World's End

Page 101

And that he will probably kill me because he does. He steps away from me. One of the men tosses him my belt pouch. He kneels down, emptying out the contents.

I struggle and curse.

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world's end

He picks up the solii first, turning it in his hand.

"Well, well, pilgrim." He grins again at me, flipping it into his own pouch.

"Hey!" one of the other men calls. "He was my spot!

I got mineral rights on him."

Goldbeard only shrugs. "You get him when I say. He's got a strike somewhere, you can pull it out of ..." He picks up the animal foot, looks at me again, with his face twisting. He flings the foot away. His hand falls on the holo. He picks it up. He stares. "Song!" he whispers. He touches the picture to his lips, his forehead, in a kind of ritual. And then he looks at me again with rage in his eyes. "Where you get this?"

"She isn't who you think she is," I warn him. I try to control my own outrage as his fingers violate her image.

He cocks his head, half frowning. "I know that," he

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murmurs.

"I've come to take her away."

"Take her away?" he roars. "Take her away?" He starts toward me. "I'll see you in hell 'fore you ever see

Sanctuary, you god damned--" He stops as a splinter of reflected light lodges in his eyes. He looks down at my pouch, at something half hidden beneath its flap. He stoops over to pick it up.

The other men have tightened their hold on me, at his signal. The pain in my shoulder makes me dizzy, their faces swim and blur. I hear angry mutterings. Soon, any moment, he will give the order and they'll tear me apart.

I try to lift my head, and sweat runs into my eyes.

Goldbeard stands gazing at the thing in his hand. A

chain dangles from his fingers. "Sibyl--?" he asks the air, with a kind of furious dismay. "Him?

You?" He turns to me again, letting the trefoil pendant drop and hang above me.

One of the others jerks at the neck of my shirt. "He no sibyl. He got no tattoo here." A Page 102

knifepoint pricks my

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133

JOAN D. VINGE

throat, stays there. He giggles as though it is tickling him.

"Yeah, but look at this--" Someone else's fingers touch my forehead. "He's got an S here." There is no pain as they trace the wound. "Maybe that's how they do it on his world."

"You a sibyl, like her? Like Song?" Goldbeard looms over me. The trefoil twists and glitters in the air between us, reflecting life and death, life and death. . . .

"Yes," I gasp. "Yes! It's mine."

His hand makes a fist over the chain. He stands glaring down at me for an eternity. I wonder what I will do if he demands that I go into Transfer. "All right," he says at last. "Let him up."

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The others let me go, some in obvious relief. I sit up slowly, panting. My hand goes on its own to my forehead, to Spadrin's mark. I feel only a numb smoothness

--a scar--as if it had happened years instead of days ago.

"If this is yours, put it on." Goldbeard holds the chain out to me.

I take the pendant in my hand. My fingers close convulsively until I feel the barbs pierce my flesh.

I pass the chain slowly over my head, feel it settle around my neck.

The outlaws shuffle back from me as I climb to my feet.

I feel their frustration, their anger, their awe. None of them will touch me now.

The reeking motley and leather of Goldbeard's massive body looms before me; behind me lies Fire Lake. I

see trophies hanging from his vest--jewelry, coins, teeth with inlaid gems. In the moment of hot silence that hangs between us, I hear a familiar tinkling chime. My eyes find its source--the watch, my father's antique timepiece. In my mind I see HK tucking it into his sleeve pocket. "You fool!"

I mumble. "You fool."

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