Destiny's Road

20 The Speckles Crop

Jemmy entered the stormbock first, with Shimon and four he hadn't met. He got their names: a trusty would know. Rafik, Shar, Denis, Henry- “Henry? You found me.”

Henry grinned. “You looked like a drowned dustbird.”

“Trusty!” Shimon snapped.

“-Trusty,” Henry said.

“Door, Trusty.” That was Shimon again, reminding “Andrew” that the trusty was always first through a door.

He walked into pulsing yellow-white light.

It stopped him for an instant. A flood of raindrops flared irregularly as the light waxed and waned. Somewhere in his murky memory... hadn't he seen this before? Flashing yellow rain. Too tired to look up. A pair of skeletons took him by the arms and told him “Don't say birdfucking aloud!” and led him out of hell... some kind of hallucination?

He didn't look up now either, because two bird-shapes and a cart waited outside in the rain. A cart pulled by a little smooth-shelled machine.

Jemmy lifted his hood and, as hood and arm hid his face from them, shouted over the thunder. “Probes?”

Shimon nodded violently.

Jemmy had thought they'd wait in the toolhouse, where it was dry.

The gatherers were all pulling their hoods up. Jemmy wiped his eyes and looked around and had to throttle a laugh. The hoods had eyes and beaks!

The proles came near, one behind the other and a little to the side. The orange stripes on their ponchos were broad~r than a trusty's. Weapons dangled at their sides, belted over ponchos. Jemmy had seen merchants returning such things to Spadoni wagon after a bandit hunt.

They bore another clear sign of their power. Half-beard hadn't told him that probes would wear pants! Big loose pants and boots to keep legs and feet dry. Luxuries beyond your wildest dreams.

Jemmy stepped forward, eagerness over fear. “Yes, man?”

The lead probe's voice was rusty, and male. “Get on with it.” He waved, and Jemmy saw the toolhouse, like the short arm of an L built onto the barracks building.

The gatherers were cinching the strings on their ponchos. None of them moved, not even Shimon, until “Andrew” took the handles on the high-wheeled cart and pushed it toward the toolhouse.

Wooden bed, metal wheels. A crude piece of work, very different from the low-built machine that had been pulling it, but it robbed easily. It held empty backpacks painted in the colors of a firebird, and one that held something massive.

The probes maintained their staggered position. Attack one, you'd be shot by the other.

The door was blocked by a thick metal beam with a big crude metal lock. A probe opened it. His sleeve hid the key; he returned it to a zipped poncho pocket. Jemmy pulled the cart inside, and the gatherers filed in after him.

He lifted out the heavy backpack. It was full of bullets. Lungshark bullets (yutz bullets) were this size, but these looked wrong and felt light. Jemmy didn't pause to study them. He found the ammo bin where Andrew had said it would be. He unlocked it. It was near empty. He poured most of the bullets in. A handful went into a pocket in his poncho. He returned the pack to the cart.

The gatherers were picking up empty packs and big duck-f oot- shaped gloves. There was a pack with a bigger orange patch. Jemmy took that, and glanced in before he donned it. Rope, and a big box marked with a red cross.

The half-dozen bird guns were shark guns, yutz guns, and nothing but. Jemmy loaded a gun and got his first good book at the bullets. The business end was a cluster of little pellets, not a slug. The gun took eight.

Shimon never stopped watching him. Jemmy wished he would lose that grin: it called attention to them both.

Still moving briskly, as if he had been here too often to find it interesting, Jemmy followed the last gatherer. He glanced back once. Blacksmith-level technology here; settler magic in the barracks- “Snap it up, Trusty.”

“Sorry, man.” “Andrew Dowd” stepped briskly into the Road, leading his gatherers to their work site. Amnon took last place. The proles stayed to lock the toolhouse.

