Piers Anthony - Sos the Rope

"You have not heard of it?" The contempt was veiled and perhaps unconscious; it had not occurred to Bob that a newcomer could knew more than he. The question had lulled any suspicions he might have had and strengthened his preconceptions. "It's run by one Sol, and it's been expanding enormously this past year. Several of our recent arrivals have had news of it, and there's even been word from the South American unit. Very wide notoriety."

"South America?" Sos had read about this, the continent of pre-Blast years, along with Africa and Asia, but had no evidence it still existed.

"Did you think we were the only such outfit in the world? There's one or more Helicons on every continent. We have lines connecting us to all of them, and once in a while we exchange personnel, though there is a language barrier. South America is more advanced than we are; they weren't hit so hard in the war. We have a Spanish-speaking operator, and quite a few of theirs speak English, so there's no trouble there. But that's a long ways away; when they get wind of an empire here, it's time to do something about it."

"Why."

"Why do you think? What would happen to the status quo if the primitives started really organizing? Producing their own food and weapons, say? There'd be no control over them at all!"

Sos decided that further questions along this line would be dangerous. "Why me?"

"Because you're the biggest, toughest savage to descend upon us in a long time. You bounced back from your exposure on the mountain in record time. If anyone can take it, you can. We need a strong body now, and you're it."

It occurred to Sos that it had been a long time since this man had practiced diplomacy, if ever. "It for what?"

"It to return to life. To take over that empire."

If Bob had intended to shock him, he had succeeded. To return to life! To go back. . . "I'm not your man. I have sworn never to bear a weapon again." That was not precisely true, but if they expected him to face Sol again, it certainly applied. He had agreed never to bring a weapon against Sol again-and regardless of other circumstances, he meant to abide by the terms of their last encounter. It was a matter of honor, in life or death.

"You take such an oath seriously?" But Bob's sneer faded as he looked at Sos. "Well, what if we train you to fight without weapons?"

"Without a weapon-in the circle?"

"With the bare hands. The way your little girl does. That doesn't violate any of your precious vows, does it? Why are you so reluctant? Don't you realize what this means to you? You will have an empire!"

Sos was infuriated by the tone and implications, but realized that he could not protest further without betraying himself. This was big; the moment Bob caught on- "What if I refuse? I came to the mountain to die." "I think you know that there is no refusal here. But if personal pressure or pain doesn't faze you, as I hope it doesn't, there may be things that will. This won't mean much to you right now, but if you think about it for a while you'll come around, I suspect." And Bob told him some things that vindicated Sos's original impression of him utterly.

Not for the reason the underground master thought- but Sos was committed.

"To life?" Sosa demanded incredulously, when he told her later. "But no one ever goes back!"

"I will be the first-but I will do it anonymously."

"But if you want to return, why did you come to the mountain? I mean-"

"I don't want to return. I have to."

"But-" She was at a loss for words for a moment. "Did Bob threaten you? You shouldn't let him-"

"It was not a chance I could afford to take."

She looked at him, concerned. "Was it to-to harm her? The one you-"

"Something like that."

"And if you go, you'll get her back."

After his experience in the observation deck, Sos was aware that anything he said or did might be observed in this region. He could not tell Sosa anything more than Bob thought he knew. "There is an empire forming out there. I have to go and eliminate its leader. But it won't be for a year or more, Sosa. It will take me that long to get ready. I have a lot to learn first."

Bob thought he had been swayed, among other things, by the dream of owning an empire. Bob must never know where his real loyalty lay. If someone were sent to meet Sol, it was best that it be a friend.... -

"May I keep your bracelet-that year?"

"Keep it forever, Sosa. You will be training me."

She contemplated him sadly. "Then it wasn't really an accident, our meeting. Bob knew what you would be doing before we brought you in. He set it up."

"Yes." Again, it was close enough.

"Damn him!" she cried. "That was cruel!"

"It was necessary, according to his reasoning. He took the most practical way to do what had to be done. You and I merely happen to be the handiest tools. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry!" she muttered. Then she smiled, making the best of it. "At least we know where we stand."

She trained him. She taught him the blows and the holds she knew, laboriously learned in childhood from a tribe that taught its women self-defense and cast out the barren ones. Men, of course, disdained the weaponless techniques-but they also disdained to accept any woman who was an easy mark, and so the secret knowledge passed from mother to daughter how to destroy a man.

Sos did not know what inducement Bob had used to make Sosa reveal these tactics to a man, and did not care to inquire.

She showed him how to strike with his hands with such power as to sunder wooden beams, and how to smash them with his bare feet, and his elbow, and his head. She made him understand the vulnerable points of the human body, the places where a single blow could stun or maim or kill. She had him run at her as though in a rage, and she brought him down again and again, feet and arms tangled uselessly. She let him try to choke her, and she broke that hold in half a dozen painful and embarrassing ways, though there was more strength in his two thumbs than in her two hands. She showed him the pressure points that were open to pain, the nerve centers where pressure induced paralysis or unconsciousness. She demonstrated submission holds that she could place on him with a single slender arm, that held him in such agony he could neither break nor fight. She brought out the natural weapons of the body, so basic they were almost forgotten by men: the teeth, the nails, the extended fingers, the bone of the skull, even the voice.

And when he had mastered these things and learned to avoid and block the blows and break or nullify the holds and counter the devious strategies of weaponless combat, she showed him how to fight when portions of his body were incapacitated: one arm, two arms, the legs, the eyes. He stalked her blindfolded, with feet tied together, with weights tied to his limbs, with medicine to make him dizzy. He climbed the hanging ladder with arms bound in a straitjacket; he swung through the elevated bars with one arm shackled to one foot. He stood still while she delivered the blows that had brought him down during their first encounter, only twisting almost imperceptibly to take them harmlessly.

Then he set it all aside. He went to the operating room and exposed himself to the anaesthetics and the scalpels. The surgeon placed flexible plastic panels under the skin of his belly and lower back, tough enough to halt the driven blade of knife or sword. He placed a collar upon Sos's neck that locked with a key, and braced the long bones of arms and legs with metallic rods, and embedded steel mesh in the crotch. He mutilated the face, rebuilding the nose with stronger stuff and filling the cheeks with nylon weave. He ground and capped the teeth. He peeled back the forehead and resodded with shaped metal.

Sundry other things occurred in successive operations before they turned him loose to start again. No part of him was recognizable as the man once known as Sos; instead he walked slowly, as a juggernaut rolls, fighting against the pain of an ugly rebirth.