Destiny's Road Part 35

Jemmy found he could still shout. "Trying to get a free ride out?"

"Yeah!"

They rode.

In the aftermath glow he reached up along Rita's leg. "Hey. If Dolores gets pregnant but you don't, would they take her but not you?"

"Girl, move over. Hey, yutz, you got any of that left?"

"Weeks. I was saving it-" for Loria. "Well, save it no more."

Then someone did come in, and the women rolled to either side and were on their feet, and Rita turned off the shower while Jemmy lay bedazzled and bewildered.

Three shadows seen through fog. "Just us. Down, Rita! Jeremy, we've talked. Can you join us?"

"Sure."

Barda and Rafik and Henry emerged from the steam. He was still short of sleep, he thought, but there wasn't any way to rest now. "Barda, do we have time to talk? If I thought of looking for windbird blood on s.h.i.+mon's s.h.i.+rt-"

"They won't find it," Rafik said carelessly. "Come on."

Jemmy got his shorts on. He was talking as they walked toward the airlock end. "I shot both birds. Then they both chewed s.h.i.+mon up. They must have gotten their own blood all over him. The proles will think of looking. The question is, did it wash off?"

Henry began swearing. Rafik's glare was the kind that kills. Barda took Andrew aside and began to whisper.

They broke. "All right," Andrew said, "we have to go. I have to go.

I killed a prole tonight for that gun. Jeremy, for Earth's sake, when did you think of this?"

"Came to me while I was in the shower."

"What can we do? Steal one wagon? Do they ever separate?"

"They can be separated. There are stories. You need more than fourteen people for a bandit gang, though. Yet again, Andrew, what would you do with it? Even if we could peel off a wagon and kill everyone in it and take all their yutz guns, we wouldn't have enough firepower to hold off shark attacks. We'll lose our chugs in the first week! That's why they take so many wagons."

"Well, if it's that hopeless, there's no point in any of you going.

I'm a trusty. You c-"

"I'm coming," Barda snapped without looking up. She was rolling the biggest of the kitchen knives into a pair of shorts.

"You couldn't have stopped me doing anything," Andrew told her.

"Didn't know I was out there killing a prole and I~iding the pack wagon.

Can't stop me now, 'cause I'm holding that d.a.m.ned hose of a prole gun.

So, Jeremy, do you have anything to say that isn't 'We're all gonna die'?"

Jemmy said, "I think we can become a restaurant."

*23*

The Run Old sun, old planet, means less 0f heavy metals and radioactives. The crust is too th~~k for plate movement and mountain building. Destiny doesn't really have more water than earth, b~t it covers nearly everyhing.

-Henry Judd, Planetologist Andrew stopped them just outside the stormlock in the flapping white light of the electric banner. "I forgot something." He grinned, and turned to go back in.

Jemmy had him by the poncho. "No you don't. Amnon!" he bellowed.

The snout of the prole gun pushed into Jemmy's throat. Andrew almost-whispered, "Just what d-?"

Jemmy screamed, "He's going to kill the ones who stayed!" The crowd of refugees melted. Jemmy couldn't tell who ran or where they hid, but Barda and Willametta moved immediately to Andrew's side. They whispered urgent remonstrances, their hands caressing his arms, while Amnon stepped up behind him and wrapped his big arms around Andrew's head.

But Andrew pushed the prole gun hard under Jemmy's chin, and Jemmy didn't try to move.

Amnon's arms began to tighten and twist. He asked, "The twins too, you birdf.u.c.ker?"

"We can't leave them to talk!"

Barda was holding the point of the biggest of the kitchen knives just under Andrew's eye.

Andrew cursed and released the gun. Jemmy caught the heavy thing and cradled it, pointing it at n.o.body. A tiny green light twinkled in the b.u.t.t. He said, "You never did have a plan, did you? Just kill and kill until something stops you."

"Nooo."

"Jeremy. Jeremy! Give me the gun a minute."

"What?" Jemmy swung round; the gun swung too. One of the twins s.h.i.+ed back.

"Just give me the gun for a breath," she pleaded, laughing.

"I don't think so."

"Then you do it. Shoot up the toolhouse a little."

"Bad idea, Rita."

"Dolores. But look-"

w.i.l.l.ya shouted, "Barda, don't cut him, it's all right! Let him go.

Now what, Andrew?"

Andrew snarled like a beast.

"Plan," Jemmy said in disgust. Without Andrew the rest had no direction, but Jemmy Bloocher might as well be lost on another planet.

He said, "Push anyone stupid enough to trust you until he drops out, then kill him for it. Kill proles till they shoot everyone who's still with you. Keep it up till there's n.o.body left. Plan?"

Andrew wrenched himself loose, and they let him do it. He shook himself, and strode off shouting, "Follow me!"

The flapping yellow blaze dwindled into black rain.

In the rain and the thunder there was a rustling too, and motion that wasn't just trees in the wind. A big bird dropped from the sputtering sky and lifted again with a turtle-shape in its four sawtooth-edged feet.

Andrew had told them to keep their ponchos. He was right. The night was alive.

