Joan Vinge - World's End

She backs away from me. "No," she mutters, "no, no, no. You understand nothing. Don't touch Page 100

me. It's too late for you--"

"There is no late!" I call, reaching after her. "There's no time like the present, no time to lose, no time at all-- Wait!"

But the cloud ears close around her like a rattling

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forest, and she flees with them toward the wall of shadows.

I try to run after them. I stumble and fall, and the sky and the sea change places--black and red, red and black

. . . blackness.

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Íwake, to the sun's fiery face drowning in light at the sky's blue-black zenith. Sweat burns in the cracks of my parched lips. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the glare--but a shadow blocks out the sun, falling on me like a blow. I push myself up. I am ringed in again by figures. This time they are all human, all men, all armed. Their hard, closed faces and ragtag clothing tell me half a dozen different stories, all with the same ending.

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"There's a dead one over here!" a voice calls. A grunt of disgust. "Nothing left on him worth taking."

One of the men who watch me gestures with his hand.

The others pull me back down, spread-eagling me on the ground. He straddles me, looking down. He has mottled skin, a thick red-gold braid and beard. He must weigh close to a hundred and fifty kilos. "Search him." They do. They take the knife sheath from my arm. They take the pouch from my belt. "You kill him?" Goldbeard asks me.

"Yes!" I shout hoarsely.

"Why?"

"He deserved it."

Goldbeard grins. I can see in his eyes that he understands.

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And that he will probably kill me because he does. He steps away from me. One of the men tosses him my belt pouch. He kneels down, emptying out the contents.

I struggle and curse.

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world's end

He picks up the solii first, turning it in his hand.

"Well, well, pilgrim." He grins again at me, flipping it into his own pouch.

"Hey!" one of the other men calls. "He was my spot!

I got mineral rights on him."

Goldbeard only shrugs. "You get him when I say. He's got a strike somewhere, you can pull it out of ..." He picks up the animal foot, looks at me again, with his face twisting. He flings the foot away. His hand falls on the holo. He picks it up. He stares. "Song!" he whispers. He touches the picture to his lips, his forehead, in a kind of ritual. And then he looks at me again with rage in his eyes. "Where you get this?"

"She isn't who you think she is," I warn him. I try to control my own outrage as his fingers violate her image.

He cocks his head, half frowning. "I know that," he

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murmurs.

"I've come to take her away."

"Take her away?" he roars. "Take her away?" He starts toward me. "I'll see you in hell 'fore you ever see

Sanctuary, you god damned--" He stops as a splinter of reflected light lodges in his eyes. He looks down at my pouch, at something half hidden beneath its flap. He stoops over to pick it up.

The other men have tightened their hold on me, at his signal. The pain in my shoulder makes me dizzy, their faces swim and blur. I hear angry mutterings. Soon, any moment, he will give the order and they'll tear me apart.

I try to lift my head, and sweat runs into my eyes.

Goldbeard stands gazing at the thing in his hand. A

chain dangles from his fingers. "Sibyl--?" he asks the air, with a kind of furious dismay. "Him?

You?" He turns to me again, letting the trefoil pendant drop and hang above me.

One of the others jerks at the neck of my shirt. "He no sibyl. He got no tattoo here." A Page 102

knifepoint pricks my

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JOAN D. VINGE

throat, stays there. He giggles as though it is tickling him.

"Yeah, but look at this--" Someone else's fingers touch my forehead. "He's got an S here." There is no pain as they trace the wound. "Maybe that's how they do it on his world."

"You a sibyl, like her? Like Song?" Goldbeard looms over me. The trefoil twists and glitters in the air between us, reflecting life and death, life and death. . . .

"Yes," I gasp. "Yes! It's mine."

His hand makes a fist over the chain. He stands glaring down at me for an eternity. I wonder what I will do if he demands that I go into Transfer. "All right," he says at last. "Let him up."

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The others let me go, some in obvious relief. I sit up slowly, panting. My hand goes on its own to my forehead, to Spadrin's mark. I feel only a numb smoothness

--a scar--as if it had happened years instead of days ago.

"If this is yours, put it on." Goldbeard holds the chain out to me.

I take the pendant in my hand. My fingers close convulsively until I feel the barbs pierce my flesh.

I pass the chain slowly over my head, feel it settle around my neck.

The outlaws shuffle back from me as I climb to my feet.

I feel their frustration, their anger, their awe. None of them will touch me now.

The reeking motley and leather of Goldbeard's massive body looms before me; behind me lies Fire Lake. I

see trophies hanging from his vest--jewelry, coins, teeth with inlaid gems. In the moment of hot silence that hangs between us, I hear a familiar tinkling chime. My eyes find its source--the watch, my father's antique timepiece. In my mind I see HK tucking it into his sleeve pocket. "You fool!"

I mumble. "You fool."

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WORLD S END

Goldbeard eyes me warily, his hand covering the watch.

I thrust my own hand out. "Give that to me. It belongs to me."

He flinches back as if I hold a weapon. I see the fresh blood welling on my bloodstained palm, from the places where the trefoil tore my skin. He is afraid of my blood, of contamination. I step forward, holding out my hand.

"Give it to me!"

He gives me the watch. A murmur of consternation passes among his men.

My eyes burn and blur as I look at the watch; my parched throat is so tight I cannot swallow.

"Where

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. . . where did you get this?"

"Off a couple pieces of sidda shit." He laughs.

"Did you kill them?" The words feel like paper in my mouth, dry and meaningless.

Goldbeard shrugs.

I blink and blink my eyes.

"No, we didn't," one of the others says. "They were Kharemoughis. We took them back to Sanctuary and sold them."

Goldbeard pulls at his mustache. "Yeah. What you want with them, sibyl?"

"They're my brothers."

"And they stole your watch?" His mouth quirks.

"They stole more than that." My hand makes a fist; blood drips. "Take me to Sanctuary."

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"You think you got a choice?" He signals to his men, and their weapons surround me. "Maybe you infected, but you not immortal. Keep it in mind."

"What are we gonna do with him, then?" one of the outlaws asks.

"Let Song decide," Goldbeard answers. They lead me down the beach to their rover.

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We rise up and up on the erratic currents of heated air.