Sos the Rope

CHAPTER EIGHT

With the cold weather, Sav elected to move into the main tent, which was heated by a perpetual fire. It had been subdivided into numerous smaller compartments, for a certain amount of privacy between families. Increasingly, eligible young women were showing up in search of bracelets. Sav was candid about passing his around.

Sos stayed in the small tent, unwilling to mix freely with those who bore weapons. His impotence in the circle was a matter of increasing distress, though he could not admit it openly. He had not appreciated the extent of his compulsion to assert himself and solve problems by force of arms until denied this privilege. He had to have a weapon again-but was barred from employing any of the six that the crazies distributed to the cabins. These were' mass produced somewhere, standardized and stocked freely in the hostels, and alternates such as the bow and arrows were not useful in the circle.

He had wondered often about this entire state of affairs. Why did the crazies take so much trouble to provide these things, making the nomad existence possible, then affect complete lack of concern for the use men made of them? Sometime he meant to have the answer. Meanwhile he was a member of the battle society, and it was necessary for him to assert himself in its terms. If he were able.

He stripped his clothing and climbed naked into the warm sleeping bag. This was another item the crazies obligingly stocked in wintertime, and many more than the normal number had been provided at the local cabin, in response to the increased drain on its facilities. They all most certainly knew about this camp, but didn't seem to care. Where the men were, they sent supplies and sought no other controls.

He had a small gas lamp now, which enabled him to read the occasional books the crazies left behind. Even In this regard they were helpful; when he started taking books from the hostel, more appeared, and on the subjects he seemed to favor. He lit the lamp and opened his present volume: a text on farming, pre-Blast style. He tried to read it, but it was complicated and his mind could not concentrate. Type and quantity of fertilizer for specified acreage; crop rotation, pesticide, applications of and cautions concerning.. . such incomprehensible statistifying, when all he wanted to know was how to grow peanuts and carrots. He put the book aside and turned off the light.

It was lonely, now that Sav was gone, and sleep did not come readily. He kept thinking of Sav, passing his bracelet around, embracing yielding and willing flesh, there in the main tent. Sos could have done likewise; there were women who had eyed his own clasp suggestively even though he carried no weapon. He had told himself that his position required that he remain unattached, even for isolated nights. He knew that he deceived himself. Possession of a woman was the other half of manhood, and a warrior could bolster his reputation in that manner as readily as in the circle. The truth was that he refused to take a woman because he was ashamed to do so while weaponless.

Someone was approaching his tent. Possibly Tor, wanting to make a private suggestion. The beard had a good mind and had taken such serious interest in group organization and tactics that he outstripped Sos in this regard. They had become good friends, as far as their special circumstances permitted. Sometimes Sos had eaten with Tor's family, though the contact with plump good-natured Tora and precocious Tori only served to remind him how much he had wanted a family of his own.

Had wanted? It was the other way around. He had never been conscious of the need until recently.

"Sos?"

It was a woman's voice-one he knew too well. "What do you want, Sola?"

Her hooded head showed before the entrance, black against the background snow. "May I come in? It's cold out here."

"It is cold here, too, Sola. Perhaps you should return to your own tent." She, like him, had maintained her own residence, pitched near Tyl's. She had developed an acquaintance with Tyla. She still wore Sol's bracelet, and the men stayed scrupulously clear of her.

"Let me in," she said.

He pulled open the mesh with one bare arm. He had forgotten to let down the solid covering after shutting off the lamp. Sola scrambled in on hands and knees, almost knocking over the lamp, and lay down beside his bag. Sos now dropped the nylon panel, cutting off most of the outside light and, he hoped, heat loss from inside.

"I get so tired, sleeping alone," she said.

"You came here to sleep?"

"Yes."

He had intended the question facetiously and was set back by her answer. A sudden, fierce hope set his pulses thudding, seeming more powerful for its surprise. He had deceived himself doubly: it was neither his position nor his lack of a weapon that inhibited him, but his obsession with one particular woman. This one.

"You want my bracelet?"

"No."

The disappointment was fiercer. "Get out."

