Neq the Sword

  Safer to kiss a badlands kill-moth!

  It was time to move out. "Onward Christian Soldiers!"

  Neq sang. The words were incomprehensible, but the tune

  and spirit were apt.

  They marched singing through a wilderness of carnage.

  Only occasionally did they have to defend themselves

  from attack. Some pairs were locked in combat, some in

  amour, for the women had been drawn into the activity.

  A man and a woman snarled and bit at each other in the

  midst of copulation. Children were fighting as viciously

  as adults, and some were already dead.

  The passion would pass, but the tribe would never quite

  recover.

  Vara's campaign continued. Neq learned how Var had

  saved her from a monster machine in a tunnel—the same

  tunnel Neq had lacked the courage to enter—and from a

  hive of wasp-women, and how he had interposed his body

  to take arrows intended for her. He had fought the god-

  animal Minos to save her from a fate almost as bad as

  death.

  Var had evidently had a short but full life."The docu-

  mentation of that life was sufficient to cover more than a

  month of travel, at any rate. The climate became warmer

  as they moved south and east and further into spring, but

  the girl's language never ameliorated.

  When she finally ran out of Var's virtues, she started on

  Var's faults.

  "My husband was not pretty," Vara said. "He was

  hairy, and his back was hunched, and his hands and feet

  were deformed, and his skin was mottled." Neq knew

  that, for he had fought the man. "His voice was so hoarse

  it was hard to understand him." Yes. With clever enun-

  ciation, Neq might have understood enough in time to

  withhold his thrust. "He could not sing at all. I love him

  yet."

  Gradually Neq got the thrust of this new attack. Neq

  himself was handsome, apart from (he lattice of scars he

  had from years of combat and the mutilation of his hands.

  His voice was smooth and controlled. He could sing well.

  Vara held his very assets against him, making him ashamed

  of them.

  It was like the vine narcotic. Neq knew what she was

  doing, but was powerless to oppose it. He had to listen,

  had to respond, had to hate himself as she hated him. He

  was a killer, worse than the man who had killed his own

  mate.

  Tyi did not interfere.

  In the next month of their travel, Vara grew especially

  sullen. Her campaign was not working, for Neq only ac-

  cepted her taunts. "I had everything!" she exclaimed in

  frustration. "Now I have nothing. Not even vengeance."

  She was learning.

  She was silent for a week. Then: "Not even his child."

  For Var had been sterile. Her father Sol had been

  castrate; she had been conceived on his bracelet by Sos

  the Rope, who later gave his own bracelet to Sosa at

  Helicon. So her husband, like her father, had had no child.

  Neq knew that twisted story, now, and understood why

  the Weaponless, who had been Sos, had pursued Var.

  Vengeance, again! But Var had been hard to catch, for

  his discolored skin had been sensitive to radiation, a mar-

  velous advantage near the badlands. But that ability bad

  come at the cost of fertility.

  "And my mother Sosa was barren," Vara cried. "Am I

  to be barren too?"

  Tyi looked meaningfully at Neq.

  Var had been naive. Neq was not. That had been estab-

  lished and reestablished in the past two months, to his

  inevitable discredit. But this shocked him. The meaning of

  Tyi's original stricture had suddenly come clear.

  Vara wanted a baby....

  She didn't seem to realize what she had said, or to

  comprehend why Tyi had stopped her from attacking Neq

  at the outset.

  Yet what was in Tyi's mind? If he thought it important

  that Vara have her baby, there were other ways. As many

  ways as there were men in the world. Why this? Why

  Neq, Vara's enemy? Why dishonor?

  There was an answer. Vara did not want just a baby—

  she wanted a child to Var. Any infant she bore would be

  Vari, the line of Var. Just as she herself had been born

  Soli, child of the castrate Sol. The bracelet, not the man,

  determined parentage in the eyes of the nomads. And

  what man would abuse Var's bracelet and his own honor

  by contributing to such adultery, however attractive the

  girl might be?

  What man indeed—except one already shed of his

  bracelet, and so hopelessly sullied by his own crimes that

  violation of another bracelet could hardly make a differ-

  ence? What man, except one bound by oath to return a

  life taken?

  What man but Neq!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Now it was Tyi's turn to advance his cause, and Neq's to

  stand aside. The trek continued into the third month, inter-

  rupted by strategies and combats and natural hazards,

  but the important interaction was between Tyi and Vara.

  Vara's initial fury had been spent, and she was now

  vulnerable.

