Destiny's Road

by Larry Niven

The felons too were starting to look less gaunt. Less pale, too. A day of sporadic sunlight wouldn't give anyone a sunburn, but they no longer looked like they'd been living under an endless black thunderstorm.

  Of course they were too many, and three were in kilts chopped from a tablecloth. And if Jemmy Bloocher had thought of robbing their first customers for their clothes, and never mind the friends and relatives and proles who might come looking for them. . . then nine people who had been imprisoned for violent crimes would all have thought of the same thing.

  Something had better be done about clotljes!

  Buses passed twice a day.

  On the fifth evening they sat around the fire pit and spoke their plans. "It's a wonder nobody's ever tried this before," Barda caroled.

  "It could work. Unless it rains."

  Was she fooling herself? Nobody could see the flaws in the inn as well as Barda, not even Jemmy, who still saw only a mask over chaos.

  Andrew asked, "What else do we need to be a restaurant?"

  Barda said, "Well, the sign, of course."

  Jemmy asked, "Paint?"

  She laughed. "Paint? No. We have to turn the sign on.. . like the Windfarm barracks sign. We need lights too. Jemmy, there's a way out to the roof, but it's blocked. Can you climb up there?"

  The roof was three stories up. Nobody but Jemmy wanted to climb it, but it wasn't difficult. He found a weathered and muddy elegance.

  He called down. "Barda? Three tables, twelve chairs. You didn't say it was a dining area."

  "We never got crowded enough to use it. That's why Daddy closed it off."

  "I don't see how to get them down."

  "We'll get the door unblocked."

  "Barda, I can see the door. It's barred on this side."

  "What? Really?"

  "Whoever did it must have climbed down afterward."

  "Brian! He would've! And then Daddy never got around to unblocking it!"

  Jemmy lifted the bar away and tried to pull the door open. "Stuck."

  There was no chimney. From this height you could see. . . well, you could see enough Road from here to prepare for visitors, get the nudes under cover, and put Amnon on display in his coveralls. From the roof's back edge, through a notch in the ridge, water gleamed through a fringe of slender, straight Earthlife trees. Swan Lake.

  He called down. "Still there, Barda? I'm thinking. If a client never sees us except in swimsuits and windbreakers, we have to serve fish."

  "Daddy left because Swan Lake was fished out."

  "Worth a try. Barda? You've got electric power." Beneath a surface of accumulated dirt, he was standing on a dark silver-gray surface.

  "Did something light up?"

  "No, I only mean half the roof is Begley cloth."

  "Of course. How's it look?"

  "It's covered with goo; we'll have to clean it off. And there's. .

  ." A metal structure as high as his head was sited on the silver-gray surface, where the sharp corner of the restaurant pointed toward the Road. Like the prow of a boat, Jemmy thought. He put his hand on the stained metal casing and asked, "What is this?"

  "What's it look like?"

  "Casing out of a foundry. It looks like an open hand, round base, splayed fingers."

  "Antenna."

  "I can open it. . . the inside looks like settler magic. Is this your sign?"

  "It's the sign and the lights and anything else that takes power.

  See if there's anything missing."

  "Oh, come on, Barda, I've never seen anything like this... . All right, here's a slot. Like it takes a great big three-pronged key."

  "Fuck my bird! I'm coming up."

  So Amnon pushed the door open and they all trouped out on the roof to see what everyone except Jemmy knew all about. They hovered around Barda while she opened the shell and looked in.

  She said, "He took it with him!"

  ''It?''

  "Birdfucker!"

  Andrew said, "It isn't as if we could go off to town and open another account."

  "That birdfucking list is getting big," Barda said. "Andrew, whose name would we use? Not mine!"

  Andrew laughed. "We're all wanted felons except Jeremy. Jeremy doesn't have a name."

  "Well, without a guide spot we don't have a sign, and without a sign we don't have an inn."

  Guilda's Place in Spiral Town had never needed anything but paint.

  Jemmy asked, "Guide spot?"

  He wasn't heard. "Maybe I can rig something," Duncan Nick said.

