World's End

Page 148

"I really am, HK! It's going to be all right!" I realize that I am shouting into his cringing face, and try to control myself. I was right to believe in myself, right to go on struggling for my sanity, right to go on living-- Relief and pride fill me, and are all my own. / swear on my father's 187

JOAN D. VINGE

grave that I will never turn my back on the hard road again.

"HK, listen to me," I say, more evenly. He averts his eyes; I make him look at me. "Something's happened to me, and I don't really know how to deal with it, that's all. But I'm learning. I'm going to be all right. Somehow it was meant to happen." I'd never wanted to be a sibyl, never even imagined I was fit to try . . . but I am fit, I take

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the trefoil in my hands again, feeling its treacherous beauty, barbed with pain. Now, after all I've done . . . how is it possible? I swallow the choking tightness in my throat, suddenly remembering the moment when I swallowed the solii, just before Song infected me. "Do you know the truth yet?" she asked me; and said, when I shook my head, "You will."

HK sits watching me silently. I can't tell what he is thinking now.

"What about SB?" I look up, trying to convince us both that I am really thinking clearly. "Where is he? Is he all right?"

"All right?" HK's mouth twists. He scratches under his rags. I try to remember a time in our youth when I

even saw him perspire. "SB is as all right as anyone here.

He's a tool." His voice turns bitter.

"What's that?"

"A slave with special privileges. Anubah trusts him

. . . and he knows enough about the equipment to make himself useful." HK's hands tighten into fists.

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"What about you? You studied at the Rislanne--"

"I barely know how to use a terminal!" He glares at me. "You know that; you were always pointing it out to me. Do you really think Techs are born smarter than everyone else? Do you really still believe we were on top because we deserved to be?"

"No." I glance down at my wrists, and shake my head.