Joan Vinge - World's End

"Why did you come? Why is it you, after so many .. . ?" Her eyes seem all pupil, all-knowing.

"I had to," I murmur. "You know I had to."

"Yes." She nods. "I know. Tell me who you are."

"BZ," I say desperately, searching her face for a sign.

"BZ, Moon, Police Inspector BZ Gundhalinu! Have I

changed so much?"

She looks my ragged, bloodstained body up and down with gentle amusement. "Tell me who I Page 111

am?"

"Moon! Moon, for gods' sakes, don't-- You found me in the wilderness, you saved me. You gave me back my life . . . you made me forget my scars." I hold out my wrists to her. "And then I left you to him! To that polluted weakling you thought you loved. I thought it was right; I thought I had to obey the code, and do what was honorable. Fuck honor! I'm free . . . nothing means any145

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JOAN D. VINGE

thing anymore; nothing but what I want. Nothing will come between us this time, not even time.

This time I'll have you forever--" I pull her into my arms, covering her mouth with my own.

She struggles in surprise, pushing me away. Her eyes are alive with an emotion that at first I mistake for rage.

She turns away from me with a curse, clenching her hands, shaking her head. Her shining hair absorbs all light. I take a deep breath and then another, trying to force my body to obey me.

Her shoulders loosen; she breathes calmly and easily again. She opens her hand as she turns back to me. The uncut solii is lying in it. I blink and smile. She closes her hand, opens it. The stone is perfectly cut and polished.

It glows with secret fire. "They say it has powers of enlightenment," she says. "Swallow it, false sibyl. Make it a part of you."

I cannot refuse her. I raise it to my lips hesitantly, put it into my mouth. I feel saliva gather on my parched

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tongue; the stone is smooth and pleasant, and it slides down my throat like water.

She nods. "Do you see me differently now? Do you know the truth yet?"

I shake my head.

"You will."

She seizes my arm and leads me wordlessly into another room, to a bed piled with fragrant perfumed pillows.

I fall across it; my legs are too weak to hold me up any longer. The room is a storehouse of strange and wonderful things heaped all around the walls; I gaze around me until my eyes blur, trying to separate one bit of color from another.

On a table by the bedside is a solitary globe filled with restless, molten light. I reach out to it, hypnotized; but just as I begin to feel its heat she brings a flagon of flowery brandy and presses it Page 112

to my lips. I drink it all.

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WORLD S END

She sits beside me, watching me, waiting "Who am

I now?"

I shake my head. "Moon."

"Where did you get the trefoil?"

I turn it over in my hands. I try to remember. "It was given to me. ..."

"A woman gave it to you. A sibyl. My mother. I know everything she does." She looks away toward the narrow window slit. The sky is blindingly blue beyond the walls, bright/dark, like her hair. "Did she tell you I'm crazy?"

I remember. I nod.

"That's what she thinks. I see through her eyes and she sees through mine. And I hear the secrets of the universe. The Lake tells me everything...." Moon's eyes

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glaze as if she is hearing them now. "Did she tell you why I'm this way?"

I shake my head.

"It's her fault. I wanted to be a sibyl, like her. I went to the choosing place.... I was judged, and refused!" She pulls painfully at her hair. "But my mother infected me anyway--" She is seeing me again; her eyes are on fire with hatred. "And now she wants me to stop tormenting her. 'Death to kill a sibyl, death to love a sibyl, death to be a sibyl!'" She beats on me with her fists. "She sent you to me, you come from her!" Her nails rake my cheek.

"But I'll make you the Lake's. I'll show her--"

I catch her wrists in my hands, force her back and down across the bed. I fall on top of her, ignoring the pain, blind to everything but her face as I cover it with kisses. She fights me wildly as I hold her prisoner, pressing my body down on hers. "Don't!" I gasp. "Don't, you're Moon, I love you--"

She has opened her mouth to bite me, to infect me-- She takes a deep, sobbing breath instead, staring back into my eyes. And then her eyes fill with tears. "I love

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JOAN D. VINGE

you!" she shrieks, as if she hates me. "I hate you--" she cries, as if she loves me. "I love you. . . ."

And she is not seeing me at all, as her eyes close and her mouth finds mine hungrily.

I rip at her clothes and my own until there is nothing against our flesh but each other's flesh. Her whole body is dyed with intricate designs. Her hands still punish me, flailing, raking my back; fury and desire are joined inside her the way I want to feel her body joined with mine.

Her soft, open lips burn my cracked and broken ones with hot kisses; her tongue enters my mouth. And when her hand finds the throbbing life below my belly she seizes it with fierce urgency.

I moan. My hand fondles her breast, while the other lies buried between her legs, parting them as I probe the liquid depths of her secret places. Her body bucks and heaves, urging, demanding, as if there is no time . . . but

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I know there is all the time in the world now. Our time has come; everything will be right again for us--

We roll, struggling, tangling, absorbing and exploring each other until there are no secrets left.

Her mouth travels down my body, licking away sweat and grime, devouring me, as she forces my face away from hers-- down, down, until it is buried in her moist warmth and I taste the bitter sweetness of her. Her body rises like a wave, cresting, breaking, and ecstasy bursts out of her like a scream of pain . . . another . . . and another.

And then, gasping, she seizes my manhood. Her nails are buried tormentingly in my flesh as she pulls me over on top of her. I feel my aching hardness slide into the wet folds; I thrust fiercely, burying myself deep inside her.

She wraps her legs around me and I plunge ever deeper into her darkness. I thrust harder and faster, driven by the need to obliterate all memory.

And in my mind a frantic voice is crying that this is nothing like the last time, she is nothing like the last

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world's end

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time-- But it is lost, lost in the fire. I feel the life-force building inside me, feel the burning well up in my loins until there is nothing left of me except my need--

I release with a shuddering cry, and as I do she pulls me down on top of her, crushing my lips against her own. "Save me, save me--" she whimpers. My tongue enters her waiting mouth.

Her teeth close on my tongue, tearing it, and her saliva mingles with my blood.

"No--" My cry of pleasure becomes a cry of fear. I try to break free in the sudden excruciating moment when

I realize what she has done. Fire in my blood, icicles in my bones, it is too late-- I feel myself falling, still falling and falling, through rapture into oblivion.

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