Var the Stick Read online

  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 th
ey 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.
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  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.