by Larry Niven
Ten felons hunted and feasted on burrowing creatures. It seemed strange to be eating at noon. Merchants and yutzes didn't do that either. Their intestines had forgotten about meat, and some were having trouble. They talked as they lay about the slopes, and continued as they moved on.
“I signed a contract I shouldn't have,” Andrew Dowd said. He was walking off his anger. He walked fast, and Jemmy matched his pace just to see if he could.
“Didn't you say you were being robbed?”
“Robbed, yeah. They were my partners.”
“I had the idea they were holding you at gunpoint.”
Andrew only grinned over his shoulder.
But he'd certainly implied... “Were they trying to kill you?”
“The courts are screwy, Jeremy. I wasn't sure I'd get justice.”
Jemmy dropped back by a little. Andrew was half-smart and dangerous... and maybe his own record was no better.
“I don't remember any of it,” Duncan Nick told Jemmy. “My mother got killed when someone got careless with a weed cutter. My aunt and uncle, they already had Marie. Now Momma was dead and suddenly they've got four, and I didn't look like the others. Daddy already knew about me. When the summer caravan came by, he took me. Carnot wagon. Maria wasn't any too pleased.”
Jemmy guessed: “Your stepmother?” “My older sister.”
“Is that when you saw Mount Canaveral?”
“Oh, I wasn't much past two. Funny I remember anything at all. But I saw Mount Canaveral when some of us went swimming and fishing at Swan Lake, years later. Winslows chased us off.”
“So the restaurant was still going?”
“Then. I was only thirteen.” Duncan looked around him. Barda Winslow was trailing, well out of earshot. “So me and my two friends, we went back to the Swan six years later. But it was empty. So we went through three of the big houses on the Nob and hid out in the Swan. I suppose you'd think I was crazy, a Crab shy forgetting about speckles.”
“I can't imagine it.”
“But I grew up here. Hereabouts, not just in Destiny Town but everywhere, speckles is free. We don't need much. Earthlife animals have nerves too, you know.”
“So?”
“Hey, Willya?”
“What?”
“You told me once. Why is it that we don't have to worry so much about speckles? The Earthlife and Destiny life grow together... ?”
“Yes. Jemmy, these valleys are all Earthlife and Destiny mixed. It's like that around Destiny Town too. Earthlife animals learn to eat Destiny plants that secrete potassium. The ones that don't, get stupid and die. The Crab isn't like that. Nothing's like that unless it's near the Winds. See, the potassium has to be there.”
“Willya, how did caravans get started?”
“Don't know. Lucky for the Crab shies, though, eh?”
Barda thought it over while she walked. “I know some of what's in the lessons,” she said. “A little. Daddy didn't give us much time to learn.”
“But you've got tapes and computers? Like in Spiral Town?”
“Sure. You can't get to them, though. They're in the libraries, and you don't have identification.”
“The caravans-”
“They keep the Crab shies going.”
“Why?”
“Jeremy, you're one yourself.”
“I know, but why? When there were only two hundred of the first settlers and another fifty children, why not move us then?”
Barda walked silent for a bit. Then, “Hell, why not? I never thought of that. But the stories-”
She'd trailed off oddly. Jemmy asked, “What do they say about us?”
“You had to be fed by hand. You were meaner than snakes-I mean your ancestors, of course. Couldn't move you then, I guess, and they tried speckles on a few of you and you must have brightened up. Jemmy, I guess they got tired of you.”
Speckles-shy.
Two hundred adult-sized angry infants who had to be fed, clothed, washed, toilet-trained. The lucky ones who recovered would be more or less ambulatory but no damn use to anyone. Transplanting two hundred Jael Harnesses would be a nightmare.
Jemmy was, he discovered, crying. Destiny Town had the planets, and Spiral Town was left to savagery.
He dropped back so that Barda wouldn't see tears, and he said, “Without speckles we would have died. They must have brought speckles. They could watch us getting well. Why not move us then? Now they have to keep bringing us speckles.”
Barda shook her head. “It's stranger than you think. You talked to Duncan?”
“Yeah.”
