Destiny's Road (17 page)

He said, "This."

It was an old wooden toy model of Cavorite, vague in detail, worn by handling in places.

Tim said, "Done," and took the plate of skulls.

Haunted Bay

interesting rectilinear formations on the floor of this body 0f water, like a buried city nearly crumbled to dust. .

-Wayne DuQuesne, Systems Integration

In a clearing in a wood of beech and elm there lived two families and a still. The Homes and Wilsons lived on opposite sides of the Road. The Wilsons made cheese from sheep and goat milk. The Homes made alcohol.

They didn't bother with glasses. They passed around big wide mouthed jars of a whiskey as good as any Jemmy Bloocher had tasted in Spiral Town. It went fine with yellow cheese and roasted mutton. When it ran out, they switched to raw-tasting fruit brandies. That seemed to be in infinite supply.

Tim missed being drunk among drunken companions, but too much would set him talking. When a bottle passed, Tim tilted it to his mouth, gave it a few seconds, then talked nonstop while hanging on to the bottle until someone yelled for it. His cousin Farank drank like that, hogging the bottle.

Younger merchants were pairing off with younger Homes and Wilsons; the elders stayed to play host and hostess. Joker ibn-Rushd was finding pleasure in Layne Wilson's company. Astrid and Carol Wilson, sisters, were holding court among the yutzes. The two yutz surgeons from Doheny wagon were topping each other with stories of weird injuries they'd treated. Tim was, as usual, listening.

Bord'n noticed. He spoke of autumn rites in Twerdahl Town. He hadn't seen these himself, so he asked Tim for details and Tim obliged.

Good man, Bord'n. Tactful. He'd helped Tim's cause without meaning to. Tim gave the best description he could of Twerdahl Town's weedcutting and bathing ceremony, but he didn't know enough of the rationale behind it all to sound quite sober.

Tim enjoyed himself greatly as the hours passed. Being half-sober among drunken friends was a kick.

Younger merchants had gone off with Home siblings and cousins, but Layne Wilson and Joker were the heart of a raucous one-up punning contest. Tim made a clumsy pass at Layne, took a backhand swing from Joker, fell sprawling, rolled and scuttled back on all fours, mumbling apologies as he went.

That was probably enough of that. He joined a singing circle among the yutzes. It covered sounds that were coming from the huts and tents and bushes, and it held until Astrid Wilson lost interest. Carol Wilson had gone off with....omeone. Where was Hal?

Tim showed off the scrimshaw plate he'd bought in the Shire, pointing out each skull for Astrid with help from several other yutzes, and listening contentedly as they described the creatures from life. Tim might look like he was drinking more than he was, but what he'd had still set his mind buzzing. He looked about him at yutzes and merchants and locals, and none of them seemed the least interested in just another yutz chef.

It could make a man wonder.

The guilty fly where no man pursues. Jemmy Bloocher had killed a yutz during a murderous quarrel. Did any merchant even remember? Did any care?

So Tim Bednacourt pretended to be something he was not, and it seemed he had the knack. But Jemmy Bloocher had never had the chance! Most men, most women, in Spiral Town and anywhere on the world of Destiny, would live among a few hundred people. All would see them growing up; all would know their every secret.

Loria knew who Tim Bednacourt was.

He missed Loria terribly.

Rian ibn-Rushd was in a cluster of Home cousins, looking hemmed in. Tim wondered if she needed rescue. She caught his eye, and he went to join them.

By morning light Rian looked hungover and disheveled, but her smile was enchanting, conspiratorial. "You look like something pulled out of a pickling vat," she told him.

Tim felt fine. Rian was seeing what she expected.

Last night had been wonderful. Different. He had thought man would end up with one of the locals, but they'd wobbled off to the tent together. Then Rian had forgotten that she was a skilled... was there a word? Sexist? She'd lost a bit of dexterity, and she'd lost herself in sensation. Sex was a game nobody lost.

She helped him into his clothes, and he enjoyed being just a little clumsy.