Rafik Doe recognized tree roots strangling a sharp-edged boulder, and fished Jemmy Bloocher's pack from underneath. Those on the short list stripped and donned the swim trunks and windbreakers from Carder's Boat, then wore their firebird colors over them. Jemmy gave his prole gun to Amnon before he pulled a windbreaker over his head, then his own old and battered pack. Amnon handed the gun back, somewhat to Jemmy's surprise, and got himself dressed.

They'd walked halfway back to the field where s.h.i.+mon died. In a sputter of lightning they watched a battle between shadows of birds.

Rafik complained in a continuous drone, until others took up the theme too.

"Here!" said Andrew.

He meant a line of spiky black-and-bronze foliage dug into the crack that ran up a near-vertical rock face.

There were exclamations and protests, and then they climbed. Jemmy waited to help the laggards.

Shar Willoughby got ten meters up and froze.

Jemmy climbed up to show her which plants would hold, where to place her feet. She shook her head and wouldn't look or move. "Get me down. Just get me down."

Andrew and Barda were high above him. He couldn't ask: Do we need Shar? She was wearing shorts and windbreaker! But she'd never make it, and she was blocking the path.

A ten-meter fall would break bones. He guided her down, letting her stand on his shoulders when he had to. She knelt at the bottom, panting like a dog. He made her strip and took her shorts and windbreaker.

The others were climbing. Shar plodded back toward the barracks.

Jemmy pulled himself along a row of Destiny plants. Or was it all one plant? He couldn't see a break, just a line of roots prying a mountainsized rock apart.

Before that crack ran out there was another.

The world was all tilted surfaces, black and lightning-white, and roar of thunder. He remembered wandering in a daze, mostly blind and mostly deaf, pulling himself from nowhere to nowhere just because he wasn't dead yet. .

But this night was very different from the night he'd abandoned Carder's Boat. He'd been fed and succored, and twelve people had given their lives into his hands. . . gloves. n.o.body else had gloves.

The plants ended suddenly. Other climbers started having trouble.

Jemmy had to double back a few times to guide the others to foot- and handholds. The prole gun's strap left Jemmy's arms free. He could see Andrew watching from far above.

If Jemmy slipped, Andrew would have the gun again.

"Here," Andrew bellowed. "The ledge. Leave your ponchos here.

Firebird shorts too. Use rocks to weigh them down."

Rafik exclaimed, "Now what on Earth are you playing at, Andrew?"

"Do it right!" Andrew bellowed. He'd left his own clothing where he was, fifty feet above the ledge, sleeves spread and wedged in cracks.

"They can't see through unless the clouds break!" He scrambled back and helped Rafik, then Willametta, then Amnon place rocks to display flame-colored ponchos and shorts against dark wet rock. The others were getting the idea.

Andrew was painting a picture of climbers scattered over a cliff face. "We're halfway up and frozen in fear, right? And that's the way it is until they get here themselves, and look. Right?"

"Andrew," Jemmy asked, "do you think they can see us?"

Andrew's teeth flashed in lightning. "Not yet. All set? Come!"

"Andrew, there's too many!" Andrew looked at him, and Jemmy shouted, "Me! I'm one too many! They're looking for thirteen ponchos, not fourteen, and if we meet a spectre or something, someone has to pose!"

And after they found Shar they'd be looking for twelve ponchos, not thirteen. . . still one too many. . . unless Shar talked.

Andrew said, "One of us should have started naked. d.a.m.nd.a.m.n. Ansel, you look cold-"

Ansel Tarr dressed again in flame colors.

Jemmy looked arouhd at them. "w.i.l.l.ya?" He gave her Shar's swim shorts and windbreaker. She looked no more skeletal than the rest.

Andrew led off again, leaving twelve posed ponchos.

The ledge was straight, hard to lose in the flas.h.i.+ng dark, but it wasn't a split in rock. It was a frozen flow of lava, naked of plants, and slippery. There were holes etched by rain for handholds and footholds. Jemmy stayed on hands and knees even where he could stand, because those behind him were copying his style.

Jemmy, Henry, Andrew, Willametta, Barda, and Amnon wore swim trunks and windbreakers. Ansel wore the last poncho. The rest were naked and not liking it.

He barely heard the scream, but he turned quick and shouted down.

"Who fell?"

He heard: "I caught something. Caught a plant." Amnon's voice.

"Thorn."

"Can you climb up?" Oh, Earth and Moon, Amnon was in a windbreaker and trunks! If proles found those on a gatherer's corpse, they'd guess there were more.

"I can't move! It's like two handfuls of hypo needles!"

"I've got rope, Jeremy." Andrew hurled a coil of rope at him. He leered atJemmy and said, "Anchor me." Plan? Where's your rope?

Jemmy tied the rope to a low, knotted Destiny tree. He could hear Amnon whimpering. The rope didn't seem to be finding him.

The sky lit like a sun.

It hurt the eyes. . . like the light that burned over the speckles field after s.h.i.+mon's death. Jemmy blinked. "What on Earth-?"

"Quicksilverrr!" Andrew's bellow was all triumph. He trolled the rope toward Amnon, who was clinging to a double armful of thorn on a sixtydegree slope. The rope was too short. "Jeremy!"

It was long enough when Jemmy had untied it from the tree, but the only anchor now was himself and Andrew. Amnon didn't want to let go of the bush.