Destiny's Road h-3

by Larry Niven

  Tim listened and wondered. Jemmy Bloocher was very far from his thoughts these days.

  It had grown too dark to cook. Senka ibn-Rushd circulated with apples, and lingered to watch him eat. She said, “Tim, the families don't like quarrels in the caravan. Are you angry with my daughter about something?”

  “Mph? No! I think Rian's angry with me. I turned her away, that night on the beach.”

  “Oh, Tim, that was just... I'll speak to her.”

  “Senka, don't. Ibn-Rushd family found me a married man, and that's what I told Rian.”

  She stared. “Were you trying to annoy her?”

  “She annoyed me! Does she think I'm stupid? She rubbed up against me to get me at a lower price!”

  “I see. I- Now, Tim, do you mean you're thinking of not... rubbing up against anyone until you're back in Twerdahl?”

  “I asked Loria if she could come-“

  “Tim, where are you from?”

  She knows.

  Now wait, she can't be sure.

  Could she? In the flicker of firelight, what could she see of his face? Or hear in his voice over the breaking waves? She was his youngest aunt's age, and wise with the wisdom of merchants, and he couldn't guess where he'd made his mistake. What did Twerdahls know, that Spirals did not, that Loria wouldn't have warned him about?

  Tim hadn't thought so fast since Jemmy Bloocher killed a labor yutz. He made an intuitive leap and rode it. “All right, I hear what they say.”

  “What do they say?” Senka demanded.

  “Love a merchant, never get over it.” He was guessing, but not wildly. It was a thing Loria might have concealed, and a thing a merchant woman might like hearing.

  Senka was nodding. “But you can't spend the whole circuit wondering about Cavorite and Otterfolk, can you? You'll wonder what you're missing.”

  “Loria's wondering right now, back in Twerdahl Town.”

  She searched his face. “You asked her to come? She must be flattered, Tim. But we wouldn't take her.”

  “I wasn't thinking.”

  “Would you like a visitor tonight?”

  She might not see his nod. “Yes, very much.”

  Her hand caressed his ear, and then she walked into the dark.

  Haron Welsh had come home with no interest in Twerdahl women. That was Loria's fear.

  A man wasn't expected to resist a merchant woman.

  And Tim was burning to learn why. And yes, he was burning.

  In the night a woman came to him. He knew a woman's rich scent that wasn't Loria's, that wasn't quite human. The dark hid everything but that.

  She talked. They talked, voices in the dark, puffs of her sweet breath on his face. It made him self-conscious for a time, and then somehow it felt right. They moved together and peeled layers of gauzy cloth off each other. Then he was talking to a woman while they made love. It felt kinky, delicious.

  Jemmy Bloocher was a virgin when he left Spiral Town. What he knew of sex was what the older boys told. Later he learned what the married men were willing to say.

  Loria Bednacourt had taught Tim Hann. And all the glory and joy of the stories was real.

  But Senka knew things he had never heard spoken.

  They were making a lot of noise, his hoarse shouts, her wild laughter. In a moment of quiet he heard a distant chuckle, Joker's, and a querulous mumble, Shireen's.

  In the morning she was gone and he must move.

  Breakfast was always the same. Fires, woks and bread dough, chugs and sharks. Quicksilver didn't show at all: for these few days it would be behind the sun. Put the gear away, then share out the bread. The caravan was in motion before he saw any of the family.

  Senka greeted him cheerfully from the steering bench. Shireen and Joker leered. Rian wouldn't look at him.

  Tim Bednacourt had kept no secrets last night.

  The morning looked like coming rain. He lay on the roof and thought.

  When Loria let him go with the caravan, she hadn't asked him to be faithful. It seemed nobody would expect him to do that... nobody outside of Spiral Town.

  Spirals and merchants never mixed. They even danced separately in the Road outside Warkan's Tavern. What was wrong with Spiral Town?

  Hybrid vigor: merchants mated with everyone along the Road. They were trained at love, and everyone came to know it. Except in Spiral Town.

  On the strength of that alone, for a moment Senka had guessed what he was.