  Barda made way for him. The shell opened at the edge of the roof.

  Two could look inside; no more.

  "I was up here before, but I did not want lights," Duncan said.

  "Mmm."

  "Let me see." But Winnie Maclean wasn't heard either, and she wasn't strong enough to push her way in.

  SoJemmy asked her. "Guide spot?"

  "It sends back a reflection," Winnie said. "The power beam from Quicksilver goes to four orbiting relays. The relays flash a beam, and all the guide spots flash back. Then the beams focus on all the guide spots. It's a frequency Begley cloth can turn into power. But you buy your guide spot from City Hall and then you're in the records and City Hall keeps track of how much power you use."

  "So there's a record in a City computer, and it says this is the Swan," said Denis. "But these things can be hacked."

  Barda edged away from the power collector so that others could look it over. Duncan's and Denis's heads and shoulders disappeared inside.

  "The Winslows must have retired the account when they moved,"

  Winnie said.

  Barda laughed suddenly. "Not Daddy. All the way to Destiny Town, when he's going the other way? I bet he just took the guide spot along and bought someone else's power collector."

  Most of this was beyond him, but Jemmy caught that datum as it went by. "You mean the City thinks he's still the Swan."

  "I'm guessing, you know."

  "So if you got it going again-"

  "I worked for a power company," Winnie said. "Let me try."

  "The City would just see the Swan using more power? Your daddy would pay a bigger fee. Would he notice?"

  "Oh, sure, and complain. But... couldn't complain to the City, could he? They like things neat in the City."

  "If he didn't switch accounts."

  Duncan Nick moved out. "It's hopeless," he said. "I could make it work if I had some number-four line wire."

  Winnie moved in beside Denis. They whispered crypticisms, their heads hidden. "Don't need number four.. . any gauge line wire. . . isn't that what they use to wire a kitchen? No, it's thinner. .

  Watching them wasn't very interesting. They weren't doing anything.

  The men picked up chairs and tables and wrestled them inside and downstairs and into the main dining room.

  There were chickens in the woods. They were fast, hard to catch. But on the fifth day Winnie found four nests: scrambled eggs for all, cooked in the pottery pots.

  On the seventh morning, Willametta saw the bus stop and let people off.

  Blind luck that she happened to be looking through the picture window.

  Andrew had set a guard, but he hadn't been taken seriously.

  Two men, two women walked across the bridge carrying fishing poles.

  Willametta moved about the house whispering the news. Nudes to the upstairs rooms. Amnon to work the garden.

  The strangers were in their teens. They wore tiny swimsuits and skimpy vests with lots of pockets. What they saw was Amnon in coveralls, and four older folk in out-of-date short-sleeved windbreakers, carrying poles. Jemmy was one of those.

  "Yes, we're reopening the restaurant. Just for dinner. We'd be happy if you'd pass the word."

  "What have you got for breakfast?"

  "We don't have flour yet. Cold chicken? Tea?"

  They turned that down. One man said, "You should open for breakfast too. They come to Swan Lake to fish, you know, and this is the only way
in. Cook their fish for them in the evening."

  Amnon stayed. Jemmy took the rest to the lake. Behind him he sensed frantic action held leashed.

  At the shore they separated. The inlet to Swan Lake was easy to wade. Jemmy tried to keep an eye on the little group on the far shore, but they weren't spending all their time fishing. They let a little tent inflate and spent some of their time in there. They went exploring through the trees.

  Earthlife bushes and grass and trees. Earthlife fish. Before noon the felons had caught two dozen fish of three varieties, none of which Jemmy recognized. It made sense to go home then, and they did.

  Jemmy dreaded that Andrew would see what he saw: four teens on foot who might have disappeared anywhere between here and the City, with clothes on their backs in current styles and money in their pockets. But he couldn't stay to protect them.

  They returned to a great light.

  Above the restaurant's roof a flame rose and fluttered in the shape of a Swan.

  Jemmy was relieved to see Andrew grinning up into the lighted dininghall windows. He lofted a mess of fish and got a nod. He asked,

  "How did you do it?"

