Yes, yes! He had wondered the same. And been unable to express it succinctly. The amazons and their motors and their barbarism. .. . But he could remember no more of that fragmnent. The boat went on and on beside the bridge.
Once he felt radiation, and cried out, and she veered away from it.
Then time had passed or stopped and the boat was docked and there were people. Not amazons, not nomads. Soli was gone and then she was back, crying, and she kissed him and was gone again.
A man came and stabbed him in the arm with a spike. When Var woke once more, his abdomen hurt with a different kind of hurt a mending hurt and he knew he was at last recovering. But Soli was not there.
Women came and fed him and cleaned him, and he slept some more. And days passed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He woke and fainted many times, conscious of pain and the passage of time and the rocking of waves and Soli's attentions, and of very little else. The arrows were out from his arm and leg and gut, but this brought him no relief. His body was burning, his throat dry, his bowels pressing.
She took care of him. She propped him up inside the boat's cabin and held water to his mouth, and it made him sick and the heaves wrenched his abdomen cruelly, but his lips and tongue and throat felt better. He Solied himself many times and she cleaned him up, and when she washed his genitals they reacted and that made him ashamed but there was nothing he could do. He kept bleeding from his wounds, and she would wash them and bandage them, and then he would move and the blood would flow hotly again.
He thought deliriously of the Master, in the badlands seven years before, his illness from radiation. Now Var knew what the man had gone through, and why he had sworn friendship to the wild boy who had aided him then. But the thought brought another torment, for he still could not fathom why the Master had reversed that oath and become a mortal enemy.
But most of all, he thought of Soli-she who cared for him now in his helplessness. A child yet-but a master sticker and faithful companion who had never remarked on the colors of his skin or the crudity of his hands and feet and hunch. She could have returned to her father, whom she loved, but had not. She could even have gone to the Master, who had offered to adopt her as his daughter. Such offers were never casually made. She had stayed with Var because she thought he needed help.
And he did.
It was night and he slept. It was day and he moved fitfully and half-slept, hearing the roaring of the motor, smelling the gasoline she poured from stacked cans into the funnel. It was night again, and cold, and Soli hugged him close and wrapped rough blankets about them both and warmed him with her small body while his teeth knocked together.
But he did recover.
In one of his lucid moments-and he was aware they were not frequent-she talked with him about the mountain Helicon and the nomads.
'You know, I thought you people were savages,' she said. 'Then I met you, and the Nameless One, and I knew you were merely ignorant. I thought it would be good to have you joined with underworld 'nology.'
'Yes-' He wanted to agree, to converse on her level, sure he was able to do so now. But the sentence played itself out in silence.
'But now I've seen what it's like beyond the crazy demesnes, where the common man does have some 'nology-technology-and I'm not so sure. I wonder whether the nomads would lose their primitive values, if-'
Yes, yes! He had wondered the same. And been unable to express it succinctly. The amazons and their motors and their barbarism. . .. But he could remember no more of that fragment. The boat went on and on beside the bridge. Once he felt radiation, and cried out, and she veered away from it.
Then time had passed or stopped and the boat was docked and there were people. Not amazons, not nomads. Soli was gone and then she was back, crying, and she. kissed him and was gone again.
A man came and stabbed him in the arm with a spike. When Var woke once more, his abdomen hurt with a different kind of hurt-a mending hurt-and he knew he was at last recovering. But Soli was not there.
Women came and fed him and cleaned him, and he slept some more. And days passed.
'I believe you are well now,' a stranger said one day. He was old enough to be losing his hair, and somewhat stout and flabby. No warrior of the circle, he!
