World's End

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WORLD'S END

"He's more than that." I couldn't keep my own voice from rising. "Do you know what those tattoos of his mean? He's killed more people than you have fingers to count them. He's wanted for crimes on most of the worlds of the Hegemony. If he's stranded here, it's probably because he's in trouble with his own kind, and he needs a place to cool out as much as he needs a stake.

. . . He's going into World's End hunting fresh meat, and you'll be the first--"

"How do you know so damn much about it?" Ang said sullenly.

I hesitated, realizing that I'd said too much already.

But he went on, before I had to answer. "He's no worse than the robbers and 'jacks we'll meet out there--and he'll be on our side."

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"On our side?" I echoed incredulously. "He's on nobody's side but his own. He's a criminal, Ang! You're not protecting yourself, you're putting a target on your back."

"I'm not stupid." His jaw clenched stubbornly. "I know what I'm doing. He won't make trouble."

"You're deluding yourself. We have a saying on the

. . . there's a saying, that a man who lies down with thieves is lucky if he ever wakes up again."

"You don't have to go with us." He pointed a thumb back toward town. "You can stay here."

My mouth tightened. "I'll go," I said, thinking, But I'll sleep with my eyes open.

"You'll go." His own mouth curved upward. "Just like all the rest."

3i

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day 32.

For the past week I've been trying to resurrect Ang's dead rover piece by piece, with whatever parts he can beg, borrow, or steal. He is an ex-Company man, as I'd thought; he must be calling Page 27

in a lot of favors.

He's gone most of every day, hustling up more parts-- or maybe just avoiding us, I don't know. I don't think he cares much for either Spadrin or me; probably wishes he didn't need us. It's mutual. But sooner or later everything

I ask for shows up at the junkyard, where the rover lies like some immense dead beetle. Every time I trip over supplies inside the sleeping cabin, I try to imagine what it will be like to share this vehicle with two other people, even for a few days. Someone is going to sleep on the floor; it isn't going to be me.

Working on the rover is almost a pleasure, after sitting in C'uarr's place for so long. Though if someone had told me ten years ago that I'd ever enjoy lying on my back in the mud, with lube sifting into my eyes, sweating and blistered like some common laborer, I'd have committed suicide. I ... All in the line of duty, as they say. There are worse things than manual labor, and I've borne some of them, all in the line of duty.

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Not that today was unique for its hard work. More for its tedium, while I waited for the replacement grid I need to get the rover airborne. I spent the morning rereading the last of the information tapes I'd managed to unearth in the pathetic local datacenter. I've had to learn about 32

WORLD S END

this vehicle the hard way; they've barely heard of reading out here, let alone memory augmentation. I finally finished everything, and settled into adhani meditation in the rover's shadow. Then Spadrin arrived. He kicked me in the thigh, and said, "Wake up, you lazy shit."

I lunged to my feet, my reflexes almost betraying my training as my hand reached for the weapon I no longer carry.

Spadrin stepped back, and I froze as I saw metal. The knife blade disappeared into the sheath hidden in his

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sleeve. He grinned faintly, as if he'd proved something.

Seeing him always makes me think of venomous insects exposed beneath overturned stones.

This time he was wearing the loose-woven tunic and pants Ang had forced him to buy for practicality. He had a half-empty bottle of ouvung in his fist, as usual. He prodded the tape-reader I'd been studying and said, slurring, "You goddamn Kharemoughis make me sick.

You think the universe's got nothing better to do than wait around till you feel like fixing it."

I reordered my tangled instrument belt. My hands ached from the need to make fists. He was drunk--I

could have had him disarmed and flat on his back in seconds, but I can't afford to betray my Page 28

police training.

It would only make him more suspicious of me--and make it ever harder to get the cooperation I need from

Ang. I only said, "I told Ang I'll finish the work when he gets me the repeller grid. I never claimed to be a miracle worker."

"Then you're the first Tech I ever met who didn't." He began to turn away.

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"Spadrin," I said, and watched him turn back. "Don't ever touch me again."

He grinned, and spat the iesta pod he'd been chewing on at my boot.

I began to tremble as I watched him go. The emotion

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JOAND. VINGE

was so strong I could taste it, like vomit. I wanted to

. . . Gods, what's wrong with me--letting a degenerate like that drag me down to his level?

Ang must be blind.

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day 33.

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omething happened today, and I don't know what

I to make of it... except that I want to make it mean something.

This morning I heard Spadrin's voice at the edge of the scrapyard. I looked out of the rover's cab, afraid that he was coming to harass me again. But he was talking with someone else--I saw two figures swim in the heated air.

The other person was a woman. I watched him push her away suddenly, so hard that she fell. He disappeared into the yellow-green jungle.

I crossed the field of rusting metal and fleshy weeds to help the woman up. As I saw her face I realized I'd seen her before Last night she came to the door of Ang's place in the Quarter, while we were going over supply lists. Ang had sent her away angrily, and without bothering to explain anything to us.