Larry Niven - Destiny's Road

“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 Winnie?”

“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 inn.”

“Such as?”

“It's early,” Jemmy said. “I'm going to get some fish for dinner.” He set Andrew's pack beside the loot of three houses, and left. Barda's eyes bored into his back.

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.

“Where did you get this?”

He fitted it onto her, and then he told her.

She scrambled backward. A safe distance away, she threw the ear crescent at the lake water and ran.

He waited until she was out of sight. Then he kept walking, around the lake and uphill. He kept the pole, awkward as it was. There would be lakes and rivers.

He didn't expect to be hunted. Jemmy Bloocher disappears after admitting that he's killed the trusty. Did he run? Or did someone take offense? Who cares? But anyone who tried to follow Jemmy would surely expect to find him on the Road.

Uphill he climbed. Swan Lake nestled in another wrinkle in the fabric of the land, another crest with another valley beyond. From the crest he could look into the next valley. Earthlife colors, then Destiny black along the bottom, then Earthlife again.

That day and the next three, he stuck to the crest. He made forays into the valley to hunt and gather. In time he descended to the Road. When he met the caravan he was welcome: he had money. He'd saved out half before he gave the rest to Barth.

Jeremy Winslow had shaped a reclining chair for himself out of sand.

Out beyond the waves, blue and white water sparkled and flashed. A tiny pale shape bobbed up and down. Chloe was sitting on a board with her back to Jeremy, surrounded by small dark shell-topped heads.

It was off season. Wave Rider's clientele might think that they came for the Otterfolk. hut they came for each other's company too. When a caravan wasn't in, nobody else came either. The folk who tended Wave Rider could all relax a little.

Only a little. Entropy ran fast at the shoreline, and Barbara Barenblatt had brought a large family: a husband, four young children, and a sister doubling as baby-sitter, all in the three-back suite. Barry and Brenda were cleaning it up while they were out; Brenda's husband, Lloyd, had gone yesterday for supplies, and he'd seen Karen tending a cauldron of Soup.

And Jeremy was nursing a twisted knee, hut it wouldn't keep him idle forever. He was shelling peas under a net to keep sand out. His hands moved without distracting him much.

Out beyond Chloe, the water humped. Chloe saw it. She was paddling, turning. Small heads popped up around her, a dozen, twenty. The hump in the ocean rolled toward her. Chloe paddled madly. Jeremy watched, nodding. Good, good, you're on, good, stand now.

She stood. The board slid down the water slope in a flurry of Otterfolk. when Chloe veered they all veered.

No surfboard ever hit an Otterfolk.

The wave was breaking, and she skimmed away under the falling water. Otterfolk got lost, or let the wave roll over them just for the hell of it. A few were almost keeping up.

She looked good, his sister-in-law. He'd taught her to ride these waves. He'd be riding again after his knee healed. At forty-seven years of age, he couldn't expect that to happen fast.

Behind him, not loud, Jeremy heard a metallic thump and a highpitched yzp.

A moment to realize how queer that sound was. Another to wait for the yell of reassurance that didn't come. Then he was hop-running uphill, cane stabbing sand, right arm windmilling for balance.

He saw Karen, and he bellowed, “Barry! Brenda! Help!”

Karen had set the cauldron in a frame above the pit, in the sand below Wave Rider. The cauldron was on its side. He could see where chowder had spilled down Karen's right side, shoulder to hip and elbow.

“Barrbarrbarreee! Brenbrenbrendaaa!”

Her face was twisted in terror. Why wasn't she screaming? He shied from the answer: the nerves must have been seared lifeless. He got under Karen's shoulder, her left shoulder, just as she started to collapse. His own scream rose to incoherent agony as his knee buckled under her weight.

Brenda came running.

Jeremy was down on his knee, still supporting Karen. “Don't touch her where she's burned! Get under her here, here where I am, okay?” He transferred his burden. Karen was moaning. She'd started to realize how bad it was. She wasn't able to stand.

“Get her up to the inn!” Jeremy limped uphill, up sixty meters of old wooden stairs, shouting every few steps. “Barrbarrbarreee!”

“What?I was stowing meat and veggies.” Lloyd was back.

Good! “Get ice! All the ice! Karen's been burned! Barrbarrbarreee!”

Lloyd disappeared.

Jeremy continued his hop-jump progress up the stairs from the beach, through Reception and into the kitchen. Lloyd had poured several pounds of ice over a towel in the sink. He rolled the towel up and rushed past Jeremy.

Brenda and Karen had reached the landing outside Reception. Karen was whimpering; her eyes rolled. A patch of skin on her upper arm had slipped. Lloyd and Brenda eased her down to the wood floor and settled the ice-filled towel across her. Jeremy slid a pillow under her knees.

Brenda asked, “Did you call anyone?”

Call? “Lloyd-” Phone?"No.”

Brenda ran inside.

Karen wanted to hold his hand. He told her, “Don't worry. Brenda must be calling the City. What happened?”

“It was tipping over. I tried to stop it.”

“Should have called me.”

“No time. Your knee.”

“Someone.”

“I know.” Her eyes closed, her hand went slack.

He found Brenda in Reception talking to the settler-magic box in her hand. “Karen Winslow. Wave Rider Inn. Got it?” The little projector behind the desk flashed white-on-blue print into the air and she said, “Yes. I'm her daughter, Brenda Winslow, but she'll probably come in with Daddy, Jeremy Winslow. That's right-“ The air blinked ruby script at her, and she frowned. “Daddy? When were you born?”

“Twenty-seven eleven.” The truth. He didn't know a better answer.

“Where?”

“Skip it.''

“Haven on the Crab, Iremember. Daddy, they're having trouble finding your credit references.”

Jeremy Winslow didn't answer. Brenda said, “You came here, so you took Mom's name. Would they have your name from before?”