Destiny's Road h-3

by Larry Niven

  Willametta was with Andrew, and Jemmy-as-Andrew was outside, so one of these identical shapes must be Willametta. Jemmy stopped by each gatherer for a time, looking around conscientiously for a threat he couldn't describe. The real threat, the probes, had closed their wide circle around the gatherers. They talked, then separated and moved in staggered fashion toward the gatherers.

  Here was Willametta. Jemmy looked into her bag and said casually, “I'm told I'm not going.”

  Wiblametta had a couple of pounds of seeds in the bag with another three pounds of water. She said, “Going where, Andrew?”

  “I have no idea.” She returned his grin, and he said, “I'm trying to think of a way we can all go.”

  Wiblametta seemed to have the giggles. “Right.”

  “Six of us in shorts and T-shirts. Lucky I came in summer! Someone comes by, 'We were swimming at the beach and a freak gust blew all our clothes out to sea.' Couldn't six of us in swimwear tell a tale while the rest hide? I'm a good storyteller.”

  “Shoes and pack and all?”

  “Freak wave?”

  “Talk to Andrew.”

  “I'm being Andrew. Let's see, along the Road from the barracks there's fields this way and molten lava beyond. That's no good. Other way is the Parole Board housing and then what? Civilization? If you get past the Parole Board, which will be a neat trick, I guess.”

  Her hands were stripping speckles branches, head bent. He glimpsed a smile beneath the hood.

  “But not if you leave seventeen gatherers behind you to answer questions.”

  She looked up out of the hood and the smile was gone. She said nothing.

  He walked casually on. Henry's grin was conspiratorial, or maybe proprietary. Rafik, last in line, looked starved and hunted, an aged youth who didn't want to meet Jemmy's eyes. His hand slipped twice, dropping seeds on the ground. Jemmy slapped his shoulder and said “Relax!” and walked on.

  A slacking of rain moved across the field. Jemmy's eyes followed the wave across gatherers moving in an even line, one to a row. Well beyond, the two probes were walking toward them, the second behind and one row to the side. Behind them two speckles bushes stood up and streaked toward them.

  Jemmy's gun was out before his mind caught up. What moved like that was lungsharks!

  The probes' guns moved. They were going to shoot Jemmy! He fired his bird gun straight up and pointed with the other arm. One whirled around. Jemmy heard a brief ripping sound that wasn't thunder and wasn't a gunshot. The attackers slowed as if they'd plowed into invisible honey. Birds? Now they seemed to dance- Jemmy turned away, looking for more attackers: away from some terrible secret he'd almost guessed.

  Much closer, two black-green-bronze darts streaked along two rows of black-green-bronze speckles bushes, near-invisible and too far to shoot even with decent bullets, but coming fast at the line of gatherers. Someone yelled, “Pose! Pose! Spectre birds!” Shimon's voice, that should have been “Andrew” 's.

  Jemmy took the pose as he'd been taught.

  One row over, Henry said quietly, “No birdfucking allowed.”

  And a whispered chorus: “It's the law!'.'

  He couldn't see anything else attacking. The probes had stopped firing. What had attacked them was gone. The gatherers were a row of statues, their ponchos drooping from raised arms, their hoods facing the oncoming pair of spectre birds. Jemmy stood last in line, arms raised high, a bird gun in one hand. Afield offirebirds spreads their wings to face an aggressor.

  Spectre birds were fast. Like probes, they came in staggered stance. The range was too great for pellets. Jemmy held his fire while they closed. The birds slowed as if confused, then made for the middle of the line. Why weren't they veering? Jemmy held, held... aimed and fired at the lead bird.

  He hit it. The bird flinched back and lifted its head. It was as big as a small man, with oversized ripping foreclaws, the forward-facing eyes of a predator, and a beak that was a hooked prybar on top, paired prongs underneath.

  It came on. Jemmy shot it again, then shot the trailing bird. He had their attention now- The lead bird lunged at a gatherer's chest.

  The gatherer whirled around at the last instant. The beak gashed his back, and he shrieked and tried to run. Then both birds were on him.

  Jemmy yelled and charged them, firing. One ran. Jemmy fired at the other bird. Its beak was deep in the gatherer's torso. Four quick shots emptied Jemmy's gun before the bird dropped its prey and ran.

