Destiny's Road Page 4

  Normally roomy for the crowd it pulled in, Warkan's was just adequate When a caravan was in town. It wasn't just the merchants. Every human being between fifteen and twenty-five was at Warkan's Tavern tonight.

  The older Spirals wore dancers on their feet. No room to dance in here. Outside, later, on the Road, in the darkRooms normally closed had been opened. The big bar would be inhumanly crowded, and Jemmy led his brethren into one of the outer rooms. They'd be able to breathe here, and Varmint Killer was sparkling, darting, spitting threads of green light, and putting on a fine show outside the big windows.

  Tunia Judda was here, far across the big room. Tunia and Jemmy had been watching each other for years. Their parents were friends, and something might come of that, but they hadn't spoken of anything permanent. They'd dance on the Road later tonight.

  Jemmy played at catching her eye. Never worked. Women probably did the same thing men did: get a friend to do the looking.

  A few merchants were already here. Jemmy knew he shouldn't stare, but. . . They dressed in layers, in bright colors and patterns. Each man carried a gun, and each woman too.

  Rachel Harness had grown up lovely and a little twisted. She'd been feeding herself and her speckles-shy mom since she was a little girl.

  When the rest went to their homes for dinner, Rachel and her mom had stayed on the ridge to picnic and to watch.

  "We didn't see a trace of the chugs for over an hour," she told the girls at her table, unmindful of the clear fact that boys were listening too. "The merchants were all settling in, pitching tents, setting up cookfires. They didn't look worried at all. Then here came the chugs, a great long wave of them, all the chugs at once. The merchants all dropped what they were doing and climbed up on their wagons! They settled on their bellies and pulled their guns out."

  The merchants waited for service with more patience than locals did. They were listening to Rachel Harness with discreet amusement, men and women both.

  "Now here came-I don't know any word for them," Rachel said. "They look like big toothy fish swimming through sand-"

  A merchant, a man, turned in his chair and spoke to Rachel.

  "Sharks. They're all along this coast."

  Rachel didn't quite know how to handle that. She pretended she hadn't heard, but she was blushing. "-Fins all along both sides of them, low down along the belly. Nasty beaks. They were faster than the chugs, but the chugs had a head start. They came plodding back to the wagons and hid under them. The merchants started shooting. For ten minutes they shot at the, the sharks. They killed maybe ten before the rest turned tail.

  Warkan's Beach is going to stink in three days' time."

  Next to the man who had spoken, a merchant woman spoke to Rachel.

  "Willy's new to the train. Forgive him."

  Rachel nodded graciously. "But sure. I'm Rachel."

  "Hillary. It's a good bargain for the chugs, Rachel. Pull our wagons, get our protection. The lungsharks are the reason we carry guns-"

  "Will anyone sell me speckles?"

  The merchant woman turned in some annoyance. The noise level had dropped. Many were turning to the doorway, or turning away, pretending nothing had happened.

  Everyone knew that merchants didn't sell when they were at dinner.

  But everyone knew Evleen. She was nine when her dad died. After that she didn't get enough speckles, until someone noticed. Deprived late like that, she didn't have the look of a speckle-shy. She looked like any eighteen-year-old girl. But it had touched her mind.

  The merchants were trying to ignore Evleen. So were the Spiral women. Wouldn't any of them stop her? But no man could speak to her, sojemmy turned back to his table. Look for conversation, start a quarrel, any kind of distraction.

  But his attention snagged on a familiar face-a merchant, he'd seen that man before!-as the man reached out and pulled Evleen into his lap.

  The merchant was big and brawny. His speech was slurred by a merchant's accent, and something more. Hard to believe that he could get himself drunk so soon after shooting down a pack of, what had the woman called them? Sharks?

  Evleen's response was friendly. She and the brawny merchant said a few words to each other. The merchant pulled out a transparent pouch of speckles.

  Jemmy was on his feet. He had to do something. He had no idea what he would say to the man. Suddenly it didn't matter, because Thonny was shaking the man's arm, shouting into a thick silence, and then the man's arm swung out and Thonny went down with his arms across his face.

  Jemmy's hand closed on the merchant's shoulder from behind.

