Destiny's Road

The probes were in place. They followed Amnon in, then separated and began to circle wide around the little crowd of gatherers. The gatherers formed a line, one to a row, and followed the rows of speckles plants.

Jemmy Bloocher moved among them, watching and learning. Andrew Dowd moves among the gatherers, supervising.

With gloves built like pieces of an umbrella, they stripped the branches, holding their packs to let a rain of bright yellow dust fall in. Rain was turning the bottoms of the packs into a sludge of tiny yellow speckles seeds. The packs would be heavy, coming back.

He passed near Shimon. Head down, Shimon shouted above the rain. "Look around, not just at me. You're not just watching us work. You're protecting us."

"From what?"

Shimon looked up, disgusted. "Just pretend. Anything that pops up, the proles'll get it first."

Jemmy hadn't been told of any danger. Shimon went on, "They're seeing if the ground is clear. Any bird they find, they'll shoot it-"

"Any bird?"

Still a

Jemmy moved on.

Wi

He got a conspiratorial leer from Duncan Nick, to whom he had never spoken at all. Jemmy watched until Duncan suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing with his hands.

A woman's eyes snagged his own, though her hands didn't pause in stripping branches. A once-pretty face turned hard. Was that hatred? What had Jemmy ever done to her?

He was idle while she worked. Trusties must get a lot of this. Jemmy was going past when her head beckoned.

He moved closer. -And in the next row over, a face turned toward him within a gatherer's hood. Narrow head, narrow nose, yellow-brown skin, and Oriental eyes: the same face with a smile like sunlight.

The angry twin said, "They'll leave you. You know that." Hmm? Jemmy asked casually, "Who's going, Rita?" This had to be Rita or Dolores Nogabes.

"Not us either. We're not crazy. He wants to go over the mountains!"

"Who do I talk to if I want to go?" Rita shrilled laughter. "Who?"

"Willametta, bet. She's with you know."

With Half-beard: the other Andrew. "And Shimon's with Barda?"

"Nobody talks to Shimon." Rita Nogales looked down, dismissing him.

He moved on. The other twin smiled at him and said, "Good day for picking, Trusty."

He couldn't help smiling back. "Is that sarcasm? I wouldn't know, Dolores."

"It doesn't get drier. Gets noisier, gets windier, sometimes the air burns your throat. If there's windbirds you maybe have to hold the pose for half a day, and then the Board wants to know why your pack's light. You were a yutz?"

"Yeah."

"The trader women, they teach you anything?"

Dolores Nogales's eyes were direct and speculative. Jemmy's instinct was to back up a few centimeters. He said, "I think your sister hates me. You don't?"

"Rita's being stupid. You're lucky. Talk to me later."

He moved on, thinking pleasant thoughts.

What did trusties and probes get out of this? They got just as wet as the gatherers... but probes went home for lunch, and everyone took their orders.

Anyone but probes had to take a trusty's orders.

Of course you couldn't trust random felons to cook. There must be poisons to he found in the lava scrub, and cooking knives could kill, or a heavy pan. Might as well give the cook a gun and call him a trusty.

But cooking meant trusties stayed dry one day out of two. And anyone a trusty liked would also stay dry one day out of two.

It was Andrew's day outside and Barda's day in. They'd had to arrange something to get Shimon out here guiding "Andrew." If Shimon wasn't with Barda, maybe Barda was rubbing up against another man?

She'd better be doing that. No wonder Shimon was irritable. But tomorrow would be "Andrew" 's day in. Was that what Dolores Nogales was thinking? "Andrew" didn't have to be with Willametta.

Willametta was with Andrew, and Jemmy-as-Andrew was outside, so one of these identical shapes must be Willametta. Jemmy stopped by each gatherer for a time, looking around conscientiously for a threat he couldn't describe. The real threat, the probes, had closed their wide circle around the gatherers. They talked, then separated and moved in staggered fashion toward the gatherers.

Here was Willametta. Jemmy looked into her bag and said casually, "I'm told I'm not going."

Willametta had a couple of pounds of seeds in the bag with another three pounds of water. She said, "Going where, Andrew?"

"I have no idea." She returned his grin, and he said, "I'm trying to think of a way we can all go."

Willametta seemed to have the giggles. "Right."

"Six of us in shorts and T-shirts. Lucky I came in summer! Someone comes by, 'We were swimming at the beach and a freak gust blew all our clothes out to sea.' Couldn't six of us in swimwear tell a tale while the rest hide? I'm a good storyteller."

"Shoes and pack and all?"

"Freak wave?"

"Talk to Andrew."

"I'm being Andrew. Let's see, along the Road from the barracks there's fields this way and molten lava beyond. That's no good. Other way is the Parole Board housing and then what? Civilization? If you get past the Parole Board, which will be a neat trick, I guess."

Her hands were stripping speckles branches, head bent. He glimpsed a smile beneath the hood.

"But not if you leave seventeen gatherers behind you to answer questions."

She looked up out of the hood and the smile was gone. She said nothing.

He walked casually on. Henry's grin was conspiratorial, or maybe proprietary. Rafik, last in line, looked starved and hunted, an aged youth who didn't want to meet Jemmy's eyes. His hand slipped twice, dropping seeds on the ground. Jemmy slapped his shoulder and said "Relax!" and walked on.

A slacking of rain moved across the field. Jemmy's eyes followed the wave across gatherers moving in an even line, one to a row. Well beyond, the two probes were walking toward them, the second behind and one row to the side. Behind them two speckles bushes stood up and streaked toward them.

Jemmy's gun was out before his mind caught up. What moved like that was lungsharks!

The probes' guns moved. They were going to shoot Jemmy! He fired his bird gun straight up and pointed with the other arm. One whirled around. Jemmy heard a brief ripping sound that wasn't thunder and wasn't a gunshot. The attackers slowed as if they'd plowed into invisible honey. Birds? Now they seemed to dance- Jemmy turned away, looking for more attackers: away from some terrible secret he'd almost guessed.

Much closer, two black-green-bronze darts streaked along two rows of black-green-bronze speckles bushes, near-invisible and too far to shoot even with decent bullets, but coming fast at the line of gatherers. Someone yelled, "Pose! Pose! Spectre birds!" Shimon's voice, that should have been "Andrew" 's.

Jemmy took the pose as he'd been taught.

One row over, Henry said quietly, "No birdfucking allowed."

And a whispered chorus: "It's the law!'.'

He couldn't see anything else attacking. The probes had stopped firing. What had attacked them was gone. The gatherers were a row of statues, their ponchos drooping from raised arms, their hoods facing the oncoming pair of spectre birds. Jemmy stood last in line, arms raised high, a bird gun in one hand. A field of firebirds spreads their wings to face an aggressor.