Joan Vinge - World's End

"It's not hopeless." I leaned against the rover's pitted side and wiped rust from my hands. "The power unit is

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sound. You said you can get me tools and parts?"

He nodded.

"It's not going to be cheap--"

"I have contacts in the Company. I can get anything you want." The last was said with something closer to arrogance than to confidence.

"Good, then. How much do you understand about how a rover functions?"

"A hell of a lot more than most people," he snapped.

"I've been piloting them since you were a snot-nosed brat." As if somehow I were supposed to have known that. "Just tell me what you want."

I bobbed my head. "Then I'll be precise." I gave him my initial lists, being as technically accurate Page 25

as possible, and watching him for signs of comprehension. ". . . And finally, but most importantly, I'm going to need a new repeller grid, if you want this thing airborne."

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JOAN D. VINGE

That got a reaction. "A grid? The grid is out?"

I nodded. "It's completely deteriorated. Believe me, you don't want to risk flight on it."

"By the Aurant!" His frustration was scorching. A grid would make the difference between swift, comfortable travel by air, and an endless, arduous land journey. All the difference in the world.

But he only grunted. "I'll see what I can do." He reached into a pocket of his coveralls, pulled out a fesh stick, and stuck the piece of narcotic soaked root into his mouth.

"Ang-"

He looked up sharply, as if he knew what I was about to say.

"Why didn't you tell me about Spadrin?"

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He looked down again, lighting the fesh, and shrugged.

"Listen, Ang. ..." I took a deep breath, trying to hold on to my patience. "This is a two-man vehicle. Three of us is going to make spending a lot of time in it damned uncomfortable. I know why you need me on this trip;

but why him?"

"Protection."

"Protection!" It was the last thing I'd expected to hear him say. I almost told him that I was police-trained, that I

could offer him better and surer protection than Spadrin ever could--but I didn't want to start him asking about my motives instead of Spadrin's. "Gods, man," I shook my head, "don't you know what Spadrin is?" I was sure

Ang had never even been to Foursgate, let alone off world.

But spending his life here in this borderland, he must have seen hundreds of Spadrins passing through: on the run from the law, or looking for easy victims.

"He's an offworlder." Ang said it as if offworlder and scum were the same word. "He came to World's

End just like you. Said he was stranded in Foursgate, needs a stake to get back to his homeworld."

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WORLD'S END

"He's more than that." I couldn't keep my own voice from rising. "Do you know what those tattoos of his mean? He's killed more people than you have fingers to count them. He's wanted for crimes on most of the worlds of the Hegemony. If he's stranded here, it's probably because he's in trouble with his own kind, and he needs a place to cool out as much as he needs a stake.

. . . He's going into World's End hunting fresh meat, and you'll be the first--"

"How do you know so damn much about it?" Ang said sullenly.

I hesitated, realizing that I'd said too much already.

But he went on, before I had to answer. "He's no worse than the robbers and 'jacks we'll meet out there--and he'll be on our side."

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"On our side?" I echoed incredulously. "He's on nobody's side but his own. He's a criminal, Ang! You're not protecting yourself, you're putting a target on your back."

"I'm not stupid." His jaw clenched stubbornly. "I know what I'm doing. He won't make trouble."

"You're deluding yourself. We have a saying on the

. . . there's a saying, that a man who lies down with thieves is lucky if he ever wakes up again."

"You don't have to go with us." He pointed a thumb back toward town. "You can stay here."

My mouth tightened. "I'll go," I said, thinking, But I'll sleep with my eyes open.

"You'll go." His own mouth curved upward. "Just like all the rest."

3i

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day 32.

For the past week I've been trying to resurrect Ang's dead rover piece by piece, with whatever parts he can beg, borrow, or steal. He is an ex-Company man, as I'd thought; he must be calling Page 27

in a lot of favors.

He's gone most of every day, hustling up more parts-- or maybe just avoiding us, I don't know. I don't think he cares much for either Spadrin or me; probably wishes he didn't need us. It's mutual. But sooner or later everything

I ask for shows up at the junkyard, where the rover lies like some immense dead beetle. Every time I trip over supplies inside the sleeping cabin, I try to imagine what it will be like to share this vehicle with two other people, even for a few days. Someone is going to sleep on the floor; it isn't going to be me.

Working on the rover is almost a pleasure, after sitting in C'uarr's place for so long. Though if someone had told me ten years ago that I'd ever enjoy lying on my back in the mud, with lube sifting into my eyes, sweating and blistered like some common laborer, I'd have committed suicide. I ... All in the line of duty, as they say. There are worse things than manual labor, and I've borne some of them, all in the line of duty.

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Not that today was unique for its hard work. More for its tedium, while I waited for the replacement grid I need to get the rover airborne. I spent the morning rereading the last of the information tapes I'd managed to unearth in the pathetic local datacenter. I've had to learn about 32

WORLD S END

this vehicle the hard way; they've barely heard of reading out here, let alone memory augmentation. I finally finished everything, and settled into adhani meditation in the rover's shadow. Then Spadrin arrived. He kicked me in the thigh, and said, "Wake up, you lazy shit."

I lunged to my feet, my reflexes almost betraying my training as my hand reached for the weapon I no longer carry.

Spadrin stepped back, and I froze as I saw metal. The knife blade disappeared into the sheath hidden in his

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sleeve. He grinned faintly, as if he'd proved something.

Seeing him always makes me think of venomous insects exposed beneath overturned stones.

This time he was wearing the loose-woven tunic and pants Ang had forced him to buy for practicality. He had a half-empty bottle of ouvung in his fist, as usual. He prodded the tape-reader I'd been studying and said, slurring, "You goddamn Kharemoughis make me sick.

You think the universe's got nothing better to do than wait around till you feel like fixing it."

I reordered my tangled instrument belt. My hands ached from the need to make fists. He was drunk--I

could have had him disarmed and flat on his back in seconds, but I can't afford to betray my Page 28

police training.

It would only make him more suspicious of me--and make it ever harder to get the cooperation I need from

Ang. I only said, "I told Ang I'll finish the work when he gets me the repeller grid. I never claimed to be a miracle worker."