Var the Stick (6 page)

    Var accepted the gun, and after some struggle got a bullet in. But his hand would not fit around the base properly, and his finger was too thick and warped to maneuver the trigger. Jim, perceiving the difficulty as quickly as Var did, quickly produced a larger gun. This one he managed to fire.

    The shock traveled up his arm, but it was slight compared to the tap of a stick in the circle. His bullet plowed into the ground. "We'll show you how - to aim," Jim said. "Remember, the gun is a weapon, but unlike the instruments you are familiar with, it can kill- by accident. Treat it as you would a sword in motion. With respect."

    Var learned a great deal in the following days. He had thought there was little more to discover, after Sola had shown him the marvelous social intricacies of generating life. Now he wondered that anything at all remained, as Jim showed him the devastating unsocial devices for terminating life.

    The Master came for him. "Now you know part of my secret," he said. "And I will tell you another part. This is an invasion force-and we shall invade the mountain."

    "The mountain!"

    "The mountain of death, yes. It is not what you have supposed-what all nomads suppose. Not every man who goes there dies. There are people- living beneath it-similar to the crazies, but with guns. They hold hostages-" But here he changed his mind. "We must storm that mountain and drive out these men. Only then will the empire be secure."

    "I don't understand." Actually, it was a questioning grunt.

    "I have held the empire in check for six years, because I feared the power of the underworld. Now I am ready to move against it. I do not say that these are evil men, but they must be displaced. Once the enemy is gone, the empire will expand rapidly, and we shall bring civilization to all the continent."

    So the murmurings of discontent had been wrong there too! The Weaponless was not stifling the empire-not permanently.

    "I have a dangerous assignment for you. I have left you a free agent so that you may choose for yourself. It will require working alone, going into extremely unpleasant places, and telling no one of your mission or your adventures except me. I told Jim you were to be liaison man and scout, but this is dangerous scouting he doesn't know about. You may die violently, but not in the circle. You may be tortured. You may be trapped in lethal radiation. You may have to violate the code of the circle in order to succeed, for we are dealing with unscrupulous men. The leader of the underworld has only contempt for our mores and our honor." -

    The Master waited, but Var did not reply.

    "You may ask what you want in return. I mean to deal fairly with you." - -

    "After I do this," Var enunciated carefully, "then can I join the empire?"

    The Nameless One looked at him, astonished. Then he began to laugh. Var laughed too, not certain what was funny.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    The beginning was only a hole in a pit in a cavity in the ground, where water disappeared during storms. But underneath it expanded into a cavern he could almost stand in. Var remained there for a time, motionless, getting his full night vision and absorbing the smells.

    He knew in which direction the mountain lay. This sense, like that of smell and his sharp night sight and his ability to run almost doubled over, had remained with him after he left the wild life. He was still quite at home in the wilderness.

    He shook off his shoes. He had never been comfortable in them, and for this work his hooflike toes were best.

    Some water still seeped down, but the main section of the cave was clear. The base was caked with gravel; the sides were slimy with mosslike fungus. On a hunch abetted by observation, Var took a singlestick and scraped the wall. As the plant life and grime gave way, metal touched metal.

    This cave - was not completely natural. The Master had suggested that this might be the case. The entire mountain, he had said, was unnatural-though he did not know how it had come about.

    The chances of an unnatural cave connecting to a natural mountain seemed good.

    Var, eye, ear and nose now adjusted to this environment, moved on. His mission was to chart a route into the dread mountain-a route that bypassed the surface defenses, and that men could follow. If he found the route, and kept it secret from the underworiders, the empire could have an almost bloodless victory.

    If there were no route, there would be a much worse battle on the surface. Lives depended on his mission perhaps the life of the Master himself.

    The tunnel branched. The pipe going toward the mountain was clogged with rubble; the other was wide and clear. Var knew, why: when rainfall was heavy, water coursed this way, removing all obstructions. He would have to follow the water, to be sure of getting anywhere but he would also have to pay close attention to the weather, lest the water follow him. Was it possible to anticipate a storm underground?

    The passage widened as it descended. Its walls were almost vertical and metallic; overhead, metal beams now showed regularly. It debouched into an extremely large concorse with a long pit down the center. He peered down, noting how the delta of rubble tipped into that chasm. He did not venture into it himself. The bottom was packed with slick-looking mud, and there were dark motions within that mud: worms, maggots or worse. There had been a time when he had eaten such with gusto, but civilization had affected his appetite.

    He tapped the level surface of the upper platform. Under the crusted grime there was tile very like that of a hostel.

    The footing was sound.

    The Master had told him that there were many artifacts in this region reninining from the time before the Blast. The Ancients had made buildings and tunnels and miraculious machines, and some of these remained, though no one knew their function. Certainly Var could not fathom the use of such a large, long compartment with a tiled floor and a pit dividing it completely.

    He followed it down, listening to distant rustles and sniffing the stale drifts of air. Though his eyes were fully adapted to the gloom, he could not see clearly for any distance. There was not enough light for any proper human vision, this deep in the bowel.

    Soon the platform narrowed, and finally the wall slanted into the pit, and there was nowhere to go but down. The Ancients could not have used this for walking then, since it went nowhere. They had been, the Master said, like the crazies and like the underworlders, only more so; there was no fathoming their motives. This passage proved it. To put such astonishing labors into so useless a structure....

    He climbed down carefully. The drop was only a few feet, not hazardous in itself. It was the life in that lower muck that he was wary of. Familiar, it might be harmless, as familiar poison-berries were harmless-no one would eat them. Unfamiliar, it was potentially deadly.

