Destiny's Road (44 page)

A disgusted look; then Rita Nogales walked away from him. She held the lift. They descended in silence. She walked away from him again, outside, in, another lift, and he reached Karen's room a good ten minutes behind her.

It was too active. Something was wrong. Four doctors crowded the room, and one left at a half-run. Jeremy backed against the corridor wall and, resting on his crutches, waited.

Rita Nogales noticed him and came out. "Jeremy, did Karen have trouble controlling her weight?"

"No."

"Damn."

"After all, we live at Wave Rider. She just eats a lot of Destiny sea life if she needs to lose a few kilos. So do I."

"Was she doing that a week ago?"

"I don't know.''

"All right. Right now Karen's getting all the attention she can stand, right? The whole damn hospital's worrying about her. They don't need a twitchy husband on crutches getting in their way," she said, and walked away fast. Over her shoulder she added, "Go eat. Go home. Go read, but don't block any doctors."

Now there were two doctors in there with Karen. One saw Jeremy still there, and came out. His label said Malcolm Evans. He was having trouble keeping his smile on.

"Don't let all this... activity worry you," he said. "Karen is rejecting superskin, that's all, but it's not supposed to happen. Maybe this batch threw off a sport. Clinics keep batches of superskin all over Destiny Town and on up the Road. Nogales is off to get a different batch for, uh, Karen, and Waither is phoning patients who got superskin from Batch One, so you can s-" Evans caught a gesture from the other doctor and turned away without finishing the sentence.

CONTROL*EXPERIMENT

Jeremy couldn't concentrate. He had to read it twice, though the idea wasn't complicated.

A population to be experimented upon would be split. The control experiment was the group to which nobody did anything. These were the rats that didn't ingest carcinogens, didn't have to run mazes with traps in them, weren't bothered by flashing lights or loud noises. The patients who got placebos instead of medicine. You watched for differences between the control group and the experimental group.

CONTROL*EXPERIMENT*Base One

The lives we're trying to carve from this wilderness would be a risk even if Argos had not deserted us!

Base One is thriving, they tell us. They're living according to the guidelines laid down for Argos Project in Sol system. Isolated on a peninsula with the Neck blocked, they're safe from whatever Destiny life might throw at them, with one horrifying exception.

Fatum mortem parnelli is our prison. We must live within range 0f the planet's only known potassium source, inside a maze 0f twisty little Destiny ecologies, all different. Granted that nothing has come after us yet: the lesson 0f Avalon seems clear enough. Trust nothing in an unfamiliar environment.

I propose to designate Base One as a control experiment, where the primary experiment is Terminus. Establish an Overview Bureau. Give it authority over the Crab: Base One and Haunted Bay and whatever communities arise elsewhere. Whatever risks we take here, the larger population will survive provided that we can secure the Crab's speckles supply. .

-Will Coffey, Hydroponics

Idiot. How could he conceivably expect to do that? The caravan system-Coffey's proposal-was only as good as the Windfarm and Terminus. If either failed- Terminus hadn't failed; it had fissioned. Destiny Town was thriving. But what of Spiral Town?

A couple of generations of a control experiment might have made sense. Two and a half centuries later, why on Earth would they still need a control experiment?

He'd come to the library looking for distraction and found this!

OVERVIEW BUREAU

-was two doors up from Medical. They still had charge of the Crab, Spiral Town, the Road towns, Haunted Bay and Otterfolk and all. He could walk there, but why bother?

A government bureau was not likely to give up its authority over anything. From Destiny Town's viewpoint, bringing Spiral Town into civilization would only risk the flow of Begley cloth, clocks, and handicrafts down the Road.

Destiny Town hadn't failed. The Windfarm would!

Twenty-seven years ago Andrew Dowd would have killed all the prisoners and left nobody to harvest the speckles. Dolores Nogales had wanted to shoot up the toolshed. There would be other revolts, other escapes

When the speckles flow stopped, it wouldn't be Destiny Town that went speckles-shy.

Jeremy made his way to Karen's room.

