Ang across the face.
Ang lunged at Spadrin, but Spadrin threw him down
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on his back and sat on his chest, holding his arms flat.
"Is that what you mean--?"
Ang turned his face away, looking out into the canyon.
"Yes," he whispered. "Yes." Tears crept out of his eyes and dripped into the dirt.
Spadrin got up off of him, and let him get to his feet.
Ang stood at the edge of the abyss with his back to us.
His tall, broad-shouldered body seemed to wither.
Spadrin stepped forward again and pushed him over the edge.
"No!" I shouted, but Ang's cry as he went over obliterated the sound. I ran forward--but it was far too late by the time I reached the rim. Ang had already stopped screaming. I saw his body rebounding from the rocks far down the wall. I turned away from the edge, shutting my eyes.
Spadrin still stood at the top of the cliff, watching
Ang's body fall toward the planet's core. I heard his laughter before I let myself look at him again--high, strangled laughter edging toward hysteria. "Gedda," he gasped, "get the rover started."
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I didn't move or answer. I felt as though I had become a part of the stone; as though I had been standing that way for millennia. . . .
He looked over at me, the crazy laughter disappearing from his face. "I told you to move." His voice was like a knife.
"Why?" I said. "You've killed Ang. You're lost. You'll never find your way back."
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The hysteria still burned in his eyes. "Don't say that.
Don't say it." His hands flexed.
I looked away, toward Fire Lake lying on the horizon.
Its brilliance turned my vision molten. 1 stood waiting, waiting. . . .
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Spadrin's footsteps closed in on me, his hand on my arm wrenched me around. My eyes were fire-blind. He shoved me. He shoved me for the last time.
I don't remember the blow that tore my knuckles and bloodied his face. I don't remember the blow that knocked him down. I only remember that I was strangling him, beating his head against the ground, when my rage cleared again ... that my voice was raw from shouting curses, from shouting, "You killed him! You killed him!" over an dover an dover. Spadrin lay as limp and senseless as a rag toy when I let go of him at last, and his blood was the color of the stone.
I took the knife sheath from his arm and strapped it to my own. I got the guns from the vehicle's locker and threw them all over the cliff, except for the one that I slung at my back. Then I dragged Spadrin to the rover and poured half a bottle of ouvung over his head.
He came awake, cursing and dazed; he tried to get to his feet as soon as he recognized me. But he slid down again as his body refused to obey him. The look of disbelief on his face was almost funny. "Wha--?"
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I took a long drink from the open bottle, holding the gun on him. "All right, murderer," I said.
"I'm taking over this vehicle now." I kicked him. "Get inside. We're leaving."
Hatred and fear warred in his eyes. "You think you can take me back?" He pulled himself slowly up the rover's side.
I shook my head, and took another drink. "We're not going back. We're going to Fire Lake."
The fear stayed on his face, but his disbelief came
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JOAND. VINGE
back. "Fire Lake? You crazy--" His hand felt surreptitiously for his knife. His bruised mouth worked, but nothing came out of it for a long moment. "Why?"
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"I'm looking for something." I hurled the bottle away, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My hand was shaking. I tasted blood.
"Then you're looking for somebody to cut your throat
--and mine," Spadrin snarled. "I'm not going any deeper into this hell."
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"You haven't got any choice," I said. "Unless you want to stay here with Ang." I bent my head toward the cliff-edge.
Spadrin's face turned the color of ash. I watched him realize what he'd do in my place.
I nodded. "If you want to survive, you bastard, it'll be on my terms."
"Gedda," he whined, "listen, don't be a fool. We can work a deal, we can still be rich! We'll go back, there are other ways to--"
"Shut up," I said. I nudged him with the gun. "Get inside."
He obeyed.
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118
D don't understand it. I don't understand it. We've been traveling toward Fire Lake for days, but it never gets any closer. It's the terrain; it must be the terrain.
We have to detour and backtrack, we tie our trail in knots. I don't know what I'm doing with this damned thing, or how much longer it can hold together now.
Ang's ghost haunts it. The stale smell of his fesh sticks hangs in the air, like an obsession. . . .
I was a fool not to leave Spadrin behind. He's like a time bomb, just waiting for the right moment. If I had his guts I'd have killed him. . . . No, no, damn it! I'm an officer of the law, not an animal.
I lock myself into the cab with the controls at night, so I can sleep. I have to watch him constantly. He pretends to servility, but I can see the hatred in his eyes.
He won't stop me. I swear to you. I swear it. Nothing will stop me, I've come too far. I know now that this was meant to be. Why else would everything have happened
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the way it has? Why else do I see Fire Lake on the horizon now? My body aches for you, you torture my dreams. . . . Before, I was lost and I found you. Our time will come again, and this time it will never end.
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Today it rained. It rained black mud. Things like worms smeared the windshield. Spadrin got hysterical and I had to knock him out. I made him go outside and scrape off the dome after it stopped raining.
We're still no closer.
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Ilost the rover today. I knew I should have gotten rid of Spadrin.
I was trying to guide us through a boulder-choked gully, when he jumped me. He tried to bash in my skull with a bottle; but I've grown almost present. I dodged the blow and knocked the bottle out of his hands. But
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I had to let go of the controls. The rover ran up onto the rocks and flipped itself over.
We were thrown clear across the cabin when it happened.
The fall almost finished what Spadrin started. I
came within centimeters of breaking my neck. My shoulder hurts like hell. Spadrin was luckier, all he got was a knot on his head. ... Or maybe I'm still the lucky one: I stayed conscious. I got the rifle. Except it doesn't work. The integrator must have shattered. But he doesn't know that.
When Spadrin saw the rover lying on its back like a stranded beetle, he fell to his knees and beat his fists on the ground, screaming curses. And then, he looked up at me, with spittle dripping from his lips, and said, "You're crazy! You're fucking crazy! You don't even care!"