Destiny's Road (12 page)

She considered, then added one of the few things she'd brought from the Bednacourt House. It was an old wooden toy model of Cavorite, vague in detail, worn by handling in places.

"That's yours," he said.

She said, "You'd have something like this, if you really grew up here. Take it."

"Loria, what happened to Haron Welsh?"

"The way he sees us ... changed. He's Uncle Haron, but we don't call him that anymore. He thinks he's too good to talk to us. Don't come back that way. Tim, what's your name?"

"Jemmy Bloocher."

"All right." Loria rolled the blanket and tied it into a compact bundle. "Go on."

He could have smoothed it over, made his peace with Loria. He knew it then and he believed it later. But the caravan was already moving, and Twerdahi Town wanted knives, and Otterfolk remembered enough of Cavorite to draw pictures.

On the Road

You don't stop your wagon to do business, not unless it's a favored mark or a decent offer. Stopping makes you look eager. Keep talking and let the chugs move on until the mark takes your offer.

-Shireen ibn-Rushd

The wagons were rolling steadily away from Twerdahi Town when three merchants and Tim Bednacourt walked into a haze of fine dust.

The morning wore on. Swamp trailed off into grass-covered hills. They crossed a wide and sluggish stream on stepping-stones too conveniently placed to be natural. Halida named it Whelan's Crossing.

The wagons didn't seem to he getting closer.

The merchants weren't hurrying. They ambled along, chatting among themselves. With his burden of possessions Tim was still hard put to keep up. Now they were asking questions about life in Twerdahl Town.

Tim tried to distract them with questions of his own. "I've never watched merchants cooking. What do you use?"

'You will see. I am Damon ibn-Rushd. Ibn-Rushd is eight from the lead, six from the tail. We and Lyons family carry the cookware."

"Do you cook with the same kind of thing you sell to Twerdahl?"

'Yes.'

'Good. Is there always firewood?"

"Always, except at the Tail."

A stone bridge arched over deep water. Tim asked, "Did you build all of these bridges?"

Laughter. "Who else?"

Gradually they drew alongside the last wagon. Now they were passing a line of chugs. Each chug spared Tim one long dismissive glance. They stood almost hip high. Those shells looked heavy. They'd weigh about half as much as Tim. The top of the beak was an extension of the skullcap shell, with a lower jaw to meet it. That beak would deliver a hell of a bite.

Tim suddenly realized that he was seeing the same odd blemish on each chug. They were marked with an E inside a D, carved into the shell on the right side.

"Dole," Halida said. "Dole Enterprises."

Nineteen chugs pulled Dole wagon.

Twenty pulled the next. They were marked with a bird of Earth, an owl.

Eighteen pulled the next, marked with an ellipse and a dot in the center. "Wu family had bad luck this trip," Damon said softly as he smiled and waved at two men in the driver's alcove.

"The wagons," Tim said, "they're all alike."

Damon nodded; Halida smiled.

Spiral children noticed early. Eggs were alike, seeds were alike, babies were alike, but crafted things were not. Things that were all alike were ancient machines from the time of Landing, "settler magic" like computers and microwave ovens; or they were the wood-and-iron wagons of a caravan.

Wagons were painted in flamboyant fashion, a match for merchants' clothing. When the side opened to form a counter and sunscreen, each wagon became a shop different from every other shop. But the counters were up, the wagons were closed, and this was Tim Bednacourt's first good look at wagons. They were identical down to the last centimeter, as if made all at the same time, from identical components, by identical workmen.

The drivers' alcoves denied their similarities. They were painted too, and furnished with pillows and little shelves and niches that held mugs or pieces of carved wood. From arcs of driver's benches that would be roomy for four, merchants watched Tim pass. They didn't speak, but they smiled.

"They smile for you," Halida said. "We might have had to eat our own cooking."

The chugs weren't paying much notice to passersby, or the Road, or anything but their own steady motion.

Fourth wagon from the end: the chugs were marked with two vertical bars on an S. Halida climbed four shallow steps to the driver's bench. The drivers shifted to give her room. She looked down at Tim and said, "Milasevik. We carry tents and bedding."

They walked on.

