back at me, their own eyes glazed with fear--but they are alive, and whole. The Lake did not touch them.
Somehow I have protected them. Relief leaves me limp.
"Get out of here," I whisper, my voice breaking. They do.
I lean on the rail, stupefied and disoriented. When I
begin to care what is happening around me again, I see
Song waving her arms, flaunting herself, flaunting her control over the crowd. Claiming all that has happened as her own doing. The sight fills me with disgust. But she throws me a look of hidden rage and anguish; she knows that I still don't have the answer. She uses me, like she uses all of them . . . but she's still a victim, just like I am.
I have to escape from this place. I go to the ladder and start down it. Song makes no move to stop me. Even
Goldbeard seems to believe now that I'm possessed. I
wonder if I shouted the same meaningless gibberish that
Song did. ... I stop in midair, clinging to the rungs. I
know that I've heard those fragments of random speech before. I still hear them, inside my head: the ghost voices. Human voices. Why is it obsessed with humans? What could we possibly mean to something so alien? The Lake stirs, I
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
181
Page 143
JOAN D. VINGE
feel its excitement expand inside me--I drop the last meter to the ground as I lose my grip on the ladder.
The mob backs away from me. I climb to my feet, and they make an opening to let me through.
They watch me nervously, as if they expect the sort of theatrics from me that they get from Song.
"Just stay away from me!" I
shout. They seem more than willing to obey.
I walk back to town along the canyon's rim, solitary among a crowd of ghosts. The plateau is like an anvil under the hammer of the heat. I wish I had a sun helmet
... I wish I had some shoes. I am barefoot--I only notice it now, as my bruised and bleeding feet stumble in the rocky path. But pain is almost a relief, by now, like hunger and thirst. Proof of my reality. I wonder how many performances like the one I just saw Song has put on for her subjects
. . . and how much choice she has.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
And how much chance do I have, caught between her and the Lake? I rub my sweating face with unsteady hands. I have entered the Lake's mind, the way it enters mine. I have touched the heart of chaos. . . .
And it longs for order. The realization throws my thoughts together like clapped hands. I was right all along. It does want me to fight for control. It wants me to
. . . to order it.
The Lake's elation screams inside me. I sink to my knees, fighting to hold my thoughts above water until it subsides. I get to my feet again, when I can, and go on.
How can I order the Lake? One human mind could never control a force so overpowering, even if it understood what it was controlling. And I don't even understand that. I look down into the purple-shadowed canyon, despairing
--and see the unnatural glint of something silver far below. Waiting. Waiting. ... I am back at the point where the canyons split. I stare down at the water, at the mystery lying in its depths. I don't understand why I am obsessed with this spot. Except that this thing is familiar,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
182
WORLD S END
somehow. I've seen it before, somewhere. If I could only get close enough--
Suddenly I see--I know--where there is a narrow path that leads down the cliff face. My eyes spot Page 144
tiny figures moving along the path, far below. I reach the head of the trail, and start down it.
The others who walk the trail are mostly carrying water, and most of them wear rags and chains.
Captives from the wilderness. Slaves. I remember my brothers again suddenly, painfully. If they are still alive, this is what they are enduring. The slaves keep their heads down and avert their eyes when I look into their faces;
trying to make themselves invisible.
I start to question one man about my brothers, but his face is utterly empty. I let him pass and stop another. He cringes against the wall and whines. I feel the yielding
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
hopelessness of his body under my hands . . . my hands tighten instinctively until he winces. His fear makes me feel my own power; I want to beat him until he tells me what I need to know--
I release him suddenly, as if he is burning hot, and run on down the trail. When I reach the bottom of the canyon
I fall on my knees at the river's edge and splash myself with water, scrubbing my body with sand until there are no bloodstains left on me. The water is ice cold; I bury my face in it and drink as though there is not enough water on the planet to quench my thirst.
Finally I get to my feet. I stand dripping at the water's edge and watch its undulating surface form impossible braids and patterns--defying gravity and my own need to see the river move like any river I have ever known.
I try to believe that the water will not suddenly break its invisible bonds and drown me. The water murmurs and whispers, but the air is dead around me; there are no echoes falling from the canyon walls. I am alone here now, except for ghosts. A ghost haloed in red is chipping 185
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
JOAN D. VINGE
phantom stone from the steps at the foot of the path behind me. I hear her humming inside my head, and push her voice out of my thoughts with a conscious effort. What are these people to you? I ask the Lake, waiting for an answer I know will not come.
A flash of silver rises from the depths of the river as sunlight spills over the canyon's rim. It strikes me like the clear white light of revelation. I watch the sunlight turn the canyon walls to flame and illumine the river's blue-green depths. I see the silvery light-catcher clearly at last. It lies meters and meters deep, by the dark green mouth where water flows out of the hidden heart of the world to feed this impossible river. Wreckage. I identify the pieces of twisted, broken metal for what they are, and my excitement rises. I move along the narrow stretch of shore, clamber up a pile of broken boulders for a better view.
Page 145
The metal is old, corroded, eaten away by time and the river. Once there must have been more of it ... a lot
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
more. The river rolls and glitters and suddenly there is a lot more; I glimpse a crumpled form as large as--
The phantom is gone with another shimmer and twist of water, another blink of my eyes. I am not even sure that I saw it. ... I'm crazy, I see ghosts-- Stop it, goddamn you! Analyze! There is still wreckage in the water, but not all of it looks old. I force the wreckage of my thoughts to consider it again. There is a piece of hull . . . a piece of hull. Recognition is rewarded by a dizzying rush of bliss.
I shake my head, throwing off the distraction. A piece of hull. I have seen that unmistakable form somewhere, but it fits no ship I have ever seen in the spaceyards. And yet the metal looks new, now--a trick of light and water. There is something marring the perfectly preserved surface: symbols, lettering, words . . . but no language of any world I know. And yet, I know them. I strain forward; my
184
WORLD S END
sweating hands slide on the warm surface of the boulder.