Var the Stick (7 page)

    That left the railed tunnel, going in the other direction. This might circle around the flesh-rotting rays. He had to know.

    Var dropped down and ran along the track. He went faster than before, because time had been consumed in the prior explorations, and he had greater confidence -in the narrow footing. Probably a man with normal, soft, wide feet could not have stayed on the track so readily. Or have felt its continuing solidity by the tap of nail on metal-an important reassurance, in this gloom.

    On and on it went, for miles. He passed another series of platforms, and felt the barest tinge of radiation; just before he stopped on the track, it faded, and he went on. Such a level of the invisible death was not good to stay in, but was harmless for a rapid passage.

    The rubble between the tracks became greater, the walls more ragged, as though some tremendous pressure had pressed and shaken this region. He bad seen such collapsed structures during his wild-boy years; now he wondered whether the rubble and the radiation could be connected in any way. But this was idle speculation.

    He was very near the mountain now. He came to a third widening of the tunnel and platform-but this one was in very bad condition. Tumbled stone was everywhere, and some radiation. He ran on by, nervous about the durability of this section. A badlands building in such disrepair was prone to collapse on small provocation, and here the falling rock would be devastating.

    But the track stopped. It twisted about, unsettling him unexpectedly (he should have paid attention to its changing beat under his tonails), and terminated in a ragged spire, and beyond that the rubble filled in the tunnel until there was no room to pass.

    Var went back to the third set of platforms. He crawled up on the mountain-side, avoiding rubble and alert to any sensation in his skin. When he felt the radiation, even so slight as to be harmless, he shied away. The Master had stressed that a route entirely clear must be found, for ordinary men might be more sensitive to the rays than Var, despite their inability to detect it without click-boxes.

    Two passages were invisibly sealed off. The third was clear, barely. There were large droppings in it, showing that the animals had already discovered its availability. This in turn suggested that it went somewhere-perhaps to the surface-for the animals would not travel so frequently in and out of a dead end.

    It branched-the Ancients must have had trouble making up their minds!-and again he took the fork leading toward the mountain. And again he ran into trouble.

    For this was the lair of an animal-a large one. The droppings here were ponderous and fresh-the fruit of a carnivore. Now he smelled its rank body effusions, and now he heard its tread.

    But the tunnel was high and clear and he could run swiftly along it. It was narrow enough so that any creature could come at him only from front or back. So he waited for it impelled by curiosity, if it were something that could be killed to clear the passage for human infiltration of the mountain, he would make the report. He cupped the light and aimed it ahead.

    Rats scuttled around a bend, squinted in the glare, and milled in confusion. Then a gross head appeared: frog-like, large-eyed, horny-beaked. The mouth opened toothlessly. There was a flash of pink. A rat squealed and bounced up-then was drawn by a pink strand into that orifice. It was an extensive, sticky tongue that did the hauling.

    The beam played over one bulging eye, and the creature blinked and twisted aside. It seemed to be a monstrous salamander. As Var stepped back, some fifteen feet of its body came into sight. The skin was flexible, glistening; the legs were squat, the tail was stout.

    Var wasn't certain he could kill it with his sticks, but he was sure he could hurt it and drive it back. This was an amphibian mutant. The moist skin and flipper-like extremities suggested that it spent much time in water. And his skin reacted to its presence: the creature was slightly radio-active.

    That meant that there was water-probably a flooded tunnel. Water that extended into radiation, and was contaminated by it. And there would be other such mutants, for no creature existed alone. This was not a suitable route for man.

    Var turned and ran, not fearing the creature but not caring to stay near it either. It was a rat eater, and probably beneficial to man in that sense. He had no reason to fight it.

    That left the other fork of the passage. He turned into it and trotted along, feeling the press of time more acutely. He was hungry, too. He wished he could unroll his tongue and spear something tasty, many feet away, and suck it in. Man didn't have all the advantages.

    There was another cave-in, but he was able to scramble through. And on the far side there was light.

    Not daylight. The yellow glow of an electric bulb. He had reached the mountain.

    The passage was clean here, and wide. Solid boxes were stacked in piles, providing cover. This had to be a storeroom.

    Near the opening through which he had entered there was food: several chunks of bread, a dish of water.

    Poison! his mind screamed. He had avoided such traps many times in the wild state. Anything set out so invitingly and inexplicably was suspect. This would be how the underworlders kept the rats down.

    He had accomplished his mission. He could return and lead the troops here, with their guns. This chamber surely opened into the main areas of the mountain, and there was room here for the men to mass before attacking.

    Still he had better make quite sure, for it would be very bad if by some fluke the route were closed beyond this point. He moved deeper into the room, hiding behind the boxes though there was no one to see him. At the far end he discovered a closed door. He approached it cautiously. He touched the strange knob- and heard footsteps.

    Var started for the tunnel, but realized almost immediately that he could not get through the small aperture unobserved in the time he had. He ducked behind the boxes again as the knob rotated and the door opened. He could wait, and if discovered he could kill the man and be on his way. He hefted his two sticks, afraid to peek around lest he expose himself.

    The steps came toward him, oddly light and quick. To check the poison, he realized suddenly. The food would have to be replaced every few hours, or the rats would foul it and ignore it. As the person passed him, Var poked his head over between shielding flaps and looked.

    It was a woman.

    His grip tightened on the sticks. How could he kill a woman? Only men fought in the circle. Women were not barred from it, specifically; they merely lacked the intelligence and skill required for such activity, and of course their basic function was to support and entertain the men. And if he did kill her what would he do with the body? A corpse was hard to conceal for long, beøause it began to smell. It would betray his presence, if not immediately certainly within hours. Far too soon for the nomadS to enter secretly.

