Destiny's Road

Wi

"It's the law. I thought you'd better see this," Jemmy said. "I don't recognize most of it. Is this what I think it is?" He held up a stack of thin paper printed with holograms: little windows into a composite view of Sol system, sun and planets and moons blazing against black.

"It's money," Wi

Jemmy fished among half-familiar things. A wide silver belt buckle. Handfuls of rings and ear crescents, jeweled and elaborately shaped. A tiny statue group: old men and a kibbitzer around a chess set, in inset jade. A malachite cube. "What's this? And this, and this?"

"I never actually saw-"

"That's a phone."

"And I think that's a book, an old holy book. And that's a lighter."

At a touch, a point on the lighter turned white hot. Jemmy kept it. "All right. We have to give the rest of this to Barda. Will you come with me?"

Amnon said, "We're supposed to be guarding-"

"I'll stay," Wi

"That's Andrew's pack," Amnon said.

Jemmy repacked the pack, holding out the malachite cube and two ear crescents. He said, "Not anymore. Andrew tried to kill me. I won."

"Andrew's dead?"

Jemmy looked at Amnon. He hadn't considered the big man a threat. "How do you feel about that?"

Amnon rubbed his jaw. "I guess we all knew he'd try to kill you. That stuff with the prole gun. You won?"

"Yeah. Wi

"Thank you." She kissed him.

Once upon a time....welve days ago?....mnon had handed a monstrous weapon back to Jemmy. And Jemmy had to trust someone.

"Amnon, I want to look uphill for... something, and then I want to talk to Barda. Will you come? I'm afraid to be alone."

Jemmy stopped at the big outbuilding. He'd hidden the communal speckles and some personal stuff in the bushes around back. He collected them now, and picked up a shovel.

Then up toward the lake.

The fresh new outhouses were closer to the i

Here, the men's. Now, where had the fern's gotten to? His nose led him to a patch of bare earth. He called, "Amnon, did someone set you to filling this in?"

Amnon shook his head. He was standing well back.

Now, who would have done hard labor here without first trying to get Amnon to do it?

Jemmy dug. The smell drove Amnon farther back.

He hadn't dug far when he uncovered a hand. He cleared enough to find Duncan Nick's face. The shovel set the head flopping loose.

"Amnon, his throat's cut. Take my word?"

"Sure!"

"I want to cover this up and leave it alone, at least till we talk to Barda. Got a better idea?"

"Want help?"

"No. You do everything else around here." He shoveled the dirt back. Not too deep. Now where was Amnon? Standing well back, maybe retching a little; trying to ignore the whole scene, stench and all.

Jemmy stooped over his pack. His back was to Amnon. He fished into the speckles bag and flung a handful of speckles over the mound; closed the bag and swung the pack onto his shoulders in a smooth turn that brought Amnon into view. Amnon had noticed nothing.

"Amnon?" He gave Amnon the malachite cube. "You heard what I told Wi

"Okay. What if I wanted the rest of what's in there?" Jemmy laughed. "Well, you've already got a shovel." You had to trust somebody.

Barda was in the kitchen, and every cabinet was open. "Just wondering where to put things," she said, and looked around. "Isn't that... ?"

Jemmy spilled the contents of the pack across the kitchen floor. "You tell me. Is that Duncan's loot?"

She stared. "No birdfucking allowed!"

''It's the law.''

"Yes. Yes, of course it must be....hat birdfucker must have hidden it here, and then they took him off to the Windfarm. Of course he wanted us back here. With just the least of that we could have... Jemmy, tell me what happened."

Jemmy told it. Barda listened with a face like stone. At one point she asked, "Andrew just strolled toward you and you scrambled up a cliff?"

"I did."

"But why? I mean, yes, I remember you argued about the prole gun, but we all stopped him killing the ones who wouldn't go. Jemmy, what will we do without Andrew?" Barda wondered miserably.

She looked up. "Sorry."

Jemmy said, "Here's how I saw it. Andrew can't kill the chef and still keep the Swan going. What would he have if he didn't have the Swan?"

He waved at the treasure heaped on the floor. "Every time you cried about not having the money for something to make the Swan a real i

Barda shook her head.

"Or told Andrew? Then you'd have money and we'd all be set. But that isn't what happened. Duncan took seven days to get himself a little less pale, a little better fed.

"Now, Andrew knew Duncan much better than I do. If I could see all that, Andrew might just wait for Duncan to grab the loot and run.

"I saw Duncan missing for a day. I saw Andrew set off for town to

buy supplies. They'd have to come back in his pack, of course. So why was his pack already full of heavy stuff? And he'd set me up to join him, alone. He was clearing up a loose end, Barda."

"So you lay in wait."

"Barda, he was lying in wait, and I thought I knew where, and I still missed him. He must have been under the roots on the fisher tree."

She studied him a little longer, then said, "You're rich now. You could...why didn't you run?"

"Where?"

"All right. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it all back."

"Duncan's in the old fern latrine pit with his throat cut. We covered it up again. It's none of the Parole Board's business."

"No."

"Someone still has to go in and buy supplies," Jemmy said. "Amnon and Wi

"You told them both about this. Why?"

"I wanted someone with me when I brought you this. I thought maybe you'd do anything for the i

"Such as?"

"It's early," Jemmy said. "I'm going to get some fish for di

He still didn't know.

If Andrew was to be sent to Destiny Town with everybody's money, then Andrew had to want to come back. He had authority here, and nowhere else. Still... would Barda have offered him more? Say, the life of a man who snatched a gun away from him?

Jemmy didn't know, and it wasn't ever going to matter.

He passed a few people, and waved and went on. The men's old cesspit hadn't been filled in. Jemmy stopped and sprinkled speckles around the edge, and was reminded that he couldn't leave yet.

When he reached the lake, Willametta Haines was perched on a perfect rounded white rock, fishing. Jemmy took up position beside her. He handed her the speckles bag. "Would you take this, please?"

"Why? You're the chef."

"Accidents happen. I don't want to get it wet."

She took it. "What're you doing?"

"Going to circle the lake."

"Want company?"

He said, "Sure." Then he handed her an ear crescent, a tiny snake made of silver wire.