  It was the eighth day since Tim Bednacourt had joined the caravan. Something was different. The hunting parties never moved out of sight, and what they brought back was skimpy. The drivers released their chugs in order, first to last, so that they could bring the wagons closer together.

  On the eighth night Tim fell asleep hoping that Senka would come; but he slept dreamless and woke alone on a gray and drizzly morning.

  He'd half-expected that.

  She'd acted to keep peace in the caravan. Now that problem was solved; and after all, the woman had a husband; and if Damon's knowledge of lovemaking matched her own... Tim Bednacourt had better make breakfast.

  On this ninth morning the wagons got an early start. Chefs handing out bread must walk farther to reach the lead wagon.

  Tim had trouble describing what he'd noticed, but Bord'n knew what he meant. “Open territory. They're thinking about bandits,” he said.

  Again the hunters stayed close through the day. And again the wagons released their chugs first to last, to draw the wagons together; but the first chugs slowed and waited, so that the entire line of chugs entered the water in a wave.

  Again on the tenth morning the wagons, too close together, must hook up their chugs each wagon in turn. Lead wagons got an early start.

  Tim mounted to the driving alcove. Joker, Rian, and Senka crowded the bench. Shireen must be resting in the cabin. Tim climbed to the roof. It had been cozy, all five of them huddling in the cabin with rain drumming outside. Better than this.

  Joker climbed up to join him. He opened the hatch and burrowed within. The rain had become a steady fall, and Tim asked him, “Shall we go below?”

  “No. Here.”

  Tim took what he was handed: two handfuls of bullets for his silk pouch, and then a hat with a brim half a meter across, with a great gaudy feather stuck in the band. No, not a feather: an orange-and-scarlet Destiny weed such as he'd never seen before, a stalk that split repeatedly into a tremendous plume.

  The guns were crude cast iron, but these bullets showed sophistication. Bullets could not be carefully hoarded ancient treasures, after all. Somewhere on the Road, someone was making bullets.

  The drizzle suddenly turned into a torrent. It was too noisy to talk. It wasn't cold, but Tim would have preferred the cabin. The chugs ahead faded into a silver blur. Chugs plodded out of the blur aft.

  Joker waited for the lull, then bellowed, “This is bandit country. Bandits love to hit us in the rain.”

  “What do I look for?”

  Joker stared. Was Tim Bednacourt speckles-deficient?

  Tim shouted, “Joker, suppose I look out into that murk and I see something human. Is that a merchant or a yutz or a local or a bandit? How do I know? What do I shoot?”

  “Oh. All right, look for the hats. A hat with no cockade is a bandit. Shoot it. These cockades molt, so they don't lasts more than one trip. Hard to steal. There aren't any locals.”

  “Can't bandits just pick their own cockades?”

  “They don't grow here. Tim, if you see a cockade, don't shoot. We've got patrols ahead and behind. Father's in the lead patrol!”

  “Could a bandit strip the hat off a dead merchant?”

  Joker sighed. “I guess you just have to give him first shot. Or follow my lead.”

  The rain turned noisy again. Tim could see the wagon ahead, and a hint of the wagon behind and its chugs plodding endlessly out of the rain.

  “What do you know about these bandits?”

  “Tim, there's nothing to know. Whatever y
ou learn, it won't be true the next time you come by. Now go guard the other side.”

  Tim crossed to the right side of the roof. Joker stayed on the left. The rain continued steady.

  Rian climbed out of the driver's well and took a position at the aft edge of the roof, cross-legged, with a gun in her lap.

  In the dark to the side of the Road: something moving?

  The rain slacked for a moment. Clearly those were man-shapes running. Tim stood, aimed, looked again. Four men wearing broadbrimmed hats. No cockades. He fired into them as the rain blasted down, squeezing the trigger as fast as he could.

  Rian was next to him, propped on her elbows and firing as his gun ran empty. Joker held his position on the left. One man was running for the edge of the Road. Tim couldn't see the others. Rian had stopped shooting. Tim was reloading when something twitched at his collar. Tim dropped below the rim to finish loading.