  It started subtly. One day Tyi would ask her a ques-

  tion, seemingly innocuous, but whose answer forced her

  to consider her own motivations. Another day he would

  question Neq, bringing out some minor aspect of his back-

  ground. In this way Tyi established that Vara's closest

  ties were to Sol, not her biological father, and to Sosa,

  not her natural mother, and that Sol and Sosa had lived

  together in deliberate violation of both their bracelets,

  making a family for Soli/Vara.

  "It's different in Helicon," she said defensively. "There

  are no real marriages there. There aren't enough women.

  All the men share all the women, no matter who wears

  the bracelets. It wouldn't be fair, otherwise." She spoke

  as though Helicon still existed, though she knew the truth.

  "Did Sosa share with all the men, then?" Tyi inquired

  as though merely clarifying a point of confusion. "Even

  those she disliked?"

  "No, there was no point. She couldn't conceive. Oh, I

  suppose she took a turn once in a while, if someone

  insisted—she's quite attractive, you know. But it didn't

  mean anything. Sex is just sex, in Helicon. What counts is

  that women have babies."

  Similarly true in the nomad society, Neq thought.

  "Suppose you had stayed there?" Tyi asked.

  "Why should I be different? I was only eight when I

  left, but already—" She stopped.

  Tyi didn't speak, but after a while she felt compelled to

  explain. "One of the men—there's no age limit, you know.

  He liked them young, I suppose, and there weren't many

  girls anyway. But I wasn't ready. So I hit him with the

  sticks. That was all. I never told Sol—there would have

  been trouble."

  There certainly would have been! Neq remembered

  something she had cried in the flower-forest, when the

  visions were strong. A threat to some attacking man.

  "But if
you had been older—" Tyi said.

  "I would have gone with him, I guess. That's the way it

  is, in Helicon. Preference has nothing to do with it."

  "But when you married Var—would you have returned

  to the mountain then?"

  "That was where we were going!" Then she had to

  explain again. "Var would have understood. I would have

  kept his bracelet."

  But she shared some of Var's naivete, for she still didn't

  comprehend where Tyi was leading her.

  Neq's turn as subject, then, in similar fashion. Day by

  day, as they marched and fought and slept. He didn't

  want to cooperate, but Tyi was too clever for him, phras-

  ing questions he had to answer openly or by default.

  Gradually the outline of Neq's service in the empire came

  out, and his extreme proficiency with the sword, and the

  code by which he had lived. Yes, he had killed many

  times as a subtribe leader, but never outside the circle

  and never without reason. Much of it had been done at

  Sol's direction; none on order of the Weaponless, who

  had not tried to expand the empire.

  Vara remained grim, not liking this seeming alignment

  of character.

  Then Tyi came at Neq's post-empire activity. "Why did

  you seek the crazies?" ^,

  "The empire was falling apart, and so was the nomad

  society, and outlaws were ravaging the hostels. There

  was no food, no supplies, no good weapons. I tried to

  learn why the crazies had retreated."

  "Why had they retreated?"

  "They depended on supplies from Helicon, and their

  trucks weren't getting through. So I said I'd take a look." ,

  Then the description of what he had found at the moun-

  tain. Vara's impassivity crumbled; tears streamed down

  her cheeks. "I knew it was gone," she cried. "My two

  fathers did it, and Var and I helped. But we didn't know

  it was that awful. . . ."

  Thus Tyi had somehow cast Neq as the upholder of

  civilized values, while Sol and the Weaponless and even

  Var were its destroyers. What a turnabout for Vara's as-

  sumptions!

  They marched a few more days. Then Tyi resumed.

  "Did you go alone to Helicon?"

  Neq would not answer, for the memories remained raw

  despite the years and he did not want this part of it

  discussed.

  Surprisingly, it was Vara who pursued the questioning

  now. "You married a crazy! I remember, you admitted it.

  Did she go with you?"

  Still Neq was silent. But Tyi answered. "Yes."

  "Who was she? Why did she go?" Vara demanded.

  "She was called Miss Smith," Tyi said. "She was secre-

  tary to Doctor Jones, the crazy chief. She went to show

  the way, and to write a report. They drove in a crazy

  truck, all the way across America. That's the Ancient

  name for the crazy demesnes—America."

  "I know," she said shortly. And another day: ^'Was she

  fair?"

  "She was," Tyi said. "Fair as only the civilized are fair."

  "I'm fair!"

  "Perhaps you too are civilized."

  She winced at the implications. "Literate?"

  "Of course." Few nomads could read, but most crazies

  had the ability. Vara herself was literate, but neither Tyi

  nor Neq.

