Authors: Joan D. Vinge
“What?” I
blink at him.
“More
water! SB wants it now. He’ll—”
I stare him
down, disgusted. “Just take me to him. He’ll understand when he sees me.”
HK’s
shoulders droop. He picks up the empty buckets and we go on through town. We
reach the end of a wall that is half sheer rock; beyond it I see someone
crouched in the scant shade of a doorway. I know who it is even before he
raises his head.
“SB?”
HK
calls.
SB looks
up. He wears a collar too. He has changed, but not as much as HK. He is
clean-shaven; the lines of his face are harder, sharper than they were. A livid
scar marks his jaw. “Where the
fuck have
you been?
What took you so long?” He gets to his feet, glaring.
“Look, SB,
look—” HK pushes me forward like a shield.
“Who are
you?” SB asks, but he is already staring at me. He half frowns.
“BZ—?”
He reaches out to touch me. “I don’t believe it. You
look like shit, little brother.” He grins.
I nod,
letting myself smile. “It’s mutual.”
“Ye gods,”
he whispers, as the realization registers. “You came here after us.”
I nod
again.
“And you
didn’t bring an army, the Blues—?”
“No.” I
shrug. “I barely got here myself.”
“Wonderful,”
he says sourly. “And you always said the Child Stealer gave HK’s brains to some
lowborn ....” He picks up the thing he was working on when he saw us—a
restricted
tightbeam
hand weapon. He tosses it at me;
I catch it by reflex. “Here. I can’t fix this—I’ve never even seen one before.
You do it.”
Old
resentment twinges like a toothache, but I sit down and pick up his tools.
“It’s wonderful to see you too.”
“What the
hell do you expect? Are we supposed to be happy to see you trapped here like
us? So we can all rot together?” SB looks up at HK again. “Where’s the water?”
“BZ spilled
it.” HK shuffles his feet.
“Then go
get more.” SB points with his chin.
“I’m sick,
SB. I’m tired. I can’t ....”
“Let him
rest, for gods’ sakes,” I say to SB. “It’s hotter than hell.”
SB ignores
me. “Do you want me to tell
Anubah
you’re too tired,
again? That you’re too sick to work for him anymore?”
HK’s
freckles stand out starkly pale against his skin. “No, SB ....” He glances
nervously at the rug-hung doorway. “Is he inside?”
SB shakes
his head. “He’s with
Gerth
. And you know how he gets
afterward.”
HK picks up
the pails and limps away with them.
SB watches
him go, with a slow smile.
I break
open the butt of the
tightbeam
weapon and study its
filaments through a magnifier.
He’s your
own brother!
My jaw clenches over the pointless words.
And both of you are still mine
. I wonder what I expected. I force
myself to concentrate on the workings of the gun; my hands tingle with the
“Why did
you come?” SB asks me at last.
I look up at
him.
“Because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
He smiles
the crippled smile again, looking for the scars on my wrists. “Did you think
World’s End would do what you didn’t have the guts to do yourself?” He tugs at
his collar.
I look down
at my
scars,
and back at SB again, remembering the
disdain in his eyes the last time we met. There are no scars on his wrists;
none on HK’s either. And suddenly the
weals
on my own
arms are only healed flesh, nothing more. SB breaks my gaze. I snap the gun
back together, and hand it to him. “There’s nothing wrong with this. The charge
is used up, that’s all.”
His frown
comes back; he takes it wordlessly.
“
Anubah
—owns you?” I ask. The words feel awkward and ugly.
“Yes.” I
barely hear his answer. His fingers fumble with the gun.
I take a
deep breath, shutting my eyes against a stabbing memory of cages and pain. “HK
said he trusts you.
He trusts
you enough to let you work on a weapon like that?”
SB laughs
harshly.
“As long as I wear this.”
He tugs at his
collar again.
“A block?”
I ask, looking at it with sudden recognition.
He nods.
“If we try to use anything with a power charge while we’re wearing this—” He
makes an abrupt, brutal motion. “
Anubah’s
got the
control.”
I shake my
head. “Where the hell do they get something like that, here?”
“They trade
for it, trade whatever they can find out there—trade for everything they can’t
steal off of poor bastards like us.”
“With whom?”
“The Company.”
He shrugs. I raise my eyebrows. “Thousands of people work for the
Company,” he says, “and most of them barely get a living out of it. There are
plenty who’ve willing to deal with real criminals, since they work for thieves
already. At least this way they get their share.”
I remember
Ang
, and I nod.
“You’re not
wearing a collar.” He stares at me. “Are you free? How? Why?”
I show him
the trefoil. “I wear this.”
“A sibyl
sign?”
I explain
again, as briefly as possible.
He gapes at
me, like HK did. “By all our ancestors, you’re the last one I’d ever expect
.... But you sound sane enough. Are you sure you’re infected?”
I watch a
ghost wander through him, and through the rug that hangs motionless across the
doorway. The
I laugh once. “I’m sure.”
“Not
everyone around here is afraid of sibyls. Some of them really are insane ...
and some of them don’t have enough imagination to go crazy, or to be afraid of
anything either. Your luck won’t hold forever.”
“They don’t
touch Song.” But I remember that she still keeps
Goldbeard
and a company of guards.
“Song!”
He makes her name into a curse. “Everyone needs gods ... especially in a place
like this. If they don’t have gods they invent them. They think she has power
over
from melting down and running into some crack in space.”
