

“Jealous?” asked Shirl, pushing her way through hanging tendrils to the edge of the well. She removed her blackfur robe and waded into the dark water, gasping at the sudden chill. Then she flung herself forward and plunged beneath the surface, while the work team watched with astonishment. She emerged and swam a few strokes into deeper water.

Astonishment on the shore changed to fearful amazement. “She crawls on the water,” whispered one of the men. “How does she do that? It’s not …” He struggled to express himself. “It’s not natural,” he said feebly.

The well which supplied Downways was in the nature of an underground lake of unknown size. A few glowglobes studded the roof of the cavern, increasingly far above as Shirl swam out, lending the water a dim phosphorescent glimmer. Soon she was out of sight of the walls with only the gleam of her own ripples for company. She paused, treading water, staring around into the blackness. Much farther ahead she could make out a glittering cascade; a dim roaring came to her ears.

Suddenly she felt a bit foolish. Carried away by the admiration of the men on the shore, she had allowed herself to swim farther than she had ever attempted before. Indeed, her previous experience of swimming had been confined to short private experiments following an incident when she slipped and fell into the water while filling a skin. On that occasion, as she had emerged gasping and blowing, she had suddenly discovered that her body possessed a certain buoyancy. She had probably never swum more than a few dozen strokes before.

She turned and headed back, feeling cold and a little alarmed, very much aware of the unknown depth of water beneath her. She began to think of monsters, of tentacles seizing her legs and dragging her into the black depths. Her swimming degenerated into a panicky thrashing.

Quite soon she realized that she was lost. The roaring was louder and the water disturbed. The shore where the men waited might be anywhere. She calmed herself with an effort, forcing herself to forget the possibility of slimy tentacles, and she trod water while she considered the situation.

On no account would she call out; the humiliation of admitting her mistake would be too much. She listened for voices, but could hear only the waterfall in the distance. Her legs were beginning to feel cramped and frozen. It was frighteningly obvious that she had been swimming in circles.

Then the phosphorescence gave her an idea. Awkwardly at first, then with increasing confidence, she began to swim backward, kicking with her numbed legs, watching her wake recede behind her. If she could keep that narrow swirl of blue water in a straight line, she must soon reach the wall of the cavern; then she could follow it around to the tunnel.

The plan was almost too successful when, after an eternity of kicking, her head smashed into hard rock. She sank, surfaced coughing with her senses spinning, and got her fingers around a projection. She hung there for a moment, recovering her breath and her nerve.

More glowglobes grew here; in their faint light she saw that she was directly below a ledge. Arms aching, she began to haul herself up, intending to rest awhile before moving on.

Above her, a number of glowglobes suddenly winked out. Automatically her eyes snapped into infrared focus. There was a heat-source directly above her; it resolved itself into the shape of a man, bending toward her silently, reaching for her.

With a squeal of fear Shirl let go of the ledge and dropped back into the water. Frantically she began to thrash her way in the direction where she felt the tunnel lay, keeping the cavern wall to her left. Glancing over her shoulder at one point, she saw the glow of the silent figure immobile in the distance, watching.

Soon she heard the voices of the work team. She staggered ashore, trying to control her breathing and the agonized thumping of her heart.

“How do you do that, trukid?” asked one of the men, unaware of her state. “Crawl on the water like that. I’ve never seen that done before.”

Shirl walked past them. “Practice,” she said airily. “Just practice, that’s all. Anyone can do it.”

Then, farther up the tunnel and out of sight of the team, her legs folded under her and she sat down abruptly, shaking uncontrollably. The vision of the figure on the ledge swam before her imagination.

The shape had only approximated to that of a man. The thing had been weirdly shaped, and she could have sworn it had four arms.…

“I can’t think what’s wrong with the kid. I really can’t. Sometimes I feel like giving up.”

Trumum’s whining filled the hibeyhole as Shirl, painfully stiff after her adventure of the previous wake, stumbled around yawning. The memory of trumums for good things is notoriously short, and Shirl’s trumum had already forgotten yesterwake’s pride in her daughter’s ability.

“I’m tired, that’s all,” muttered Shirl, picking at her breakfast with little appetite. Lasthibe’s dreams had been vivid; four-armed men had stalked through her imagination as she lay half-conscious, her body aching and exhausted. Once her trudad had risen to relieve himself, pulling the cover from the clump of glowglobes; and she had almost screamed with terror at his multiple shadow.

Trumum was well into her stride. “You’ve no reason to be tired. You don’t do any work. I’m the one who ought to be tired, stuck in this hole all wake, feeding the maggots, making clothes for you and your trudad. …” In fact trumum spent most of the wake at the Community Chamber bemoaning her lot with the other trumums and old maids. During the worktime, the men gave the Community Chamber a wide berth.

Shirl struggled through another mouthful, then flung the remains of her breakfast into the recess, where it was instantly devoured by the cannibalistic maggots.

“Can’t even eat her food, now.”

Putting down his jug of koba juice half-finished, trudad got to his feet. “Leave the kid alone, will you?” Outside, the tunnels were coming alive with padding feet as the inhabitants of Downways commenced the new wake. “Come on, Shirl. Time for school. I’ll come part of the way with you.”

He crawled out of the hibeyhole entrance, followed gratefully by Shirl. As they brushed themselves off and started down the tunnel, they heard trumum getting in the last word, fortunately incomprehensible.

“Don’t mind your trumum, Shirl. They’re all the same, women are. It comes with being dispensable. Thin. . .