World's End

Page 167

Song stirs at last, lying beside me on the floor.

Whimpering in confusion, she pulls herself up the panel to look out into the night over Fire Lake. "No. . . ." she murmurs. She looks at me and begins to shout, "No. No!

Take me back!" Her fists strike the panel.

I ignore her, wiping sweat from my eyes as I count the images on the screen that are outlaw flyers on our tail.

This rover is too old, too slow, too clumsy, to outrun them all. And if they force us down . . .

Song begins to shriek hysterically. My head fills with noise, with the wail of a thousand memories

. . . with a blazing explosion of energy. Below us the Lake explodes in sudden gouts of fire. The rover reels and plunges as the shock waves batter it. And with dazzled eyes I see

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the plateau that holds Sanctuary shimmer, see it begin

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WORLD S END

to crumble--see it flash out of existence, as if it had never been.

But my disbelieving eyes still show me our pursuers below, closing, closing. . . .

I shut my eyes and concentrate on the impossible: a clear sky, no pursuit, a new day, with Fire Lake far behind us--

"No!" Song screams, one last time.

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S(2^\ 1\ 7had haPPened?" SB is shouting. "Sainted ^\/*\/ grandfathers, what happened?

Where are

\y \y we?"

I sit staring out at a perfectly clear sky, darkening upward from palest blue to an indigo zenith.

World's

End flashes by beneath us, falling into the past. There is nothing on the screen. It is a new day.

And the silence inside my head is deafening. The Lake is gone. "SB

. . . take the controls. ..." I lock the rover on course.