Joan Vinge - World's End

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when I work on the rover. . . . The rough terrain we've been through has nearly torn its ancient guts out more than once. I've done all the plate-cleaning and most of the cooking, too, the past few days. It's easier than arguing about it, when Ang won't ever back me up.

He never says anything to either of us that he doesn't have to, anymore. Is he more afraid of Spadrin, or his own temper?

The hell with it. I have nothing I want to say about this.

69

day 43.

Ang finally told us his plans today . . . for what it's worth.

Late this afternoon the mountains spat us out at last, and we saw the desert for the first time. The house-sized boulders sank into a pavement of perfectly hexagonal slabs of rock, blown clear of any softening dust or sand; the plain stretched away toward a distant

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line of powder-white hills. The sky was a cloudless indigo, and Number Four's diamond-chip sun flooded the plain with light. The silence of the day made my ears sing. The dry heat sucked the sweat from my skin as I

made final repairs under the rover. It was deceptively comfortable, after the sweltering humidity we'd left behind with the jungles--but just as treacherous.

Lying on my back under the rover's jacked-up body, I heard Spadrin begin to question Ang about where we were headed next. Ang answered him in monosyllabic generalities and evasions, as usual--he hadn't given either of us any more details about his secret. But that wasn't enough for Spadrin, with the naked heart of World's End waiting for him. "Don't give me that shit," he said. "If you've got a plan, I want to know!

Nobody's going to overhear us now. I want to know what we're going to find, and where it is, and how we're getting there. We're not going anyplace until I know." Ang muttered something unintelligible; then I heard a thump as someone came up hard against the

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WORLD S END

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side of the vehicle, making it shudder off-balance above me.

I swore and scrambled out from underneath it. As I got to my feet, I saw Ang straightening his coveralls, looking shaken. Spadrin stood watching us with a feral grin of satisfaction.

"All right," Ang said. He began to pace tensely in the small area between us. "I'll tell you what we're after. The last time I went out with a Company team, I made a discovery." He reached into a pocket and brought something out in the palm of his hand.

I looked at it, seeing only a rather nondescript egg sized lump of stone. "What is it, some sort of ore?"

He smiled at me with an insufferable air of superiority.

"It's a solii."

Spadrin slid down off the boulder. "Let me see that,"

he said. He snatched it from Ang's hand. "A solii? This?"

He held it up to the light, but it was still only a lump of stone. "It looks like a piece of crap, to me."

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"It's uncut, obviously." Ang took it back, clenching his hand.

I remembered the one or two genuine solus I'd seen in my life . . . they seem to be on fire with their own light.

It's said they were named after the legendary star Sol, the sun that first shed light on humankind, because of their transcendent beauty. There are even some cults that consider them holy; one of the stones I saw was worn by a religious mystic. "And there are more where you discovered this?" I asked.

"Yes. There are. There must be--" Ang's glance shifted. "I found it in a dry riverbed; all we have to do is track upstream until we locate the right formation, and we'll be rich ... all of us. There'll be plenty for all of us."

He looked at Spadrin as he repeated it.

"Where is it from here? How far? What are the co ords?" Spadrin asked.

7i

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JOAN D. VINGE

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Ang just looked at him.

Spadrin spat an iesta pod. "Listen, dirteater, you called this a partnership. I want my share of everything, and that means all you know. You can tell me now, or you can tell me the hard way."

He flexed his hands.

"Ang," I muttered, "if you tell him that, you've got nothing--"

Ang only shrugged, moving away from me. He said, to Spadrin, "It's a few days' travel southeast from here to the place where I found the solii. I don't know how far we'll have to go from there to find the formation.

Any co-ords I could give you would be meaningless, anyway. Normal readings are useless. I navigate by landmark and experience. . . . Sometimes even that doesn't work. Things change out here, you understand? Every time I go out, I see things twisted around. You've got to know World's End, or you won't survive. I'm the only one who can find what we want. And I'm the only one who can get us out again. Don't ever forget it." He

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searched our faces, to be sure we believed him. Spadrin spat out another pod, but he nodded.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "Why didn't you follow up on this before, when you first found the solii?"

He laughed once; the sound was more like a curse.

"Because if I'd reported it, all the profits would belong to the Company. So I quit. Even splitting what we find with them and you, I'll be rich. This is my reward. No one can take it away from me. No one." The hand that held the solii made a fist. He asked me, "Are you finished yet?"

I shook my head. "Soon. But we'd better have easier terrain from here on, or I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this wreck moving."

He glared at me. "We'll make it." He turned away.

"Ang?" I called, and he looked back. "How close will we come to Fire Lake?"

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WORLD S END

He shrugged. "Too close for comfort. The closer you get to Fire Lake, the crazier everything gets."

"How likely are we to meet anyone else out here?"

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He shrugged again. "You never know. And you don't want to know the ones who are glad to see you. . . .

Why?"

"I just wondered/' I answered lamely. To even try to explain my real reason for being here at this point seemed absurd. Ang walked away from the rover, away from us. I felt a kind of helpless fatalism settle over me as I watched him go, looking out into the wasteland.

World's End was far vaster and more desolate than I had ever imagined. And yet I had to reach Fire Lake, and I

needed Ang to do it. I tried to tell myself that once we found his treasure, I could convince the others to search for my brothers in return for my share. ... I tried not to wonder what would happen if my share actually made me rich enough to buy back the family estates

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myself.

I started to climb into the rover's cab to take some readings, but Spadrin caught my arm, jerking me back and around.

"What are you really here for? It isn't to get rich." His hand probed the tendons of my elbow and found a nerve.

I gasped and swore. "Damn you! I told you never to touch me--" My voice slid away from me.

"Or what?" Spadrin blocked my escape with his outstretched arm. "You'll report me? You'll have me arrested?

Who's going to back you up? I'll tell you who."

He grinned. "No one, Blue. No one." He stepped back, letting his arm drop. "It doesn't matter why you're here, right now. When I really want to know, you'll tell me; just like Ang. Gedda." He spoke the word very softly, deliberately, before he walked away.