Kullervo went rigid under his hand. “I’ll tell you very bluntly what your problem will be,” Gundhalinu whispered, cutting Kullervo off before he could speak. “If you push these people any more, Reede Kullervo will be permanently banned from entering World’s End; or else this entire expedition will end up a beached klabbah, and I don’t know if even your gods or mine—” he touched the trefoil hanging at his chest pointedly, “will be able to get it back afloat. A viable stardrive now means nothing to those people over there. It means everything to me. How much does it mean to you—?”
Kullervo stared at him, and Gundhalinu watched the wild light fade from the other man’s eyes. Kullervo said nothing more; he shrugged off the contact of Gundhalinu’s restraining hand with an abrupt motion.
Gundhalinu turned back to face Ahron, glancing at the three troopers again. He knew the designated pilot from a previous trip inside—a corporal named Ngong, a capable man, but no more enthusiastic about making the journey to Fire Lake than anyone in his right mind would be. “Agent Ahron,” he said, “let me propose this. We use our own certified pilot, who is also one of Dr. Kullervo’s assistants, but we take the two others. That way our team will be slightly smaller, which somewhat reduces our risk from the Lake; but we will still have adequate security. I don’t expect Corporal Ngong will be too disappointed to take some other duty. Will you, Corporal?”
Ngong stole a slightly nervous glance at the sergeant standing beside him, before he answered. “No, sir!”
“I am a Police Commander after all.”
Ahron eyed him suspiciously for a long moment, as if she was trying to fathom whatever conceivable plot he was devising against her. “It isn’t in the regulations—”
“I know your only thought is for our safety, Agent Ahron, and the success of the project we’ve all been working on for so long together… .” He took a deep breath. “Of all the agents I’ve had to deal with, you’ve been the most dedicated and diligent—qualities I value highly.” Gods, he thought, lay it on with a shovel, you hypocritical bastard; hating the taste of his own words. “World’s End is a terrifyingly treacherous environment. I know you, of all people, would not want us to risk our lives, or the success of the stardrive project, needlessly—”
“All right,” she said abruptly, spitting out her decision like a clot of phlegm. “You may use your own pilot, Commander Gundhalinu. If it was anyone else—” she glanced at Kullervo, “I wouldn’t allow it. But you will take Sergeant Hundet and Trooper Saroon with you.”
“Thank you,” Gundhalinu said, with heartfelt sincerity. He dared to look at Kullervo. “I hope that’s a more acceptable risk to you, Doctor?” Kullervo looked at the two troopers with narrowed eyes. Gundhalinu followed his gaze. He had never seen either of the two men before. The sergeant was short and whip-thin, but all muscle, with a narrow, mean face and impenetrable eyes. Gundhalinu disliked him on sight. The private was hardly more than a boy, probably a conscript; he looked right now like the prospect of being sent to Fire Lake was about as appealing to him as his own castration. Gundhalinu sighed.
Kullervo glanced away, down at Niburu. “I guess I can handle that,” he murmured. Niburu looked more uncomfortable than relieved; Ananke looked back and forth between them as though they were speaking some language he didn’t know. Kullervo looked up at Gundhalinu again. “Thank you, Gundhalinu-eshkrad.” He smiled, unexpectedly.
Something fluttered and dropped in the pit of Gundhalinu’s stomach, as if he were some form of small vermin that was being considered by a cat. He shook off the feeling, annoyed at himself. It was not the first time Kullervo’s unpredictable responses had set off alarms in his brain. He had been a Police officer for too long; he read other people’s body language almost instinctively. Kullervo’s body language was eloquent, and it read all wrong: His volatility and, when he wasn’t thinking, his manners and his speech, were better suited to a hotheaded young street thug than to a respected scientist. But he was, undeniably, a brilliant researcher.
Gundhalinu nodded, looking away. He reminded himself that he had grown up with Kharemoughi researchers, the men and women who had been his father’s friends and colleagues—scientists whose refined behavior reflected their position at the top of a highly structured, classist society. Kullervo was not a Kharemoughi. Gundhalinu had learned nothing more about his background, perhaps because Kullervo was ashamed of it. That was not an unreasonable response for a man with a mind so superior that it had lifted him out of the gods-knew-what kind of life and dropped him into a nest of elitists. But no one ever left their past behind completely; he knew that, if anyone did.
He looked back at Agent Ahron, at the troopers waiting beside her. “We’ll leave from the yard tomorrow at first quarter. I’ll expect you to be waiting when I arrive I believe everything we’ll need has already been assembled there—?”
“Everything is in order, Commander,” Agent Ahron said. The troopers returned his salute perfunctorily, and he started for the door. Kullervo and the others followed him out without a word. He did not speak again, and neither did they, until they were safely back in the rover, and rising over the town.
“That was impressive,” Kullervo said finally. “You’re one slick manipulator, Gundhalinu-eshkrad.”
Gundhalinu looked up, frowning, as irritation and resentment took root in his festering self-disgust. But to his surprise, Kullervo’s face showed him no mockery, no emotion that he could name except perhaps curiosity. “It’s not something for which I hope to be venerated by my descendants.” He looked away again, out the window.
“You should,” Kullervo said. “You should be proud of it. It means you’ve got a real talent for reading a bad situation. You knew just how hard you could push them … and me. It’s not something I’m good at, obviously. I’m sorry. Bureaucrats make me nervous … World’s End makes me nervous.” He grimaced, shrugged. “I didn’t think you were that perceptive, frankly. It’s not a trait Kharemoughis seem to value highly.”
Gundhalinu fingered the trefoil hanging at his chest, and said nothing.
“That was a compliment,” Kullervo said at last.
“Thank you,” Gundhalinu murmured, automatically. He looked down at his hands, at the insides of his wrists, the smooth brown skin that had once been covered with the livid marks of his suicide attempt. His mouth pulled down. “I suppose I’ve come to deserve some sort of credit, these past few years.” He looked out at the jungle, thinking about what lay beyond sight, beyond the distant mountains … what lay beyond spacetime, waiting for him.
NUMBER FOUR: World’s End
“What are you doing here, at this time of night?” Gundhalinu stopped in the prism of light outside the open door of Kullervo’s office, looking in.
Kullervo jerked around in his seat, blinking as if reality made no sense to his eyes. “Gods …”he muttered, “you startled the hell out of me.” He shook his head, stretching, as Gundhalinu came into the room. “I often work at night, when I can’t sleep.” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “But what are you doing here? I thought you always retired early, and slept the sleep of the just.”
Gundhalinu matched his ironic smile unwillingly, and shook his own head. “I can never sleep, the night before I go into World’s End.”
Kullervo laughed. “So you do have nerve endings, after all, Commander Gundhalinueshkrad-sibyl-Hero of the Hegemony.”
“Father of all my grandfathers!” Gundhalinu said, exasperated and suddenly angry. He began to turn away.