Destiny's Road

by Larry Niven

  "What are they like?"

  "We're not supposed to talk to them, but you can sneak away. They draw pictures in the sand. You try to tell them things that way, but it's-" Haron frowned. "It's not enough."

  "For what?"

  Haron shook his head. He picked up his board and ran into the water.

  Merchants and Twerdahls mingled on the sand. Tim Bednacourt worked anonymous in their midst.

  For a long moment Quicksilver burned at the edge of the sea, just below the cloud deck. Then it winked out. An hour of sunlight left.

  Merchants watched Tim Bednacourt cutting onions, carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms picked in the cypress swamp. "That looks good," the older woman said. Tim smiled.

  Four merchants came, all a few inches shorter than Tim, all exotic and elegant, dressed in many colors, many layers. I-fe noticed the younger man first. Dark, with a thin mustache: Tim had seen him before.

  An older man with brown hair and a forked beard turning gray. A blackhaired woman his own age; another very like her but no older than Tim. Skins browner than Tim's, all four. Their eyes were dark and a bit tilted. Parents, son, daughter?

  He could be wrong about that, or their ages, or almost anything.

  Any fool might pretend to know all about merchants. Nobody really knew.

  The young man said, "I remember you. We were talking about Otterfolk. I noticed you trying to listen and cook-"

  "I remember. You're Joker?"

  He nodded. The older woman asked, "Would you like to see them for yourself?"

  Caught by surprise, Tim laughed. "Sure. It's not likely, is it?"

  "I'm Senka," she said. "These are Damon and Rian, my husband and daughter."

  "I'm Tim Bednacourt."

  She was examining him. It made him uncomfortable. "How long have you lived in this place?"

  "Twenty years. Born here," making himself a year older than Jemmy Bloocher.

  The man asked, "Do you ever wonder what the rest of the world looks like?"

  "Well, sure, sometimes I look off down the Road and-"

  "Tim."

  He jumped. Loria! She said, "You can't cook in the dark. You need help?"

  It wasn't dark yet, but. . . "Yes, love, I got a little behind. You cut, I'll start these." An hour of light left. Tim added oil to the wok-already hot-then vegetables. The action became brisk. The merchant trio watched, then wandered off.

  Loria asked, "What did they want?"

  "They didn't say."

  "But something?"

  "Oh, yeah. Sounds like they need a labor yutz or two."

  The big vegetable omelets had become almost reflex. Tim finished one and shouted for the nearest older child whose name he could remember.

  "Did you talk to Haron?"

  "Tried. What happened to him?"

  "This batch is finished," Loria said, and went briskly away.

  Food wandered toward him from other cookfires. Tim ate as he cooked: sausage, roasted ear of corn, half of a passerby's chunk of bread, a slice of his own omelet. When it was too dark to see he settled himself on the sand.

  Heaven's fire still burned where sky met sea.

  His arms and shoulders hurt. He didn't usually push himself this hard. Where was Loria? Why?

  Hadn't she expected him to talk to Haron? It was her own suggestion! Someone was at his side. He turned hoping to see Loria, or any Bednacourt who could explain what Loria was angry about.

  It was a young merchant woman, her clothes still a patchwork of color in the dying light. She handed him the edge of a half melon. They broke it together; he kept half, the juice running down his fingers.

  "Rian," she said. "You're Tim?"

  "Hello, Rian."

  Senka's daughter. She sat beside him. In the dark her face was all planes and angles, a lovely but abstracted shape. Eyes a bit tilted, like almonds. "This is my first trip," she said.

  "From where?" he asked.

  "We don't talk about that. We don't take labor yutzes past the Neck." Too bad, he thought. Then he stared. Past the Neck? She'd been born on the mainland!

  Rian leaned close enough that he could feel her breath on his cheek. "One of our cooks has died," she said. "We need another."

  "Uh-huh?"

  "Want to come with us?"

  "As a labor yutz?"

  "Yes."

  Tim smiled politely. "Rian, why don't you tell me how your cook died?"

  She hesitated. "Well. We were too far from the other wagons. Petey was a cowboy-"

  "Say?"

  "Cowboy. He liked to be right there on the sand shooting when the sharks came at us. Made us shoot around him. Few days ago the sharks got ahead of us a bit. They got Petey."

  Tim said what he should have said first. "I've only been married two months."

  "Yes, to Loria Bed. . . Bednacourt. She carrying a guest yet?"

  This question seemed excessively personal, but Tim supposed it might matter to merchants interested in hiring a woman's husband. He said, "Not yet."

  "So come."

  Tim shook his head.

  She was trying to study his face in the dark. "Nobody has to be down there on the sand with the sharks, Tim. Not a labor yutz, anyway.

  They never reach the wagon roofs."

