World’s End by Joan D. Vinge Read Free Book Online Page A

find?”
    I laughed.
“I’ll worry about that after I get this damned thing running.” I glanced at the
rover, and back at her. “What about Ang , by the way?”
    “What do
you mean?”
    “You came
to his place last night. You know him?”
    “We only
worked together.” She suddenly looked defensive. “I gave him assignments for
years. I thought ... he promised that he’d help me, when he was free of the
Company. He said it so many times. But it isn’t the Company he’s belonged to
all these years, it’s World’s End. World’s End has
poisoned him, just like—” Her mouth quivered. “Don’t depend on him. And don’t
let it happen to you. Whatever you do, don’t lose yourself in World’s End.”
    I smiled
again. “I have no intention of it.”
    She looked
at me strangely for a moment, before she reached into the soft beaded pouch
that she wore at her belt. She brought out two objects and gave them to me. One
was a holo of a woman’s face—her daughter, Song. The
other was the trefoil pendant of a sibyl, the ancient barbed-fishhook symbol of
biological contamination that matched the tattoo at her throat. I’d never held
a sibyl’s pendant, and for some reason I was almost afraid to touch it now. I
thought suddenly of the day, half a lifetime ago, when my father had sent me to
one of the Old Empire’s choosing places. Just to stand before the place where
some ancient automaton judged the suitability of the future’s youth to become
sibyls had paralyzed me. I had returned home without ever entering it, and told
my father that I’d failed the test ....
    Hahn stood
waiting, still holding out the trefoil. I took it gingerly, let it dangle from its chain between my fingers. A sense of impropriety, almost
of violation, filled me as I handled it. I had no right to possess such a
thing. “You want me to have this? Why?”
    “A talisman.” She smiled, a little uncertainly. “And a proof. Show it to my daughter, when you find her. Then she’ll know that you come from
me.” She gripped my hands suddenly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For whatever
you do, thank you so much.” Tears filled her eyes. “I love my daughter, Gedda , even if she can’t believe it. I feel her suffering,
every day, and I’m helpless to stop it. Why did I ever ...” She shut her eyes;
tears ran down her cheeks.
    “Why did
she leave?” I asked, realizing suddenly that there was still more she hadn’t
told me.
    But she
only shook her head, turning away. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Please help
her—” Her voice broke into sobs. She went quickly away from me, weeping
uncontrollably, as if her relief at finding someone to take up her burden had
left her defenseless against her grief.
    I watched
her until she was gone from sight, feeling a hard knot of unexpected emotion
caught in my throat. I looked down at the picture and the trefoil still lying
in my hands, knowing that she hadn’t given those things lightly to a stranger.
She had told me the truth. She had lost her child, and her suffering was real
enough. I know about loss ....
    The trefoil
threw spines of reflected light into my eyes, making them tear. I remembered
suddenly how tears had come into my eyes on the day that I told my father I was
leaving home ... though I never imagined then that it would be forever. I would
have broken down like Hahn, if I’d known—
    It was hard
enough to keep my composure as I saw his face. “How much ... how much time have
thou to spend with us, before thou must leave?” he asked me. He was standing in
the High Hall, erect and dignified in the uniform that he wore even at home,
the symbol of his pride as head of a family as old and honorable as any on Kharemough . But his voice sounded strangely weak as he
asked the question.
    “A little over a month.” I smiled as I answered, trying to believe that
it was a long time. The limpid counterpoint of a choral work by Tithane filled the silence between us, and eased the