“There were only forty in Cavorite, right? And two died early. Now it's two hundred years later, and the merchant women almost always get pregnant on the Road, and the men leave children too. They do it to keep the gene mix. But why go so far? You tell me.”
Now Jemmy could picture the settling mass of extruded mountains pushing the flat land away, until from the sky it would seem to run in parallel wrinkles. They crossed wrinkle after endless wrinkle. At evening they crossed another ridge- And the Road was below.
Heads lined up along the edge of rock, showing nothing more of themselves, looking down.
There was nobody on the Road.
It was another valley, another wrinkle, with another ridge beyond. The Road was one edge of a fast-moving stream lined with Earth-green bushes. Jemmy's view to the right showed no more than Road and river running on, dipping and reappearing, finally curving out of sight.
Left, the ridge ran two or three klicks and then splayed out into a flattopped peak. Andrew whispered, “Where are we, Barda? Is that Canaveral? I've seen pictures. Not from this angle-“
“It's Mount Canaveral,” Duncan Nick said. “The restaurant was just past... it must be half a klick this side, just around that curve. The lake too.”
They spoke without looking at each other, their eyes on the Road. Andrew said, “An hour's walk and it's getting dark. Damn, if anyone saw ten of us sneaking up on an empty building... okay. The rest of you wait here. Stay the night. Barda, it's you and me. Whatever we find down there, you're the owner, or the owner's daughter. I'm your husband-or not yet?”
“Not yet,” she decided. “Lovers, but I want Daddy's approval. You want to meet my parents and it has you a little scared.”
“What if they're not there and someone else is? Do I threaten to call the police?”
“For Earth's sake don't lose your cool until Ido!” Barda hissed.
“Okay.”
“We're too far from anyone else. Daddy kept guns. If it's Daddy... keep your cool.”
“Ready?”
His better judgment told him to be quiet, but Jemmy said, “Not you, Andrew.”
Andrew turned. Jemmy said, “Don't take it wrong, but you look as crazy as a pigeon in a fool cage. Grow some meat over your cheekbones, soften those eye sockets, you could pass. Not now. I'd say Duncan. He's gaunt, but at least he knows the Swan.”
Barda Winslow looked at the men and women lined up along the rock crest. They waited her judgment.
She said, “You, Jemmy.”
There was nobody in sight. They scrambled down to the Road. Jemmy looked at the fast-moving water. He asked, “Can you swim?”
“There's a bridge. Now we just walk, right? A little tired. We've been swimming.”
“Where are our towels?”
In the pack?” “Good.”
“Now, you might see a bus go by.”
“Bus?”
“If you see a box full of people being pulled by a tug, and they're looking out the windows at you, just look back. I'll wave it on.”
“Tug?”
“Tractor. Pulling machine. You see them a lot. Back at the Windfarm, that was a tug pulling the speckles cart.”
Oh, that was a tug. “A flat metal thing that hugs the ground? Hip high. The top is Begley cloth?”
Barda nodded.
The light had faded to a silver circle above the west: Quicksilver light blurred by haz
e.
The bridge was wood. It wasn't in good shape, with only one handrail, and it shook as they crossed.
The Swan loomed, a lightless shadow against a hillside, twice the size of Bloocher Farm. Brenda's jittery voice led him toward it. “That bridge will need some serious repair. Place hasn't collapsed; good. What do you think, go in the front?”
“Is there a bell? Bloocher Farm had a bell.”
The front door was twice a man's height. Barda waved her arms about. “The bell rope's gone. I think Daddy's gone too, and he took the bell. Daddy, it's Barda!”
They listened. Barda whispered, “No lights. The sign is out. You don't close an inn at night. You just charge higher if they wake you up. Daddy, it's Barda! I've brought a-“ A nice hesitation. ”-friend!”
Nothing.
Barda pulled and pushed the door. “Locked. Come on around.”
The kitchen door was lower and wider, wide enough to pass a cart. Barda pulled and it swung open. “The lock's broken.”
Jemmy suggested: “Duncan?”
