World's End

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Order,” the Lake whispers. “Lost . . . lost . . . order me!”

  Torment shakes my mind. Order, disorder, madness—why? What trauma had it suffered. . . . Of course. “The crash!” I gasp, hanging on to the door, hanging on— “The crash damaged you.” The crash must have destroyed its sense of order, turned its space-time interactions random. Its ability to maintain its own physical integrity had become uncontrollable mutation. . . .

  Until now there are countless separate states of potential order, each functioning in its own reality, altogether. Together they breed madness, helplessness, despair—a tortured mind. Fire Lake.

  “I understand!” I whisper. It has waited for its creators to hear it, to heal it, to give back its reason for existing. . . .

  And at last, after a thousand years of waiting, someone has answered. I have. I am the right one, the one who knows, after all. I press my forehead against the metal filigree, supported by the solid reality of the door. “I know what you need.”

  “Yes!” Song screams with the Lake’s voice. She turns from the window, I see her reaching out to me, tears running down her cheeks . . . but it is not her face that I see, it is Moon’s, as the Lake enters my mind to reward me.

  I stir on the floor and sit up. I shake my head, grimacing, wondering how much time has passed. It is night outside, but that means nothing, here. I wonder why I am still even trying to keep track of time.

  The Lake. . . . I pull myself up the door until I am standing, barely. My body is rubbery and weak from hours lost in the Lake’s rejoicing. I run my hands uncertainly over my stained clothing, to be sure all the parts are still there; look down at myself, but not too closely—knowing, but not ready to remember too much. I laugh, and there is still an edge of hysteria on it. I think that I will never be afraid of letting go, of losing myself in too much sensory pleasure, again . . . because nothing in human experience could possibly equal what I have just been through.

  Aftershocks and afterimages spark and smolder in my burnt-out nerve fibers, but my mind is clear enough to think again. I stagger to Song’s bedside table through the ember-light of her fire globe. I look at the globe closely for the first time, and realize at last that it holds a captive droplet of the Lake itself. I touch it with uncertain hands, feeling its heat dimly through the heavy protective surface; feeling the Lake lapping inexorably on the shores of my mind. I unstopper the brandy and take a long drink. The liquor burns in my throat, making me cough, but feeding me strength. When I have enough strength to move again, I go back to the door. It is still locked; Song never reached it before the Lake overwhelmed us both. “Song?” I call, but she doesn’t respond. I can’t see her in the darkness beyond.

  After some searching I find a light panel, and turn lights on in the room; realizing that somewhere here there is actually a generator. I begin to search through Song’s piles of treasure. There must be something in this warehouse of contraband with a powerpack I can use in the beamer.

  I find my desert boots, wince as I pull them onto my swollen feet. And at last I find what I am looking for—a broken module off of some unlucky pilgrim’s rover. I jam one of the oversized packs into the gun butt, hoping that it still has enough of a charge to do me some good. I aim the gun at the lock mechanism on the door. I shut my eyes against the glare and press the firing button down for a count of ten. When I open them again, there is a glowing hole in the door where the lock used to be. I kick the door open.

  I see Song lying on the floor, in a wash of light. I go to her and touch her throat, feeling for a pulse. She is alive, just unconscious. I sit down beside her, relieved.

  But it is night. I decide that now is the best time to try to get out of here. I shake her gently, but she doesn’t stir. I bring the brandy and let some trickle into her mouth. She coughs and swallows convulsively; her eyes blink open.

  She stares at me, astonished. Her astonishment changes slowly to comprehension, and a shining peace. “BZ . . . ” she murmurs, “you understand!” I nod, smiling a little. “I never thought you would—I never thought anyone would. . . . ” Tears well up in her eyes; she buries her face in her ring-covered hands.

  “Song,” I say, pulling at her elbow, trying to get her to her feet, “we’re not out of this yet. But we can leave here, now.”

