Walk to the End of the World Read Online Free PDF

They walked by the water. The Endtendant held the skirts of the pilgrim robe clear of the wet sand by bunching his fists in the pockets. He looked eastward over the water, as if there were something to see out there.
    With the moon up so bright there weren’t even any netting-crews out sifting the tides; the plankton that they sought only surfaced on dark nights or if it were roiled up from the bottom by storms. It was too early in the fall for bad weather. Kelmz wondered where he would be when the storms began. He couldn’t see his way at all as a companion of these two. He didn’t think he would ever be comfortable in the Endtendant’s company.
    They walked without speaking for some time until, brushing up against the Endtendant’s arm by accident, Kelmz felt a tremor in him.
    ‘It’s cold,’ the captain said. ‘Let’s turn back.’
    ‘I will; you don’t have to.’
    Kelmz stopped and looked up at the paling sky. ‘I’m committed to come with you. I won’t try to turn you over to Bajerman or to the Board, my word on it. I’m a man, not a boy. You can trust me.’
    ‘What choices do I have?’ The Endtendant uttered hard cracks of sound not much like laughter. ‘Of course I must trust you, and Servan, and who knows how many other unlikely types before our journey is over. But I can try to minimize my risks. You must be nearly my father’s age; whether you wear a mantle or not, Captain, the years make us enemies.’
    ‘The way things stand,’ Kelmz observed, ‘you don’t have anything but enemies. Even your age-peers would sell you to the Board for extra points, anything to enlarge their share of the lammin-harvest, lean as it is. If you think my age makes me a special risk, why didn’t you let d Layo cut my throat just now?’
    ‘I don’t like Servan’s attitude toward killing,’ the Endtendant said, drily. ‘He’s too casual. I can manage alone with him if I must.’
    ‘Look, I have no place else to go but with you.’ Kelmz fell abruptly silent, feeling the heat of shame on his cheeks. What a thing to admit to a younger man!
    To his relief, the Endtendant merely said, ‘All right.’
    Only age-peers shook hands. They gave each other a short nod of assent and turned back down the beach. Already a fem-gang could be heard approaching from the town; the low weave of their plaintive voices made a walking rhythm of intersecting tones.
    The Endtendant said, ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to sing. Don’t you find their voices disturbing?’
    Most men were entirely too preoccupied with the creatures, in Kelmz’ opinion. ‘No.’
    ‘I do.’ The Endtendant put up his hood.
    Beyond the silent shredding-shed, the pier reached out over the water. Netters’ boats tied to the tall pilings bobbed all along its length. At the far end, where the ferry pylon reared up against the sky, the winch-housing of the coastal ferry was visible. One winch-arm angled darkly up across the dawn.
    Some one was standing there, urgently waving: d Layo.
    They glanced at each other and stepped up their pace, walking swiftly past the shed. As they cleared it, a man straightened from examining footprints in the sand. He was a highmantled Senior. At his shout, two other men came charging around the side of the shed:
Rovers.
    On the run, the captain veered toward the water, shouldering the Endtendant into it. They plunged through the icy tide and clambered into the first of the netting-boats. There was rope coiled in the prow, with a grapnel fixed to one end. Kelmz swung the grapnel and hurled it upward. The cross-arm caught behind the head of a piling above them.
    The Endtendant climbed up, the sea-soaked skirts of the robe clinging to his legs. Kelmz followed.
    As he had intended, the Rovers had been thrown off by the change of footing. They were pelting around the long way, up the steps into the pier from the landward end. Kelmz held back a pace, racing down the pier, to cover the Endtendant if he had to, for the Rovers were