World's End

Page 184

They would need his unique and curious expertise, for a while. At least in that role he would not be a fraud.

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WORLD S END

And at least he would be able to see that Song was taken care of. He had already arranged for Hahn to join the expedition, and to take Song with her. There would be a need for sibyls there for a long time, until the

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Lakewas back where it belonged in starships, and at peace again. He owed Song that much, he supposed, even if it was no real answer for either of them. . . . His mind turned away from the memory of her face, which could have been his own. He would have to see her face again, soon enough--see it over an dover, until it was only another face.

After he was certain that suitable progress was being made at the Lake, he would go on to Kharemough. He would work to solidify his new position, gaining influence, making himself an indispensable part of the new interstellar technology. He would keep his Police Com mandership, too, and build his power base from there.

Whatever it took, whatever was needed. . . .

He looked back again for a moment into the life that had brought him to this place, considered the ordeals that had prepared him for this future he had chosen, even as they had made it inevitable. They had seemed to him like the end of everything . . . and yet he had survived them all. None of them had been more than a prelude, a moment in time that had allowed him to begin the rest of his life.

There would be no more self-inflicted wounds, no

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more hesitation, no more blind allegiance to rules made by human beings as imperfect as himself. He would survive anything that got in his way, because he knew he could. He would return to Tiamat, and together with

Moon he would see that power passed into the right hands. Together they would start another future, they would set right old wrongs, they would-- He caught himself smiling again like a lovestruck fool. He sighed. No . . . never for the right reasons.

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JOAN D. VINGE