Destiny's Road

Jeremy's taste and belly and intellect feasted all together. What flavors has Simonsen matched here?

It became a lively family discussion. He's done something to these almonds. How can our kitchen do this? and this?

He could see their relief. Jeremy was being difficult, but we got him to change the subject.

But who else could he ask?

He had questions. His family had pieces of answers, if there were answers. His family would protect him, knowing that Jeremy Winslow was fiction.

"Otterfolk," he said. "They drove Cavorite's crew crazy. Leaving Haunted Bay kills them. Here's an intelligent species that can't explore. What's intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?"

"They're happy," Brenda said.

"Jeremy, we all read those old records," Harlow said. "One point Daryl Twerdahl made. The Otterfolk knew some of them were dying, but they kept coming back for more. The ones who lived had tales to tell... however they tell tales."

"So they'd die to learn more, but they can't," Jeremy said.

"Daddy, they've got us. We can show them things."

"Here's my point. Feeling the way they did about the Otterfolk, and knowing what Argos had done to them, how could Cavorite's people take away our access to space and leave us marooned?"

Lloyd said, "We had Cavorite. You had Columbiad."

Jeremy thought it over... and Lloyd was right.

He said little after that. He listened to in-group chat from his family, and a few tantalizing snatches of conversation from tables nearby.

Dessert was a mountain of fruit and sorbets. Chef Simonsen brought over a bottle of a sweet wine and poured them thimble-sized glasses. "Tasting wine isn't one of my skills," Jeremy admitted.

"You should start," the chef said severely.

Jeremy heard a big bell's bong before they had finished. "Ten minutes to bus time," Harlow told him.

He paid the bill just like a citizen, by speaking his name and a number to their waiter. Then he tried to get up. No birdfucking- Forgot. They had to help him to his feet, hut he was all right with crutches under him. He wondered if a tablespoon of wine (and a fortified fruit drink) could have thrown his balance off so badly.

In the morning the house was empty. But Jeremy remembered Harlow standing over his futon, looking down at him from what seemed a vast distance.

"Tomorrow, look up hydraulic empire," she'd said.

Karen turned just her head with a delighted smile. "Hi!"

'Hi. Did Nogales take you off the Novabliss?" She seemed far more alert than she had yesterday.

"Don't know. Nogales ... Rita? My doctor? She says I've got to stay out of the sun for a while. And the water. Till autumn!"

"Long time."

Karen said, "It means I can't help you with the pit."

Her hands were still bound but her shoulders moved restlessly. Karen still looked patchy. Better along her ribs and hip, but her shoulder and breast were worst. One big grayish patch of skin had sloughed off her shoulder onto the sheet. Jeremy wondered if he should remove it, or put it back. What was underneath was puffy and red touched with purple.

He said, "You can't talk to the Otterfolk either, and that's the fun part. I should have my knee back before the next caravan. I want to try some things in the kitchen. If any of it works out, we'll be working there instead of the pit-"

"Ah-hah! Brenda got you to Romanoff's!"

"Lucky guess."

"Yeah?"

"Brenda and Lloyd and Harlow took me last night. We're all staying at Harlow's-" except that Lloyd and Brenda went back this morning, and he chose not to tell his wife that.

"We had a good life, didn't we?"

What? Where did that come from? "So far so good," he said cautiously. And every bit of it stolen. He could put off telling her that for a little while yet.

"I used to wonder. Did you and Harlow?"

He didn't ask, Did we what? He spoke the truth while he had the chance. "Yes, while you were carrying Mustafa. We were careful. Your father never caught us."

"Mmm."

"But never after we were married, Karen."

"Good." She shifted a little. "It itches." She shifted again. "Burns. What did you call it? Novabliss? If you run across Dr. Nogales, I need some."

He found someone with a label and told him that Karen needed a doctor. That might get something done, but Rita Nogales should see her.

He looked into some rooms. He stopped at Reception and spoke with Lisa Schiavo. Then he went to the library, the obvious place to wait for a doctor.

CARAVAN

Again, a multitude of entries.

CARAVAN*MAP

Three klicks of the Neck and a twelve-klick stretch of land between the Road and the ocean were all shaded in tan. Call it twenty square klicks: all property of the caravans. A scatter of rectangles and a sprinkling of square dots just the far side of the spaceport (yellow), and another scattering just short of the Neck, and no other buildings in between.

To the west the Road ran off the map, and Jeremy wondered- WINDFARM*MAP restricted material. Access code?

WIND FARM

restricted material. Access code?

DESTINY TOWN

That was well mapped, with a zoom feature. He could sketch the details of Jeremy Hearst's life onto this. He should! But it felt too much like work, and there was something he wanted more.

CARAVAN *CARGO

Nothing. Wrong word?

CARAVAN*EXPORT

Nope.

If he knew exactly what wagons carried and what they needed, he'd know how to deal for it. Try:

CARAVAN*2739*REPLACEMENTS

Bandages. Whiskey considered as medicine. Paint from Spiral Town, oil from Twerdahi Town, silver fern tea from the Shire. Did the caravans carry high-tech medicine? It wasn't listed, and he'd never seen such. Not for yutzes, at least.

Ammunition, guns, gun oil and cloth, the cylinder on the little reboring thing in Tucker wagon... shark guns and tools to maintain them. Nothing about Spadoni or... he didn't know a proper name for "prole guns."

Better not try CARAVAN*SPADONI*SUPPLIES. A computer might be told to alert somebody. Try

CARAVAN*2739*SALES

This year's outgoing. Speckles and spices. Basic farming and clothmaking tools, and some half familiar terms that were also tools. Cookware: not the magical stuff nothing sticks to. Toys and shells and other luxury goods. Preserved meat, root vegetables, spices, some of which had been sold to Wave Rider. Nothing much to learn.

CARAVAN*2739*PURCHASE

This year returning: clocks and paint and Begley cloth. Spices again, and salt. Shire tea. Smoked fish from Haven. Whiskey, liqueurs, and cheeses. Wave Rider kept some of these in stock.

For twenty-seven years he'd watched and eavesdropped on caravan merchants, merchants from Terminus and Destiny Town, and the Winslow clan. He had a very good idea what passed along the Road, and Wave Rider was involved in all of this. Except- Prole guns. Replacement, purchase, maintenance: nothing at all. And speckles. If the route involved middlemen, he'd have seen something. The sterilized seeds must go straight from the Windfarm to wherever along the Road they did their loading.

He went back to CARAVAN and opened

ORIGIN*CARAVAN

In Will Coffey's vision, now more than two centuries old, caravans

were not for commerce, not for making wealth. They were a way to deliver speckles to Spiral Town. The impression would be that Spiral Town was the peak of civilization on Destiny; that sophistication dwindled with distance down the Road.

We've been swindled. The greed of merchants, is that a lie too? or a game the merchants play to entertain themselves?

A later entry: The caravans are working! They serve as recreation for some, for some a way of life, a forum for courtship for some, but for all a hedge against the danger of inbreeding. They allow us to learn more about the only other sapient species ever found. They maintain the stability of our control experiment.