Destiny's Road by Larry Niven Read Free Book Online

"We can let things settle for a day or two and still beat Jemmy to... where shall we meet?"
    "There aren't that many bicycles on the Road. I'll find you, "Jemmy said. Curdis sat in the dark, moving his lips, while they watched him. Presently he said, "The merchants search Spiral Town and don't find you. Your camping gear is gone. So's our store of speckles, so you buy some more, Margery-"
    Jemmy said, "I wouldn't take your speckles-"
    "You would if you were going forever. Instead, we can bring you home after the merchants have searched the farm and Spiral Town. You take my place here. They're searching the hills by then, but at worst they find just me, camping on my own land. After they're gone you can grow a beard or something. Lie about your age, marry someone, move to another farm. We'll have time to work that out."
    "I like it," Junior Margery said. "I wish I could come-"
    "You're in charge here," Curdis said gently.
    They were deciding his future.
    Margery said, "Okay. Thonny and Brenda and Curdis on bikes. Don't look at me like that, Thonny, you're brother and sister! Not betrothed. Oh, hell!"
    "What?"
    "Curdis, you can't pass for Jemmy."
    Curdis had straight black hair, yellow-dark skin, eyes with an epicanthic fold. Hmmm? Jemmy said, "I only have to pass for Curdis coming back. Going out is when they'll be looking to be sure he's not me. Me, escaping. Going out, you're innocent. Let them look."
    They closed the curtains and turned on the lights. Margery posed Jemmy next to Curdis, examined them and said, "No."
    And Brenda was a girl.
    But Thonny moved up next to Jemmy, shorter by three inches, and Margery said, "Maybe on a bicycle."
    They took all of Jemmy's clothes out of the bureaus and carried them in armloads into Thonny's room. They began putting together matching outfits.
    "You can switch scarves and hats," Margery said, and they tried it. "Right. Thonny, you stay on the bike. When you're not on the bike, you don't lean on the bike, don't lean on a wall, don't lean. Stand up like a man. Be careful coming back. Camp out on the New Hann land until someone comes for you.
    "Jemmy, coming back, you're Thonny. You always lean on the bike, or a wall. Don't be seen standing straight up. Curdis, you wear those dancers going out, but you put those high-heel shyster-stomper boots in your bike bag. You're taller than Thonny going out, you'd better be taller than Jemmy coming back."
    Curdis nodded in the semidark.
    "Now, how did it happen, the killing? Hush, Jemmy. Brenda?"
    Junior wanted Brenda's version, then Thonny's, and never bothered with Jemmy's. Then she told them all, "Take your time going and coming. Stop and talk to everyone. Thonny, Brenda, if a merchant asks you about the killing, you tell him. 'I was there, I saw it all.' Babble! But you haven't seen Jemmy since then, and you don't think you ever will. Jemmy, you heard everything Thonny said? You tell it that way coming back
    Once again Jemmy moved along the shore. Two more fences to cross. He went back up through rows of lettuce, the Wayne Holding. Where he crossed the Road it was deep into its first curve.
    Gasoline Alley, then the next inward loop of Road, then Baker Street. The graveyard had been well beyond the town for two good centuries, but Spiral Town had reached it at last. Jemmy stepped from the empty shops of Harrow Street into a grove of willows.
    Destiny life wouldn't grow among the graves. The Spiral Town graveyard covered more than a square mile with nothing but Earthlife: long, lank grass, clover, and trees up to 240 years old.
    Jemmy drifted like smoke among the trees. There was cover to hide him. The eyes he expected might be imaginary after all.
    A lifegiver of Spiral Town would be buried with a handful of seeds. His will might name the Variety of tree. If several sprouted, tenders would transplant all but one, and a marker would be fired into the bark for the lifegiver within its roots.
    The oldest trees were huge, chosen for majesty: oaks,