Sos the Rope

CHAPTER FOUR

Flickering light against his eyelids woke him again. Sot was lying next to him, living after all, and in the erratic glow from an outside fire he could see Sola sitting up, nude.

Then he realized that they were all naked. Sol had had minimal clothing since the dunking in the river, and the others- "On a line by the fire," she said. "You were shaking so badly I had to get the sopping stuff off you. Mine was wet, too."

"You were right," he said. He had been quick enough to subordinate Sol's modesty to need; the same applied to himself. He wondered how she had gotten the clothing off him; he was certainly too heavy for her to lift. There must have been a real chore, there.

"I think they're dry now," she said. "But the moths-"

He saw the material of the tent enclosing them. She had situated the fire so that it radiated through the light netting In front, heating the interior without flooding it with smoke. She had placed the two men prone, heads near the heat, while she kneeled between their feet at the far end, leaning over so that the sloping nylon did not touch her back. It could hardly be a comfortable position, though from this angle it showed her unsupported bosom off to advantage.

He rebuked himself for his preoccupation with her body at such an inappropriate time. Yet it always came to this; he could not look at her without turning physical, any time. This was the other fear of his erstwhile dream: that be would covet his companion's wife and be led to dishonor. Sola had acted with eminent common sense and dispatch, even courage, and it was an insult to put a sexual meaning on it. She was naked and desirable.. . and wore another man's bracelet.

"Maybe I can fetch the clothing," he said.

"No. The moths are everywhere-much thicker than before. Stupid is gorging himself-but we can't put a hand outside."

"I'll have to stoke up the fire pretty soon." It was cold outside, and his feet could feel it despite the greenhouse effect of the closed tent. He could see her shivering, since she was more distant from the blaze.

"We can lie together," she said. "It will keep us all warm, if you can stand my weight."

Again, it made sense. The tent was not wide enough for three, but if she lay on top of the two men there would be both room and a prism of warmth. Both were in urgent demand. She was being supremely businesslike about it; could he be less?

Her thigh rubbed against his foot, a silken contact as she adjusted her weight. Intimate messages ran up his leg.

"I think his fever is broken," she said. "If we can keep him warm tonight, he may improve tomorrow."

"Maybe the shrew venom counteracted the moth poison," he said, glad to change the subject. "Where are we now? I don't remember getting here."

"Over the pass, the other side of the river. I don't think they can catch up to us here. Not tonight. Do they travel at night?"

"I wouldn't think so. Not if they travel by day. They must sleep sometime." He paused. "Straight in from the river? That means we're that much farther into the badlands."

"But you said the radiation is gone."

"I said it is retreating. I don't know how far or fast. We could be in it now."

"I don't feel anything," she said' nervously.

"You can't feel it." But it was a pointless discussion. They had no way to escape it, if they were in the fringe zone. "If the plants haven't changed, it must be all right. It kills everything." But insects were a hundred times as tolerant as man, and there were more moths than ever.

The conversation lapsed. He knew what the problem was: though they had agreed on the necessity to conserve heat, and knew what was called for, it was awkward initiating the action. He could not boldly invite her to lay her generous breasts against his naked body, and she could not stretch upon him without some specific pretext. What was intellectually sensible remained socially awkward-the more so because the prospect of such contact excited him, practical as its purpose might be, and he war sure it would show. Perhaps it interested her as well, since they both knew that Sol would never embrace her.

"That was the bravest thing I ever saw," she said. "Going back for the tent like that."

"It had to be done. I don't remember much about it, except your screaming at me 'Come on! Come on!'" He realized that sounded ungracious. "You were right, of course. You kept me going. I didn't know what I was doing."

"I only yelled once."

So it had been in his head, along with the other phantasms. "But you guided me away from the shrews."

"I was afraid of them. You picked up Sol and ran after me. On and on. I don't know how you did it. I thought you were done when you tripped, but you kept getting up again."

"The books call it hysterical strength."

"Yes, you are very strong," she agreed, not understanding him. "Maybe not so quick with your hands as he is, but much stronger."

"Still, you carried the gear," he reminded her. "And you set all this up." He looked about the tent, knowing that she must have carved pegs to replace the ones lost when he uprooted the works amid the shrew invasion, and that she must have hammered them into the ground with a stone. The tent was not mounted evenly, and she had forgotten to dig a drainage trench around it, but the props were firm and the flaps tight. It was proof against the moths, with luck and vigilance, which was what counted, and could probably withstand rough use. The placement of the fire was a stroke of genius. "An excellent job, too. You have a lot more ability than I gave you credit for."

"Thank you," she said, looking down. "It had to be done."

There was silence again. The fire was sinking, and all he could see were the highlights of her face and the rounded upper contours of her breasts, all lovely. It was time to lie down together, but still they held back.

"Sometimes we camped out, when I was with my family," she said. "That's how I knew to pitch the tent on a rise, in case it rained." So she had been aware of the necessity for drainage. "We used to sing songs around the fire, my brothers and I, trying to see how late we could stay awake."

