Soli perhaps she would have been like that gamin from Pan tribe, alert and bold yet tearful artfully so when balked. But he would never know, for Var had killed her.

Var would surely die. And Heicon would be leveled, for Bob had engineered that ironic murder. No party to the event would survive-not even Sos the Weaponless, the most guilty of all concerned.

So he paced, ruled by his despairing fury, awaiting only the dawn to begin his mission of revenge. Tyl would supervise the siege of Helicon until his own return, Tyl, at least, would enjoy being in charge.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In a month they were far beyond the Master's domains, but Var dared not rest. The Nameless One was slow but very determined, as Var had learned when they first met. He knew the local tribesmen would inform the Master of the route taken by the fugitive, so there was no escape except continued motion.

At first Soli had hidden whenever human beings were encountered, for she was officially dead. Then they realized that she could masquerade as a boy, and even carry the sticks, and no one would know. So they traveled openly together, an ugly man and a fair boy, and no one challenged them.

They went west, for the Master's empire was east and Soil had heard that ocean lay to the south. Extensive desert badlands forced them north. They avoided trouble, but when it came at them relentlessly, they fought. Once a foul mouthed sworder challenged Var, calling him a pederast. Var didn't understand the word, but he got the gist and realized that it was supposed to be an insult.

He met the sworder in the circle and flattened his nose and cracked his head with the sticks, and it was not pretty. Another time a small tribe sought to deny them access to a hostel; Var bloodied one, Soil a second, and the rest fled. The warriors beyond the empire were inept fighters.

In the second month they encountered so extensive a desert that they had to turn back.

Fearing the Master, they took to the wilderness, avoiding the established trails.

But foraging while traveling these bleak hills was difficult. There was not time to set snares or to wait patiently for game. Soli had to turn girl child again to enter occupied hostels for supplies, while Var skulked alone. She returned with word that the Weaponless had passed this area two or three days behind them. He was outside his empire now, but no one could mistake the whitehaired brute of a man. He spoke only to describe Var and verify his transit, and did not enter the circle. He did not seem to be concerned about Var's boy companion.

So it was true. The Master was on his trail, leaving everything else behind. Var felt fear and regret. He had hoped that this murderous passion would fade, that the needs of the mountain campaign would summon the Nameless One back before very long. A minion might be dispatched to finish the chore, of course; but Var would have no compunction about destroying such a man in the circle. It was only the Master himself be could not bring himself to oppose not from fear, though he knew the Master would kill him but because this was, or had been, his only true friend.

Now he knew it was not to be. The Master would never give up the pursuit..

They veered north, moving rapidly and sleeping in the forest, the open plain, the tundra.

Soil fetched supplies from the hostels, sometimes as girl, sometimes as boy.

Yet the word spread ahead of them. When they encountered strangers accidentally they drew stares of semirecognition. "You with the mottled skin aren't you the one the juggernaut is after?"

But such acquaintances usually did not interfere, for Var was said to be devastating with the sticks. And, in this region of haphazardly trained warriors, this was a true description. The few who chose to challenge him in the circle soon became limping testimony to this.

And few suspected that his boy companion was even better at such fighting, possessing both sophisticated stick technique and weaponless ability. Only when they had to fight as a pair, against aggressive doubles, did this become evident. Soli, adept at avoiding blows, fenced around and behind Var, and the opposition was soon demolished.

In two more months of circuitous traveling they came to the end of the crazy demesnes. The hostels stopped, and the easy trails made by the crazy tractors terminated, and the wilderness became total. And it was winter.

Undaunted, they plunged into the snowbound unknown. It was an unkempt jungle of bareboned trees, fraught with gullies and stumbling stones hidden under the even blanket of white. At dusk the snow began to fall again, gently at first, then solidly. Soli became grim and silent, for she was unused to this. Never before had she dealt with snow; she had never emerged from the mountain above the snowline. To her it had been something white but not necessarily cold or uncomfortable.

Var knew the reality exasperated her and frightened her, catching at her feet and flying in her face.

Var excavated a pit, baring the unfrozen turf and making a circular wall of packed snow.

He spread a groundsheet and pegged a low sturdy tent, letting the snow accumulate on top. He sealed it in except for a breathing tunnel and brought her Inside, where he took off her boots, poured out the accumulated water, and slapped at her feet until they began to warm. She no longer cried as freely as she had at their first meeting, and he rather wished she would, for now her misery just sat upon her and would not depart.

That night, after they had eaten, he held her closely and tried to comfort her, and gradually she relaxed and slept.

In the morning she would not awaken. Nervously he stripped her despite the cold, and dried her, and found the puncture mark: on the blue ankle just above the level of her unbooted foot.

Something like a badlands moth had stung her, unobserved. They must have camped near a radiation fringe zone, far enough out so that his skin did not detect it, near enough for some of the typical fauna to appear. He might have recognized the area by sight, had it not been snowing.

Probably there were hibernating grubs, and one had been warmed into activity by her body, and crawled and bit when disturbed.. . she was in coma.

There was no herb he knew, in this region, in this season, that would ease her condition.

She was small; if she had taken in too much of the venom, she would sleep until she died. If she had a small dose, she would recover if kept warm and dry.

The snowstorm had abated, but he knew it would return. At night it would be really cold again. This was no suitable place for illness, regardless. He had to get her to a heated hostel.

He struck tent, packed up everything hastily, and carried her dangling over his shoulder, swathed in bag and canvas. He stumbled through the knee deep snow, the hip deep drifts, never pawing for a rest, though his arms grew numb with the weight and his legs leaden.

After an hour he stepped into a snow camouflaged burrow hole, stumbled, caught himself, caught Soil as she slid oil his shoulder and almost collapsed as the pain shot up his thigh. Then be went on as before, ignoring it. Until the slower pain of his swelling ankle forced him to stop and remove his boot and rub snow on it. Then, barefooted, he continued.

After a time he had to stop again, to dispose of all superfluous weight. He hoisted Soil again and walked because he had to, no other reason. And before day was done he laid her limp body in the warm hostel, the last they had passed.

Soil's breathing was shallow, but she had neither the fever nor the chill of a serious illness. Var began to hope that he had acted in time, and that the siege was light.

He rested beside her, the sensation in his leg coming through with appalling intensity.

The wrench would not have been serious, had he not continued to aggravate it, walking loaded. Now he heard something.

A man was coming up the walk to the hostel, treading the frozen path the crazies had cleared. Obviously intending to night inside.

Var had had perhaps half an hour hardly enough for strength to creep back into his limbs, more than enough to make his ankle a torment. But he dragged himself up, hastily winding a section of crazy sheet around his leg so that he could stand on it more firmly. He and Soli had remained hidden until this time, but he knew their secrecy would be gone if anyone saw her now. They had lost a day of travel, and the Master would be very close; any exposure could bring him here within hours.

The approaching steps were not those of the Weaponless. They were too light, too. quick.

But Var could tolerate no man inside this hostel not while Soil lay ill, not while they both were vulnerable.

He scrambled into his heavy winter coat, pulled its hood tight around his face to conceal the discoloration above his beard, lifted his sticks, fought off the agony that threatened to collapse his leg, and pushed through the spinning door to meet the stranger outside.

It was bright, though the day was waning; the snow amplified the angled sunlight and bounced it back and forth and across his squinting eyes. It took a moment to make out the intruder.

The man was of medium height, fair-skinned under the parka, and well proportioned. He wore a long, large knapsack that projected behind his head. His facial features were refined, almost feminine, and his motions were oddly smooth. He seemed harmless a tourist wandering the country, broadening his mind, a loner. Var knew it was wrong to deny him lodging at the warm. hostel, especially this late in the day, but with Soli's welfare at stake there was no choice. The Master could get the word and come before she recovered, and they would be doomed. He barred the way.

The man did not speak. He merely looked questioningly at Var.

"My my sister is ill," Var said, aware that his words, as always with strangers, were hardly comprehensible. When he knew a person, talking became easier, partly because he was relaxed and partly.. because the other picked up his verbal distortions and learned to compensate. "I must keep her isolated."

The traveler still was silent. He made a motion to pass Var.

Var blocked, him again. "Sister sick. Must be alone," he enunciated carefully.

Still mute, the man tried to pass again.

Var lifted one stick.

The stranger reached one hand over his shoulder and drew out a stick of his own.

So it was to be the circle.

Var did not want to fight this man at this time, for the other's position was reasonable.

Var and Soil had fought together for their right to occupy any hostel at any time. Lacking an explanation, the other man had a right to be annoyed. And Var was in poor condition for the circle; only with difficulty did he conceal the liability of his leg. And he was quite tired generally from his day's labor. But he could not tell the whole truth, and could not risk exposure. The man would have to lodge elsewhere.

If the stranger were typical of these outland warriors, Var would be able to defeat him despite his handicaps. Particularly stick against stick. Certainly he had to try.

The man preceded him down the path to the circle. This was a relief, for it meant Var could conceal his limp while walking. The man kicked the circle free of loose snow, drew out his second stick, removed his tall backpack and his parka, and took his stance. Suddenly he looked more capable; there was something highly professional about the way he handled himself.

Var, afraid to reveal his mottled skin, had to remain fully dressed, though it inhibited his mobility he entered the circle.

They sparred, and 'immediately Var's worst fears were realized. He faced a master sticker.

The man's motions were exceptionally smooth and efficient, his blows precise.

Var had never seen such absolute control before. And speed those hands were phenomenal, even in this cold.

Knowing that the had to win quickly if at all, Var laid on with fury. He was slightly larger than his opponent, and probably stronger, and desperation gave him unusual skill despite his injury and fatigue. In fact, he was fighting better than ever before in his life, tbough he knew he would lose that edge in a few minutes as his resources, gave out. At this moment, Tyl himself would have had to back off, reassess his strategy, and look to his defenses.

Yet the stranger met every pass with seeming ease, anticipating Var's strategy and neutralizing his force. Surely this was the finest slicker ever to enter the circle!

Then, abruptly, the man took the offense and penetrated Var's own guard as though it were nonexistent and laid him out with a blow against the head. Half conscious, Var fell backwards across the circle. He was finished.

His face sidewise in the snow, Var heard something. It was a noise, a shudder in the ground, as of ponderous feet coming down: crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. An earless attuned to the wilderness could not have picked it up, and Var himself would have missed it, had his ear not been jammed to the land, It was the distant tread of the Master.

The victor stood above him, looking down curiously. "Stranger!" Var cried, half delirious

"Never have I met your like. I beg a boon of you" He was incoherent again, and had to slow down.

"Let no man enter that hostel tonight! Guard her, give her time"

The man squatted to peer: at him. Had he understood any of it? it was unprecedented for the loser to beseech terms from the winner but what else could he do now?

"A badlands grub she will die if disturbed" And Var himself would die if he didn't drag himself away immediately. Then who would take care of Soli? Would the Master linger to help her?

Not while the vengeance trail was warm! No it had to be this stranger, if only he would. Such exceeding skill in the circle bad to be complemented by meticulous courtesy.

The man reached out to touch Var's injured leg. The sheet had come loose and a section of swollen skin showed.

He nodded. This man would have won anyway but he could not be pleased to discover he had fought a lame opponent. He stood and stepped out of the circle, leaving Var where he lay. He donned his parka, then his pack, putting the sticks away. He walked down the trail 'in the direction the Master was coming from.

He was leaving the cabin to Var.

Var did not question the stranger's act of generosity. He climbed to his feet and limped back to the cabin, turning several times to watch the man's departure. At last he entered and shut the door.

The' stranger would meet the Master. Var was at his mercy now. Who was this silent one, and how had he come by such fabulous fighting skill? Var knew that no sticker in all the empire could match this warrior.

But the Master was not a sticker. What would pass between them when' they met? Would they fight? Talk? Come to this cabin together? Or pass each other, and the Master would come to find the fugitives here?

Soil stirred and he forgot all else. "Var.. . Var," she cried weakly, and he rushed to her side. She was recovering! If only they were granted the night, They were. Though Var listened apprehensively for footsteps outside, no man came to the hostel, in the morning Soil was well, though weak. "What happened?" she asked.

"You were stung by a badlands moth its winter grub," Var said, though this was only conjecture. "It came alive when we warmed the ground, and got on you. I brought you here."

"What are those marks on you?"

"I fought a man who would intrude." And that was all he told her, lest she worry.

This time they picked up extra sheeting, so as to make possible a double layer on the ground and keep moisture and grubs out entirely. Var explained that they had lost time and had 'to move; he did not clarify how close he knew the Master to be, but she caught his urgency.

So they resumed their desperate trek. Soli was weak, but she could walk. In her residual disorientation she was not aware of Var's limp.

As they left the hostel, Var looked down the path once more, mystified. Who was the noble, dazzling, silent man who had made their escape possible? Would he ever know?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They marched northward through winter and emerged at last in spring far beyond the crazy domains.

Here they found complete strangers: men and women who carried some guns and bows but not true weapons, and who did not fight in the circle, and who lived in structures resembling primitive, dilapidated hostels. They burned wood to warm these "houses" because there was no electricity, and Illuminated them with smoky oil lanterns. They spoke an unpleasantly modulated dialect, and were not especially friendly. It was as though every family were an island, cultivating its own fields, hunting its own preserve, neither attacking nor assisting strangers.

Still the Master followed, falling behind as much as a month, then catching up almost to within sight, forcing them to move out quickly. Now the silent man Var had fought accompanied the Nameless One. The scattered news reports and rumors described him well enough for Var to identify, though he said nothing to Soil about this. If she knew that a warrior of that quality had chosen to accompany the Master...

Had those two fought, and the Master had made the stranger part of the empire? Or had they joined forces for convenience, in the dangerous hinterlands?

Summer, and the country remained rugged and the pursuit continued. Soil was taller and stronger now, growing rapidly, and was quite capable. She learned from him how to make vine traps in the forest and capture small animals, and to skin them and gut them. How to strike fire and cook the meat. She learned to make a deadfall, and to sleep comfortably in a tree. Her hair grew out, black and fine, so that she resembled her natural mother more than ever.

Soli taught him, in return, the rudiments of the weaponless combat she had learned from Sosa, and the strategies demonstrated by her father Sol. For they both knew that eventually the Master would catch up, and that Var, despite his reservations, would have to fight. The Nameless One would force the combat.

"But it's better to run as long as we can," she said, seeming to have changed her attitude over the months. "The Weaponless defeated Sol in the circle, long ago when I was small, and Sol was the finest warrior of the age."

Var wondered whether Sol could have been as good as the sticker now traveling with the Master, but he kept that thought to himself.

"It was the Weaponless who struck my father on the throat so hard he could not speak again," she said, as though just remembering. "Yet you say they were friends."

"Sol does not speak?" Var's whole body tingled with an appalling suspicion.

"He can't. The underworld surgeon offered to operate, but Sol wouldn't tolerate the knife.

Not that way. It was as though he felt he had to carry that wound. That's what Sosa said, but she told me not to talk about it."

Var thought again of the fair stranger, the master sticker, now almost certain that he knew the man's identity. "What would your father do, if he thought you were dead?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't like to think about it, so I don't. I miss him, and I'm really sorry" But she cut off that thought. "Bob probably wouldn't tell him. I think Bob pretended I was being sent on an exploratory mission and didn't return. Bob almost never tells the truth."

"But if Sol found out"

"I guess he would kill Bob, and" Her mouth opened. "Var, I never thought of that! He would break out of the underworld and"

"I met him," Var said abruptly. "When you were ill. We did not know each other. Now he travels with the Master."

"Sol is the Nameless One's companion? I should have realized! But that's wonderful, Var!

They are together again. They must really be friends."

Var told her the rest of the story: how he had fought Sol, and tried to send him back to oppose the Master. About the strange generosity of the other man. "I did not know," he finished.

"I kept him from you."

She kissed his cheek-a disconcertingly feminine gesture.

"You did not know. And you fought for me!"

"You can go back to him."

"More than anything else," she said, "I would like that.

But what of you, Var?"

"The Master has sworn to kill me. I must go on."

"If Sol travels with the Weaponless, he must agree with him. They must both want to kill you now."

Var nodded miserably.

"I love my father more than anything," she said slowly. "But I would not have him kill you, Var. You are my friend. You gave me warmth on the mesa, you saved me from illness and snow."

He had not realized that she attached such importance to such things. "You helped me, too," he said gruffly.

"Let me travel with you a while longer. Maybe I'll find a way to talk to my father, and maybe then he can make the Nameless One stop chasing you."

Var was immensely gratified by this decision of hers, but he could not analyse his feeling. Perhaps it was this glimmer of a promise of some mode of reconciliation with his mentor, the Master. Perhaps it was merely that he no longer felt inclined to. travel alone. But mostly, it could be the loyalty she showed for him-that filled an obscure but powerful need that had made him miserable since the Master's turn about to have a friend that was the most important thing there was.

The sea came north and fenced them in. with its salty expanse. The pursuit closed in behind. The unfriendly natives informed them with cynical satisfaction that they were trapped: the ocean was west and south, the perpetual snows north, and two determined warriors east.

"Except," one surly storekeeper murmured smugly, "the tunnel."

"Tunnel?" Var remembered the subway tunnel near the mountain. He might hide in such a tube. "Radiation?"

"Who knows? No one ever leaves it."

"But where does it go?" Soil demanded.

"Across to China, maybe" And that was all he would tell them, and probably all he knew.

"There's another Helicon in China," Soli said later.