  "I don't know. Winnie and Denis pulled a nest of line wire out of the ceiling in one of the rooms. You know what that is, a thread of superconductor in a rubber tube? They'd have been electrocuted if the roof was clean, I think. Nothing worked till they found some silver thing Barda hid in her room and pounded it into shape. But-" He waved. "They got it going!"

  "Shouldn't we turn it off? Or are we open?"

  "We're open. Let's see, we'll keep that room locked, and clean up the

  roof so we get more power. All the lights are way too dim. But you, Jemmy, you get a pit fire going. When those kids come back we want to cook their fish for them. And show somebody how to clean fish! Henry!"

  The visitors stayed for dinner.

  Jemmy was a chef on display, with a Road accent, self-consciously not a Spiral Town accent, and, "My merchant father picked me up from the dairy when I was a little boy.

  What the Swan lacked became much clearer. Bread, potatoes, lettuce.

  They'd have asked for a room until Barda told them there weren't any working toilets. Then they opted for their tent by the lake.

  Then they tried to pay the chef.

  "You pay Barda. She prefers to keep track." Jemmy sneaked a peek at Destiny Town money before they turned away. It was a hologram imposed onto thin paper.

  Barda took their money. They climbed uphill with Swanlight behind them. And Barda gave him an intensive course in how to identify, count, and change money before she let him go to bed.

  *26*

  The Last Climb

  We were chosen for genetic disparity. Now our numbers are down by onethird and we're scattered from Base One to the Wi~d5! How are we going to avoid gene drift?

  -Grigori Dudayev, senior M. D.

  Next morning was a bleery-eyed scramble. They didn't have to look like a restaurant as long as they didn't look like a prison camp! Four visitors would be returning through here.. . any minute now...

  They appeared near noon. They'd stayed to fish up a breakfast.

  Jemmy guessed right: he had coals going, and he'd saved a dozen of Winnie's eggs and several big mushroom caps.

  The fishers wanted tea, and were mildly put off because it was herb tea, licorice picked from the spice patch. There was, of course, no bread. Admitting that was embarrassing.

  After they were gone Rafik told Barda, "You could have charged them more."

  "They'll talk. We want customers," Barda said. "What is an inn with no guests? A birdfucking halfway house!"

  Jemmy asked Rafik, "How much whole-wheat flour would that buy?"

  "Sack and a half. Last night's take would buy five or six. But we could have charged more," Rafik said, and Andrew's face was growing red with his laughter.

  It was a trivial sum, of course. Barda's list had grown: one full set 0f decent clothing

  600

  poured stone, 10 tonnes

  2000

  glass panes 700

  flour 100

  silverware 200-1000

  paint 500

  chairs

  up to 2000

  tables

  up to 4000

  soap 100

  curtains

  500-1000

  advertising ???

  napkins, ~l0th

  (logo?) 200

  washer

  5000

  cookware:

  stew pots 50

  teapot

  20

  butcher's table!

  1500 or make one

  tea

  guide spot and power account 8850

  line wire 4000

  When Jemmy went to fetch wood for the pit, Andrew was there. "I found grain," he said.

  "What, you mean before we crossed the last ridge?"

  "Well, yes, in that last valley, but not where you were. We followed you on the ridge. Just before the sun came up I was looking back. It was all yellow. Earthlife yellow. It's not far from the Swan. I can show you."

  "What kind of grain?"

  "Two or three kinds. I went back to check, day before yesterday.

  Grain. Why would the settlers bring anything that looks that much like wheat and isn't?"

  Jemmy thought it over while he and Andrew collected deadwood.

  They'd been here nine days, and they hadn't had to chop down trees for firewood, but the day would come.

  He said, "Then all we need is a mill."

  "I'll show you next time I go out, you want to come." Andrew moved off, dragging a log.

  There was just too much wrong with that.

  Grain: right. Barda's daddy, or his daddy or his, would have planted wheat and rye around the Swan. But it was a great find. Why wasn't Andrew taking the credit in his usual booming voice? Or demanding some favor in return? And when had he had the chance to check it out?