Twenty meters down the Road, Jemmy turned to book back. Above the barracks, pure light flapped like a banner and blazed bike a lightbulb, too bright to look at. Jemmy squinted hard and looked anyway. The roof might have been Begley cloth, but in this light he couldn't tell. The flagpole was three poles meeting in a narrow tripod on the barracks roof. The flag must have been at least ten meters by seven.

You couldn't get lost with that bight to guide the way. But how much power was being burned here? How long had it been burning? Cloth that burned like a lightbulb, that was settler magic!

From the beginning Jemmy had seen a flood of electrical energy. Barda's kitchen would have fed a dozen times the Bloocher family. Hot water at the turn of a knob, and enough to wash twenty gatherers at once! All these ponchos and shorts and blankets cycling endlessly through the big machine that was never turned off. And this!

There wasn't enough Begley cloth to power a fraction of all this. Where were they getting their power?

A sudden downpour turned it all into a great half-globe of yellowwhite rain. Rain hid the last of his line of gatherers, and the proles weren't in sight. Jemmy turned and walked on.

He looked back rarely. Rain and mist hid stragglers. He assumed the probes were mounting rear guard. They couldn't watch him fumbling with the strings of his poncho, snarling them in knots, until he finally managed to cinch wrists and neck and waist against the rain.

Shimon kept pace behind him. When he caught Jemmy's eye, Shimon's casual pushing gesture waved him straight ahead. Jemmy grinned at that. He was following the Road along row after row of speckles crops. How could he get lost?

Probes might guess something if he stopped where speckles plants had already been stripped, or led them past plants ready to harvest. But Half-beard was out with the gatherers yesterday, and he'd guided them to the end of the Road at day's end.

He felt/heard the rain stop. For a long moment the air cleared, and when Jemmy looked back, the last plodder was a shape too big to be anyone but Amnon Kaczinski. No probes.

And the rain resumed, and they marched on.

The Road ended in a muddy pond: a shallow crater. Cavorite had hovered here. When Jemmy was sure where he was, he waved into the plants. The gatherers moved in. They knew where they'd stopped last night. Shimon looked back once before he followed the rest.

The probes were in place. They followed Amnon in, then separated and began to circle wide around the little crowd of gatherers. The gatherers formed a line, one to a row, and followed the rows of speckles plants.

Jemmy Bloocher moved among them, watching and learning. Andrew Dowd moves among the gatherers, supervising.

With gloves built like pieces of an umbrella, they stripped the branches, holding their packs to let a rain of bright yellow dust fall in. Rain was turning the bottoms of the packs into a sludge of tiny yellow speckles seeds. The packs would be heavy, coming back.

He passed near Shimon. Head down, Shimon shouted above the rain. “Look around, not just at me. You're not just watching us work. You're protecting us.”

“From what?”

Shimon looked up, disgusted. “Just pretend. Anything that pops up, the proles'lb get it first.”

Jemmy hadn't been told of any danger. Shimon went on, “They're seeing if the ground is clear. Any bird they find, they'll shoot it-“

“Any bird?”

Still annoyed, still obtrusively patient, Shimon explained. “Any bird that doesn't eat meat must eat plants, right? Any bird you see is after us or the speckles. So the probes do a circle, then they'll take a pass through the rows, then they'll go home and get dry. Home for lunch.” He said it like a curse.

Jemmy moved on.

Winnie Maclean looked like an elf or wraith, very thin and fragile. She smiled up at him and then looked down again, working briskly. Eerily beautiful she was, if you could forget that she was starving.

He got a conspiratorial leer from Duncan Nick, to whom he had never spoken at all. Jemmy watched until Duncan suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing with his hands.

A woman's eyes snagged his own, though her hands didn't pause in stripping branches. A once-pretty face turned hard. Was that hatred? What had Jemmy ever done to her?

He was idle while she worked. Trusties must get a lot of this. Jemmy was going past when her head beckoned.

He moved closer. -And in the next row over, a face turned toward him within a gatherer's hood. Narrow head, narrow nose, yellow-brown skin, and Oriental eyes: the same face with a smile like sunlight.

