Destiny's Road Part 6

"One of the merchants said that. I got insulted."

"Curdis's idea?"

"Yeah. The real Tim Hann would have been Curdis's older brother, but he died a year old."

"Tim Hann. I'm Tim Hann. Great. Anything else?"

Jemmy's fury rendered Thonny mute.

If he couldn't get Thonny talking any other way, Jemmy was ready to hold him under water. This was his lffe they were playing for! He said, "Look, if I'm Tim Hann, I have to sound like Tim Hann. Did Tim Hann see the killing?"

Thonny nodded.

"Where were you?"

"Across the room, near the fireplace."

"Did Jemmy Bloocher do it? Fine. With the merchant's gun? What does he look like? What did you change?"

"I didn't lie. It was just a better fight."

"Curdis was listening? I can ask him?"

"Yeah."

"What were they like, these merchants you met?"

"We saw three men at the bridge, with a woman. They searched us. We bought some stuff from them. They lost interest when we said we were broke. You're still broke going back, okay?"

"They'll expect me to know them coming back?"

Thonny thought it over, then shrugged.

"Okay. Where are we? What are all these people doing here?"

"I don't know. Living here. I peeled off before we got close to anyone."

"Uh-huh."

"Four or five of them saw us together. Older people, Mom's age.

They dress like, well, like Jael Harness."

"Did they wave? Throw rocks? Do they think we're weird?"

"They pointed at us and started shouting, maybe at us, maybe at the houses. Women too. Curdis and Brenda went on toward them, but I did what Curdis told me. I peeled off. Didn't let any of them get a close look.

Tied the bike to a tree. You just go through the swamp, get on the bike, and go join them."

Jemmy began to wonder if he sounded properly grateful. He said, "Sounds like it all went like somebody planned it," and smiled and hugged his brother.

That pleased Thonny. He asked, "How did you make out?"

Jemmy tried to tell him. "There's practically n.o.body on the Road. I mean at night, I only went at night. Stay with the frost line and you won't be seen. There's plenty of water, springs. If you see a bird flapping in a fool cage, that's your dinner. If it isn't moving, leave it."

"We trading backpacks?"

They did that. Jemmy said, "I made some fIres. Did you see anything? Smoke?"

"Tiny fires in rock pits. I left some fire pits. You break them up when you finish with them."

They looked at each other.

Jemmy said, "Thonny, thanks."

"It's okay." Thonny adjusted his backpack, grinned at his brother, and began to climb.

"Hats!" Jemmy shouted.

He sailed Thonny's hat up to Thonny. Thonny sailed his down to Jemmy. It flew over his head and settled on the water.

Jemmy waded into the gloom. The water was knee-deep and tepid.

Jemmy's hat was sinking out of sight. Jemmy retrieved it and put it on. It streamed water, soaked like a sponge, but he had no other way to carry it. He was glad to have it back.

The air smelled alien: wet and thick with greenery and rot. He crawled over tremendous roots. The water was thigh-deep now, icy around his ankles.

Crotch-deep. Was this the right direction? Seen from overhead, the grove hadn't seemed this big. Now he feared he'd never reach the Road.

Something limbless slid through the water. Again, nearer now. Julia sets hung thickly from the branches. From time to time a vine lifted a wedgeshaped head and flickered its tongue, to watch and sniff for clumsy prey.

Bright and colorful they were, and they shied from him too. Some snakes described in teaching programs were poisonous. Interstellar travelers wouldn't have brought poisonous snakes, would they? These were Earthlife, brought for decoration. Someone in Sol system's planning section must have liked snakes.

But Jemmy didn't, and the thought of being touched by such a thing-He'd reached the Road. But the dark water was waist-deep, and the Road was a smoothly curved rim of gray rock at eyebrow level. His hands slid over it. He couldn't get the grip that would pull him out.

Cursing, he wrestled his way up a banyan, then far enough along a branch to drop to the Road.

He rested on his knees, panting and dripping, his hands on its warm surface. The Road. He was home. By its look, by its feel, this was the Road that ran past Bloocher Farm.

But the houses on the far side were angular little boxes with drastically peaked roofs.

Three girls were coming toward him. They looked much alike, pale skin and narrow noses and hair the color of b.u.t.ter. Sisters or cousins, Jemmy's age. They dressed in older clothes of mismatched color that didn't quite fit.

Who were these people? Where had they come from?

Exiles from Spiral Town? When?

And where had Thonny left his bike? The girls shouldn't get the idea that this new Tim Hann didn't know.

Could be worse: boys would ask him embarra.s.sing questions.

Tied to a tree? That would be down in the swamp! But Thonny wouldn't have left his bike that way. And if he'd peeled off as soon as they saw locals, he must have left the bike up the Road toward Spiral Town.

Up the Road by nearly a mile, it tilted. Four big robust trees seemed to be right up against it. Jemmy walked toward them, followed at a distance by the girls.

The huge roots of five. . . seven banyans were actually lifting the edge of the Road.

There: Thonny's bike.

"h.e.l.lo," one of the girls called. "Are you Timmy Hann?" Jemmy freed the bike and wheeled it around. He didn't know what to do. But they'd spoken, they couldn't be much surprised if he talked back. He said, "Tim Hann," correcting their p.r.o.nunciation.

