World's End

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JOAN D. VINGE

slipped into Transfer there on Song's stage, I thought I

saw Fire Lake changing from red to blue.... Time dilation. The visual effects are like the changing colors of space seen from a ship approaching the speed of light. The universe shifted toward blue ahead, shifted red behind.

The color of whole galaxies approaching or receding from our own at near lightspeed, in the infinity of space.

. . . What does time look like from the other side?

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Paradox. I'm living inside a paradox, time is flowing both ways-- I feel ecstasy set fire to every nerve. --No, wait--

"BZ! Goddamn it--!"

I am sprawled on the ground; I realize that HK has pushed me down. I sit up, shaking my head. I am sitting in a puddle.

"You spilled the water!" he whines. "You spilled it all, damn you! Now I'll have to go back down...." He wipes his nose with his hand, mumbling.

I get up, wiping my hands on my pants, leaving rust red smears of grit. I can't understand why he is upset, when my own problem is so much greater. "I'm so dosel" My hands make fists. "I need a place to think and be quiet--" I look away, toward Song's tower.

"SB will kill me! You selfish . . . you spilled it. You go back and get more." HK waves his hand.

"What?" I blink at him.

"More water! SB wants it now. He'll--"

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I stare him down, disgusted. "Just take me to him.

He'll understand when he sees me."

HK's shoulders droop. He picks up the empty buckets and we go on through town. We reach the end of a wall that is half sheer rock; beyond it I see someone crouched in the scant shade of a doorway. I know who it is even before he raises his head.

"SB?" HK calls.

SB looks up. He wears a collar too. He has changed, but not as much as HK. He is clean-shaven; Page 151

the lines of

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WORLD S END

his face are harder, sharper than they were. A livid scar marks his jaw. "Where the fuck have you been? What took you so long?" He gets to his feet, glaring.

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"Look, SB, look--" HK pushes me forward like a shield.

"Who are you?" SB asks, but he is already staring at me. He half frowns. "BZ--?" He reaches out to touch me. "I don't believe it. You look like shit, little brother."

He grins.

I nod, letting myself smile. "It's mutual."

"Ye gods," he whispers, as the realization registers.

"You came here after us."

I nod again.

"And you didn't bring an army, the Blues--?"

"No." I shrug. "I barely got here myself."

"Wonderful," he says sourly. "And you always said the Child Stealer gave HK's brains to some lowborn...."

He picks up the thing he was working on when he saw us--a restricted tightbeam hand weapon.

He tosses it at me; I catch it by reflex. "Here. I can't fix this--I've never even seen one before.

You do it."

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Old resentment twinges like a toothache, but I sit down and pick up his tools. "It's wonderful to see you too."

"What the hell do you expect? Are we supposed to be happy to see you trapped here like us? So we can all rot together?" SB looks up at HK again. "Where's the water?"

"BZ spilled it." HK shuffles his feet.

"Then go get more." SB points with his chin.

"I'm sick, SB. I'm tired. I can't. . . ."