  “Leave?” Her face fills with terror. “No! I can’t leave—”

  And all the helplessness, the dismay, the terror, that I thought I was free of rolls back into my mind. Every possible thing that could go wrong if we escape flashes across my inner eye, paralyzing me. “But I understand!” I shout. “It’s not fair!” I grab Song by the shoulders. “What the hell do you want from me—?”

  She falls into Transfer, and the Lake moans, “Need you . . . need you . . . order me. . . . ” Suddenly I see that understanding is not a cure—recognizing insanity does not heal a twisted mind. It needs more . . . more than we can ever give it.

  “I can’t heal you!” I say the words to Song. I think of how helpless I am here, helpless to save the Lake, to control it, to give it what it really wants. “I can’t heal you. Song can’t. There are people who can—” People who had understood the technology for centuries, lacking only the raw material to make it work. “Those people would sacrifice anything for the knowledge I have in my head! But I have to tell them! If I stay here I’ll die, and the truth will die with me.”

  The helplessness and terror surge inside me . . . and fade. Song shudders and falls back into herself, lying limp in my arms. I have made it understand. I take a deep breath and get to my feet, thanking a thousand ancestors . . . the ancestors who created the technology of the Old Empire. “Come with me,” I say gently. “It’s all right now.” I take her arms, trying to lift her up.

  She slides out of my grasp, shaking her head. “No.”

  “But you hate it here; you hate what the Lake is doing to you—”

  “It needs me. It’s alone, it needs me. I’m important here, I’m a queen! I belong here, I want to stay—”

  “Goddamn it,” I shout, losing all patience, “you’re crazy! You need more help than the god damned Lake does, and I’m going to see you get it. Come on—” I jerk her to her feet.

  She pulls away from me, and begins to scream. I hit her; the scream stops and she slumps to the floor.

  I go to the door and shout down to the guards. “Something’s happened to Song!” They come running up the steps, their guns out. I hit the first one with a chair as he starts through the doorway, and knock them both back down the steps. They don’t come up again.

  I start to pick up Song; stop, and go back into the other room. I take the globe that holds the droplet of Fire Lake. I fold it in a piece of heavy cloth, and tie it to my belt. Then I wrap Song in a dark rug and carry her over my shoulder down the steps.

  We leave the skeleton tower unchallenged, and I search for a way back through the treacherous light and-shadow alleyways of the town. I get lost half a dozen times before I find the place where I left my brothers, but nobody I meet is crazy enough to challenge an armed man carrying a body.

  I hesitate when I reach the doorway that I think is Anubah’s. The rooms inside are dark, but a group of men is laughing and gaming a little way down the alley, by the light of a solar torch.

  A figure emerges from the doorway, and I stiffen.

  “BZ?”

  “SB!” I start toward the door, but he holds up his hand.

  “Quiet, Anubah’s inside, sleeping.” He gestures me down against the building wall. “Thank the gods,” he mutters. “I thought you were never coming back.”

  “I said I always do my duty.”

  He frowns. I lay Song down beside me as carefully as I can; sit back against the wall, with my arms and legs trembling. I wonder dimly how long it has been since I’ve eaten anything.

  “Is that her?” SB asks.

  “Yes.”

  He grunts something that sounds like “Idiot,” and turns to the doorway again. “HK,” he wh
ispers.

  HK emerges, carrying a small case. They crouch down beside me. “Here are the tools.” SB takes the case from HK’s hands. “Get these blocks off us. Can you short them out?”

  “Not if you want to keep your heads. Can’t you get the control box?”

  “No. I don’t know where Anubah keeps it—” He breaks off, lowering his head as someone strides by.

  When the stranger is past, I say, “I’ve got the gun working. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “No! I want this off. I want to leave here like a man, with honor.” He grips my arm. “You understand.” His eyes burn holes in the darkness.

  “All right.” I pick through the tools in the dim light reflecting off the walls. “It’s too dark here . . . wait.” I unwrap the fire globe. Its restless glow washes their faces with warm radiance.

  “What is it?” HK whispers. “Lava?”

  “A drop of Fire Lake.” I look up, grinning with elation. “It’s stardrive, HK! The whole damned lake!” The real significance of my discovery is only beginning to penetrate.

