Joan Vinge - World's End

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The Hegemony wanted Tiamat, and wanted it completely under their control, for only one reason: the water of life. The longevity drug was distilled from the blood of mers, bioengineered creatures of the Old Empire that survived only in Tiamat's seas. The drug was extremely rare, so expensive that even for someone like my father it was only a dream. It made Tiamat worth keeping, and it gave me a chance to see a living city of the Empire. "It's my only chance to see the world where they find the water of life, before its Gate closes. And when it does close, I'll be reassigned. . . . It's not as if I'll

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WORLD S END

be there for the rest of my life. I'll return home on leave--"

He smiled, to silence me. "I know thou will serve honorably, wherever thou go." The chiming of his antique watch made him glance down. His smile became an expression I couldn't put a name to. He took the watch from the pocket in his sash, where he always kept it.

And that was the last time I saw it, until the day I saw it in my brother's hand. . . .

The junkyard and the clamor and the heat reclaimed me again--I almost welcomed them. I put the trefoil into my belt pouch, along with my brothers' picture. I glanced at the holo of Song. I saw a girl-woman wearing the familiar sibyl sign, with dark eyes and a mass of black hair. Somehow I hadn't expected it to be black. I stared at the image for a long moment, trying to find something in her face to tell me why she'd done what she had. Her eyes were disturbingly alive, as if even her

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image could see into other worlds. As if another woman, another sibyl, with hair the color of moonlight, could look out through her eyes in search of me. I jammed the holo into my pouch.

I don't know what to make of this. Things seem to fall into my hands even as they're slipping through my fingers. Just when it all seems hopeless, I'm given what I need--just as I was on Tiamat. And just when I think

I'm safe, I remember Tiamat.

I remember that night, as if it were last night. I haven't thought of it in years. I wanted so much to forget that

I really believed I had. I haven't even wanted a woman, since. . . . But tonight, gods--I ache for the feel of her body against mine.

Damn it all! Maybe I am crazy.

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dW

e've begun our journey at last, for better or

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worse. We've been traveling upriver into

World's End for nearly four days now.

Ang wasn't able to beg, borrow, or steal the grid I

needed to get the rover's antigrav unit working, despite his assurances. That would have made everything a damn sight easier . . . but why should anything be easy when it all depends on the Company? In the end, Ang just seemed to run out of patience--as if he had to begin, as if he had to get back into the wilderness, no matter how he had to travel.

We've made the first part of the journey by water, our only other alternative. At least I was able to make sure this derelict is watertight. Thank the gods it held together

--I was in no mood for bailing, let alone taking a swim in that foul yellow fluid. The stench was nauseating:

The air purifier still needs overhauling. Spadrin actually got sick to his stomach from the smell and the motion of the water. Nothing seemed to bother Ang-- not even the jungle pressing down to the shore on either bank, spilling into the river with a kind of frenzy, as if it were trying to reach us. It floats on the water surface, rotting and stinking and gray, like the flesh of corpses.

Last night I dreamed about wanting to die, and not being able to ... an old, old dream. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

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When I sleep tonight I suppose I'll dream about

ay 37.

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WORLD S END

pumps. We reached the refinery today--the last outpost of the Company, and the last sign of

"civilization" we'll see. Armed guards greeted us at the dock when we arrived.

Fortunately Ang knew the password, or whatever it took for them to let us ashore. I never thought I'd be happy to be on Company ground again; but after four days on the river . . .

The sound of pumps is everywhere throughout the complex; there's no escape from it. This station sits-- floats--in a vast, tarry swamp of petroleum ooze.

Not even the jungle wants this stretch of ground. But the Company does. According to Ang they couldn't resist such a cheap source of hydrocarbons, so they built a

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pumping station and an entire bloody refinery on top of it. They thought it would be easier than fighting the jungle; now they fight day and night to keep the whole thing from sinking into the sludge. Why they didn't float the installation on repellers, I can't imagine. Any Kharamoughi could have told at a glance that it was absurd.

I said as much to Ang as he showed me around.

He said, "Any fool could see it! But the Controllers wouldn't come and look for themselves.

Now they've put so much in it they won't let it go. And they'll never build a new plant till they give up on this one. They don't really want to know what it's like here. They don't give a damn."

He waved his hand, grimacing. Then he looked back at me and said, "You Techs like to point out the obvious, don't you?" As if I'd insulted him, even though he agreed with me.

I didn't answer. He frowned; then he shrugged and walked away. All day he'd shown a peculiarly territorial attitude about this place--especially considering that he seemed even more sour than usual upon our arrival here this morning. I watched him start up a conversation with a group of workers who were taking a break in the lifeless yard outside the refinery. Ang had been a geolo

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49

JOAN D. VINGE

gist when he worked for the Company, and he knew a lot of the workers here. He'd arranged for us to stop over for a day, so that he could try one last time to locate a grid for the rover.

I wandered off alone across the yard, looking at the megalithic sprawl of the refinery. It occurred to me that

I hadn't seen Spadrin all day; it was like being free of a physical weight. He'd stayed in our quarters, sleeping or drunk or just disinterested--there was nothing worth seeing by most people's standards. Primitive structures and monstrous entanglements of equipment all rusting, rotting, shored up or jury-rigged to keep them functioning. I was drawn to explore them by a kind of horrified fascination--and because I couldn't face going back to the claustrophobic hallways and the stupefyingly ugly rooms of the compound's living quarters.

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But there was no real escape from the ugliness here.

At last I heard Ang shouting at me, and made my way back across the yard. I climbed ladders and catwalks to the place where he stood with three of the workers, the highest point I'd reached yet in my exploration. I gazed at the geometric sprawl of the station silhouetted against the bleary red face of the setting sun; all I could see were towers thrusting black against the gray of the rising fog.

Pale flames hovered at their tips as gases were wantonly burned off, adding to the stench that hung over this place day and night.

Ang said to the others, "This is our mechanic. Tell them what kind of grid you want."