Var the Stick Read online

  "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 sob
bed, the little girl again.

  "They die together-friends," Var said. And that was true, but it was scant comfort.