World’s End (4 page)

Damn it, I
know I only had a
couple ....
I’m not a drunkard. I
never touch liquor. Drunkenness disgusts me. It’s a sign of weak character. I
hate drunks. I ought to. The gods know I have to deal with enough of them ...
used to. Not anymore.

Not since a
month
ago ....
It should have happened years ago.
The message from the Chief Inspector on my screen.
When I
saw it I wanted to run away, like a child, because I knew there was only one
reason he’d ask me to report to him in person. But my body got up from behind
my desk and took me to him; it made the correct salute, as if my face wasn’t
betraying it with a look
more guilty
than a felon’s.

Chief
Inspector
Savanne
is not an easy man to face, even on
a
viewscreen
. He returned my salute, studying me with
an uncertainty that was harder to endure than the cold disapproval I’d been
expecting.

“Sir—” I
began, and bit off the flood of excuses that filled my mouth. I looked down
along the blue length of my uniform at my boots. I saw a hypocrite and a
traitor wearing the clothes of an honest man. I’m sure the Chief Inspector saw
the same thing.
Tiamat
.
The
word, the world, were
suddenly all I could think of.
Tiamat
,
Tiamat
,
Tiamat
....

“Inspector.”
He nodded, but all he said was “I think we both realize that your work
has not been up to standard in recent months.” He came directly to the point,
as usual.

I stood a
little straighter, forcing myself to meet his gaze.
“Yes,
sir.”

He let his
fingertips run over the
touchboard
of his terminal,
throwing random messages onto its screen, as he did sometimes when he was
distracted. Or maybe the messages weren’t random. “You obviously served very
competently on
Tiamat
, to have risen to the rank of
Inspector in so short a time. But that doesn’t surprise me, since you were a
Technician of the second rank ....” He was also a
Kharemoughi
,
like most high officers in the force.

Were
.
I swallowed the word like a lump of dry bread.
My hands moved behind my back; I touched my scarred wrists. I could protect my
family from shame by staying away from home. But I had never been able to
forget my failure; because my people would never forget it, and they were
everywhere I went.

He glanced
up, frowning slightly at my surreptitious movement. “Inspector, I know you
carry some unpleasant memory from your duty on
Tiamat
.... I know you still bear the scars.” He looked down again, as if even to
mention it embarrassed him. “I don’t want to know what happened to you there,
or why you haven’t had the scars removed. But I don’t want you to think that I
hold what you did against you—”

Or what I failed to do
. The very fact that he mentioned it
at all told me too much. I said nothing. I felt my face flush.

“You’ve
served here on Number Four for nearly five standards, and for most of that time
you’ve kept whatever is troubling you to yourself. Perhaps too much to yourself
....”

I knew some
of the other officers felt that I was aloof and unsociable—and I knew that they
were right. But it hadn’t mattered, because nothing had seemed to matter much
to me since
Tiamat
. I felt the cold of a long-ago
winter seep back into my bones as I stood waiting. I tried to remember a face
... tried not to remember it.

“You’ve shown
admirable self-discipline, until recently. But after the
Wendroe
Brethren
matter ....
It was handled very badly, as I’m
sure I don’t have to tell you. The Governor-General complained to me personally
about it.”

And the
Police had to demonstrate the Hegemony’s good will. My eyelids quivered with
the need to let me stop seeing. But I held his gaze. “I understand, sir. It was
my responsibility. My accusations against the Brethren’s chamberlain were
inexcusable.”
Even
though they were true
.
But truth was always the first casualty in
our relationship with an
onworld
government.
Kharemough
held the Hegemony together with a fragile net of
economic sanctions and self-interested manipulation, because without a
hyperlight
drive, anything more centralized was impossible.
The seven other worlds of the Hegemony were technically autonomous—
Kharemough
cultivated their sufferance with hypocritically
elaborate care. I knew all of that as well as anyone; I’d learned it on
Tiamat
. “I should have offered you my resignation immediately.
I’ve had—family difficulties the past few months. My brothers lost ... are lost
in World’s End.” I felt the blood rise to my face again, and went on hast
ily
, “I don’t offer that as an excuse, only as an
explanation.” The Chief Inspector looked at me as though that explained
nothing. I couldn’t explain even to myself the dreams that had ruined my sleep
ever since my brothers came: the ghosts of a thousand dispossessed ancestors;
the face of my father changing into a girl’s face as pale as snow; endless
fields of
snow ....
I would wake up shivering, as if I
were freezing cold. “I offer you my resignation now, sir.” My voice did not
break.

The Chief
Inspector shook his head. “That isn’t necessary. Not if you are willing to
accept the alternative of a temporary reduction in rank, and an enforced leave
of absence until the Governor-General has forgotten this incident. And until
your
... emotional state has regained some kind of
equilibrium.”

If only I could forget the past as easily as
the Governor-General will forget about me!
I only said, faintly, “Thank you, sir. You
show me more consideration than I deserve.”

“You’ve
been a good officer. You deserve whatever time it takes to resolve your
problems ... however you can,” he said, uncomfortably. “Rest, enjoy this
vacation from your responsibilities. Get to feel at home on this world.” He
glanced at me, at the scars on my wrists. “Or perhaps ... what you need is to
look into your brothers’ disappearance in World’s End.”

For a
moment I felt a black rush of vertigo, as if I were falling—I shook my head,
saw a fleeting frown cross the Chief Inspector’s face.