Only Rita Nogales was on duty. Karen was asleep. Her burns were covered with new patches of superskin.

Jeremy took the bus back to Harlow's.

Lies

Whatever risks we take, the larger population will survive, provided that we can secure Base One's speckles supply. .

-Will Coffey, Hydroponics

It was an invitation to disaster, cooking a dinner in someone else's kitchen. It worked partly because he had Harlow to tell him where the tools were kept.

There was that one moment of disorientation when Harlow began taking vegetables, bacon, and a calf's liver out of half-invisible envelopes all the same size. He lurched over to study the things.

"These come out of a machine that used to be mounted in Cavorite," Harlow said, laughing at his astonishment. "Thousands a day. We feed it sand. We feed the bags back in too. Don't you have..." She trailed off.

He said, "Speckles pouches. Merchants sell speckles in these. I never saw them used for anything else."

She nodded. Then she showed him how to make meringue shells. They cut fruit into the shells.

"Men lie to their wives," Harlow said. "Women lie to their husbands." She sipped at her brandy.

Brandy wasn't familiar to Jeremy, and he thought he was being cautious with it. He said, "I've gone through this in my head. Scripted it, my lines, her lines. I'm not who she thought I was. I'm a Crab shy, right. I killed a man and had to run, right. I was in prison, right, but never convicted of anything. I didn't hurt anyone getting out except Andrew Dowd. I can say all that, but, Harlow, how can I tell Karen that I knew her sister?"

"What? Oh, Barda."

"Barda was a trusty when I got to the Windfarm."

"I never met Barda."

"We escaped together. Brenda must have told you the rest, we helped her run the Swan-"

"Barda told you about us? You already knew us? Karen?"

They were dining by firelight and an awesome variety of candles. Harlow was mostly shadow. He couldn't make out her face. "Not you. You were a shock. Harold, though, and her mother, Espania Winslow, and Karen as a little girl. Harlow, when I last saw Barda she was all right. I never told Karen that. When did Karen last see her?"

"At the trial, when they took her away. It was just Karen and Barry and Espania. Harold didn't go. Did Barda tell you what she did?"

"No."

"Poison. The whole second class at Wide Wade's. Two students died."

"The proles had to know that," Jeremy realized. "The Parole Board decides who does the cooking. That's why they made her a trusty!"

"You think that's funny? And you knew what happened to Barda and never told Karen? Jeremy, you..." She trailed off.

He said, "Barda got as far as the Swan, but after that... and the longer I waited, the harder it was to say anything. Now it's twenty-seven years. Harlow, I'll lose her."

"Leave it out. Tell Karen you escaped from the Windfarm. Don't tell her who came along." She watched him absorb that.

"No Barda?"

"No Barda. So how did you get to the inn?"

"Let's see. If Barda didn't tell me about Wave Rider..." He played it through his mind. "I didn't know it was there. I was... running home? Back across the Neck. If I meet a caravan, I'm dead. Here's an inn. I can cook. Merchants don't notice a chef. A week later I've heard too much. Nobody hut a merchant gets across the Neck alive."

"At least it doesn't sound so... premeditated," Harlow said. "Why did you come here?"

''Mmm?"

"Carder's Boat. Jeremy, you were nearly home. With your board and your gloves you could have crossed the weed, straight to shore. That would put you on the beach at, at the inn there?"

"Warkan's Tavern. With Bloocher Farm right next door. Yes. Harlow, they would not have been glad to see me."

"Who would? But they'd take you in. Why did you throw your life to the ocean currents?"

"How did you get to know me so well?"

"I pulled you under the surfboards twenty-six years ago."

"Repeatedly. It comes back to me."

"But I don't know you. Even Karen didn't know you. Why didn't you go home?"

"I had to know where Cavorite went."

Harlow laughed in the dark. "Jeremy!"

He tried to tell her, but he barely remembered himself.

Cavorite's path was the path of humankind, from the stars down to Destiny, to Spiral Town, on to the mainland, and out again to the stars. Jemmy Bloocher was tracing the path of Cavorite, and he was looking for a home.

