technical equipment! We cannot do without it!"
"Maybe some are alive, inside." Knowing Tyi's effi-
ciency, he doubted'it, but he had to offer her some hope.
She moved around the center column of the hostel,
looking for something. This hostel had not been ravaged,
but there was no food in it. She opened the shower stall
and stepped in.
"You're still dressed," Neq reminded her.
"I know it's here," she said, as though he hadn't spoken.
"I memorized the instructions." She counted tiles along
the wall, then pressed on one. She counted from another
direction and pressed again. And once more. Nothing
happened.
"You have to turn the knobs," he said. "One for hot, the
other for cold. But you don't need to take a shower right
now, just when you're beginning to smell like a true
nomad—"
"I must have done it too slowly," she said. "Now I know
the tiles, I'll try it faster."
She went through her mysterious ritual again, while
Neq watched tolerantly. The crazies were crazy!
Something snapped inside the inner wall. Neqa pushed
on yet another tile and it tilted out, revealing a handle.
Neq gaped; he had never known there were handles be-
hind the shower wall! If not for hot or cold water, what?
She twisted and gave a sharp jerk—and the entire wall
swung toward her.
There was a compartment behind the shower—in the
heart of the hostel's supposedly solid supporting column!
"Come on," she said, stepping inside.
Neq joined her, clasping his sword nervously. There
was barely room for them both. She pulled the wall shut
and touched a button inside. There was a hum; then the
floor dropped.
Neq jumped, alarmed, but she laughed. "This is civili-
zation, nomad! It's called an elevator. We have them in
our buildings, and the underworld uses them too. This is
a secret entrance, that we use for transfer of supplies.
When nomads see a crazy truck outside, they assume it's
a routine servicing—but the truth is we're taking supplies
out. Most of the heavy stuff pomes through other depots
in the area, of course, that the nomads never see."
The floor stabilized. She pushed open the side again,
and now there was a tunnel, curving into darkness.
"Bad," she said. "The lift is on hostel power, that
charges whenever the sun shines. But the tunnel is on
Helicon power. That means the underworld is dead, as
you said." She turned on a flashlight Neq hadn't known
she possessed. "But we'll have to look."
The passage opened into a room where empty boxes
were stacked. "Someone's been here," she remarked. "They
took the merchandise. But the crates were never restored."
"Probably the last truck—that didn't return."
"Our men never went beyond this point," she said.
"But obviously there is a pasage to Helicon. We'll have
to find it."
-"It may not be pretty." He had heard the tales of laby-
rinthine underground tunnels choked with bodies. Such
claims were probably exaggerated; still. . . .
"I know it." She kissed him—she was able to do that
now, and was proud of herself—and began pushing again
at places in the wall, randomly.
"If they didn't want you inside, it wouldn't open that
way," he pointed out. "Might even be booby-trapped."
"I don't think so. They might guard it, but they wouldn't
do anything to antagonize us. The crazies, I mean. Helicon
needed us as much as we needed it, because they'd largely
shelved their hydroponics and couldn't grow really decent
vegetables, and of course no wood. It was more efficient
to trade with us, so they concentrated on the heavy in-
dustry we couldn't touch. Dr. Jones can talk endlessly
about such things—what he calls the essential interactions
of civilization."
"So it's safe to break in, you think," he said.
She continued to tap at panels without effect. Neq
studied the wear-marks on the floor, analyzing their pat-
tern as though he were verifying the situation of a va-
cated campsite. "There," he said, touching one section of
the wall. "It opens there."
She joined him at once. "Are you sure? This seems
solid."
He pointed to the floor marks her flash illumined, and
she understood. With this hint, they were able to locate a
significant crevice. "But it doesn't open inward," he said.
"No hinge on this side, no scrape-marks."
"I don't find any other crease," she said. "But it has to
open somehow." She banged at the corner with the butt
of the light. "Unless it slides—"
Neq forced the point of his sword into the crevice and
leaned on it. The wall gave a little, sidewise. "It slides—
but it's locked or blocked."
"Naturally it would lock from the other side," she said.
"Can you free it?"
"Not with my sword. But we can get a crowbar from
the truck. Enough leverage, it'll give."
They returned to the vehicle and collected an armful of
tools. And in due course they had it open.