    She was middle-aged, though of smaller build than the similarly advanced woman he had known, Sols. Her hair was short, brown and curly, but her face retained an elfin quality and she moved with grace. She wore a smock that concealed her figure; had her face and poise not given her away, Var might have mistaken her for a child because of her diminutive stature. Was this what all underworiders were like? Small and old and smocked? No need to worry about the conquest, then.

    She glanced at the bread, then beyond-and stopped.

    There, in the scant dust, was Vat's footprint. The round, callused ball, the substantial, protective, curled-under toenails. She might not recognize it as human, but she had to realize that something much larger than a rat had passed.

    Var charged her, both sticks lifted. He had no choice now.

    She whirled to face him, raising her small hands. Somehow his sticks missed her head and he was wrenched about, half-lifted, stumbling into the wall, twisting, falling.

    He caught his footing again and oriented on her. He saw her fling off her smock and stand waiting for him, hands poised, body balanced, expression alert. She wore a brief skirt and briefer halter and was astonishingly feminine in contour for her age. Again-like Sola.

    He had seen that wary, competent attitude before. When the Master had captured him in the badlands. When men faced each other in the circle. It was incredible that a woman, one past her prime and hardly larger than a child, should show such readiness. But he had learned to deal with oddities, and to read the portents rapidly and accurately.

    He turned again and scrambled into the tunnel.

    On the dark side he rolled over and waited with the sticks for her head to poke through the narrow aperture.

    But she was clever: she did not follow him. He risked one look back through and saw her standing still, watching.

    Quickly be retreated. When he deemed it safe, he began to run, retracing his route. He had a report to make.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Master- listened with complete passivity to the report. Var was afraid he had failed, but did not know quite how, for he had found a route into the mountain. "So if she tells the mountain master, they will seal up the passage. But we could reopen it-"

    "Not against a flamethrower," the Nameless One said morosely. Then, amzingly, he bent his head into his hands. "Had I known! Had I known! She, of all people! I would have gone myself!" -

    Var stared at him, not comprehending. "You recognize the woman?"

    "Sosa."

    He waited, but the Master did not clarify the matter. The name meant nothing to Var.

    After a long time, the Weaponless spoke: "We shall have to mount a direct frontal attack. Bring Tyl to me."

    Var left without replying. Tyl was no friend of his, and Tyl was in his own camp several hundred miles away, and Var did not have to follow any empire directive. But he would go for TyL

    Jim the Gun intercepted him as he departed. "Show him this," he said. "No one else."

    And he gave Var a handgun and a box of ammunition. And a written note.

    Tyl was impressed by power and therefore fascinated by the gun. In some fashion Var did not follow, but which he suspected was influenced by the note Tyl's wife read, the chief set aside his standing grudge and cultivated Var for his knowledge of firearms.

    Var had good memory for any person who had ever threatened his well-being and he had not at all forgotten his embarrassments of the first meeting with this man. But Tyl was one of those who, though~maddening when antipathetic, could be absolutely charming when friendly. As surely as he might have courted a lovely girl, Tyl courted Var.

    And by the time Tyl and his vast tribe reached the mountain, he and Var were friends. They entered the circle together many times, but never for terms or blood, and under Tyl's expert guidance Var became far more proficient with the sticks. He saw that he had been a preposterous fool ever to challenge Tyl with this weapon; the man had never had cause to fear him in the circle.

    A dozen times in practice Tyl disarmed him, each time showing him the mistake he had made and drilling him in the proper countermoves.

    Tyl named him a score of names, stickers of the empire, that were his marks to excel, and warned him of the other warriors to be wary of. "You are strong and tough," he said, "and courageous-but you still lack sufficient experience. In a year, two"

    Var, in those evenings when the tribe settled for the night and went about the processes even a travelling tribe must go about, also had a regular practise against other weapons. The Master had instructed him in the basictechniques, but that was not at all the same as actual combat. The stick had to learn to blunt the sword, thwart -the club, and to navigate the staff-or the stick was useless. Here with Tyl's disciplined, combat-ready tribe, Var's stick mastered these things. - - -

    More of a warrior than be had been, he returned to the Nameless One's hidden camp near the mountain. Now he understood why Tyl was second in command. The man was honorable and sensible and capable and a expert warrior-and not given to letting minor grudges override his judgment. The feud between them had been a momentary thing that Var bad mistaken once for malice. The Master must have known, and shown him the truth by sending him on this mission.

    Var was present when the Weaponless conferred with the Two Weapons.

    "You have seen the gun," the Master said. "What it can do."

    Tyl nodded. The truth was that he had fired it many times and become fairly proficient. He had even brought down a rabbit with it-something Var, with his clumsy grip, could not do.

    "The men we face have guns-and worse weapons. They do not honor the code of the circle."

    Tyl nodded again. Var knew he was fascinated by the tactical problems inherent in gun combat.

    "For six years I have held the empire in check-for fear of the killers of the underworld. Their guns-when we had none."

    Tyl looked surprised, realizing that this was not just a staging area. "The men who travel to the mountain-"

    "Do not always die there." -

    Var did not comprehend the expression that crossed Tyl's face. "Sol of All Weapons-"

    "There-alive. Hostage."

    "And you-" -

    "I came from the mountain. I returned."

    Now Tyl's mouth fell open. "Sos! Sos the Rope! And the bird-"

    "Nameless, weaponless, helpless. Stupid dead. Bound to dismantle the empire."

    Tyl looked as though something astonishing and profound and not entirely pleasing had passed between them, more than the information about the mountain. Var could not quite grasp what, though he did recognize the name. "Sos" as connected to "Sosa." He suspected that Tyl's most basic loyalty lay with Sol of All Weapons, the former Master of the empire; perhaps the knowledge that that man lived made Tyl excited.

    "Now-?' Tyl inquired. "Now we also have guns." "The empire-"