Ibn-Rushd was sixth from the end, out of thirteen wagons. A summer caravan would have been fifteen to twenty. Senka smiled at Tim from the driver's bench; Rian merely watched. The last chug was marked with a crescent and six-pointed star.

Damon ignored the steps. He was into the driver's alcove in a smooth pull-and-jump maneuver. A gesture invited Tim to do the same.

Tim dropped his pack into the alcove, then scrambled over the side. practice, he promised himself.

Milo called up to him. "Milo Spadoni. Second in line. We carry ammunition, we and Tucker." He walked on.

The driver's bench would hold four, and it was full. Senka, Rian, an elderly lady Tim didn't know, and man's brother. Tim said, "Hello, Joker."

"Tim," Joker said.

Damon said, "Tim Bednacourt, this is Shireen ibn-Rushd. You obey her in all things. Mother, Tim is a wonderful cook."

"Very pleased," Tim said. The old lady smiled.

Tethers from each of the chugs were tied to knobs on a half-circle of rail, but the women weren't bothering with them. The chugs seemed to know what they were doing.

Damon ibn-Rushd said, "You're a yutz now, but not a labor yutz. Your rank is 'chef.' There are three other chefs and me and Marilyn Lyons. Lyons wagon carries the rest of the cookery. You take orders from me or Marilyn, but if any other merchant tells you to lift or carry something, you don't have to. You can draft a loose labor yutz if he'll put up with it, but any merchant might give him another job.

"And this is yours." Damon stooped and dug under the bench. Senka ibn-Rushd slid aside for him. He came out with what Tim recognized as a gun, and a broad belt in his other hand.

He handed the gun to Tim. "Have you ever fired a shark gun?"

Tim Bednacourt said, "No." He took the gun, suppressing the flinch, and held it as if he didn't know which part was the handle. It looked exactly like the gun that had killed Fedrick. He felt queasy.

"Hold it like this." Damon showed him. "Never point at anything valuable, and never at a person. Keep your fingers off the trigger unless you're serious. These are bullets." Bullets were the size of Tim's thumb a ball of metal in a case made of what might be compressed vegetable fiber, "You load it like this. It doesn't work without bullets." The gun took eight. "Never be caught with an unloaded gun. Twice never at sunset or sunrise! Let's get up on the roof and I'll give you some practice."

Pull and jump, Damon was on the roof. Tim set his hands, pulled and jumped, lunged too far as the wagon rolled, and nearly fell off.

The roof was flat. At its corners were coils of rope. Cloth had been nailed along a ten-centimeter-high rim.

"Some of us like to get down on our bellies, prop up on our elbows and shoot that way," Damon said. "I'm not going to teach you that. You can't swing far enough. Something could come at you from the side. See that tree?"

Not far inland, a slender Destiny fisher tree leaned far over, tip almost horizontal, lace blowing and shredding in a brisk breeze.

"Suppose you want to shoot the tip off that. Stand facing right by a little." About thirty degrees right. "You're right-handed? Both hands on the gun. Fold your left fingers over the right, like this. Now your right arm is straight, but your left elbow bends. Lean forward a little, because the gun is going to kick back. Pull the trigger."

The noise was an assault. The gun kicked in his hands. Something burst into view from trees nearby: a caricature of a bird, feathery and two-legged and big as a man. It ran in circles, squawking madly, then off down the Road.

Tim braced his arms, pointed, and fired again. The gun didn't snap up as high.

"Arms pull against each other," Damon suggested.

Hmm? Tim tried that. It felt good, natural. The fisher tree was some distance behind him now, but he set his feet, held his aim on the tip of the tree, BLAM! it was flying dust.

He hadn't fired, the gun hadn't kicked.

"That Boardman yutz," Damon said, "on Lyons wagon. He didn't throw you off, did he? That's the first mistake you'll make. Something distracts you, you pull, shoot a hole in something. Here-" Damon took the gun. He set himself. The fisher tree was far behind them now. Damon fired and the chewed tip jumped. "Like that." He gave the gun back. "Pick something closer."

The Road swerved gradually inland and the land was drying out. Tim chose a lone thick-holed Destiny teapot, aimed for the bole, braced his feet, his arms, BLAM. Dust and splinters sprayed from the edge. He aimed above the bole, at a smaller target, the spout. He scored another hit.

