Destiny's Road

Tim had only been given six. It must be very natural, he thought, for a new yutz to waste bullets. So Tim held his pose and his fire.

A shark was three or four times the size of a chug, and flatter, built lower to the ground. Its shell was smaller and more simplified than the ornate points and edges of a chug shell. Its big head was mostly beak and shell cap and a backward-pointing prong for counterbalance. The beak was all points and curved edges, built for ripping. The eyes faced forward in deep recesses.

Even so, these were clearly the chugs' relatives. Chugs carried shields with edges and points that could gash a predator. Sharks carried weaponry.

The sharks paused at the seaweed forest. They were nosing into the weeds, seeking the same prey that served the chugs. The chugs were halfway to the wagons, moving as fast as Tim had seen them move.

One, then several sharks crawled over the weed in pursuit of the receding chugs.

Guns began to fire. Bullets thudded into the few sharks in the lead, poking holes in their shells or spraying seawater and blood from the rough gray-green skin below.

"Not many this time," Damon said. "That near one in the middle? That's your target, Tim."

Flat-footed, leaning forward just a bit, hands pulling against each other with the gun butt between... Tim fired. Bullets thudded into the beast's shell. Maybe one or two were his. He saw a shark still coming, swiveled, and used up his bullets on that one.

Four sharks were down, and the rest were ru

"You all stopped shooting," Tim noticed, "as soon as they turned tail. Why not kill them all?"

The yutzes looked to Damon, who said, "If we killed off all the sharks, who knows what we'd get instead? We don't know what goes on under the water."

"Think of us as priests of evolution," Senka ibn-Rushd said. "Another twenty years, they'll run at the first sound of a gunshot. Maybe they won't chase chugs at all."

"Here, Tim." Damon held out a handful of bullets. "You've got good self-control. Take some time tomorrow, get some practice. For now, we don't have much daylight."

Most of the merchants and yutzes began setting up tents. Those of ibn-Rushd and Lyons wagons set up to cook di

Marilyn Lyons glowed in the evening light. She was two centimeters taller than Tim and weighed more too. She dressed in brilliant greens

and lavenders, dramatic against her white skin and black hair. She pulled cookware out of the storage compartments of Lyons wagon, hefting gear with no visible effort while she rattled off directions a little faster than Tim could follow.

"Teapot. Cook pot. Randall, Hal, get these on the fire and fill them with water. Add the turkeys when the big pot boils. You cleaned them? Good. Wok. Wok. Tim, you want both of these? And take this." She didn't hand it to him; she pointed.

Two flattened cylinders half a meter tall, both glossy glaring red, in a niche beneath Lyon wagon. Tim wrapped his arm around one and caught a familiar scent.

"The speckles always comes back here. Always."

Tim said, "Right."

"That fire, that's yours to work on. The yutzes have the eggs and the veggies are in Dodgson wagon. Boardman, you're with Tim. Tim, any questions?"

"Why did the founders thaw these flies?"

Laughter shook her whole body. "They must have been crazy. Anyone want ovens?"

Randall took the pots and moved briskly away. Bord'n gathered up cooking tools, forks and knives and spoons and spatulas, and set them in a flat shell that must have come off the back of a record-sized shark. He followed Tim, towing the shark shell.

Cookware stored aboard ibn-Rushd and Lyons wagons was little different from what Tim had practiced with in Twerdahl Town. That was a relief. Vegetables were what the merchants could buy in towns and carry in wagons. Meat was what they could kill. Yutzes and merchants had been out hunting while the wagons were in motion.

Lyons wagon's two woks were bigger than he was used to. No problem: a big wok could cook the same omelet as a small one. He was given oil. Yutzes from other wagons had the vegetables he needed. Bord'n had brought knives, spatulas, a whirring thing to whip eggs.

But the eggs were tremendous. He asked, "Bord'n, is this some Destiny sea thing?"

Bord'n gri

"Damn. What do the eggs taste like?"

"Better cook one first and find out. Hi, Rian!"

"Boardman." The merchant girl nodded regally. "Tim."

He smiled at her. "Evening."

"How goes di

"Just another damn intelligence test," Tim said. "I never saw ostrich eggs before."

Rian smiled and moved on.

One ostrich egg was bigger than a ten-egg omelet. The taste was different, and Tim used more seasoning after his first attempt. Speckles, of course. A little lemon rind? Yes.

Veggies and eggs never stuck to the woks.

Other chefs were at work around other fires. Quicksilver winked out below the setting sun.

As in Twerdahl Town, people passed carrying food, gave him slices of fruit and big flat grilled mushrooms and ostrich meat, and carried away sliced-up veggie omelets. Ostrich was delicious. Heavier woks, heavier omelets: Tim was working harder than he was used to. He thought of himself as strong, big-shouldered, but this was wearing him out.

Shireen ibn-Rushd accepted a wedge of omelet. She tasted it. "Tim, isn't it? Yes. You have a nice hand with eggs." She put something in his hand, smiled, and wandered off.

Dried cherries.

He noticed tents being pitched and beds laid within. The tents were many-lobed, and flaps were generally left open. Some of the merchants were already asleep before sunset.

As in Twerdahl Town, cooking ended at sunset. He'd wondered. But now cookware had to be carted to the river, washed, part-filled with water, and set back on the fires to boil clean.

Damon led him away to the ibn-Rushd tent. He would not have found it on his own, in the dark. It was a cross, four lobes meeting at a communal circle of cushions, Shireen snoring in one of the lobes. In the center, a low table. Damon and Senka wanted to talk, but they must have seen he was ready to collapse.

He rolled himself in blankets in one of the lobes and persuaded himself he was asleep.

But their voices ran through his dozing mind, telling merchant secrets, and the memories came back in later years.

9

Between

Rows of fine contoured legs run down each side. Teeth rim the broad mouth, each splitting into a myriad points. A long prong on the skullcap shell forms a beak or, more aptly, a ram: the cap butts against the main shell for greater strength. They're air breathing. They can come right up the beach at you.

-James Twerdabi, Flightcaptain, Cavorite

In the morning Bord'n reached through an open flap and shook Tim awake to make breakfast.

Dawn was a red glare above the mountains. Tim was stiff and tired. He did what the other yutzes were doing.

Blow up the ashes and add wood. Wipe out the woks and add dough that has been rising through the night. Cover them. Set the woks on the coals. Now a Destiny seaweed forest is rising from the waves, and it's back to the roofs while the chugs feed.

Chugs move up the beach. Sharks follow as far as the seaweed. No shots are fired. When the sharks return to the sea, the chugs have reached the wagons and the bread is done.