World's End

Page 49

Spadrin frowned, but he nodded. I sighed, waiting to show Ang the picture, and tell him the truth as well. This was not the time. I wondered when the right time would ever come.

"What about the grid?" Ang asked me.

I shook my head. "They haven't got what we need."

"You're sure? You're really sure?"

I nodded wearily.

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WORLD S END

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He muttered a curse, but his expression didn't change, as if it didn't really make any difference to him. "We'll leave at dawn, then." He looked back at me. "One piece of advice, Gedda. Don't try to find reasons for the things you see in World's End. Because there aren't any."

59

day 39.

We're crossing a range of mountains now. The jungles are finally well below us, thank the gods, but nothing has gotten better except the smell. At least Ang knows the passes; if he didn't, I wouldn't be able to tell the trail from the wilderness. If we'd only gotten that damned grid. . ..

Oh, the hell with it. We crawl; I might as well get used to it.

We left most of the rain behind, along with the jungle.

Ang says it just gets drier from here on. He ordered us to conserve water, even with the recycler.

Unfortunately he seems to consider cleanliness in close quarters a luxury.

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I'm damned if I'll grow a beard.

Spadrin seems to have rights that Ang doesn't even give to himself. What the hell right does anyone have to take up storage space with crates of liquor and a full spectrum video receiver when we barely have room to move inside the rover as it is? On top of that, he's a plughead. He spends half his time buried in that obscene device, overtaxing the rover's power systems. He complains that he's "bored" without his addictions. Ang's the only one who can pilot in this terrain, leaving Spadrin with nothing much to do. Ang seems to feel it's safer to let him have Page 50

what he wants. Maybe he's right;

Spadrin's safer in a stupor than he is alert and restless.

This morning he walked in on me as I was using the toilet in the momentary privacy of the rover's sleeping area. He looked me up and down, smirking at my annoy60

WORLD S END

anee, and said, "So you impersonated a Blue. Ang was

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right: I'll bet you wore that uniform like you were born in it. You look like you're still wearing it--"

I pulled up my shorts. "Maybe your conscience is bothering you/' I said. He laughed, but neither of us was joking, and neither of us thought it was funny. He pushed me off-balance as he went forward again.

I should have brought a weapon I could keep by me;

but it would have broken the law. The law doesn't bother Spadrin. We have weapons with the supplies, but

Ang keeps them locked up. The fool really thinks that makes him safe. . . .

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dW

hat is it about this place? It's like quicksand.

. . . Time carries us forward, but the deeper we travel into World's End, the deeper I seem to sink into the past. By the time I reach

Fire Lake . . .

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I only wanted to get away from the campsite, and the others, for a walk this evening; another evening spent in the company of Ang and Spadrin was beginning to seem like an eternity.

Number Four's immense, solitary moon was as bright as a lantern in the nearly starless sky, and the three of us could have been the only living beings on this entire world. When I set out, wandering alone in the hills seemed safer and far more pleasant than sitting at Spadrin's side.

In the moonlight the mountains looked like the weed choked ruins of some giant's mansion, built with stones the size of houses. Like something out of the Old Empire

--perhaps the cityworld of Tell'haspah, haunted by the spirits of its unremembered ancestors.