World’s End (31 page)

He had been
manipulated, too, in ways he had never expected ... though whether it was by
some hidden will or simply the hard hands of fate, he still had no idea. Had
going mad made him fit to become a sibyl? ... Or had becoming a sibyl driven
him sane? Was it possible that he had not been merely a footnote, a victim of
circumstance, on
Tiamat
after all? He would never
know for certain, unless he returned to
Tiamat
again,
and asked Moon the right
questions ....

He smiled,
then—really smiled; but his mouth made an uncertain line as he remembered her
ghost reaching out to him, hazed in blue.
Laid
to rest? ... Oh, gods
, he thought,
is
anything we ever do really
done
for the right reasons?

He rubbed
his eyes, looked out at the Pantheon—the home of all the gods—again. No one he
really knew ... no one who really knew him ... would be there tonight. The
people waiting there thought he was a hero. They thought he was brave, and
brilliant, and honorable ... they wanted to give him everything.
They praised his modesty
.
If they only knew.
His mouth turned down. But they never
would—they’d never want to. They needed to believe that virtue was rewarded,
that evil was punished,
that
order reigned. That it
all had a point.

And so did
he
. Once he had needed to believe it so much that it had
driven him
insane ....
Until he had nearly died of his
own guilt, never accepting that there were some things beyond anyone’s control.
No one had the secret formula that would get him through a day, let alone a
lifetime. Order and chaos maintained at best a fragile truce, and the universe
hung in their balance. Someday, some millions of years from now, all the stars
would flow out of the night sky into darkness. And then the hand of fate would
turn the hourglass upside down, and they would all tumble back
again ....
Or maybe not.
If I died today, what would anyone make of
my life?
He could live his life a day at a time, now, because he knew that
in the end it was no one’s life but his own.
And because even
if it all came to nothing, at least he had made a knowing choice to act on the
side of order.

The first
thing he would do was oversee the scientific expedition that was already
forming to study
Fire
Lake
. They would need his
unique and curious expertise, for a while. At least in that role he would not
be a fraud.

And at
least he would be able to see that Song was taken care of. He had already
arranged for Hahn to join the expedition, and to take Song with her. There
would be a need for sibyls there for a long time, until the
Lake
was back where it belonged in
starships,
and at peace
again. He owed Song that much, he supposed, even if it was no real answer for
either of
them ....
His mind turned away from the
memory of her face, which could have been his own. He would have to see her
face again, soon enough—see it over
an
dover
,
until it was only another face.

After he
was certain that suitable progress was being made at the
Lake
,
he would go on to
Kharemough
. He would work to
solidify his new position, gaining influence, making himself an indispensable
part of the new interstellar technology. He would keep his Police Com
mandership
, too, and build his power base from there.
Whatever it took, whatever was
needed ....

He looked
back again for a moment into the life that had brought him to this place,
considered the ordeals that had prepared him for this future he had chosen,
even as they had made it inevitable. They had seemed to him like the end of
everything ... and yet he had survived them all. None of them had been more
than a prelude, a moment in time that had allowed him to begin the rest of his
life.

There would
be no more self-inflicted wounds, no more hesitation, no more blind allegiance
to rules made by human beings as imperfect as himself. He would survive
anything that got in his way, because he knew he could. He would return to
Tiamat
, and together with Moon he would see that power
passed into the right hands. Together they would start another future, they
would set right old wrongs, they would—He caught himself smiling again like a
lovestruck
fool. He sighed.
No ... never for the right reasons.

His intercom
bleeped loudly in the silence “Inspector?”

He turned
back from the window, startled His sudden movement swept the antique watch from
the windowsill onto the floor His heel came down before he could stop it,
crushing the gold case, the jeweled animal faces,
the
fragile works within

He lifted
his foot, crouched down, picking up the pieces as gently as though he were
lifting an injured child He placed the watch on the sill again, and stood over
it, looking down His mouth trembled

“Inspector
Gundhalinu
?
Sir, we ought to be leaving for the
ceremony—”

He began to
laugh, and went on laughing, helplessly.
What
miracles we are
, he thought,
and what
fools.