  She thought he was afraid?

  "You know," she said, "the Otterfolk must have been the first unhuman tool users anyone ever saw. Cavorite wouldn't have just sailed past."

  She was right, he thought. And- "They can draw pictures of Cavorite," he said.

  He couldn't say, Loria doesn't even want me talking to you, let alone- Rian would wonder why, and Tim didn't know, but that left only a killing in Spiral Town as his excuse, and what would he tell her instead?

  He said, "I wasn't the only cook-"

  "You have four. Van Barstowe limps. A caravan yutz has to walk, you know. Drew Bednacourt drops things, and he's surly. You and Van, you're the best. Do you like my company, Tim?"

  At dinnertime there were knives everywhere you looked, and where was Loria right now? "No, look, Rian, we all grow up knowing about hybrid vigor, but Loria doesn't think like that. My life wouldn't be worth living if-"

  He stopped talking, because the merchant wdman was up and moving away.

  He wondered if he'd jumped to conclusions. "Company," she'd said.

  Only that. He'd made an embarrassing mistake.

  The house was empty.

  Long after he was in bed, Loria slid in and tickled him awake.

  There was a ferocity to her lovemaking, and she wouldn't let him talk.

  She didn't want to talk afterward either. They made love again. . .

  unless he fell asleep first. . . but sunlight blazed through the bedroom window and someone was pounding on the door.

  Tim pulled himself out of bed, squinting. Why didn't Loria answer?

  "Come," he called. He pulled on some pants and went into the common room.

  Sharlot Clellan, Drew Bednacourt, Harl Cloochi, and Berda Farrow, all elders of Twerdahl Town, came in from the glare of sunlight. They ushered in three merchants wearing wild colors. Two men, one woman. Tim recognized the dark man named Damon.

  "What's it all about?" he asked.

  Harl said, "Tim, these are Damon and Milo and Halida, elders of the caravan. They came to us last night, not just to us, you understand, but to all of Twerdahl Town. Tim, this may sound odd-"

  The door opened again. Loria and Tarzana.

  Tim repeated, "What is this?"

  "Loria, dear, we've had an offer," Harl said.

  "Right. Did you know they came to Tim last night? Tim, what did they offer you?"

  She could have learned that last night. "Job as a labor yutz.

  Cooking."

  The elder Twerdahls stared at the merchants. "You went to him first?"

  Damon smiled and shrugged. "We looked for a better bargain. He was reluctant."

  Tim couldn't read Loria's expression.

  The merchant woman, Halida, said t
o Tim, "Your elders and mine, they've been talking. We offer a long knife for every twenty days you're gone."

  "Loria, is that a good price?"

  "Dammit, Tim!"

  "Tarzana?"

  Tarzana said, "Yes."

  "Sounded like it. Haron got less, his first time."

  Damon said, "We want you cooking for us tonight, Tim. That means you join us now. You'll be with ibn-Rushd wagon, my family's wagon. Don't take too much with you, no more than you can carry. Don't take speckles.

  We've got plenty. And Tim-" He smiled. "The more we discuss it, the farther we'll have to chase the wagons."

  It was happening faster than he could think, and he was still playing catch-up. "Loria, let's talk," he said, and pulled her into the bedroom.

  Dawn light blazed through the window. It was easier to read her face in here. "What's going on?"

  "Can't you tell?"

  "Oh, a little. They'd have had me cheap if I'd gone with them last night. Now they've got to pay off the whole town, but Loria, do they think I'm for sale? I have a house and a wife."

  And a secret that any of three hundred people might speak.

  "The old people, they've already taken the knives," Loria said bleakly. She swept the blanket off their bed, flung it high and let it settle on the floor. "We have to pack. I knew they'd have you. You can do things nobody else can. Tim, didn't I try to keep you in the house?" He saw she was crying. "At least I gave you a great send-off. Didn't I?"

  "I didn't know I was going."

  "T-"

  "Great send-off, damn right. Can you come with me?" Her head snapped up, amazed. "You'd. . .

  "What?"

  "Want me?"

  "Yes!"

  "No. No, I can't. Yutzes are always men."

  "What do you want, Loria?"

  "I want you to come back. But if you're coming back like Haron Welsh, then don't."

  She'd stacked his possessions on the blanket. Coat and shirts. No hat; Twerdahls never wore hats. The skillet from Bloocher Farm had become Twerdahl Town property, and retrieving it would be a mistake. She took his pouch of speckles. "If a yutz carries speckles, they think it's caravan property," she said.

  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.

  8

  On the Road

  You d011't stop your wagon to do business, not unless it's a favored mark or a decent ocfer. Stopping makes you look eager. Keep talking and let the chugs move on until the mark takes your ocfer.

  -Shireen ~b~-R~5hd

  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.