"No."

"I will not dishoner another man's bracelet. Or adulterate my own. If you will not leave yourself, I will have you out by force."

"And what if I scream and bring the whole camp running?" Her voice was low.

He remembered encountering a similar situation in his diverse readings, and knew that a man who succumbed to that ploy the first time could never recover his independence of decision. Time would only make it worse. "Scream if you must. You will not stay."

"You would not lay your hands on me," she said smugly, not moving.

He sat up and gripped her furry parka, furious with her and with his guilty longing. The material fell open immediately, wrapped but not fastened. His hand and the filtered light still reflecting in from the snow told him quickly that she wore nothing underneath. No wonder she had been cold!

"It would not look very nice, a naked man struggling in his tent with a naked woman," she said.

"It happens all the time."

"Not when she objects."

"In my tent? They would ask why she came naked to it, and did not scream before entering."

"She came dressed, to inquire about a difficult problem. An error in fractions." She fumbled in the pocket and drew out a pad with figures scrawled upon it-he could not see them, but was sure she bad done her homework in this respect. Even to the error, one worthy of his attention. "He drew her inside-no, tricked her there-then tore off her clothing."

He had fallen rather neatly into her trap after all. She was too well versed. His usefulness to the group would be over, if the alarm were given now. "What do you want?"

"I want to get warm. There is room in your bag for two."

"This will gain you nothing. Are you trying to drive me out?"

"No." She found the zipper and opened the bag, letting the cold air in. In a moment she was lying against him, bare and warm, her parka outside and the zipper refastened.

"Sleep, then." He tried to turn away from her, but the movement only brought them closer together.

She attempted to bring his head over to hers, catching at his hair with one hand, but he was rigid. "Oh, Sos, I did not come to torment you!"

He refused to answer that.

She lay still for a little while, and the burning muliebrity of her laid siege to his resistance. Everything he desired, so close. Available-in the name of dishonor.

Why did she choose this way? She had only to put aside Sol's emblem for a little while...

Another figure detached itself from the shadow of the main tent and trod through the packed snow. Sos could see it, though his eyes were closed, for be recognized the tread. Tor.

"You have your wish. Tor is coming."

Then her bluff stood exposed, for she shrank into the bag and tired to hide. "Send him away!" she whispered.

Sos grabbed the parka and tossed it to the foot of the tent. He drew the lip of the bag over her head, hoping the closure wouldn't suffocate her. He waited.

Tor's feet came up to the tent and stopped. No word was spoken. Then Tor wheeled and departed, evidently deciding that the dark, closed tent meant that his friend was already asleep.

Sola's head emerged when it was safe. "You do want me," she said. "You could have embarrassed me.. .

"Certainly I want you. Remove his bracelet and take mine, if you want the proof."

"Do you remember when we lay against each other before?" she murmured, this time evading the direct refusal.

"'Greensleeves.'"

"And 'Red River Valley.' And you asked me what I wanted in a man, and I told you leadership."

"You made your choice." He heard the bitterness in his tone.

"But I did not know then what he wanted." She shifted position, placing her free arm under his and around his back and Sos was unable to control the heat of his reaction and knew she knew it.

"You are the leader of this camp," she said. "Everybody knows it, even Tyl. Even Sol. He knew it first of all."

"If you believe that, why do you keep his bracelet?"

"Because I am not a selfish woman!" she flared, amazing him. "He gave me his name when he didn't want to, and I must give him something in return, even if I don't want to. I can't leave him until we are even."

"I don't understand."

It was her turn for bitterness. "You understand!"

"You have a strange system of accounting."

"It is his system, not mine. It doesn't fit into your numbers."

"Why not pick on some other man for your purpose?"

"Because he trusts you-and I love you."

He could offer no rebuttal to that statement. Sol had made the original offer, not her.

"I will leave now, if you ask me," she whispered. "No screaming, no trouble, and I will not come again."

She could not afford the gesture. She had already won. Wordlessly he clasped her and sought her lips and body.

And now she held back. "You know the price?"

"I know the price."

Then she was as eager as he.