Neq agreed. "He brings people together."
"You and I came together inevitably," she said with feminine certainty. "Helicon was your idea. You should be master."
"With this?" He uncovered the glockenspiel. "You could change it back. The sword is still there, underneath."
It was too complicated to explain that he never had been considered for the Helicon office. "If'"! wore the sword again, you would have to kill me."
She frowned, surprised. "I suppose I would."
A little boy about four years old wandered by, spotting them. "Who are you?" he asked boldly.
"Neq the Glockenspiel."
"Vara the Stick."
"I'm Jimi. You have funny hands."
"They are metal hands," Neq said, surprised that the boy had not been frightened. "To make music."
"My daddy Jim has metal guns. They make bangs."
"Music is better."
"It is not!"
"Listen." And Neq lifted the glockenspiel, took the little hammer in his pincers, and began to play. Then he sang:
"What's a town?" the boy inquired, impressed.
"A nomad camp with crazy buildings."
"I know what a boom falela is! A gun."
Vara laughed. "I want one like him," she murmured.
"Find Jim the Gun, then."
"After this one," she said, patting her abdomen.
Neq, startled, sang another verse for the boy.
"How big was that crow?" Jimi inquired, fascinated. Neq struck a loud note. "About that size."
"Oh," the boy said, satisfied. "What's that thing?"
"A flower vine."
"It is not!"
"The flowers only open in the dark. Then they smell funny, and people do funny things."
"Like crows with pitchforks?"
Vara laughed again. "Just about," she said.
Tyl emerged from the building. "They're ready."
Vara picked up the vine-pot and they went inside. Jimi followed. "He has funny hands," he informed Tyl. "But he's fun."
They were all there: the group of odd-named oldsters he had rounded up, along with Dick the Surgeon, and Sola, and several more he did not know. Apparently Dr. Jones had located more of the people on the list during Neq's absence. Some were nomads, male and female. Jimi went to one of these, evidently Jim the Gun.
Vara, poised until this moment, took Neq's covered arm. "Who's that?" she whispered, nodding specifically.
"Sola," he replied before realizing the significance of her identity. The woman had recovered more than a suggestion of her former splendor.
Vara clutched his arm as though terrified. It was entirely uncharacteristic of her.
Tyl stepped in and performed the introduction. "Sola... Vara. You have known each other."
Sola did not make the connection, for she had not known of Var's marriage. But the others saw the resemblance as the two women stood together. "Mother and daughter..." Dick said.
"Widows, both," Tyl said. The words seemed cruel, but they were not, for this clarified a prime source of concern and confusion at once. No further questions about that matter would be asked. That meant in turn that the more devious and less honorable relationships would not be exposed.
Yet it was awkward. Sola and Vara had parted perhaps thirteen years ago, when Vara was hardly more than a baby. What was there to say?
Once more Tyl interceded. "You both knew Var well. And Sol. And the Weaponless. As I did. Soon we must talk together of great men."
"Yes," Sola said, and Vara agreed.
"In your absence," Dr. Jones said to Neq, "we located a few more volunteers, as you see. We have screened them as well as we could, and believe they represent a viable unit. Provided suitable leadership develops."
"There are leaders here," Neq said. Did the crazy want him to affirm his support for the leader already chosen?
"The destruction of the prior Helicon suggests that its leadership was inadequate," Dr. Jones said. "We have been obliged to make certain restrictions."
Neq pondered that. Apparently he was being asked not only to support, but to nominate the leader! "You won't work with just anybody. But you can work with Tyl--"
"I return shortly to my tribe," Tyl said. "My job is done. I am not of this group. I would not leave the nomad culture or take my family under the mountain."
Neq was amazed. So Tyl, too, had been merely supporting the effort, not directing it!
"I know of Jim the Gun," Neq said. "He armed the empire for the assault on--"
"I made a mistake!" Jim broke in. "I shall not make another. I know better than to command what I once destroyed."
Apparently Dr. Jones had not set things up so neatly after all! "What are your requirements?" Neq asked the crazy. "Literacy? Helicon experience? What?"
"We would have preferred such things," Dr. Jones admitted. "We would have liked very much to have found the Weaponless. But other qualities are more important now, and we must work with what we have."
"Why not Neq?" Vara asked.
Neq laughed uncomfortably. "My leadership has become a song. I shall not kill again."
"That is one of our requirements," Dr. Jones said. "There has been too much shedding of blood."
"Then you require the impossible," Neq said grimly. "Helicon was built on blood."
"But it shall not be rebuilt on blood!" Dr. Jones exclaimed with unseemly vehemence for one of his character. "History has clarified the folly of violence and deceit."
Many of the people in the room were nodding agreement. But Neq thought of the way the outlaws would have to be tamed, and knew the dream of nonviolent civilization was untenable.
"Neq the Sword," Sola said after a pause. "We know your history. We do not condemn you. You say you shall not kill again. How can we believe you, when your whole way of life has been based on vengeance by the sword?"
Neq shrugged. He saw already that no man who could give the absolute assurance of pacifism they demanded could be an effective leader of Helicon. He could not kill by his own arm, but he had agreed to the indirect slaughter of the flower vine during the trek here. His stance against killing had been hypocritical.
"Take him as your leader!" Vara exclaimed. "All of you are here because of him!"
"Yes," one thin old crazy agreed. 'This man lifted an outlaw siege against my post, and took a message for me that brought rescue. I trust him, whatever else he has done."
Jim the Gun spoke. He was a little old nomad with curly yellow hair. "We do not question Neq's capacity. We question his judgment under pressure. I myself was ready to shoot somebody when I learned how my brother had died in Helicon--but I did not. A man who would go berserk for weeks at a time, whatever the provocation--"
"I like him," Jimi said. "He has music hands."
Startled, Jim looked at his son. "That man is Neq the Sword!"
"He says music is better'n guns. But I like him."
"We share your vision," Sola said to Neq. "But we must have a leader of inflexible temperament. A man like the Weaponless."
"The Weaponless destroyed Helicon!" Vara flared. "Can anybody even count how many men died because of him? Yet you say no killing, and you want--"