Destiny's Road

by Larry Niven

The Shireman's voice was rough, his accent twisted. "Scrimshaw.

  This's a lungshark's backplate."

  Tim studied it. The polished surface had a pearly iridescence. Hal said, "They're littler, but elsewise they're not so different from a chug's. You can go to a caravan's campground and pick up a hundred."

  Most of the Shire men were working scrimshaw carvings. Scenes differed; skills did too. Geordy Bruns showed a finished plate, a line of bas-relief skulls, all Destiny life, all clearly derived from some common ancestor. The middle one was certainly a chug. Another man had carved a crude view of Landing Day, as two featureless cylinders descended on inverted candle flames. A man Tim's age was instructing a younger one in technique, practicing on a chipped shell. They stopped uneasily until Tim stopped watching them.

  The rest of the caravan arrived near sunset.

  The men of the Shire distributed dinner. Some of them ushered the children into their own circle. When Geordy Bruns stood to take his meal, Tim saw that his back was twisted.

  These women might know only one way to cook, but it worked. Fish, pig, potatoes and mushrooms and greens, they all tasted wonderful. Tim became certain that they'd used a different Destiny plant to flavor each coal bed. He should have watched more closely.

  And finally it came to him to wonder-"Bord'n!"

  "Tim?"

  "Where on Earth are the chugs?"

  "Well, they can't use the bluffs, can they? We turned them loose a couple of klicks up the Road, where they can get to a beach. It's still a good run for them."

  "Sharks?"

  "We stayed to shoot a few. That's why some of us are late."

  Quicksilver was gone, and the sun was a last sliver of light on the sea. Against the dying red sky the silhouettes of human shapes showed their origin clearly. Tim saw it, the common thread. In their stance, in their walk, the Shire folk were distorted. Too many were sick, one way and another. Like Jemmy Bloocher's father: crippled, twisted.

  He'd been seeing it half the afternoon: how they set wide privacy bubbles around traders and yutzes both. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, did they think outsiders were the twisted ones? And the traders were being meticulously polite- Tim watched Rian and Senka together.

  Senka's walk was always an invitation, and Rian's too. Not tonight!

  Senka's walk was clumpy, jarring. Rian tottered alongside, imitating her, two cripples keeping their balance with each other's help, with jaws set in anger against what the universe had done to them. Rian caught him looking, and winked.

  The Shire elders and the merchants emerged from conference. Master Tucker and Damon ibn-Rushd accepted fish from two Shire men, then vegetables from another pair. Arms well extended with their plates.

  Keeping their distance. The senior yutzes knew the drill too.

  Whatever was wrong with the Shire folk.. . was it contagious?

  That was in the teaching programs too. Humankind had evolved alongside tens of thousands of parasites. The parasites kept pace easily:. they died faster so they evolved faster. In Africa and Asia the parasites ruled. Mankind had come later to Australia and the Americas and the polar ice caps; parasites that preyed on humans, were fewer there.

  The Destiny expedition had brought no parasites at all.

  But disease and parasites would evolve eventually, given enough prey. Ways to fight infections, diseases, and plagues were in the teaching programs.

  He couldn't ask a merchant, of course. Tim Bednacourt had never seen those teaching programs. He could hardly ask the children. Boys and girls were moving among the yutzes and merchants, and Tim couldn't shy from them: they were friendly and curious, unlike their elders. But he couldn't quite make sense of their accents.

  So Tim Bednacourt began to sing.

  He picked a song the yutzes had taught him, a ballad of terror and courage, "Grendels. in the Mist." No sex in it, no gender references. A simple chorus shouted at the top of one's voice. It sounded splendid in the dusk. Other voices joined him one by one: yutzes, a few merchants, now a woman's voice, now another, now a girl.

  The full moon had risen above the mountains. Quicksilver would have been brighter, but the moon cast as much light. Quicksilver was a point; the moon showed a clear disk. In its light you could walk around obstacles and make out human shapes, but not faces, not even body language. Communication wasn't easy.

  But they could sing.

  Now the Shire women were singing, and the men listened.

  City Hall was crowded, and blazing daylight outlined the door. With the wagons six klicks uphill, the entire caravan had stayed for the night.

  The building was one huge room with alcoves at the corners. The sleepers all tended to gather at the center.

  Tim wriggled his way out of a knot of women and men and made his way out. Children cheered as he emerged into the morning, and he waved back. And froze.

  He was in the crater left by Cavorite.

  It hadn't showed yesterday evening. It showed vividly in daylight.

  City Hall had been built on a foundation of melted and recooled lava, a concave dish.

  Cavorite must have come straight down.

  Cavorite's crew had examined this site and found it good.

  But why not bring the Road right down to the Shire?

  He was on their track. One day he'd know.

  The caravan cruised past the Shire the next morning. Of the Shire's alleged hundred people, nearly forty adults and fifteen children had climbed six klicks uphill to walk alongside the wagons, to haggle or just to watch.

  Tim moved up and down the line, passing out bread. He'd wondered if Doheny wagon would be empty, but Bryne and Lucia Doheny were selling toothbrushes, dental floss, bandage cloth, and crudely blown bottles of clear fluid.

  Tim recognized these. The bottles held flavorless, nearly pure alcohol. Merchants sold them in Spiral Town as antiseptic. Kids too young for it watered it with fruit juice and drank at secret parties.

  The Shire folk were paying off in scrimshaw.

  One artist left a carved plate at Dionne wagon and staggered away with a stack of uncarved shark plates as high as his eyebrows.

  Geordy Bruns had traded a plate for flour and dried meat and another for dental tools. Tim saw him dropping back as if tired. The trouble with the merchants' way was that some good customers hadn't the strength to keep up.

  Tim joined him to see what he still had.

  It was the plate with the skulls on it. Geordy pointed them out proudly: platyfish, juggernaut, chug, lungshark, sand trap shark, Otterfolk.

  Tim said, "Wait," and jogged ahead.

  Sixth from the end was ibn-Rushd wagon. Damon looked at Tim curiously as he clambered through the driver's alcove to the roof. Tim dug into the roof trap and had what he wanted.

  Geordy looked through Tim Hann's worldly possessions. They weren't much. Any valuables of Jemmy Bloocher's had stayed in Twerdahl Town.

  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.

  11

  Haunted Bay

  interesting rectilinear formations on the floor 0f th~5 b0d~ 0f water, like a buried city nearly crumbled to d~5t. .

  -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 widemouthed 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. Thatseemed 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.. . someone. 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. D~fferent. 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 heav
ier 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.