Destiny's Road h-3

by Larry Niven

  “I'll ask Loria.” Damon grinned. Tim asked, “We don't cross the Neck? I wanted to do that. It'd be a rite of passage.”

  “Tim, we shoot anyone who crosses the Neck unless he's a merchant.”

  Tim had guessed as much. “That's one serious rite of passage. Now, Hal says the town serves dinner for two caravans. Do we help cook?”

  “The locals do a seafood grill. You'll love it. Anything else comes from us, and we serve. Two caravans is one serious cookout. If Tail Town wasn't so big they couldn't do it at all. What have we got?”

  “Root veggies. Not much fruit, but some. The boar meat's gone. Pickings have been skimpy since Baytown. Rabbits-”

  “Use it all. Now, tomorrow there'll be a few new yutzes. They'll have to learn.”

  Jemmy Bloocher had fled from the summer caravan.

  In Twerdahl Town he'd stopped, and married, and when the summer caravan caught up, he'd been Tim Hann of Twerdahl Town, cooking in firelight and fading sunset.

  Winter came and went, and the spring caravan brought strangers who picked up Tim Bednacourt and carried him the length of the Road.

  -But the Road continued an unknown distance into the continent. and Cavorite's trail went with it- And the autumn caravan would carry him back. Should he let Rian give him a gorgeous send-off? Or Senka? Or would they be busy in Tail Town tonight? Or should he wait to meet the women of the autumn caravan?

  His mind could see no threat. He'd serve these strangers as he'd served the spring caravan, and live his life out in Twerdahl Town.

  His adrenal glands were screaming bloody murder.

  Senka set him a few errands up and down the caravan while the wagons ran onto the Neck for two klicks and a bit. The wagons stayed on the broad side, the bay side of the midline hump. They were a hundred meters apart when Damon loosed his chugs to join the others, a little early today, with the sun still half up the sky. The autumn caravan had turned theirs loose too. Half a thousand chugs all flowed into Haunted Bay, spreading out so that one long wave entered the water.

  Had a chug ever investigated the other ocean?

  Haunted Bay continued around, the shore curving into distance and mist. Otterfolk must be out there, all the way around the curve of island and mainland both.

  Lines of wagons faced each other across the Neck.

  The Neck was Road: softly contoured gray rock crazed with cracks. Big cracks served for the barbecue fires; little cracks could break an ankle. A frozen lava pool ran from sea to sea. Rounded edges dropped into two oceans. A ridge ran down the middle, the last remnant of mountain range. There was no trace of life save for the wagons.

  Cavorite drifted back and forth until the whole of the Neck glowed red and orange, to bar any living thing that might cross from the mainland. Humanity's rule of the Crab was not to be challenged.

  Under direction of the chefs, yutzes carried the caravan's stores of fruit and vegetables to the midpoint. Tables were arrayed there, a permanent feature. The chefs laid fires and started root vegetables and pots of beans. Gaudy merchants watched them from the far caravan.

  Where were the chugs? They'd been underwater too long.

  A woman walked across to join them. She was hefty, formidable, like Marilyn Lyons. Her robes blazed with color: cloth that had not yet felt the dust of the Road.

  “I'm Willow Hearst.” She had a carrying voice. “Randy and I work Hearst wagon. Hearst and Jabar wagons carry the cooking gear and the chefs. Go back to your wagons and get your possessions. We'll sort you out when you come back. We'll still have plenty of light.”

  Three more merchants had left the autumn caravan. Would they give further orders? But they were swinging wide of the cookfires, headed for town.

  Joker-Joker? Where are the chugs?”

  Joker smiled and pointed toward the fog-shrouded mainland. “See, they can't climb back out. They can walk underwater against the current. There's better forage on the mainland, where fisher boats haven't stirred things up. And then they're home to stay, Tim, with a hell of a tale to tell, presuming chugs could talk. The autumn caravan won't take chugs that are marked.”

  “It's beautiful,” Tim told him.

  “We've done it this way for two hundred years. The autumn caravan picks three hundred or so. You'll see them straggling in all night. They haven't learned yet. The ones that get here last, they won't be taken.”

