Joan Vinge - World's End

. . . though he knew from the silvery cocoon that surrounded him how close he had come to not needing it.

And then he had remembered why, and known what he had to do. He had dragged himself free of the life support, like a dead man rising from a coffin; bringing medical technicians on the run.

He remembered them staring at him in laughable disbelief as he demanded the time of day, and then a comm link, and an identity scan--

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He had proved his right to be obeyed, in the name of

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Hegemonic security. He had watched through a fog of pain and drugs as the staff obeyed, deferred, acted on his orders, all the while stealing glances at the readouts above his head. Their expressions told him they didn't know how he was even able to function.

He functioned because he had no choice, enduring drugs and pain as he had learned to endure the Lake.

And slowly he came to realize that they obeyed him not out of loyalty to the Hegemony, but because of the trefoil they had found around his neck. Knowledge was the one true and lasting power. . . .

Gundhalinu felt for the trefoil resting against the smooth fabric of his uniform. Knowledge. He knew now, really knew, what it meant to be a sibyl. Not a saint, not a god . . . only a vessel. Only human. He clutched the pendant in his fist, remembering the moment when he had first put it on; his hand tightened, until he felt the

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barbs wound his palm again. Droplets of blood crept down his wrist into his sleeve. It was nothing like what he had imagined. . . .

A light blinked on his terminal, and he touched the board. The door to his office opened.

Ossidge led the two prisoners into the room. Their faces were still obscured by security bubbles; they had been held incommunicado for nearly four weeks. They had been cut off competely from contact with the outside world from the moment of their arrest, on his orders. He had called it a matter of high Hegemonic security, blocking all their civil rights.

He had been justified.

Ossidge stood waiting.

"You can remove their restraints, Ossidge. I'm going to interrogate them off the record."

"That's not regulation, Inspector." Ossidge stood like a lump of granite.

"This is an extremely . . . sensitive matter, Ossidge."

The inspector who once would not have tolerated the

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smallest infraction leaned forward across his desk, willing Ossidge to yield--

Ossidge nodded. "All right, Inspector. Because it's you who's asking. I wouldn't do it normally, but since it's you . ." He released the prisoners. He started for the door.

"Thank you, Ossidge," Gundhalinu murmured, surprised, until he remembered why the note of near-awe hung in his sergeant's voice.

Ossidge turned, "I just want to say something, Inspector I think it's a rare piece, how you've come back to the force ... I mean, considering you're about the biggest hero--"

"This is the only place I want to be, right now," Gundhalinu said gently, cutting him off. "This uniform feels

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better than it has for a long time." He smiled, but it was not the smile he would have liked.

Ossidge smiled, too, for the first time that Gundhalinu could remember. He saluted, and left the room.

Gundhalinu waited as the two prisoners slowly removed their helmets. He saw their faces clearly for the first time, and they saw his. Their faces registered a play of emotions so extreme that it almost struck him funny.

"You--?" "BZ!" The voices of his brothers merged into a cacophony of disbelief.

He sat motionless behind his desk, saying nothing.

They looked like the brothers he remembered, again-- clean, healed, civilized even though they wore prison coveralls. But he no longer trusted his eyes. "Hello, HK

. . . SB."

HK dropped to his knees in front of the desk. "BZ, by all our ancestors, I never meant for it to happen! Thank the gods you're alive--" He covered his face with his hands. "I don't understand

... I don't understand what happened."

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"The hell you didn't," SB muttered. "You were count 220

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WORLD S ENDing credits right up to the moment the Blues picked us up."

"That's not what I meant." HK shook his head, looked up at his brother, scowling.

Gundhalinu got up from his chair, grimacing slightly as his side hurt him. He moved around the desk and put out his hands to pull HK up.

HK climbed to his feet--leaped back with a yelp of fear as he saw the blood on his skin, blood from his brother's hand.

Gundhalinu shook his head, smiling faintly. "You aren't contaminated."

HK rubbed his arm against the leg of his coveralls, but the stain did not disappear.

Gundhalinu leaned heavily against the desk edge, trying to catch SB's gaze.

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SB looked down. "If you're waiting for excuses, I

don't have any."

Gundhalinu sighed. "No, brother. That's not what I

was waiting for."

SB's head came up slightly, but he only said, "I tried to kill you. I thought you were dead."

"I was close enough." His hand pressed his side.

"What happened?"

He almost thought his brother sounded aggrieved.

"The powerpack was nearly out of charge." Irony pulled his mouth up. "World's End had the last laugh, after all.

. . . Song's mother found me. Song showed her where I

was."

"Song?" HK said stupidly. "But I thought she was--"

"They're mind-linked somehow, by the Transfer. She can make her mother share what she sees--"

He broke off, as the memory of his time in the abandoned room

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blurred the present. "Hahn got me to a hospital. And I sent the order to have you arrested before you could get `>334' back to Foursgate and start blackmailing the

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Hegemony." It all sounds so simple. Like a lie. He watched his brothers' faces tighten and close.

"What did you do with the stardrive?" SB asked, finally.

"Just what I said I'd do. I turned the sample over to the Chief Justice, along with a full report." He could barely even remember the circumstances, anymore. After his coded call to the Chief Inspector, they had come to World's End and taken him back to Foursgate, into a hell of reconstructive surgery and questions, rehabilitative therapy and questions, interviews and interrogations and questions, questions, questions.. . . "My hypothesis has been confirmed."

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Their faces turned as desolate as the wastes of World's

End. "And what did it get you?" SB said bitterly, looking around the room. "Nothing."

"On the contrary." Gundhalinu smiled. "You didn't hear the sergeant--I'm quite a hero. They can't do enough for me. They're about to promote me to commander.

I expect I could have just about anything I asked for, at this point." And maybe I knew it would happen this way all along. He watched their faces, and felt his smile turn to iron. And that was why I could never let you be a part of it.

"Then, why don't you take it?" HK said. "You said there were things you wanted. You're just like we are!"