The Secret City by Carol Emshwiller

don’t bother anymore. We’re less and less all the time. It could just be us now, Mollish, Youpas, and me.”
    “Are all your houses like that?”
    “You’ll freeze out here and you have to hide.”
    I turn and flop down so I’m flat on my back.
    “Are you feeling all right?”
    I’m not. Not at all. Now that I’m out from underground and not feeling claustrophobic, I realize how weak and dizzy and sick I feel.
    “You can’t stay here.”
    “I’d rather.”
    She pulls the tarp up close around me. Says, “I know a place. I’ll go open it. Rest here now, but then you’ll have to walk. It’s across the avenue.”
    All the way across the street! I wonder if I’ll have to climb stairs. Maybe I could crawl. I wonder where my cane is. Probably back where I got shot. Plenty of wood for a new cane here, but that one belonged to my friend Ruth.
    Then I remember my beacon. I feel at my armpit to see if it’s gone and it is. Finally and thank goodness. They must have taken it out along with the arrow. I hope they took it well away from here.
    I listen to hail on the tumbledown roof and the tarp. This had seemed like a paradise. And I could—sort of could—see what Mother meant. There’s a kind of grandeur to the phony buildings different from what the natives have. I want to stay. Maybe with Allush. If she doesn’t mind a disfigured cripple. But if everybody lives underground, and if one of my own kind already hates me enough to shoot me….
    I doze. Maybe pass-out. I don’t know how long it takes until they come back. Allush and that woman.
    “This is Mollish. She’ll help.”
    She’s not dressed all in skins as Allush is. She’s wearing worn out store-bought clothes. A black turtleneck and torn black jeans, faded so as to be almost white in spots. Over them she wears what looks like a rabbitskin vest—several skins all pieced together.
    I thought all the old ones would have died by now, but Mollish is still going. Pure white hair. Handsome—in our way, the natives wouldn’t think so. It can’t be easy for an old person to live up here. The ground all around the Secret City is rough and rocky. Even rocky right in the middle of the city. But I can feel how strong she is as they help me, one on each side, across the street and up the steps. They argue about me every slow step of the way. Mollish doesn’t want me around. I ask why not?
    “We’re getting along just fine without you.”
    The huge, huge door carved out of the granite cliff is open just far enough for us to squeeze in. I don’t think it can open any farther. Inside there’s a cavernous hall. Four small windows near the ceiling. More just holes than windows. An oil lamp burns in the middle of the floor, even so it’s dark. Dust flies about. They’ve brought a pan of broth and a little stove. It’s cold. Much colder than outside. I suppose Allush thought this room would be big enough to be all right for me but it isn’t.
    Again… all of a sudden I have the energy. I squeeze out the door and sit down on the steps—again breathless. I can’t imagine anybody, neither us nor the natives, being able to live like that. And I’m not more claustrophobic than most. Or at least not that I knew until this.
    Now that I’m out of there I’m cold. The hail has stopped but the wind is still blowing. Trees are still whipping back and forth. Allush and the other one come and stand in the doorway again.
    “What will we do with him?”
    The old one says, “Take him to where the archeologists camped.”
    Allush says, “He’ll never make it that far. Besides, Youpas will shoot at us again.”
    “I’ll be with you. He won’t shoot when I’m there.”
    We get started. But I only have energy when I’m scared of being closed in. Even with one of them on each side I can’t go far. When I get to the bottom of the long stairway I sit down to rest.
    And then, again, silent, mysterious, magic, and at the perfect time … comes the white mule. They help