  Willow Hearst had told them to leave, and the yutzes were all going back to the spring caravan. Could they abandon dinner at this stage? Hal wasn't here to tell him. Tim was senior chef. But the vegetables were cooking nicely, the fruits were arrayed and some were stewing, and what remained could wait.

  The party of three was close now. They were all older men. Elders of Doheny, Spadoni, and Tucker were coming to meet them. They would dine in Tail Town and talk of things even the younger merchants shouldn't hear. Tim looked again and recognized Master Granger.

  He let his placid yutz's face turn gently aside while his eyes followed the old man. Yes, that was his father's sometime friend, Master Sean Granger.

  Tim's adrenal glands had known all along. His mind was only just catching up. Not three caravans. Two. In summer it was twenty wagons; in autumn and spring, some were left for repair. The people of the summer caravan, whom he'd eluded once, had come back as the autumn caravan.

  Tim mingled with the other yutzes.

  Villagers were passing the spring caravan, pulling a string of little man-drawn wagons. Tim sniffed great masses of sea life. The merchants swung wide; Tim edged close to inspect the fish, pulling other chefs with him. “Good haul,” he told one of the men.

  “We say good catch,” the Tail Towner said.

  -And the elder merchants were past, and the yutzes were among the wagons.

  Tim climbed into ibn-Rushd wagon and onto the roof. Opened the trapdoor, pushed his head into the dark and set the tea bowl under him, before he let the terror have him. He felt like he might throw up.

  Sean Granger was no threat. The old man would remember Jemmy Bloocher as a little boy, and Tim Bednacourt as a Twerdahi Town chef. But younger merchants had seen Jemmy Bloocher kill a man in Warkan's Tavern.

  He'd kept his possessions in his carry pack. In a moment he could snatch it and run... where?

  Anyone caught crossing the Neck would be shot.

  The far side of the Crab would kill any swimmer.

  Tail Town sprawled from Haunted Bay to the other sea. There was no path back that didn't run through Tail Town.

  He couldn't join the autumn caravan. He couldn't run, not until dark: there was nowhere to hide. Did he dare to serve them dinner? Yes, with dark falling, but be ready to run at a moment's fright.

  Run where?

  Fingertips stroked his arm, wrist to elbow.

  Tim straightened to kneeling position. He didn't look around and he didn't flinch. He reached back and let his fingers trace a slender neck and jaw and nape. Smooth. He leaned back. Rian. Good. Senka was just too good at reading minds.

  He asked, “Do I get a spendid send-off?”

  “Hey, didn't Marilyn Lyons use you up?”

  “I damn well needed all the help I could get,” he admitted.

  She laughed. “Tim, there are women in the autumn caravan too.”

  “I haven't met them.” Witnesses. Women who would look straight at a murderer and know him half a year later. “Can I give you a splendid send-off?”

  A breathy laugh. “You might not impress a lady if I get to you first.”

  “Given the choice-” He turned. Their breath mingled. “It's a choice? I'll risk it then.” He wasn't just randy, and it wasn't because he'd never see Rian ibn-Rushd again. Never see any woman until he could reach Twerdahl Town and Loria. But he would have done it just to forget the risks he'd face tonight.

  It was a splendid send-off she gave him. They'd never made love in the open, or in daylight. Perhaps they were even seen from other roofs. Even now he didn't see Rian naked: they kept most of their clothes
on.

  As his breath slowed it came to him that this was the lesser risk. The darker the better when he joined the other caravan, and if he had a decent excuse for delay... well, an indecent excuse was better than none.

  An unworthy thought.

  “Tim,” Rian whispered, “time.”

  He nodded, and kissed her, and reached into the trap for his pack.

  “Don't take the gun,” she said. “Guns go with the wagons. You'll get a new one.”

  “What about these clothes?”

  She laughed. “They're yours.”

  He pulled the gun from his tunic pocket and dropped it into the hatch. He pulled out his travel pack, opened it, and spilled it across the flat roof. “Bctter see if I've got everything.” No second gun, see? The bandit's long knife, his trophy from the attack, was wrapped in spare clothing. The carved shell was too. He unwrapped it-“I bought this with something of mine.” No speckles either, see? He wrapped the shell again and shoved it into the travel pack, donned the pack, and dropped over the edge of the wagon.

