Joan Vinge - World's End

I touched the pouch where I kept my brothers' picture, feeling tension tighten in my chest. If Ang had a definite

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

plan in mind, that would make it much harder to get him to cooperate with my search.

But Ang pointed at the walls, shaking his head. He said in a whisper, "Not yet."

Page 49

Spadrin frowned, but he nodded. I sighed, waiting to show Ang the picture, and tell him the truth as well. This was not the time. I wondered when the right time would ever come.

"What about the grid?" Ang asked me.

I shook my head. "They haven't got what we need."

"You're sure? You're really sure?"

I nodded wearily.

58

WORLD S END

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

He muttered a curse, but his expression didn't change, as if it didn't really make any difference to him. "We'll leave at dawn, then." He looked back at me. "One piece of advice, Gedda. Don't try to find reasons for the things you see in World's End. Because there aren't any."

59

day 39.

We're crossing a range of mountains now. The jungles are finally well below us, thank the gods, but nothing has gotten better except the smell. At least Ang knows the passes; if he didn't, I wouldn't be able to tell the trail from the wilderness. If we'd only gotten that damned grid. . ..

Oh, the hell with it. We crawl; I might as well get used to it.

We left most of the rain behind, along with the jungle.

Ang says it just gets drier from here on. He ordered us to conserve water, even with the recycler.

Unfortunately he seems to consider cleanliness in close quarters a luxury.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

I'm damned if I'll grow a beard.

Spadrin seems to have rights that Ang doesn't even give to himself. What the hell right does anyone have to take up storage space with crates of liquor and a full spectrum video receiver when we barely have room to move inside the rover as it is? On top of that, he's a plughead. He spends half his time buried in that obscene device, overtaxing the rover's power systems. He complains that he's "bored" without his addictions. Ang's the only one who can pilot in this terrain, leaving Spadrin with nothing much to do. Ang seems to feel it's safer to let him have Page 50

what he wants. Maybe he's right;

Spadrin's safer in a stupor than he is alert and restless.

This morning he walked in on me as I was using the toilet in the momentary privacy of the rover's sleeping area. He looked me up and down, smirking at my annoy60

WORLD S END

anee, and said, "So you impersonated a Blue. Ang was

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

right: I'll bet you wore that uniform like you were born in it. You look like you're still wearing it--"

I pulled up my shorts. "Maybe your conscience is bothering you/' I said. He laughed, but neither of us was joking, and neither of us thought it was funny. He pushed me off-balance as he went forward again.

I should have brought a weapon I could keep by me;

but it would have broken the law. The law doesn't bother Spadrin. We have weapons with the supplies, but

Ang keeps them locked up. The fool really thinks that makes him safe. . . .

61

dW

hat is it about this place? It's like quicksand.

. . . Time carries us forward, but the deeper we travel into World's End, the deeper I seem to sink into the past. By the time I reach

Fire Lake . . .

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

I only wanted to get away from the campsite, and the others, for a walk this evening; another evening spent in the company of Ang and Spadrin was beginning to seem like an eternity.

Number Four's immense, solitary moon was as bright as a lantern in the nearly starless sky, and the three of us could have been the only living beings on this entire world. When I set out, wandering alone in the hills seemed safer and far more pleasant than sitting at Spadrin's side.

In the moonlight the mountains looked like the weed choked ruins of some giant's mansion, built with stones the size of houses. Like something out of the Old Empire

--perhaps the cityworld of Tell'haspah, haunted by the spirits of its unremembered ancestors.

Page 51

The sound of the wind filled me with a homesickness for places I've never seen. I even thought of sleeping out; the cool night wind and the open sky were paradise, after the stinking closeness of the rover and Ang's snoring.

Suddenly I came upon a primitive animal trap, half hidden among the rocks and scrub in a small open space. In its jaws was something shriveled and black. I didn't know what it was until I'd gotten close enough

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ay 40.

62

WORLD S END

to touch it. It was a foot, the limb of some creature that had been caught in the trap long ago. In its frenzy to live and be free, some animal had gnawed off its own foot.

I crouched there for a while, without the strength to move, before I unfastened the leather wrist guards that hid my scars. I stared at the welts on my arms. And then I opened my belt pouch and laid its contents out in the dust: the picture of my brothers, the trefoil, the picture of Song. Her hair was like the night sky, glittering blackness.

Her wild dark eyes gazed into mine like the soul of this place. / know you, they whispered, /

know your secret heart. I know why you 'we come.

I turned away from her image, to the faces of my brothers, and looked away from them. . . .

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

And I remembered how I had looked away from the inspector's gaze as she handed me the message transcript that had followed me to Tiamat from Kharemough.

"Sergeant," she said, more hesitantly than I'd ever heard her speak, "I'm . . . afraid it's bad news."

I felt my face go numb, and my mind. I took the transcript from her with nerveless fingers, knowing before

I even looked at it what it would say. "My father is dead." I spoke the words to the naked, ancient wall of the hallway. And I killed him. I put out a hand to steady myself.

"I'm sorry," the inspector murmured to my turned back. And then, in her native language, she said, "May he live forever in the space of a thousand hearts."

I nodded slightly, all I could do. Finally I looked at what she had given me. The transcript was a brief, cursory message from my brother HK. It said he was now head of family, and included a copy of my father's will.

I crumpled the transcript in my fist as though I could crush it out of existence. It sprang back into perfect form

Page 52

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

as I released it, and dropped to the floor. A crowd of

63

JOAND. VINGE

patrolmen and rowdy offworlders pushed past us, trampling it underfoot.

"Sergeant ..." I felt the inspector's hand fall lightly on my shoulder. I let it stay there by an effort of will.

"Why don't you take the rest of the day--"

"No, Inspector." I faced her again. "I'm all right. My father--my father's been dead for more than two years."

It had taken that long for the message to reach Tiamat, with the sublight time gaps at either end of the stargate.

It had been years since the rituals had been spoken, years since he had joined his ancestors in the peaceful gardens.

And it would be many years more before I could even think about returning to honor him there.