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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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.
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The sound of the wind filled me with a homesickness for places I've never seen. I even thought of sleeping out; the cool night wind and the open sky were paradise, after the stinking closeness of the rover and Ang's snoring.
Suddenly I came upon a primitive animal trap, half hidden among the rocks and scrub in a small open space. In its jaws was something shriveled and black. I didn't know what it was until I'd gotten close enough
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ay 40.
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WORLD S END
to touch it. It was a foot, the limb of some creature that had been caught in the trap long ago. In its frenzy to live and be free, some animal had gnawed off its own foot.
I crouched there for a while, without the strength to move, before I unfastened the leather wrist guards that hid my scars. I stared at the welts on my arms. And then I opened my belt pouch and laid its contents out in the dust: the picture of my brothers, the trefoil, the picture of Song. Her hair was like the night sky, glittering blackness.
Her wild dark eyes gazed into mine like the soul of this place. / know you, they whispered, /
know your secret heart. I know why you 'we come.
I turned away from her image, to the faces of my brothers, and looked away from them. . . .
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And I remembered how I had looked away from the inspector's gaze as she handed me the message transcript that had followed me to Tiamat from Kharemough.
"Sergeant," she said, more hesitantly than I'd ever heard her speak, "I'm . . . afraid it's bad news."
I felt my face go numb, and my mind. I took the transcript from her with nerveless fingers, knowing before
I even looked at it what it would say. "My father is dead." I spoke the words to the naked, ancient wall of the hallway. And I killed him. I put out a hand to steady myself.
"I'm sorry," the inspector murmured to my turned back. And then, in her native language, she said, "May he live forever in the space of a thousand hearts."
I nodded slightly, all I could do. Finally I looked at what she had given me. The transcript was a brief, cursory message from my brother HK. It said he was now head of family, and included a copy of my father's will.
I crumpled the transcript in my fist as though I could crush it out of existence. It sprang back into perfect form
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as I released it, and dropped to the floor. A crowd of
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JOAND. VINGE
patrolmen and rowdy offworlders pushed past us, trampling it underfoot.
"Sergeant ..." I felt the inspector's hand fall lightly on my shoulder. I let it stay there by an effort of will.
"Why don't you take the rest of the day--"
"No, Inspector." I faced her again. "I'm all right. My father--my father's been dead for more than two years."
It had taken that long for the message to reach Tiamat, with the sublight time gaps at either end of the stargate.
It had been years since the rituals had been spoken, years since he had joined his ancestors in the peaceful gardens.
And it would be many years more before I could even think about returning to honor him there.
"There's
. . . nothing I can do about it now."
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She frowned slightly, and said, "You can take the time to let yourself feel something." She was a tough, ironic woman--Newhavenese, like most of the force stationed there. I had been her aide for only a few months, since shortly after I arrived. She was more intelligent than most of the Newhavenese seemed to be, but until now
I'd never thought of her as sensitive. I wished fiercely that she hadn't chosen this moment to demonstrate it.
"I don't want to," I whispered.
"What?"
I drew myself up. "I don't want to--to inflict my personal problems on you, Inspector. I can grieve on my own time, if that's necessary."
She glanced upward, appealing to unseen gods. Her lips moved silently, Kharemoughis. "Then the rest of the day is your own time," she said. "That's an order, Sergeant."
I saluted, helpless to do anything but obey. "Yes, ma'am." I started away from her. She leaned down and picked up the transcript. I stopped, turned back, holding out my hand. She gave it to me. "Thank you," I said, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, Page 53
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trying not to blink.
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She smiled at me, a sad smile with a meaning I didn't really understand. "Remember the good things," she said. "Those are what last."
I nodded, but the truth was burning my throat like acid. "My father . . . loved me," I mumbled.
"And I
...!..."! shook my head and walked away as quickly as I could.
My father loved me. It filled my head as I went out into the teeming streets of the ancient city of Carbuncle--the jewel, the fester, that I had come so far to see. I walked the streets for hours, but I saw none of its wonders or its corruption. I saw only the past.
As I walked I remembered the exact moment when I
learned that my father loved me. I was standing in the doorway to the sun room, drawn by the rare sound of
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his voice raised in anger. My brothers' voices answered him, whining and resentful by turns. They were arguing about money--an argument that was far from rare.
I stood just out of sight, feeling a familiar ache in my chest at the sound of their quarrel. . .
perversely aching to be a part of it. Third son, youngest by years, I had never been able to escape my birth order or my brothers'
shadow; never able to matter enough to anyone to make them rage at me--
"I cannot believe thou are any sons of mine!" my father shouted. "Why can't thou behave like thy brother, with honor and wisdom! The two of thee do not make one half of him in human value."