"That's not its name, but that's what it is. Sometimes we exchanged messages with them. By radio."

"But we are fighting the mountain!"

"The Nameless One is fighting it. Or was. Sol isn't. We aren't. And this is a different one. It might help us at least enough so I could talk to Sol If we can find it. I don't know where it is in China."

Var remained uncertain, but had no better alternative. If there was any way to escape the Master, he had to try it.

The entrance to the tunnel was huge-big enough to accommodate the largest crazy tractor, or even several abreast. The ceiling was arched, the walls gently bowed whether from design or incipient collapse. Var was uncertain at first, but closer inspection revealed its complete sturdiness. There was solid dirt on the floor, but no metal rails. It was a dark hole.

"Just like the underworld," Soli said, undismayed. "There's an old subway beyond the back storage room. With rats in it. I used to play there, but Sosa said there might be radiation."

"There was," Var said.

"How do you know?"

He summarized his foray to Helicon, before the first battle. "But the Master said she would tell them, so it would be booby trapped. So we didn't use it."

"She never did. Bob knew it was there, but he said the geigers proved it was impassable, so he didn't worry about it. I guess the radiation was down when you came but Sosa didn't say a word."

So they could have invaded that way! Why hadn't Sosa given the route away?

Then he remembered: Sos-Sosa. Sometime in the past she had been his wife, and she must still have loved him. So she hadn't told. But he had thought she had, and so the surface battle had begun. Just one more irony of many.

Soli lit one of their two lanterns and marched in. Var, perforce, followed.

Could this great tube actually cross under the entire ocean? What kept the water out, he wondered.

And why did no one emerge from it, if other men had entered? If the problem were radiation, he would discover it. But he feared that was not the case. There could ne other dangers in fringe radiation zones, as he knew saw mutant wildlife, from deadly moths to giant amphibians, as well as harmless forms like the mock sparrow. And what else, here?

Deep in the tunnel the walls developed a tiled surface, clean and much more attractive that the bare metal and concrete. Var knew what had happened: the natives had pulled off the nearest tiles for their own use, but had not dared to penetrate too far. The mud on the bottom also slacked off, so that they walked on a fine gray surface, of a coarse texture in detail but marvelously even as a whole.

It was ideal for running; their feet had excellent traction.

But how far could this continue? After an hour's brisk walk, he asked Soil: "How wide is the ocean?"

"Jim showed me a map once. He said this way was the Pacific, and it's about ten thousand miles wide."

"Ten thousand milesi It will take years to cross!" -

"No," she said. "You know better than that, Var. You can figure. If we walk four miles an hour, twelve hours a day, that's almost fifty miles."

"Twenty days to cover a thousand miles," he said, after a moment's difficult computation.

"To cover ten thousand over six months to cross it all. We have supplies for hardly a week!"

She laughed. "It isn't so wide up here. Maybe less than a hundred miles. I'm not sure. I think the tunnel must come up for air every so often, on the little, islands. So we won't have to walk it all at one stretch!"

Var hoped she was right. The tunnel was unnatural, and his nose picked up the dryness of it, the deadness. If danger fell upon them here, how could they escape?

They walked another hour, Soil swinging her lantern to make the grotesque shadows caper, and Var realized what it was that disturbed him most. The other tunnel, the subway passage, had teemed with life, though touched by radiation. This one had neither. Var knew that life intruded wherever it could, and should be found in a protected place like this. What kept it clean? There had to be a reason and not any swarm of shrews, for there were no droppings.

They rested briefly to eat and drink and leave the substance of their natural processes on the floor, since there was nowhere to bury it. They went on.

Then down the tunnel came a monster. It rumbled and hissed as it moved, and shot water from its torso, and it was bathed in steam. A tremendous eye speared light ahead.

Var froze for a moment, terrified. Then his instincts took over. He backed and turned and started to run.

"No!" Soli cried, but he hardly paid attention.

As he plunged down the tunnel, she plunged too and tackled him. Both fell and the rushing glare played over them.

"Machine!" she cried. "Man-made. It won't hurt men!" Now the thing was bearing down on them, faster than they could run, and the clank of its sparkling treads was deafening. It filled the passage.

"Stand up!" Soil screamed. "Show you're a man!" She meant it literally.

Var obeyed, unable to think for himself. Men seldom daunted him, but he had never experienced anything like this before.

Soli took his hand and stood by him, facing the machine.

"Stop!" she cried at it, and waved her other hand in the blinding light, but it did not stop.

"Its recognition receptor must be broken!" she shouted, barely audible above the din though her mouth was inches from his ear. "It doesn't know us!"

Var no longer had any doubts about what kept the passage clean. The water spouted out was probably a chemical spray such as the crazies used to clear pathways, that killed and dissolved anything organic. And men were organic.

They could not escape. The monster filled the tunnel, blasting its chemicals against the sides and ceiling, and he saw its front sweepers scooping dust into a hopper and wetting it down too. They could not get around it and could not outrun it. They had to fight.

Then it was upon them.

Var picked up Soli and heaved her into the air. As her weight left his arms, he leaped himself.

The machine struck.

Var clung to consciousness. He spread his arms, and when one banged against something soft, he grasped it and fetched it in. ,He found a metal rod with the other hand and hung on to it. He held Soli in his arms, and they were riding the machine-bodies spread against the warm headlight, feet braced against the upper rim of the hopper. Once he was sure of his position, he checked Soil. She was limp. He hauled her about so that her head was against his and put his ear to her mouth, and felt the slight gout of air that proved she was breathing. He studied her head and body as well as he could, alternately blinded and shadowed by the cutting edge of light, and found no blood. She was alive and whole-and if the concussion were not severe, she would awaken in time. All he had to do was hold her securely until the machine stopped.

He shifted about, hunkering down against the hopper rim. The brushes whirled in front, highlighted in the spillage of light, and the water poured down from nozzles, but still the air was foul with dust. Something not quite visible whirred and ground inside the yard-deep hopper, reminding him of gnashing teeth. He kept his feet out of it, certain that he perched precariously over an ugly death. He wrestled Soil around again and draped her over his thighs, supporting her shoulders with his free arm and her feet with one leg. He did not want any part of her to dangle into that dark maw.

His muscles grew tired, then knotted, but he did not shift position again. He knew it could not be long, at this speed, before the machine reached the end of the tunnel and he knew by the packed dirt where it had tO stop. It only cleaned so far, for some reason. Once it did stop, they could jump free. They would be the first to escape from this farocious tunnel.

In less than half an hour light showed, a dim oval beyond the focus of the machine's beam.

The vehicle ground to a halt, steam rising thickly about the wedged passengers. Var made his effort and discovered that his legs had gone to sleep.

Soil was still unconscious; there was no help there. If he dislodged himself now, be was likely' to drop them both into the dread hopper.

Thà machine shuddered. The blasting water jets cut off.

The grinder beneath Var ceasea its motion, and he saw that his fear had been Well-founded.

But at least now he could step down on those gears without losing his feet, and that would make it possible to recover his circulation and lever Soli out.

The light doused, leaving only the pale cast from the entrance. The machine jolted into motion again the other way. Soil rolled off and Var had to grab for her. By the time he had her safe again, the motion was too swift. If he jumped with his prickling legs and her unconscious weight they would both be hurt.

But the grinder remained inert. Apparently it had been disconnected for the return trip, along with the spray and headlight Var worked one foot down, then let Soil slide.

Returning sensation made his legs painful, but now they were securely ensconced within the hopper, riding back along the tunnel at a good clip.

But why didn't she revive? Now, increasingly, he feared that she had struck her head too hard against the light, and suffered brain damage. He had seen warriors who bad become disorganized and even idiotic after club blows to the head. If that were the case with Soli... On and on the cleaner went, returning whence it had come. Var, helpless to do anything else, held Soil firm and slept.

He was jolted awake by bright light The machine had come into the open. Soil still nestled unconscious in his arm

The machine stopped again and there were people. First men with strange weapons no, they had to be tools then tall, armed, armored women, peering in at him and Soil. Some carried round disks of stretched leather, so that one arm was fettered and useless for combat.

'Look at that!" one exclaimed wonderingly. "A beardface and a child."

Var did not speak immediately, sensing trouble. These women were aggressive, militant, unfeminine and unlike those he had seen before. Their curiosity did not seem mendly. Their metal helmets made them look like birds.

Soil did not move.

"See if he has his finger," another woman said eagerly.

There was something guilty and ugly about their attitude as though they were contemplating an intriguing perversion. Var drew out his sticks.

Immediately bows appeared and metal-tipped arrows were trained on him from several directions. He had no protection against these, and with Soil unconscious his position was hopeless. He dropped his weapons.

The quiet men were climbing on the machine, applying their tools to its surfaces.

Evidently they cared for it the way the crazies cared for their tractors, checking it over after each trip. That was why it was still operating, so long after its makers were gone.

"Out!" cried the burly woman who seemed to be the leader. She held a spear in one hand, a shield in the other.

Var obeyed, lifting Soil carefully.

"The child is sick!" someone cried. "Kill her!"

Var held SOli with one arm about her chest With his other arm he grabbed for the leader of the females, catching her by her braided hair. He yanked her against him, hauling back on her head so that her neck was exposed. Her shield got in the way, making her struggles ineffective. He bared his teeth. He growled.

"Shoot him! Shoot him!" the captive woman screamed. But the archers were oddly hesitant.

"He must be a real man," one said. "The Queen would be angry."

"If my friend dies, I rip this throat!" Var said, breathing on the neck he held bent. He was not bluffing; his teeth had always been his natural weapon, even though they were clumsy compared to those of most animals.

Another woman came forward. "Let go our mistress; we will medicate the child."

Var shoved the captive away. She caught herself, rubbing her neck. "Take him to the Queen," she said.

A woman made as if to take Soil, but Var balked. "She stays with me. If you kill anyone, kill me first, because I will kill anyone who harms her." He had made an oath to that effect long ago, to Soli's natural mother, but that was not the reason he spoke as he did now. Soil was too important to him to lose.

They walked down a pathway toward water. Var saw that they were on a small island hardly larger than required to serve as a surfacing point for the tunnel. The cleaning machine stood athwart the road, grinders and brushes and headlamps at each end, hissing and cooling as the mechanics labored over it. In this culture, it seemed, the men were crazies the women nomad warriors. Well, it was their system.

Beyond the machine there was a level stretch; then the surface rose into a tremendous metal and stone bridge that traversed the extensive water and led out of sight.

At the waterside was a boat. Var and Soil had seen such floating craft in the course of their journey, and understood their purpose, but bad never been really close to one. This boat was made of metal, and he did not understand why it did not sink, since he knew metal was heavier than water.

He balked at entering the craft, but realized that there was no reasonable alternative.

Obviously the Queen was not on this atoll. And if he made too much trouble he and Soil both would die.

The boat rocked as they entered, but held out the water.

Var could see that its bottom deck was actually below the surface of the sea. One of the women pulled a cord and a motor started banging and shaking. Then the entire thing nudged out from the dock.

It was astonishing that people other than the crazies or underworlders should possess and control motors. Yet obviously it was so.

The boat pushed along through the ocean. Var, unused to this rocking motion, soon felt queasy. But he refused to yield to it, knowing that any sign of weakness would further imperil himself and Soil.

How long would she sleep? He felt strangely unwhole without her.

The boat came to parallel the enormous bridge. Girders like those that rimmed the mountain Helicon projected from the sea and crossed and recrossed each other, forming an eye-dazzling network. But these were organized and functional, serving to support the elevated highway.

Somewhere within this jumble that road was hidden; he could not see it now. He wondered why the amazons did not walk along it instead of splashing dangerously over the water.

At length they angled toward the bridge. There was an archway, here, where the water under the span was clear for a space. And suspended in that cavity was something like a monstrous hornet's nest all wood and rope and interleaved slices of metal and plastic and other substances Var could not guess at.

The boat drew up beneath this, where a blister hung scant feet from the surface of the water. A ladder of rope dropped down and the women climbed up with alacrity to disappear with him.

Var had to ascend carrying Soil. He laid her over his shoulder and grasped the ladder with one hand. It swung out, seeming too frail to bear the double load.

Well, if it broke, he would swim. He was not really enthusiastic to enter the hive, and did not trust these armored women. He hauled himself and his burden up, rung by rung, carefully curling his clumsy fingers about each. The rope did not break.

The ladder passed through a circular hole, and was fastened above by a metal crosspiece.

Var clung to this and got his feet to a board platform, and shifted Soil down. They were in a cramped chamber whose sides curved up and out. Metal cloth seemed to be the main element.

But there were other ladders to climb. Each level was larger, the curving walls more distant, until doors and intermediate chambers were all he could observe in passing.

At length they stood within a large room with adjacent compartments, rather like the Master's main tent.

On a throne fashioned of wickerwork sat the Queen: bloated, ugly, middle-aged, bejeweled.

She wore a richly woven gown that sparkled hidescently. It fell from a high stiff collar behind her broad neck to the sides of her stout ankles, and was open down the front to reveal the inner curvatures of her, monstrous breasts, her dimpled kettle stomach, and her hanging thighs.

Var, hardly prudish, averted his eyes. Sexuality as brazen as this repulsed him.

Weapons threatened. "Foreign beardface, look at the Queen!"

He had to look; it seemed this was protocol. She reminded him of a figurine the Master had shown him once: a fertility goddess, artifact of the Ancients. The Master had said that in some cultures such a figure was considered to be the ultimate in beauty. But for Var the female attributes became negative when expanded to such grotesque proportion.

"Strip him," the Queen said.

Again Var had to make a decision. He could fight but not effectively while supporting Soil, and both of them would be wounded or killed. Or he could submit to being stripped by these women. Nakedness was not a strong taboo with him, but he knew it was for others, and that the demand represented an insult. Still he yielded. "You promised to care for my friend," he said.

The Queen made an imperious gesture that sent gross quivers through her various anatomies.

An unarmed woman came to take Soil. She brought her to 'a wicker divan and began checking the limp girl, while Var watched nervously. And the armed women removed his clothing.

"So he has his finger," the Queen said, staring as though studying an animal.

Now Var understood the term. It occurred to him that he bad not had a close look at a man of this tribe.

The nurse attending Soil spoke: "Concussion. Doesn't look serious. Bruise on the neck, probably pinching a nerve, could let go anytime." She splashed water from a bowl on Soli's face.

The girl groaned. It was the first sound she had made since the leap to the tunnel sweeper, and Var felt suddenly weak with relief. If she could groan she could recover.

"He looks strong," said the Queen. "But mottled. Do we want any piebalds?"

No one answered. Evidently the question was rhetorical. After a moment she decided. "Yes, we'll try one." She pointed to Var. "Your Queen wili honor your finger. Bring it here."

Prodded by spearlike arrows, Var walked toward her. He had some idea what she meant, and was disgusted, but the weapons bristling about him discouraged overt protest. He saw Soil sitting up and wanted to go to hers If only he weren't restrained by the odds against him! Alone, he could have made a break, but he did not want to start trouble that would hurt the dazed girl.

He came to stand immediately before the gross Queen.

She was even more repulsive up close. Fat jiggled on her body as she breathed, and there was a steamy unnatural smell about her.

She reached out and caught what she termed his finger in her hand. "Yes, your Queen will use this once, now and no woman after her." She spread her legs, hauling Var toward her.

It was no longer possible to pretend to mistake her meaning. Var acted. He whirled on his guards, grabbing at their weapons, shoving the women down. He caught the handle of a fighting hatchet and raised the blade toward the Queen.

The guards fell back, for they could not mistake his meaning either. He could split her head before they reached him.

"Bring her!" Var cried, gesturing toward Soil. He hoped they would not realize that they could nullify his threat by threatening Soil.

Bows came up, arrows nocked. Var put both hands on the hatchet and poised above the Queen.

Even if a dozen arrows transfixed him, he would take her with him.

Soil came, listless but walking by herself. She. still wore her two sticks; they had not been noticed by her captors.

Something flashed. Var jumped back as the Queen drove for his loin with a jewelled stiletto. "We shall remove it now, I think," she said.

In that moment of confusion Var saw the arrows coming. One grazed his thigh. The guards closed in.

In a fury, Var leaped at the Queen and clove her head with a two-handed stroke. A cry of horror went up. He did not need to look. He knew as he yanked free the blood-soiled blade that she was dead.

He caught Soil by the arm and sprinted for the nearest compartment behind the throne. For a moment no one followed. The women were too shocked by the fate of their breeder Queen.

There was a ladder. "Climb!" he said at Soil, and she, unspeaking, climbed. Var stood with the hatchet, ready to fend off attack. He was sure that he himself would never have the chance to use the ladder.

Then, as the amazons advanced keening in fury, he struck at the wicker door supports. Rope and fiber sliced easily, and the door began to collapse, and the floor beneath it sagged. He hacked some more until there was a tumble of material ealing him off, then dived for the ladder.

Soil waited for him at the next level "Where are we, Var?" she asked plaintively.

"In a hive!" he gasped, drawing her through another door. "I killed the Queen-ant!"

They entered another large room. Men were working here, weaving baskets. Naked, flabby Var saw at once that they were castrate. No wonder the women had been fascinated by the visiting male they seldom saw a complete man!

But though these men were harmless, even pitiful, the amazon women were not. They burst through the door behind, screaming.

Var and Soli bolted again. But the next room was a blank cubbyhole, next to the gentle curvature of the exterior wall. They were trapped.

"Fire!" Soil cried.