"So did we," he said reminiscently. "But I can only remember one song now."

"Sing it for me."

"I can't," he protested, embarrassed. "My notes are all off-key."

"So are mine. What's the song?"

"'Greensleeves.'"

"I don't know it. Sing it."

"I can't sing lying on my side."

"Sit up, then. There's room."

He floundered into an upright posture, facing her across the length of the tent, Sol's still form stretched out diagonally between them. He was glad, now, that it was dark.

"It isn't suitable," he said.

"A folk song?" Her tone made the notion ridiculous.

He took a breath and tried, having run out of objections:

"Why that's beautiful!" she exclaimed. "A love ballad."

"I don't remember the other verses. Just the refrain."

"Go ahead."

"Does a man really love a woman like that?" she inquired meditatively. "I mean, just thinking about her and being delighted in her company?"

"Sometimes. It depends on the man. And the woman, I suppose."

"It must be nice," she said sadly. "Nobody ever loaned me his bracelet, just for company. That kind, I mean. Except-"

He saw her eyes move to Sol, or thought he did, and spoke to cut off the awkward thought. "What do you look for ma man?"

"Leadership, mostly. My father was second-ranked in the tribe, but never the master, and it wasn't much of a tribe. He finally got wounded too bad and retired to the crazies, and I was so ashamed I struck out on my own. I want a name everyone will admire. More than anything else, I want that."

"You may have it already. He is a remarkable warrior, and he wants an empire." He refrained again from reminding her what that name could not provide.

"Yes." She did not sound happy.

"What is your song?"

"'Red River Valley.' I think there was such a place, before the Blast."

"There was. In Texas, I believe."

Without further urging she began singing. Her voice, untrained, was better than his.

"How did you get to be a scholar?" she asked him then, as though retreating from the intimacy of the song.

"The crazies run a school in the east," he explained. "I was always ,curious about things. I kept asking questions nobody could answer, like what was the cause of the Blast, and finally my folks turned me over to the crazies for service, provided they educated me. So I carried their slops and cleaned their equipment, and they taught me to read and figure."

"It must have been awful."

"It was wonderful. I had a strong back, so the work didn't bother me, and when they saw that I really wanted to learn they put me in school full time. The old books they contained incredible things. There was a whole history of the world, before the Blast, going back thousands of years. There used to be nations, and empires, much bigger than any of the tribes today, and so many people thee wasn't enough food to feed them. They were even building ships to go into space, to the other planets we see in the sky.

"Oh," she said, uninterested. "Mythology."

He gave it up as a bad job. Almost nobody, apart fron the crazies, cared about the old times. To the average person the world began with the Blast, and that was as far a curiosity extended. Two groups existed upon the globe: the warriors and the crazies, and nothing else that mattered The former were nomad families and tribes, travelling from cabin to cabin and camp to camp, achieving individual status and rearing children. The latter were thinker and builders who were said to draw their numbers from retired or unsuccessful warriors; they employed great pre Blast machines to assemble cabins and clear paths through the forests. They distributed the weapons and clothing and other supplies, but did not produce them, they claimed; no one knew where such things came from, or worried par ticularly about it. People cared only for the immediacies so long as the system functioned, no one worried about it Those who involved themselves with studies of the past and similarly useless pursuits were crazy. Hence the "crazies" men and women very like the nomads, if the truth were known, and not at all demented.

Sos had come to respect them sincerely. The past lay with the crazies-and, he suspected, the future, too. They alone led a productive existence. The present situation was bound to be temporary. Civilization always displaced anarchy, in time, as the histories had clearly shown.

"Why aren't you a-" she cut herself off. The last light from the fire had gone and only her voice betrayed hei location. He realized that his sitting posture cut off eves more of the, heat from her, though she had not compIained.

"A crazy?" He had often wondered about that matter himself. Yet the nomad life had its rough appeal and tender moments. It was good to train the body, too, and to trust in warrior honor. The books contained marvels-but so did the present world. He wanted both. "I suppose I find it natural to fight with a man when I choose, and to love a woman the same way. To do what I want, when I want, and be beholden to no one else, only to the power of my right arm in the circle."

But that wasn't true any more. He had been deprived of his rights in the circle, and the woman he would have clasped had given herself to another man. His own foolishness had led him to frustration.

"We'd better sleep," he said gruffly, lying down again.

She waited for him to get settled, then crawled upon him without a word. She placed herself face down upon the backs of the two men. Sos felt her head with its soft hair. nestling upon his right shoulder, ticklish tresses brushing down between his arm and body suggestively, though he knew this aspect of her repose was accidental. Women were not always aware of the sexual properties of long hair. Her warm left breast flattened against his back, and her smooth fleshy thigh fell inside his knee. Her belly expanded 'as she breathed, pressing rhythmically against his buttock.

In the dark he clenched his fist.