  Run now, or serve dinner?

  Rian dropped beside him, flushed and lovely. She took his hand, and off they went across the Neck with the other stragglers. She'd made his choice. What the hell, he was ravenous.

  13

  All at Sea

  If these creatures are anything like sapient, they must be left alone. Willow Granger is most emphatic on this point.

  -Cordelia Gerot, Xenobiology

  Willow and Randall Hearst met them as they arrived. She was even more large and magnificent close up. Her husband was shorter, slender, and dapper. Rian was amused and hiding it.

  They showed him to Hearst wagon, third from the front. Tim and Randall climbed to the roof. Randall ceremoniously passed him a glarered shaker of speckles, then a gun and some bullets. “Sharks don't get this far into the bay,” he said. “Still, nobody likes surprises. Stow your pack. If you need a rest stop, it's over the hump.”

  “I'd better.''

  What remained of the Crest was shallow, but taller than he'd thought. Tim paused at the top. He was seven meters up, and the Neck and the bay and the far ocean rolled away to infinity.

  The bay was flecked with white. The wagon trains, the fires burning in cracks in the lava, the tables in the middle, were all on the bay side of the hump. The far side was narrower, and dark.

  How long had caravans been using this place as a toilet? And a garbage dump too. Even since Cavorite passed? Ever since there were caravans, surely. The smell wasn't intense, but it was inescapable, and ancient.

  Along the Road there was always concealment to make a rest area. Here, nothing but distance. No problem, really. If people stayed apart, what could anyone see? But it seemed strange that nobody had put up a building or a wall.

  No hiding place. We shoot anyone who crosses the Neck...

  As he rejoined the cookforce, Randall Hearst joined him. Randall wanted to know about bandits; about his impressions of the Shire, the health of the various communities, and recent news of Twerdahl Town. Tim answered as best he could while he served Out toast spread with red fish eggs, then roasted potatoes. If Randall wanted to know what had changed since he'd last seen the Road, then his questions might tell Tim something.

  The fish eggs would go well in an omelet, he decided. He hadn't seen bird eggs in many days.

  Chaff covered the bay to left and right as far as he could see. It hadn't been there when last he looked. Tim remembered the chugs. Twice the usual number of chugs had pulled up a forest of seaweed on the mainland side of the Neck. It had floated back.

  Now, which way did the current flow on the narrow side of the Neck? Riffles broke on the bay, raised by a brisk wind or by dark heads rising. The heads stayed, dark dots on the water, watching.

  Merchants were eating apart from the yutzes, trading news of the Road, no doubt, and keeping merchant secrets. Hearst, Miller, ibnRushd, and Lyons families discussed cooking and the chefs. Merchants from the weapons wagons fell silent when a chef approached.

  Tim ate as he served, as any chef must. Sliced orange. A potato. Bord'n was hobbling around with a stick. He and Tim ripped apart a big Earthlife crab and shared it.

  These yutzes had all come with the spring caravan. They knew Tim Bednacourt, and none had been at Warkan's Tavern. In the fading light, all he had to do was avoid notice.

  Locals must have brought this barrel of fresh water. Tim drank deeply. He'd need it.

  He carved huge fillets of tuna and gave head and bones to a yutz to dump over the hump. He sliced up one fillet and ate a slice and carried the rest of it among the benches.

  A merchant gaudy in gray and yellow caught his eye.

  Tim knew him instantly: he'd snatched at Jemmy Bloocher as he ran from Warkan's Tavern, and had his belt for an instant before Jemmy tore loose.

  Tim Bednacourt's reflexes kicked in ahead of his mind. “Tuna?” he said, offering the platter. “And the sweet potatoes are ready. Did you get any of the fencecutter crab?” looking at other folk of Milliken wagon, the weapons wagon, making it a general offer.

  “We got some.” The merchant helped himself to a tuna fillet. “If there's more, we'd love it. Is anybody making tea? It's getting chilly.”

  “I'll start some.”