    But the mud was harder than he had supposed; the gloom had changed its seeming properties. Rising from it were two narrow metal rails, side by side but several feet apart. They were quite firm, refusing to bend or move no matter what pressure be applied, and they extended as far as he could discern along the pit. He found that by balancing on one, he could walk along without touching the mud at all, and that was worthwhile.

    He moved. His hoof-toes, softened some by the shoes he had had to wear among men but still sturdy, pounded rapidly on the metal as he got the feel of it, and his balance became sure despite the darkness and the slender support. The pit-tunnel was interminable, and did not go toward the mountain. He hesitated to go too far, lest a rainstorm develop above and send its savage waters down to drown him before he could escape. Then he realized that this tunnel was too large to fill readily, and saw the dusky watermarks on its cold walls: only two or three feet above the level of the rails. He could wade or swim, if it came to that.

    Even so, it was pointless to follow this passage indefinitely. It was now curving farther away from the mountain, so could hardly serve the Master's purpose.

    He would follow it another five minutes or so, then turn back.

    But in one minute he was stopped. The tunnel ended.

    Rather, something was blocking it. A tremendous metal plug, with spurs and gaps and rungs.

    Var tapped it with his stick. The thing was hollow, but firm. It seemed to rest on the rails, humping up somewhat between them so as not to touch the floor.

    Could there be a branching or turning~ beyond this obstacle? Var grabbed hold and hauled himself up the face of the plug, curling his fingers stiffly around what offered. He was searching to learn whether there were a way through it.

    There was. He poked his head into the musty interior, inhaling the stale air. He knocked on the side of the square aperture and it clanged. He could tell the surrounding configuration of metal by the sound and echo. He climbed inside. -

    The floor here was higher than outside. It was mired in a thick layer of dirt and droppings. This was like a badlands building, with places that could be seats, and other places that could be windows, except that there was only a brief space between the apertures and the blank tunnel wall. And all of it was dark. Eyes useless, ears becoming confused by the confinement of sound, Var finally had to use the crazy flashlight the Master had given him. For there was life here.

    Something stirred. Var suppressed a reflexive jump and put the beam of light on it, shielding his eyes somewhat from the intolerable glare. Then he got smart and clapped his hand over the plastic lens, holding in the light so that only red welts glowed through. He aimed, let digits relax, let the beam shove out to spear its prey.

    It was a rat-a blotched, small-eyed creature that shied away from the brilliance with a squeal of pain.

    This Var knew rats did not travel alone. Where one could live, a hundred could live. And where rats resided, so did predators. Probably small ones-weasels, mink, mongoose-but possibly numerous. And the rats themselves could be vicious, and sometimes rabid, as he knew from badlands buildings.

    He walked quickly down the long, narrow room, seeing a doorway at its end outlined by the finger illuminated beam. He had to move along before too many creatures gathered. Rats did not stay frightened long without reason.

    Beyond the door was a kind of chamber and another door. More mysterious construction by the Ancients!

    Corning down the hail beyond that was a snake. A large one, several feet long. Not poisonous, he judged-but unfamiliar and possibly mutant. He retreated.

    The rats were already massed in the other room. Var strode through them, shining his light where he intended to step, and they skittered back. But they closed in behind, little teeth showing threateningly. Too aggressive for his comfort. He had stirred up an ugly nest, and they were bold in their own territory.

    He scrambled out the window and dropped to the dank floor of the tunnel His feet sank in the mud; it was softer here, or he had broken through a crust. He turned off the flash, waited a moment to recover sight, and found a rail to follow back down the tunnel.

    Some other way would have to be found. It was not that the rats and snakes stopped him-but there were sure to be other animals, and a troop of men would stir them all up. In any event, the direction was wrong.

    But he could not escape the angry stir so easily. Something silent came down the tunnel. He felt the moving air and ducked nervously. It was a bat-the first of many.

    What did all these creatures feed on? There seemed to be no green plants, only mold and fungus.

    And insects. Now he heard them stirring, rising into the foul air from their myriad burrows.

    Apprehensively, he flashed his light.

    Some were white moths.

    Var's heart thudded. There was no way he could be sure of avoiding these deadly stingers here except by standing still-and that had its own dangers. He had to move, and if he brushed into one-well, he would have a couple of hours to reach the surface and seek help before the poison brought him to a full and possibly fatal coma. Certainly fatal if be succumbed to it here in the tunnels, where men Would never find him. Even if he received only a minor sting, that weakened him, and then it rained...or if the rats and snakes became more bold, and ventured along the rail....

    But not all white moths were badlands mutants. These seemed smaller. Maybe they were innocuous.

    If these were of the deadly variety, this route was doomed. Men could not use it, however directly it might lead to the mountain. That would make further exploration useless.

    Best to know immediately. Var ran along the track until he saw the high platforms. He climbed up and oriented himself, identifying his original point of entry. Then he ran after a white moth and swooped with his two hands, trapping it. It was his fingers that were awkward, not his wrists or hands.

    He held the insect cupped clumsily between his palms, terrified yet determined. For thirty seconds he stood there, controlling his quivering, sweating digits.

    The moth fluttered in its prison, but Var felt no sting.

    He squeezed it gently and it struggled softly.

    At last he opened his hands and let the creature go. It was harmless.

    Then he rested for five minutes, regaining his equilibrium. He would much rather have stepped into the circle with lame hands against a master sworder, than against a badlands moth like this. But he had made the trial and won. The way was still clear.

    He crossed the double-rail pit and mounted to the far platform. There were tunnels leading away in the proper direction. He chided himself for not observing them before. He selected one and ran down it.

    And halted. His skin was burning.

    There was radiation here. Intense.

    He backed off and tried another branch. Even sooner he encountered it. Impassable.

    He tried a third. This went farther, but eventually ran into the same wall of radiation. It was as though the mountain were ringed by roentgen....