  As each bird cleared the line of gatherers, Jemmy heard the nipsaw sound of the probes' weapons. Matter sprayed from the birds, blood and a chaff of feathers.

  The probes' weapons didn't fire bullets: they fired streams of bullets. Jemmy tore his gaze away and ran to the fallen gatherer. Blood was flooding through holes in his poncho, and Jemmy couldn't doubt he was dead. When a probe shoved him aside, he gave way.

  But he'd seen. It was Shimon.

  Jemmy reloaded, looking about him. Where there were four spectre birds, there might be six or eight.

  A hand snatched at his shoulder and pulled him around. The probe was a man with a full red beard. He snarled, “What did you think you were doing, shooting at a spectre? Bird guns aren't for things that big!”

  Jemmy protested. “He was going after my man, man!”

  “Take the pose!” The parole's chest heaved. He must have run flat out. “How often do you have to be taught? Take the pose and the bird thinks you're a firebird. Firebirds don't run, don't shout, don't shoot!”

  “Shimon was posed! We were all posed. Why did it kill Shimon?” While I stood like a statue- “When the bird got close he tried to run.” The probe heaved in a ragged breath. “Lost his nerve. Yeah. They could have killed you all. That's why we're here.”

  Jemmy had seen... but he said something safe. “Thanks, man. You took them out good.”

  Redbeard turned without answering. He and the other probe spoke for a time. Jemmy waved the gatherers back to work; and they obeyed, fortunately; and he waited for orders.

  Redbeard told him, “Take your people back to barracks. Four of you carry this one. Wait for us. We'll look around a little. There has to be a report.”

  21

  Suspicions

  If speckles can be farmed elsewhere, we must ~ttll extract potassium to feed it.Why bother? We'll grow it here.

  -Will Coffey, Hydroponics

  Of course the strongest men should have been carrying Shimon; but the ones who did were the ~first names Jemmy could remember. Dennis and Denis, Henry and Amnon.

  Jemmy draped Shimon's nearly empty pack to keep some of the rain off Shimon's torn torso. The Parole Board might want a coroner to examine those wounds.

  He walked alongside while four men carried the fifth. He'd told off two more to carry one of the spectre birds, for dinner and a chance to examine the wounds. And so the funeral procession straggled up the Road.

  “Willametta?”

  “Trusty.”

  “There was a joke 'Andrew' wouldn't have missed. 'It's the law'?” Willametta guffawed. “Well, Iwasn't here yet, but you can picture it. Nobody gets a bird gun except the probe. But there hadn't been any birds so they'd been eating nothing but rice and veggies for weeks. One day a crooner popped up in the field. It's as big as an ostrich. Well, the probes and the trusty were a little slow for Gordon Weiss. He didn't wait. He ran the bird down and jumped on it and tried to crush it in a scissor lock.”

  Jemmy thought it over. “Ouch.”

  “Of course those aren't really feathers. There's a reason the windbird predators all have needle beaks. They've got to stab through the Destiny feathers to get at the meat. Because the feathers are nothing but needles.

  “So picture it,” she said. “Gordon's legs and arms are full of needles, and he rolls away screaming, and the bird is crooning and the trusty has finally started shooting, and somebody shouts,” i(Tillametta drew breath and bellowed, “'No birdfucking allowed!' And someone else yells-“

  Her tim
ing was perfect. Six people behind them shouted, “'It's the law!'”

  “And ever since then-“

  Light grew behind them, like a sudden dawn.

  Drenched, exhausted, frightened: Jemmy could only wonder at the glare behind him that threw blurred shadows along the Road. He turned, expecting to see sunglare through split clouds. That would not be such a strange thing- Whirling storm was still there, but the clouds flared too bright to book at. Lightning was only a faint sputter against that. Jemmy shouted, “Willya! What is that?”

  “They're lighting the field. Looking for more birds.”

  “Lighting it with what?”

  The other pallbearers laughed. Willametta said, “Quicksilver.”

  “Quicksilver how?”

  “The power comes from Quicksilver.”

  And the long Road stretched away, and after a time the light behind went out.