The angry twin said, “They'll leave you. You know that.” Hmm?Jemmy asked casually, “Who's going, Rita?” This had to be Rita or Dolores Nogabes.

“Not us either. We're not crazy. He wants to go over the mountains!”

“Who do I talk to if I want to go?” Rita shrilled laughter. “Who?”

“Willametta, bet. She's with you know.”

With Half-beard: the other Andrew. “And Shimon's with Barda?”

“Nobody talks to Shimon.” Rita Nogales looked down, dismissing him.

He moved on. The other twin smiled at him and said, “Good day for picking, Trusty.”

He couldn't help smiling back. “Is that sarcasm? I wouldn't know, Dolores.”

“It doesn't get drier. Gets noiser, gets windier, sometimes the air burns your throat. If there's windbirds you maybe have to hold the pose for half a day, and then the Board wants to know why your pack's light. You were a yutz?”

“Yeah.”

“The trader women, they teach you anything?”

Dolores Nogales's eyes were direct and speculative. Jemmy's instinct was to back up a few centimeters. He said, “I think your sister hates me. You don't?”

“Rita's being stupid. You're lucky. Talk to me later.”

He moved on, thinking pleasant thoughts.

What did trusties and probes get out of this? They got just as wet as the gatherers... but probes went home for lunch, and everyone took their orders.

Anyone but probes had to take a trusty's orders.

Of course you couldn't trust random felons to cook. There must be poisons to he found in the lava scrub, and cooking knives could kill, or a heavy pan. Might as well give the cook a gun and call him a trusty.

But cooking meant trusties stayed dry one day out of two. And anyone a trusty liked would also stay dry one day out of two.

It was Andrew's day outside and Barda's day in. They'd had to arrange something to get Shimon out here guiding “Andrew.” If Shimon wasn't with Barda, maybe Barda was rubbing up against another man?

She'd better be doing that. No wonder Shimon was irritable. But tomorrow would be “Andrew” 's day in. Was that what Dolores Nogales was thinking? “Andrew” didn't have to be with Willametta.

Willametta was with Andrew, and Jemmy-as-Andrew was outside, so one of these identical shapes must be Willametta. Jemmy stopped by each gatherer for a time, looking around conscientiously for a threat he couldn't describe. The real threat, the probes, had closed their wide circle around the gatherers. They talked, then separated and moved in staggered fashion toward the gatherers.

Here was Willametta. Jemmy looked into her bag and said casually, “I'm told I'm not going.”

Wiblametta had a couple of pounds of seeds in the bag with another three pounds of water. She said, “Going where, Andrew?”

“I have no idea.” She returned his grin, and he said, “I'm trying to think of a way we can all go.”

Wiblametta seemed to have the giggles. “Right.”

“Six of us in shorts and T-shirts. Lucky I came in summer! Someone comes by, 'We were swimming at the beach and a freak gust blew all our clothes out to sea.' Couldn't six of us in swimwear tell a tale while the rest hide? I'm a good storyteller.”

“Shoes and pack and all?”

“Freak wave?”

“Talk to Andrew.”

“I'm being Andrew. Let's see, along the Road from the barracks there's fields this way and molten lava beyond. That's no good. Other way is the Parole Board housing and then what? Civilization? If you get past the Parole Board, which will be a neat trick, I guess.”

Her hands were stripping speckles branches, head bent. He glimpsed a smile beneath the hood.

“But not if you leave seventeen gatherers behind you to answer questions.”

She looked up out of the hood and the smile was gone. She said nothing.

He walked casually on. Henry's grin was conspiratorial, or maybe proprietary. Rafik, last in line, looked starved and hunted, an aged youth who didn't want to meet Jemmy's eyes. His hand slipped twice, dropping seeds on the ground. Jemmy slapped his shoulder and said “Relax!” and walked on.