  Another day: "Was she a—a real woman?"

  "She turned down the Weaponless, because he wouldn't

  stay with the crazies."

  Neq winced this time. Neqa had put it another way.

  "The Weaponless was my father!" Vara flared. Then:

  "My natural one. Not my real one."

  "Nevertheless."

  "And she loved Neq?" she demanded distastefully.

  "What do you think?" Tyi asked in return, with a hint

  of impatience.

  Another day: "How could a literate, civilized woman

  love /HOT?"

  "She must have known something we do not," Tyi said

  with gentle irony.

  Finally: "How did she die?"

  Neq left them then, afraid to discover how much Tyi

  knew. The man was embarrassingly well versed in Neq's

  private life, though he had given no hint of this before.

  Neq ran through the forest until he was gasping for

  breath, then threw himself down in the dry leaves and

  sobbed. This merciless reopening of the old, deep wound;

  this sheer indignity of public analysis!

  He lay there some time, and perhaps he slept. As dark-

  ness came he saw again the bloody forest floor, felt again

  the fire of severed hands. Six years had become as six

  hours, in the agony of Neqa's loss.

  What use was it to practice vengeance, when every

  tribe was as savage as the one he had destroyed. Any one

  of those outlaw tribes could have done the same. The

  only answer was to ignore the problem—or to abolish

  them all. Or at least to abolish their savagery. To strike at

  the root. To rebuild Helicon.

  Yet here he was, after having tried his best to organize

  that reconstruction, subject to the bitterness of a girl who

  saw him as the same kind of savage. With reason. How

  could a savage eliminate savagery?

  It was all useless. None of it could recover the woman

  he had loved. The body lay there, tormenting him, mock-

  ing his efforts to reform. The musky perfume of the vine-

  lotus enhanced its horror. He didn't care.

  After a time he rose to bury the corpse. He was a

  savage, but Dr. Jones was civilized. Neq coMd not help

  himself, but he could help the crazies. He had loved one

  of them—this one. To that extent he loved them all. He

  bent to touch the body, knowing his hand would strike

  something else, whatever it was that was really there. A

  stone, perhaps.

  The flesh was there, and it was warm. It was a woman.

  "Neqa!" he cried, wild hope surging.

  Then he knew. "Vara," he muttered, turning away in

  disgust. What preposterous deceit!

  She scrambled up and came after him, circling her

  arms about his waist. "Tyi told me—told me why you

  killed. I would have killed tool I blamed you falsely!"

  "No," he said, prying ineffectively at her arms with the

  heel of his pincers. "What I did was useless, only making

  more grief. And I did kill Var." The fumes were stronger.

  She looked like Neqa.

  "Yes!" she screamed, clinging as he moved. "I hate you

  for that! But now I understand! I understand how it

  happened."

  "Then kill me now." As so many had begged him,

  when he stalked Yod's tribe. "You have honored Tyi's

  stricture."

  "But you haven't!" Her grip on him tightened.

  "The vine is here. I smell it. Let me go before—before

  I forget."

  "I brought the vine! So there would be truth between

  us!"

  He batted at her arms with the closed pincers. "There

  can be no truth between us! Tyi would have us defile our

  bracelets—"

  "I know! I know! I know!" she cried. "Be done with it,

  Minos! Set me free!" She climbed him, reaching for his

  face with her mouth. She was naked; she had been t
hat

  way when he first touched her, as she played corpse.

  The flower drug sang complex melodies within his brain,

  making him overreact on an animal level to this female

  provocation. He crushed her to him within the living por-

  tion of his embrace, joining his lips to hers.

  It was savagely sweet.

  She relaxed, fitting more neatly within the circle of his

  arms. The glockenspiel jangled against the pincers, jolt-

  ing him into momentary awareness of their situation. In

  that moment he wrenched away from her. His body was

  aflame with lust, but his mind screamed dishonor! He ran.

  She ran too, fleetly. "I hate you!" she panted. "I hate

  your handsome face! I hate your wonderful voice! I hate

  your fertile penis! But I have to do it!"

  In the dark he smashed into brush and spun about,

  trying to avoid the tangle. She dived for him again. He

  fended her off with the claw, trying not to hurt her but

  determined to keep her at bay until the narcotic wore off.

  As long as she was desirable to him, he had to balk her

  ardor.

  Now she was fighting him. She had fetched a stick

  along the way, a branch of a tree, and she struck him

  about the shoulders with it, hard enough to hurt. He

  knocked it away, then caught it in the pincers and