Destiny's Road

31 Lies

It was an invitation to disaster, cooking a dinner in someone else's kitchen. It worked partly because he had Harlow to tell him where the tools were kept.

There was that one moment of disorientation when Harlow began taking vegetables, bacon, and a calf's liver out of half-invisible envelopes all the same size. He lurched over to study the things.

“These come out of a machine that used to be mounted in Cavorite,” Harlow said, laughing at his astonishment. “Thousands a day. We feed it sand. We feed the bags back in too. Don't you have...” She trailed off.

He said, “Speckles pouches. Merchants sell speckles in these. I never saw them used for anything else.”

She nodded. Then she showed him how to make meringue shells. They cut fruit into the shells.

“Men lie to their wives,” Harlow said. “Women lie to their husbands.” She sipped at her brandy.

Brandy wasn't familiar to Jeremy, and he thought he was being cautious with it. He said, “I've gone through this in my head. Scripted it, my lines, her lines. I'm not who she thought I was. I'm a Crab shy, right. I killed a man and had to run, right. I was in prison, right, but never convicted of anything. I didn't hurt anyone getting out except Andrew

Dowd. I can say all that, but, Harlow, how can I tell Karen that I knew her sister?”

“What? Oh, Barda.”

“Barda was a trusty when I got to the Windfarm.”

“I never met Barda.”

“We escaped together. Brenda must have told you the rest, we helped her run the Swan-“

“Barda told you about us? You already knew us? Karen?”

They were dining by firelight and an awesome variety of candles. Harlow was mostly shadow. He couldn't make out her face. “Not you. You were a shock. Harold, though, and her mother, Espania Winslow, and Karen as a little girl. Harlow, when I last saw Barda she was all right. I never told Karen that. When did Karen last see her?”

“At the trial, when they took her away. It was just Karen and Barry and Espania. Harold didn't go. Did Barda tell you what she did?”

“No.”

“Poison. The whole second class at Wide Wade's. Two students died.”

“The proles had to know that,” Jeremy realized. “The Parole Board decides who does the cooking. That's why they made her a trusty!”

“You think that's funny?And you knew what happened to Barda and never told Karen? Jeremy, you...” She trailed off.

He said, “Barda got as far as the Swan, but after that... and the longer I waited, the harder it was to say anything. Now it's twenty-seven years. Harlow, I'll lose her.”

“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.

Those dates: Harold Winslow must have noticed he was paying for too much electricity. He'd terminated the Swan's power license a year after Jeremy reached Wave Rider. How had Barda and her crew survived that? And now it was a children's camp.

And buses stopped. He'd seen that.

CRIME*27O8~1 10

That was the record of Duncan Nick's arrest. Caught hiding out at the Swan, sent to the Windfarm, the loot never found.

What Jeremy had in mind seemed possible.

He'd started to cry.

They were all looking, and the hell with them. He let it come. Karen, I don't want to go!

A doctor got him onto his crutches and led him out and sat him down in an empty room.

Rita Nogales found him there.

“All right,” he said, “what happened?”

“That's still under debate. We lost her, Jeremy, but the problem may not stop there. If Batch One-“

“As I-''

“-went bad-yes?”

“-understand it, Karen rejected Batch One, so another batch was found-“

“Hope Batch, from Hope Clinic. Last night she rejected that and went into a coma. They loaded her with antihistamines, but she was dead by the time I could get here. We couldn't resuscitate her.

“Jeremy, there might be something atypical about Karen. Too much sunlight for too many years, too much of something in Destiny seafood or just Haunted Bay Destiny seafood, or... something genetic. Anything. Then again, maybe Batch One is bad. Karen reacted to it, and it set her up for a reaction to any breed of superskin. We need to know. Jeremy, we're doing an autopsy.”

In Spiral Town there would be no question that the community held title to a lifegiver. “Do what you need to. Can I see her?”

“Of course, but-“ She hesitated. ”-I don't recommend it.”

Of course it was his duty to... but Rita Nogales was shrinking back in her chair, withdrawing from him. With that for a clue, his mind showed him more than he wanted to see of what Karen must look like.

''All right.''

“Shall we take that cast off you?"

“Fine.”

He rested on his stick for a time, looking across the Road, considering how he might get inside Cavorite. Then he flagged the bus and boarded it.

Back at Harlow's he called Wave Rider immediately, getting Harlow to place the call.

Brenda picked up. “She's dead, isn't she?”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, Daddy!” and she wept.

