“A Surface Raid” December 1952

Harl finds out that his father Ed Boynton is planning on going to the surface to get some “saps,” creatures who live above where they have reclaimed some areas of land from post-apocalyptic devastation. Harl wishes to go with his father, partly for immature and romantic reasons having to do with boyish adventure––these attitudes are discouraged in the underground society, were thought, in fact, to have disappeared hundreds of years before. The saps, short for homo sapiens, are thought to be another species. The saps call the underground people (their ancestors) technos and think of them as a different class, but not a different species. After WWII, the technos went underground and made advanced weapons that the saps used to kill each other and destroy the world. The remnants of the saps have formed a primitive oral culture, making simple handicrafts, hunting, and growing crops. So, the technos had grown out of the saps, forming a more intelligent, evolved culture, and they want to bring some saps underground to work in factories. They go to the surface with suits and shields that render them invisible and goggles to protect their eyes from the sun. They split up, and Harl explores the village, observing these strange, well-muscled, dark-skinned creatures engaged in all manner of activities. Eventually he sees a beautiful girl painting pottery that a boy has thrown. Each design is basically the same, yet subtly different. Harl is intrigued and wishes to communicate with her in some fashion. He turns off his shield so she can see him, but she screams and flees in terror. The saps start to search for Harl and the others, so they make their escape back underground. Meanwhile, the girl Julie is still shaken by having seen the terrifying white creature. She asks an elder what the metallic-looking man-like thing with the pasty white face could have been. Mr. Stebbins thinks he knows. He characterizes them as not men, though they look somewhat like men. They live underground in tunnels, seldom surfacing, for they cannot look at the sun. They dig and hoard metals. They are goblins.