Behind the wall was a set of tracks. "They used a rail-
road!" she said. "To haul the supplies along, maybe by
remote control. How clever."
But there was no wheeled cart, so they had to walk
between the tracks. Neq was nervous about this, not lik-
ing the confinement, but she didn't seem to mind. She
took his hand in the dark and squeezed it.
He counted paces. It was over a mile before the tracks
stopped. There were platforms, with boxes stacked, and
sidings with several carts. Neq opened one crate and dis-
covered singlesticks—perhaps fifty of the metal weapons.
So it was true: the underworld had made the nomad
arms. Hadn't the Weaponless known that when he de-
stroyed it?
They walked along to the end of the platform and
passed through a dark doorway. Then up a gradual ramp,
through a charred aperture, and into a larger hall. The
air was close and not sweet. Neqa passed the beam of the
flashlight over the floor.
Ashes lay across it, with occasional charred mounds.
The ambient odor was much stronger here.
"What happened?" she inquired, perplexed.
Neq saw that she didn't comprehend. "Fire. They
couldn't get out in time."
"TTiey?" Then she recognized the shape of the nearest
mound and screamed. It was the remains of a human
being.
Neq led her back down the ramp. "See—after they
were dead, the wooden door finally burned through. It
must have locked or jammed, like the panel back there.
Someone must have poured gasoline all over everything
and—" «
She turned to him in the darkness, the flashlight off.
"The nomads did this?"
"Tyi said it happened before they broke in, actually.
The fires were still hot, and the smoke was everywhere,
so they didn't stay long. I
don't know."
She made a choking sound. He felt something warm on
his arm, and knew that she was vomiting against him.
"Helicon was the last hope of man!" she exclaimed, and
heaved again.
"I don't think we need to look any more," he said. He
took the flashlight from her flaccid hand and guided her
away.
Neqa insisted on writing her report. "In case anything
happens, this will tell the story," she explained. "Also, I'm
sure of the details now. I hope I forget them by the time
we get back."
They slept in the truck that night, though the hostel
bunks were handy. The tunnel connection to the Helicon
carnage was too direct; it felt as though the fumes of
death were filtering along, enclosing the hostel in their
horror. Neq had been objective about the scene at the
time, but at nighf his imagination enhanced the under-
world's gruesomeness. Fresh death in the circle, or fight-
ing outlaws—that was one thing. But this helpless doom
of confined fire....
There was no question of trying to make love. They
clung tightly together, holding the morbid blackness off.
Next day Neqa completed her report and locked it in
the dash compartment of the truck. They moved out. Neq
still didn't see any reason for a written description; the
place was dead, and that was it. Such a message would
hardly be any comfort to the crazies. They would be
finished anyway, and the nomad culture would degenerate
into complete savagery.
What colossal folly had led the Weaponless to lay siege
to Helicon? He had brought it down, somehow—but had
destroyed both the crazies and the nomads with it. The
dark age of man was beginning.
Neqa didn't say much either. He was sure that similar
thoughts were obsessing her. If information was all they
had come for, the mission had been successful. But what
a miserable mission it wasi
The second day of the return trip they encountered a
barricade that had not been there before. Neq was in-
stantly on guard; this surely meant trouble.
"Coincidence?" Neqa inquired.
"Can't be. They saw us go by before, knew we would
have to come-back this way. So they set it up."
They had to stop. There was no way around, no room
to turn.
"If we're lucky, they won't have more than a guard or
two here right now. They wouldn't know exactly when
we might come along," he said.
They were not lucky. Men converged from both sides.
Sworders, clubbers, staffers—at least a score of warriors.
A number stood back with drawn bows.
"Do you think this is where the other trucks were lost?"
she inquired as though it were an interesting footnote for
her report.
"Most of them. This. is well organized." He studied the
situation.. "Too many to fight. And if we try to back out
now, those arrows will get us. See, they're aiming at the
tires. We'll have to go along—as far as we can."
A sworder strode up to Neq's side. "You're a warrior.
What are you doing in a crazy truck?"
Before Neq could reply, a man called from the other
side: "Hey, this one's a woman!"
"What luck!" another exclaimed. "Is she young?"
" 'Bout nineteen."