"I'm Loria. Everybody's down by the beach." She wasJemmy's height, the tallest of the girls. Narrow nose, narrow chin, wide eyes that held his oWfl. Her clothes looked like she'd dressed in the dark, in garments borrowed half from Spiral Town, half from merchants. "Can I ride your thing?"

"Bicycle."

She waited.

They'd never seen a bike before, had they? On whim Jemmy handed it over to her. He held it steady while she got on, and showed her how to set her feet on the pedals. He avoided touching her. They talked to boys, but they might take that more seriously.

He rolled the bike forward, gave her a chance to find the feel of it, then let go. She stayed up. He ran alongside. Still up, learning to steer but not quite fast enough. She was going to fall into the swamp!

He lunged for the seat of the bike, brushed her where she sat, tried again and had it. Pulled back, leaning into it, and stopped her short of the edge. His fingertips burned. "I f-forgot to talk about b-brakes," he said.

Loria listened, looked where he pointed, nodded, and tried again. A few false starts and she wobbled in among the houses, laughing, faster than he could follow.

One of the girls said, "I'm Tarzana. That's Gl-"

"Glind Bednacourt. We're all Bednacourt-"

"The Bednacourt sisters." Narrow noses, narrow chins, wide dancing eyes. Tarzana took his arm, Glind took his other arm, and they walked him between the houses.

The houses were two deep, with truck gardens between. The mudflat beyond grew black Destiny sandweed that thinned out near the ocean.

Fifty or sixty people were milling around braziers set on the bare mud.

Others were down by the water.

Jemmy felt the blood freezing in his arteries. They were all St rangers. He'd never seen so many strangers together. He hadn't guessed what that would do to him.

But the girls were urging him forward.

A few were examining Thonny's bike while Loria turned the pedals and the handlebars. Brenda- There! He'd found his sister.

Half a dozen men were out on the water, riding floating slabs.

"Glind, what are those?"

"Boards."

Brenda was with other girls at the sh.o.r.e, and a couple of men too, watching them. Some of those had boards, and two of the men on the water were women. It was confusing, an optical illusion. He'd seen them as all men because they were together, all wearing sleeveless shirts.

Curdis was in a group around one of the braziers. He waved enthusiastically and called, "Timtimtimmy!"

Thanks for the reminder. "Curdis! There's a thousand kinds of trees and a thousand kinds of snakes, and Destiny vines you could build a city on." And that gives Timtimtimmy a reason for going in there.

"Typical. You dive into a jungle and ignore the people. Drew, you really surprised us. We had no idea you were here. Tim, this is Drew Bednacourt."

"Pleased," Drew Bednacourt said, smiling. He was white-haired and muscular, Dad's age, and a white scar ran down his dark chest into his short pants. "You surprised us too." His handshake was hard, h.o.r.n.y.

Curdis said, "You're not that surprised."

Jemmy saw what he meant. Most of the locals weren't talking to the Spirals. They were fishing or cooking or floating on boards in the water.

Drew said, "We've seen merchants all our lives. The caravan went through two weeks ago. They'll be back in a week with whatever Haven and the Spirals leave."

Tarzana looked Jemmy over. "He's already wet, Dad. Tim, want to go for a swim? Do you know how to ride?"

Jemmy asked, "Ride?" Then he saw two men stand up on their boards while a wave hurled them forward.

He had to try that.

They sat in a circle on the sand, eating in near darkness. The red of sunset had faded. The only light was Quicksilver, a brilliant spark at the ocean's rim.

Jemmy was exhausted. The long day might have worn him out, but the surfing lesson was the finishing stroke. In the morning he was going to hurt.

He listened, half-dozing, while Curdis and Brenda talked to the Bednacourt girls and Cloochi boys. The girls were sisters born a year apart, Tarzana nineteen, Loria eighteen, Glind seventeen. Drew, their father, was cooking over the brazier with their mother, Wend, who had been surfing. Harl and Susie Cloochi were older, Wend Bednacourt's parents.

The girls began pa.s.sing out food. Jemmy didn't guess how hungry he was until he bit into a chicken leg. Then he ate like a starving wolf, whatever the girls brought him, chicken and corn and Earthlife fruit, Destiny crab and Destiny seaweed.

Quicksilver disappeared in a blink. Now the only light was stars, and a funny blue glow in the rolling waves.

Harl Cloochi said, "I'm an old man, Curdis. Is Quicksilver brighter than it used to be? I can never he sure. It's like Quicksilver disappears in a blink, and then the night's as black as inside my stomach."

"I'm only twenty-two," Curdis said.

"You're Spiral. You've still got machines that t~ach, they say."

'They're wearing out. Tim? Brenda? Remember anything about Quicksilver? From the schooling disks?"

Brenda did. "Quicksilver's closest to the sun, that must he why it's so bright. It's not very big. Quicksilver, Destiny, Volstaag, Hogun, Hela."

There was something else about Quicksilver. Something Jemmy had read and forgotten, and now it wouldn't come.

'How did you come here?" Curdis asked.

Susie Cloochi answered. "My father told me his family got in a fight with the Spirals. Mother was carrying me already. They took some seeds and stuff and came down the Road and found Twerdahi already here."

Jemmy exclaimed, "Twerdahl?"