When he killed Fedrik he'd blown his home apart. He'd left Spiral Town, then married and settled down the first chance he got.

Tagged by the caravan, he hadn't resisted. There was the Road, and he followed it, donning the life of a caravan yutz like a well-fitting glove. He'd never taken it off until his life was threatened. After that... there was joy in learning and exploring, but his roots waved in the air. The farther he went, the less he was tied to anything at all, unless it was to Loria Bednacourt.

Rejected by Loria and by Twerdahl Town... he'd gone mad.

Still mad, perhaps, he'd rebuilt the life of a pit cuisine chef from nothing more than escaped felons and the abandoned wreck of an inn.

When that collapsed in blood, he did it again at Wave Rider.

And he settled in as Wave Rider's pit chef, and forgot Cavorite for twenty-seven years.

"I knew where Cavorite was," he said. "It was just down the Road, and a bus every two days, but anyone who asked me to pay for something would know I didn't belong. They'd put me back in the Winds, or kill me. After a while I stopped thinking about Cavorite. I burrowed in and spent twenty-seven years half-asleep. There's a civilization out there, Harlow! Spiral Town and the Crab are all barred from it! And I forgot. I just forgot.

"Then Karen burned herself," he said, "and here I am."

"And now what?"

He couldn't tell her what he'd decided. He didn't know what she'd do. Harlow was of Destiny Town. He was of Spiral Town, and he'd learned too much.

He'd learned what it really meant to be a Crab shy.

He'd learned about the Overview Bureau.

But he could tell her a little. "I can't stay here forever. As soon as Karen's better... back to Wave Rider, I guess. I want to stop at the Swan. Maybe I can figure out what happened to them. To Barda."

"Want company?"

"Sure." His mouth had run ahead of his mind. "Don't you have a shop to run here?"

"I can get Belle Kuiger to cover, with a few days' notice. You'll be shorthanded, come the caravan. I can help. I miss Wave Rider, Jeremy." She reached across to take his hand. "I miss you."

He was Harlow's guest, and everyone else had gone home. Best to be wary here. He asked, "Why did you leave? I always-"

"You didn't notice what was happening?"

"Dominance games, you and the rest of the family. Property rights."

"Harold's brothers and sister didn't like it when Harold married me. They waited it out, but when Harold died, he... didn't leave a will. They could hassle me, I could hassle them. It just looked better to let them buy me out. And you, you didn't do anything."

"With what?"

"You were just the pit chef, weren't you? But I thought you had some authority. Karen, she sided with her brothers."

"Will they want you at Wave Rider?"

She settled back in her chair, the firelight behind her. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Still, they might want the help, with Karen in Medical and you in a cast and the caravan coming."

He got himself onto his crutches, a little off balance: the brandy. Harlow wrapped herself around him for a deep kiss. "Thank you," she said, and held him steady until he had his balance.

He hadn't felt this since Karen burned herself. The flash of lust had knocked him off balance, but his breath was coming back and his mind was catching up.

He made his toppling foot-crutches-foot way to bed. Maybe Harlow hadn't noticed. Any man could miss a signal.

Lisa Schiavo told him at Reception. Karen was dead.

"But, but... What happened?"

She was reading it off her screen. "Karen Winslow had a severe allergic reaction that led to a heart attack. Mr. Winslow, a human body is really very good at doing unexpected things."

"But... they had the other batch of superskin-"

Schiavo didn't seem to be used to this. "I'll let you talk to Dr. Nogales. Why don't you wait in the library?"

Crutches took his attention until he'd reached the library. What now? The computers were all occupied. He sat down.

Dead?

Not Karen: someone else. Scores of patients must be wearing transplants from that bad batch of superskin. Picture them collapsing everywhere, like a plague. Mixups would be routine..

Nah.

He'd never be able to tell her... never have to tell her. .

A patient got up and left. Jeremy looked at the vacated screen. He'd learned all he cared to of Cavorite.

No, wait- LAW*CARAVAN

ref Overview Bureau

LAW*OVERVIEW BUREAU

Restricted material. Access code?

PASSENGER*CARAVAN