Joan Vinge: World's End

When I was a boy, my nurse told me stories of the

Child Stealer, who stole highborn babies and replaced them with cretinous Unclassifieds. For years I was sure that it must have happened to HK and SB. ... They chose their fate, and if World's End swallowed them without a trace, they got what they deserved. They left no one and nothing behind, except me . . . left me with nothing but memories.

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But since they're gone I'm head of family now ... a title as hollow as it is unexpected. And they are still my brothers. That makes it my duty to search for them; my responsibility to all our ancestors--who will be my

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ancestors forever, whatever strangers violate my family's honor and claim my blood as their own. But still, if it weren't for Father, for what I owe to him . . .

If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened.

But even if I'm a failure, I'm not a fool. I have training that HK and SB never had, I have the experience to help me search for them. This isn't impossible. . . .

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Besides, if I left here now, what would I go back to?

My job? I can't even do that competently anymore. They

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don't want to see my face back in Foursgate until I can perform my duties again. Ever since my brothers came to this world, I've felt as if I've lost all control of my life.

I've got to give myself enough time for this search-- time to find out what it is I've lost, and how to get it back

... to find out whether it even matters.

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day 7.

ods, can it be a week already since I came here?

It seems like forever--and yet it seems like only yesterday that I made my first trip to the Office of Permits.

I was informed by the slovenly woman who rented me my vermin-infested room that I would need clearances.

Even to stay here in town longer than overnight I would have to have a Company permit--and to enter World's

End, I'd need to get half a dozen more. When I heard the news I was elated, because I realized that my brothers

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would have had to do the same thing, and that there would at least be some record of how and when they left here. I actually thought that this was going to be easy.

In the morning I went into the center of town. But the moment I crossed the threshold of the Permit Office on the town square, I realized that my preconceptions about anything being reasonable or easy here were fantasies.

There was no door on the office; the heat was worse inside than outside, though I wouldn't have believed that was possible. There were no chairs, no counters, nothing but a clear wall dividing the single room in two.

Beyond the wall I saw three people standing or sitting in the real office, which looked primitive but functional.

I crossed the room to the wall and rapped on it. Only one of the clerks even bothered to glance up at me; none of them came to the wall. I rapped on the wall again, harder, as I realized they were ignoring me. She waved

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a dismissing hand, as if she were involved in something important. She was not doing anything at all that I could see.

Another obvious outsider came into the office and stood at the wall beside me, holding up a credit disc. He shouted something that sounded like "Moron!" One of the clerks, an old man with a face like a slice of dried fruit, crossed the room to us at last. He struck something against the wall and I heard a single note chime; abruptly there was a window open in front of the other man. A

breath of cool, dry air touched my face.

"Excuse me," I said, "but I was here first."

"Wait your turn," the clerk snapped at me. The other man grinned, holding his spot, as the clerk took his credit.

I waited, trying to control my anger at being treated like the lowest Unclassified back on Kharemough. The other man finished his business at last, and I leaped to take his place before the clerk could close the window again.

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"I need ... I need some information," I blurted. "I'm looking for my brothers--"

The clerk cocked his head insolently. "They're not in here, sonny. Go back where you come from, you'll find all the brothers you want." He wheezed with silent laughter.

I took a deep breath, and said, as evenly as I could, "My brothers . . . were here about a year ago.

I believe they went into World's End. They didn't come back. I'm here to search for them. I understand that I need some kind of permits to do that. I'd like to apply for them."

He turned away from the window without a word; but it stayed open and so I waited. He came back with a fistful of printout sheets. "Fill out these." He shoved them through at me and closed the window.

"You mean write on this? By hand1?" I said. But I was 14

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WORLD S END

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already talking to his back. I looked around the empty office, searching futilely for a seat or a table. The room had not miraculously produced any, and so I leaned against the wall, filling out forms in quadruplicate for an hour with a broken stylus I found on the floor in a corner. By the time I was through detailing my business, requesting permissions, swearing solvency and sanity and revealing details of my physical and mental condition that were not even a physician's business, I had begun to think that the Company was a more formidable foe than any I'd ever meet in World's End. I wiped the sweat from my eyes for the hundredth time. There were still blank spaces left unfilled on half a dozen sheets, affidavits unattached, data unconfirmed. I went back to the wall. "Moron!" I shouted.

The clerk answered me almost promptly this time. He took my papers and frowned and shook his head. "These aren't completed."

"I know that," I said, barely civil. "It's impossible. I couldn't get everything you want there if I spent a

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month back in Foursgate. ... I'd have to send to Kharemough!

I can't wait years--"

He shrugged, picking at his hangnails; the forms rustled.

I could smell him, a faint musty smell riding the cool air. "Should have come better prepared."

He looked up at me as if he expected to see something that wasn't on my face. When he didn't find it, he shuffled the papers again. "Well . . . might be a way around some of these things here .

. . might be some things we could do for you . . . might be some things we could overlook.

. . ." He looked up at me once more, expectantly.

I didn't answer, not understanding what he wanted.

Finally he said, "It'll cost you."

I stiffened. "You mean a bribe? You expect me to pay you off, is that what you mean? I want to speak to your superior, Moron."

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"Morang," he said coldly. "I'm in charge here. And I don't like your attitude. The Company doesn't have to do anything for you, you understand?

Nobody needs you here; your kind is as cheap as dirt. We let you explore Company territory out of our generosity, and if you're not willing to give and take a little, you can just take the next shuttle out of here."

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The irony struck me so hard I almost laughed. Fortunately I did not. "How much are your . . . fees?" I asked sourly.