  Evleen went flying. The merchant was up and turning, one hand under Jemmy's chin, and he l~fted. His scruffy-bearded face was half the universe, and now Jemmy remembered him.

  Eight years ago. He'd carried a tub of sherbet from Guilda's Place.

  He'd blasted a hole through a watermelon for all the children of Spiral Town to see. Vivid as Hell, Jemmy remembered the watermelon exPloding like blood all over Davish Scrivner.

  Fedrick. He was hideously strong, and Jemmy hadn't ever been this frightened.

  Evleen was trying to get up. She cried, "Nooo, Jemmy, I don't want to be like Rachel's ma!"

  His feet were off the floor. A wall was against his back. In an instant his throat would be crushed. Fedrick was in his face, and he remembered.

  Remembered the gun.

  In Fedrick's belt.

  Here. Jemmy had the gun butt. Jemmy had seen what such a weapon could do to a melon. He lifted and turned it and pulled the trigger.

  The sound was deafening. The gun lurched inJemmy's hand. Fedrick gaped in horror and let him loose.

  Jemmy dropped to the floor. He looked down at what he'd done, and it was worse than he could have imagined.

  There was a hole in Fedrick, in his left side, pumping blood. Blood spilled down his shirt and pantaloons. A man Fedrick's size had Fedrick by the shoulder, and that man's horror was a match for Fedrick's.

  Fedrick's eyes turned up and he started to fall. The other man took a moment to ease him to the floor. Evleen gibbered in fear, staring wideeyed at Fedrick. Now the big trader let go of Fedrick, and Fedrick fell, and Jemmy saw what Evleen saw.

  The hole in Fedrick's back looked as big as Jemmy's head.

  The silence was ending, and men were starting to stand up.

  Jemmy ran.

  The near door was past several merchants, and they were all getting up. Jemmy ran through tables of Spiral women instead. A lone merchant gaudy in gray and yellow had his belt for an instant before Jemmy ripped loose.

  He almost took the stairs; pictured how many guns would pick him off if they all had a clear shot; ran around and out the Warkans' front door.

  The window above the front door was one that opened. He remembered Addard and Sandy and Telema Warkan shouting through it, heads together, long ago.

  Jemmy jumped and had the sill; pulled himself up, pulled the window open and was back inside on the landing halfway up. Flat on the floor, catching his breath, while traders and Spiral men swarmed below him and outside.

  He crawled the rest of the way to the second floor. Through Addard's room to the balcony, down the outside stair to the truck garden.

  The truck garden was a jungle in spots. Killer was busy at one end.

  Jemrfly worked his way through shadow and weeds at the other end, into the less cultivated regions of the Warkan farm, making away from the Road.

  4

  L eavetaking

  Probes have gone before. We expected an Earihiike world, Norn, and from orbit it seems all that we hoped. I've renamed it Destiny.

  -Daryl Twerdahl, Defensive Ecology

  Warkan farmland trailed off toward the sea. The land was barren rock and sand. It would barely support Destiny life and it barely hid Jemmy Bloocher.

  The old fence was another ancients' miracle. Corrosion had not touched it in more than two centuries. It ran for over a mile between Bloocher and Warkan land, all the way into the
shallow waves. The fence was three grades of mesh laid over each other, filters to stop anything from seeds to sharks to chugs.

  Spiral children learned early: those fine strands would cut flesh.

  The first settlers must have been anal-retentive about property rights. Or was this another attempt to confine Destiny?

  The fence would cut a chug's mouth. Merchants never released chugs close to the fence.

  But the fence didn't stop Destiny seaweed.

  Here at the shoreline a grove of black and yellow-green devilhair ran into the sea and out as far as Carder's Boat. Weed had nearly swallowed the boat; had entirely swallowed the fence. By using the fence as a frame, the weed gained access to sunlight and the sea's nutrients too.

  Jemmy reached the beach at a run. He swarmed over the humped weed onto Bloocher turf and kept running. Adrenaline raged in his blood. He wanted to run until the breath seared his lungs.. . but every Spiral knew where he must come. Any of them might tell a merchant.

  He spared a moment's glance for the settler's miracle offshore.

  They'd never find him there! and for good reason. A swimmer would never reach Carder's Boat. He'd be tangled in the weed and drowned.

