Larry Niven - Destiny's Road

Tim saw. He'd had time to think. He didn't ask which among them had learned to shoot prone. He'd watch. He didn't ask about cockades, and nobody else even referred to them.

He'd never seen the gaudy sprays before today. When did merchants wear those hats? When bandits were expected, sure, and maybe when it rained. Spiral Town had never seen cockades, but anyone along the Road would know of them. He'd given himself away again.

He'd been trained, all of the yutzes had been trained to shoot standing up. Rian and Joker shot prone while the yutzes stood to draw fire.

The caravans had been at this a long time.

Lost sleep didn't hamper him the next morning. His body had caught up with the stresses of a caravan chef, and the morning was glorious.

By morning light the caravan assessed its wounds.

Two men and a woman of Wu wagon, #12, had bullet wounds and were being tended in Doheny wagon. The bandits who attacked Wu wagon had also killed a chug and damaged a wheel haft. The wheel was ruined.

Ibn-Rushd wagon had severed ropes and, again, a hacked wheel. While bread was baked and distributed, the rest of the wagons hooked up their chugs and began to move. Two wagons remained behind with the damaged wagons.

Tim was reluctant to ask. “So, are we being abandoned?” Three yutzes chortled. Bord'n said, “No, but Tim, the caravan can't stay in one place. Chugs wouldn't get anything to eat. So the wagons'll just roll down the Road by a caravan length, and then everyone will spend the day doing repairs.”

“What about bandits?”

“We've got Tucker wagon. They've got Spadoni.”

“Which are they? I can't tell the wagons apart yet.”

“Oh, you'd better know that. In every wagon there's extra stores,” joker said, “like Milasevik and Wu carry tents and bedding. Doheny, that's the infirmary. Doheny is where you run if you've got time to run. It's a better hiding place than the shop sections of the wagons. You go there if you're hurt too. It's in front because anything dangerous hits the front of a caravan first.”

“Doheny. Front wagon,” Tim repeated.

“Spadoni and Tucker store arms-”

“Don't we all have guns?”

Bord'n hesitated. “Shark guns and ammunition are in Tucker. What's in Spadoni isn't for yutzes. Don't be caught wandering around Spadoni wagon. And of course every wagon is part shop.”

Yesterday's bandits had a penchant for attacking wheels. Merchant men and yutzes came streaming back from the main caravan to help set up repair facilities; they did wheels first. Undamaged wagons wanted their wheels reground. Presently they were all rolling wheels back down the Road.

By midafternoon Wu and ibn-Rushd were ready to move.

They rolled just far enough to join the rest of the wagons. Then repair and maintenance work continued all up and down the caravan.

A few merchants were not to be seen. Tim had seen activity around Spadoni wagon. He might guess that they were somewhere about, armed, guarding the caravan. Armed with what? It didn't seem like a good day to stroll past Spadoni wagon.

In midafternoon the chefs dug their fire pits and the chugs ambled into the sea. Nobody had been particularly concerned about hunting. Dinner was skimpy, largely fish and stored vegetables.

Tim became aware that Rian was watching him.

She said, “I might have known Mother would have you if I didn't. I should have taken you on the beach. You would have come then.”

Rian made him edgy. Hadn't she flatly rejected him, without his ever having offered? Tim said, “Loria would have brained us both.”

“Why would Loria Bednacourt hurt you? Or me?”

“Hang on.” Tim spent a minute turning two Earthlife salmon, and thinking.

Then he said, carefully, “You think Twerdahis are all alike? We aren't. Loria doesn't share. She wants her side of the bed, all of it. If she's in the kitchen, nobody else is cooking. Her man is hers from his heart out to all twenty-one digits. “It was nearly the truth: Loria would share with her sisters.

“But she's not a merchant.”

Again he saw how this would go. “Will you find me tonight?”

“I will,” she said tartly, “if you don't stay up till dawn singing!”

When she was out of hearing, he sighed. She'd expected him last night? What kind of signal had he missed?

Better not to know than to guess wrong. A yutz could be in a world of trouble if he rubbed up against a merchant woman who didn't want him.

Loria was far behind him, and she would expect this of him, and hate it.

But Jemmy Bloocher still haunted him. Anything he did with a merchant woman might speak his secret. Tim Bednacourt is a Spiral!

But then Senka ibn-Rushd must already know.

And he burned.

In the morning Rian was there, her back against his, sound asleep. He watched her for a time, savoring her touch without moving, smelling her hair, feeling good.

Rian was lean and flexible and smooth. She made love with her mother's ferocity... and her mother's perception for a man's erogenous zones and how they could be made to react. But Rian paid more attention to what she was doing. The taste of semen surprised her. He was ticklish just above both hipbones; she was delighted. She made momentary mistakes-an elbow whacking him just under the eye-and caught herself, like an apprentice.

Were merchant women trained somewhere? And the men too?

Faint noises told him other yutzes were awake.

Rian woke when he moved. Scrambling into his clothes, he asked her, “What's Spiral Town like?”

She looked at him sleepily.

“We wonder,” he said. “It's so close.”

“Why don't you go?”

He improvised. “I think the older people don't want the Spirals to know Twerdahl Town is that close.”

“Why?”

“Maybe the Spirals would want to tell us how to live.”

Rian yawned. “Maybe so. Anyway, I've never been in Spiral Town. They used to let us halfway in. They don't anymore, but they still buy from us. Not even Gran Shireen ever saw Columbia,” she said wistfully.

Damon andJoker weren't in the tent. Tim thought nothing of that. While turning bread out of the woks, he noticed how many men weren't staying around for breakfast.

There were times when a yutz might ask questions, and times when he must listen. A fresh yutz must be taught. This seemed different. This morning the merchants moved in a closed and purposeful pattern, and a yutZ could not make eye contact. Tim could see activity far down the Road, around Spadoni, the weapons wagon. Then men were moving uphill, and everyone was pretending not to notk~e.

Trader secrets.

It took longer to hitch up the chugs, of course, but-as yesterday- the caravan only moved one generous caravan length. Then all the women and yutzes (and no men) began a cleaning program. Wagons were emptied out and every compartment cleaned. Yutzes polished metalwork until, for the first time, Tim saw wagon trim gleaming. Clothing was laundered.

A handful of merchant women hung around Tucker wagon. They were still taking bandits seriously.

Dinner was skimpy again, but nobody seemed to mind. Everyone ate in a hurry, talking around mouthfuls of food. Tim never twitched anymore at the sight of men and women talking together. Still... something odd here.