Destiny's Road (32 page)

"That probe said something about a free ride-?"

Willametta said, "If you give birth in here, the baby goes back out and you go with her. Only twice, though. Then they char your tubes."

"But men don't get pregnant." Rafik laughed. "We're screwing for nothing."

"Fourteen of us."

"We're the maxers," Andrew said. "Destroy life support, it's seven years, and they're generous with that term, aren't they, Wibbya? Kill, it's seven years. I killed two, never mind why, the Board won't listen. Now, I scouted the mountain today. That place you found, Rafik? It doesn't work. I had to go farther. Six klicks toward the fields, then up. There's a channel up to a ridge that runs another two klicks back. Must be an old flow. Then another channel up, and that'lb take us over."

"And down to the Road!" Barda didn't see Andrew's shrug, or ignored it. "On the Road we can pass. If anyone comes, the rest hide, we do the talking. But Jeremy's right, Andrew. Two of us together still look... gaunt?"

Jemmy said, "Like so many liches risen untimely from our graves. One of us at a time is only skinny, but two or three together- You can't see it? You've been together too long. Andrew, can we all climb?" He could. No thirteen felons could outclimb Jemmy Bloocher.

"Don't know," Andrew said. "I need as many as I can get. We're going to take over a caravan."

Jemmy sighed. They were crazy after all.

Barda said, "We need you to tell us what they're like. How they're armed."

Well, it had to be dealt with. He asked, "Where were you going to jump them? This side of the Neck? That way you're only fighting fifty or sixty merchants. Other way, you'd be fighting yutzes too."

"This side, sure. We'll be lucky to get that far. But we'll only be facing bird guns."

"That's yutz guns, Andrew. They're the same as bird guns but with a solid bullet for putting holes in lungsharks and bandits. When bandits jumped us we shot them with yutz guns. But when the merchants went off alone to kill all the bandits, they took stuff from Spadoni wagon that they wouldn't let us look at. I saw just enough. Prole guns, Andrew!"

Silence.

"The toolhouse is locked till morning. You've got no guns at all."

Andrew stood, turned, opened one of the bins with a key. He lifted it just into sight: a prole gun.

A shudder ran through him. Jemmy said, "We looked in there." His hand reached out without consulting his forebrain.

Andrew pulled it away. "I came in after the proles left."

"Bullets?''

"Two chains." Andrew lifted those too, and Jemmy stood to look. He had never seen chains of bullets meant to feed into a prole gun; but, standing, he could see that both loops were part empty.

It was suicide, and, more than that, it was murder. They'd end up killing as many merchants as they could before the merchants killed all of them.

He could rave against spilling blood all over the Road, but would it persuade these already-murderers? Or would they only kill Jemmy Bloocher? Try something else. He asked, "Do you know how to make a caravan move?"

Andrew said, "You do."

"I know how to tend chugs," Jemmy said. "I'm a chef. I did a little mending. I never drove a wagon. I can't do it all." Jemmy wondered if they'd believe that. "What time of year is it? The date tells us if we'll get a caravan on its way to the Crab, or coming back, or nothing at all. Willya, what's the date? Rafik? I've lost track myself."

"We can't wait," Willametta said.

Rafik said, "We'll find someone on the Road. Ask."

"Uh-huh. Then we'll know if we're between caravans. That could take months."

Murderous silence.

"Of course we might outrun a caravan. They can't move faster than a chug. But you didn't even know that much, did you? What you don't know, doesn't it scare you?

"Now, if there's a caravan, and if fourteen of us could take it, you'd lose some wagons just by shooting them up. Bullets kill chugs too. That gives you a short wagon train, and maybe eight or ten left alive to run it, and nothing to sell-"

Andrew released a bit of his fury. "Hold it, you son of a dirty bird! Why nothing to sell?"

"Andrew, a caravan full of trade goods is on its way to meet the other caravan! They stop on the Neck, nose to nose. They transfer all the yutzes and throw a big party. They see we're fakes and shoot us all dead.

"So you can't stop the outbound caravan. You could stop the caravan that's coming back and turn it around, but it'll be full of stuff they bought on the Road, and every little town along the Road is going to notice one caravan following another. With not enough people to defend it. And that, Andrew, is when your pitiful few survivors of that last fight get to die at the hands of bandits. By the way, there's no point in negotiating with bandits. They're speckles-shy. By then, I guess we'll be too."