  It seemed to take forever. A white flicker became an intermittent white glow, and the rain blew it away, and there it was again... until a blazing yellow-white banner bed them on, and on... At the end Jemmy stood in the rain before the massive door and its massive lock, and couldn't remember what to do next.

  Like the barracks, the toolhouse was built for giants. Generations of gatherers labored to move masses of rock, their lives as nothing to their Parole Board masters... Nah.

  Jemmy had come to understand Cavorite's intent.

  Find potassium! Get it back to the landing site before everyone on Destiny dies!

  They must have come prepared to refine the ore, here or at Spiral Town. Speckles must have been a surprise: a plant that poisoned herbivores by secreting potassium and other trace elements that Earthlife needed.

  So Cavorite brought the Road here, and Cavorite's crew farmed speck- les. They came with interstellar technology and desperate intent, and they built massive forts of fused rock.

  If the first settlers tried to stop them from leaving, and later remembered Cavorite as a ship of deserters, perhaps it was because they were already speckles-shy.

  Today's gatherers lived in housing that settler wizards had built for themselves. Prisoners swaddled in luxury! Twerdahl's crew hadn't barred this door against themselves; the bock must have been added years later, or centuries.

  And he didn't have a key. Oh, that was it. Jemmy couldn't get in, so four men were standing behind him still hoisting the dead weight of Shimon. Jemmy turned toward the barracks.

  Wibbametta blocked his way.

  “You've got to give over the packs and gloves first,” she said urgently, “and your gun. They'll shoot you! Have some sense!”

  “We can't just Two hours' walk through rain with lightningblasted vision and thunder-shattered hearing and that damned ghostly banner ahead must have turned off his mind. Of course they could wait out in the storm for the probes' convenience. Yes, but they couldn't set Shimon down in the mud. Jemmy booked around him.

  Two gatherers were half-reclined on an exposed ridge of bare white rock. Jemmy told them, “Move.”

  They stood, not hurrying: Rita and Dolores Nogabes.

  “Here,” he beckoned the pallbearers, and they set the body down. Shimon was still dripping wet, and his pack no longer covered him. Jemmy looked around and found packs piled on another bare tufa ridge, and the dead spectre bird next to them.

  He felt queasy, looking at the spectre. Its torso was chopped half through, raggedly, as if a big dull ripsaw had been used on it while it wiggled.

  Warm breath in both ears: he jumped. Voices whispered:

  “Trusty?”

  “Could be a long wait.”

  The twins had him bracketed. Jemmy said, “Sorry. If I had a key we could wait in the toolhouse, but then I'd be a probe, so maybe I wouldn't give a shit.”

  “What we sometimes do-”

  “-We go around the other side of the barracks.”

  “The corner? For shelter?”

  The women brushed gently against him on both sides. Even through the poncho that felt nice, and practiced. One said, “Not everyone, just us. The rest, they know not to bother us because you're a trusty. And it's a corner-”

  “Of course it's still wet, but it's not so cold.”

  “You could think of it as slz~pery.” That twin had to be Dolores.

  It was tempting. Jemmy's arms had reflexively moved around their waists; at worst they warded off some rain. Dolores meant it, he thought, but anger still smoldered in Rita's eyes. So what was going on?

  He said, “You know they'll do a count.”

  He felt Rita go rigid. Dolores said quickly, “They'll want to know what spectres were doing there in the fields where there's no prey. So they won't be right behind us.”

  “But we might want to hurry, or just fool around now and then stay in tomorrow.” Rita.

  Dolores:"Have you seen the big baths?”

  “There's the packs and there's us,” Jemmy said firmly. “Three of us in the barracks, that hasn't changed. Andrew's gone but I'm here. I count eighteen of us out here including Shimon. But that should be nineteen.”

  Rita snapped, “He'll be back!”

  Who?Jemmy asked, “And the pack? Piling them up is good, but he took a pack. I counted those too.”

  Rita touched Dolores's hand and they both faded back. Amnon Kaczinski asked, “You got a problem, Trusty?”

