Piers Anthony - Sos the Rope

"The truth is we mine some metals and salvage some, and turn out the implements. The crazies distribute them and send us much of our food in return. I thought you understood about that when I showed you the accounting section. We also exchange information. They're what you call the service part of the economy, and we're the manufacturing part. The nomads are the consumers. It's all very nicely balanced, you see."

"But why?" It was the same question he had asked at the school.

"That's something each person has to work out for himself."

And the same answer. "You sound like Jones."

"Jones?"

"My crazy instructor. He taught me how to read."

She halted, surprised. "Sos! You can read?"

"I was always curious about things." He hadn't meant to reveal his literacy. Still, he could hardly have concealed it indefinitely.

"Would you show me how? We have so many books here-"

"It isn't that simple. It takes years to learn."

"We have years, Sos. Come, I want to start right away." She fairly dragged him in a new direction, despite the disparity in their sizes. She had delightful energy.

It was easy to recognize the library. In many respects the underworld resembled the crazies' building. "Jim, this is Sos. He can read!"

The spectacled man jumped up, smiling. "Marvelous!" He looked Sos up and down, then, a trifle dubiously. "You look more like a warrior than a scholar. No offense."

"Can't a warrior read?"

Jim fetched a book. "A formality, Sos-but would you read from this? Just a sample passage, please."

Sos took the volume and opened it at random. "BRUTUS: Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius, To cut the head off and then to hack the limbs, Like wrath in death and envy afterwards; for Anthony is but a limb of Caesar; Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar; And in the spirit of men there is no blood; Oh! that we then-"

"Enough! Enough!" Jim cried. "You can read, you can read, you certainly can. Have you been assigned yet? We must have you in the library! There is so much to-"

"You can give classes in reading," Sosa added excitedly. "We all want to learn, but so few know how-"

"I'll call Bob immediately. What a discovery!" The librarian fumbled for the intercom on his desk.

"Let's get out of here," Sos said, embarrassed by the commotion. He had always considered reading a private pursuit, except in the school, and found this eagerness upsetting.

It was a long day in the perpetual artificiality of the underworld, and he was glad to retire at the end of it. He was hardly certain he wanted to spend the rest of his life under the mountain, extraordinary as this world might be.

"But it really isn't a bad life, Sos," she said. "You get used to it-and the things we do are really important. We're the manufacturers for the continent; we make all the weapons, all the basic furnishings for the hostels, the prefabricated walls and floors, the appliances and electronic equipment-"

"Why did you take my bracelet?"

The question brought her up short. "Well, as I said, there aren't many women here. They have it scheduled so that each man has a night with someone each week. It isn't quite like a full-time relationship, but on the other hand there is variety. It works out pretty well."

The game of traveling bracelets. Yes, he could imagine how certain people would enjoy that, though he had noticed that most men did not use the golden signals here. "Why am I excluded?"

"Well you can, if you want. I thought-"

"I'm not objecting, girl. I just want to know why. Why do I rate a full-time partner when there aren't enough to go around?"

Her lip trembled, "Do-do you want it back?" She touched the bracelet.

He grabbed her, unresisting, and pressed her down upon the bunk. She met his kiss eagerly. "No I don't want it back. I-oh, get that smock off, then!" What use to demand reason of a woman?

She divested herself of her clothing, all of it, with alacrity. Then, womanlike, she seemed to change her mind. "Sos-"

He had expected something like this. "Go ahead."

"I'm barren."

He watched her silently.

"I tried-many bracelets. Finally I had the crazies check me. I can never have a baby of my own, Sos. That's why I came to the mountain . . . but babies are even more important here. So-"

"So you went after the first man they hauled off the mountain."

"Oh, no, Sos. I took my turn on the list. But when there isn't any love or any chance for-well, some complained I was unresponsive, and there really didn't seem to be much point in it. So Bob put me on the revival crew, where I could meet new people. The one who is on duty when someone is brought in is, well, responsible. To explain everything and make him feel at home and get him suitably situated. You know. You're the nineteenth person I've handled-seventeen men and two women. Some of them were old, or bitter. You're the first I really-that sounds even worse, doesn't it!"

Young, strong, pliable: the answer to a lonely woman's dreams, he thought. Yet why not? He had no inclination to embrace assorted women in weekly servicings. Better to stick to one, one who might understand if his heart were elsewhere.

"Suppose I happen to want a child of my own?"

"Then you-take back your bracelet."

He studied her, sitting beside him, halfway hiding behind the balled smock as though afraid to expose herself while the relationship was in doubt. She was very small and very woman-shaped. He thought about what it meant to be denied a child, and began to understand as he had not understood before what had driven Sol.

"I came to the mountain because I could not have the woman I loved," he said. "I know all that is gone, now but my heart doesn't. I can offer you only-friendship."

"Then give me that," she said, dropping the smock.

He took her into the bed with him, holding her as carefully as he had held Stupid, afraid of crushing her. He held her passively at first, thinking that that would be the extent of it. He was wrong.

But it was Sola his mind embraced.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bob was a tall, aggressive man, the manifest leader of the mountain group. "I understand you can read," he said at once. "How come?"

Sos explained about his schooling. "Too bad."

Sos waited for him to make his point.

"Too bad it wasn't the next one. We could have used your talent here."

Sos still waited. This was like taking the circle against an unknown weapon. Bob did not have the peculiar aura of the death-dealing Tom, but he was named as strangely and struck Sos as thoroughly ruthless. He wondered how common this stamp was among those who had renounced life. It probably was typical; he had seen for himself how the manner, the personality of the leader, transmitted itself to the group. Sos had shaped Sol's empire with tight organization and a touch of humor, letting the men enjoy their competition for points as they improved their skills. When he left, Tyl bad ruled, and the discipline remained without the humor. The camps had become grim places. Strange that he only saw this now!

"We have a special and rather remarkable assignment for you," Bob was saying. "A unique endeavour."

Seeing that Sos was not going to commit himself, Bob got down to specifics. "We are not entirely ignorant of affairs on the surface, can't afford to be. Our information is largely second hand, of course-our teevee perceptors don't extend far beyond the Helicon environs-but we have a much better overall view than you primitives have. There's an empire building up there. We have to break it up in a hurry."

Evidently that excellent overall view did not reveal Sos's own place in the scheme. He suspected more strongly now that it would be best if it never were known. The flamethrower undoubtedly pointed in the direction of the organizer of such an empire, while an ignorant, if literate, primitive was safe. "How do you know?"