sponged off her face and front with it. 'Soli, you can't be sick now. They're watching your people and mine. If we don't fight'
'Where's my stick?' she cried hysterically. 'I'll bash your humpy head in. Leave me alone!' She tried another heave, but nothing came up.
Var held her erect, not knowing what else to do. He was afraid that if he let her go she would either collapse on the ground or stumble over the brink. Either way, it wouldn't be much of a show, and the watchers on either side would become suspicious.
A show! To the distant spectators, it must appear that the two were in a terminal struggle, staggering about the mesa after an all night combat. This was the fight!
'Wanna sleep,' Soil mumbled. 'Lie down. Sick. Keep the cold off me, Var, there's a good nomad....' Her knees folded.
Var hooked his arms under her shoulders and held her up. 'We can't sleep. Not while they're watching.'
'I don't care. Let me go.' She lapsed into sobbing again.
Var had to set her down.
'It's that beer, isn't it?' she said, suddenly wide awake. 'Im drunk. They never let me have any, Sol and Sosa. Awful stuff. Hold me, Var. I feel all weak. I'm frightened.' Var decided that any further show of battle was hopeless. He lay down and put his arms about her, and she cried and cried.
After a time she regained self-control. 'What'll we do, Var?'
He didn't know.
'Could we both go home and say it didn't work?' she asked plaintively. Then, before he could answer, she did:
'No. Bob would kill me as a traitor. And the war would go on.'
They sat side by side and looked out over the world.
'Why don't we tell them somebody won?' she asked suddenly. 'Then it'll be settled.'
Var was dubious, but as he considered it the proposal seemed sound. 'Who wins?'
'We'll have to choose. If I win, you nomads will go away. If you win, they'll take over the underworld. Which is better?'
'There'll be a lot of killing if we go down there,' he said. 'Maybe your maybe Sol and Sosa.'
'No,' she said. 'Not if Helicon surrenders. And you said they were friends Sol and the Nameless One. They could be together again. And I could meet Sola, my true mother.' Then, after a moment: 'She couldn't be better than Sosa, though.' He thought about that, and it seemed reasonable. 'I win, then?' -
'You win, Var.' She gave him a wan smile and reached for the bread.
'But what about you?'
'I'll hide. You tell them Im dead.'
'But Soli!'
'After it's over, I'll find Sol and tell him I'm not dead. By then it won't make any difference.'
Var still felt uneasy, but Soli seemed so certain that he couldn't protest. 'Go now,' she urged. 'Tell him it was a hard battle, and you fell down too, but you finally won.'
'But I'm unmarked!'
She giggled. 'Look at your arm.'
He looked at both arms. His right was clean, but his left, the weaponless one, was laced with bruises. She had been scoring, that serious part of the fight. Soil herself was almost without blemish.
'I could bash you in the face a couple of times,' she said mischievously. 'To make it look better.' She tried to suppress a titter and failed. 'I think I said that wrong. The fight, I mean. It isn't that ugly. Your face, I mean.'
