Every so often a vehicle passed, and Var leaped into the ditch and hid, emerging immediately afterwards to continue his solitary trek. Sooner or later he would catch up to the car-or discover the trail where the party left it. Then-
Another truck was bouncing south and he jumped for cover. He smelled the dust of it, underlaid by gas fumes, manure odor. . . and Soli's perfume.
He charged into the road, shouting. Either Ch'in's men had captured her already, or The truck stopped. Soli stepped down prettily and waved her bonnet, looking incredibly genteel. 'Get in, you mangy idiot!' she cried. 'I knew you'd get lost.'
So the four were together for the first time: Var, Soli, Sol and the - Master. The two remaining gladiators had gone their own ways, having fulfilled their obligation.
'Now we'll have to plan - our escape,' the Master said as he drove. 'There'll be road blocks. We foiled them by doubling back in another vehicle, but that won't work a second time. So we'll have to take to the hills soon; and they'll be tracking us with dogs. This Ch'in is not one to give up readily, and that general of his is an expert at this sort of chase. We'll probably take losses-better count on fifty per cent.'
Var didn't recognize the term. 'How many?'
'Two of us may die.'
Var looked at Soli. She perched on Sol's lap, between Var and the Master, and her elegant coiffure was undisturbed. She was as lovely and distant a lady as he had ever seen, and a striking contrast to the brutish, stinking men about her. How well she had responded to the training!
And how aloof from him now! His tentative fancies were ludicrous. She had no need of him. She was with her father again, and the chase was over, and Var was superfluous. They had returned to pick him up out of common courtesy, no more.
'You've been here a year, Var,' the Master said. 'You know the region. What's our best escape route and where can we make a stand if caught?'
Var pondered it. 'The land is fairly open to the south, but that's Ch'in's territory. There are mountain ranges east and west, so that no truck-roads go through, though we could scale one of the passes on foot. Except for the dogs,' he added, realizing that they had to stay with the vehicle. 'To the north is really best, except for the-'
He stopped, appreciating as he suspected the Master had already, the predicament they were in. Far north the land was wild and open, so that pursuit would be awkward even with many men and dogs. Wild tribes fought anything resembling an organized, civilized force, but tended to ignore refugees. Ideal for this group. But the near north was a bottleneck. Hardly fifty miles beyond the area where he had found the gladiators potent badlands began. These intense bands of radiation extended east and west for hundreds of miles, acting as an invulnerable natural barrier between the civilized southerners and the primitive tribes.
Only one road went through, for only one pass was clear of the deadly emanations, and that barely. This was fortified and always garrisoned; he and Soli had had to pass through it and pay token toll even as foot travelers, on their original journey south. This was not in Ch'in's domain, but the personnel were friendly to him. Ch'in's public relations with such key - outposts were uniformly good-one of the reasons his power was on the ascent.
'I think we shall have to take the badlands pass,' the Master said.
No one answered. The feat was of course impossible.
'In my time as a gladiator,' the Master said, 'I pondered this as a theoretical problem. How half a dozen bold men might overcome the garrison and hold the pass indefinitely.'
'But we are four!' Var protested, knowing that with even a hundred it could not be done. That fortress had balked entire armies in the past.
The Nameless One shrugged and drove on. When they passed other vehicles the passengers hunched down so as not to attract unwelcomed attention. In due course he turned off the main - road, heading toward the badlands section adjacent to the pass. 'Give warning,' he said to Var.
Var gave warning. The Master stopped immediately and backed away from the radiation thus advertised. 'Now find a hot rock that we can put aboard with some shielding. Several, in fact. Don't touch them, of course-just point them out. We'll rig a derrick and hook them in at the end of a pole. A ten foot pole,' he said, smiling momentarily for some reason.
It was done. Var located several small