  Tim was sweating as he walked into the growing dark. A merchant would starve if he couldn't catch a chef's eye! Tim couldn't avoid notice. There was no help for it but to be a chef

  He set a big pot of water on for tea.

  The speckles can was as big as a five-month-old baby. There was no color like it on Destiny, barring murals in the Spiral Town Civic Hall. It couldn't be opened. The caravan considered it unstealable, and Tim felt they were right.

  He shook speckles over a pot of beans. In a spare moment he oversprinkled a bowl of beans and ate it fast, wincing at what the excess did to the flavor. Merchants used a lot more speckles than Spiral Town did, or anyone else they'd found along the Road. That bowlful would keep him healthy for a while.

  The fishers had brought in a clamshell the size of a grown man, armed with siphon/tentacles each the size of Tim's arm, that had curved teeth in the ends. Sub clam. Tim sliced it into strips, ate one (Wow! Delicious!) and carried the rest among the benches. He set the empty platter aside and walked over the hump.

  Quicksilver had set a quarter-hour before the sun. Mere traces of red still lit the west, and the hump blocked that. Yutzes dumped their loads at the midden. Tim walked a distance away from them before he did his private business. Then he kept strolling toward the autumn caravan.

  The sea was black and empty. He couldn't guess which way the current flowed.

  Tim had dropped his pack over the back side of Hearst wagon instead of stowing it. Here it was. Tim donned it, crawled under the wagon, and, with nobody about, walked toward the water. If anyone saw him, he'd be fifty meters away and running hard.

  Nobody saw. He slid down the smooth lava slope and entered the bay without much of a splash. The water was warm after the first instant; warmer than the wind on his ears. Taking his time, he put his shoes in his pack, then began to swim.

  If he stayed right up against the Road, nobody could see him without walking right up to the edge. But how would he explain himself then? He chose to swim well out into the bay before he turned southeast.

  It seemed to take forever to swim past the barbecue. Had he been missed? Fires were the only light, and they were almost gone. Tents were up. If he was seen, he'd be taken for a wind riffle or an Otterfolk.

  The rim of the Neck was unclimbable. Tim would have to swim all the way to the Tail Town beaches, and so would anyone who came in after him. Tim hadn't seen anyone swim, merchant or yutz, since he'd left Twerdahl Town.

  He'd have felt quite safe but for the Otterfolk.

  Otterfolk were a mystery. He'd been led to believe that they were fanatical about their privacy. Now a creature had invaded their home. Drowning him would not be much trouble at all.

  B
ut their heads had kept popping up to watch the caravan.

  It wasn't as if he had a choice. He swam.

  A current was helping him along. There was still no sign of pursuit when he crawled onto a pebbly beach in a line of boats. He was shuddering with cold.

  He'd planned it out, this part. He crawled among the boats and began to examine one, as he hadn't been allowed to do in Baytown. In the shadows of boats under a starless sky, he was quite blind. He explored with his hands.

  The flat piece with the handle, the tiller, would fit here in notches at the tail end of the boat.

  The other flat piece would fit here in the middle of the underside. It slid in from the pointed end.

  If he put them on now and tried to get out into the water, they'd break off against the sand. The tiller, he could slide it in after he was afloat. The other? That would have to be inserted from underwater.

  He saw that taking a boat would leave a gap in the line. The boat in the shed? No, it was probably in there for repairs! So- A heave uprighted the last boat in line. No gap. He set the tiller and the centerpiece in the bottom.

  It was a heavy sonofabitch. Four handles on the bottom meant four men could lift it. Could one man drag it?

  He could if he was desperate. The boat moved in surges. He dragged it down the sand until it floated, then pushed it out hard and swam after it. Clambering in was harder than he'd expected, but he made it.

  He'd thought of swimming around Tail Town and then ashore. He'd still have to do that if he couldn't control the boat. The boat would be easier travel. Now he felt very conspicuous, one lone stolen boat on this great flat expanse. Get the sail up and get going!

  But he needed the tiller to aim the boat.

  So: mount the tiller in the dark, using the mountings he'd felt out so carefully, in the dark.

  The sail was bound against that horizontal beam. He hadn't spent enough time feeling the lines out, and it cost him. This line would raise it after he untied these. Then tie it down. Where?