Destiny's Road (4 page)

"Great!" Curdis called.

Caravans came three times every two Destiny years: midsummer, first days of spring, last days of autumn. This was midsummer, idle time: neither sowing nor reaping season, a good time for a caravan to visit.

Killer's long tongue lashed into the bronze vegetation and out. Then Killer itself lurched into motion. "Something must have come out of a burrow," Thonny said softly. "It wants the rest of the family."

Jane called, "Thonthonthonny! You owe me four checks!" Jane was only eight.

Greegry called, "Curdis, there's someone on a bike. He's stopping near our bikes!"

"I'll go see," Curdis said. He stood, and Junior joined him. Jemmy got up too, but Curdis gestured him back.

Killer was in the Destiny weeds. They heard the snap! snap! snap! of Killer's whip tentacles. Jane had crawled close to watch.

Thonny was probably right: it was trying to reach prey in a burrow. A whip could be trapped that way.

The whip sounds came less frequently. And here came Curdis, jogging. 'We've got to move Killer," he panted. "Jemmy, see if you can get him to follow the pop-hopper."

Jemmy picked up the cage. The pop-hopper didn't look good. "What's up?"

Margery was in range by now. "That girl was from the Council," she called to all. "All fees forgiven if we take Varmint Killer to the Tavern before sunset. The caravan's come early."

They could use the money! Jemmy moved toward the Destiny weeds. Killer had to be approached with respect. He stopped twelve meters away and lifted the cage into view. You never got closer than ten meters, because that was the range of its whips.

Killer was motionless.

So was the pop-hopper.

The wind would be out to sea, and that meant he was downwind. Jemmy began to circle, the cage held high. Dad swore that it didn't matter; Killer couldn't smell; it sensed Destiny life by some other means.

Curdis lost patience. "We'll have to catch another one. Greegry, get down from there. Thonny, find a stick. You get to the far side of that clump-that clump, way away from Killer-and you beat your way through. Anything jumps up, whack it. You're trying to scare it this way, right? Greegry! Find a stick and go help Thonny. Jemjemjemmy?"

"It's dead, Curdis."

"Dump it and stand by with the cage. Get your gloves on."

Jemmy opened the cage and dumped the little shelled corpse and the withering weeds he'd put in with it. He began picking fresh yellow and bronze lace.

Killer wailed, a long, loud cry of warning. Then its whips began flailing around it, lashing the Destiny plants at root level. It slid slowly through the dark patch, lashing everything in its way. Though it was not moving straight toward Jemmy, Jemmy eased back.

The decrepit machine didn't take orders anymore. It sought Destiny weeds and Destiny animals. When they were not about, its tropism was weak and it went where it would.

A tree-sized Destiny plant balked it. Killer pulled in its whips until it had rolled past. Plant life was only part of Killer's job. A human- Curdis-would pull up the stumps Killer left behind.

"Hyah!" Curdis bellowed, and three boys leapt on something that tried to sprint out from under them. Jemmy ran toward them. Thonny trapped its beak in a bag. The others were sitting on the shell; its short legs scrabbled in futility.

The Destiny thing was a bit big for the cage. They pushed its bulk in with the butt of a stick. "Good enough. It's jammed in, it can't crawl out," Junior said.

Killer had slashed away most of the weed patch. It rested now. Curdis picked up the cage and walked toward it.

Killer began to move.

Curdis retreated. Killer wasn't fast. They moved down toward the Road, Curdis and the cage, the old machine following.

The heavy cage was passed to Jemmy, then to Junior, and back to Curdis before they'd crossed three and a half kilometers to Warkan's Tavern. Curdis had Thonny and Brenda making bike runs to get lemonade to the others.

The sun was still high, and Quicksilver a bright spark above it. The dust plume that must be an oncoming caravan was closer now, but not close. Other young adults were beginning to gather.

The Warkan place was the Bloochers' neighbor, down the Road on the seaward side. It was still part farm. The four Warkan kids and their parents ran the tavern in the evenings. They kept a distillery and a truck garden going, and an extensive orchard. They did less weeding than most, and parts of the Warkan farm were often overgrown with dark Destiny plants.

The Tavern's waiters and waitresses were in their mid- and late teens. They had to talk to each other, if only to coordinate their tasks. Jemmy had worked through two caravan visits. He hoped to again.

Land that was allowed to become infested was subject to confiscation by the Council. But the Warkans could afford to lease Varmint Killer frequently. Likely they would pay the Council a premium to get Killer to Warkan's Tavern by sunset, for the entertainment value.

