City Without End Read Free Page B

test.”
    Lamar gaped at her. Didn’t ace the test? The Standard Test. Christ, the kid was the grandson of Donnel Quinn and the nephew of Titus Quinn, and he didn’t slam the Standard? He hung his head, not looking at her. Genetics. It was genetics. Mateo got his brains from Caitlin and Rob—no shame in that—but he was no savvy. Not like Lamar, or Titus. Christ almighty. A blow.
    Caitlin pushed on, falsely cheerful. “He’s bright. IQ 139. He’ll be fine.”
    Fine. Yes, depending on your definition. Didn’t Mateo have some big ambitions, though? Something about being a virtual enviro designer . . . well, not likely. Stanford wouldn’t take him, or Cornell. Lamar could pull some strings. But the boy didn’t have the right stuff to make it far; couldn’t do calculus in his head or understand advanced quantum theory. Time was when even the average-smart could do real science, but that time was gone.
    The easy stuff had all been done, and now, talking to a middie—much less a dred—was like explaining sunrise to a pigmy.
    “I’m sorry, Caitlin.”
    “Of course you are.” Her voice didn’t cloak her bitterness. Lamar was a savvy.
    He shifted uneasily in the pool chair. He should have been prepared for this. Mateo was thirteen, the age they gave the Standard. What was he supposed to say: Brains aren’t everything? Oh, but they were.
    Mateo grabbed his towel and made his way to the adults while Rob did his pool laps.
    “He doesn’t know yet,” Caitlin whispered.
    “Ho, unc,” Mateo chirped.
    “Ho, young man.” Lamar pasted on a smile, more rigid these days after his rhinoplasty.
    Mateo took a sip of a half-finished soda, and Lamar watched him with dismay. The boy squinted against the July sun, making him look confused and wary. The spark in his eyes, that look of broad perspective, was missing.
    Lamar should have seen it before. The boy was a middie, poor son of a bitch.
    “Want to see a double twist?” Mateo asked, jumping up. Assured that every adult within two blocks would want to see Mateo Quinn perform dive platform feats, he raced off, heedless of Caitlin’s call not to run on the cement.
    His departure left a vacuum in Lamar’s heart. What a miserable mess.
    Mateo wasn’t in the club. Bad enough to leave Caitlin and Rob behind, but now Mateo? Quinn would be unhappy. Quinn would carve Lamar a new asshole.
    Lamar sank into a dark place, thinking of how his little revolutionary cabal was screwing over his adopted family. Thinking of how he’d have to face Quinn for leaving Mateo behind when the world change came about.
    The fact was, even Lamar didn’t want to leave him behind. He liked the boy, liked Caitlin and little Emily. For God’s sake, how could he abandon them?
    The topic didn’t bear close scrutiny. It was a monstrous scheme. But if the world had to be abandoned, Lamar and his people couldn’t be blamed.
    That responsibility fell upon the Tarig. They were intent on using the Rose universe as fuel and had been beta testing the concept for fully two years, if not longer. Lately the tally of vanished stars included Alpha Carinae, a rare yellow-white super giant, which people who bothered to learn their stars knew as Canopus. Few bothered. The astronomers were in a lather, of course.
    Particularly since over the last three months Alpha Carinae had been preceded in death by Procyon, the lovely marquee star of Canis Minor, and 40 Eridani-B, a DA-class white dwarf. People paying attention, like Lamar and his friends, saw these vanishings as yet another hint the end was near. The stars had simply winked out. Impossible, of course. But not for the Tarig.
    Nothing, really, could stop them, not for long. Lamar and company’s little plan—with the very apt name of renaissance —would hasten that act of cannibalism, after first saving a few gifted people who the Tarig might tolerate in their closed kingdom. We’ll help you burn it. Let a few of us emigrate, and we’ll show you