  Willametta was standing beside the looming giant, and Jemmy spoke to both. “You tell me. A missing man, a missing pack, and a pair of probes coming closer every second. Those guns are like hoses. Then again, I don't have a problem, Amnon. 'Sure I know we're one gatherer short, man, and he stole a pack of speckles too, but I can't chase him because there's just me to watch all of these other gatherers, including that big dangerous-looking one-'”

  Willametta spoke. “Yes~ all right, Rafik took Shimon's pack and he'll take a handful of speckles for the stash!”

  Amnon said, “Willametta-”

  “-And the Parole Board won't notice that little, all right? And you should have stopped him, Amnon! He's crazy-“

  “We need the speckles, Wilbya!”

  “We've got two man-years' weight of speckles stashed and what did we ever do with it? But now we've got something to wear, finally we've got clothes! What if Rafik gets caught now?”

  Jemmy suggested, “Send someone for him?”

  “We can't have two missing! He'll be back,” Willametta assured herself.

  “Good. I've got a few questions.”

  “Talk to Andrew-”

  “The probes are going to ask me questions. We didn't know there'd be a dead man, so I wasn't told any answers. Why did the birds attack Shimon?”

  “How would I know that?”

  ''Amnon?”

  “Birds.” Amnon shrugged massively. “You never know.”

  “But am I supposed to know?-No? Good. Will they ask me to guess? Willametta? Amnon?”

  “Shut up, you!” The big man was going into a rage.

  Willametta said, “Go away, Amnon.”

  “But, Willya-“

  “Amnon, what do they do to you when you hurt a trusty? Go away! Go wait for Rafik.”

  “He's not- Oh.” The big man went.

  “Wilbametta? Just give me a guess that doesn't sound totally stupid.” She was silent.

  “Mating season makes them twitchy?”

  “What? Windbirds don't have a mating season.”

  “He cut himself? No, that's-“

  “Human blood? It'd drive birds away!” She was laughing at him. “Try this then.” Jemmy hesitated. The bird struck, then Shimon turned the probe was sure it couldn't happen that way... so Jemmy knew that Shimon had been murdered. But how?

  Did he dare to guess right? But Willametta was looking at him, waiting. “Suppose one poncho out of all our ponchos wasn't the right color.

  Not quite the color of a firebird. There must be animals or plants that don't secrete potassium but that show colors, maybe a little off.”

  She was shaking he
r head. He persisted. “Is there a paint source? In the toolhouse?”

  “That thing in the toolhouse used to make survival biscuits out of Earthbife garbage. Trusty, any trusty would know that.”

  “Well, that's why I'm asking, Willametta!”

  She nodded.

  “Let's see, you brought a bird home for dinner last night. Now, suppose Shimon was cold so he kept his poncho on, and he still had it this morning-“

  Her hands gripped his arms hard. “Don't say that!”

  “-with the blood of a windbird all over it. If some of those horrors whiffed Destiny blood-“

  'Don't tell them that!”

  “Was he a spy?”

  Willametta's mouth stayed open.

  Jemmy said, “The probes have to know what's going on in the barracks. They need a spy. They can tell a spy they'll make him the next trusty. Barda and Andrew, they're trusties now, but were they spies before?”

  “Andrew was.”

  “So he knows how a spy gets picked. Did Shimon know you've stashed some speckles?”

  She pulled him close and whispered in his ear. She was scared right through. “They haven't touched it. Yes, he knew, but he didn't know where. How could you know all this, Jemmy?”

  “I guess I was waiting for someone to die. Barda and Andrew have to know who the spy is, or they can't hide anything. When the birds tore into Shimon, it all just fit, except the paint, I guess. Who gave him his poncho this morning? Barda?”

  They were hood to hood, arms bracing each other against the wind. An approaching probe would see only lovers. Jemmy said, “Willametta, I need a story to tell the probes. They know something. They waited for us in the rain. This morning they stayed to search for something else before they caught up with us.”

  She said, “They'll search the barracks. Did Andrew tell you-“ She looked into his eyes. “Damn him. When the probes search, you open every door and drawer. Don't close any of it. They do that. You go around the room-“

  “Clockwise?”

  “Idon't know. Sure! Or watch their hands. If one points to something, you open it or move it or lift it. Try not to talk too much.” The rain slacked and she looked around; they all seemed to do that. She said, “Rafik's back-” Her breath caught oddly.