“Sure. Well, come in. Here.” She hooked her fingers into his waistband and led him. There was nothing else to guide him, but Barda moved by memory and scent.
“Not even night-lights. Daddy must have taken the guide spot with him. Kitchen,” she said, and he smelled old food smells and smoke.
“Dining hall. Wow, he took the tables and chairs too, and the carts. Stairs here. Watch it! There was a banister. Stay along the wall.” And, “These were the guest rooms.”
“Sounds good to me.”
But she kept moving, down to the end and another flight of stairs. Then a strange smell, flowery-“My room. Watch your feet.”
He'd kicked something. “What's that?”
“Don't know. Clutter. We'll have to sleep on the floor.”
“No wind? No rain? And they left us a rug. I like it.”
25
The Swan
Quicksilver's year runs three months and a bit. It rises as much as an hour before sunrise, or sets up to an hour after sunset: as bright as Mercury from Barth. I miss the Moon.
-Henry Judd, Planetologist
Andrew hailed him from the crest. Jemmy stopped on the bridge and waited while Andrew bounded down.
“We tracked you,” he said. “Thought you might need help. And we watched a bus go past.”
The others were already climbing down. Three more in windbreakers, followed by four scrambling down in naked haste, exposed in brilliant sunlight. Become a restaurant? We're kidding ourselves- “How's it look?”
“Lot of work,” Jemmy said. “I don't see everything Barda says needs doing, but there's a lot.”
By morning the damage was easier to see.
The bridge might have been a century old. It was new enough that big trees had been cut to build it. On Earth there had certainly been lifeforms that ate wood, but here it would last forever. The wood was sound, and thick, and moored in poured stone: sturdy enough to support a caravan. It sagged in the middle. Water had poured over it in a spring storm, or several, and taken the handrail and some paint. Patches of paint lined the edges, still glare-bright.
“Needs propping,” Andrew said. “One big beam right in the middle.” A wide sheet of clear glass wrapped the front of the inn in a halfcylinder, framing the dining area. Several smaller windows were broken.
The bed left behind in the Captain's Suite would have been too big to move. They could clean up the Captain's Suite for display. The thick rug in Barda's room would be bed for them all.
“And of course the sign is out,” Andrew said.—
There were outhouse toilets. The one with a woman's silhouette stank. “These have to be dug out,” Barda said. “Daddy must have just let the fern's go.”
A much bigger outbuilding was barred from the inside. Barda showed them how to slide a sawblade through the crack and lift the bar. “Daddy thought this would keep us out, but my brother Barry figured it out. Daddy's hiding place, right?” She opened the door and yelped in delight.
Harold Winslow hadn't taken everything.
They wandered through the place as if entering an ancient Texas politician's treasure trove. There were tools: no little stuff and nothing powered, but...
They put Amnon into the big set of coveralls and gave his trunks and windbreaker to Rafik Doe. Rafik claimed a long, vicious weed cutter, then reluctantly traded it to Andrew for one of the shovels; Amnon took the other.
There was a roll of cloth! A tablecloth with the logo of the Swan, a fluffy white bird sailing a pond that reflected the blue sky. Blue and green and pure white. Andrew's weed cutter sliced it into broad strips: loincloths for the nudes. Clothing at last.
They looked at half a dozen fragile wands as tall as a man. Barda wondered, “Now, why didn't Daddy take these?”
Jemmy said, “I've never seen anything like them.” A breath would have broken them.
“Fishing rods,” Rafik said.
“Not for ocean fishing!” Jemmy told them. “Barda, you dealt with the Otterfolk? Your daddy wouldn't throw a hook into somebody's dining room.”
“Daddy might.”
Rafik and Arnnon dug a pit. Then six men picked up the old outhouse, hoarding their breath, and moved it to the new pit.
They were all wolfishly hungry by midafternoon, and Barda was trying to get them to dig out the other outhouse. Jemmy got her attention. “Pit. Fire. Hunt. Cook,” he said. “Now.”
“We can lose a meal, Jeremy.”
