Destiny's Road

"And this is yours." Damon stooped and dug under the bench. Senka ibn-Rushd slid aside for him. He came out with what Tim recognized as a gun, and a broad belt in his other hand.

He handed the gun to Tim. "Have you ever fired a shark gun?"

Tim Bednacourt said, "No." He took the gun, suppressing the flinch, and held it as if he didn't know which part was the handle. It looked exactly like the gun that had killed Fedrick. He felt queasy.

"Hold it like this." Damon showed him. "Never point at anything valuable, and never at a person. Keep your fingers off the trigger unless you're serious. These are bullets." Bullets were the size of Tim's thumb a ball of metal in a case made of what might be compressed vegetable fiber, "You load it like this. It doesn't work without bullets." The gun took eight. "Never be caught with an unloaded gun. Twice never at sunset or sunrise! Let's get up on the roof and I'll give you some practice."

Pull and jump, Damon was on the roof. Tim set his hands, pulled and jumped, lunged too far as the wagon rolled, and nearly fell off.

The roof was flat. At its corners were coils of rope. Cloth had been nailed along a ten-centimeter-high rim.

"Some of us like to get down on our bellies, prop up on our elbows and shoot that way," Damon said. "I'm not going to teach you that. You can't swing far enough. Something could come at you from the side. See that tree?"

Not far inland, a slender Destiny fisher tree leaned far over, tip almost horizontal, lace blowing and shredding in a brisk breeze.

"Suppose you want to shoot the tip off that. Stand facing right by a little." About thirty degrees right. "You're right-handed? Both hands on the gun. Fold your left fingers over the right, like this. Now your right arm is straight, but your left elbow bends. Lean forward a little, because the gun is going to kick back. Pull the trigger."

The noise was an assault. The gun kicked in his hands. Something burst into view from trees nearby: a caricature of a bird, feathery and two-legged and big as a man. It ran in circles, squawking madly, then off down the Road.

Tim braced his arms, pointed, and fired again. The gun didn't snap up as high.

"Arms pull against each other," Damon suggested.

Hmm? Tim tried that. It felt good, natural. The fisher tree was some distance behind him now, but he set his feet, held his aim on the tip of the tree, BLAM! it was flying dust.

He hadn't fired, the gun hadn't kicked.

"That Boardman yutz," Damon said, "on Lyons wagon. He didn't throw you off, did he? That's the first mistake you'll make. Something distracts you, you pull, shoot a hole in something. Here-" Damon took the gun. He set himself. The fisher tree was far behind them now. Damon fired and the chewed tip jumped. "Like that." He gave the gun back. "Pick something closer."

The Road swerved gradually inland and the land was drying out. Tim chose a lone thick-holed Destiny teapot, aimed for the bole, braced his feet, his arms, BLAM. Dust and splinters sprayed from the edge. He aimed above the bole, at a smaller target, the spout. He scored another hit.

"Good! and enough," Damon said. "Come sunset you can shoot sharks." He bent and lifted. A square patch of roof came up. "All the wagons have attic storage. If a predator ever got this far, here's refuge. We'll stow your pack here. And-" He reached into the hatch and brought out a transparent speckles pouch. "Here." Tim took the pouch.

Damon dropped a handful of bullets into it. "Close it like this. Keeps water out."

The space below the trapdoor might hold four or five friendly people, but it was packed with bedding, pillows, clothing, tarpaulins, and a big square box. Tim had to push to get his pack in. "Refuge? Damon, do I throw stuff out to make room for persons?"

Damon laughed. "It's never happened. We got used to using it for storage, but it's supposed to be a hidey-hole. All right, yes. Throw it to the sharks if they get this far." He thumped the box. "Don't throw away the bullets."

Damon showed Tim how to manipulate ropes on the wagon's roof to open the sides. Tim took it through the full routine while Damon watched.

"What's next?"

"Cooking. What do you do best?"

"Omelets. Stir-fry vegetables."

'Takes eggs?~' Damon looked down the Road. Ground cover had grown sparse.

Tim asked, "Would there be nests around here?'

The old woman spoke unexpectedly. "Oooh, I'd think so!"

Why was that fu

In midafternoon the wagons rolled drunkenly across wide, fiat stones in a shallow stream. When the seventh wagon was across, they all stopped. Tim watched the women release the chugs.

He couldn't quite see how it was done. Loose a line from its knob on the rim of the driver's alcove, snap it like a whip, then retie it. It looked easy; it looked purposeless. Senka and Rian moved briskly along the arc of knobs. When they met at the center, several chugs could be seen to be loose and moving toward the beach.

The younger women stepped daintily down to the Road, then helped Shireen down. Damon and Tim stayed to open the wagon's side, then dropped to join them. Damon and the women were all armed, even Shireen,

All of ibn-Rushd's chugs were loose now. The other wagons, spread far apart up and down the Road, had released theirs.

"We've got time to set some fire pits," Damon said. He pulled shovels from the wagon. "Tim, come on down to the beach. The labor yutzes know what to do."

The sea was two hundred meters away. Most of the women, and not many men, walked down to the beach, taking no notice of two hundred and fifty chugs rolling down behind them in two slow waves. The chugs veered wide of the freshwater flow and its delta mouth.

There were old fire pits to be dug out. Men dug. Women supervised. Chugs flowed around them and into the waves.

Yutzes brought dry vegetation, Earthlife and Destiny trees and weeds. Tim saw two men dragging a lace-festooned log, and jumped to help. They set it on tinder in a dug-out pit.

One of the men asked, "You're Tim from ibn-Rushd? I'm Bord'n from Lyons wagon. Bord'n, not Boardman, whatever the merchants tell you. This's Hal, from Lyons too, but he's a chef."

The women were starting their fires.

"Hello, Bord'n, Hal. Are all yutzes men?"

Bord'n laughed. Hal said, "All I ever saw. A pregnant yutz could be awkward. You don't see children either on a caravan."

Still talking, the two men had him by the elbows and were walking him up toward the wagons before he could quite catch on.

With no discussion and no sign of haste, every human being in sight was ambling uphill toward the wagons. They climbed onto roofs and settled in. Senka, Damon, and Joker were already in place. Hal and Bord'n urged Tim up, and followed.

Damon greeted them; Senka passed around a pitcher of water flavored with lemons. Rian ibn-Rushd wasn't in sight. She must be visiting another wagon.

A forest rolled out of the water, black and bronze and yellow. A forest of seaweed, and motion working within it. Chugs.

Thrashing fish were dropping out of the weed, and chugs left the line to snap them up before they could reach water. Half-seen chugs were steadily pulling the beached forest apart, eating the crabs and fish and shellfish as they were exposed.

Tim watched in fascination.

As if at a signal, the chugs all began moving inland, leaving the weed behind.

Then things began coming out of the water.

They didn't look particularly scary. They were heavy and flat. The waves didn't topple them. They crawled onto land, paused a moment, then moved after the chugs faster than a walking man. There were twenty in sight when the first reached the beached seaweed.

The family ibn-Rushd, and their visitors, took their positions. "Save your bullets," Damon told Tim. "You too, Joker."