Var cursed himself for not thinking of that sooner. He fumbled for his pack for a precious match and some kerosene. This thy hive would ignite rapidly.

His pack, of course, was not on him. It lay with the rest of his clothing in the Queen's hail.

But Soli was already making fire from the duplicate materials in her own pack. As the first female warrior charged into the compartment, she ignited a puddle of kerosene on the wooden floor.

The amazon stomped through the sudden blaze and screamed. Var clove her with the hatchet and she fell, her shield rolling away, the fire licking around her body.

"We're trapped, Var!" Soli cried. For the moment be was too glad to have her intelligible and functional to pay attention to her words. Perhaps the action had jolted her out of her concussion.

"We'll burn!" she screamed in his ear.

That registered. He went to the wall and began hacking. The fibers were tough, and several times the blade rang against metal, but he succeeded in ripping a hole to daylight.

"Hurry!" Soil cried, and he glanced at her while chipping. He saw to his surprise, that the fire was not consinning everything. Only the kerosene itself was burning. Soil stood just behind it, both sticks in her hands, fending off any amazons who tried to reach through.

Fortunately the constriction of the surroundings prevented the effective use of arrows. But soon the flammable fluid would be gone, and the mass of outraged women would press through. Some were already trying to use their shields to block Soil's sticks.

"Out the hole!" Var shouted at her. Soil obeyed with alacrity while he covered her retreat.

He took a final swipe at a protruding spear and dived through the hole the moment her feet disappeared. As his head poked out he saw. the water, far below. He had forgotten how high they were! How could they jump that dizzying distance?

Where was Soli? He did not spy her either on the wall or in the water. If she had fallen and drowned "Here!"

He looked up. She was clinging to the framework above the hole. Again, relief was almost painfully great and of course climbing was the answer. They could escape via the rope that supported the entire framework!

A helmeted head showed in the bole. Soil reached down negilgently and tapped it ringingly with a stick. It vanished.

They climbed, Var carrying the hatchet between his teeth. It was easier than the ascent to the mesa bad been, so long ago in experience. The woven ropes and struts provided plentiful handholds, and as the two rose the surface tilted toward the horizontal.

A trapdoor opened in the top and a head appeared. Var threatened it with the hatchet and the lid popped closed again instantly. They had command of the roof.

The rope by which the hive was suspended was much more sturdy than it had appeared from a distance. It was a good four feet in diameter at its narrowest, and the fibers were metal and nylon and rubber, interwoven tightly.

Var had had some notion of chopping through this cord and dropping the entire hive grandly into the sea. He gave it up; his battered little hatchet could not do the job.

They climbed the column, Soil still wearing her heavy pack because there was no time for adjustments. Fortunately this stretch was short. Var didn't know how long she could last, after her prolonged unconsciousness. And if the amazons emerged and started firing arrows at them.

The women did emerge, but too late. Var and Soil were perched on the massive steel strut that supported the hive, and the arrows could not reach them directly. They were safe. All they had to do was mount the road surface of the bridge and be on their way.

Well, not quite all. A chill wind attacked Var's bare skin. He would have to find new clothing and traveling supplies. And new weapons, this hatchet, useful as it had been, was not to his liking.

He led the way up an inclined beam, going into the maze of supports. The angry cries of the amazons were left behind, and their arrows stopped rattling between the girders. He wondered why they did not follow; certainly they would know how to get around on the bridge, since they had built their hive within it.

His skin burned. First he thought it was windchap. Then he recognized the stigma of radiation.

"Back!" he cried, knowing Soil could not feel it, but would surely be affected.

"Radiation!"

They retreated to a clean spot, where intersecting beams formed a gaunt basket. Now they knew why the amazons had not pursued them here. The women would have learned the hard way that the bridge was impassable. In fact, they would have constructed their vulnerable hive in the one place they knew to be safe from all marauders.

Var knew what he would find: the bridge ahead would be saturated with the deadly rays, making it a badlands. Probably some radiation touched it between the hive and the island where the tunnel emerged, too but even if not, the amazons would be waiting at the island with drawn bows.

Soli, so brave until this point, suddenly gave out. She laid her head against Var's shoulder and cried. She had not done that for many months.

The wind was colder now and night was coming.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was an uncomfortable night. Solis pack contained food and some clothing, so Var was able to fortify himself somewhat internally and externally. But the hardness and narrowness of the beams, the cutting edge of the intermittent wind, their several flesh wounds, and the general hopelessness of their situation made sleep a misery.

They clung together as they had done on the mesa of Muse, and they talked. "Does your head hurt?" Var asked, trying to make the inquiry seem more casual than it was.

"Yes. I think I banged it. How did we get out of the tunnel?"

Var told her.

"I think I started to wake when you made me stand," she said. "I heard voices, and something shook me, but it was all very far away, maybe a dream. Then I woke again and saw water, but I didn't know what was happening so I didn't move. I was pretty much alert when you carried me into the hive but then I knew I had to stay out of trouble. I kept my eyes closed, so I didn't really know what it was."

That explained how she had been able to function almost normally once she woke up officially. She had been smart enough to play dead until she knew more. It had been hard on Var, but he knew that it would have been worse any other way. The amazons had treated him more carefully because they knew he was not much of a threat while he held the unconscious girl.

"Those men," she said. "They were almost like my father Sol, except that he's no weakling."

Var was aware of that. "They're castrates."

"No. They had part. Like you. But"

He realized she was right. He had seen testes but no members. They were only partial castrates as he would have been, had the breed queen's thrust at him scored.

"I've seen animals since we've been outside," she said.

"I know what happens, I think. They breed by putting it there." She touched her rear. This was, as it happened in their present circumstance, nestled firmly against his groin. Var visualized the way the four-footed animals performed and understood her inference. She did not really comprehend sex, yet. "But those hive men how could they?"

He didn't know, and did not want to conjecture. It was an awkward subject to discuss with any female, particularly a nine, almost ten year old child.

"What are we going to do, Var?" she asked after a while.

'When it gets light, we can climb down to the water and swim. Maybe we can get around the radiation."

"I don't know how to swim."

She had been brought up in the mountain. She would never have had the chance to sport in open water, he realized. And in the summer and winter and summer they had traveled together, they had never had occasion to swim. What were they to do now?

"Will you teach me, Var?" she asked shyly.

Again she bad provided the answer herself. "I will teach you," he agreed.

Finally they did sleep. The wind died down and that was better.

The amazons, as though confident of their quarry, were not on watch in the morning. Var and Soil descended to the water with some difficulty, as the girders merged into isolated smooth pylons and plunged into the sea. He showed her the motions of swimming in the cold water and told her to keep her head up. She mastered the art quickly, though she splashed a good deal and stayed very close to him. "It's so deep!" she explained. They set out west along the bridge.

The radiation came, and they veered out into the ocean. This frightened Soli, but they both knew there was no other way. After a time he treaded water while she clung to him, exhausted.

He could not tell whether the droplets on her face were from the sea or her eyes. Certainly she was tired, tense and miserable.

Var wondered whether it would be feasible to steal a boat, but decided negatively. They wanted to hide, not advertise their presence by such activity. They would be on the bridge once they got past the radiation.

Progress was slow. Several times they came all the way in to a pylon safely, and hung on while Soli coughed out mouthfuls of salt water. Her lips were blue and her face forlorn. Finally Var mounted a pylon and climbed stiffly until he encountered the radiation. They had to continue swimming.

But on the second try, half an hour later, he found no radiation. He helped her up. The sun came out and they soaked up its warmth as they ate sodden bread from the pack.

Then on down the highway, marching along its level thread toward China. Their supplies had been halved by the loss of Var's pack, but he thought they might catch some fish. And if there were other islands, there might be fruit or berries or at least rats.

Later in the day the road descended to land, and it was a larger island, many miles across, with trees and seals and birds and houses.

But they were wary, for there could also be men here, and the hive experience had taught them not to trust their own kind. Var had not before appreciated the true strength of the crazy/nomad system, and still did not comprehend its medimisms. But somehow men were civilized there, as they were not at the hive. A man did not have to worry about castration, or fight outside the circle, in America.

There were no people. The island was vacant They found old cans of food, but did not touch these. A few berries grew in patches, and these provided a supplement to their pack supplies. One of the houses seemed reasonably tight, and so they set up there after driving out the rats. (Soli said she'd rather not eat any rats just yet.)

At dawn the sound of a motor approached. They hid, watching through a dirt crusted window that still had glass, and saw a boat with amazons pull up to the shore. This island was their foraging ground. The women stepped out and surveyed the area efficiently. Evidently they did not come here often, or they would not have needed to check it out so carefully. Fortunately they did not approach the house where Var and Soli lurked. Then several of the half castrate men emerged.

They were herded to one of the berry areas and put to work picking into wicker baskets, while the armored women took turns practising with their weaponry.

After a couple of hours the baskets were full and the men returned to the boat. Var and Soil relaxed.

Then they tensed again, for two people came ashore and headed for the houses. A man and a woman. They walked slowly, the man leading and listless, the woman prodding him along every so often.

"This one," she said, stopping at a house, She jerked open the door. Wood and plaster crashed down, and she coughed in the dust. She said a word Var had not heard before from distasteful lips.

She tried the next house, but the door was jammed. She was a hefty woman, quite stout under her armor, but the house was sealed. Var had had the same experience the night before.

Then the amazon came to the one Var and Soil occupied.

The fugitives scrambled for the back room as the door pushed open. Var scooped up the pack, Soli their scattered belongings.

"Good," the amazon said as the door opened. "This one's tight and even fairly clean. You'd hardly know it's been deserted for years."

Var controlled his breathing and peered out of the gloom of the back room, Soil doing the same. There was a back exit they had made sure of that before settling in but that door creaked, and if they used it now they would be discovered. Then they would have to kill the two visitors, and the hunt would be on again, with no radiation to hide behind. And other couples were entering neighboring houses; he could hear them. Any noise would bring them running. Better to wait it out.

"Strip," the woman said, as imperiously as her Queen.

The man obeyed with resignation. Once more Var saw his mutilation a scrotum without an instrument. What purpose, this cruel cut?

Now the woman stripped, helmet to greaves. Gross of breast and belly, she stood and smiled.

And Var realized: they had come hereto make seal And the other couples would be doing the same.

Fascinated and disgusted, he watched. The woman was shaven below so that she resembled a ponderous child. The Queen had been barbered, he remembered. The man, too, was hairless in that region, adding to his indignity. But that was superficial. Var's main question was how any effective connection between these two could be possible.

He looked across at Soil, wondering what her thoughts were. Her face Was concealed in the shadow.

'There will have to be a new Queen," the Amazon murmured, leading the man to the worn mattress Var had slept on. "I have borne four healthy girls. One more and I will be in contention as a breedleader, and can claim the Queenship-after I kill the others. You, my pretty, have given me two of those girls, and you shall be well rewarded if you give me another."

"Yes," said the man unenthusiastically.

"Of course, if you disappoint me with a boy, it will go hard with you."

The man nodded.

Var, to his dismay, felt a surge of sexual excitement as he craned his head to see what transpired. This was perverted, it was awful but compelling.

The amazon lay down and raised her knees. The man squatted between them. Her hands reached down. Var, overbalanced at last, fell into the room.

Then it was rapid. Committed, Var and Soil had to strike. Almost before Var realized what had happened, the amazon pair lay sprawled unconscious, and there were shouts from the boat and other cabins in response to the noise of the brief battle. Var took up the amazon's bow and arrows, and Soil her spear; they grabbed their own possessions as well and ran out the shack.

Despite the strait his guilty curiosity had brought them to, Var regretted that he had not learned how the amazons mated. Would he ever know?

Armed women were charging from the boat and emerging from houses. Five of them were headed toward Var and Soli, while the men milled uncertainly on the shore. Three were closing in on the house just vacated. Two split off to cover the path to the bridge. Var saw that that route was hopeless. In fact, now that the hornets had been aroused, the entire island was hopeless. The women were tough, and odds of five to two in daylight were prohibitive. And the men would naturally assist their females.

"The boat!" Soil whispered piercingly. "This way!"

Var knew that direction to be the very height of folly. But she was already running at right angles to the path of the approaching trio, and he had either to follow or to let her go alone. He could not call to her, for that would pinpoint their location immediately. So he followed.

She circled toward the boat. The amazons, not suspecting this maneuver, remained in the village. He could hear them exclaiming over the fallen couple and banging through the houses in that section. Soil stopped just before they came in sight of the men.

"They're weaklings," she gasped. "The men don't fight. If we run at them and yell, they'll flee." And she set off again, running and yelling and waving her arms.

Var had to follow once more.

The men did scatter, though there were four of them here, all full grown. Var marveled.

"Now the boat!" Soil said, clambering in.

As Var settled beside her, the amazons realized what had happened and gave hue and cry.

"Start the motor!" Soli yelled at him.

He looked at her blankly.

"The pull cord!" she cried. She grabbed a handle on the engine and jerked. It came out on a string, and there was a bang. Var remembered that he had seen amazon do this on the other boat that took them to the hive.

He took hold and gave it a tremendous yank. The cord came out a yard and the motor roared.

"I'll steer!" Soil screamed over the noise. She grabbed the wheel in the middle of the boat and began doing things with handles there. To Var's amazement, the craft began to move. She knew what she was doing!

Under Soil's guidance, it nudged out from the bank and swashed into deeper water. The amazons ran up, brandishing their spears, but there was twenty feet of water separating them from the boat. Then the women kneeled and lifted their bows.

Soil jerked another handle and the motor multiplied its sound. The boat jerked forward.

The arrows came. They were not random shots. They passed well wide of the engine section, that the archers did not want to damage, and centered on the personnel. They did not miss by much.

Only Soli's sudden burst of speed spoiled their aim.

The second volley was already nocked, and Var knew this one would score, though the boat was now fifty feet away and moving swiftly. He grabbed one of the round amazon leather shields and held it behind Soil's back, for she could not see the arrows coming while she was driving.

Three arrows plonked into the shield surely fatal to her, had they not been intercepted.

Two struck Var. One was in his right arm, rending flesh and bone; the other was in his gut.

He clung to consciousness, for they were not out of danger yet. He left the arrows where they were, but shifted the shield to his left hand and kneeled behind Soil, protecting her by both his shield and his body.

Two more arrows plunged into the leather, their points coming through but without much force. Another skewered his unprotected thigh. One more passed just beside his head and struck the wood near Soli.

"Var, can't you" she said, turning.

Then she saw his situation and screamed.

Var passed out.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He woke and fainted many times, conscious of pain and the passage of time and the rocking of waves and Soil's attentions, and of very little else. The arrows were out from his arm and leg and gut, but this brought him no relief. His body was burning, his throat dry, his bowels pressing.

She took care of him. She propped him up inside the boat's cabin and held water to his mouth, and it made him sick and the heaves wrenched his abdomen cruelly, but his lips and tongue and throat felt better. He soiled himself many times and she cleaned him up, and when she washed his genitals they reacted and that made him ashamed but there was nothing he could do. He kept bleeding from his wounds, and she would wash them and bandage them, and then he would move and the blood would flow hotly again.

He thought deliriously of the Master, in the badlands seven years before, his illness from radiation. Now Var knew what the man had gone through, and why he had sworn friendship to the wild boy who had aided him then.

But the thought brought another torment, for he still could not fathom why the Master had reversed that oath and become a mortal enemy.

But most of all, he thought of Soli, she who cared for him now in his helplessness. A child yet but a master sticker and faithful companion who had never remarked on the colors of his skin or the crudity of his hands and feet and hunch. She could have returned to her father, whom she loved, but had not. She could even have gone to the Master, who had offered to adopt her as his daughter. Such offers were never casually made. She had stayed with Var because she thought he needed help.

And he did.

It was night and he slept. It was day and he moved fitfully and half slept, hearing the roaring of the motor, smelling the gasoline she poured from stacked cans into the funnel It was night again, and cold, and Soil hugged him close and wrapped rough blankets about them both and warmed him with her small body while his teeth knocked together.

But he did recover.

In one of his lucid moments and he was aware they were not frequent she talked with him about the mountain Helicon and the nomads.

"You know, I thought you people were savages," she said. "Then I met you, and the Nameless One, and I knew you were merely ignorant. I thought it would be good to have you joined with underworld 'nology."

"yes..........'! He wanted to agree, to converse on her level, sure he was able to do so now. But the sentence played itself out in silence.

"But now I've seen what it's like beyond the crazy demesnes, where the common man does have some 'nology, technology and I'm not so sure. I wonder whether the nomads would lose their primitive values, if"

Yes, yes! He had wondered the same. And been unable to express it succinctly. The amazons and their motors and their barbarism. .. . But he could remember no more of that fragmnent. The boat went on and on beside the bridge.

Once he felt radiation, and cried out, and she veered away from it.

Then time had passed or stopped and the boat was docked and there were people. Not amazons, not nomads. Soli was gone and then she was back, crying, and she kissed him and was gone again.

A man came and stabbed him in the arm with a spike. When Var woke once more, his abdomen hurt with a different kind of hurt a mending hurt and he knew he was at last recovering. But Soli was not there.

Women came and fed him and cleaned him, and he slept some more. And days passed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He woke and fainted many times, conscious of pain and the passage of time and the rocking of waves and Soli's attentions, and of very little else. The arrows were out from his arm and leg and gut, but this brought him no relief. His body was burning, his throat dry, his bowels pressing.

