World's End

Page 10

touched my terminal, opening the door behind them.

"Get out of here, before I ..." Words failed me. "Go to hell in your own way! I don't want to know about it."

HK drew himself up like a beached clabbah, straining for dignity. "I should have known better than to appeal to your honor." Failing at dignity, and at irony.

SB caught HK's arm and pulled him toward the open door, glancing back once, to spit at me,

"Gedda." And

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after that I didn't hear from them again. I told myself good riddance.

But instead of forgetting about them, I've followed them into World's End. I can't believe I've done this

. . . the thought of just spending a night in this squalid town is enough to make any reasonable person take the next shuttle back to civilization. And it's not as if they went off for a holiday week and forgot the time. They disappeared, into an uncharted wilderness! They were totally unprepared for what they did--neither one of them ever attempted anything more dangerous before this than spending all day in the baths. If the wasteland didn't kill them, the human animals who inhabit it probably did, and picked their bones for good measure. Am I really going out there to let the same thing happen to me--?

When I was a boy, my nurse told me stories of the

Child Stealer, who stole highborn babies and replaced them with cretinous Unclassifieds. For years I was sure that it must have happened to HK and SB. ... They chose their fate, and if World's End swallowed them without a trace, they got what they deserved. They left no one and nothing behind, except me . . . left me with nothing but memories.

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But since they're gone I'm head of family now ... a title as hollow as it is unexpected. And they are still my brothers. That makes it my duty to search for them; my responsibility to all our ancestors--who will be my

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JOAN D. VINGE

ancestors forever, whatever strangers violate my family's honor and claim my blood as their own. But still, if it weren't for Father, for what I owe to him . . .

If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened.

But even if I'm a failure, I'm not a fool. I have training that HK and SB never had, I have the experience to help me search for them. This isn't impossible. . . .