'Seventy klicks from Destiny Town, where the Road dips almost down to the water. About that far from here, I guess. Willya, I don't know how much of it they built.'
'Well, there's ten of us, and you tell us how to do it, and Jeremy can make us a pit barbecue.'
'If we can get there,' said a voice. Another told him to shut up. Jemmy stopped listening. He was half-asleep, and so were the rest of them, and anyone still awake wouldn't be making sense.
He dozed. The voices had all gone quiet. All but- 'It's at Swan Lake, between the Road and the shore.' Duncan. 'Daddy wouldn't let you in the Swan.' Barda, scornful. 'Harold Winslow? He wasn't there.'
'Who was?'
'Nobody. Barda, it's just a shell. They took out the ovens even, and the chairs and tables. I hid out in the Swan while they were looking for me after, you know.'
'How'd they catch you?'
'Got careless. Twice. I mean, I thought I'd hide out for a while and then hit the Road with the money and settle down in Terminus. But I didn't think of speckles. So I got speckles-shy and careless and got caught fishing off the dock.'
Jemmy asked, 'Duncan, do you have any idea where the Winslow family went?'
'How would I?'
'Well, the proles might have said something.'
'Nope.'
'Barda, it strikes me that maybe your daddy just left the Swan and went off to finish Wave Rider.'
Silence.
Jemmy asked, 'Who else would take the ovens?' 'Is Andrew awake?'
'I don't think so.'
'We'll tell him in the morning.'
24
The Ridges
We could build clocks that keep a Destiny calendar and Destiny time, but there's no point. The Spirals sell clocks by wagonloads, and we all use them. On Earth it's some slightly different date plus the lightspeed gap, and that doesn't matter either.
-Hillary Miller, first mayor 0f Terminus
In the morning they crossed the ridge and found another valley. They hacked and waded across.
And another behind the next ridge, but Cavorite must have seared and seeded this land. They yelled like maniacs to see green trees and grass covering the slopes. Black and yellow-green ran along the bottom, Destiny life seared away and then returned.
Felons scattered to hunt. Andrew kept others to dig a pit with their hands and to cut Destiny wood with kitchen knives. Jemmy Bloocher and Barda Winslow fought sporadic flurries of rain to make fire.
Before night fell they had cooked a pig, four rabbits, a small bird Ansel caught by leaping at it, and a man's weight of green bananas.
Gorged stupid, the dozen escapees lay on a sloping hill and looked at each other. Andrew Dowd said, 'It can work.'
Someone was talking about staying here.
Jemmy could have slept through that if Andrew hadn't begun shouting. Where will the Parole Board look first? where... more speckles? crazy bastard....ad a plan...
He tried to ignore the sounds, but now Ansel was shouting back. 'Not forever! We stay here till the Board gets bored looking for us.'
Andrew: 'I know where the caravan is now! When they get to the Swan we've got to be ready. Merchants won't wait.'
'If we settle here, the Board will quit after a month. They don't know we've got a speckles stash-'
'Speckles rots!'
'What? What are you saying?'
Barda: 'Ansel, speckles gets a splash of radiation before it goes on the Road. They do it in the Parole Board complex. Didn't you know?''
'You planned this knowing-? Wait a minute. Andrew, how long does speckles last if nobody zaps it?'
'No idea.'
'You don't even know it's to preserve the speckles, do you? It might be they don't want fertile seeds getting out-'
'That's birdfucking crazy!'
'Who died and made you prole?'
'Shut up! Shut your face or I'll turn it inside out for you!'
Barda was on Andrew's arm, whispering, while Willametta stalked off in a rage.
Jemmy spoke as she passed. 'Willya.'
She dropped beside him. She said, 'They're all crazy.' Jemmy said, 'Sure.'
'Andrew too. Idiot. If he'd just let them talk.' 'He still thinks he's a trusty, Willya.'
'What's your take on this, Jeremy?'
Jemmy said, 'We had a plan. Then we had another plan. Plans are cheap. I've thrown away a lot of plans. I like-' His arm swept about himself. '-this. We can hunt!'
'You'd stay?' The ragged clouds permitted glimpses of stars, but it was too dark to see more than shadows. She moved closer, to see his face.
'No, I mean we can keep a restaurant supplied. If they seared this valley, Cavorite must have seared and seeded every valley between here and the Road. They're all ready to be hunted. I saw-'
'Ah.' Relieved, she nestled against him.
He asked, 'Does Andrew-?'
'Too many men, not enough women, and a woman who gets pregnant goes free. Any man who tries to hold on to a woman gets taught different.'
'Unless he's a trusty?'
'By that time, he knows.' Somehow they'd come to be lying side by
side, their backs against the long damp grass. Willametta said, 'I haven't seen stars in two years.'
'Me... well. Days.'
'Be a restaurant. It sounded crazy when you said it.'
'Caravans build a new restaurant every evening, and I was the one who did the building. When I see the Swan I'll tell you what I think. Maybe it's fallen down.'
'What do we do then?'
'I can't stop until I've seen Destiny Town.'
She sat up abruptly. 'Crab shies aren't allowed on the mainland,' she said. 'You know better than to go into town without an identity, Jeremy.'
Crab shies?
'How would I pick up an identity? What identity? I mean, with this accent.'
'You could be a merchant child.'
Jemmy chewed that. He'd have learned the Crab accent while traveling with the caravan... wait. 'Willya, there weren't any children on the caravans.'
'No. Jeremy, if a merchant gets pregnant on the Road, she's bound to be home before she has the
