Destiny's Road

If he stayed right up against the Road, nobody could see him without walking right up to the edge. But how would he explain himself then? He chose to swim well out into the bay before he turned southeast.

It seemed to take forever to swim past the barbecue. Had he been missed? Fires were the only light, and they were almost gone. Tents were up. If he was seen, he'd be taken for a wind riffle or an Otterfolk.

The rim of the Neck was unclimbable. Tim would have to swim all the way to the Tail Town beaches, and so would anyone who came in after him. Tim hadn't seen anyone swim, merchant or yutz, since he'd left Twerdahl Town.

He'd have felt quite safe but for the Otterfolk.

Otterfolk were a mystery. He'd been led to believe that they were fanatical about their privacy. Now a creature had invaded their home. Drowning him would not be much trouble at all.

But their heads had kept popping up to watch the caravan.

It wasn't as if he had a choice. He swam.

A current was helping him along. There was still no sign of pursuit when he crawled onto a pebbly beach in a line of boats. He was shuddering with cold.

He'd pla

The flat piece with the handle, the tiller, would fit here in notches at the tail end of the boat.

The other flat piece would fit here in the middle of the underside. It slid in from the pointed end.

If he put them on now and tried to get out into the water, they'd break off against the sand. The tiller, he could slide it in after he was afloat. The other? That would have to be inserted from underwater.

He saw that taking a boat would leave a gap in the line. The boat in the shed? No, it was probably in there for repairs! So- A heave uprighted the last boat in line. No gap. He set the tiller and the centerpiece in the bottom.

It was a heavy son of a bitch. Four handles on the bottom meant four men could lift it. Could one man drag it?

He could if he was desperate. The boat moved in surges. He dragged it down the sand until it floated, then pushed it out hard and swam after it. Clambering in was harder than he'd expected, but he made it.

He'd thought of swimming around Tail Town and then ashore. He'd still have to do that if he couldn't control the boat. The boat would be easier travel. Now he felt very conspicuous, one lone stolen boat on this great flat expanse. Get the sail up and get going!

But he needed the tiller to aim the boat.

So: mount the tiller in the dark, using the mountings he'd felt out so carefully, in the dark.

The sail was bound against that horizontal beam. He hadn't spent enough time feeling the lines out, and it cost him. This line would raise it after he untied these. Then tie it down. Where?

He got it up.

The boat had turned under him to face the wind. The sail hung slack. He felt conspicuous as hell. He moved the tiller. It wasn't steering anything.

He lowered himself off the stern and kicked until the bow came around, reached up and swung the tiller hard over.

The sail billowed as sails did at Baytown, and he heaved himself into the boat as it flew back toward shore. He turned the boat into the wind, kept the tiller turned when the boat wanted to just stop and drift, and now he was flying back toward Loria and Twerdahl Town.

Yes! But how on Earth did fishers do this?

Okay, it took four men, one on the tiller while three raised the sails....

Most of Tail Town was quite dark. Torches still burned in the larger buildings. Tim searched the water for Otterfolk, but there were none in sight. Did they sleep?

As dawn showed above the Crest, boats were putting out from the beach beyond Tail Town. Tim had sailed past Tail Town in the night. He watched them, having little better to do.

Sails came up. Five, six boats took to the water, raised sail, then foreshortened, turning toward his position. It looked choreographed.

Merchants armed with guns might be aboard, but Tim didn't believe that. Fishers would be dangerous enough. He was a thief. If they caught him, the least he could expect was to be turned over to the caravan.

The autumn caravan would know him by daylight: Jemmy Bloocher.

A row of dark heads appeared ahead.

Their eyes glittered black, facing forward at water level. As they neared he saw that their heads were as big as his own, capped with a shell that dropped to form the upper part of a beak, like a chug's head. Their beaks were cable-cutter traps, more like a lungshark's mouth than a chug's, but they were clearly related to both species.

He watched for a bit. They did nothing. He waved; nothing.

"I'm-" He hesitated, then shouted, "I'm Jemmy Bloocher. That's one small step for a man-"

They were waiting for something.

He was about to sail past.

He couldn't see it, but he felt how the boat slid sideways across the water, losing forward momentum. Those fishers would catch him unless he could get the centerboard down.

He was tired of banging his shins on it.

He swung the boat into the wind and saw the sail go slack. The Otterfolk flicked into motion and were with him again. He picked up the centerboard and slid it into the water, hanging on to it until he felt hands take it from him.

Then it was a matter of waiting. He watched more boats take sea room and turn toward him. The floor of the boat thumped and bumped.

The boat began to turn by itself.

The Otterfolk knew how this worked. Tim twisted the tiller to help them put the wind in the sails. The boat took off, but sluggishly. He looked down to see what he'd expected: four Otterfolk, their short, thick forearms wrapped around the handholds at water level.

Damn, he could reach down and touch them.

He didn't. But he leaned far over to look, his arm far back to hold the tiller in place.

He'd half-expected to see smiles. Their beaked faces were immobile, yet it was clear they were having fun.

They were smaller than he was, but he'd known grown men as big as the Otterfolk. Sixty kilograms, he judged, and very alike except for their shells.

Left and aft was the one he was studying. Its legs were short, ending in big splayed fins. Its arms were short too. They pulled its body hard against the handhold. Its body hugged the hull. It twisted to look up at him. It seemed wonderfully agile where the shell didn't bind it.

Its shell was smooth, streamlined-and painted! Painted in unreadable hieroglyphs, in brilliant scarlet and orange and green.

The other riders were painted too. Tim couldn't read the patterns, though they looked more like simplified pictures than an alphabet. But he'd seen those colors before. Where?

Forward left, that one had been injured. Tim could see a healed split along his shell, under paint that turned the crack into a coat of arms. The accident had bent the shell, and bent the Otterfolk's body too.

Tim believed he had known they were sapient the instant he looked into their eyes; but the paints told a more emphatic tale. They were artists.

A creature barred from using fire could never make such paints. Wait, now, that was the red of a speckles can!

Settler magic. The walls of Civic Hall in Spiral Town had murals in those colors, and others too.

The Otterfolk would have used more colors if they'd had them. Somewhere was a source of red and orange and green acrylic paint, and the Otterfolk had access.

Twenty or more sails were chasing him now. Tim wasn't really concerned. Those other boats must be carrying Otterfolk too, to slow them. The handles on a boat weren't placed for fishers' convenience, after all.

The day passed like a dream. This was sensory deprivation: lying in the bottom of a boat, holding the tiller in one position, sometimes finding the will to lift his head, look over the side, check his position. Once he looked just as the left-forward rider reached out, snatched a platyfish from the water, bit off two big bites, and dropped it to be caught by the rider behind him.