World’s End Read Free

us do grow up.”
    His pale freckles
reddened. “I’d forgotten what a self righteous little bore you always were.”
    I hadn’t
forgotten anything. I kept the desk terminal like a barrier between us. “You
know, they have a name for what you plan to do, around here. They call it the
Big Mistake.” I turned to HK, still surprised to see graying hair above that
familiar, self-indulgent face. The florid, shining-surfaced robe he wore hardly
flattered his obvious bulk. I wondered why he didn’t wear the traditional
uniform that was his proper dress as head of family. “I’d expect him to make a
mistake that big. But I never thought I’d meet you halfway across the galaxy
from our ancestors, or the ... your estates.” I cleared my throat. “Things must
be better than I remember , if you can leave your business
holdings headless for so long. Or do you have a spouse by now, and an heir?”
The sublight trips to and from the Black Gates added
up to several years passed at home before they could return. I try not to keep
track of the relativistic time lags that separate me from my past—it becomes an
exercise in masochism too easily—but I knew that nearly two decades had passed
on Kharemough since I’d last prayed at our family
shrine. Since the last time I saw my father alive .... Memory stabbed me with sudden treachery, showing me a face—a woman’s face, her skin and hair as pale as moonlight, the trefoil
tattoo of a sibyl on her throat. The face I always saw when I tried to see my
father’s face, ever since Tiamat . I looked up at my
brothers, my own face hot.
    But HK was
staring at the backs of his hands as though they belonged to a stranger. “No
heir ... and no estates.”
    “What?” I
whispered. But one look at their faces and I knew. I leaned on the desk,
straining forward. “No.”
    “... lost
them ... bad investments ... didn’t foresee ... SB’s associates ...”
    I could
barely focus on HK’s words. The diarrhea of his excuses told me nothing, and
everything. Images of Kharemough filled my mind: my
world, the only world, the only life worth living. The life I’ve given up
forever, because of my scars. I’d been able to live with its loss only because
I could believe that whatever shame I’d brought on myself, my family’s
reputation remained untouched, the memory of my ancestors immaculate, as long
as I stayed away. Their continuity and their ashes lay securely in the land
that had been my family’s since Empire times—proof of our intellect and our
honor. But now, after so many centuries, our estates belonged to someone else
... and so did our heritage. Some social climbing lowborns with money for honor burned incense to my ancestors; claimed my family, with
all its accomplishments, for their own. A thousand years of tradition destroyed
in a moment. And all because of me.
    “... barely
had the funds to finance this trip ... World’s End ... only hope of ever
recovering the family holdings ... help us regain the estate, and the honor
...”
    A silvery
chiming broke across HK’s words, silencing him. He reached into the pocket on
his sleeve distractedly and pulled out the watch. The heirloom watch, the Old
Empire relic that my mother had restored and given to my father for a wedding
gift. It must have been an anachronistic curiosity even when it was new—a
handheld timepiece, that did nothing but tell time. Even my mother hadn’t been
certain how old it really was. As a child I had played with it endlessly,
obsessed by all that it stood for. I could still see every alien creature
engraved on its golden surface, feel the subtle forms of limb and jeweled eye
under the loving touch of my fingers. The watch was the one remembrance that my
father had left specifically to me in his will. But HK had kept it for himself.
    “Get out.”
I held my voice together somehow as I touched my terminal, opening the door
behind them. “Get out of here, before I ...” Words failed
me. “Go to hell in