Destiny's Road

Tim pretended to think about that. He asked, "What's Spiral Town like?"

"Like they don't want us, but they want speckles," Damon said. "We used to take our wagons deep into Spiral Town. Now they stop us at the first curve, but there's a wonderful i

"I'll ask Loria." Damon gri

"Tim, we shoot anyone who crosses the Neck unless he's a merchant."

Tim had guessed as much. "That's one serious rite of passage. Now, Hal says the town serves di

"The locals do a seafood grill. You'll love it. Anything else comes from us, and we serve. Two caravans is one serious cookout. If Tail Town wasn't so big they couldn't do it at all. What have we got?"

"Root veggies. Not much fruit, but some. The boar meat's gone. Pickings have been skimpy since Baytown. Rabbits-"

"Use it all. Now, tomorrow there'll be a few new yutzes. They'll have to learn."

Jemmy Bloocher had fled from the summer caravan.

In Twerdahl Town he'd stopped, and married, and when the summer caravan caught up, he'd been Tim Ha

Winter came and went, and the spring caravan brought strangers who picked up Tim Bednacourt and carried him the length of the Road.

-But the Road continued an unknown distance into the continent. and Cavorite's trail went with it- And the autumn caravan would carry him back. Should he let Rian give him a gorgeous send-off? Or Senka? Or would they be busy in Tail Town tonight? Or should he wait to meet the women of the autumn caravan?

His mind could see no threat. He'd serve these strangers as he'd served the spring caravan, and live his life out in Twerdahl Town.

His adrenal glands were screaming bloody murder.

Senka set him a few errands up and down the caravan while the wagons ran onto the Neck for two klicks and a bit. The wagons stayed on the broad side, the bay side of the midline hump. They were a hundred meters apart when Damon loosed his chugs to join the others, a little early today, with the sun still half up the sky. The autumn caravan had turned theirs loose too. Half a thousand chugs all flowed into Haunted Bay, spreading out so that one long wave entered the water.

Had a chug ever investigated the other ocean?

Haunted Bay continued around, the shore curving into distance and mist. Otterfolk must be out there, all the way around the curve of island and mainland both.

Lines of wagons faced each other across the Neck.

The Neck was Road: softly contoured gray rock crazed with cracks. Big cracks served for the barbecue fires; little cracks could break an ankle. A frozen lava pool ran from sea to sea. Rounded edges dropped into two oceans. A ridge ran down the middle, the last remnant of mountain range. There was no trace of life save for the wagons.

Cavorite drifted back and forth until the whole of the Neck glowed red and orange, to bar any living thing that might cross from the mainland. Humanity's rule of the Crab was not to be challenged.

Under direction of the chefs, yutzes carried the caravan's stores of fruit and vegetables to the midpoint. Tables were arrayed there, a permanent feature. The chefs laid fires and started root vegetables and pots of beans. Gaudy merchants watched them from the far caravan.

Where were the chugs? They'd been underwater too long.

A woman walked across to join them. She was hefty, formidable, like Marilyn Lyons. Her robes blazed with color: cloth that had not yet felt the dust of the Road.

"I'm Willow Hearst." She had a carrying voice. "Randy and I work Hearst wagon. Hearst and Jabar wagons carry the cooking gear and the chefs. Go back to your wagons and get your possessions. We'll sort you out when you come back. We'll still have plenty of light."

Three more merchants had left the autumn caravan. Would they give further orders? But they were swinging wide of the cookfires, headed for town.

Joker-Joker? Where are the chugs?"

Joker smiled and pointed toward the fog-shrouded mainland. "See, they can't climb back out. They can walk underwater against the current. There's better forage on the mainland, where fisher boats haven't stirred things up. And then they're home to stay, Tim, with a hell of a tale to tell, presuming chugs could talk. The autumn caravan won't take chugs that are marked."

"It's beautiful," Tim told him.

"We've done it this way for two hundred years. The autumn caravan picks three hundred or so. You'll see them straggling in all night. They haven't learned yet. The ones that get here last, they won't be taken."

Willow Hearst had told them to leave, and the yutzes were all going back to the spring caravan. Could they abandon di

The party of three was close now. They were all older men. Elders of Doheny, Spadoni, and Tucker were coming to meet them. They would dine in Tail Town and talk of things even the younger merchants shouldn't hear. Tim looked again and recognized Master Granger.

He let his placid yutz's face turn gently aside while his eyes followed the old man. Yes, that was his father's sometime friend, Master Sean Granger.

Tim's adrenal glands had known all along. His mind was only just catching up. Not three caravans. Two. In summer it was twenty wagons; in autumn and spring, some were left for repair. The people of the summer caravan, whom he'd eluded once, had come back as the autumn caravan.

Tim mingled with the other yutzes.

Villagers were passing the spring caravan, pulling a string of little man-drawn wagons. Tim sniffed great masses of sea life. The merchants swung wide; Tim edged close to inspect the fish, pulling other chefs with him. "Good haul," he told one of the men.

"We say good catch," the Tail Towner said.

-And the elder merchants were past, and the yutzes were among the wagons.

Tim climbed into ibn-Rushd wagon and onto the roof. Opened the trapdoor, pushed his head into the dark and set the tea bowl under him, before he let the terror have him. He felt like he might throw up.

Sean Granger was no threat. The old man would remember Jemmy Bloocher as a little boy, and Tim Bednacourt as a Twerdahi Town chef. But younger merchants had seen Jemmy Bloocher kill a man in Warkan's Tavern.

He'd kept his possessions in his carry pack. In a moment he could snatch it and run... where?

Anyone caught crossing the Neck would be shot.

The far side of the Crab would kill any swimmer.

Tail Town sprawled from Haunted Bay to the other sea. There was no path back that didn't run through Tail Town.

He couldn't join the autumn caravan. He couldn't run, not until dark:

there was nowhere to hide. Did he dare to serve them di

Run where?

Fingertips stroked his arm, wrist to elbow.

Tim straightened to kneeling position. He didn't look around and he didn't flinch. He reached back and let his fingers trace a slender neck and jaw and nape. Smooth. He leaned back. Rian~ Good. Senka was just too good at reading minds.

He asked, "Do I get a splendid send-off?"

"Hey, didn't Marilyn Lyons use you up?"

"I damn well needed all the help I could get," he admitted.

She laughed. "Tim, there are women in the autumn caravan too."

"I haven't met them." Witnesses. Women who would look straight at a murderer and know him half a year later. "Can I give you a splendid send-off?"

A breathy laugh. "You might not impress a lady if I get to you first."