World's End

Page 152

"Let him rest, for gods' sakes," I say to SB. "It's hotter than hell."

SB ignores me. "Do you want me to tell Anubah you're too tired, again? That you're too sick to work for him anymore?"

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JOAN D. VINGE

HK's freckles stand out starkly pale against his skin.

"No, SB. . . ." He glances nervously at the rug-hung doorway. "Is he inside?"

SB shakes his head. "He's with Gerth. And you know how he gets afterward."

HK picks up the pails and limps away with them.

SB watches him go, with a slow smile.

I break open the butt of the tightbeam weapon and study its filaments through a magnifier. He's your own brother1 My jaw clenches over the pointless words. And both of you are still mine. I wonder what I expected. I force myself to concentrate on the workings of the gun; my hands tingle with the Lake's unwanted pleasure in my competence.

"Why did you come?" SB asks me at last.

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I look up at him. "Because I didn't have anywhere else to go."

He smiles the crippled smile again, looking for the scars on my wrists. "Did you think World's End would do what you didn't have the guts to do yourself?" He tugs at his collar.

I look down at my scars, and back at SB again, remembering the disdain in his eyes the last time we met. There are no scars on his wrists; none on HK's either. And suddenly the weals on my own arms are only healed flesh, nothing more. SB breaks my gaze. I snap the gun back together, and hand it to him.

"There's nothing wrong with this. The charge is used up, that's all."

His frown comes back; he takes it wordlessly.

"Anubah--owns you?" I ask. The words feel awkward and ugly.

"Yes." I barely hear his answer. His fingers fumble with the gun.

I take a deep breath, shutting my eyes against a stabbing

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