Destiny's Road Read Online Free PDF Page B

Varmint Killer.
    Dad nodded and nodded and presently asked, "Master Granger there?"
    "I saw him," Jemmy said. Master Granger was an older man, proprietor of the lead wagon, though a younger woman drove. He and Dad had been friends. Jemmy and Dad had taken Granger and his driver to Harry's Bar, before Dad's accident.
    Dad nodded and didn't suggest doing that again. Some days his mind worked better than others. Dad could barely get out of the house.
    He wanted to know everything about today. Jemmy talked, with some help from Thonny, while Mom helped him eat.
    The New Hann. The caravan. Chugs in a sand-colored wave rolling down the sand into the ocean.
    Mom and the girls were talking about marriages, crops, weather, prices.
    Jemmy had heard this too often, endless permutations, endlessly the same. He waited for an instant's pause and jumped into it. "Dad, how far down the Road have you gotten?"
    "Oh, hell, Jemmy. Not far. We used to visit the Warkans, swim there, when the Warkans were the farthest. I hear tales, but.... don't think I ever got as far as where you were today."
    The Road. He might never learn more of the Road than he'd learned from the schooling programs.
    "Your uncle Eezeek had to go down the Road for awhile. Folk at Haven took him in-"
    "Eezeek died years ago," Mom said.
    But the merchants knew. Maybe somebody could get them talking.
    Quicksilver glowed among lesser stars, just on the horizon.
    A cart moved silently past the Bloocher clan toward Warkan's Tavern, moved by electricity and an old motor. It carried huge rolls of Begley cloth sheeting from the cavern in Mount Apollo: the most important product Spiral Town had to sell. It ghosted past the tavern and stopped by the lead wagon.
    Normally roomy for the crowd it pulled in, Warkan's was just adequate When a caravan was in town. It wasn't just the merchants. Every human being between fifteen and twenty-five was at Warkan's Tavern tonight.
    The older Spirals wore dancers on their feet. No room to dance in here. Outside, later, on the Road, in the dark rooms normally closed had been opened. The big bar would be inhumanly crowded, and Jemmy led his brethren into one of the outer rooms. They'd be able to breathe here, and Varmint Killer was sparkling, darting, spitting threads of green light, and putting on a fine show outside the big windows.
    Tunia Judda was here, far across the big room. Tunia and Jemmy had been watching each other for years. Their parents were friends, and something might come of that, but they hadn't spoken of anything permanent. They'd dance on the Road later tonight.
    Jemmy played at catching her eye. Never worked. Women probably did the same thing men did: get a friend to do the looking.
    A few merchants were already here. Jemmy knew he shouldn't stare, but... They dressed in layers, in bright colors and patterns. Each man carried a gun, and each woman too.
    Rachel Harness had grown up lovely and a little twisted. She'd been feeding herself and her speckles-shy mom since she was a little girl. When the rest went to their homes for dinner, Rachel and her mom had stayed on the ridge to picnic and to watch.
    "We didn't see a trace of the chugs for over an hour," she told the girls at her table, unmindful of the clear fact that boys were listening too. "The merchants were all settling in, pitching tents, setting up cookfires. They didn't look worried at all. Then here came the chugs, a great long wave of them, all the chugs at once. The merchants all dropped what they were doing and climbed up on their wagons! They settled on their bellies and pulled their guns out."
    The merchants waited for service with more patience than locals did. They were listening to Rachel Harness with discreet amusement, men and women both.
    "Now here came-I don't know any word for them," Rachel said. "They look like big toothy fish swimming through sand-"
    A merchant, a man, turned in his chair and spoke to Rachel. "Sharks. They're all along this coast."
    Rachel