She took care of him. She propped him up inside the boat's cabin and held water to his mouth, and it made him sick and the heaves wrenched his abdomen cruelly, but his lips and tongue and throat felt better. He Solied himself many times and she cleaned him up, and when she washed his genitals they reacted and that made him ashamed but there was nothing he could do. He kept bleeding from his wounds, and she would wash them and bandage them, and then he would move and the blood would flow hotly again.

He thought deliriously of the Master, in the badlands seven years before, his illness from radiation. Now Var knew what the man had gone through, and why he had sworn friendship to the wild boy who had aided him then. But the thought brought another torment, for he still could not fathom why the Master had reversed that oath and become a mortal enemy.

But most of all, he thought of Soli-she who cared for him now in his helplessness. A child yet-but a master sticker and faithful companion who had never remarked on the colors of his skin or the crudity of his hands and feet and hunch. She could have returned to her father, whom she loved, but had not. She could even have gone to the Master, who had offered to adopt her as his daughter. Such offers were never casually made. She had stayed with Var because she thought he needed help.

And he did.

It was night and he slept. It was day and he moved fitfully and half-slept, hearing the roaring of the motor, smelling the gasoline she poured from stacked cans into the funnel. It was night again, and cold, and Soli hugged him close and wrapped rough blankets about them both and warmed him with her small body while his teeth knocked together.

But he did recover.

In one of his lucid moments-and he was aware they were not frequent-she talked with him about the mountain Helicon and the nomads.

"You know, I thought you people were savages," she said. "Then I met you, and the Nameless One, and I knew you were merely ignorant. I thought it would be good to have you joined with underworld 'nology."

"Yes-" He wanted to agree, to converse on her level, sure he was able to do so now. But the sentence played itself out in silence.

"But now I've seen what it's like beyond the crazy demesnes, where the common man does have some 'nology-technology-and I'm not so sure. I wonder whether the nomads would lose their primitive values, if-"

Yes, yes! He had wondered the same. And been unable to express it succinctly. The amazons and their motors and their barbarism. . .. But he could remember no more of that fragment. The boat went on and on beside the bridge. Once he felt radiation, and cried out, and she veered away from it.

Then time had passed or stopped and the boat was docked and there were people. Not amazons, not nomads. Soli was gone and then she was back, crying, and she. kissed him and was gone again.

A man came and stabbed him in the arm with a spike. When Var woke once more, his abdomen hurt with a different kind of hurt-a mending hurt-and he knew he was at last recovering. But Soli was not there.

Women came and fed him and cleaned him, and he slept some more. And days passed.

"I believe you are well now," a stranger said one day. He was old enough to be losing his hair, and somewhat stout and flabby. No warrior of the circle, he!

Var was well, though weak. His arm and leg and gut had healed, and he was now able to eat without vomiting and to eliminate without bleeding. But he did not trust this man, and he missed Soli, who had not come again since the time she kissed him and cried.

lvflle girl-what is your relationship to her?" the man asked.

"We are friends."

"You speak with a heavy accent. And you appear to have suffered serious radiation burns at one time, and childhood deformities. Where do you come from?"

"Crazy demesnes," he answered, remembering Soli's term.

The man frowned, "Are you being clever?"

"Some call it America. The crazies share it with the nomads." -

"Oh." The man brought him strange, elegant clothing. 'Well, you should be advised that this is New Crete, in the Aleutians. We are civilized, but we have our own conventions. The girl understands this, but feels that you may not."

"Soli-where is she?'.

"She is at the temple, awaiting the pleasure of our God. You may see her now, if you wish."

"Yea." Var still did not like the man's attitude. It was not exactly cynicism of the Helicon vintage, but it wasn't friendly either.

He dressed, feeling awkward in the long loose trousers and long-sleeved white shirt, and particularly in the stiff leather shoes that hurt his clubbed feet. This was not what Var considered to be civilized attire. But the man insisted that he wear these things before going out.

They were in a city-not a dead badlands city, but a living metropolis with lighted buildings and moving vehicles. People thronged the clean streets. Var felt less uncomfortable when he saw that most men were garbed as he was.

The temple was a tremendous building buttressed by columns and a high wall. Guards armed with guns stood at the front gate. Var, so weak that even the short walk fatigued him, and weaponless, felt nervous.

Within the temple were robed pilests and elaborate furnishings. After several challenges and explanations, Var's guide brought him to a chamber whose center was crossed by a row of vertical metal bars, each set about four inches from its neighbor.

Soli entered the other half of the room. She saw Var and ran up to the bars, reaching through to grasp his hand. "You're all right!" she cried, her voice breaking.

"Yes." He was not so certain about her. She looked well, but there was something wrong about her manner. "Why are you here, behind these bars?"

"I'm in the temple." She was silent a moment, just looking at him. "I agreed to do something, so I have to stay here. I can't see you again after this, Var."

He was not facile with words. He did not know how to protest eloquently, to make her tell the truth. Particularly not with the stranger listening. But he knew from her tight, controlled, desperate manner that something terrible had happened while he lay sick, and that Soli expected never to see him again.

And she did not want him to know why.

She had been alienated from him as surely as had the Master-and also by the agency of some third party.

"Good-bye, Var."

He refused to say it to her. He squeezed her hand and turned to go, knowing that this was not the occasion for effective rebuttal; He knew too little.

And during the walk back he worked out what he had to do.

"You will have to go to the employment agency and make application for training," the man said. "Even the menial jobs will be complicated for you at first."

"What if I want to leave here?" Not without Soli, though!

"Why of course you may-if you purchase a boat and supplies. This is a free island. But to do that you will need money."

"Money?"

"If you don't know what that is, you don't have any."

Var let that pass. In time he would find out what money was, and whether he needed it. It sounded like some variation of barter, however.

They entered the hospital and returned to Var's room. "You'll be moving out of here in a day or so," the man said..

Var looked around. None of his or Soli's prior possessions were in evidence, except the bracelet he wore, and that was dull and scratched. He thought he knew why they hadn't taken that: they didn't know it was gold.

The bed was similar to some he had seen during his childhood in the badlands. It had high rods of metal projecting at either end, rather like the grates to certain ancient windows-or the bars in that temple room. Generally, these could be screwed loose....

"And a final word," the man said. "Don't go bothering them at the temple. They won't let you see your friend again."

Var placed a hand on one of the rods and twisted. It was tight. "Why not?'

"Because she is now a temple maiden, dedicated to our God Minos. These girls are kept in seclusion for the duration."

Var tried another bar. This one turned. "Why?"

"Regulations. When they approach nubility, there is too much danger of their losing their value to the God."

The rod came free. Var held it aloft and advanced on the man, suppressing a tremor of weakness. "What will happen to her?"

The man looked at him and at the improvised club, as though ignorant of the threat.

"Really, there is no need for that-"

"Tell me-or you die." Var, driven by fear for Soli, was not bluffing. He was weak, but this man was obviously untrained for combat. One or two blows would suffice.

"Very well. She is to be sacrificed to Minos."

Var wavered, suddenly feeling his weakness redoubled.

His worst fear had been brutally confirmed. "Why-"

"You were dying. Medical attention is expensive. She agreed to enter the temple-it has to be voluntary, for we are civilized-if we made you well again. Because she will be lovely, and the God likes that, we acceded to the unusual commitment. Today we demonstrated that we kept our bargain, and now she will keep hers."

"She will-die?'

"Yes."

Var dropped the bedpost and sat down, befuddled and horrified. "How-"

"She will be chained to the rock at the entrance to the labyrinth. Minos will come and devour her in his fashion. Then fortune will smile on New Crete for one more month, for our God will be satisfied." -

One last thing Var had to know. "When-"

"Oh, not for a couple of years yet. Your friend is still a child." He glanced obscurely at Var. "Otherwise I dare say she would not have proved eligible."

Var did not follow the man's nuances and did not care to. The relief was as debilitating as the threat. Two years! There were a thousand things he could do to save her in that time.

"Remember, nomad-she made a bargain. Young as she is, she strikes us as a person of integrity. She will not break her vow, that saved your life, no matter what you may do."

And that, Var realized with dismay, was the truth. Soli had always been keen to keep a bargain, any bargain. She didn't object to little ploys, such as passing for a boy or stealing the food they needed to live on, but she liked the formal things to be right.

The man stood up. "I know it is hard for you to accept the ways of an unfamiliar culture, just as I would have trouble adapting to your crazy-circle system of America."

Var noted that the man, despite his prior attitude, did after all know something of nomad existence. Maybe Soli had told him, and he had been verifying it with Var. "But you will find us fair and even generous, if you cooperate with the system. Tomorrow you will be released, and I'll direct you to the employment agency. They will test you for aptitude and provide the individual indicated training. From then on, it is up to you. If you work well, you will eat well."

He left.

Var lay on the bed. He appreciated the efficiency of the system-it had points of similarity to the empire-but he had no intention of letting Soli die.

Still, he did have time to plan carefully. Until he came upon a suitable course of action, he could afford to cooperate.

Var became a trash collector. Because he was ugly and the proffered training perfunctory, he could not aspire to any prestige position. Because he was Illiterate and had poor hands, he could not handle most of the more sophisticated jobs of New Crete, a literate, technological society. And hauling refuse on a daily basis kept him in excellent physical condition. People left him alone because of the dirt and the smell, and that was the way he wanted it too.

He had a room with running water and heat in the winter and even an electric light that snapped on when he yanked at a string and he earned enough of the metal tokens that were "money"

to purchase clothing and regular meals and occasional entertainment.

It was a year before he discoveyed just how valuable his golden bracelet of manhood was here. He had thought it would bring a few of their silver tokens, but the truth was that had it been appraised and sold it would have paid for all his initial hospitalization. Gold, so common in the crazy demesnes, was at a premium here, for they used it in their machinery in ways be did not understand. Soli must have suspected this-yet sold herself into the temple rather than take advantage of it.

Her generosity had been foolish. A man wore the bracelet only to give it to the woman of his choice. What could she care whether he wore it? He had no woman to give it to.

By day Var cooperated and had no trouble. By night he stripped his conventional clothing, dressed in warm rags, and ranged barefoot in the wilderness regions Of New Crete. The island was large-at least twenty miles across- and he was able to explore it without disturbing the inhabitants, and to practice his weaponry. He made himself a fine set of sticks from seasoned wood, and became as proficient with them as he had ever been in the circle with the metal ones. It was not the implement but the skill of the hand that counted. He learned the lay of the land, and even ventured some distance into the, dark tunnel that left the island on the west. It was clogged with refuse; no mechanical sweepers cleaned~ it, and it bad been used as a dump.

And he scouted the temple preserve. This was a walled enclosure between one and two miles in diameter, patrolled but not heavily. Var had no problem sneaking in. Every day the maidens were exercised, Soli among them, and Var observed that she was well cared for. Every month at full moon one of the older ones was taken to a canyon and chained there. Next evening she would be gone. Var never actually saw the God Minos, because the God struck not by the light of that full moon, oddly, but by day. The maidens were put out before dawn and remained as it grew light. Var could not do so; he had to work by day, every day, and had~he remained in the compound he would have run the double risk of absence at his assigned location and discovery at his forbidden location.

In the second year he built a boat. Not a good one, not nearly as good as the amazon one they had arrived in (what bad happened to it? Why hadn't that value been charged against his medical bill?) and certainly not one he would trust to the open seas. Even if he were sailor enough to manage it. But the craft would do to spirit Soli away and hide her until better arrangements could be made. First he bad to save her from Minos.

For if she were chained in the canyon for the God, then rescued, her bargain would be complete. She would have offered herself in sacrifice and found unexpected reprieve. All he had to do was stop Minos from eating her, then take her away, and the temple would never know the difference.

The morning came. Var was watching, for he knew the monthly date of the ceremony (he could look at the moon as well as a peed could) and had been aware that her turn was incipient. Most of the girls were now younger than she, and the temple did not provide board and keep longer than necessary. This was the day he would not go on his rounds-indeed, not ever again.

Soli, grown barely nubile in two years, was taken by hooded priests to the canyon and -

anchored there. The men Var could not be certain of their sex, but assumed this was man's business-hammered spiked shackles into the stone. Soli's slender wrists were pinned within them at shoulder height. She was naked, her lustrous black hair falling down around her shoulders, her small breasts standing erect, her rather well-fleshed thighs flexing nervously as she fidgeted about.

Var felt an acute pang. Soli now looked very much indeed like her natural mother Sola.

Once her hips and breasts filled out completely-But what would never happen unless he saved her from the sacrifice.

Var lurked in the trees as the priests departed. He waited half an hour, making sure they would not return and that no other parties were watching. The canyon face was shielded from the direct view of the temple, probably intentionally and mercifully for the remaining maidens. Var now knew how most of them came here: they volunteered in order to spare their families hunger, for there were many poor people on the island. They-who-won't-work-won't-eat philosophy was a thin cover for subjugation of the unfortunate. The wage that had been adequate for Var was not enough for a family, so there was continual and large-scale distress. The way of the crazies and the nomads was better, for no one hungered in America.

Assured that he was unobserved, Var let fly his random philosophies, emerged from hiding, and entered the canyon. Soli heard him and looked up with a poignant little cry of dismay, thinking the god had come already. Then she gasped. "Var"

He approached and put his hand to one manacle. "i never forgot you," he said. "Did you think I would let you be eaten?'

But the bond was tight, and he had no leverage to pry it loose.

"I-" she started, her eyes suddenly streaming. . "I thank you, Var. But I can't go with you. I made a vow."

"You fulfilled it" He cast about for some way to get the metal out of the stone. Why hadn't he anticipated this detail?

"No. Not until-the sacrifice," she said.

Var yanked at the other manacle. There seemed to be some give in it.

"I can't let you do this," she said through her tears.

Var ignored her and continued to work on the metal. His sticks would not pry it, being too thick to squeeze in beside her wrist, and the outside offered no purchase. He might hammer the metal with a stone-but the sound would bring the priests-or Minos himself.

Then he was thrown back.

Soli had raised her bare foot and shoved him hard in the chest. Now he understood: she meant it. She would resist him physically not permitting him to labor on the bonds.

That meant he could not free her unless he knocked her out. And what kind of cooperation would she give him thereafter, if he violated her oath by such force?

In any event, he could not bring himself to strike her. Anyone else, yes; Soli, no.

He stood up and faced her. "Then I'll go slay Minos," he said.

"No!" she screamed in horror. "He's a beast! No one can hurt him!"

"I have sworn to kill the man who harms Sola's child," Var said. "I swore it long before you made your oath. Would you have me wait until after the-after the creature comes?"

"But Minos is a god, not a man! You can't kill him!"

"He devours maidens-but he's not a beast?" Then he was ashamed of his irony with her.

"Whatever he is, I must meet him-unless you come with me now."

"I can't."

Var saw that further argument was useless. He marched down the canyon into the labyrinth, heedless of her low cries.

There was a large, open cave where the walls merged. From its rear several smaller passages opened. Van held his sticks up and went cautiously into one.

It led to a medium chamber lined with bones. Van did not investigate them closely; be knew their source. If he did not succeed in his mission, Soli's bones would be added to the collection.

He went on.

The next chamber had several dry skulls. The third was mixed. There was no present sign of Minos.

It occurred to Var that the beast-god could go out and attack Soli while he searched the empty caverns. Hastily he retreated toward the entrance, passing through the skull chamber and an empty one.

And realized that he was lost in the labyrinth. He had missed a passage and now did not know where he was or in what direction lay the entrance. His wilderness exploring sense, normally an automatic guide to such things, had let him down in this moment of preoccupation.

He could find his way out. He could sniff out his own spoor, or, failing that, make lines of bones to show his route, eliminating one false exit after another. But this would take time, and Soli might be in danger this moment. So he acted more directly.

"Minos!" he bawled. "Come fight me!"

"Must I?" a gentle voice replied behind him.

Var whirled. A man stood in one of the passages.

No-not a man. The body was that of a giant warrior, but the head was woolly and horned. No mere beard accounted for the effect. The front of the face pushed out in a solid snout, and the horns sprouted from just above the ears. It was as though the head of a bull had been grafted on to the body of a man. And the feet were hoofs-not blunted toes, like Van's own, but solid round bovine hoofs. The teeth, however, were not herbivorous; they were pointed like those of a hound.

This was Minos. -

Var had seen oddities before and had been expecting something of the sort. He made a motion with one stick, the excitement of battle growing within him. He supposed this was what some called fear.

"What brings you here by day, Var the Stick?' the god inquired quietly. "Always before you have come in darkness, and never to my domicile."

"I came to fight," Var repeated. No one had told him the god could speak, or that he knew so much. How had Minos learned Var's name?

"Of course. But why at this moment? I have a busy day ahead. Yesterday I could have entertained you at greater leisure."

"It is Soli out there. My friend. For the sacrifice. I have sworn to kill the man-or beast, or god-who harms her. But I would not wait to have her harmed,"

Minos nodded, his woolly locks shaking. "You have fidelity and courage. But do you really believe you can kill me?"

"No. But I must try, for I have no life without Soli."

"Come. We can settle this without unpleasantness." Minos turned his broad back and trod down the passage1 his horny feat clicking on the stone.

Var, nonplussed, followed. -

They came to a larger chamber, in whose center was a boulder. "I lift this for exercise,"

Minos said. "Like this." He bent to grapple the stone, seemingly not concerned that an armed enemy stood behind him. Muscles bulged hugely all along his arms and sides and back. Var had not seen might like that since training with the Master.

