"Does Ang know that you're searching for something besides treasure?" Hahn asked.
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I shook my head. "Not yet. He's a difficult man to talk to." It had seemed too awkward to try to explain the truth. I'd decided to wait for a better time.
"How will you get them to search for what you want to find?"
I laughed. "I'll worry about that after I get this damned thing running." I glanced at the rover, and back at her. "What about Ang, by the way?"
"What do you mean?"
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"You came to his place last night. You know him?"
"We only worked together." She suddenly looked defensive.
"I gave him assignments for years. I thought
... he promised that he'd help me, when he was free of the Company. He said it so many times.
But it isn't the
Company he's belonged to all these years, it's World's
End. World's End has poisoned him, just like--" Her mouth quivered. "Don't depend on him.
And don't let it happen to you. Whatever you do, don't lose yourself in World's End."
I smiled again. "I have no intention of it."
She looked at me strangely for a moment, before she reached into the soft beaded pouch that she wore at her belt. She brought out two objects and gave them to me.
One was a holo of a woman's face--her daughter, Song.
The other was the trefoil pendant of a sibyl, the ancient barbed-fishhook symbol of biological contamination that matched the tattoo at her throat. I'd never held a sibyl's pendant, and for some reason I was almost afraid to touch it now. I thought suddenly of the day, half a lifetime ago, when my father had sent me to one of the
Old Empire's choosing places. Just to stand before the
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place where some ancient automaton judged the suitability of the future's youth to become sibyls had paralyzed me. I had returned home without ever enter
4i
JOAN D. VINGE
ing it, and told my father that I'd failed the test. . . .
Hahn stood waiting, still holding out the trefoil. I took it gingerly, let it dangle from its chain between my fingers. A sense of impropriety, almost of violation, filled me as I handled it. I had no right to possess such a thing.
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"You want me to have this? Why?"
"A talisman." She smiled, a little uncertainly. "And a proof. Show it to my daughter, when you find her. Then she'll know that you come from me." She gripped my hands suddenly. "Thank you," she whispered. "For whatever you do, thank you so much." Tears filled her eyes. "I love my daughter, Gedda, even if she can't believe
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it. I feel her suffering, every day, and I'm helpless to stop it. Why did I ever ..." She shut her eyes; tears ran down her cheeks.
"Why did she leave?" I asked, realizing suddenly that there was still more she hadn't told me.
But she only shook her head, turning away. "I don't know," she murmured. "Please help her--"
Her voice broke into sobs. She went quickly away from me, weeping uncontrollably, as if her relief at finding someone to take up her burden had left her defenseless against her grief.
I watched her until she was gone from sight, feeling a hard knot of unexpected emotion caught in my throat.
I looked down at the picture and the trefoil still lying in my hands, knowing that she hadn't given those things lightly to a stranger. She had told me the truth. She had lost her child, and her suffering was real enough. I know about loss. . . .
The trefoil threw spines of reflected light into my eyes, making them tear. I remembered suddenly how tears had come into my eyes on the day that I told my father I was leaving home . .
. though I never imagined
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then that it would be forever. I would have broken down like Hahn, if I'd known--
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WORLD S END
It was hard enough to keep my composure as I saw his face. "How much ... how much time have thou to spend with us, before thou must leave?" he asked me. He was standing in the High Hall, erect and dignified in the uniform that he wore even at home, the symbol of his pride as head of a family as old and honorable as any on
Kharemough. But his voice sounded strangely weak as he asked the question.
"A little over a month." I smiled as I answered, trying to believe that it was a long time. The limpid counterpoint of a choral work by Tithane filled the silence between us, and eased the ache in my throat. I stared out the wide windows at the sky. Pollution aurora marred the perfect blue, a constant reminder of Kharemough's
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overworked orbital industries--the price we paid for our leadership in the Hegemony.
"We must notify thy mother. She will surely want to see thee once more ... if her work will allow it."
I didn't answer, afraid that anything I said would be the wrong thing. Suddenly my chest hurt. I recited an adhani under my breath. Mother had gotten fed up with us all when I was only five. I could count on the fingers of my hands the times I'd seen her since then. She spent her time on another continent halfway around the world, leading archeological excavations of Old Empire ruins. ... I had heard so many times as a child that I
wasn't to blame that I was sure it must somehow have been my fault. She didn't come home before I left Kharemough.
"Are thou certain this is the right course? After all, thou're only a boy--" I saw the trembling of his hands, which he usually controlled so well.
"Father, I'm nearly twenty standards. I already have more degrees than HK and SB put together.
I can't spend the rest of my life studying, preparing for something--" For something I would never have. "I'm a grown man. And I'm
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JOAN D. VINGE
not thy heir. It would be dishonorable for me to live here any longer." But more than that, living with my brothers had finally become unbearable.
"Scholarship is a respected calling in its own right.
Thou could at least remain here on Kharemough, and teach--"
"No." I bit my lip, seeing the pain in his eyes. But the pain of staying would be far worse.
"Thou know . . ." His mouth resisted the words.
". . thou know that I'm not young. It's true that thou're last in line to inherit. But to leave Kharemough ... If something were to happen to thy brothers--"
"Nothing will happen to them, Father " If only it would! The violence of the thought almost blinded me. I
blinked and glanced away, afraid that he would read it in my
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eyes, and know.. .. "What could happen to them here?"
With malicious spite, my mind showed me half a dozen fatal possibilities.
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He shook his head, leaning against the ancient mantelpiece below the picturescreen. "What, indeed. A
weakling and a parasite, left in control of our holdings when I'm gone." His hand clenched. "Thy mother has no interest in her responsibilities here. And without thee to oversee--"
"They won't listen to me when . . . when HK is head of family. It's better if I leave, better for the family."