Joan Vinge - World's End

This rover is too old, too slow, too clumsy, to outrun them all. And if they force us down . . .

Song begins to shriek hysterically. My head fills with noise, with the wail of a thousand memories

. . . with a blazing explosion of energy. Below us the Lake explodes in sudden gouts of fire. The rover reels and plunges as the shock waves batter it. And with dazzled eyes I see

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the plateau that holds Sanctuary shimmer, see it begin

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WORLD S END

to crumble--see it flash out of existence, as if it had never been.

But my disbelieving eyes still show me our pursuers below, closing, closing. . . .

I shut my eyes and concentrate on the impossible: a clear sky, no pursuit, a new day, with Fire Lake far behind us--

"No!" Song screams, one last time.

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S(2^\ 1\ 7had haPPened?" SB is shouting. "Sainted ^\/*\/ grandfathers, what happened?

Where are

\y \y we?"

I sit staring out at a perfectly clear sky, darkening upward from palest blue to an indigo zenith.

World's

End flashes by beneath us, falling into the past. There is nothing on the screen. It is a new day.

And the silence inside my head is deafening. The Lake is gone. "SB

. . . take the controls. ..." I lock the rover on course.

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He slides into the seat as I get up. My legs give way;

I have to hang on to the panel for support. I look down at Song, sitting rigidly in the copilot's seat. "Song?" Her eyes are open, staring, but she does not move. I shake her gently. She falls back into the seat, completely limp, still staring. "Song!" My own voice shouts in my ears. The Lake is gone, and the silence is almost unbearable. . . . Gods, what have I done?

"What the hell happened?" SB says again, pulling at my arm. "BZ--?"

"The Lake," I say, and for a long moment it is all I can say. "It let us go."

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I feel them look at each other, and at me. "Then everything you said is really true," HK breathes.

"Where are we?" SB looks down at the readouts on the panel.

"On a course that will get us back to civilization in about half a day." Half a day's painless, normal flight.

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WORLD'S END

My hands touch my face. I feel a kind of amazement.

We've survived.

"You mean the Lake is alive?" HK is sitting behind me. He holds up the globe, peering in at the droplet of stardrive.

I nod, relieved to see that he still has it.

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"And you can talk to it?"

"I did. In a way." SB looks back at me. HK stares with childish awe as I fall into a seat beside him. "I don't hear it anymore. I don't expect it hears me, either." I feel empty, bloodless. I glance at Song again.

"Thank the gods you didn't drop that." SB looks over his shoulder at the globe.

"Drop this?" HK shakes his filthy head, holding it up.

"I'd die first. I'd kill first. Ye gods, SB, do you know how much this is worth?" He giggles.

"Nobody knows how much it's worth! More than anyone ever dreamed! We found our treasure." He peers out at World's End. "The hell with buying back the family holdings. We'll Page 169

buy whole planets!"

SB laughs. "We'll sell it to the highest bidder. We'll rent it. We'll have the Prime Minister on his knees, begging us for our secret--"

"We'll buy the water of life! We'll live forever!"

I push myself up. I reach out and take the globe from

HK's hands. It whispers faintly, comfortingly. "Aren't

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you forgetting something?" I ask.

They look at me blankly.

"This is my discovery."

"BZ--"

"You can't--!"

Their voices clamor in the tight space of the cabin, rattling off the walls.

"--selfish--"

"--all we've suffered--"

"--share it with ms?"

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"We deserve it!"

"Shut up." I glare at them. "The stardrive belongs to the people of the Hegemony. It's their heritage, their right. And I'm giving it back to them. No one is going to hold it for ransom."

"You're going to give it away?" SB says scornfully.

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious in my life--" I blink and frown as life echoes memory. . . . Just the way I saw it. The last shadows of doubt about my sanity begin to fade. I move back to Song, and hold the globe in front of her eyes. "Listen," I beg her. She seems to focus on it, but she doesn't move.

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SB watches us. "She got what she deserved, at least."

"But BZ ..." HK's voice paws at me. "What about the family estates? Don't you want them back?

Don't you want--"

SB snarls at him, and he stops talking. SB looks up at me. "You'll change your mind."

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I shake my head.

We make the rest of the journey in complete silence.

The silence in my mind is far worse. The thoughts that should have come to fill the emptiness refuse to form. I

remember Ang and Spadrin, see my brothers in their place; but I have no strength left for guilt, or pain, or even irony. My exhaustion is so utter that I can't even sleep. I watch the wastelands replaying and receding: the deserts, the mountains, the jungles . . . the greed, the suffering, the lost dreams. Only the prospect of seeing the Company town again makes me feel anything--an eagerness I never dreamed I'd ever feel, because this time it marks the gateway out of hell.

21Z

It is the middle of the night when we land at the

Company's field. The agents search us with grueling thoroughness; but they can't prove we aren't what we claim, and even they have some respect for sibyls.

HK and SB watch me tensely, but I am not about to give my secret to the Company. The globe is tossed aside as a useless curiosity; I pick it up again as soon as the agents

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leave the rover. They impound our vehicle, knowing we don't dare complain. We'll never see it again. But it doesn't matter. We are free, and safe.

I lead Song as we leave security; she follows me docilely, her eyes on the globe. I look for her mother beyond the gates, somehow expecting that she will know to meet us there; but she doesn't. I want to ask where she lives, but SB and HK insist that we book passage back to Foursgate before I begin my search. I

give in, because I want to believe we are really getting out of here as much as they do.

People gape at us as we walk through the port authority buildings. I am beyond caring what anyone thinks;

my credit is still good enough. The first shuttle that will take us back to Foursgate does not leave for a day and a half.

We eat a real meal at the port, ordering enough food to make the table creak. Song does not touch hers. As I

listen to my brothers' endless, whining attempts to change my mind about Our Treasure, my Page 171

own ravenous

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appetite shrivels and my stomach tightens around a lump of cold contempt. I pick at my food, ignoring them, until at last they stop speaking. Their eyes watch me with sullen speculation. They mutter to each other words I can't make out.

At last SB says, "Well, if you're going to get rid of her"