“Come back
to the force,
Gundhalinu
,” he murmured. “But only if
you can come back without scars.”

Without scars ... without the past.
What’s the point of having the scars removed?
It would only be one more act of hypocrisy. I’d still see them. And so would
he. Life scars us with its random motion. Only death is perfect.

Gods, I
can’t believe what I did to myself yesterday. How could I have done something
that asinine? I was sick half the night. I’ve never been drunk like that. It’s
this place. It must be.

This
morning I swore to myself that if nothing changed today I’d give up this
insanity. I’ll never know if I meant it this time or not ... because something
finally happened.

I was back
in
C’uarr’s
place, as usual. A local man came over to
me where I sat, nursing my drink and my queasy stomach. Finally I realized that
he was interested in me, and I looked up at him. He was tall and heavyset,
closing in on middle age, with skin the color of leather and straight black
hair. A Company man, I thought ... an ex-Company man. His dingy coveralls had
no insignia or identification, only white patches that showed they’d been there
once. A tarnished religious medal dangled against his chest; bitter lines
bracketed his mouth. “You
Gedda
?” he asked.

I found my
jaw clenching with resentment. I’ve gotten too used to this enforced solitude.
I worked my tongue loose, and said, “Yes.” I go by
Gedda
here. It suits me better than my own name, and it hides my identity from chance
encounters. My real identity is a liability in a place like this ... and
besides that, meaningless.

The man sat
down without waiting for an invitation. I frowned, but said nothing. He stared
at me, assessing me in turn. There was something disturbing about his gaze. “I
hear you’re a
Kharemoughi
.
A Tech?”

I nodded.
“I was once.”

The hooded
eyes dropped to the scars on my wrists. “What happened?”

I turned my
hands over, palms down on the damp tabletop. ‘I got tangled up in Blue.”
The standard phrase for trouble with the police.
I saw his
mouth quirk.

“What are
you doing here?” he asked.

“Waiting.”

“Tired of
it?”

I felt my
skin prickle. I had come to the end of believing that I would ever get
permission to enter World’s End, ever master the rituals of whim and bribery
that have confounded me all the while I’ve been here. And now this stranger
seemed to be offering me clearance on a ceremonial platter. “What do you want?”

He said, “I
want to go prospecting. My vehicle is a Company
junker
.
They don’t think it can be repaired. I think all it needs is somebody who knows
his ass from a socket. I hear you Techs can fix anything. If you can fix this,
we’ll go together.”

That was
all he wanted. I let myself laugh. “If I can’t fix it, no one can.” I offered
my hand. The stranger shook it, after the local custom. I asked, “What do I
call you?”

“
Ang
,” he said.

I finished
my drink, out of habit, and we left the Wait together.

I could
hardly believe my luck this morning, when
Ang
actually showed up at my room with every permit and clearance I needed to get
into World’s End. After so many weeks of maddening bureaucracy, it was like
being set free from prison. I didn’t bother to ask him how he’d done it—there’s
only one way. No matter; it seemed like a miracle.

I should
have known my good fortune was too perfect to be true. This afternoon
Ang
took me to see the vehicle—a
triphibian
rover, in bad shape but not impossible, if he can get me the parts I’ll need.
That’s not the trouble. The trouble is that there are three of us, not two.
Today I met the third man.

He seemed
about as surprised to see me as I was to see him, even though he’d apparently
been expecting me. He was waiting in a junkyard when I arrived with
Ang
, kicking at the fungal creepers that grew up through
the sea of scrap metal.

Ang
snorted with laughter as he saw the man kicking and cursing, as if discomfiture
with the repulsive flora of this place were somehow amusing. “It’ll all be back
tomorrow,” he said, to no one.

“Who’s
that?” I asked. The other man was peering out from under the wide rim of his
sun helmet. His skin and hair were the color of paste, as if he was never
outdoors by choice. His blunt, tight-muscled body gleamed with
sunblock
lotion and sweat. I distrusted him on sight.

“
Spadrin
,”
Ang
said, or rather
called out. “This is our mechanic.”

“You mean
he’s a partner?” I asked. I was more than a little irritated.
Ang
hadn’t mentioned a third partner, either this morning
or when he’d asked me to join him. He’d offered me an equal share of anything
we found—but he never mentioned that it would be a three-way split.

Ang
didn’t bother to answer me, now that the answer was obvious. And
Spadrin
was staring back at me in a way that made me forget
about
Ang’s
shortcomings.

“This is
Gedda
,”
Ang
told him.

Spadrin
started visibly when he heard the name, but then his frown came back. “You got
a
Kharemoughi
? You said we were going to get some
Company hand—” He broke off. “Why?”

“He was the
best I could do.”
Ang
shrugged, but it wasn’t an easy
motion. 1 wondered whether his comment was a compliment. His hands were making
fists inside the pockets of his coveralls.

Spadrin
glared at
Ang
, disbelief plain on his face. Then he
looked me up and down pointedly, as if I were an inanimate object.

I stared
back at him, reconfirming my first impression. He was clearly out of place. His
clothes were made of a shining, silken fabric, and might have passed for
stylish summer wear in some climate-controlled metropolis; but they were
absurdly impractical here. The tattoos running up his bare arms told me a lot
more, although I recognized only a few of the designs and symbols. They all
have their separate meanings: They illustrate a man’s life history in the
Hegemony’s underworld.
Spadrin
was a career criminal.