Destiny's Road

"I don't think so."

"Then you do it. Shoot up the toolhouse a little."

"Bad idea, Rita."

"Dolores. But look-"

Willya shouted, "Barda, don't cut him, it's all right! Let him go. Now what, Andrew?"

Andrew snarled like a beast.

"Plan," Jemmy said in disgust. Without Andrew the rest had no direction, but Jemmy Bloocher might as well be lost on another planet.

He said, "Push anyone stupid enough to trust you until he drops out, then kill him for it. Kill proles till they shoot everyone who's still with you. Keep it up till there's nobody left. Plan?"

Andrew wrenched himself loose, and they let him do it. He shook himself, and strode off shouting, "Follow me!"

The flapping yellow blaze dwindled into black rain.

In the rain and the thunder there was a rustling too, and motion that wasn't just trees in the wind. A big bird dropped from the sputtering sky and lifted again with a turtle-shape in its four sawtooth-edged feet.

Andrew had told them to keep their ponchos. He was right. The night was alive.

Rafik Doe recognized tree roots strangling a sharp-edged boulder, and fished Jemmy Bloocher's pack from underneath. Those on the short list stripped and do

They'd walked halfway back to the field where Shimon died. In a sputter of lightning they watched a battle between shadows of birds. Rafik complained in a continuous drone, until others took up the theme too.

"Here!" said Andrew.

He meant a line of spiky black-and-bronze foliage dug into the crack that ran up a near-vertical rock face.

There were exclamations and protests, and then they climbed. Jemmy waited to help the laggards.

Shar Willoughby got ten meters up and froze.

Jemmy climbed up to show her which plants would hold, where to place her feet. She shook her head and wouldn't look or move. "Get me down. Just get me down."

Andrew and Barda were high above him. He couldn't ask: Do we need Shar? She was wearing shorts and windbreaker! But she'd never make it, and she was blocking the path.

A ten-meter fall would break bones. He guided her down, letting her stand on his shoulders when he had to. She knelt at the bottom, panting like a dog. He made her strip and took her shorts and windbreaker.

The others were climbing. Shar plodded back toward the barracks.

Jemmy pulled himself along a row of Destiny plants. Or was it all one plant? He couldn't see a break, just a line of roots prying a mountainsized rock apart.

Before that crack ran out there was another.

The world was all tilted surfaces, black and lightning-white, and roar of thunder. He remembered wandering in a daze, mostly blind and mostly deaf, pulling himself from nowhere to nowhere just because he wasn't dead yet. .

But this night was very different from the night he'd abandoned Carder's Boat. He'd been fed and succored, and twelve people had given their lives into his hands... gloves. Nobody else had gloves.

The plants ended suddenly. Other climbers started having trouble. Jemmy had to double back a few times to guide the others to foot- and handholds. The prole gun's strap left Jemmy's arms free. He could see Andrew watching from far above.

If Jemmy slipped, Andrew would have the gun again.

"Here," Andrew bellowed. "The ledge. Leave your ponchos here. Firebird shorts too. Use rocks to weigh them down."

Rafik exclaimed, "Now what on Earth are you playing at, Andrew?"

"Do it right!" Andrew bellowed. He'd left his own clothing where he was, fifty feet above the ledge, sleeves spread and wedged in cracks. "They can't see through unless the clouds break!" He scrambled back and helped Rafik, then Willametta, then Amnon place rocks to display flame-colored ponchos and shorts against dark wet rock. The others were getting the idea.

Andrew was painting a picture of climbers scattered over a cliff face. "We're halfway up and frozen in fear, right? And that's the way it is until they get here themselves, and look. Right?"

"Andrew," Jemmy asked, "do you think they can see us?"

Andrew's teeth flashed in lightning. "Not yet. All set? Come!"

"Andrew, there's too many!" Andrew looked at him, and Jemmy shouted, "Me! I'm one too many! They're looking for thirteen ponchos, not fourteen, and if we meet a spectre or something, someone has to pose!"

And after they found Shar they'd be looking for twelve ponchos, not thirteen... still one too many... unless Shar talked.

Andrew said, "One of us should have started naked. Damn damn. Ansel, you look cold-"

Ansel Tarr dressed again in flame colors.

Jemmy looked around at them. "Willya?" He gave her Shar's swim shorts and windbreaker. She looked no more skeletal than the rest.

Andrew led off again, leaving twelve posed ponchos.

The ledge was straight, hard to lose in the flashing dark, but it wasn't a split in rock. It was a frozen flow of lava, naked of plants, and slippery. There were holes etched by rain for handholds and footholds. Jemmy stayed on hands and knees even where he could stand, because those behind him were copying his style.

Jemmy, Henry, Andrew, Willametta, Barda, and Amnon wore swim trunks and windbreakers. Ansel wore the last poncho. The rest were naked and not liking it.

He barely heard the scream, but he turned quick and shouted down. "Who fell?"

He heard: "I caught something. Caught a plant." Amnon's voice. "Thorn."

"Can you climb up?" Oh, Earth and Moon, Amnon was in a windbreaker and trunks! If proles found those on a gatherer's corpse, they'd guess there were more.

"I can't move! It's like two handfuls of hypo needles!"

"I've got rope, Jeremy." Andrew hurled a coil of rope at him. He leered atJemmy and said, "Anchor me." Plan? Where's your rope?

Jemmy tied the rope to a low, knotted Destiny tree. He could hear Amnon whimpering. The rope didn't seem to be finding him.

The sky lit like a sun.

It hurt the eyes... like the light that burned over the speckles field after Shimon's death. Jemmy blinked. "What on Earth-?"

"Quicksilverrr!" Andrew's bellow was all triumph. He trolled the rope toward Amnon, who was clinging to a double armful of thorn on a sixtydegree slope. The rope was too short. "Jeremy!"

It was long enough when Jemmy had untied it from the tree, but the only anchor now was himself and Andrew. Amnon didn't want to let go of the bush.

Andrew shouted, "Take it, you damned fool!"

Amnon moaned and snatched at the rope, lost his grip and had only the rope. He clung and swung while Andrew and Jemmy pulled hand over hand. At the end he lay sobbing at their feet, his hands full of needles and blood.

And Jemmy asked again: "The light?"

"It's Quicksilver, you Crab-shy dropout! And the date is late summer, and Quicksilver rises just an hour before sunrise. And we are right on schedule, Jeremy, but we should move!"

"Quicksilver's bright, but this bright?"

"Settler magic. That's what you call it, isn't it? Argos flew past Quicksilver. They dropped a metal and plastic turtle-I've seen pictures-it makes solar-electric plates, and lasers to beam the power, and more little mining turtles. Now it's hundreds of years later and Quicksilver's covered in solar collectors. That's why it's so bright."

An entire planet covered in Begley cloth.

Jemmy began to understand that Destiny Town had power undreamed by the towns along the Crab. They could light up a mountain range. Launch ships into space. Andrew had known. Did they all know? Did they all take this for granted?