Destiny's Road

28 Destiny T0~11

A big square bus and the tug pulling it came the next morning. A swing of his arm flagged it down, a gesture Jeremy had seen a thousand times, and never used himself. He climbed up into a box full of indifferent strangers, stowed his backpack, chose a seat.

As soon as Jeremy was settled, it took off at a scary fifty klicks an hour down the Road, straight into the horizon.

When the caravan was in, Wave Rider seethed with strangers. They didn't press this close, though, because too often he was holding something sharp or something hot. At the pit, his word was law, and any strangers about him were in his charge. Here... The bus was no more than half-full. They weren't staring, they weren't hostile, yet he couldn't meet their eyes.

He looked out the windows. He got used to the speed and the shaking, and even dozed for a time.

He woke afraid that he'd missed the Swan. But when the bus stopped an hour later, he recognized the bridge. It had a new handrail and new paint. It still sagged almost to the water under a big painted sign: CORSO'S CAMP WAIKIKI.

Six older children crossed the old bridge to the bus. They chattered as the bus moved on. The passengers paid not the slightest attention to a landslide slope not much farther on, site of an old climbing accident never discovered or long forgotten.

Terminus was bigger than Twerdahl Town. The buildings were old and blocky and oppressively massive, like nothing he'd seen short of the Windfarm. Still, the town wasn't dying. A street fair was buzzing along the Road. The bus stopped to let a .dozen people get off, and near as many got on.

Another hour passed. Here were more houses, then a line of stores. Side streets multiplied. The bus stopped frequently, and now it was easing through foot and bicycle traffic.

You're supposed to have seen it all before.

Nothing he saw stood above three stories. Newer structures had a lighter feel, but as the bus moved deeper into town he saw massive blocky buildings like those in Terminus. It was as if Cavorite's crew built to withstand some terror left behind on old Earth. Coriolis-driven storms spun off from the Winds. Earthshakes.

Guessing, he was guessing. But he was close enough to taste the answers. All the answers! Ticking in the back of his mind was the certainty that he was nearing the end of the Road. How could he have lived so close for so long?

Stop staring!

He'd grown up with as much variety, if not quite the same styles. When traffic slowed, he looked for the oldest buildings to encroach on the Road as they did in Spiral Town.

The shops along this part of the Road were marked by signs; few had holograms, and those were faint in daylight. The glowing ghost of a man-high fur hat caught his attention. The hologram letters were too dim to read, but there was a painted sign too. ROMANOFF.

The Road curved gently right, then gently left. Still the buildings stood well clear of the Road.

Jeremy suddenly realized that he was looking up at the curving hull of Cavorite, so close that he couldn't see the top, but only what he had taken for a cobbled wall: the lander's lava-spattered ground-effect skirt.

Other passengers were staring too. Cavorite!

The end of the Road was a ioop, and Cavorite was the middle of it. Like Columbiad in Destiny Town, the lander stood among smaller structures, in a lava dish of its own melting. There was a fence around it.

Traffic was clogged here, but only because there was so much of it. Nothing blocked the Road. Building must have been restricted from the beginning.

He had wondered whether it would be safe to ask directions. No need. Faded holograms marked three buildings of ancient poured stone, all with big glass windows. Medical, Medical, Medical.

The bus stopped. With his case on his back and a cane in his hand, Jeremy climbed down to the Road.

Closer, he could read more.

Medical: Reception and Records

Medical: Intensive Care and Surgery

Medical.' Outpatient and Recovery He stagger-stepped into the leftmost building.

A narrow-faced woman his own age looked up. What she wore was likely a uniform, white with scarlet markings:

Lisa Schiavo

Reception

Duty Doctor

He was the last thing she wanted to see. “Patient?”

He said, “I'm here to see Karen Winslow.”

She repeated, “Patient?”

“Yes. Emergency, burn patient, four days ago.”

“Family only.” Her brows furrowed: puzzled at the Spiral Town accent that he'd thought long lost.

“I'm Jeremy Winslow,” he said more carefully. “Karen's husband.” She said, “Okay. Okay. We're all speckles-shy here today, and the reason is, the computer went out about quitting time yesterday.” Her hands shuffled a stack of printouts, helplessly. “We spent the whole morning trying to keep track with notes on paper. Now we're using the library computer, and that's where you'll find out where your wife is. Through that door and up three floors. There's a lift. Wait. What's wrong with your leg?”

“I hurt my knee surfing.”

“Really. Wonderful. Brendan!”

Nothing happened immediately. Schiavo said, “Sit down. How long ago?”

“Almost three weeks.” He sat down.

