Her lip trembled, 'Do-do you want it back?' She touched the bracelet.
He grabbed her, unresisting, and pressed her down upon the bunk. She met his kiss eagerly. 'No I don't want it back. I-oh, get that smock off, then!' What use to demand reason of a woman?
She divested herself of her clothing, all of it, with alacrity. Then, womanlike, she seemed to change her mind. 'Sos-'
He had expected something like this. 'Go ahead.'
'I'm barren.'
He watched her silently.
'I tried-many bracelets. Finally I had the crazies check me. I can never have a baby of my own, Sos. That's why I came to the mountain . . . but babies are even more important here. So-'
'So you went after the first man they hauled off the mountain.'
'Oh, no, Sos. I took my turn on the list. But when there isn't any love or any chance for-well, some complained I was unresponsive, and there really didn't seem to be much point in it. So Bob put me on the revival crew, where I could meet new people. The one who is on duty when someone is brought in is, well, responsible. To explain everything and make him feel at home and get him suitably situated. You know. You're the nineteenth person I've handled-seventeen men and two women. Some of them were old, or bitter. You're the first I really-that sounds even worse, doesn't it!'
Young, strong, pliable: the answer to a lonely woman's dreams, he thought. Yet why not? He had no inclination to embrace assorted women in weekly servicings. Better to stick to one, one who might understand if his heart were elsewhere.
'Suppose I happen to want a child of my own?'
'Then you-take back your bracelet.'
He studied her, sitting beside him, halfway hiding behind the balled smock as though afraid to expose herself while the relationship was in doubt. She was very small and very woman-shaped. He thought about what it meant to be denied a child, and began to understand as he had not understood before what had driven Sol.
'I came to the mountain because I could not have the woman I loved,' he said. 'I know all that is gone, now but my heart doesn't. I can offer you only-friendship.'
'Then give me that,' she said, dropping the smock.
He took her into the bed with him, holding her as carefully as he had held Stupid, afraid of crushing her. He held her passively at first, thinking that that would be the extent of it. He was wrong.
But it was Sola his mind embraced.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bob was a tall, aggressive man, the manifest leader of the mountain group. 'I understand you can read,' he said at once. 'How come?'
Sos explained about his schooling. 'Too bad.'
Sos waited for him to make his point.
'Too bad it wasn't the next one. We could have used your talent here.'
Sos still waited. This was like taking the circle against an unknown weapon. Bob did not have the peculiar aura of the death-dealing Tom, but he was named as strangely and struck Sos as thoroughly ruthless. He wondered how common this stamp was among those who had renounced life. It probably was typical; he had seen for himself how the manner, the personality of the leader, transmitted itself to the group. Sos had shaped Sol's empire with tight organization and a touch of humor, letting the men enjoy their competition for points as they improved their skills. When he left, Tyl bad ruled, and the discipline remained without the humor. The camps had become grim places. Strange that he only saw this now!
'We have a special and rather remarkable assignment for you,' Bob was saying. 'A unique endeavour.'
Seeing that Sos was not going to commit himself, Bob got down to specifics. 'We are not entirely ignorant of affairs on the surface, can't afford to be. Our information is largely second hand, of course-our teevee perceptors don't extend far beyond the Helicon
