[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
are glad to see you. . . .
Why?"
"I just wondered/' I answered lamely. To even try to explain my real reason
for being here at this point seemed absurd. Ang walked away from the rover,
away from us. I felt a kind of helpless fatalism settle over me as I watched
him go, looking out into the wasteland.
World's End was far vaster and more desolate than I had ever imagined. And yet
I had to reach Fire Lake, and I
needed Ang to do it. I tried to tell myself that once we found his treasure, I
could convince the others to search for my brothers in return for my share.
Page 55
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
... I tried not to wonder what would happen if my share actually made me rich
enough to buy back the family estates
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
myself.
I started to climb into the rover's cab to take some readings, but Spadrin
caught my arm, jerking me back and around.
"What are you really here for? It isn't to get rich." His hand probed the
tendons of my elbow and found a nerve.
I gasped and swore. "Damn you! I told you never to touch me--" My voice slid
away from me.
"Or what?" Spadrin blocked my escape with his outstretched arm. "You'll report
me? You'll have me arrested?
Who's going to back you up? I'll tell you who."
He grinned. "No one, Blue. No one." He stepped back, letting his arm drop. "It
doesn't matter why you're here, right now. When I really want to know, you'll
tell me;
just like Ang. Gedda." He spoke the word very softly, deliberately, before he
walked away.
I sat down on the step of the cab. I sat there for a long
73
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
JOAND. VINGE
time, staring at the desolation that surrounded me. But my eyes saw snow, not
stones, and a circle of pale-faced barbarians with eyes the color of the sky.
Tiamat's sky;
Tiamat's people--the outlaws who had taken a police inspector captive in the
frozen wilderness outside Carbuncle, who had degraded and tortured him.... The
one called Taryd Roh, who had taught their prisoner that pride was no defense
against pain; who knew how to use his hands the way Spadrin did. He had used
them on a man trapped like an animal in a cage ... a man who had begged, who
had wept, who had crawled to please him
. . . who would have done anything he asked. Anything.
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
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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. . . .
Page 56
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"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
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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
wonder, does he really know where we're going? If he does, then he must be
trying to make sure we can't get back without him He still does virtually all
the piloting, when he can't point one of us at some distant landmark and tell
us to aim for it. He won't give us any bearings.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]