A slacking of rain moved across the field. Jemmy's eyes followed the wave across gatherers moving in an even line, one to a row. Well beyond, the two probes were walking toward them, the second behind and one row to the side. Behind them two speckles bushes stood up and streaked toward them.

Jemmy's gun was out before his mind caught up. What moved like that was lungsharks!

The probes' guns moved. They were going to shoot Jemmy! He fired his bird gun straight up and pointed with the other arm. One whirled around. Jemmy heard a brief ripping sound that wasn't thunder and wasn't a gunshot. The attackers slowed as if they'd plowed into invisible honey. Birds? Now they seemed to dance- Jemmy turned away, looking for more attackers: away from some terrible secret he'd almost guessed.

Much closer, two black-green-bronze darts streaked along two rows of black-green-bronze speckles bushes, near-invisible and too far to shoot even with decent bullets, but coming fast at the line of gatherers. Someone yelled, “Pose! Pose! Spectre birds!” Shimon's voice, that should have been “Andrew” 's.

Jemmy took the pose as he'd been taught.

One row over, Henry said quietly, “No birdfucking allowed.”

And a whispered chorus: “It's the law!'.'

He couldn't see anything else attacking. The probes had stopped firing. What had attacked them was gone. The gatherers were a row of statues, their ponchos drooping from raised arms, their hoods facing the oncoming pair of spectre birds. Jemmy stood last in line, arms raised high, a bird gun in one hand. Afield offirebirds spreads their wings to face an aggressor.

Spectre birds were fast. Like probes, they came in staggered stance. The range was too great for pellets. Jemmy held his fire while they closed. The birds slowed as if confused, then made for the middle of the line. Why weren't they veering? Jemmy held, held... aimed and fired at the lead bird.

He hit it. The bird flinched back and lifted its head. It was as big as a small man, with oversized ripping foreclaws, the forward-facing eyes of a predator, and a beak that was a hooked prybar on top, paired prongs underneath.

It came on. Jemmy shot it again, then shot the trailing bird. He had their attention now- The lead bird lunged at a gatherer's chest.

The gatherer whirled around at the last instant. The beak gashed his back, and he shrieked and tried to run. Then both birds were on him.

Jemmy yelled and charged them, firing. One ran. Jemmy fired at the other bird. Its beak was deep in the gatherer's torso. Four quick shots emptied Jemmy's gun before the bird dropped its prey and ran.

As each bird cleared the line of gatherers, Jemmy heard the nipsaw sound of the probes' weapons. Matter sprayed from the birds, blood and a chaff of feathers.

The probes' weapons didn't fire bullets: they fired streams of bullets. Jemmy tore his gaze away and ran to the fallen gatherer. Blood was flooding through holes in his poncho, and Jemmy couldn't doubt he was dead. When a probe shoved him aside, he gave way.

But he'd seen. It was Shimon.

Jemmy reloaded, looking about him. Where there were four spectre birds, there might be six or eight.

A hand snatched at his shoulder and pulled him around. The probe was a man with a full red beard. He snarled, “What did you think you were doing, shooting at a spectre? Bird guns aren't for things that big!”

Jemmy protested. “He was going after my man, man!”

“Take the pose!” The parole's chest heaved. He must have run flat out. “How often do you have to be taught? Take the pose and the bird thinks you're a firebird. Firebirds don't run, don't shout, don't shoot!”

“Shimon was posed! We were all posed. Why did it kill Shimon?” While I stood like a statue- “When the bird got close he tried to run.” The probe heaved in a ragged breath. “Lost his nerve. Yeah. They could have killed you all. That's why we're here.”

Jemmy had seen... but he said something safe. “Thanks, man. You took them out good.”

Redbeard turned without answering. He and the other probe spoke for a time. Jemmy waved the gatherers back to work; and they obeyed, fortunately; and he waited for orders.

Redbeard told him, “Take your people back to barracks. Four of you carry this one. Wait for us. We'll look around a little. There has to be a report.”