“That's not it.” Though he was getting hungry. “Willya, Henry, give me a sanity check here? The day anyone sees this restaurant going, we've been here for half a year. Yes?” Jemmy waved at a flat patch of ground. 'just look at our fire pit, sir! We cleaned it out last week and it's already full of ashes. We were so busy two days ago, it's no wonder we've run out ofafew things. “He saw a few grins, and persisted: “But we don't have a fire pit. What if someone comes by today?”
“No chairs either. No tables. No silverware,” Barda said.
“Start a list. We don't need silverware. No forks at a caravan stop, Barda. Everyone carries his own knife.”
Andrew asked, “What about the buses?”
Barda waved it off. “A bus ride costs money. People don't take them very often. So, there's a restaurant here. Last time anyone went past, he didn't notice.... Jemmy, two months we've been here.”
“Fine. But I've got to teach you people how to cook!”
The nudes had skirts and/or loincloths now, but that wasn't quite like being clothed. It seemed best to send them off to hunt and keep the others for digging.
They dug a fire pit long enough to feed ten. Extend it tomorrow. The men's ancient outhouse could imply an ancient restaurant, so that could wait. The fem's had been too rank.
Barda showed them where the truck garden had been, and sure enough, potatoes and carrots were growing in a maze of weeds that had been (and still were) spices. The patch was clean of Destiny life.
They watched Barda choosing spices for dinner. The rest got bored and wandered away, but Jemmy stayed and made her identify every spice for him. He waited until they were alone before he asked.
“Barda, isn't this a graveyard?”
“Sure. Three generations of Winslows.”
“It must have half-killed your father to move.”
She looked up. “One day I'll have to ask him. Heya, Jemmy, if I said, 'No birdfucking allowed,' do you think he'd answer?”
“He might know. Maybe the proles caught your brother. It's the law.” Barda stood and dusted herself off. “That should do it.” She left, carrying spices in her rolled-up windbreaker.
When she was gone, Jemmy reached into his pack.
The hunters returned at dusk with something piglike, still alive and struggling. They left it tied up and settled for root vegetables. Can't cook in the dark.
In the morning Jemmy and a few others built up the fire and killed and roasted the non-pig. They got a cheer from the late risers
. Afterward they extended the fire pit into an arc seven meters long.
The men got tired of sharing their outhouse. They dug another pit and moved the men's outhouse to that. “We'll call this place the Pits,” Jemmy suggested. They jeered him.
He took men uphill to collect rocks. A Roadside caravan stop had to have an oven. He'd walk the Road and look for grain, and find a way to grind it. If that birdfucker Harold Winslow had only left some pots, they could have set a stew going! There were flowerpots in the toolhouse, but no passerby would accept those as cookware.
They cleaned the long hall, and the first pair of rooms leading off it, and the Captain's Suite. On Barda's insistence they cleaned the suite of rooms at the end too, because someone might want it. There were indoor toilets! and old signs on the doors that said:
OUT OF ORDER
“These have been down since I was a little girl. Daddy got tired of digging up the pipes, or else he ran out of money,” Barda said. “There's a Destiny plant that just loves to block pipes.”
In Barda's old room were chairs and a desk. They took the chairs down to the dining area. The desk was too big.
Looking up at the inn, you could see through the picture window, but you saw only ceiling. So it didn't matter that the place was an echoing emptiness. “Daddy took all the curtains,” Barda told them. “They should be there. If you don't close them the sun can fry the diners.”
Andrew shrugged. “We just don't let anyone in.”
“Might work. But the window's filthy.”
There was soap, but no rags. They cleaned the picture window with their swim shorts, amid considerable horseplay, then used more soap to get the shorts clean. The shorts came out of that amazingly well. Settler magic. Some machine in Spiral Town, some relic of Argos and Sol system, must have continued making clothing after Carder's Boat stopped moving.
Jemmy found a tree big enough to serve as a centerpost for the bridge. That could wait. They found endless useless junk accumulated in the dining hall and moved that out, and made brooms and swept the place out. But there were no tables and no chairs!
Barda's list was growing. “I really wish we had any kind of money. Nobody in his right mind would start an inn without funds.”