“Is it healing all right?”

“I suppose.”

“Come back after you see your wife. I'll have Brendan scan you. Here,” She handed him a card. “Your wife's name, address, age, and whatever you remember about her medical history.”

Jeremy began writing.

A barrel-shaped man jogged in. 'ja, mein Fьhrer!” His uniform was very like Schiavo's, with a label that read:

Brendan Shaw

Surgery

Duty Doctor

“Brendan, want some exercise?”

“Run up to the library?”

“Yeah, find out where they're keeping a burn patient and get her status. Karen Winslow. You could take the lift. Who'd know?” She took Jeremy's card, glanced at it, handed it to Brendan.

“I go, effendi!” Brendan jogged out, knees high, arms pumping. He slowed to a walk while in Jeremy's sight, but not Schiavo's.

Schiavo handed him another card. “Fill one out for yourself too.” Jeremy filled out what he remembered from his credit rating. Put it in his pocket. Closed his eyes...

Brendan's voice jolted him awake. “Winslow? We've got her in Intensive. Out the door, turn left, it's the next building over, fourth floor, Room Four-ten. Her doctor's Nogales, but she's home today. Come back after you see your wife and we'll scan your knee.”

Karen smiled. “Jeremy. Can't move. I can't disturb the skin.”

“All right.” He went around to her good side and she gripped his hand. The sheet didn't cover much of her. They had her hands tied... loosely, and padded, but she couldn't reach herself. The skin over half her body was shiny and patchy. It made him queasy to look, but he could well understand why nothing should touch her skin.

“So good to see you, Jeremy. What kept you?”

“They couldn't find my credit record at first.”

Her eyes doubted him. He'd always wondered how much she'd guessed.

He told her how matters stood at Wave Rider. No customers, and a good thing too. Himself, walking around brain-dead with worry. The Otterfolk were getting bored; what they brought in was skimpy. Nine days until the caravaners arrived. She listened... dozed...

There was a hand on his shoulder.

He'd gone to sleep with his cheek on Karen's good arm. “Lloyd?”

“Don't wake her.”

Karen's hand was slack now, and he disengaged. Their youngest daughter's mate said, “I'll take you back to Gran Harlow's place. It'll hold four for one night.”

“Can't go yet. The doctor wants to look at my knee.”

“About time.”

Medical was the strangest, scariest place Jeremy Winslow had ever been. He hoped it didn't show. You're supposed to have seen this before.

He told Brendan Shaw, “The waves were rQlling in from way out there. Little shelled heads all around me. I hadn't been out for weeks because the caravan was in. They like it better when you take chances, you know? I caught this beautiful curl and rode it till my knees turned to water, and then let it break and carry me till the board hit sand and I lit running. I twisted my knee running in sand. Just too tired.”

Brendan Shaw had a hand scanner. He moved it around Jeremy's injured knee, and a hologram showed him the inside. He said, “Well, you tore the meniscus.”

“Will it grow back?”

“No.” He moved to scan the good knee for comparison. “The meniscus isn't alive, exactly. Your body grows this spongy cushion in your knee joint, and it only grows once. Now there's a piece floating free. When it gets between the bones, that hurts.”

“Too right. Can you sew it up?”

Brendan wrapped a blue pad around Jeremy's knee. Jemmy grimaced at the cold, and Brendan grinned. “Yes. First we chill you down. I need to wheel some equipment in here. The groper, a fiber-optic probe, the stitcher, some help...” He was thinking out loud. “After that cools a little we'll poke some fiber optics into your knee and look around more. Then we'll position the torn part, which has to be done by hand, sony, and paint the edges for the stitcher so it can sew them shut. That's not real paint, it just marks them in memory. You got a card for me?”

Just like that? Jeremy's teeth were clenched. The cold burned him, but fear did too. But if he put this off, he'd spend days getting his nerve up... card? In his shirt pocket.

Brendan took it. “Lie down and I'll put you out. Or I could give you a local, but most patients don't want to be here when this is happening to them.”

No telling what he might blurt out while he watched things being poked into his knee. “Put me out.”

“Safer, actually.”

Jeremy closed his eyes as Shaw settled a skeletal metal structure on his head. Wet pads touched both eyes and the nape of his neck. “Three hundred years old if you figure it was built on Earth, but it still works. Local anesthetic would be a drug. Much cruder.”

Jeremy woke up hurting. A bulky cast held his leg stiff and a little bent. A young man handed him pills and a mug of water. Brendan said, “Aspirin. You're not allergic.”

“Good. All done?”