The stone came up. Minos lifted it to chest height, held it there a few seconds, then eased it down. "Have to watch how you let go these monsters," he panted. "Most hernias come after the load, not during it."

Hestoodback. "Now your turn. If you can hoist it, you may be a match for me."

Var hung his sticks at his belt and approached the rock. The god had trusted him and he was obligated to extend trust in return.

He strained and hauled at no avaiL. He could not budge it. The thing would not even roll.

He gave up. "You're right. I am not as strong as you. But I might beat you in combat."

"Certainly," Mlnos said genially. His face was strong when he spoke, because he had..to stretch his mouth closed around the muzzle and form the words with part of it. Even so, his enunciation was odd. "And we shall fight if you Insist. But let us converse a time first. I seldom have opportunity to chat with an honest man."

Var was amenable. As long as the god was with him, Soli was safe. He wondered what would have happened had he attacked Minos while the god lifted the rock. That boulder might have come flying at him.

They sat on crude chairs fashioned of bone tied with tendon, in another chamber. "Have a bite to eat," Mines said. "I have nuts, berries, bread-and meat, of course. But you know where that comes from."

Var knew. But the notion was not as shocking to him as he knew it was to others, for he had eaten many things in his wild childhood state. "I will share your food."

Mince reached into a pit and drew out a meaty rib. "I roasted these yesterday, so they remain wholesome," he explained, handing it to Var. He lifted a second for himself.

Var gnawed the rib, finding it far more tasty than raw rat meat. He wondered to which maiden it had belonged. Probably the last one; she had cried endlessly as they staked her out, and hadn't been very pretty. A bit fat-as this morsel vetifled. Momentarily queasy, Var washed his first mouthful down with the tepid water Mines provided.

"Where do you originate?" the god inquired.

Var explained about the circle culture.

"I have heard of it," Mines said. "But I must confess I thought it a myth, a fabrication, no offense intended. Now I see that it is a marvelous land indeed. But why did you and the girl depart?"

Var explained that, too. It was remarkably easy to talk to this enemy giant, and not entirely because of the stay it granted Soli.

"And you say her father is a castrate? When did that happen?"

"I don't know. No one spoke of it. I don't see how it could have been while he was Master of Empire, and Soli says it wasn't in the underworld."

"Then it must have been before. Perhaps in childhood. Some tribes, I have heard, practice such things. But in that case-"

Var shrugged. "I don't know."

"Is it possible-I am postulating from ignorance, understand-that the Nameless One is in fact her father?"

Var sat and chewed the maiden-meat, and diverse things began to fall into place in his mind, as though bees were settling into a hive. The Master thought Var had slain his natural daughter!

"Ironic," Minos said. "If that is the case. But the solution is simple. You have merely to show her to him when next you meet."

"Except-"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Do you have to take her?" It was hard to believe' that so affable, reasonable a creature could balk on this point.

Mines sighed. "I am a god. Gods do not follow the conventions of man, by definition. I wish it were otherwise."

"But surely you have enough meat here, to last another month?'

"I do not, for it spoils and I am not a ghoul. Some day I must require them to install refrigeration equipment. 'But that is not the problem. It is not primarily for the meat that I take the sacrifices." ,

Var chewed, not understanding.

"The flesh is only an incidental product," Mnos said. "I use it because it is handy and I dislike waste. I make the best of the situation foisted on me by the temple."

"The temple makes you do this?"

"All temples, all religions make their gods perform similarly. So it has always been, even before the Blast. The New Crete priests pretend that they serve Minos, but Minos serves them. It is a method of population control, in part, for the birthrate is governed by the percentage of nubile girls in the population. But mostly it is a way to retain power that would otherwise drift with the winds of politics and time. The common people have an abiding fear of me. I lurk near the bedstead of every disobedient child, I breathe misfortune on every tax-evader. I impregnate the wanton wives. Yet I am single and mortal. The temple produced me by mutation and operation-"

"Like the Master!" Var exclaimed.

"So it seems. I should like to meet that man some day."

And in the course of that adaptation to godhood, they provided me with-this." Mines opened his garment. Var was impressed. "The opposite of castration, you see. My appetite differs correspondingly from that of the normal male. But it waxes only with the moon."

"Then Soli-and the others-"

"You will note that I have stayed well within my domidile. Should I go near enough to the entrance to pick up the nuptial odor I should immediately lose control of myself. That is the way I have been designed; it is in my blood, my brain, my gonad. My onslaught is such that my partner does not survive."

Var pictured the member he had just seen, and the force with which it would be wielded, and shuddered to remember that Soli awaited this. Better a full under hand smash by a club!

"Why don't they provide-old women?"

"Who would die soon anyway? Because they are not virgins. Minos must have chastity. This is part of it. My glands simply do not tolerate any other condition."

This seemed remarkable to Vat, but no more so than other things he had seen and learned in his travels. "What happens if a mistake is made if the sacrifice is not chaste?"

Minos smiled hideously, all his teeth exposed on one side. "Why then I betake myself to the temple and I raise a fuss. And it is said that bad luck follows for a month."

Var attacked the last of his repast. He remembered something. "Do you know about the amazons-the hivewomen?"

"Oh, yes. Fascinating subculture there. I had them in mind when I mentioned ritual mutilation."

"The men-how do they do it?"

"No problem at all. The women do it. Simple manipulation of the prostate and seminal vesicles so as to force out the ejaculate at the critical moment. Not the most comfortable mode for the man, particularly if he has hemorrhoids or if she has a broken fingernail, but effective enough."

Var nodded, not caring to admit that this explained nothing to him. He had never heard of a prostate, and obviously babies were not conceived by fingernails, whole or broken.

The meal was done. "I must fight you," Var said.

"Surely you know I would kill you. I should think you would find a more romantic solution, pun intended. I would not like to have the blood of both of you on my horns-not when you have traveled so far, and worked so hard, and suffered such ironies already. Particularly when it is so easily avoided."

Var looked at him, not understanding. "She won't go with me. Not until the sacrifice."

Minos stoad up. "There are things a god does not tell a man. Go now, or assuredly we shall fight, for the need is rising in me."

Var drew his sticks.

Minos knocked them numbingly from his hands with one lightning swipe. "Go! I will not reason with a fool."

Var, seeing that it was hopeless, picked up his sticks and went. This time he found the proper passage.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Soli remained at the rock. Var ran to her. "You must go with me. Minos is coming!"

She hardly seemed surprised to see him alive. "I know, it is nearly noon." Her fair face was reddening in the slanting sun, and her lips were cracked.

"He doesn't want to kill you! But he has to, if he finds you here."

"Yes." She was crying again, but he could tell from her expression that she had not changed her mind.

"I can't stop him. I'll try, but he will kill us both."

"Then go!" she screamed at him explosively. "I did this to save your stupid life. Why throw it away?"

"Why?" he screamed back. "I would rather die than have you die! You gave me nothing!"

She glared at him, abruptly calm. "Sosa told me all men were fools."

Var didn't see the relevance. But before he could speak again, there was a bellow from the labyrinth.

"Minos!" she - whispered, terrified. "Oh, Var please, please, please go! It's too late for me now."

The shape of the giant loomed at the cave entrance. Vapor snorted from the god's nostrils.

Var threw himself on Soli as though to shield her from the onslaught of the god, knowing this to be futile but determined not to desert her. He held her close and tight though she fought him, tearing his clothing with her feet and teeth. Finally he got her body pinned firmly against the wall so that her legs split and kicked behind him ineffectively while she hung by the manacles. "I will not leave you," he panted in her tangled hair.

Then her resistance collapsed. "Oh, Var, I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I love you, you idiot."

There was no time to be amazed. He kissed her savagely, hearing the tramp of Mines' hoofs, the blast of Minos' breath.

Desperately they embraced, experiencing what had been building for three years; compressing it all into these last moments. Sharing their love absolutely, exquisitely, painfully.

And Minos came, and stopped, and paused, and made a noise half fury and half laughter, and passed on.

Only then did Var realize what had happened. What Minos had tried, subtly, to suggest to him.

He had, indeed, been a fool. Almost.

There were screams from the temple as Var yanked and pried and banged at the manacles still pinning Soli's bruised wrists against the stone. If he could get even one prong out, her hand would be free-but the stone and metal were, too strong.

He found a corroded spike in the dirt just beyond the canyon and wedged it under one bond and pounded it with a stone-and finally, reluctantly, one prong pulled out. But his spike snapped as he pried up, and was useless for the other manacle.

The furor at the temple subsided. After an interval Minos came back, carrying two bodies.

Var and Soli waited apprehensively.

The god halted.. "This one's the high priestess," he remarked with satisfaction. "She deserved this, if anyone does. Poetic justice." He looked at Soli, who averted her face.

"Hold this," Mines said, handing Var a dead girl. Var took her, not knowing how to decline. She was about Soli's age, still warm, and blood dripped from her. There was something incredible about her posture, even in death; it was as though her guts had been pulped, leavng a humanshaped shell. He knew how close this corpse had come to being Soli herself. -

Minos reached forth with the hand thus freed and grasped the stubborn manacle. The muscles of that great arm twitched. The metal popped out of the wall with a spray of stone and fell to the ground. Soli was free.

Then the god fished a small package from his torn clothing and gave It to Soli, forcing it into her reluctant band. "A gift," he said. "There never was anything personal about this-but i'm glad you became ineligible."

Soli did not answer, but she held on to the package. Mines took back the second corpse and marched into his labyrinth, humming a merry tune. He bad reason to be happy: he would eat well this month.

'We'd better get out of here before the temple recovers," Van said. "Come on." He took Soli's hand and led her away.

Once they were In the forest he took off his tattered shirt and put it about her. It formed into a short, baggy, but rather attractive dress, for her exposed legs were firm, her torso slender, and her face, despite the sunburn, lovely.

Soli, mutely curious, opened the package Mines had given her. It contained two keys and a paper with writing on it. She stared.

"What good are keys?" Var demanded. "We have no house."

"They belong to a powerboat," she said, reading the paper.

There were sea-charts aboard the craft, and numerious tanks of gasoline and fresh water and canned goods. How Mines had arranged this they could not guess, but the boat had obviously been ready long before the two of them had entered the picture. Perhaps he had intended to escape himself, but had given up the notion because of his biological urgencies. 'Or maybe he was less a slave to the temple than he had admitted. He could have many luxurious boats tucked away....

From the maps they learned that they were far south of where they had supposed. The tunnel to China-actually, to Siberia-left from farther along. They had taken the Aleutian series, that led nowhere. However, with this stout craft it should be possible to make the crossing, following the island chain to the Kamchatka peninsula. From there they could either trek overland north and west and south around the Sea of Okhótsk, or continue island hopping directly southwest toward Japan.

Var's head spun with the unfamiliar names Soli pieced out. This weird map was like the Master's books: it predated the Blast, and so contained much nonsense. Some of the islands might not be there any more.

Somehow neither person suggested that they go back- back past the amazon hive, on to Alaska, north to the true crossing. Or even back to America. China had become a fixed objective, for no good reason now. Obviously they were not going to be satisfied with anyone's culture but their own. And if the Master were still on their trail, he should have caught up by this time.

They could go home and soli could rejoin whichever father she chose, and Var could be a warrior again, and their relationship would be over. They would never need to see each other again. Yet they continued, west, nonsensically.

A storm blew up and they hastily docked the boat on the shore of a deserted islet. Then fair weather, and they moved through deep water at top speed, letting the fine engine do the work.

-

They did not discuss the implications of what they had done to escape Minos, and after a time it became as though it had not happened. Indeed, the entire New Crete residence of two years tended to exist itself as a thing apart, an unreal memory. Soli was the child again, Var the ugly warrior.

But with a difference. Hide it as they might, Soli was nubile and Var male. They could no longer embrace with complete innocence and candor, for now an embrace implied an adult relationship and inspired adult reactions that neither cared to admit. Nor could they talk quite so frankly, for the frankest subject of all was sex.

They were not ready for love. For a moment it had been forced upon them, emotionally and physically, but that moment had faded like the storm tide, and they were left to their unfridged isolation. Two people united by a common purpose and an unspoken affection.

This was, at any rate, the way Var saw it, though he did not work it out neatly or consciously. More than once he observed Soli staring at his bracelet. Perhaps she was remembering the way she had preserved it for him, at the near sacrifice of her own life. He was sorry that he had told her this was foolish, for that must have hurt her feelings-but it was true. Had the bracelet been sold, they need never have suffered those two years on New Crete.

That reminded him circularly of another point, the one Minos had made. Could the Master be Soli's natural father? Now this seemed less reasonable than it had in the cave, and Var could not bring himself to present the notion openly. How would Soli react, having the paternity of Sol questioned? She loved Sol dearly, and hardly knew the Master. And if it were true, how would the Master react, knowing that Var had lied to him, making him believe his daughter had been slain?

And when he learned what had happened on New Crete, what Soli had been set up for, how she bad been reprieved....

The wide expanse of the sea went on and on, hypnotic, beautiful, boring. The sparse islands were barren, and did not conform exactly to the indications of the map. They took turns steering, following a marking on the compass- a dial that always pointed north. The sun and the stars also sewed, and whenever they encountered a feature recognizable on the map, they corrected course accordingly.

And a few days after they thought the ocean would never end, they sighted the mainland of Asia.

And the people spoke incomprehensibly.

"Yes, of course," Soi said in response to his bewilderment. "They speak Chinese. Or they will, when we reach China. The map says' it's-well, see, we have a long way 'to go yet."

Two thousand miles or more, it seemed to Var. Months of travel.

They were sick of the ocean, but the overland route looked worse. They searched out a place to buy gasoline, paying for it with artifacts from the boat, and hopped southwest along what the map called the Kuril islands, then north inside of Sakhalin, and finally back to the mainland of Manchuria. The preposterous pre-Blast names were fascinating.

Now the land route promised to be more direct and safe. They had either to use the boat or dispose of it, and they remained more at home afoot. So, regretfully, they decided to sell it.

They went to a place that had similar craft and inquired until an old man was brought who spoke a little American.

"America?" he asked, amazed. "Destroyed-Blast."

By and by they conducted a party to the boat, and the sale was completed. Soli was cynical about the value, expecting to be cheated, but there seemed to be little choice. At any rate, they obtained enough currency to buy local outfits and equipment, and some Written primers in the language-including an ancient, pre-Blast text with American equivalents.

They hiked again and drilled each other on the written symbols. Soli-said they were not like-the writing-she knew, but that they made sense once she got used to them. And though there were many spoken dialects, so that travelers like them would be constantly confused, the Written, language covered the entire region. With these symbols they could always communicate-provided they met someone literate.

Overall, the landscape resembled what they had known on the other continent-mountainous, wild, and riddled by patches of badlands radiation. The natives near the coast were civilized in the fashion of New Crete-without human sacrifice, but with other cultural problems. Those inland were more primitive-like the American nomads, but without the substantial benefits of crazy technology or supplied hostels. Most left the strangers alone, but some were belligerent, and no circle circumscribed the combat.

Had Var and Soli not been apt at self-defense, they would not have lived very long.

They followed the river Amur inland, not from any love of the water but because it showed the best route through the formidable mountain ranges. When it veered northwest, they shifted to a large tributary. Months passed and they came at last to the fringe of the actual Chinese territories. The Chinese influence, like that of the crazies in America, extended through the entire region, perhaps all the continent; but their written language unified the diverse peoples in a subtle but comprehensive way. Var, having learned the very real constraints upon the seemingly free nomad society, was sure that similar factors operated here.

Similar in principle, if not in detail. There must, indeed, be a Chinese Helicon.

Yet as they neared their supposed destination, their camaraderie became more strained.

Soli was filling out, and Var was too well aware of this. Sometimes be touched his bracelet, thinking of offering it to her-but this always reminded him of what had happened when he first took his manhood. Girls of band-borrowing age did not appreciate ugly men, and Var knew himself to be grotesque.

And she was beautiful. Perhaps in the flower of her maidenhood her mother Sola bad been like this, so lovely that the mightiest warriors of the age contested for her favor and lived lies without complaint. Soli tended to hide her charms under rough, loose clothing; but when she bathed-as she did even now without embarrassment- her naked body was wonderous.

Soli had never remarked on it, but she could hardly favor his mottled skin, battered countenance and clubbed extremities. Children did not care so much about such things, but Soli would never be a child again.

Var saw, occasionally, the literate ladies of this core Chinese culture. They were like crafted dolls, delicate and delightful, their motions constrained, their demeanors diffident In contrast, the peasant women were brutes-stout, plain, hunched of body, coarse of expression.

Var knew that the wandering life he was making for SoIi would shape her into the peasant mold. He could not bear the thought. Increasingly it preyed upon him, and when hO saw some crone be fancied Soli's face on her.

The background level of civilization rose as they entered the Chinese heartland. The people here were yellowish of skin and their eyes were different, and their manners tended to be almost ritualistically polite. The women were eloquent-the highborn ones. Var learned that they attended institutions somewhat like the crazy schools, that brought them to the mature state.

Then, as sophisticated ladies, they married, and did not do hand labor again. House-hold servants performed the chores.

Var decided that this would be a better life for Soli. But he didn't know how to explain this philosophy, and feared she would not understand his intent, so he didn't try.

One night when she slept beside him in the forest, he rose stealthily. She woke, however.

"Var?"

