World's End

Page 60

But he didn't want anything.

Afterward, the prisoner had taken the lid of a food can and slashed his own wrists.

Death before dishonor. We drank the blood toast when I

was in school, and laughed. Suicide before shame: the code of our ancestors, a testament to our integrity. We

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could laugh then. We were so young ... so sure that none of us would ever know suffering or humiliation, never see our humanity stripped naked, or our honor ground into the dirt. . . .

"Gedda? Gedda!" I looked up, into Ang's scowling face and the glare of the sun behind him. I shielded my eyes, trying to hide my confusion.

"Something wrong?" He was staring at me.

I shook my head. "No. No, I ..." I realized suddenly that my eyes were wet. I rubbed them with my hand. "I

got grit in my eye. Had to get it out--" I groped for the canteen behind me.

"You finished?"

"No, goddamn it1 Leave me alone, let me do my job!"

He grunted and walked away again. I opened the canteen and gulped water, spilling it down the front of my shirt; wasting it, not caring. It eased the knotted tight74

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WORLD S END

ness inside me, letting me breathe, letting me find the self-discipline to concentrate on my work again.

I wanted to die, on Tiamat. I should have died--but

I didn't. Gods, was I really spared by fate for this?

75

day 45.

Ang is leading us on a crazy chase. Sometimes I