“Oh, yeah, two hours ago. You looked like you needed the sleep. Here. Do you know how to use crutches?”

“No, I've got my stick.”

“No, use crutches for a few days. Try standing up. Now, the trick- you okay?-the trick is to never put your weight on your armpits. The crutches go there, but your weight is on your arms and hands. Crutches move first, then your foot. Steady. Try it again.”

“Where's Lloyd?”

“Let's go see.”

Brendan darted down a hail. Jemmy followed. Crutches, right foot, crutches-he felt unstable. His knee hurt like fury. Brendan darted back. “Lloyd Winslow? He's got your pack too.”

Lloyd saw Jeremy come in and started to laugh.

The bus stopped in the middle of a block to let them off. Lloyd was chattering. “We thought we'd take you to Romanoff's for dinner tomorrow. After twenty-seven years eating your own cooking? But it's eight blocks from Medical.”

Jeremy's wife's father's second wife was Jeremy's age. She was dark with black kinky hair, white showing through now. Her beauty had refined itself. Why she'd married old Harold was something he had never asked. She was too good for him.

Twenty-seven years ago the vision of Harlow standing in the doorway of Wave Rider had gone straight to his glandular system. He'd held himself polite and diffident, a pit chef looking for a job; but what had she seen in his eyes? He'd never asked.

Had Harold been relieved when Jeremy married Karen? Today... she was not much changed, but he knew what she saw from the dismay in her eyes. A young man grown old, fatigued and in pain.

“What on-? I think you'd better have the downstairs,” she said. “Used to be an office.”

Harlow leased one quarter of a big two-story building of poured stone. The old office was big enough for a bureau and a big futon-big enough for Brenda and Lloyd, but they'd moved upstairs-and an old computer with a dark screen.

Anything he did to his left leg hurt. He crawled down the crutches, maneuvering around the leg's rigidity until his back was on the futon. He didn't move again until Brenda woke him for dinner. Getting up again...

Could be worse. He might have lived as a cripple, forever waiting for his knee to heal.

Lloyd's laughter chopped off when Jeremy entered.. He said, “Sorry. But they were going to look at your knee. You went away with a limp. Next thing, you're staggering in on crutches with your whole leg cased in concrete! It's everything I grew up knowing abput Medical. I shouldn't have laughed, Jer, but I hate that place.”

“I share your pain.”

Lloyd laughed wildly. “Well. You're here. Should we go home in the morning?”

This was the part-owner asking the pit chef: Is there anyone left to run the inn?Jeremy said, “We're empty. You could take another day or two.”

“How's Mommy?” Brenda asked.

Jeremy took his seat. “Hanging on. Brave. Brenda, I don't know anything about Destiny Town medicine. You tell me. How is she?”

“I could lie to you?”

Only one answer to that. “Sure.”

“Daddy, she got badly hurt. We're not wizards. Superskin is old settler magic, but it still has to grow on her.”

He'd known she could die.

He couldn't speak of that. So: “Brenda, dear, how did they 'find' my identity?”

“Ask Gran Harlow.”

Harlow said, “I wrote it in. That computer you're sleeping with, it died before I moved in here, but one of my friends got it going. Brenda told me what to say. Are we likely to be caught in an inconsistency, Jeremy?”

“That story held up for twenty-seven years,” he said.

They all seemed to be studying him: a sudden stranger. Harlow asked, “Was it supposed to?”

“What d'you... ?” Then he understood. “Harlow, I wasn't sure what I wanted. I needed refuge. I didn't know what was possible. Maybe I'd follow the Road the rest of the way to Destiny Town and see where Cavorite ended. Maybe I'd go home. Maybe there was a way to serve time in the Winds and come out as a citizen. I didn't know how to do any of that, but I thought I knew how to keep a restaurant and get some breathing space.”

“So now you've seen Cavorite.”

“Yes.” He looked at Harlow in wonder. He hadn't known it, here in his bones, until now. “I've seen Cavorite. I've seen the end of the Road. Harlow, thank you.”

“Is that a big thing?”

“Harlow, what we learn is all wrong. We're told that the Twerdahl contingent got bored. Cavorite went off with all the wealth of the colony and was never heard from again, just like Argos. I followed the Road all the way down to the Neck, and I found it again in the Winds. Cavorite's crew saved Spiral Town. They set up the Windfarm and worked it to grow speckles. They set up the caravans to keep the speckles coming.”

“They did more than that,” Brenda said. “Ah?”

“Daddy, do they have teaching machines in Spiral Town?”

“Sure.”

“There's a computer in Medical, in the library. Look up speckles, Daddy.”