His uncle checked him carefully and fondly, making certain that his new loin straps were tight, that his knapsack and back-sling were both in the right position on his shoulders. He took a heavy spear from Eric's right hand and replaced it with a light one from the back-sling. "If you're seen by a Monster," he whispered, "the heavy spear's not worth a damn. You scuttle into the closest hiding-place and throw the light spear as far as you can. The Monster can't distinguish between you and the spear. It will follow the spear." Eric nodded mechanically, although this too he had been told many times, this too was a lesson he knew by heart. His mouth was so dry! He wished that it weren't unmanly to beg for water at such a moment. Thomas the Trap-Smasher took his torch from him and slipped a glow lamp about his forehead. Then he pushed him through the doorway. "Go make your Theft, Eric," he whispered. "Come back a man." V He was on the other side. He was in Monster territory. He was surrounded by the strange Monster light, the incredible Monster world. The burrows, Mankind, everything familiar, lay behind him. Panic rose from his stomach and into his throat like vomit. _Don't look up. Eyes down, eyes down or you're likely to freeze right where you are. Stay close to the wall, keep your eyes on the wall and move along it. Turn right and move along the wall. Move fast._ Eric turned. He felt the wall brush his right shoulder. He began to run, keeping his eyes down, touching the wall with his shoulder at regular intervals. He ran as fast as he possibly could, urging his muscles fiercely on. As he ran, he counted the steps to himself. _Twenty paces._ Where did the light come from? It was everywhere; it glowed so; it was white, white. _Twenty-five paces. Touch the wall with your shoulder. Don't--above everything--don't wander away from the wall. Thirty paces._ In light like this you had no need of the glow lamp. It was almost too bright to see in. _Thirty-five paces._ The floor was not like a burrow floor. It was flat and very hard. So was the wall. Flat and hard and straight. _Forty paces. Run and keep your eyes down. Run. Keep touching the wall with your shoulder. Move fast. But keep your eyes down. Don't look up. Forty-five paces._ He almost smashed into the structure he had been told about, but his reflexes and the warnings he had received swung him to the left and along it just in time. It was a different color than the wall, he noted, and a different-textured material. _Keep your eyes down. Don't look up._ He came to an entrance, like the beginning of a small burrow. _Don't go in that first entrance, Eric; you pass it by._ He began to count again as he ran. Twenty-three paces more, and there was another entrance, a much higher, wider one. He darted inside. _It'll be darker, at first. The walls will soak up light from your glow lamp._