  “What are you talking about?” SB snaps. “Shut up with that crazy talk, and get us free.”

  “I’m not crazy.” I meet his eyes. “I’ve discovered what Fire Lake really is. A ship of the Old Empire crashed here, and nobody knew it. Its drive has been breeding here, uncontained, for a thousand years. That’s what causes all the abnormal phenomena. Think of it, SB! Think of what this will mean to the Hegemony!”

  “You’re sure?” he asks. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Gods . . . ” HK sighs. “And we’re the only ones who know.”

  “All the more reason to get out of here alive.” I switch on the magnifier, and watch the invisible tracery of the blocks’ circuits glow on its surface. I follow the microfine pathways inward more by instinct than by sight. “All right! . . . Give me a tone box.” HK puts it into my hand. I press a code sequence—half audible notes, half silent to my ears. The pinprick red lights on both their collars wink out. “Deactivated. You’re free. Now come on, let’s—”

  “One more thing,” SB says grimly. He picks up the beamer before I realize what he is doing, and disappears through the doorway. I curse. “What’s he—?”

  A bellow of fury, a low voice speaking. A flash of light, and a scream—

  The men down the alleyway look up as SB bursts out through the doorway. Some of them start to get up, or call out Anubah’s name.

  “Now I feel like a man.” SB grins at HK, holding up the gun.

  “You killed him?” I whisper.

  “Sure.” He nods. “He deserved it.”

  I look away mutely, too many voices in my head.

  “Gods, SB,” HK whines too loudly, “they know what you did!” He points down the alley, jittering with panic.

  “Quiet—” I mutter, but he grabs the fire globe and begins to hobble away. Someone shouts at us. SB’s arm comes up with the gun. “No!” I say, but he fires wildly. I see weapons come out, and the others start for us in a mob. I pick up Song and we all run. She is a dead weight, but rage at my brothers gives me more strength than fear does.

  The twisting alleyways, the maze of steps and ladders, are our enemy and our friend. As we run I fix an image in my mind of the landing flat, the waiting rovers—escape, freedom—willing myself to see them ahead.

  And abruptly I do, almost as if I have the power to twist time and space. With the last of my strength I run out onto the field. But in the hard glare of the lights I see more outlaws, and Goldbeard, roaring, pointing at us—

  “There! He has her! He stole Song!”

  SB fires at him and Goldbeard crumples, but the rest come toward us in a raging mass.

  “Leave her, drop her,” SB gasps, pulling HK by the arm. “It’s her they want! They’ll tear us apart!”

  I run for the nearest rover instead, and drag Song’s body on board. SB and HK throw themselves through the doorway after me. I seal the door, and fumble the remote into my ear. I gasp an override command, collapsing into the pilot’s seat. The control panel comes to life. I lift off, hearing HK and SB grunt as the takeoff dumps them against the back wall. I can barely keep my leaden hands on the controls as we rise from the plateau into the darkness.

  Song stirs at last, lying beside me on the floor. Whimpering in confusion, she pulls herself up the panel to look out into the night over Fire Lake. “No. . . . ” she murmurs. She looks at me and begins to shout, “No. No! Take me back!” Her fists strike the panel.

  I ignore her, wiping sweat from my eyes as I count the images on the screen that are outlaw flyers on our tail. This rover is too old, too slow, too clumsy, to outrun them all. And if they force us down . . .

  Song begins to shriek hysterically. My head fills with noise, with the wail of a thousand memories . . . with a blazing explosion of energy. Below us the Lake explodes in sudden gouts of fire. The rover reels and plunges as the shock waves batter it. And with dazzled eyes I see the plateau that holds Sanctuary shimmer, see it begin to crumble—see it flash out of existence, as if it had never been.

  But my disbelieving eyes still show me our pursuers below, closing, closing. . . .

  I shut my eyes and concentrate on the impossible: a clear sky, no pursuit, a new day, with Fire Lake far behind us—

  “No!” Song screams, one last time.