Barda Winslow stood. She said, "Go away."

Jemmy went.

Hot water flooded over him. He stopped trying to think. Just let it happen. Ancient luxury. The water never had run like this at Bloocher Farm.

A voice shouted "Hey!" and a hand touched his arm. Then the twins were under the shower with him. He laughed and shouted into an ear, "What if someone wants the men's room?"

"Amnon's guarding."

"We asked Willya. She said you could use a distraction."

"If anyone else comes in, we break this up."

"Rita's mostly here to take care of me. Some men, they'd get rough."

They connected, he and Dolores, sitting in a thundering flood of hot water. Rita was massaging his back and shoulders, and that felt good. Jemmy found he could still shout. "Trying to get a free ride out?"

"Yeah!"

They rode.

In the aftermath glow he reached up along Rita's leg. "Hey. If Dolores gets pregnant but you don't, would they take her but not you?"

"Girl, move over. Hey, yutz, you got any of that left?"

"Weeks. I was saving it-" for Loria. "Well, save it no more."

Then someone did come in, and the women rolled to either side and were on their feet, and Rita turned off the shower while Jemmy lay bedazzled and bewildered.

Three shadows seen through fog. "Just us. Down, Rita! Jeremy, we've talked. Can you join us?"

"Sure."

Barda and Rafik and Henry emerged from the steam. He was still short of sleep, he thought, but there wasn't any way to rest now. "Barda, do we have time to talk? If I thought of looking for windbird blood on Shimon's shirt-"

"They won't find it," Rafik said carelessly. "Come on."

Jemmy got his shorts on. He was talking as they walked toward the airlock end. "I shot both birds. Then they both chewed Shimon up. They must have gotten their own blood all over him. The proles will think of looking. The question is, did it wash off?"

Henry began swearing. Rafik's glare was the kind that kills. Barda took Andrew aside and began to whisper.

They broke. "All right," Andrew said, "we have to go. I have to go. I killed a prole tonight for that gun. Jeremy, for Earth's sake, when did you think of this?"

"Came to me while I was in the shower."

"What can we do? Steal one wagon? Do they ever separate?"

"They can be separated. There are stories. You need more than fourteen people for a bandit gang, though. Yet again, Andrew, what would you do with it? Even if we could peel off a wagon and kill everyone in it and take all their yutz guns, we wouldn't have enough firepower to hold off shark attacks. We'll lose our chugs in the first week! That's why they take so many wagons."

"Well, if it's that hopeless, there's no point in any of you going. I'm a trusty. You c-"

"I'm coming," Barda snapped without looking up. She was rolling the biggest of the kitchen knives into a pair of shorts.

"You couldn't have stopped me doing anything," Andrew told her. "Didn't know I was out there killing a prole and hiding the pack wagon. Can't stop me now, 'cause I'm holding that damned hose of a prole gun. So, Jeremy, do you have anything to say that isn't 'We're all gonna die'?"

Jemmy said, "I think we can become a restaurant."

The Run

Old sun, old planet, means less of heavy metals and radioactives. The crust is too thick for plate movement and mountain building. Destiny doesn't really have more water than earth, but it covers nearly everything.

-Henry Judd, Planetologist

Andrew stopped them just outside the stormlock in the flapping white light of the electric banner. "I forgot something." He grinned, and turned to go back in.

Jemmy had him by the poncho. "No you don't. Amnon!" he bellowed.

The snout of the prole gun pushed into Jemmy's throat. Andrew almost-whispered, "Just what d-?"

Jemmy screamed, "He's going to kill the ones who stayed!" The crowd of refugees melted. Jemmy couldn't tell who ran or where they hid, but Barda and Willametta moved immediately to Andrew's side. They whispered urgent remonstrances, their hands caressing his arms, while Amnon stepped up behind him and wrapped his big arms around Andrew's head.

But Andrew pushed the prole gun hard under Jemmy's chin, and Jemmy didn't try to move.

Amnon's arms began to tighten and twist. He asked, "The twins too, you birdfucker?"

"We can't leave them to talk!"