"Good! and enough," Damon said. "Come sunset you can shoot sharks." He bent and lifted. A square patch of roof came up. "All the wagons have attic storage. If a predator ever got this far, here's refuge. We'll stow your pack here. And-" He reached into the hatch and brought out a transparent speckles pouch. "Here." Tim took the pouch.

Damon dropped a handful of bullets into it. "Close it like this. Keeps water out."

The space below the trapdoor might hold four or five friendly people, but it was packed with bedding, pillows, clothing, tarpaulins, and a big square box. Tim had to push to get his pack in. "Refuge? Damon, do I throw stuff out to make room for persons?"

Damon laughed. "It's never happened. We got used to using it for storage, but it's supposed to be a hidey-hole. All right, yes. Throw it to the sharks if they get this far." He thumped the box. "Don't throw away the bullets."

Damon showed Tim how to manipulate ropes on the wagon's roof to open the sides. Tim took it through the full routine while Damon watched.

"What's next?"

"Cooking. What do you do best?"

"Omelets. Stir-fry vegetables."

'Takes eggs?~' Damon looked down the Road. Ground cover had grown sparse.

Tim asked, "Would there be nests around here?'

The old woman spoke unexpectedly. "Oooh, I'd think so!"

Why was that funny? But Damon smiled. "We'll send out some yutzes."

In midafternoon the wagons rolled drunkenly across wide, fiat stones in a shallow stream. When the seventh wagon was across, they all stopped. Tim watched the women release the chugs.

He couldn't quite see how it was done. Loose a line from its knob on the rim of the driver's alcove, snap it like a whip, then retie it. It looked easy; it looked purposeless. Senka and Rian moved briskly along the arc of knobs. When they met at the center, several chugs could be seen to be loose and moving toward the beach.

The younger women stepped daintily down to the Road, then helped Shireen down. Damon and Tim stayed to open the wagon's side, then dropped to join them. Damon and the women were all armed, even Shireen,

All of ibn-Rushd's chugs were loose now. The other wagons, spread far apart up and down the Road, had released theirs.

"We've got time to set some fire pits," Damon said. He pulled shovels from the wagon. "Tim, come on down to the beach. The labor yutzes know what to do."

The sea was two hundred meters away. Most of the women, and not many men, walked down to the beach, taking no notice of two hundred and fifty chugs rolling down behind them in two slow waves. The chugs veered wide of the freshwater flow and its delta mouth.

There were old fire pits to be dug out. Men dug. Women supervised. Chugs flowed around them and into the waves.

Yutzes brought dry vegetation, Earthlife and Destiny trees and weeds. Tim saw two men dragging a lace-festooned log, and jumped to help. They set it on tinder in a dug-out pit.

One of the men asked, "You're Tim from ibn-Rushd? I'm Bord'n from Lyons wagon. Bord'n, not Boardman, whatever the merchants tell you. This's Hal, from Lyons too, but he's a chef."

The women were starting their fires.

"Hello, Bord'n, Hal. Are all yutzes men?"

Bord'n laughed. Hal said, "All I ever saw. A pregnant yutz could be awkward. You don't see children either on a caravan."

Still talking, the two men had him by the elbows and were walking him up toward the wagons before he could quite catch on.

With no discussion and no sign of haste, every human being in sight was ambling uphill toward the wagons. They climbed onto roofs and settled in. Senka, Damon, and Joker were already in place. Hal and Bord'n urged Tim up, and followed.

Damon greeted them; Senka passed around a pitcher of water flavored with lemons. Rian ibn-Rushd wasn't in sight. She must be visiting another wagon.

A forest rolled out of the water, black and bronze and yellow. A forest of seaweed, and motion working within it. Chugs.

Thrashing fish were dropping out of the weed, and chugs left the line to snap them up before they could reach water. Half-seen chugs were steadily pulling the beached forest apart, eating the crabs and fish and shellfish as they were exposed.

Tim watched in fascination.

As if at a signal, the chugs all began moving inland, leaving the weed behind.

Then things began coming out of the water.

They didn't look particularly scary. They were heavy and flat. The waves didn't topple them. They crawled onto land, paused a moment, then moved after the chugs faster than a walking man. There were twenty in sight when the first reached the beached seaweed.