"Have to-you know," he said, feeling a pang of guilt for his lie. To reassure her, he urinated noisily against a tree, then squatted. In a moment her breathing became even and he moved quietly away.

Just as he passed beyond the normal hearing range, he heard something-either an animal moving, or Soli rolling over and striking dry leaves. His pang came again, quite forcefully, and he wavered and almost went back. But he heard nothing else, and forced himself to go on.

He ran five miles back to one of the schools they had passed that day. He pounded on the gate for admittance and finally roused an old caretaker-a near-sighted, graybearded, bony man who was not pleased to be disturbed at this hour. Var tried to talk to him, but his words were evidently of the wrong dialect and inadequate to the concept. He did make the oldster understand that he had to see the authority figure for the school. With grumbling, the man retired into the bowels of the building to search that person out, while Var waited nervously outside the gate.

Ten minutes later he was admitted to the presence of the head matron. She had obviously just gotten up, and wore a nightrobe, but he could tell from her aspect that she was sharp of mind. Her face was lined though she was heavyset, and her hair was glossy black.

She could not understand him either, though she appeared to speak a number of dialects.

Then she made a symbol on a sheet of paper, and Var knew they could coinmunicate after all. For these symbols were universal, here, and had the same meaning regardless of the dialect spoken, or even the language. Var was borderline-literate, now, so far as these symbols were concerned; he had picked up several hundred in the past few months; as had Soli, and could use them for making purchases and clarifying posted directives such as 'Radiation Ahead."

For two hours they passed messages back and forth. At the end of that silent dialogue Var had purchased admittance for Soli to the school. He was to pay the tuition by doing brutework for the maintenance department.

He described her location, and a party went out, armed.

Var reported to the cellar, where the gray-bearded man showed him to a wooden bunk near the giant furnace. He was now the assistant to this man, for good or ill.

He had sold them both into a kind of servitude. But Soli would emerge with her future secure.

It was a month before he saw her again, for the hired help had no legitimate contact with the elite girls. But as he hauled wood and peat for the furnace, and pounded stakes for new fencing, and carried supplies for the daily wagon to the kitchen, and did the thousand things the older man had somehow managed before, he picked up hints. He mastered the common local words and received the local gossip.

They had brought in a spitfire that night. A wild country urchin who struck out with sticks as devastatingly as a seasoned fighting man. They had threatened her with guns, but she had not yielded, and they had not dared to use them because she was supposed to be captured and trained as a lady. They had finally subdued her with a net, after suffering several casualties.

Soli! Soli! Var ached with her misery, ashamed -to have brought this on her. How could she know that it was for the best, that she might spend the rest of her life at leisure?

The old man shook his head. He could not understand why they should want to train a wild peasant-and an outlander at that, for she was fair of skin and round of eye. But rather attractive, he confessed, once subdued and cleaned up.

Var realized that the man made no connection between him and Soli. This once, his discoloration had worked to his advantage. He wanted to watch, to be sure the terms of the bargain were fulfilled-but not to associate with her, for that would hurt her manufactured image. She was to be a lady; he could never be a gentleman.

Then he was cutting back shrubbery beside the wall and she was taken for a walk inside the grounds. He saw her with a matron and three other girls, dressed in chaste gowns. He was reminded horribly of her stay in New Crete, waiting for the sacrifice. Then, as now, he had been the instrument that confined her. The whole thing suddenly seemed so similar that ho longed to grab her and run for the forest and undo what he had done.

He averted his face, afraid of the cónsequence if she should see him now.

The little party walked along the flowered pathway, treading in step to the murmured cadence of the matron. Each girl took tiny steps. Var heard the petite patter, aware of their motions peripherally. They were learning to walk like ladies, daintily, intriguingly.

Var continued clipping, his back to the walk. The girls passed so close he could smell their fragrance. They did not stop. After a while they were guided inside, and Var was both relieved and saddened. It would have been folly to speak to Soli-but the urge had been almost unbearably strong.

Regret it as he might, he knew that the school was honoring the agreement they had made.

He could not be the first to break it.

That night, as the oldster lay in the heat ready to sleep, a hooded visitor came to the cellar. The old man went to investigate, was given something, and stood aside. The figure came to stan4 over Var's bunk.

Jarred out of his reverie, Var looked up.

It was Soli. Her eyes were luminous under the hood.

"You did it," she said softly.

Var just looked at her, struck by the beauty of her features. Already the training had had its impact on her bearing, and the cosmetics had enhanced her splendor.

"I saw you in the garden," she murmured, continuing to look down on him with an expression he did not understand.

Then her hand came from under the cloak,' holding a slipper. Down it came against his stomach, stingingly.

"I thought you were dead!" she cried, and now he recognized her emotion: fury. Then she turned and left.

She had thought him dead. He had never suspected that, but in retrospect it was obvious.

Attacked in the night, captured, hauled away to a strange institution without sight of him-what would her natural interpretation have been, except that he had been killed in the same, fracas? So she had resigned herself. .. and discovered, suddenly that it was a lie.

Why had he meddled? He had never intended to have it come out that way.

The old man returned, chuckling. Obviously he had now made the connection between the spitfire and the handyman. Would he keep the confidence? It didn't matter, since the arrangement was legitimate and Soli knew the truth.

Var lay awake a long time, not certain whether to be pleased or saddened by Soli's attitude. The sudden sight of her had been a shocking stimulus. So lovely, so angry! Did she hate him for deceiving her? Or would she recognize the advantage he had arranged for her? Surely she could see' that they could not have wandered endlessly across the continents of the world. A beautiful girl and an ugly man. Such a life would not hurt him, of course, for he had no higher potential; indeed. It would be easy for bins to revert to the wi1d state and range the badlands.

But Soli- Soli could be the Lady, graceful and cultured. He owed it to her to make that life possible.

He still felt guilty. He still longed for her free companionship, as it, had been in the early days, before New Crete. It was impossible, for she would never be young again, but still he wished, and suffered.

Two weeks later, as he gathered fallen wood in the forest and loaded it on a hand wagon for hauling, she came to him again. This time she was dressed in boy's clothes, with her hair concealed and artful smudges on her face. She looked like a marauding urchin-a guise she had long been versed in, as he knew.

"I'm running away," she said. "Come with me, as you used to."

Var grabbed her and carried her back toward the school enclosure. She could have disabled him in a number of ways, but she offered only token resistance.

"I know you're paying for me," she said. "I hate you."

He knew she didn't mean it, but the words stung just the same.

"Why do you want me here?" she asked pitifully. "Why can't we tour the countryside together? That's all I want."

Var shifted his grip and continued carrying. She was lithe in his arms, all curve and tension.

She drew her head up and kissed him on the lips, as a woman might. As Sola, her mother, had. "Just to be with you, Var."

Temptation smote him savagely. It was the child he remembered, but the woman had hold on his longing too. Yet he walked, unanswering.

"Do you want me to cry?" But she didn't cry, though it would have broken him. And when he didn't answer, she murmured: "I'm sorry I hit you with my slipper." And then, when they came in sight of the buildings: "It should have been a star"

And had she had a morningstar mace, he reflected, she might very well have bashed him with it, such was her momentary fury.

He turned her over to a matron. As he tromped dejectedly back to the forest he heard her beginning screams, part agony, part rage. They were beating her for the infraction. The instrument was padded, so as not to leave any disfiguring mark, but he knew it hurt. And they both had known the penalty. The matron had made that clear at the outset: discipline was her watchword.

But Soli, veteran of stick combat, could not be made to scream through pain. She was merely letting Var know, and satisfying the matron, who of course was not fooled. The ritual had to be complete, lest the other girls grow similarly wilful.

Var was given one day off in every ten, though he was willing to work. The head matron, fair-minded, insisted on this too. There was a town near by, and his second holiday he went there to look about. But he was not comfortable and a number of the natives treated him with subtle disrespect, not desiring his company. It was so hard to know when to smile and when to react, when no circle marked the boundary between courtesy and combat. Once a young rowdy laid a hand on him and Var struck him to the ground, but it changed nothing.

No-for him the badlands were best. He understood neither this' culture nor the American nomad culture, and was better off alone. Once he bad seen Soli through the training; he would doff civilization of any type and become completely, happily wild.

But he remembered Soli, and knew that he was deceiving himself. He would never be happy without her, child or woman.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"I have found out whose men have been assembling here the past month," the oldster said.

In the course of nearly a year Var had learned to converse with him, though he had never had occasion to learn his name. The man was always full of gossip, and Var was not interested. He bad observed the troops and known them to be the advance guard for some royal personage. Most of the girls of the school were high born, and it was a mark of distinction to graduate and de$rt in style with an armed retinue, even if one had to be hired for the purpose. Often the men assembled in advance, waiting for their masters to appear, so that as the end of term approached the school grounds resembled a battle camp. Var had jousted familiarily with some, showing off his ability with the sticks. But most were armed with handguns.

"The ones in gold livery," the oldster said, perceiving the waning attention of his limited audience. "Who speak to no one and drill on a private field."

Those were intriguing. No one seemed to know which lord they served or what girl would be honored by them- but over a score were present, in beautifully matched üniforms. And they were crack troops; Var had covertly observed their practice maneuvers and firing.

Seeing that he had Var's interest at last, the oldster Continued: "They serve the emperor of Ch'in. He must have chosen another bride."

Var was impressed. Ch'in controlled the largest of the rival kingdoms of the south, and through political intrigue and judicious force of arms had expanded his sphere of influence considerably in the last generation. Just as the Master had controlled an empire in America, this man had built one here in China-though it was not as large as the Master's and did not extend into the region this school was located in. He had at least thirty wives already, but was always on the lookout for attractive girls or politically expedient unions. Evidently his eye had fallen on one of these here, and he intended to see that nothing happened to her before he arrived.

But none of that concerned Var. He hoped to see Soli graduated and placed in some prosperous household, after which he could retreat to the badlands. He would regret never seeing her again-regret it intensely-but this was the hard choice he had made when he brought her to the school. She would, in time, be happy, and that was what was most important. Her childhood was behind her, and he was part of that childhood.

The head matron summoned him. "I have excellent news for you," she said, studying him in a way that hinted at a dark side to that news. "We have found a placement for your ward."

The information crushed him. Suddenly he realized what the matron had probably known all along: that he didn't want Soli placed. He couldn't voluntarily give her up, when that moment came, despite all his plans and pretensions.

"That is what you required," she reminded him gently.

"Yes." He felt numb.

"And as is customary in such cases, her tuition will be refunded. We shall return it to you in lieu of your wages this past year. You will find it to be a comfortable amount."

Var followed this with difficulty. "You-aren't charging for her training?"

"Certainly we're charging! We are not a charitable institution. But another party has undertaken to cover it. So it is no longer necessary for you to do so, though we have been well satisfied with your contribution. We shall be owing you money, as I said, at graduation."

"Who-why-?"

"The lord who is to marry her, of course." Again that intent look. "We're rather pleased with this placement; it is an auspicious one."

"Ch'in!" he cried, making the connection.

"He prefers anonymity, prior to the ceremony," she said. "That is why I did not mention it to you before. But you do deserve to know, and with his livery so evident.... He desired a foreign bride, being momentarily sated with domestic affairs."

Her nicety of expression was wasted on him. "But Ch'in!"

"Isn't this what you said you wanted? The highest possible placement for your ward, that she should never again be in want, never again run with a savage?" Once more that obscure glance.

Yes, it was what he had wanted. What he had thought he had wanted, once. The matron had more than fulfilled the bargain. He could not back out of it now.

"it is not necessary for you to be separated from her," she continued with a certain wise compassion. "The Emperor Ch'in is always in the market for strong men-at-arms. . . and he seldom pays close attention to a wife for more than a year. His earlier wives have considerable freedom.

. . provided they are circumspect."

Var had once been naive about such things, but he had learned from experience. In this land, the appearance was often more important than the reality as it was in America, too. She was suggesting to him that he take service with the emperor now. . . and make his overtures to Soli after a year or so, when she might have borne a child to Ch'in and when some newer bride would command Ch'in's attention. Such arrangements were common, and the emperor, though cognizant, did not object-so long as no public issue was made. Soli could have a royal life, and Var could have Soli-if he were patient and discreet.

The matron had showed him the expedient course. He thanked her and left. But he was not satisfied, and expedience had seldom appealed to him before. Suddenly the thought of Soli rolling in the arms of a stout Chinese emperor repelled him. He had never thought it through to this moment to realize that she would buy her luxury with her body, as surely as he 'had bought her training with his own body. He was furiously jealous-of the suitor he had never seen, and whom Soli had never seen.

He remembered Soli's insistence that she did not favor the schooling and only wanted to travel with him. Now, suddenly, this loomed far more importantly. Now that she could marry richly-would she feel the same?

It became imperative that he ask her.

But of course he could not simply walk into the school dormitory and put the question to her there. There were strict regulations. She would be beaten if she were caught speaking to him, just as any girl was beaten who disobeyed any school rule, however minor. But this late in the term they were supposed to discipline themselves, and increasing social stigmata attached to infractions. Soli, a foreigner, had become quite as sensitive to this as any native. So- Var approached cautiously. She would speak to him if he were circumspect: that is, if they were not caught.

And he discovered that the emperor's men were on the job. Every approach to Soli's dormitory was subtly guarded.

Var, not to be put off by merely physical barriers, picked the weakest section of the defense and moved through. This was the garden behind her second-floor window. He intended only to knock the lone sentry out with one blow from one stick-but the man was alert, and escaped the blow, and fired his pistol. Var brought him down, but roughly, and there was no chance to scale the Wall before reinforcements came.

They were well organized, and they had rifles. A semicircle of uniformed men closed in, pinning him in a shrinking area beside the wall. A vehicle crashed through the bushes, making him wince because he had carefully tended those plants. A light speared from it, catching him.

Var stood still, knowing he was trapped. He had not suspected that they would act so competently. He could not make a break against lights and guns.

"Who is it?" a voice called from the truck.

"A maintenance worker," another replied. "I've seen him around."

'What is he doing here?"

"He cuts the hedges."

"At night?"

"What are you doing here, laborer?" This was directed at Var.

"I have to talk to-a girl," he. said, realizing that he was hurting himself by his directness.

"Which girl?"

There was a huddle behind the light. Var remembered that they had renamed Soli for school purposes, in the interest of minimizing her vulgar origin. The name he had used was not familiar to them, and he could avoid the truth even now. "The one you guard-betrothed to Ch'in."

"Bring him to the barracks," the officer snapped.

They brought him. "What do you want of this girl?" the officer demanded, in the privacy of the temporary building the soldiers used.

"To take her away, if she wants to come." The truth comforted him in the telling, despite the effect it had on these men. He did want Soli, even though it might cost her luxury. He knew that now.

"Do you understand that we shall kill anyone who tries such a thing?"

"Yes."

The officer paused, thinking him a fool or a simpleton.

"You struck down the sentry?'

"Yes."

"Why do you want to take this particular girl?"

"I love her."

"Why do you think she might go with you, an ugly hunchback, when the pinnacle is within her reach by staying?"

"I brought her."

"You knew her before?"

"For four years we traveled together."

"Fetch the matron," the officer said to one of the men. "Heat the knife," he said to another. And to Var: "If she denies your story, you shall die as an example to those who would thwart Ch'in. If she confirms it, you will merely lose your interest in this girl. In any girl."

Var watched the knife being turned over and over in the flame of a great candle and pondered how many he could kill before that blade touched him.

The matron came. "It is true," she said. "He brought her, and has paid for her keep by his labors, and kept her here when she wanted to escape. It is his right to take her away again-if she wishes to accompany him."

"It was his right," the officer said grimly, "until the Emperor Ch'in selected her for his retinue. No other rights exist."

She faced him without alarm. "We are not in Ch'in's demesne."

"You may readily be added to it, madam."

She shrugged. "A strike into this region at this time would unite the enemies of Ch'in in the north, at a time when his main force is occupied to the south. Is one bride worth it?"

The officer pondered, taken aback by the political acumen of the matron. "The Emperor does not wish bloodshed to mar his wedding day. We shall pay this man a fair price for his prior claim, and deport him unharmed from the vicinity. Should he return before the nuptial, he will be held until that day is passed-then suffer the death of a thousand cuts." He fetched a bag of coins.

"This will cover it."

The matron looked at Var soberly. "His compromise is reasonable. Accept it, nomad. And take this too." She handed him a packet

Var was reminded of the manner of Minos, god of New Crete, as he gave Soli the keys to the power boat. He realized that in some subtle manner she was helping him. He could either start fighting now-sure death, however many he took with him-or trust her guidance and acquiesce to the officer's terms.

He accepted the money and the package and accompanied the guards to their truck. He had not given up, but this did seem to be the best present course.

Six hours later he was set down, alone, a hundred miles to the north. Dawn was breaking over the badlands.

The packet contained a map and a human thumb.

The map was routine, covering all this region. Except for a single location marked in red.

The thumb- Var was familiar with digits, since his own were mis-, shapen. He could recognize certain men as readily by their hands as by their faces. This was not a Chinese digit; was American. Massive, with fine mesh under the skin, scarred.

This was the Master's thumb.

Obviously the matron knew where the Master was alive or dead, and had known for some time.

She must then also know the connection between Var and Soli and the Nameless One. Now she had chosen to reveal her information to Var. Why?

He shook his head, not comprehending that part of it. She was an honest woman, but, like so many of these people, mysterious in her ways.