  Too noisy to hear the roar, too rainy to see the flash, but someone was shooting back.

  Tim could see bodies in the Road as the chugs passed them. He could count four. Oh, damn, one was dressed as a caravan yutz!

  It was Randall! Randall was dead in the Road.

  “They got us,” Rian said.

  Tim said, “Hell, no. We got them.” Three to one or better.

  Rian wriggled across the roof and was talking urgently to her brother.

  Ibn-Rushd wagon was slowing, and, incredibly, the chugs behind were pulling Dodgson wagon around to pass. And now Tim saw that the line of chugs ahead of him was broken.

  Fourteen ibn-Rushd chugs were pulling ahead of the rest.

  Joker crossed to Tim. “We've got some time,” he said. “The bandits cut our harness. They only need to do that to one wagon. The caravan can't wait for just us. They'll wait for the rest to pull ahead, then jump us. Then we'll have a fight.”

  They got us. They got ibn-Rushd wagon. Tim asked, “Have you got ten meters of rope?”

  “For what?”

  “Tie those loose chugs up again. I wouldn't need so much if they weren't still pulling ahead.”

  “There's a pretty good chance you'll be shot,” Joker shouted, but he was already digging into the hatch. He came out with a coil of rope. “Double it up.”

  Tim took it. It was heavy; it was thick. Would a double strand of it hold the weight of ibn-Rushd wagon? Could he carry it that far? He'd need both hands. No gun.

  “Hold up,” Tim said. His mind seemed to be racing. The bandits had come from the inland side. But that was then and this was now, and the caravan was moving into a new position. Four bandits to cut the rope, at least one more to lay down covering fire; three now dead. A second group of bandits must be waiting ahead, to take advantage if the first group actually stopped a wagon.

  “Just tell me how many bandits there are, Joker. Your best guess.”

  “Anywhere between, ah, six and fifteen.”

  “There have to be two groups.”

  “Right.”

  “I hope you'll shoot anything that tries to shoot me,” Tim said.

  “Yes. Don't lose your hat!”

  Tim rolled over the left, seaward side. That second group could be anywhere between one and ten, and it could cover either side of the Road. Tim kept his eyes to the left as he dropped to a squatting position and duckwalked. The chugs would shield him from the inland side if he could stay low.

  Six chugs were trying to do the work of twenty, and making slow progress of it. Dodgson wagon had come up from behind, and its chugs were moving alongside ibn-Rushd wagon on the seaward side. That would shield him too.

  Tim glanced around ibn-Rushd's lead chug, saw no threat, and ran.

  Fourteen loose chugs were following Armstrong wagon, moving no faster than they had pulling a wagon's weight.

  He heard a whine, left and behind, and cut left before his mind caught up. Left and behind, a bullet grazed the Road and spun away. If that was aimed at Tim, the gunman must be right and ahead, and now Tim had the last pair of freed chugs between that gun and himself. He held for a moment, then shifted: now he was between tJTlat pair, and the one on the right was protecting him with its shell. That one grunted and looked at him.

  Harness still linked the fourteen. Tying his rope to the harness was hard, clumsy work, until he realized that he could drop the coil of rope. Then it was easy, except that his squatting position was killing his knees. And now he must nerve himself to run back across that wet black empty space. Slip on that slick surface and he'd be meat for the taking!

  But his hands were free now. He drew his gun, peered around the last chug, and fired three quick shots at his first glimpse of motion. And ran.

  The coil of rope now trailed as far as the six chugs still pulling ibnRushd wagon. Tim scooped it up and tied it and pulled the knot taut, rolled under the harness and out between two chugs.

  Past the caravan's tail, men in featherless hats were stripping Randall's corpse. One stood up with a gibbering yell and held aloft Lyons wagon's big glare-red can of speckles.

  Damn! Why had Randall been carrying that? To protect it?

  Tim moved back toward the wagon in an agonizing duckwalk he was coming to hate.

  The bandits wouldn't let it go at that, would they? One lonely rope was holding ibn-Rushd wagon from disaster. Cut that and- He'd reached the wagon, seaward side. Joker was looking over at him. Tim rolled underneath, between the wheels, and looked out from a prone position.