“She does.”
“What?” He
snorts with laughter.
“She does
communicate with the
I
. It’s something to do with a sibyl’s the receptivity, but
I don’t completely understand it yet. I see and hear things you wouldn’t
believe, since ...”
“Shit, you
are insane.” He looks away. “And so is she. She’s crazier than anyone here—or
she’s a better actor than anybody I’ve ever seen.”
“She’s
both.” I sigh, remembering the first time I saw her. “But she’s trapped here
just like the rest of us. And I swore I’d get her out—” I watch his face fill
with disbelief “—just like I swore I’d get you out, and HK.”
“Why, for
gods’ sakes?”
I stare at
him. Finally I shake my head. “I wish I knew.” I put out my hand. “Give me the
gun.”
He pulls
back, his body tensing. “
Anubah
—”
“Tell him
it was ruined. He trusts you.”
SB
grimaces. But then he nods, and hands me the gun. “If you can find a
powerpack
maybe you’ll stay free a little longer, anyway.”
“Long enough to get us all out of here.”
I fight down a wave of sickening self-doubt.
“I will—!” I push the gun through my belt, covering it with my jerkin.
SB glances
from side to side, his hands clenching. “Yes, by all the gods! You can do it,
BZ. Get us out of here. We’ll steal a flyer. We can do it now, before
Anubah
—”
“No. I have
to ... I have to ... find ...” I stumble over words as the
know why yet ....”
“What’s the
matter with you?” SB shouts. He slaps me. “Goddamn you, forget about Song.
We’re your brothers! She’s nothing but a lunatic.”
I climb to
my feet, rubbing my face. He grabs at my clothes as I rise, trying to hold on
to me. I jerk free as HK comes up behind me. HK stops uncertainly, his face
running with sweat. Suddenly the watch begins to chime in my belt pouch.
“My watch,”
HK murmurs, when the chiming stops. “You found my watch.” He reaches out,
pawing at my belt. “Let me see it. Let me have it—”
I slap his
hand away. “You lost it. I got it back. It’s mine now.” I look down, touching
the pouch. “It was never yours to begin with.”
His face
crumples. “But it was all I had left.”
“You’ve
still got your life.” I glance at SB. “I’ll be back. I’ve always done my duty.”
I make my
way through the tumbled, stone—and rubbish-choked passages between buildings,
out into an open square where I can get my bearings. I start upward, climbing
ladders and steps, toward the heights where Song’s tower lies. I will go there
and wait for her. I try not to think about what will happen then; afraid of the
thought ....
I turn a
corner and collide with another body; curses wrench me back into the present.
“You son of a bitch—” the stranger says. He breaks off, shaking his head.
“Whose are you?” he says, his eyes narrowing as he looks me over, and doesn’t
see a weapon. His voice is slurry with drink or drugs; his eyes are bloodshot.
For a
moment I don’t realize what he’s asked. “I’m nobody’s ... I’m a sibyl.” I touch
my trefoil.
His face
turns greedy instead of afraid. “Then I can use you.”
“I belong
to the
protection.”
“She didn’t
tell me that.” He laughs, and there is a knife in his hand. He flashes it at me
almost carelessly. “Come on, pilgrim.” His other hand closes over my arm,
twisting it.
I bring my
knee up into his groin; he bellows with pain and drops the knife. I break his
grip on me and pull the beamer out of my belt.
He stares
at it stupidly, as if I’d done magic like Song. I am a victim, a slave; he
can’t believe that I am defying him.
I pick up
the knife. “I’m doing you a favor,” I say, before he can start to think. “I
told you I belong to the
torn you apart—”
He frowns
uncertainly, still hunched over with pain.
“Come after
me and I will,” I finish, telling him something I’m sure he’ll understand. I
turn my back and walk on, trying to listen through the muttering of my voices
for any motion behind me. But he doesn’t follow. As I put another block of
buildings between us I begin to breathe again. Now I wear the gun and the knife
openly, as well as the trefoil, realizing that SB is right—my luck is running
out. I walk faster.
I hide the
gun again as I reach Song’s tower and see the guards. The avenue of bones and
the entrance with its leering skull sicken me. I can’t believe that once I
walked this path eagerly—and yet the memory lies as deep and perfect as a
solii
inside of me. I pass the guards. Their eyes follow me
up the steps one more time.
Song has
already returned. She stands at the window of the tower, staring out at
She doesn’t seem to hear me as I cross the room to her. I touch her arm, say
her name softly, trying not to startle her.
She turns,
blinking at me, and her eyes are red with weeping.
“What is
it—?” I begin. But I already know: the helplessness, the terrible sense of loss
and futility—the
wills, never leaving us alone. I’ve barely been able to survive it for this
long, even with the
adhani
and Moon’s guidance; but
she has no control, no protection at all. How long has she endured this
torture? How long has she waited for someone who could end it?
“Song,” I
say again. “I’ve found my brothers. We can all leave here now.” I realize that
she can make it easy for us; no one will touch her, or disobey her.
But her
eyes fill with terror. “No! I can’t leave the
Why don’t
you
save
me?”
“I will—”
“You’re
lying. You want to leave here.”
“And take
you with me!”
“No! You
don’t understand anything!” She pulls away from me, distracted, and moves
across the room. When she looks back again her eyes are
smouldering
and unreadable. “Yes, I’ll come. But I want you to bring something for me.”