World's End

Page 91

pulled off the rag I was wearing as a sweatband. On my knees, I began to wipe the liquor off of his leg. But he stood up suddenly, pushing me aside. "Ang, are we there?" He was looking past Ang's shoulder.

Ang sat silently behind the controls, staring out at something. Sweat trickled down his neck. His hands lay in his lap, clenched into white-knuckled fists.

"Ang!" Spadrin shook his shoulder.

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Ang reached up and opened the door. He got to his feet. Without a word, he climbed out and down. Spadrin leaped down after him. After a moment I followed them outside.

They stood on the edge of a cliff, with the wind whipping their hair. I made my way between rust-red boulders to the precipice. Below me the wall of rock dropped sheerly into a purple abyss. The far rim of the canyon was hundreds of meters away; the bottom must have been a good half a kilometer below us. Down in its shadowy depths I saw a river winding like a snake.

A

river of light ... of molten lava. The crack in the earth ran as far as I could see, looking to the left.

And looking right, I saw on the horizon an immense surface of blazing light, like a sun fallen to earth . . . Fire Lake. Elation filled me. At last.

"It can't be!" Ang shouted. "This can't be here, it can't!" He looked at the rover, as if it had somehow betrayed him. He looked down into the abyss again. He took a step forward, as if he were going to challenge its reality. I caught hold of his arm. He pulled loose, frowning, but he moved away from the edge.

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Spadrin shouldered me aside. I backed up, away from both of them. "What's this mean, Ang?

Ang?"

Spadrin said. "Where's the treasure? Where are the solus?

Ang--!"

"I don't know. . . ." Ang whispered. "This shouldn't be here. We can't be here--" He gazed toward the shining

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horizon, toward Fire Lake. "You can't do this to me!" he screamed at the sky.

"You mean there's no treasure? You mean we came all this way for nothing--and now we're lost?" Spadrin jerked him around. "You fucking dirtsider, is that what you mean?" He struck Page 92

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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