World's End

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JOAN D. VINGE

feel its excitement expand inside me--I drop the last meter to the ground as I lose my grip on the ladder.

The mob backs away from me. I climb to my feet, and they make an opening to let me through.

They watch me nervously, as if they expect the sort of theatrics from me that they get from Song.

"Just stay away from me!" I

shout. They seem more than willing to obey.

I walk back to town along the canyon's rim, solitary among a crowd of ghosts. The plateau is like an anvil under the hammer of the heat. I wish I had a sun helmet

... I wish I had some shoes. I am barefoot--I only notice it now, as my bruised and bleeding feet stumble in the rocky path. But pain is almost a relief, by now, like hunger and thirst. Proof of my reality. I wonder how many performances like the one I just saw Song has put on for her subjects

. . . and how much choice she has.

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And how much chance do I have, caught between her and the Lake? I rub my sweating face with unsteady hands. I have entered the Lake's mind, the way it enters mine. I have touched the heart of chaos. . . .

And it longs for order. The realization throws my thoughts together like clapped hands. I was right all along. It does want me to fight for control. It wants me to

. . . to order it.

The Lake's elation screams inside me. I sink to my knees, fighting to hold my thoughts above water until it subsides. I get to my feet again, when I can, and go on.

How can I order the Lake? One human mind could never control a force so overpowering, even if it understood what it was controlling. And I don't even understand that. I look down into the purple-shadowed canyon, despairing

--and see the unnatural glint of something silver far below. Waiting. Waiting. ... I am back at the point where the canyons split. I stare down at the water, at the mystery lying in its depths. I don't understand why I am obsessed with this spot. Except that this thing is familiar,

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WORLD S END

somehow. I've seen it before, somewhere. If I could only get close enough--

Suddenly I see--I know--where there is a narrow path that leads down the cliff face. My eyes spot Page 144

tiny figures moving along the path, far below. I reach the head of the trail, and start down it.

The others who walk the trail are mostly carrying water, and most of them wear rags and chains.

Captives from the wilderness. Slaves. I remember my brothers again suddenly, painfully. If they are still alive, this is what they are enduring. The slaves keep their heads down and avert their eyes when I look into their faces;

trying to make themselves invisible.

I start to question one man about my brothers, but his face is utterly empty. I let him pass and stop another. He cringes against the wall and whines. I feel the yielding

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hopelessness of his body under my hands . . . my hands tighten instinctively until he winces. His fear makes me feel my own power; I want to beat him until he tells me what I need to know--

I release him suddenly, as if he is burning hot, and run on down the trail. When I reach the bottom of the canyon

I fall on my knees at the river's edge and splash myself with water, scrubbing my body with sand until there are no bloodstains left on me. The water is ice cold; I bury my face in it and drink as though there is not enough water on the planet to quench my thirst.

Finally I get to my feet. I stand dripping at the water's edge and watch its undulating surface form impossible braids and patterns--defying gravity and my own need to see the river move like any river I have ever known.

I try to believe that the water will not suddenly break its invisible bonds and drown me. The water murmurs and whispers, but the air is dead around me; there are no echoes falling from the canyon walls. I am alone here now, except for ghosts. A ghost haloed in red is chipping 185

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JOAN D. VINGE

phantom stone from the steps at the foot of the path behind me. I hear her humming inside my head, and push her voice out of my thoughts with a conscious effort. What are these people to you? I ask the Lake, waiting for an answer I know will not come.

A flash of silver rises from the depths of the river as sunlight spills over the canyon's rim. It strikes me like the clear white light of revelation. I watch the sunlight turn the canyon walls to flame and illumine the river's blue-green depths. I see the silvery light-catcher clearly at last. It lies meters and meters deep, by the dark green mouth where water flows out of the hidden heart of the world to feed this impossible river. Wreckage. I identify the pieces of twisted, broken metal for what they are, and my excitement rises. I move along the narrow stretch of shore, clamber up a pile of broken boulders for a better view.