  Here came the bandit, and he too was in a squatting run. He had a knife. No hat. Tim shot him and he rolled over, then backed away on hands and knees through the rain, leaving a knife as long as his arm. He collapsed before he'd left the Road.

  The rear wheels were getting too close. Tim scrambled ahead of them, hands and knees. The bandit's knife came in range and Tim fished it up.

  The rope held until the caravan made camp. Again they released the chugs a wagon at a time, to pull the wagons close.

  When the chugs left ibn-Rushd wagon for the shore, one remained behind Tim had never before seen a chug lying down. He went to look.

  Its head turned at his touch. Under its cap of shell its eyes were too far apart to see in one direction; but the cap tilted and one eye studied Tim Bednacourt.

  There were eight holes in its shell. It was the chug Tim had been hiding behind. Chug armor hadn't evolved to stop bullets.

  Joker, Damon, and Rian set down what they were carrying: equipment to repair the harness. “Tim, you did well,” Rian said.

  “Thanks. Rian, will it die?”

  “Yes. It can't feed itself.”

  “Shoot it?”

  She shook her head, and set to work cutting harness.

  Damon said, “There's no quick death for a chug. I saw Daddy try once. The brain, it's more a strand than a bulge, and bullets don't turn off its heart for a damn hour. It saved your life, Tim, and there's no way to pay back.”

  “But you saved ours,” Rian said.

  Tim glowed with the compliment. “I should do things about dinner,” he said.

  On the ninth night Tim Bednacourt stayed up far too late trying to learn the songs the merchants and yutzes sang. Joker was a singer too. Between songs they talked about the fight, and Tim bragged without embarrassment.

  He listened when the others spoke. They were talking largely for him, enjoying lecturing the novice.

  “This clan, they try to chop the harness on one wagon,” Bord'n told him. “Then the rest of the caravan has to go on, but the tail guard stays with them. Maybe we kill some bandits, and maybe we lose a wagon. But this clan's only been here three years.”

  ''So?”

  Joker said, “Bandits all start as criminals. They're forced out of wherever they lived. Did something dreadful. People along the Road shy from strangers, so they wind up with each other. If they can steal speckles they can keep going. They don't care who they get it from, caravan, village, each other. Sooner or later they run out. Then they turn stupid. They'll attack anything. Then they die ou
t and a whole new nest of the bastards has to grow up somewhere else. So whatever they have of techniques, it gets forgotten and then invented again, see?”

  Tim saw. He'd had time to think. He didn't ask which among them had learned to shoot prone. He'd watch. He didn't ask about cockades, and nobody else even referred to them.

  He'd never seen the gaudy sprays before today. When did merchants wear those hats? When bandits were expected, sure, and maybe when it rained. Spiral Town had never seen cockades, but anyone along the Road would know of them. He'd given himself away again.

  He'd been trained, all of the yutzes had been trained to shoot standing up. Rian and Joker shot prone while the yutzes stood to draw fire.

  The caravans had been at this a long time.

  Lost sleep didn't hamper him the next morning. His body had caught up with the stresses of a caravan chef, and the morning was glorious.

  10

  Repair and Maintenance

  Mankind's wastes have seeded potassium the length of the Crab. Birds and animals of Earth can survive on what gets into the plants. But how are the fish surviving?

  My research shows that none of Destiny's predators have learned to store fat. I believe that they have “learned” to avoid eating Earthlife: those who did, starved. Fish and shellfish evolved on Earth are potassium-shy, but they're competing only with other potassium-deficient Earthlife!

  -Wayne Parnelli, Marine Biology

  By morning light the caravan assessed its wounds.

  Two men and a woman of Wu wagon, #12, had bullet wounds and were being tended in Doheny wagon. The bandits who attacked Wu wagon had also killed a chug and damaged a wheel haft. The wheel was ruined.

  Ibn-Rushd wagon had severed ropes and, again, a hacked wheel. While bread was baked and distributed, the rest of the wagons hooked up their chugs and began to move. Two wagons remained behind with the damaged wagons.