“The damn trouble,” he said, “is Medical looks like the power of life and death written in stone. Brenda, Nogales still doesn't know just what killed her. I should come home-“

“No, Jeremy, you'll have to stay a few days.” That was Harlow. He looked around. “Why?” “Legal reasons, and to bury Karen.” “Brenda, I have to stay a few days.”

“All right, Daddy. Call and tell us when the funeral is.” Harlow showed him how to hang up. He said, “Legal. Why?”

“Because you'll inherit Karen's piece of Wave Rider.” That jolted him. “I never asked about a will.” “She told Brenda and Lloyd where to find it.” “What does Karen own?”

“I think one-quarter, but it wasn't any of my business.”

“This'll make me conspicuous, won't it, Harlow? Somebody will be putting new information in a file marked Jeremy Winslow,' who is fiction.”

“It's fiction, but I wrote it, Jeremy. Trust me.”

The next day Medical released Karen's body. They arranged a funeral for the day after. Funerals weren't important events in Spiral Town.

But Brenda came, and Mustafa, and Rita Nogales. They buried her with black pepper and lemon trees at her head and feet.

The children and Harlow stayed with him while he talked to Nogales. “Thanks for coming. I know Karen would appreciate-“

Nogales rode him down. “The autopsy showed some abnormal chemistry going on,” she told them with a touch of belligerence. “Some of us think it's Destiny seafood. People have been losing weight that way for a long time, we don't really know how long. I do it myself, but we damn sure didn't evolve to eat it. Have you any idea if she was eating-“

“Mother and I had lunch together,” Brenda said quietly. “Avocado and seafood, surf clam and Earthlife crab.”

“Mayonnaise?”

Jeremy listened as Morales quizzed his daughter like a felon. She went away mumbling to herself. Rita Nogales was a solver of puzzles, like Jeremy himself. If he'd known that...

Well, then what?

Two days later, Jeremy Winslow, horn Hearst, owned one-fifth (not onequarter) of Wave Rider.

Jeremy read through a thick file of data, and learned more of the restaurant than he'd learned in twenty-seven years. Karen's three siblings held another fifth each. The last piece rested with an entity that called itself Andy's Bank. “Investment outfit,” Harlow said. “They bailed us out with some money just after we opened.”

In Spiral Town the law would have dithered for much longer; sometimes years. He said so. “It's communication,” Harlow answered. “That, and an attitude. The law doesn't like ambiguities. If they'd found any discrepancies in the history of Jeremy Winslow, they'd be on your tail already.”

''So I'm real?''

“Real and a man of property. Let's celebrate.”

“I want to be on the bus at dawn.”

“Dawn?”

He couldn't sit still. He paced, leaning on the stick, careful with the knee. “Now, here's my plan. Dawn bus. I want to get off at the Swan, that'll be about midmorning. I'll flag down the noon bus and get to Wave Rider after someone else has finished making dinner.”

“There's a noon bus?”

“Why don't you take that one, Harlow? Meet me at the Swan? We'll go on to Wave Rider. In a day or so we'll know if you and the rest of Karen's clan can get along.”

“No, I'll... dawn bus. Early dinner?”

“Good. What are the neighbors like?” But Harlow didn't have friends she could invite at short notice.

She had not repeated an invitation that might have been only his imagination. Nonetheless that seemed ominous.

His leg was healing nicely. He was able to get around the kitchen without the cane. He packed for tomorrow's bus trip, and then they spent the afternoon building a dinner for two.

(Speckles pouches all over the table. All the same size, big enough for a head of lettuce, sold with half a cup of speckles in the bottom. He'd thought the merchants were being stingy. Never wondered if they just didn't have a choice.)

She opened what she called a half-bottle of wine, and tried to make him see what made it superior to whiskey. It was weaker, anyway. Again, he thought he was being cautious.

Harlow hadn't played among Otterfolk in years, nor visited the inn, and he had stories to tell her. He told her what “It's the law!” was about. He got her to telling tales of Destiny Town, and he told her about playing with Varmint Killer in Spiral Town. lie knew he'd drunk too much when he tried to stand up. Harlow got under his shoulder and led him to bed. She was weaving more than he was.

She got him down to the futon. Then she asked, “Shall I stay?” He said, “Of course, woman, it's your apartment,” being more obtuse than should be required of any man; and he let his eyes close and his mouth fall open. He knew no more until morning.