  He stopped, his chest heaving. Then he made himself crawl through the rows of wheat, uphill toward the house.

  It seemed quiet. Merchants would have flooded the house with light and noise.

  Jemmy went in through the root cellar, then up into the kitchen, softly, softly.

  Loaves of bread were still in the oven. He left them for the moment.

  More stairs, well lighted. There was light under his parents' door, and under Junior's. Margery's. Margery and Curdis. He eeled into his room and stood in the dark, thinking.

  The Warkans had their reasons to let the fence go like that, but the Bloochers had no excuse for such slovenliness.

  Not his business, now. Jemmy Bloocher wasn't going to be running Bloocher Farm after all. What could he take? Just the backpack and the hiking gear in it. Real shoes. A flash, a canteen, blankets; thick hiker's gloves, because much of Destiny life was armed with thorns or poison. He added underwear and socks and shirts, going by feel in the dark. He was already wearing a jacket. What else? Anything he left behind now was gone forever. Pen and a pad of paper- He heard the front door slam. Only minutes now, he thought-and

  his own door slammed back against the wall and light blazed in his eyes.

  Jemmy was standing with his hands spread wide and showing empty when the ceiling lamp came on. Curdis lowered the flash. "Jemmy," he said. "Thought it might be some thieving merchant."

  Jemmy said, "I've killed a merchant."

  Curdis's eyes only narrowed, but Jemmy heard Junior's gasp. She wedged herself around Curdis and squeaked, "Jemmy!," swallowing the scream because they'd wake their parents.

  Curdis turned out the lamp. "We're too close to the Warkan place,"

  he said.

  Why would you-even-" Junior caught herself and was silent.

  The dark was welcome. Jemmy said, "I have to run."

  Thonny's voice spoke from the hall. "He was trying to save me. Even SO, Jemmy, that was crazy."

  "I know-"

  "Crazy, Jemmy!" Brenda.

  Curdis said briskly, "Just hide for a while. Get your camp gear and- you've got it already? Hide in the hills. Wait for the caravan to go away. We don't know anything, didn't see anything, can't guess-"

  "They come three times every two years. Everyone knows where Bloocher Farm is. Everyone knows who I am!"

  "Three times every two years, you just aren't here. Caravans come, you go. Bloocher F-Farm-" Curdis stopped.

  That was the sticking point, all right. Margery was Bloocher Farm for now, but in half a year she and Curdis Hann would be farming the New Hann Holding. The head of Bloocher Farm had to deal with merchants, if only for speckles.

  Jemmy said, "Curdis, I want to take the speckles bread that's in the oven. Okay? Thonny, you'll have Bloocher Farm when Curdis and Margery move Out." They'd have to postpone moving, he thought, until Thonny was older. Curdis must see that already. "If merchants want to search the farm for a fugitive, go them one better. Lead them down to where the fence goes into the sea. It's covered with enough weed to feed a caravan, the chugs would have a head start on the sharks, and we'll get the shore cleaned off to boot."

  Thonny nodded, eyes glassy, mouth open.

  Curdis said, "Hold it. Jemmy, caravans use the Road."

  Jemmy hadn't thought quite that far.

  "The merchants only just got here. They'll stay awhile," Thonny said. "Jemmy, if you can get around them they can't catch you. Chugs don't move fast."

  "They'll send someone to block the Road," Curdis said.

  Thonny and Brenda and Margery came into Jemmy's room and found seats on the bed, the bureau, the footlocker, This was going to take some thought.

  "One step at a time," Curdis said. "The merchants will search Spiral Town. They'll demand that, and nobody will stop them. You can't hide in town."

  "I've got to leave."

  "Have you thought of just hiding in the hills?"

  Jemmy said, "We hike the hills, but merchants must know that whole range end to end. And if they found me-Curdis, they wouldn't have to take me to trial. Bang and plant a tree. Who'd know?"

  "You'd be pretty conspicuous on the Road, too. How do you think you'll get around them?"

  "It's our Road too," Thonny said tentatively.

  Brenda said, "Yeah. Let's go for a walk."

  In the dark one could just see Thonny's disgusted look. But Curdis tasted the notion. "Go for a nice long walk down the~ Road? Me and Thonny?Jemmy, you go over the hills. You can stay hidden in the brush for a few days, can't you? Meet us-"

  "I'm coming too," Brenda announced.

