Joan Vinge - World's End

"There's

. . . nothing I can do about it now."

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She frowned slightly, and said, "You can take the time to let yourself feel something." She was a tough, ironic woman--Newhavenese, like most of the force stationed there. I had been her aide for only a few months, since shortly after I arrived. She was more intelligent than most of the Newhavenese seemed to be, but until now

I'd never thought of her as sensitive. I wished fiercely that she hadn't chosen this moment to demonstrate it.

"I don't want to," I whispered.

"What?"

I drew myself up. "I don't want to--to inflict my personal problems on you, Inspector. I can grieve on my own time, if that's necessary."

She glanced upward, appealing to unseen gods. Her lips moved silently, Kharemoughis. "Then the rest of the day is your own time," she said. "That's an order, Sergeant."

I saluted, helpless to do anything but obey. "Yes, ma'am." I started away from her. She leaned down and picked up the transcript. I stopped, turned back, holding out my hand. She gave it to me. "Thank you," I said, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, Page 53

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trying not to blink.

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WORLD S END

She smiled at me, a sad smile with a meaning I didn't really understand. "Remember the good things," she said. "Those are what last."

I nodded, but the truth was burning my throat like acid. "My father . . . loved me," I mumbled.

"And I

...!..."! shook my head and walked away as quickly as I could.

My father loved me. It filled my head as I went out into the teeming streets of the ancient city of Carbuncle--the jewel, the fester, that I had come so far to see. I walked the streets for hours, but I saw none of its wonders or its corruption. I saw only the past.

As I walked I remembered the exact moment when I

learned that my father loved me. I was standing in the doorway to the sun room, drawn by the rare sound of

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his voice raised in anger. My brothers' voices answered him, whining and resentful by turns. They were arguing about money--an argument that was far from rare.

I stood just out of sight, feeling a familiar ache in my chest at the sound of their quarrel. . .

perversely aching to be a part of it. Third son, youngest by years, I had never been able to escape my birth order or my brothers'

shadow; never able to matter enough to anyone to make them rage at me--

"I cannot believe thou are any sons of mine!" my father shouted. "Why can't thou behave like thy brother, with honor and wisdom! The two of thee do not make one half of him in human value."

I went to the doorway and stared into the green-dappled room. HK and SB looked up at me, and my father turned. I read the truth in all of their eyes, in a moment that seemed to go on and on.

A thousand small things that my father had done, shown me, asked of me, suddenly filled my mind-- things I had ignored, always looking for something more. The walks down to the family shrine, just the two

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JOAN D. VINGE

of us, on the summer evenings . . . his heirloom watch that only I had ever been allowed to hold.

I thought about my brothers' endless petty torments . . . had they all sprung from jealousy?

All my life I'd felt inadequate, incomplete--only to learn, in such a way, that I was his favorite son.

Only to realize now, years too late again, that I had failed him after all. He had wanted me to stay, and I had left Kharemough. He had wanted me to ... to change things. And I hadn't understood.

I stopped in the street, surrounded by the cacophony of shouting vendors and jostling sightseers, the shops of artisans and the garish gambling hells--a prisoner of the sights and smells and sounds, imprisoned inside the great spiral-shell of this bizarre city on an alien world.

A prisoner of my own choice. I could have changed

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things back on Kharemough--but I had run away instead.

And now it was far too late to change anything, even my mind. I had betrayed my father's belief in me

. . . and his disappointment had killed him. How had it all gone so wrong? Why didn 't I understand?

But I had. I'd known what he wanted, all along. He couldn't--wouldn't--tell me to defy the laws ...

and yet he had told me that I deserved to be his heir, which meant that he believed the laws were wrong.

I knew ways of manipulating the law. Everyone knew that there were cracks in the supposedly perfect structure of our social order. Some people--including some of our own class--actually claimed that those cracks were justifiable, even necessary, for the survival of society.

But ours was an ancient family line; we had never been forced to twist tradition to prove our right to be what and where we were. Such a thing, in my father's mind, was an impossibility. I'd been raised to believe that our honor was our pride. All my life I had been taught that I was a reflection of my father, and his father, and his

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WORLD S END

. . . that the way things were was the right way, the only way.

I told myself that if I tried to unseat my brothers, I

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would be no better than they were. And so I had left

Kharemough, instead. I had followed the law; I'd believed that I had done the right thing as I had always understood it. ... But it had only been an excuse for cowardice. Faced with the most important decision in my life, I had run away.

The rainbow streets of Carbuncle faded into the night.

With a kind of disbelief, I found myself back in the future, kneeling alone on the mountainside. I stared at the scars on my wrists, at the shriveled foot of a trapped beast that I held clenched in my fist.

I put the picture of Song, the trefoil, and the desiccated stump into my belt pouch, and got to my feet.

When I returned to the campsite, Ang and Spadrin

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were arguing over whose turn it was to clean the dishes.

Spadrin glowered and swore, but Ang's face was livid;

his own anger seemed to have him by the throat. I stood silently watching them, waiting for them to come to blows over meaningless inconsequence. But Spadrin glanced up suddenly and saw me. His face spasmed as though he'd seen a ghost. And then he sent the pile of dishes clanging into the cook unit with a kick, and said, "Your turn, Gedda."

I folded my arms. "I keep the rover running. I don't do dishes."

Spadrin grunted. "You eat, don't you? If you want to go on eating, you'll do what I want."

I looked at Ang, waiting for his support. Ang wiped his arm across his mouth. He looked back at me, flexing his hands. "Who asked you to go off like that, anyway?

You damn fool, I told you before we started that it was dangerous! You want to kill yourself?

Don't get out of sight of the rover again, unless you don't care if you ever 67

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JOAN D. VINGE

come back." He turned and followed Spadrin into the darkness.

I cleaned the dishes. And now I'll try to sleep--inside the rover, with the others, even though when I got here

I found Spadrin sleeping in my bunk. What choice do I

have . . . ?

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day 42.

ods, the dreams I've had. ... If only I could remember them when I wake up; maybe they'd stop. I woke Spadrin by crying out in my sleep, before dawn; he hasn't let me forget it all day. He baits me at every turn: bumping into me when I try to meditate, spilling my tea when we eat, fouling up my equipment