  He found Willametta on the hill above the Swan. "Willya? Did you see any grain hereabouts before you got to the inn?"

  Willametta looked around. Her windbreaker had become a bag for onions and mushrooms. "I didn't."

  "Did Andrew?"

  "No. Why?"

  "Any idea where Duncan's got to?"

  She'd seen his worry. "It's all going fine, isn't it? Why are you turning weird now? I haven't seen Duncan Nick since breakfast."

  "Maybe I started weird. How would you like to go to Destiny Town?"

  "What?"

  "Somebody has to buy stuff. It sure isn't me, not with this accent!"

  She smiled. "I guess I could stay out of trouble. Do I look like a living woman now?"

  "Close. Let's test that." He took the bag she'd made of her windbreaker and set it down.

  "Jeremy, Destiny people won't see this much of me."

  "Speaking for the felons assembled, we're relieved to hear it."

  Conversation deteriorated.

  Winnie looked into the wood, grinned at them, and passed on. Then dashed back, scooped up Willametta's windbreaker, and ran away laughing.

  They were in no condition to chase her down.

  Too many of them had spent too much of the day arguing possibilities.

  Nevertheless the arguments had culled Barda's list into what they needed most that cost least. By the red light of evening's coals it had all evolved into a plan.

  Someone was going to have to go into town.

  At some point that person had become Andrew.

  He was going alone. "You were right, Jeremy. One of us is just skinny. Two together look like walking dead."

  "Our bones aren't showing through so much now," Jemmy agreed. "You can pass. Most of us could."

  "But not you. You'd make a mistake."

  "Not Barda either. Barda, the places that sell supplies for an inn would all know your face."

  Barda grinned. "They'd all tell me how wonderful I look. All that lost weight." She looked down at her windbreaker. It was t
oo dark to see food stains, but she said, "I'd kill a prole for a stack of napkins."

  "How high?"

  Felons were tottering off to their beds. Duncan Nick wasn't among them. Duncan hadn't come to dinner. Jemmy hadn't seen him since breakfast. It bothered him most because he'd been expecting it.

  Andrew said, "Come with me at dawn, I'll show you where the grain is.,'

  He'd been expecting that too. "Not dawn," Jemmy said. "I'll clean up from dinner and set up breakfast first. I'll start after that and catch up."

  They went into the inn. They left the hall lights on all the time now. Unbelievable luxury, and Spiral Town saw none of it. Felons and merchants took it for granted, and nobody wondered why, nobody but Jemmy Bloocher.

  The ninth day had a lid of dark clouds.

  Jemmy watched Andrew leave. His pack looked heavy. Jemmy waved; but there were things he had to do before he set off after Andrew.

  Cleaning out the pit wasn't one. Those ashes would get to be too much of a good thing, but for now they were authentication of the restaurant's age.

  There were squirrels and songbirds about. They did some of the cleaning up of spilled food. When Jemmy, Amnon, and Winnie finished the job, they left scraps in the wood.

  Curious looks followed his departure. His pack was light. He'd hidden the gathering's trove of speckles. He didn't want to be carrying that down the Road.

  He crossed the bridge and moved immediately to the center of the Road.

  The river ran on his right, chuckling unseen. Jemmy moved briefly to its edge: a curve of melted rock flowing straight down into rushing water, He moved back to center. He'd considered climbing to the ridge, but that would have slowed him, and.. . he could be overreacting. Seeing murder in every face.

  Willametta was no creature of evil. She would have been free of the Windfarm in less than a year. She'd followed Andrew for love, it seemed.

  And Winnie's story, told by others, was that she'd killed a man because it was the only way to be rid of him. She had scars and broken bones to show for their time together, and he'd stalked her after she ran to Destiny Town. Maybe Destiny justice would have imprisoned him. Maybe she'd kill quicker next time a man gave her a hard time. She was probably no threat to a man like Jemmy.

  Barda would never do anything to hurt the Swan.

  But the Windfarmers were felons. Duncan Nick was legitimately a thief, and Dolores's first impulse had been to use a prole gun on the toolshed, and Andrew Dowd- Murder in every face.