  What happened?” SB is shouting. “Sainted grandfathers, what happened? Where are we?”

  I sit staring out at a perfectly clear sky, darkening upward from palest blue to an indigo zenith. World’s End flashes by beneath us, falling into the past. There is nothing on the screen. It is a new day. And the silence inside my head is deafening. The Lake is gone. “SB . . . take the controls. . . .” I lock the rover on course.

  He slides into the seat as I get up. My legs give way; I have to hang on to the panel for support. I look down at Song, sitting rigidly in the copilot’s seat. “Song?” Her eyes are open, staring, but she does not move. I shake her gently. She falls back into the seat, completely limp, still staring. “Song!” My own voice shouts in my ears. The Lake is gone, and the silence is almost unbearable. . . . Gods, what have I done?

  “What the hell happened?” SB says again, pulling at my arm. “BZ—?”

  “The Lake,” I say, and for a long moment it is all I can say. “It let us go.”

  I feel them look at each other, and at me. “Then everything you said is really true,” HK breathes.

  “Where are we?” SB looks down at the readouts on the panel.

  “On a course that will get us back to civilization in about half a day.” Half a day’s painless, normal flight. My hands touch my face. I feel a kind of amazement. We’ve survived.

  “You mean the Lake is alive?” HK is sitting behind me. He holds up the globe, peering in at the droplet of stardrive.

  I nod, relieved to see that he still has it.

  “And you can talk to it?”

  “I did. In a way.” SB looks back at me. HK stares with childish awe as I fall into a seat beside him. “I don’t hear it anymore. I don’t expect it hears me, either.” I feel empty, bloodless. I glance at Song again.

  “Thank the gods you didn’t drop that.” SB looks over his shoulder at the globe.

  “Drop this?” HK shakes his filthy head, holding it up. “I’d die first. I’d kill first. Ye gods, SB, do you know how much this is worth?” He giggles. “Nobody knows how much it’s worth! More than anyone ever dreamed! We found our treasure.” He peers out at World’s End. “The hell with buying back the family holdings. We’ll buy whole planets!”

  SB laughs. “We’ll sell it to the highest bidder. We’ll rent it. We’ll have the Prime Minister on his knees, begging us for our secret—”

  “We’ll buy the water of life! We’ll live forever!”

  I push myself up. I reach out and take the globe from HK’s hands. It whispers faintly, comfortingly. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I ask.


  They look at me blankly.

  “This is my discovery.”

  “BZ—”

  “You can’t—!”

  Their voices clamor in the tight space of the cabin, rattling off the walls.

  “—selfish—”

  “—all we’ve suffered—”

  “—share it with us?”

  “We deserve it!”

  “Shut up.” I glare at them. “The stardrive belongs to the people of the Hegemony. It’s their heritage, their right. And I’m giving it back to them. No one is going to hold it for ransom.”

  “You’re going to give it away?” SB says scornfully. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life—” I blink and frown as life echoes memory. . . . Just the way I saw it. The last shadows of doubt about my sanity begin to fade. I move back to Song, and hold the globe in front of her eyes. “Listen,” I beg her. She seems to focus on it, but she doesn’t move.

  SB watches us. “She got what she deserved, at least.”

  “But BZ . . . ” HK’s voice paws at me. “What about the family estates? Don’t you want them back? Don’t you want—”

  SB snarls at him, and he stops talking. SB looks up at me. “You’ll change your mind.”

  I shake my head.

  We make the rest of the journey in complete silence. The silence in my mind is far worse. The thoughts that should have come to fill the emptiness refuse to form. I remember Ang and Spadrin, see my brothers in their place; but I have no strength left for guilt, or pain, or even irony. My exhaustion is so utter that I can’t even sleep. I watch the wastelands replaying and receding: the deserts, the mountains, the jungles . . . the greed, the suffering, the lost dreams. Only the prospect of seeing the Company town again makes me feel anything—an eagerness I never dreamed I’d ever feel, because this time it marks the gateway out of hell.