"How long? Since I got to know your father. He was in another band; naturally we hadn't seen much of each other before he married my sister. I'd heard about him, though: everyone in the Male Society had--he was a great thief. But once he became my brother-in-law, I learned a lot from him. I learned about locks, about the latest traps--and I learned about Alien-Science. He'd been an Alien-Science man for years. He converted your mother, and he converted me." Eric the Only backed away. "No!" he called out wildly. "Not my father and mother! They were decent people--when they were killed a service was held in their name--they went to add to the science of our ancestors--" * * * * * His uncle jammed a powerful hand over his mouth. "Shut up, you damn fool, or you'll finish us both! Of course your parents were decent people. How do you think they were killed? Your mother was with your father out in Monster territory. Have you ever heard of a woman going along with her husband on a Theft? And taking her baby with her? Do you think it was an ordinary robbery of the Monsters? They were Alien-science people, serving their faith as best they could. They died for it." Eric looked into his uncle's eyes over the hand that covered the lower half of his face. _Alien-science people ... serving their faith ... do you think it was an ordinary robbery ... they died for it!_ He had never realized before how odd it was that his parents had gone to Monster territory together, a man taking his wife and the woman taking her baby! As he relaxed, his uncle removed the gagging hand. "What kind of Theft was it that my parents died in?" Thomas examined his face and seemed satisfied. "The kind you're going after," he said. "If you are your father's son. If you're man enough to continue the work he started. Are you?" Eric started to nod, then found himself shrugging weakly, and finally just hung his head. 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?"