Yutzes and merchants and locals all looked a bit seedy. The caravan got a late start. They left a variety of goods behind: new tubing for the still, melons and rice, pouches of speckles. They went away with fruit brandy and little clear bottles of alcohol antiseptic, and big wheels of yellow cheese. Mason Home from Dionne wagon stayed; Anthon Wilson joined Milasevik wagon as a yutz.

When next Tim saw Rian she was asleep on the roof.

Above and below the Road were shallow grass slopes dotted with sheep, the source of the cheese they'd eaten last night.

The Road had angled inland since before they reached the Shire, three days ago. They were a good two klicks inland now, and half a klick above sea level. The shore ahead and below curved around in a vast half-circle. Tim couldn't judge its actual size.

"Rian," Tim asked, "what if you got pregnant on the Road?"

"Then I get a baby."

"Raised by the caravan?"

Her eyes opened. "Tim, it's a secret."

By now he knew better than to probe further. "Rian, do you think Cavorite was avoiding the sea?"

Rian mulled the question and presently said, "Maybe."

"Why?"

"Maybe not. Go get us some tea, Tim."

Being this far inland gave access to the grassland, grazing for sheep and/or forage for goats on the hills beyond, whatever goats might be. Last night he'd eaten what he was told was goat cheese.

But this must have been a blackened, lifeless slope until Cavorite seeded the land with grass, and returned to leave half-grown sheep and goats.

Tim reached back into memory for the map of the Crab. A composite photograph from eleven hundred klicks high, the text called it, with sketches of Spiral Town and the Road overlaid. Those added lines were fiction, though, drawn by people long dead who never knew where Cavorite had gone. It was worth remembering that Cavorite had flown, that the crew had seen patterns a bicyclist or merchant could only guess at.

What had they seen, that they put the Road so high? Level terrain here, suitable for the Road. Bluffs at the sea's edge, or a color in the water that matched a breeding ground for lungsharks, or worse. The lessons said that you could see sea-bottom contours through many meters of water, if you were high enough, looking straight down.

Two hundred-odd years ago. Best to keep that in mind too. Was the sea higher in that age? Were there storms to make the shore a death trap?

Something had persuaded Cavorite to leave the sea.

Water and tea leaves and a glass jar were kept on the wagon roof. During the day it would be warm and fragrant and ready to drink. Tim filled five big mugs and shared them out, then refilled the jar.

Merchants had their secrets, and questions about Cavorite were not welcome. Tim kept his silence. He'd learn about Cavorite. He'd learn why merchants would rub up against anyone along the Road, except in the Shire and Spiral Town. The secrets in Spadoni and Tucker wagons didn't interest him, but he'd learn why merchants kept them hidden. There were questions he hadn't thought of asking yet, and he'd learn those too.

A river ran in S-curves, broad and shallow, across the caravan's path. Tim could see no sign of a bridge.

Tim lay on the roof with his head over the driver's alcove. He pointed ahead and asked, "How do we pass that?"

Damon looked up from where he was cleaning their guns. "The Spectre? You'll see."

They were all clutching big mugs of sun-warmed tea. Joker was driving, Shireen beside him, their heads a little below his. Neither looked up as the old woman prattled.

"Lucia Doheny? She doesn't have a family. It's just her-"

"She did, though," Joker said.

"Oh, yes. Doheny wagon was the infirmary before I was born, but it used to be at the tail, until Lucia's man and father and boy and girl were killed by... I can't recall."

"An animal?" Tim asked. "Bandits?"

"Bandit town, I suppose-"

"Wasser Township!" Damon snapped without turning around. A few moments later he said, "They're gone now, of course. That's their graveyard upslope. It's what reminded me."

There was nothing to mark a graveyard here, and nothing to mark a town ahead or behind, unless... a certain linearity to the chaos downslope.

"Yes, Wasser," said Shireen. "They were buying stuff as we went past. Not buying much. All crowded around Doheny there at the tail, but we didn't notice anything until they all pulled knives. Lucia was on the roof. That saved her. Brenda Small saw what was happening back there and we came. They killed Morris and Boris and tore ~their way in and got Wendy and, and, I can't remember, the little boy. But we got there in time to save Lucia."

Damon: "So Lucia reinforced Doheny wagon. Built it like a safe. Turned it into a refuge. Oh, and it's heavier than the rest of the wagons, so Doheny always has twenty chugs even if they have to come off another wagon."

