Larry Niven - Destiny's Road

“Leave it out. Tell Karen you escaped from the Windfarm. Don't tell her who came along.” She watched him absorb that.

“No Barda?”

“No Barda. So how did you get to the inn?”

“Let's see. If Barda didn't tell me about Wave Rider...” He played it through his mind. “I didn't know it was there. I was... running home? Back across the Neck. If I meet a caravan, I'm dead. Here's an inn. I can cook. Merchants don't notice a chef. A week later I've heard too much. Nobody hut a merchant gets across the Neck alive.”

“At least it doesn't sound so ... premeditated,” Harlow said. “Why did you come here?”

''Mmm?”

“Carder's Boat. Jeremy, you were nearly home. With your board and your gloves you could have crossed the weed, straight to shore. That would put you on the beach at, at the inn there?”

“Warkan's Tavern. With Bloocher Farm right next door. Yes. Harlow, they would not have been glad to see me.”

“Who would? But they'd take you in. Why did you throw your life to the ocean currents?”

“How did you get to know me so well?”

“I pulled you under the surfboards twenty-six years ago.”

“Repeatedly. It comes back to me.”

“But I don't know you. Even Karen didn't know you. Why didn't you go home?”

“I had to know where Cavorite went.”

Harlow laughed in the dark. “Jeremy!”

He tried to tell her, but he barely remembered himself.

Cavorite's path was the path of humankind, from the stars down to

Destiny, to Spiral Town, on to the mainland, and out again to the stars.

Jemmy Bloocher was tracing the path of Cavorite, and he was looking for a home.

When he killed Fedrik he'd blown his home apart. He'd left Spiral Town, then married and settled down the first chance he got.

Tagged by the caravan, he hadn't resisted. There was the Road, and he followed it, donning the life of a caravan yutz like a well-fitting glove. He'd never taken it off until his life was threatened. After that... there was joy in learning and exploring, but his roots waved in the air. The farther he went, the less he was tied to anything at all, unless it was to Loria Bednacourt.

Rejected by Loria and by Twerdahl Town... he'd gone mad.

Still mad, perhaps, he'd rebuilt the life of a pit cuisine chef from nothing more than escaped felons and the abandoned wreck of an inn.

When that collapsed in blood, he did it again at Wave Rider.

And he settled in as Wave Rider's pit chef, and forgot Cavorite for twenty-seven years.

“I knew where Cavorite was,” he said. “It was just down the Road, and a bus every two days, but anyone who asked me to pay for something would know I didn't belong. They'd put me back in the Winds, or kill me. After a while I stopped thinking about Cavorite. I burrowed in and spent twenty-seven years half-asleep. There's a civilization out there, Harlow! Spiral Town and the Crab are all barred from it! And I forgot. I just forgot.

“Then Karen burned herself,” he said, “and here I am.”

“And now what?”

He couldn't tell her what he'd decided. He didn't know what she'd do. Harlow was of Destiny Town. He was of Spiral Town, and he'd learned too much.

He'd learned what it really meant to be a Crab shy.

He'd learned about the Overview Bureau.

But he could tell her a little. “I can't stay here forever. As soon as Karen's better... back to Wave Rider, I guess. I want to stop at the Swan. Maybe I can figure out what happened to them. To Barda.”

“Want company?”

“Sure.” His mouth had run ahead of his mind. “Don't you have a shop to run here?”

“I can get Belle Kuiger to cover, with a few days' notice. You'll be shorthanded, come the caravan. I can help. I miss Wave Rider, Jeremy.” She reached across to take his hand. “I miss you.”

He was Harlow's guest, and everyone else had gone home. Best to be wary here. He asked, “Why did you leave? I always-”

“You didn't notice what was happening?”

“Dominance games, you and the rest of the family. Property rights.”

“Harold's brothers and sister didn't like it when Harold married me. They waited it out, but when Harold died, he... didn't leave a will. They could hassle me, I could hassle them. It just looked better to let them buy me out. And you, you didn't do anything.”

“With what?”

“You were just the pit chef, weren't you? But I thought you had some authority. Karen, she sided with her brothers.”

“Will they want you at Wave Rider?”

She settled back in her chair, the firelight behind her. “I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Still, they might want the help, with Karen in Medical and you in a cast and the caravan coming.”

He got himself onto his crutches, a little off balance: the brandy. Harlow wrapped herself around him for a deep kiss. “Thank you,” she said, and held him steady until he had his balance.

He hadn't felt this since Karen burned herself. The flash of lust had knocked him off balance, but his breath was coming back and his mind was catching up.

He made his toppling foot-crutches-foot way to bed. Maybe Harlow hadn't noticed. Any man could miss a signal.

Lisa Schiavo told him at Reception. Karen was dead.

“But, but... What happened?”

She was reading it off her screen. “Karen Winslow had a severe allergic reaction that led to a heart attack. Mr. Winslow, a human body is really very good at doing unexpected things.”

“But... they had the other batch of superskin-”

Schiavo didn't seem to be used to this. “I'll 1-let you talk to Dr. Nogales. Why don't you wait in the library?”

Crutches took his attention until he'd reached the library. What now? The computers were all occupied. He sat down.

Dead?

Not Karen: someone else. Scores of patients must be wearing transplants from that bad batch of superskin. Picture them collapsing everywhere, like a plague. Mixups would be routine..

Nah.

He'd never be able to tell her... never have to tell her...

A patient got up and left. Jeremy looked at the vacated screen. He'd learned all he cared to of Cavorite.

No, wait- LAW* CARAVAN ref Overview Bureau

LAW*OVERVIEW BUREAU

Restricted material. Access code?

PASSENGER*CARAVAN

Nothing.

You wouldn't just hail a caravan and buy a ticket. Caravans weren't transport. They were a way of moving speckles, and they'd be filed that way.

Meanwhile, try

PASSENGER*BUS

One set of buses moved around the city, back and forth along the Road. You stopped it where you liked, the usual gesture and a lot of flex in the schedule.

Two buses ran from Destiny Town all the way to the far end at fifty klicks per. One started at dawn on alternate days, the other at noon. Both returned the next day, over and over.

NECK*MAP

He'd seen these pictures as a child: maps made in orbit by Argos, before the mutiny. A black-bronze-yellow forest ran thickly down the fat side of the Crab, sparsely down the narrow side, joined at the Neck and ran on into the mainland.

But this next was more recent, taken by the Cyclops telescope. The Road was in place. Chugs were pulling thirteen wagons. Amazing, how much detail showed below the water. Crude Otterfolk cities, built hefty to withstand currents... not cities at all, the text said, but walls to guide currents and precipitate sand, to provide refuge for Destiny fish and extend the Haunted Bay environment by a little.

The back of the Crab was all cliffs. The sea bottom dropped straight down.

What had he hoped to see? There was no way across the Neck save with a caravan.

SWAN INN

Open:May 2651. See crime files case 2708-10. License terminated: May 2713. Current site: Corso's Camp Waikiki, children ages 5 to 12 Earth.