He had less than a fortnight to recover Soli-if he intended to do so before Ch'in took her to his couch. If he wanted to present her with a fair choice between the ugly nomad and the rich powerful emperor.

He could return to the school in time, for they had underestimated his capacity for walking. But he knew the officer had not been bluffing about the fate that awaited him there. And suddenly he was unsure what Soli's reaction would be. She had been angry with him, and she could have a luxurious life.

He could get to the indicated spot on the map in a week's strenuous marching. Surely the Master's thumb had come from there. It was time for him to settle his difference with his longtime friend and mentor-or to know for certain that it could never be settled. If the great man were dead.

It was an arena. Gladiators met each other and wild animals in mortal combat, for the delight of paying spectators. The star attraction was a pair of foreign savages- prisoners captured half a year before by troops of a lesser kingdom in a border skirmish. Sol and the Master, of course.

Brief inquiry enabled Var to come at some semblance of the truth. The two had followed Var into the Aleutian tunnel but, more canny than he, had avoided the menace of the automatic sweeper.

They had fought off the amazons, but had been balked by the radiation at the bridge. So they had taken the long way round, knowing that Var would not stop until he reached the mainland across the ocean. Back through the tunnel, overland north to the true transpacific tunnel, and down the Asiatic coast. They had traversed a lot of territory, fighting off enemies of animate and inanimate types, and had taken years in the process. Then they had run afoul of one border patrol too many-actually a quasi-official bandit band-and had been taken under the threat of massed rifles.

After their wounds had healed, the two had been sold to the arena. Their left thumbs had been cut off, to mark their status. Now they were earning out their contracts-at fees that would necessitate a decade to meet the price.

"I will pay off the contract," Var said. He put the bag of coins into the hand of the agent at the gate.

The man counted the money and nodded. "Ch'in currency. Very strong. For which one?"

Var described the Master.

"Very well." Var had expected haggling, for his little bag could hardly be worth a ten-year contract. The man gave him a receipt, written in the Chinese symbols. Var took it eagerly and entered the grounds, finding his way toward the gladiators' accommodations. It had been surprisingly easy.

But he had a second thought, and paused to puzzle out the symbols. The note was phony it granted admission to the grounds and nothing else. He bad been cheated.

Angry, he started back-but soon realized that the man would have hidden the money and perhaps disappeared himself, after this illicit haul. No one else would choose to believe Var's complaint. Arenas were known to be dens of vice and corruption; he should have been alert.

Still, they had set the pattern, meeting his honest if naive approach with dishonesty.

Var's ethics of civilization were not fundamentally ingrained, for he had come by them only through his contact with the Master, and had not had them reinforced by his adventures beyond America. He treated other men as they treated hini-and he knew how to look out for himself, thus warned.

He threw away the paper and continued to the gladiatonal pen. This was a high wire stockade at whose corners wooden towers rose. A man with a rifle stood watch within each edifice, facing toward the center.

Nearby were the animal cages. Tigers, bison, snakes, vicious dogs-and some mutants from the badlands. These were set up as a sideshow when not in use. From the healing wounds some had, Var inferred that they were used repeatedly. Probably the gladiators were given a bonus for defeating an animal impressively without killing it.

He scouted the rest of the compound. This was an off day. The shows only took place every three of four afternoons. Relatively few sightseers like himself were about. In one side lot there Were several trucks, used for transporting animals and equipment from time to time. The show traveled every few months, seeking new pasture and new audience-and perhaps as a hedge against too great an accumulation of vengeance-minded suckers.

Satisfied, Var retreated to a comfortable wilderness patch and slept. He would be busy tonight.

At night, refreshed, Var re-entered the compound, using his well-versed stealth. He prised down a window in a locked truck, got the door open, used pliers on the wiring in the manner he had learned as a handyman dealing with balky equipment, and unblocked the wheels. Then he moved to the nearest guard tower, climbed it noiselessly and tapped the rifleman on the head with a makeshift singlestick. He did the same for the second tower, having learned from his brief experience with Ch'in's men not to give a man with a gun any chance to react. The section of fence between these two points was partially out of sight of the far towers, so a passage was clear. Var took metal clippers and made a hole. He entered, carrying a handgun and flashlight taken from the second guard.

The gladiators were in a locked shed that reeked of excrement. Var used screwdriver and crowbar to unlock it with minimum noise, working on the side away from the manned towers. He knew the occupants would overhear, but would not give him away. They might, however, attempt to overpower him and make their own escape. He had to be ready.

He kicked open the door, shone the light inside, and stood back. "I have a gun," he said softly in the local dialect. Then, in American: "Come out singly and make no sound-if you want your freedom."

"Var the Stick!" the Master said at once, but low, for he was well aware that they had to stay below the hearing level of the tower guards. His bulk showed in the doorway. "Do you bring a gun to meet me?"

That familiar voice sent a shiver through him, but Var answered firmly. "No. This is not the circle. You swore to kill me because you thought I had killed your daughter. I did not kill her. I will take you to her now."

There was a long pause. "Not my daughter-his," the Master said at last. And Sol appeared beside him, a somber shape. "We suspected as much, when we had the description of the boy you traveled with. But we didn't know- and you kept running~ So we had to follow."

So the entire chase had been for nothing! Var could have taken Soli to the Master, or even let Sol see her, that time they met in the circle, and the oath would have been voided. It would not even have affected the contest for the mountain, because Bob had already reniged on that agreement. Such irony!

Var looked up to discover the Master before him, well within striking range. But of course the Weaponless would not have struck, outside the circle-not against one who shared that convention. And had he wanted to violate the code, he could have thrown something. Except that his thumb was missing; that would have made it harder.

"I should have questioned you," the Nameless One said. "A day after you were gone, I knew I had acted wrongly, for you had done only what I sent you to do. It was the mountain Helicon that betrayed us both. Betrayed Sol too, for he did not know that his child had been sent-until he learned that she was dead."

Var remembered that Soli had said her parents hadn't known, that Bob almost never told the truth, and that she had cooperated because of Bob's threat against their lives. Ugly business-the underworld master's revenge for the nomad attack. "That's why he came-to avenge her?"

"To bury her. He had already avenged her when he slew Bob and fired Heicon. Sosa-disappeared in that carnage. All that was left was to bury Soli-but he could not find her body. So he came-and by the time we met and worked it out, you were gone again, with your... sister."

They were wasting time. "Come with me," Var said. "She is in-in a school. There will be trouble."

It was as though there bad never been strife between them. They came: the Master, Sol, and four other gladiators of diverse and grotesque aspect. Var led them through the fence and past the animal cages, ready to loose the beasts upon the compound if any alarm were cried. But, almost disappointingly, there was no disturbance. They piled into the truck and Var started it, using the shorted wiring. They were off.

Emperor Ch'in had arrived, together with more of his retinue, by the time the truckful of gladiators nudged into the vicinity and parked surreptitiously near the school grounds. Uniformed troops were everywhere. A frontal attack would have been sheer folly. And-they still were not sure how Soli would feel about it.

"She did not ask to attend the school?" the Master inquired. "She was satisfied to travel with you?"

"So she said," Var admitted. "A year ago. But she was growing up...."

"Now she is grown-why should the situation be otherwise? Would you have her roam again?"

Terrible uncertainty smote him. "I don't know."

"This Ch'in-I have heard of him. Isn't that a good marriage?"

"Yes."

"But you don't want her to have it?"

Var became even more confused. "I want to talk to her. If she wants to marry Ch'in-"

The Master grunted. "We shall put her to the test"

They spent the night in the truck in the woods. The Chinese gladiators went after food and gasoline zestfully, enjoying this lark. The Master questioned him on every aspect of his association with Soli, while Sol, eerily silent, listened. It occurred to Var that be did not know what was in the minds of these men. So far as Soli was concerned, their reactions were suspect.

They might have no sympathy whatever with his blunted desires.

But he discovered that he had lost his independence of action since releasing these men.

The Master dominated the entire group, and his intelligence radiated out almost tangibly. Var thought he recognized in this man some of the qualities that made Soli what she was-that had, in fact, attracted him- to her-yet the Master denied siring her. So things bad been thrown into confusion again.

Var peered from the concealed truck while the others marched off to attend the graduation ceremony, his heart pounding. Eager to act, he was helpless, dependent on the motives of others, uncertain of his own.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Soli slept fitfully. The events of her life passed through her mind, now that she faced a drastic change. She did not remember her early residence among the nomads-only snow and terrible cold, her father Sol protecting her though they both meant to die. Then, somehow, they were alive again, painfully so, and Sosa was her new mother. And after the shock of change, it bad been good, for Sosa was a remarkable woman-at once devastating in combat and loving in person. And the underworld was fascinating.

Until Bob had acquainted her with the brutality of politics and sent her out with her sticks to defend her way of life from the savages.

She bad supposed all nomads to be mutilated, for Sol had been one and he had no genitals, and Sosa had been one and she was barren. Var had had splotched skin and funny hands and a hunch in his back. Yet Sosa bad taught her that appearance meant little In a man; that his endurance and skill in combat were more important, and his personality more important still. "If a man is strong and honest and kind-like your father-trust in him and make him your friend," bad been her advice.

The men of the underworld had not met this simple set of standards. Jim the Librarian was honest and kind and intelligent, but not strong; a single blow to the gut would have put him in the infirmary. Bob the Leader was strong but neither honest nor kind. In fact, only her father Sol met Sosa's standards. So She learned the art of the sticks from him, and learned it well, and waited.

And Ugly Var had been strong, if not as skilled with the sticks as the. And he bad been honest, for he bad not dropped rocks on her, though she would have dodged any that might have come. And he had been kind, for he had protected her against the awful cold, even as her father had done before. That was the one enemy she could not face boldly: she hated and feared the cold.

So she had known him for a good man, though he was an enemy savage-and she had never been-disappointed subsequently. Oh, he was not exactly smart-but neither was Sol. Men like Bob and the Nameless One were awesome, because their minds were more deadly than their bodies. She preferred an associate whose motives she could fathom.

At what point this appreciation had phased into love she was not certain. It had been a gradual thing, deepening with further association and ripening with her womanhood. But she tended to place the transition at the time she had been stung in the cold by the poisonous bug, and he had carried her all the way back to the cabin and cared for her there. She had been conscious much of the time, but unable to move or respond. Thus she had observed him when he supposed himself effectively alone, and knew that he had fought for her long before he confessed as much.

She had decided then to take his golden bracelet-when she was old enough to do so and to honor the full commitment the act implied. When she had learned that Sol was following them, too, she had stayed with Var despite her ache to rejoin her father, knowing she would lose Var if she let him go on alone. Then he had saved her from the tunnel sweeper, and from the vicious amazons, and yet again from the radiation she could not detect for herself. And once more, in the boat: he had intercepted with his own body the arrows marked for her.

Five times he had preserved her life at peril to his own, asking nothing in return, not even her company unless freely given. He was quite a man, and not merely for his courage and sacrifice. If she had not loved him already, she would surely have done so then. But when she brought them to New Crete he had been dying. Then she bad seen the manner she had to repay her debt to him. For a moment she had been tempted to cash in his golden bracelet, realizing its disproportionate value there; but that would have made it unavailable for her own subsequent possession and what went with it. And they might just have taken it as they took the boat, with no return favor. Though they both might die, she could not bring herself to give up that dream.

So it had had to be the temple-the one offering they could not simply claim offhand, the one bargain she could hold them to. She had cried, not so much for herself as for her loss of him.

She had known, via the temple grapevine, that he had settled into a mundane task, and she suffered to imagine how that demeaned him while she thrilled to believe that he missed her as she missed him. Sweet girlish dreams, nonsensical but essential She even fancied that he watched her from time to time1 romantically, that he might even challenge the god Minos for her.

And then be had come, just when she was resigned to her violent demise. And she had told him no, crying yes! inside, and pushed him away while yearning for his embrace. For it was her commitment that had saved him, and it would have been a denial of it all bad she reniged at the end. And she bad watched him go into the labyrinth, and condemned herself for her idealistic folly.

"If ever I see him again alive," she had sworn to herself as she stood chained and helpless, "I shall clasp him to me and tell him I love him." But it had been the abandoned conviction of desperation.

Yet it had happened.

And somehow, from that moment, she had ceased to understand him. She was woman now, ready and able to accept him as man, and the proof had been made. Still he treated her as child. Why-when they had already made spectacular love? Why did he withdraw when she approached? Why had he stayed two years, retaining his bracelet, and come for-her arid taken her-only to Ignore her offerings now?

She had gone along, powerless to change the situation.

And gradually she discovered that she had changed, not he-and that he did not realize this. Not quite. Vat was naive~ He had begun his journey with a child, and in his mind he still traveled with a child. Apparently he did not comprehend what had happened on New Crete. In his eye, she would always be child.

Then, just as she was adjusting to that situation, a raiding party had caught her unaware and brought her here. At first she thought Var was dead; then she learned that he had arranged it.

Her fury had lasted for weeks.

Until it occurred to her that she could emerge from this inane purgatory a woman-in his estimation. He wanted her here so that he could officially accept the transition that had already taken place. So that he could present her his bracelet honorably.

That changed her attitude. She discovered that there was a good education to be had here.

The matrons were rigorous but sincere, and they knew a great deal of value. Soli perfected her reading ability in the symbols of this continent and mastered other disciplines she had hardly been aware existed. Most important, she became adept at female artistries that would twist and remold the impetus of almost any male. This, indeed, was as intricate a combat as any with weapons, and as potentially rewarding.

Var had some surprises coming.

Now she had been betrothed-against her will-to the emperor Ch'in. It was an advantageous liaison, no question of that. His very name emulated the founding dynasty of this realm, thousands of years before the Blast-or so the local mythologies had it. No doubt Ch'in's public relations department had had a hand in that. But her studies had also pin-pointed Ch'in for what he was: a pompous, arrogant, middle-aged prince with the supreme good fortune to have a loyal tactical genius for an adviser. Thus Ch'in could sate himself in ever-younger distaff flesh while his masterfully managed empire expanded. Many women were flattered to attract his roving eye and to join his luxurious harem; Soli was not. She had long since chosen her man, and she was not readily diverted.

But there remained the problem of foiling Ch'in while snaring Var. She had confidence in her ability to do either-but not to do them simultaneously.

Var had come to her at last, barely before graduation but, manlike, he had bungled it. He had tried to scale the wall, and had been intercepted by Ch'in's minions and questioned and deported. They might have castrated him had they been certain of his purpose. She bad asked the head matron to intercede, and that stern, kindly, courageous woman had obliged. So Var had been reprieved of his folly and set down in another territory, unharmed, with money. He would be safe for the time being, so long as he did nothing else foolish.

Still she slept fitfully. For the situation was by no means tied up neatly, and many things could go wrong. She had not yet decided how to deal with Ch'in. If she simply refused to oblige him, she might find herself kidnapped and ravished and murdered. The emperor bad an infamous temper, especially when his pride was bruised. And the school would suffer too, perhaps harshly. No-an outright balk would not be expedient.

She could give Ch'in a gala wedding night, then spin a tearful tale of frustrated love. A proper appeal to his protective vanity might work wonders, particularly If the suggestion of political advantage were not too subtle. A romantically enhanced image would mitigate the effect of certain crude military policies, such as dethumbing valiant prisoners and selling them to gladiatorial arenas. Not that Ch'in was the only offender, the practice was general, but still it rankled. Image was very important here.

Yes, the wedding ploy seemed best. She could always run away, after a reasonable interval, if her plan didn't work. That way the school would not be blamed. Then she could locate Var and bring him to terms.

Except-she was not sure of Var. Oh, she could bring out the male in him, no question of that. But she distrusted his common sense. She could not assume that he would not do anything foolhardy. He might get tardily jealous and make some blundering move against Ch'in, or even come back to the school before graduation. Var just was not bright about such things, and he could be preposterously stubborn. His defiance of Minos had been incredible folly.

And of course that was why she loved him.

Maybe she had been wrong to encourage him to seek the Chinese Helicon. There was one, somewhere, but they were obviously not at all close to it. Probably its underwonders were fully as secretive as those of the American unit, so that such a search would be quite difficult. But her purpose had not been to find it, only to give Var a suitable mission. A mission she could participate in, while she grew.

She wondered what had happened to her father and the Nameless One. Had they finally given up the chase? She doubted it. Once she had Var in hand, she would have to arratige a reconciliation. It had hurt her to run from Sol, but she knew she could not return to Heicon with him, and it was essential to keep track of Var. Sol had been the man of her childhood; Var was to be the man of her womanhood.

But the thought of Helicon reminded her of Sosa, the only mother she remembered. In certain ways the loss of Sosa was worse than that of Sol. What was that proud small woman doing now? Had she resigned herself to the absence of both husband and daughter? Soli doubted it, and this hurt.

Finally her memories and alarms and conjectures subsided, and she slept.

Ch'in was more portly than she had heard. In fact he was fat. His face retained the suggestion of lines that in youth would have been handsome, but he was long past youth. Not even the grandeur of his robes could render him esthetic.

Soli glimpsed him momentarily, as she peered from a front window graduation morning. He was reviewing his troops, not even bothering to rise from the plush seat of his chauffeured open car. Suddenly she was unsure of her ability to play on his emotions; he looked too set, too jaded to be affected by a mere girl.

She ate a swift breakfast and performed her toilette, first a warm shower, then a tediously meticulous dressing, layer by layer. Then the combing of her hair to make it lustrous; nail-filing, makeup-a complete conversion process, to convert girl into Lady. She inspected herself thoroughly in the mirror.

