He didn’t know what to say. His uncle—well, his uncle was his model and his leader, and he was strong and wise and crafty. His father—naturally, he wanted to emulate his father and continue whatever work he had started. But this was his initiation ceremony, after all, and there would be enough danger merely in proving his manhood. For his initiation ceremony to take on a task that had destroyed his father, the greatest thief the tribe had ever known, and a heretical, blasphemous task at that …

“I’ll try. I don’t know if I can.”

“You can,” his uncle told him heartily. “It’s been set up for you: it will be like walking through a dug burrow, Eric. All you have to face through is the council. You’ll have to be steady there, no matter what. You tell the chief that you’re undertaking the third category.”

“But why the third?” Eric asked. “Why does it have to be Monster souvenirs?”

“Because that’s what we need. And you stick to it, no matter what pressure they put on you. Remember, an initiate has the right to decide what he’s going to steal. A man’s first Theft is his own affair.”

“But, listen, Uncle—”

There was a whistle from the end of the burrow. Thomas the Trap-Smasher nodded in the direction of the signal.

“The council’s beginning, boy. We’ll talk later, on expedition. Now remember this: stealing from the third category is your own idea, and all your own idea. Forget everything else we’ve talked about. If you hit any trouble with the chief, I’ll be there. I’m your sponsor, after all.”

He threw an arm about his confused nephew and walked to the end of the burrow where the other members of the band waited.

2

The tribe had gathered in its central and largest burrow under the great, hanging glow lamps that might be used in this place alone. Except for the few sentinels on duty in the outlying corridors, all of Mankind was here, over a hundred people. It was an awesome sight.