Shireen: "A lot of Wasser Township got away. They bothered us for years after."

Damon: "We burned their village, though. Most of their graves weren't marked, but we flattened those too."

Both front wheels went over a bump.

When the rear wheels bumped, Tim was at the roof's edge to see what happened. The Road humped, just a bit, in a little ridge. Cavorite must have stopped here and then resumed, and what was the ship doing in between?

But Doheny wagon was arcing around, off the Road. Spadoni wagon's chugs were following Doheny around one curved arm of the river. That seemed far more interesting to Tim.

"Damon, what are they doing?"

Damon looked around. "Turning off for Haunted Bay."

"Damon, is that whole stretch of coast Haunted Bay?"

"Sure. Baytown is just downslope."

The bay stretched around in a ragged arc, and Tim remembered the maps. He suddenly realized what he was seeing.

The arc was a hundred and ten klicks around, he remembered that. The middle of that arc, unseen, was the Neck. Beyond that... he was looking at the mainland.

The trail down didn't match the curves of the Spectre River, but it had its own switchbacks. It was unplanned, not made by Cavorite's flame. The Road ran straight beneath the river and on out of sight, as if there had been no river when the Road was made.

Tim wondered if they would leave the wagons. But the chugs must be fed, and they were two klicks uphill from their clientele, so the whole caravan came picking their way down.

There was a bridge. Doheny's chugs were already plodding past it. The river was wide here, and the bridge was too, with two sturdy feet in midstream. This didn't look like Cavorite's work. Impressive, but crude.

The nearest houses were not far below the bridge.

They'd been noticed. Women and children were coming up to meet them. Joker and Senka and Rian descended to keep shop while Damon drove.

The river splayed out into a salt flat cut by bifurcating streams, twenty or thirty before they reached the sea. Near a hundred houses crowded this side of the river. On the far, northwest shore was nothing but sand beach, and a line of posts, and an eroded shape like a shallow dish set on the sand. Tim knew that shape. Cavorite must have settled on its drive flame.

The southeast shore was sand. Inland was a stand of Earthlife trees, just a bit too green and regular, as if tended: possibly a graveyard. Better leave that alone, but there were scrub trees growing elsewhere, dusty green among the Destiny colors. Tim saw that he could make fire pits and find firewood.

That was how they would cook, no problem, if Haunted Bay didn't cook for them.

Out on the water... those tiny shapes were boats. Twenty, thirty, more: narrow, pointed at both ends, with white sails above.

The houses spoke a community of two or three hundred. They were squarish, well made, built wide of the river delta and well back from the sea, leaving a beach scores of meters wide. Tim counted more than thirty boats. None were on the water.

Now, where were the men?

"Tim," Damon said, "keep the children occupied, will you?"

"Mmm. So their mothers can buy in peace?"

"They buy when we're leaving. Now they just want to see what we've got."

In Twerdahl Town and elsewhere they might have wanted that too. Their wish had not been granted there; why here? But Tim only asked, "What are they expecting, a magic act?"

"Can you do that?"

"No. I could show off my surfing? Nope, not that either." There were no surfers on the water, and in fact Haunted Bay was as flat as a sheet of glass, barring the boats and a thousand white riffles.

Show off a bicycle? Tim Bednacourt didn't have one and perhaps shouldn't know about them.

He shrugged elaborately, and Damon grimaced. "Get them to lecturing you. You're good at that."

The children exclaimed over Tim's scrimshaw. Three or four had seen Otterfolk skulls, or claimed to, and one said he'd seen a shark skull. He got them talking about themselves.

A little girl pointed. "That's where we live, see? The little house between two big ones."

Tim asked, "Why are they only on this side of the river?"

She stared at him, astonished. An older boy said, "We can't build houses on the other side. That's where the Otterfolk come to trade. Mother says they like the water near river mouths. Salty, but not real salty."

Tim watched, and nodded. Houses along the river had access to fresh water. Southeast, that stretch of beach would feed the chugs. In between was the delta: diluted salt water. "Is that where the Otterfolk live?"