She was a colorful creature of skirts and frills and beads and sparkles. Her feet appeared tiny in the artful slippers, her face elfin under the spreading hat. No woman in America wore clothing like this-yet it was not unattractive.

The graduation ceremony occurred precisely on schedule. Thirty-five girls received their diplomas and moved single file, to the courtyard where proud relatives awaited them Soh was last-a place of honor, for it was acknowledgement that small attention would accrue to any girl following her. This was partly because she was the lone representative of her race. But she was also aware that though she was younger than some-thirteen-she was beautiful in her own right. She knew this because it was to her advantage to know it, and she possessed the poise to show herself off properly. Had she not mastered the essential techniques, she would not have graduated.

Ch'in was waiting for her, buttressed by a phalanx of soldiers. He was resplendent in a semi-military uniform girt with medals and sashes; indeed, had he been smaller around the middle there might not have been room for all the decorations. But of course he wore no golden bracelet-and that made all the difference.

She smiled at him, turning her face to catch the sunlight momentarily so that her eyes and teeth flashed. Then she walked to him, moving her body with just that flair to heighten breast and hip and slender waist, and took his hands.

Oh, she was giving the audience the show Ch'in had bought. She had to sparkle, to validate the training she had had. Appearance was everything.

The emperor turned, and she turned with him as though connected and accompanied him toward the royal car.

People thronged behind the line of guards, eager for an envious glimpse of the Emperor and his lovely bride. Most were locals, owing no present allegiance to Ch'in but fascinated by the trappings of power-and well aware that tomorrow or next year they might very well come to owe him that allegiance. But a number had evidently traveled far for this occasion. Conspicuously absent were the patrols of the monarch of this territory; he wanted no trouble at all with Ch'in.

Near the polished car stood a somber, cloaked man.

Momentarily she met his gaze, glanced on

"Sol!" she breathed.

The sight of her father, so unexpected after five years and thousands of miles, overwhelmed her. She had seen him last in Helicon, but his dear face was still as familiar to her as any she knew.

Ch'in heard her exclamation and followed her gaze. "Who is that man?" he demanded.

The soldiers whirled immediately and grasped Sol. His hands came into sight-and she saw that his left thumb was gone.

First she felt shock, then fury. They had sold her father as a gladiator! And, unreasonably, she fixed the blame on Ch'in.

She struck, using the technique Sosa had versed her in so well. Ch'in gasped and tottered, completely surprised.

The soldiers drew their pistols.

Then Sol was moving, striking left and right, throwing the guards aside. A sword appeared in his hand. He leaped and came to stand beside Soli, the blade at Ch'in's throat.

The cordon of soldiers broke, letting the amazed spectators throng close. Soli saw guns level, and knew that Sol would be killed where he stood, whatever he did. There were too many troops, too many guns. Someone would shoot in the confusion, even though it cost the life of the emperor.

Then grotesque figures rose up within the crowd and began throwing people about.

Gladiators-rampaging outside their arena! Hungry tigers could not have wreaked more havoc! In moments, every man with a gun had been incapacitated. Some weapons fired, but not with accuracy.

The mêlée became inchoate and purely muscular.

Sol pushed Ch'in roughly away, put his arm about her, and lifted her into the car. A giant hurled the chauffeur out and vaulted into the driver's seat. The motor roared. Two more tremendous men piled in, shaking the vehicle as it moved out. They held curved bright swords aloft and swung them warningly at other trespassers. When the car became mired in the press of surrounding bodies these two jumped down to shove people out of the way of the wheels, working so quickly that no organized resistance could develop.

Soli hung on and watched. Suddenly she recognized the driver. - He was the Nameless One-the man who had swornto kill Var! .

Now there were shots and screams, as the departure of the gladiators allowed the soldiers, to recover their guns. But the crowd was such that the bullets scored only on innocent targets, not the fugitives. Then the car was finally free of the press, and speeding over the roadway. Soli had supposed the vehicle was just for show, but it was a fully functioning machine.

"Hope Var makes it," the Nameless Oue said, glancing back.

"Var?" she asked breathlessly. "You found Var?"

"He found us. Freed us. Brought us here. We were-" He held up the stub of his thumb.

"You didn't-fight? You and Var?" But obviously they hadn't.

"Do you, want to travel with the wild boy?" He asked instead.

She wondered why the Nameless One should care how she felt about Var. But she answered.

"Yes."

The car sped on, northward.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Var, galvanized into action when he heard the shots, started the truck and nudged forward toward the crowd. If Soll had been hurt, he would run down the emperor!

Then he saw the car pull out, the Master driving, Soli beside him, two gladiators aboard.

They had done it!

But the troops, only temporarily nonpiussed, were massing, leveling their rifles. Var goosed the motor and careered across their path, spoiling their aim while the car fled. Men jumped at him. He veered, then recognized the naked thews of the remaining two gladiators. He eased up, allowing them to clamber aboard. Then he took off.

No one else got hold of the truck-not with those two free-swinging bodyguards on it. But there were no other vehicles to cross his own path and interfere with the aim of those rifles.

There were shots; his tires popped. Var drove doggedly on, knowing that if he stopped for anything, they all were doomed.

The wheel wrenched at his hand. The motor slowed and knocked. He used the clutch, raced the engine, and eased it back into harness. The truck bobbled and throbbed with the irregularity of skewed rubber, but it moved.

It was not fast enough. The troops had been left behind, and now a hillock in the road cut off the direct fire, but other cars would catch up in minutes. "We'll have to run for it!" Var cried, as the motor finally overheated and stalled.

They piled out and charged into the forest as the first pursuing car appeared. There were cries and shots as the troops spied the truck, not realizing that it was empty.

Var and the two gladiators kept running, knowing the emperor's men would pick up their trail soon enough. Alone, he could have lost himself easily, for the forest was his natural habitat and he could hide in the badlands. But the other men, skilled as they might be in combat, were behemoths here. The end was inevitable-unless they separated soon.

He could elude the gladiators. No problem about that. But was' it fair? They had helped him free Soli, at the risk of their lives, and one of them was wounded in that action. Though he had freed them initially, at the risk of his own welfare. Where did the onus lie?

"We have repaid you," one of them panted. "Now we must hide among our own people, as you cannot. Otherwise we all will die, for Ch'in is ruthless."

"Yes," Var agreed. "You owe me nothing. It is fair."

The gladiator nodded. "It is fair. We regret-but it must be."

They thought they were protecting him! And that he would die if they deserted him. The three had almost brought destruction on their own heads, through misplaced loyalty.

"It is fair. Go your way," Var repeated. He saluted them both and faded into the wilderness.

Secure at last from pursuit, he had opportunity to worry about the others. Soli and her father and the Master had driven north. Would they be able to outdistance the emperor's men and make a lasting escape? And if they did could he locate them?

In fact-would they let him locate them? Sol had been reunited with his daughter, after Var inadvertently kept them apart these long years. They could go home to America. They did not need the wild boy. And might not want him. For what would he do, except try to take Soli away again?

If Soli had any such inclination. Now he doubted it. She had been furious when he put her in the school, and cool to him since, the few times he had seen her at all privately. She had been set up for an excellent marriage until he had arranged to break it up. Now she was with her father, a better man than Var. Surely she would either stay with So1-or go back to Emperor Ch'in.

So he would be best advised to hide in the badlands and let her go her way.

He circled back to the road, knowing no one would expect to find him there, and trotted in the direction the car had gone, north. He never had taken the best advice.

Every so often a vehicle passed, and Var leaped into the ditch and hid, emerging immediately afterwards to continue his solitary trek. Sooner or later he would catch up to the car-or discover the trail where the party left it. Then-

Another truck was bouncing south and he jumped for cover. He smelled the dust of it, underlaid by gas fumes, manure odor. . . and Soli's perfume.

He charged into the road, shouting. Either Ch'in's men had captured her already, or The truck stopped. Soli stepped down prettily and waved her bonnet, looking incredibly genteel. "Get in, you mangy idiot!" she cried. "I knew you'd get lost."

So the four were together for the first time: Var, Soli, Sol and the - Master. The two remaining gladiators had gone their own ways, having fulfilled their obligation.

"Now we'll have to plan - our escape," the Master said as he drove. "There'll be road blocks. We foiled them by doubling back in another vehicle, but that won't work a second time. So we'll have to take to the hills soon; and they'll be tracking us with dogs. This Ch'in is not one to give up readily, and that general of his is an expert at this sort of chase. We'll probably take losses-better count on fifty per cent."

Var didn't recognize the term. "How many?"

"Two of us may die."

Var looked at Soli. She perched on Sol's lap, between Var and the Master, and her elegant coiffure was undisturbed. She was as lovely and distant a lady as he had ever seen, and a striking contrast to the brutish, stinking men about her. How well she had responded to the training!

And how aloof from him now! His tentative fancies were ludicrous. She had no need of him.

She was with her father again, and the chase was over, and Var was superfluous. They had returned to pick him up out of common courtesy, no more.

"You've been here a year, Var," the Master said. "You know the region. What's our best escape route and where can we make a stand if caught?"

Var pondered it. "The land is fairly open to the south, but that's Ch'in's territory.

There are mountain ranges east and west, so that no truck-roads go through, though we could scale one of the passes on foot. Except for the dogs," he added, realizing that they had to stay with the vehicle. "To the north is really best, except for the-"

He stopped, appreciating as he suspected the Master had already, the predicament they were in. Far north the land was wild and open, so that pursuit would be awkward even with many men and dogs. Wild tribes fought anything resembling an organized, civilized force, but tended to ignore refugees. Ideal for this group. But the near north was a bottleneck. Hardly fifty miles beyond the area where he had found the gladiators potent badlands began. These intense bands of radiation extended east and west for hundreds of miles, acting as an invulnerable natural barrier between the civilized southerners and the primitive tribes.

Only one road went through, for only one pass was clear of the deadly emanations, and that barely. This was fortified and always garrisoned; he and Soli had had to pass through it and pay token toll even as foot travelers, on their original journey south. This was not in Ch'in's domain, but the personnel were friendly to him. Ch'in's public relations with such key - outposts were uniformly good-one of the reasons his power was on the ascent.

"I think we shall have to take the badlands pass," the Master said.

No one answered. The feat was of course impossible.

"In my time as a gladiator," the Master said, "I pondered this as a theoretical problem.

How half a dozen bold men might overcome the garrison and hold the pass indefinitely."

"But we are four!" Var protested, knowing that with even a hundred it could not be done.

That fortress had balked entire armies in the past.

The Nameless One shrugged and drove on. When they passed other vehicles the passengers hunched down so as not to attract unwelcomed attention. In due course he turned off the main -

road, heading toward the badlands section adjacent to the pass. "Give warning," he said to Var.

Var gave warning. The Master stopped immediately and backed away from the radiation thus advertised. "Now find a hot rock that we can put aboard with some shielding. Several, in fact.

Don't touch them, of course-just point them out. We'll rig a derrick and hook them in at the end of a pole. A ten foot pole," he said, smiling momentarily for some reason.

It was done. Var located several small stones with intense radioactivity, and they levered them into the back of the truck by rope and stick. The men were dosed, inevitably, but not seriously. Soli looked on, concerned and not quite approving. Var privately agreed with her. This was dangerous work, to no apparent purpose-and it consumed time far better spent in fleeing the searching Ch'in forces.

Then they dumped- larger rocks and dirt into the main body of the truck, to serve as a shield between the cab and the radiation. When Var pronounced the cab clean, they poured their remaining fuel-the last of several big cans the truck carried as a standard precaution, since fuel stations were far between-into the tank and set off for the pass.

"Now comes the rough part," the Master said, as they ground up the winding approach. "The garrison has geiger counters, and we can be sure they're thoroughly leary of radiation. In fact, this is known as a hardship post, because of that danger. There's a rapid turnover in personnel to prevent low-grade illness from peripheral radiation, too."

The Master had obviously done more than just think about that pass. He had studied it, probably reading books on the subject. Var wondered how a gladiator would get hold of books. But no amount of study could get them past.

"Those men will shy away from radiation automatically, and go into blind terror if trapped in it," the Master said.

"Who wouldn't?" Soli inquired. "It's a horrible death. I bit my tongue three times just watching you play with those stones."

Var remembered the Master's own experience with radiation, in the American badlands, and marveled that he was not more leary of it himself. But he was beginning to see some method in this cargo. They carried a truckload of terror...

"We can use this to drive them off," the Master said. "They won't even shoot, because that could blast radioactive fragments all over the station. They'll retreat with alacrity. They'll have to."

"But why should they fear it-in a shielded truck?" Varasked.

"It won't stay in the truck. We'll bring it inside."

Var felt a shock of horror he knew the others shared. "Carry it? Without the poles?"

"Two people can do the job. And hold the pass for hours afterward. So two can escape, and reach the wilds and later the coast, and-"

"No!" Var and Soli cried together.

"I did mention fifty per cent casualties," the Nameless One replied. "Perhaps you youngsters have become softened by ivilized life. Have you any illusions what it would mean to fall into the hands of Ch'in's men now? We shall surely do so if we do not escape this region promptly. Already the dogs must have been unleashed-and those hounds are not gentle either. Sol and I have met a few in our business."

Var knew he was right. The gladiators were better equipped to face reality and to take the prospect of torture and death in stride. They had to get through the pass, and they could not do so by bluff. They were known now, and their crime was known, and these soldiers were tough and disciplined. No appeal would move them, no ruse confound them, no empty threat cow them. Nothing short of artillery would dislodge them . . . except radiation.

"Who escapes?" Soli asked in a small voice.

"You do," the Master said brusquely. "And one to guard you."

"Who?" Soli asked again.

"One close to you. One you' trust. One you love." A pause, then: "Not me."

That left two to choose from, Var saw. Himself and Sol. He understood what was necessary.

"Her father."

"Sol," the Master said quickly.

Sol, being voiceless, did not say anything.

So it was decided. Var felt cold all through, knowing he was going to die, and not swiftly. His skin would warn him of radiation, but could not protect him otherwise. He survived it by avoiding it, where others received fatal dosages unawares. If he touched one of those stones-Yet there was a morbid satisfaction in it too. He had never asked for more than the right to live and die beside the Master. Now he would do so. And Soli would be saved, and her father would guard her, as he had before. They would return to America, to the land of true solace, land of the circle code. He felt a tremendous nostalgia for it, for its courtesies and combats, even for the crazy crazies.

That was what meant most to Var: that Soli be safe and happy and home. That was what he had really tried, so unsuccessfully, to arrange for her before. A safe, happy home.

He would die thinking of her, loving her.

The challenge point came into sight. Metal bars closed off the road. As the truck stopped before them, other bars dropped behind, powered by a massive winch. "Dismount!" the guard bellowed from his interior tower.

The four got down and lined up before the truck.

"That's the girl!" the guard cried. "Ch'in's bride, the foreign piece!"

The Master turned-and suddenly a bow was in his hands, an arrow nocked, loosed, swishing up-and the tower guard collapsed silently, the missile through his windpipe.

Now was the time to pick up the rocks. Var stepped toward the back, girding himself for the flashing pain of contact-and the Master's huge hand fell on his arm. Var stumbled back, bewildered. Then he was shoved brusquely forward.

At the same time Sol whirled on his daughter, grasping her by the upper arms and lifting her bodily before him. She and Var met face to face, involuntarily, each held from behind. The Master's hand clapped down on Var's wrist, twisting off the bracelet. Sol reached out to take it and shove it on to Soli's wrist and squeeze it tight. Then Var and Soli were dropped, clutching at each other to keep from falling.

As they disengaged and righted themselves, they saw that Sol and the Nameless One had already grabbed hot stones. The two men leaped for either side of the grating, climbing rapidly with the deadly stones tucked into their waistbands. That was a talent the Master had not had before! They were at the top by the time the other guards discovered what had happened.

The Master hurled a stone toward a panel. "Listen!" he bellowed. Var heard the fevered chatter of crazy-type click boxes, the screams of amazement and fear.

The Master began to crank up the forward grill. Var saw the counterweights descending, the road opening ahead.

"Drive!" the Master shouted down. Var obeyed unthinkingly. He scrambled into the driver's seat, Soli into the other. The motor was running; it had never been turned off, he realized only now. The Master had planned every detail.

As the gate cleared, he nudged out. The top of the cab scraped the bars; then they were free.

As he started down the north slope, Var heard the portcullis crash behind. The Master had let it, drop suddenly. Probably he had cut the counterweight-rope, so that the barrier could not be lifted again without tedious repairs. There would be no vehicle pursuit.

Safely away from the fortress, Var braked the truck. "This isn't right," he said, recovering equilibrium. "I should be back there-"

"No," she said. "This is the way they meant it to be."

"But Soli-"

"Vara," she said.

Var stared at the gold band on her wrist, realizing what it meant. "But I didn't-"

"Yes, you did," she said, pretending to misunderstand. "Back on New Crete, by Minos' cave.

And you will again, tonight. With more art, I trust. And then we shall go back to America and tell them what we know: that we have the best social system in the world, and dare not destroy it through empire. Helicon must be rebuilt, the nomads must disband, the guns must be abolished. We shall go to the crazy demesnes and tell them, my husband."

"Yes," he said, seeing it clearly at last.

Then, remembering the valiant sacrifice of her two fathers, Vara fell against him and sobbed, the little girl again.

"They die together-friends," Var said. And that was true, but it was scant comfort.