"OK. Out, both of you!" the sworder said.
Neq was furious, but glanced again at the bows cover-
ing them and dismounted. No honest nomad would use
the hunting bow against a man, but that didn't dimmish
its effectiveness as a long-distance weapon. Neqa slid over
to step down on his side. She stood close to him, but clear
of his sword, so as not to obstruct his draw. He knew
she was ready to snap her dagger into her hand: she
was tense.
"Know what I think?" the sworder said. "I think they're
crazies, both of them, pretending to be nomads. They
want us to think they hijacked the truck themselves, so
we'll leave 'em be. See, her hands are smooth, and he's
too small to really handle a sword. And unmarked—no
scars on him."
"Pretty smart," a staffer said.
"The crazies are awful smart—and awful stupid."
"All right, crazy," the sworder said. "We'll play this
game. We got the time. Who do you claim to be?"
"Neq the Sword."
"Anybody hear of any Neq the Sword?" the man
shouted.
There was a reaction. "Yeah," a dagger said.
"Me too," a clubber agreed. "In Sol's tribe. A top
sworder—third or fourth of a hundred swords, I heard.
And better against other weapons."
The sworder smiled. "Crazy, you picked the wrong
name. Now you'll have to prove it—in the circle. With
your doll watching. And if you can't—"
Neq didn't answer. The circle was exactly where he
wanted to be—with Neqa in sight. These were certainly
outlaws, but the tribe seemed to be large enough to re-
quire the discipline of the circle code. It was a matter of
logistics: one tough man could control five or ten war-
riors by force of personality on an informal basis, and a
few more by judicious intimidation; but when the num-
ber was thirty or forty, it had to be more formal. The
circle code was not purely a matter of honor; it was a
practical system for controlling large numbers of fighting
men in an orderly fashion.
And where the circle code existed, even imperfectly,
Neq could prevail. He had indeed been third or fourth
sword of a hundred. But first sword had been Tyi, who
had retired largely to managerial duties of empire. Sec-
ond had been killed in a noncircle accident. Third had
been Tor, now retired. And Neq had kept practicing. The
result was that at the time of the breakup of the empire
he had been unofficially conceded second sword—of three
thousand. And he had had private doubts about Tyi's
continuing proficiency in the circle.
It was true, too, that the empire training had brought
particular competence in inter-weapon combat-,There had
been half a dozen staffers who could balk Neq in the
circle, one or two stickers. Bog the Club who was now
dead, and no daggers or stars. Against these men he would
take his chances, sometimes prevailing in friendly matches,
sometimes not.
Neq feared no man in the circle.
They were conducted to a camp similar to those of the
empire. A large canvas tent was surrounded by a number
of small tents, and there were separate latrine, mess, and
practice sections. A good layout.
The chief of this tribe was a huge sworder, grizzled and
scarred. Chiefs were generally sworders, for the weapon
had a special quality that awed others into submission
that an equally competent staff could not. When the man
stood, he towered over Neq.
"Neq the Sword, eh? I am Yod the Sword. And she
wears your band?"
"Yes."
"Now I know of Neq," Yod said. "Maybe the top
sworder of the empire, a few years back. He never gave
his bracelet to a woman. Isn't that strange?"
Neq shrugged. The chief thought he was toying with
the captive.
"Well, all shall be known," Yod said. "I shall give you
the tour."
And a tour it was. "I have fifty excellent warriors," Yod
said, gesturing to the tent. "But for some reason we're
short of young women, and that makes the young men
restive. So the girl will have a place with us, regardless."
Neqa walked closer to Neq and let her bracelet show,
defensively.
"I have supplies enough for many months," Yod boasted.
"See."
Four crazy trucks were parked behind the main tent.
There was no longer any doubt who was the main hi-
jacker. But it made little difference, since Helicon was
dead.
"And entertainment." Yod gestured to a hanging cage.
Neq looked at this curiously. There was a man inside,
huddled within a filthy blanket. Metal cups lay on the
wire floor, evidently for his eating, and ordure had cumu-
lated underneath. Apparently they did not release him
even for natural functions. He had room to move about
some, making the cage rock and swing, which no doubt
provided much of the tribe's "amusement." By the look
Neq the Sword Page 7
