World's End

Page 170

SB watches us. "She got what she deserved, at least."

"But BZ ..." HK's voice paws at me. "What about the family estates? Don't you want them back?

Don't you want--"

SB snarls at him, and he stops talking. SB looks up at me. "You'll change your mind."

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I shake my head.

We make the rest of the journey in complete silence.

The silence in my mind is far worse. The thoughts that should have come to fill the emptiness refuse to form. I

remember Ang and Spadrin, see my brothers in their place; but I have no strength left for guilt, or pain, or even irony. My exhaustion is so utter that I can't even sleep. I watch the wastelands replaying and receding: the deserts, the mountains, the jungles . . . the greed, the suffering, the lost dreams. Only the prospect of seeing the Company town again makes me feel anything--an eagerness I never dreamed I'd ever feel, because this time it marks the gateway out of hell.

21Z

It is the middle of the night when we land at the

Company's field. The agents search us with grueling thoroughness; but they can't prove we aren't what we claim, and even they have some respect for sibyls.

HK and SB watch me tensely, but I am not about to give my secret to the Company. The globe is tossed aside as a useless curiosity; I pick it up again as soon as the agents

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leave the rover. They impound our vehicle, knowing we don't dare complain. We'll never see it again. But it doesn't matter. We are free, and safe.

I lead Song as we leave security; she follows me docilely, her eyes on the globe. I look for her mother beyond the gates, somehow expecting that she will know to meet us there; but she doesn't. I want to ask where she lives, but SB and HK insist that we book passage back to Foursgate before I begin my search. I

give in, because I want to believe we are really getting out of here as much as they do.

People gape at us as we walk through the port authority buildings. I am beyond caring what anyone thinks;

my credit is still good enough. The first shuttle that will take us back to Foursgate does not leave for a day and a half.

We eat a real meal at the port, ordering enough food to make the table creak. Song does not touch hers. As I

listen to my brothers' endless, whining attempts to change my mind about Our Treasure, my Page 171

own ravenous

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213

JOAN D. VINGE

appetite shrivels and my stomach tightens around a lump of cold contempt. I pick at my food, ignoring them, until at last they stop speaking. Their eyes watch me with sullen speculation. They mutter to each other words I can't make out.

At last SB says, "Well, if you're going to get rid of her"

--gesturing at Song--"let's get it over with."

I nod, surprised, and we take her back into town. It is midmorning already; a hot mist clings to us as we walk.

I am filled with an eerie sense of deja vu as we walk the white, shuttered streets. Welcome to World's End. SB roams ahead impatiently, asking for the sibyl. Most people won't answer him; I can hardly blame them. I follow more slowly, burdened down by my beaten body, by Song's lack of will and HK's complaints about his leg.

SB reappears from around a corner, just when I think we've lost him completely. "Down here!"

he calls.

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"She's down here."

We follow him down the alleyway. We are in a part of the town I don't know at all, emptier and even more run-down than the rest of it. Unwholesome fungal life oozes out of cracks and crannies. SB leads us into a peeling courtyard. The buildings here look deserted. I can't believe Hahn is forced to live in a place like this.

The instincts of long experience begin to jangle inside me, and I try to force my brain to function. "SB, this doesn't--"

"In here," he insists, holding open a door. "She doesn't want anyone to know about this."

That makes a kind of painful sense, and I lead Song forward. HK shuffles behind me. I search the room with a glance as we enter it, but there is no one else here. "SB, what the hell--" I begin angrily.

He shrugs. "We needed a place to have one more little talk about our future. HK, get the globe and bring it to me."

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