But why didn't she revive? Now, increasingly, he feared that she had struck her head too hard against the light, and suffered brain damage. He had seen warriors who bad become disorganized and even idiotic after club blows to the head. If that were the case with Soli... On and on the cleaner went, returning whence it had come. Var, helpless to do anything else, held Soil firm and slept.
He was jolted awake by bright light The machine had come into the open. Soil still nestled unconscious in his arm
The machine stopped again and there were people. First men with strange weapons no, they had to be tools then tall, armed, armored women, peering in at him and Soil. Some carried round disks of stretched leather, so that one arm was fettered and useless for combat.
"Look at that!" one exclaimed wonderingly. "A beardface and a child."
Var did not speak immediately, sensing trouble. These women were aggressive, militant, unfeminine and unlike those he had seen before. Their curiosity did not seem mendly. Their metal helmets made them look like birds.
Soil did not move.
"See if he has his finger," another woman said eagerly.
There was something guilty and ugly about their attitude as though they were contemplating an intriguing perversion. Var drew out his sticks.
Immediately bows appeared and metal-tipped arrows were trained on him from several directions. He had no protection against these, and with Soil unconscious his position was hopeless. He dropped his weapons.
The quiet men were climbing on the machine, applying their tools to its surfaces. Evidently they cared for it the way the crazies cared for their tractors, checking it over after each trip. That was why it was still operating, so long after its makers were gone.
"Out!" cried the burly woman who seemed to be the leader. She held a spear in one hand, a shield in the other.
Var obeyed, lifting Soil carefully.
"The child is sick!" someone cried. "Kill her!"
Var held Soli with one arm about her chest With his other arm he grabbed for the leader of the females, catching her by her braided hair. He yanked her against him, hauling back on her head so that her neck was exposed. Her shield got in the way, making her struggles ineffective. He bared his teeth. He growled.
"Shoot him! Shoot him!" the captive woman screamed. But the archers were oddly hesitant. "He must be a real man," one said. "The Queen would be angry."
"If my friend dies, I rip this throat!" Var said, breathing on the neck he held bent. He was not bluffing; his teeth had always been his natural weapon, even though they were clumsy compared to those of most animals.
Another woman came forward. "Let go our mistress; we will medicate the child."
Var shoved the captive away. She caught herself, rubbing her neck. "Take him to the Queen," she said.
A woman made as if to take Soil, but Var balked. "She stays with me. If you kill anyone, kill me first, because I will kill anyone who harms her." He had made an oath to that effect long ago, to Soli's natural mother, but that was not the reason he spoke as he did now. Soil was too important to him to lose.
They walked down a pathway toward water. Var saw that they were on a small island hardly larger than required to serve as a surfacing point for the tunnel. The cleaning machine stood athwart the road, grinders and brushes and headlamps at each end, hissing and cooling as the mechanics labored over it. In this culture, it seemed, the men were crazies the women nomad warriors. Well, it was their system.
Beyond the machine there was a level stretch; then the surface rose into a tremendous metal and stone bridge that traversed the extensive water and led out of sight.
At the waterside was a boat. Var and Soil had seen such floating craft in the course of their journey, and understood their purpose, but bad never been really close to one. This boat was made of metal, and he did not understand why it did not sink, since he knew metal was heavier than water.
He balked at entering the craft, but realized that there was no reasonable alternative. Obviously the Queen was not on this atoll. And if he made too much trouble he and Soil both would die.
The boat rocked as they entered, but held out the water.
Var could see that its bottom deck was actually below the surface of the sea. One of the women pulled a cord and a motor started banging and shaking. Then the entire thing nudged out from the dock.
It was astonishing that people other than the crazies or underworlders should possess and control motors. Yet obviously it was so.
The boat pushed along through the ocean. Var, unused to this rocking motion, soon felt queasy. But he refused to yield to it, knowing that any sign of weakness would further imperil himself and Soil.
How long would she sleep? He felt strangely unwhole without her.
The boat came to parallel the enormous bridge. Girders like those that rimmed the mountain Helicon projected from the sea and crossed and recrossed each other, forming an eye-dazzling network. But these were organized and functional, serving to support the elevated highway. Somewhere within this jumble that road was hidden; he could not see it now. He wondered why the amazons did not walk along it instead of splashing dangerously over the water.
At length they angled toward the bridge. There was an archway, here, where the water under the span was clear for a space. And suspended in that cavity was something like a monstrous hornet's nest all wood and rope and interleaved slices of metal and plastic and other substances Var could not guess at.
The boat drew up beneath this, where a blister hung scant feet from the surface of the water. A ladder of rope dropped down and the women climbed up with alacrity to disappear with him.
Var had to ascend carrying Soil. He laid her over his shoulder and grasped the ladder with one hand. It swung out, seeming too frail to bear the double load.
Well, if it broke, he would swim. He was not really enthusiastic to enter the hive, and did not trust these armored women. He hauled himself and his burden up, rung by rung, carefully curling his clumsy fingers about each. The rope did not break.
The ladder passed through a circular hole, and was fastened above by a metal crosspiece. Var clung to this and got his feet to a board platform, and shifted Soil down. They were in a cramped chamber whose sides curved up and out. Metal cloth seemed to be the main element.
But there were other ladders to climb. Each level was larger, the curving walls more distant, until doors and intermediate chambers were all he could observe in passing.
At length they stood within a large room with adjacent compartments, rather like the Master's main tent.
On a throne fashioned of wickerwork sat the Queen: bloated, ugly, middle-aged, bejeweled. She wore a richly woven gown that sparkled hidescently. It fell from a high stiff collar behind her broad neck to the sides of her stout ankles, and was open down the front to reveal the inner curvatures of her, monstrous breasts, her dimpled kettle stomach, and her hanging thighs.
Var, hardly prudish, averted his eyes. Sexuality as brazen as this repulsed him.
Weapons threatened. "Foreign beardface, look at the Queen!"
He had to look; it seemed this was protocol. She reminded him of a figurine the Master had shown him once: a fertility goddess, artifact of the Ancients. The Master had said that in some cultures such a figure was considered to be the ultimate in beauty. But for Var the female attributes became negative when expanded to such grotesque proportion.
"Strip him," the Queen said.
Again Var had to make a decision. He could fight but not effectively while supporting Soil, and both of them would be wounded or killed. Or he could submit to being stripped by these women. Nakedness was not a strong taboo with him, but he knew it was for others, and that the demand represented an insult. Still he yielded. "You promised to care for my friend," he said.