  Curdis ignored her. "Meet us somewhere down the Road, Jemmy.

  Then I'll trade packs with you. From then on, you're Curdis Hann: me.

  You come back by Road, with Thonny. I'll come back through the hills.

  If I'm caught, hey, I'm just off camping. I'll-"

  "Come back by way of the New Hann," Margery said. "You're tending our own land."

  Curdis nodded. It would give him legitimacy if he were caught.

  "I'm coming too," Brenda repeated. Margery said, "All right, Brenda."

  "Margely-"

  "Darling, you'll need her to talk to merchant women!"

  Thonny suggested, "Bicycles?"

  "Good," said Curdis. "We can let things settle for a day or two and still beat Jemmy to. . . where shall we meet?"

  "There aren't that many bicycles on the Road. I'll find you, "Jemmy said. Curdis sat in the dark, moving his lips, while they watched him.

  Presently he said, "The merchants search Spiral Town and don't find you.

  Your camping gear is gone. So's our store of speckles, so you buy some more, Margeiy-"

  Jemmy said, "I wouldn't take your speckles-"

  "You would if you were going forever. Instead, we can bring you home after the merchants have searched the farm and Spiral Town. You take my place here. They're searching the hills by then, but at worst they find just me, camping on my own land. After they're gone you can grow a beard or something. Lie about your age, marry someone, move to another farm. We'll have time to work that out."

  "I like it," Junior (Margery!) said. "I wish I could come-"

  "You're in charge here," Curdis said gently.

  They were deciding his future.

  Margeiy said, "Okay. Thonny and Brenda and Curdis on bikes. Don't look at me like that, Thonny, you're brother and sister! Not betrothed.

  Oh, hell!"

  "What?"

  "Curdis, you can't pass for Jemmy."

  Curdis had straight black hair, yellow-dark skin, eyes with an epicanthic fold. Hmmm?Jemmy said, "I only have to pass for Curdis coming back. Going out is when they'll be looking to be sure he's not me. Me, escaping. Going out, you're innocent. Let them look."

  They closed
the curtains and turned on the lights. Margery posed Jemmy next to Curdis, examined them and said, "No."

  And Brenda was a girl.

  But Thonny moved up next to Jemmy, shorter by three inches, and Margery said, "Maybe on a bicycle."

  They took all of Jemmy's clothes out of the bureaus and carried them in armloads into Thonny's room. They began putting together matching outfits.

  "You can switch scarves and hats," Margery said, and they tried it.

  "Right. Thonny, you stay on the bike. When you're not on the bike, you don't lean on the bike, don't lean on a wall, don't lean. Stand up like a man. Be careful coming back. Camp out on the New Hann land until someone comes for you.

  "Jemmy, coming back, you're Thonny. You always lean on the bike, or a wall. Don't be seen standing straight up. Curdis, you wear those dancers going out, but you put those high-heel shyster-stomper boots in your bike bag. You're taller than Thonny going out, you'd better be taller than Jemmy coming back."

  Curdis nodded in the semidark.

  "Now, how did it happen, the killing? Hush, Jemmy. Brenda?"

  Junior wanted Brenda's version, then Thonny's, and never bothered with Jemmy's. Then she told them all, "Take your time going and coming.

  Stop and talk to everyone. Thonny, Brenda, if a merchant asks you about the killing, you tell him. 'I was there, I saw it all.' Babble! But you haven't seen Jemmy since then, and you don't think you ever will. Jemmy, you heard everything Thonny said? You tell it that way coming back Once again Jemmy moved along the shore. Two more fences to cross. He went back up through rows of lettuce, the Wayne Holding. Where he crossed the Road it was deep into its first curve.

  Gasoline Alley, then the next inward loop of Road, then Baker Street. The graveyard had been well beyond the town for two good centuries, but Spiral Town had reached it at last. Jemmy stepped from the empty shops of Harrow Street into a grove of willows.

  Destiny life wouldn't grow among the graves. The Spiral Town graveyard covered more than a square mile with nothing but Earthlife: long, lank grass, clover, and trees up to 240 years old.