The rope held until the caravan made camp. Again they released the chugs a wagon at a time, to pull the wagons close.
When the chugs left ibn-Rushd wagon for the shore, one remained behind Tim had never before seen a chug lying down. He went to look.
Its head turned at his touch. Under its cap of shell its eyes were too far apart to see in one direction; but the cap tilted and one eye studied Tim Bednacourt.
There were eight holes in its shell. It was the chug Tim had been hiding behind. Chug armor hadn't evolved to stop bullets.
Joker, Damon, and Rian set down what they were carrying: equipment to repair the harness. “Tim, you did well,” Rian said.
“Thanks. Rian, will it die?”
“Yes. It can't feed itself.”
“Shoot it?”
She shook her head, and set to work cutting harness.
Damon said, “There's no quick death for a chug. I saw Daddy try once. The brain, it's more a strand than a bulge, and bullets don't turn off its heart for a damn hour. It saved your life, Tim, and there's no way to pay back.”
“But you saved ours,” Rian said.
Tim glowed with the compliment. “I should do things about dinner,” he said.
On the ninth night Tim Bednacourt stayed up far too late trying to learn the songs the merchants and yutzes sang. Joker was a singer too. Between songs they talked about the fight, and Tim bragged without embarrassment.
He listened when the others spoke. They were talking largely for him, enjoying lecturing the novice.
“This clan, they try to chop the harness on one wagon,” Bord'n told him. “Then the rest of the caravan has to go on, but the tail guard stays with them. Maybe we kill some bandits, and maybe we lose a wagon. But this clan's only been here three years.”
''So?”
Joker said, “Bandits all start as criminals. They're forced out of wherever they lived. Did something dreadful. People along the Road shy from strangers, so they wind up with each other. If they can steal speckles they can keep going. They don't care who they get it from, caravan, village, each other. Sooner or later they run out. Then they turn stupid. They'll attack anything. Then they die out and a whole new nest of the bastards has to grow up somewhere else. So whatever they have of techniques, it gets forgotten and then invented again, see?”
Tim saw. He'd had time to think. He didn't ask which among them had learned to shoot prone. He'd watch. He didn't ask about cockades, and nobody else even referred to them.
He'd never seen the gaudy sprays before today. When did merchants wear those hats? When bandits were expected, sure, and maybe when it rained. Spiral Town had never seen cockades, but anyone along the Road would know of them. He'd given himself away again.
He'd been trained, all of the yutzes had been trained to shoot standing up. Rian and Joker shot prone while the yutzes stood to draw fire.
The caravans had been at this a long time.
Lost sleep didn't hamper him the next morning. His body had caught up with the stresses of a caravan chef, and the morning was glorious.
10
Repair and Maintenance
Mankind's wastes have seeded potassium the length of the Crab. Birds and animals of Earth can survive on what gets into the plants. But how are the fish surviving?
My research shows that none of Destiny's predators have learned to store fat. I believe that they have “learned” to avoid eating Earthlife: those who did, starved. Fish and shellfish evolved on Earth are potassium-shy, but they're competing only with other potassium-deficient Earthlife!
By morning light the caravan assessed its wounds.
Two men and a woman of Wu wagon, #12, had bullet wounds and were being tended in Doheny wagon. The bandits who attacked Wu wagon had also killed a chug and damaged a wheel haft. The wheel was ruined.
Ibn-Rushd wagon had severed ropes and, again, a hacked wheel. While bread was baked and distributed, the rest of the wagons hooked up their chugs and began to move. Two wagons remained behind with the damaged wagons.
Tim was reluctant to ask. “So, are we being abandoned?” Three yutzes chortled. Bord'n said, “No, but Tim, the caravan can't stay in one place. Chugs wouldn't get anything to eat. So the wagons'll just roll down the Road by a caravan length, and then everyone will spend the day doing repairs.”
“What about bandits?”
“We've got Tucker wagon. They've got Spadoni.”
“Which are they? I can't tell the wagons apart yet.”
“Oh, you'd better know that. In every wagon there's extra stores,” joker said, “like Milasevik and Wu carry tents and bedding. Doheny, that's the infirmary. Doheny is where you run if you've got time to run. It's a better hiding place than the shop sections of the wagons. You go there if you're hurt too. It's in front because anything dangerous hits the front of a caravan first.”
“Doheny. Front wagon,” Tim repeated.
“Spadoni and Tucker store arms-”
“Don't we all have guns?”
Bord'n hesitated. “Shark guns and ammunition are in Tucker. What's in Spadoni isn't for yutzes. Don't be caught wandering around Spadoni wagon. And of course every wagon is part shop.”
Yesterday's bandits had a penchant for attacking wheels. Merchant men and yutzes came streaming back from the main caravan to help set up repair facilities; they did wheels first. Undamaged wagons wanted their wheels reground. Presently they were all rolling wheels back down the Road.
By midafternoon Wu and ibn-Rushd were ready to move.
They rolled just far enough to join the rest of the wagons. Then repair and maintenance work continued all up and down the caravan.
A few merchants were not to be seen. Tim had seen activity around Spadoni wagon. He might guess that they were somewhere about, armed, guarding the caravan. Armed with what? It didn't seem like a good day to stroll past Spadoni wagon.
In midafternoon the chefs dug their fire pits and the chugs ambled into the sea. Nobody had been particularly concerned about hunting. Dinner was skimpy, largely fish and stored vegetables.
Tim became aware that Rian was watching him.
She said, “I might have known Mother would have you if I didn't. I should have taken you on the beach. You would have come then.”
Rian made him edgy. Hadn't she flatly rejected him, without his ever having offered? Tim said, “Loria would have brained us both.”
“Why would Loria Bednacourt hurt you? Or me?”
“Hang on.” Tim spent a minute turning two Earthlife salmon, and thinking.
Then he said, carefully, “You think Twerdahis are all alike? We aren't. Loria doesn't share. She wants her side of the bed, all of it. If she's in the kitchen, nobody else is cooking. Her man is hers from his heart out to all twenty-one digits. “It was nearly the truth: Loria would share with her sisters.
“But she's not a merchant.”
Again he saw how this would go. “Will you find me tonight?”
“I will,” she said tartly, “if you don't stay up till dawn singing!”
When she was out of hearing, he sighed. She'd expected him last night? What kind of signal had he missed?
Better not to know than to guess wrong. A yutz could be in a world of trouble if he rubbed up against a merchant woman who didn't want him.
Loria was far behind him, and she would expect this of him, and hate it.
But Jemmy Bloocher still haunted him. Anything he did with a merchant woman might speak his secret. Tim Bednacourt is a Spiral!