Barda was holding the point of the biggest of the kitchen knives just under Andrew's eye.

Andrew cursed and released the gun. Jemmy caught the heavy thing and cradled it, pointing it at nobody. A tiny green light twinkled in the butt. He said, "You never did have a plan, did you? Just kill and kill until something stops you."

"Nooo."

"Jeremy. Jeremy! Give me the gun a minute."

"What?" Jemmy swung round; the gun swung too. One of the twins shied back.

"Just give me the gun for a breath," she pleaded, laughing.

"I don't think so."

"Then you do it. Shoot up the toolhouse a little."

"Bad idea, Rita."

"Dolores. But look-"

Willya shouted, "Barda, don't cut him, it's all right! Let him go. Now what, Andrew?"

Andrew snarled like a beast.

"Plan," Jemmy said in disgust. Without Andrew the rest had no direction, but Jemmy Bloocher might as well be lost on another planet.

He said, "Push anyone stupid enough to trust you until he drops out, then kill him for it. Kill proles till they shoot everyone who's still with you. Keep it up till there's nobody left. Plan?"

Andrew wrenched himself loose, and they let him do it. He shook himself, and strode off shouting, "Follow me!"

The flapping yellow blaze dwindled into black rain.

In the rain and the thunder there was a rustling too, and motion that wasn't just trees in the wind. A big bird dropped from the sputtering sky and lifted again with a turtle-shape in its four sawtooth-edged feet.

Andrew had told them to keep their ponchos. He was right. The night was alive.

Rafik Doe recognized tree roots strangling a sharp-edged boulder, and fished Jemmy Bloocher's pack from underneath. Those on the short list stripped and donned the swim trunks and windbreakers from Carder's Boat, then wore their firebird colors over them. Jemmy gave his prole gun to Amnon before he pulled a windbreaker over his head, then his own old and battered pack. Amnon handed the gun back, somewhat to Jemmy's surprise, and got himself dressed.

They'd walked halfway back to the field where Shimon died. In a sputter of lightning they watched a battle between shadows of birds. Rafik complained in a continuous drone, until others took up the theme too.

"Here!" said Andrew.

He meant a line of spiky black-and-bronze foliage dug into the crack that ran up a near-vertical rock face.

There were exclamations and protests, and then they climbed. Jemmy waited to help the laggards.

Shar Willoughby got ten meters up and froze.

Jemmy climbed up to show her which plants would hold, where to place her feet. She shook her head and wouldn't look or move. "Get me down. Just get me down."

Andrew and Barda were high above him. He couldn't ask: Do we need Shar? She was wearing shorts and windbreaker! But she'd never make it, and she was blocking the path.

A ten-meter fall would break bones. He guided her down, letting her stand on his shoulders when he had to. She knelt at the bottom, panting like a dog. He made her strip and took her shorts and windbreaker.

The others were climbing. Shar plodded back toward the barracks.

Jemmy pulled himself along a row of Destiny plants. Or was it all one plant? He couldn't see a break, just a line of roots prying a mountainsized rock apart.

Before that crack ran out there was another.

The world was all tilted surfaces, black and lightning-white, and roar of thunder. He remembered wandering in a daze, mostly blind and mostly deaf, pulling himself from nowhere to nowhere just because he wasn't dead yet. .

But this night was very different from the night he'd abandoned Carder's Boat. He'd been fed and succored, and twelve people had given their lives into his hands... gloves. Nobody else had gloves.

The plants ended suddenly. Other climbers started having trouble. Jemmy had to double back a few times to guide the others to foot- and handholds. The prole gun's strap left Jemmy's arms free. He could see Andrew watching from far above.

If Jemmy slipped, Andrew would have the gun again.

"Here," Andrew bellowed. "The ledge. Leave your ponchos here. Firebird shorts too. Use rocks to weigh them down."

Rafik exclaimed, "Now what on Earth are you playing at, Andrew?"

"Do it right!" Andrew bellowed. He'd left his own clothing where he was, fifty feet above the ledge, sleeves spread and wedged in cracks. "They can't see through unless the clouds break!" He scrambled back and helped Rafik, then Willametta, then Amnon place rocks to display flame-colored ponchos and shorts against dark wet rock. The others were getting the idea.