Mom and Dad weren't as friendly to the Warkans as in time past. They preferred Harry's Bar, near the Hub, that catered to an older crowd.

But Warkan's Tavern felt like home.

Youngsters in the gathering crowd danced near Killer, or hovered well back and shouted advice, while the Bloochers led the machine through the garden gate and around back.

Destiny life hadn't gained much of a foothold here. Jemmy had visited as a kid. He knew this place better than Curdis did. He took the cage and led Killer to the near edge of the pear grove.

Earthlife found Destiny's sun a little cool, a little red. It was Destiny life that sought shade. These trees of Earth had overly black shadows around their trunks: Destiny weeds.

Older men and women were finding vantage places across the Road. There was plenty of room on the ridge. A bonfire was a pale glitter. The Martinas were roasting potatoes up there. Curdis found people for a murderball game.

From the ridge you could see down to the shore and farther, out to where Carder's Boat had been anchored since Dad was a boy. That had been the fastest thing on water before the motor died. Dad's generation used to swim out to it with lunch bags, use it as a raft. Then Destiny devilhair weed moved in. Now weed blackened the water from the boat to the beach and further.

In a time now lost, Carder's Boat would carry a child anyplace he could dream. Now there were only the caravans, and that too was a dream.

They were all on the ridge when the dust plume arrived.

This had changed since Jemmy was a boy: caravans no longer came into Spiral Town. Merchants did, but not with their wagons. Caravans stopped about where Bloocher Farm began, where the Road turned. It was better for everyone. Here the chugs had a straight run down to the ocean, and chug droppings need not soil civic pavement.

The wagons began stopping along a kilometer of Road. They stopped well apart. Then the wagonmasters went among the chugs and released their harness.

Twenty chugs pulled most wagons, with here and there a chug missing. From his high perch Jemmy was able to count eighteen wagons. Close to four hundred chugs streamed across black salt grass, then sand, toward the ocean and in.

There was not much to be seen after that. The merchants were opening their wagons. That was of interest if you had money. The teens on the ridge were generally disappearing in the direction of dinner, and so did the Bloochers.

Jemmy took the speckles shaker down. He measured a careful half-jigger and kneaded it into the bread dough, pulled it into two loaves, and put it in the oven. He shook the speckles jar again, reached up, and put it away.

"Curdis," he said, "we need more speckles."

"Margery?"

She'd heard. "It's a big caravan this time. Wait till tomorrow. They'll go cheaper."

Mom had three pots on the fire. She asked, "Margery? Can you handle this?"

"Yeah."

Mom went into the dining hall and sat beside Dad.

Margery reached for pot holders. Curdis moved up beside her and whispered something. She moved aside so that he could pull the heavy casserole out of the oven and take it to the table.

Dad said, "Saw the dust plume."

"Caravan's in town," Curdis said, and talked about moving Varmint Killer.

Dad nodded and nodded and presently asked, "Master Granger there?"

"I saw him," Jemmy said. Master Granger was an older man, proprietor of the lead wagon, though a younger woman drove. He and Dad had been friends. Jemmy and Dad had taken Granger and his driver to Harry's Bar, before Dad's accident.

Dad nodded and didn't suggest doing that again. Some days his mind worked better than others. Dad could barely get out of the house.

He wanted to know everything about today. Jemmy talked, with some help from Thonny, while Mom helped him eat.

The New Hann. The caravan. Chugs in a sand-colored wave rolling down the sand into the ocean.

Mom and the girls were talking about marriages, crops, weather, prices.

Jemmy had heard this too often, endless permutations, endlessly the same. He waited for an instant's pause and jumped into it. "Dad, how far down the Road have you gotten?"

"Oh, hell, Jemmy. Not far. We used to visit the Warkans, swim there, when the Warkans were the farthest. I hear tales, but.... don't think I ever got as far as where you were today."

The Road. He might never learn more of the Road than he'd learned from the schooling programs.

"Your uncle Eezeek had to go down the Road for awhile. Folk at Haven took him in-"

"Eezeek died years ago," Mom said.

But the merchants knew. Maybe somebody could get them talking.

Quicksilver glowed among lesser stars, just on the horizon.

A cart moved silently past the Bloocher clan toward Warkan's Tavern, moved by electricity and an old motor. It carried huge rolls of Begley cloth sheeting from the cavern in Mount Apollo: the most important product Spiral Town had to sell. It ghosted past the tavern and stopped by the lead wagon.

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 dark rooms 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, so Jemmy 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.