He was not seeing very much of the hidden coast. The Crest curved a little, and that curve hid everything but... hmm... forty klicks of beachless coast facing north. If it was all like this, then small wonder that the colony had set Spiral Town on the Crab's fat side. But he was seeing more than any Spiral had seen!
Springs flowed out of the mountainside; a hundred waterfalls merged on their way down. A big, blocky structure intercepted the biggest falls. At the mountains' base the falls joined in a river that flowed northwest into a tiny perfect circle of blue water, just inland from the bay.
Hal's rock was below. Hal got up. He spoke a few words to the ibnRushd family, then drifted back.
Tim waved ahead. “Hal? That's your home?”
Hal pointed along the shore. “There. They all look alike, but my home is tenth along Bayshore Ride from Tucker's Lake.”
Tim looked. “The circle.”
“Right, where the Last Drink runs.”
Tucker's Lake was just the size of the crater across from Baytown: a landing crater left by a hovering Cavorite. The river must have filled it afterward. Tenth along the widest street... well, they did all look alike, peaked two-story houses, but they were bigger and finer than the houses of Baytown, with wider streets.
Tim chose his words carefully. “Don't other towns along the Road seem a little, well, crude?”
“Tim, they do. I thought I'd been had. But they're all different, you know, and I knew I'd get home with tales to tell.”
“Those are boats, aren't they? Do you fish?”
“Some.”
“Are the fish different outside Haunted Bay?” Tim's eyes flicked forward, just for an instant. No merchant was in sight.
“Sure. Cooking style's different too. You've noticed? And we don't get bandits here.”
At this aft edge of the wagon he'd be out of earshot. He said, “Or sharks.”
“Nope.”
Not “The Otterfolk kill them. “So: “How about Otterfolk? No, hell, you live with Otterfolk.”
“Well. Not live,” Hal said, and caught himself.
Worth a try. Now change the subject. “Where do we camp? Who cooks?”
“I'm going home. You, you'll trade off this eye, and you'll eat with the autumn caravan. You go through town and camp on the Neck. We do the cooking, I mean the locals. The merchants, some of them like the restaurants-”
Autumn caravan? Puzzled, Tim looked toward Tail Town again, and then beyond.
The Road crossed the Neck, or became the Neck, and continued inland, following neither shore. Along the Road just beyond the Neck he saw a dark line.
The next caravan.
Tail Town didn't huddle like Haunted Bay. The streets were wide enough for thirteen wagons pulled by more than two hundred chugs, and customers to walk alongside. Along the low ridge that the Crest had become were structures bigger than any house. At the outskirts were big boxes with no windows: storage places. A lot of trading must go on in Tail Town. Nearer the center were public buildings with wide stretches of grass and gardens around them. Pipes, aquaducts must be fed by the Last Drink River.
Tim had come to expect that the level of civilization would drop with distance from Spiral Town. Tail Town was nearly a match for Spiral Town, and Hal seemed to take it in stride.
Tim didn't notice when Hal disappeared.
The houses ended suddenly, and the wagons were slowing. Inverted boats lay in a line along a beach of fine white sand. Twentytwo boats of the same type he'd seen in Baytown, with handholds at the waterline, and detached wooden fins lying beside them. Tracks ran out of the water into a shed, and the nose of a twenty-third boat poked out.
“We lose you here,” Damon said.
Tim jumped, and the merchant laughed. He sat down cross-legged on the roof. “We'll cross the Neck, and the wagons will be repaired, and the chugs will be turned loose. You'll join the autumn caravan and go back. Tim, a yutz goes around the full cycle. You'll see some of Spiral Town before you turn back, if that's what you want. But you could just go as far as Twerdahl Town.”
Tim pretended to think about that. He asked, “What's Spiral Town like?”
“Like they don't want us, but they want speckles,” Damon said. “We used to take our wagons deep into Spiral Town. Now they stop us at the first curve, but there's a wonderful inn. You really should see Warkan's Tavern.”
“I'll ask Loria.” Damon grinned. Tim asked, “We don't cross the Neck? I wanted to do that. It'd be a rite of passage.”
“Tim, we shoot anyone who crosses the Neck unless he's a merchant.”
Tim had guessed as much. “That's one serious rite of passage. Now, Hal says the town serves dinner for two caravans. Do we help cook?”
“The locals do a seafood grill. You'll love it. Anything else comes from us, and we serve. Two caravans is one serious cookout. If Tail Town wasn't so big they couldn't do it at all. What have we got?”
“Root veggies. Not much fruit, but some. The boar meat's gone. Pickings have been skimpy since Baytown. Rabbits-”
“Use it all. Now, tomorrow there'll be a few new yutzes. They'll have to learn.”
Jemmy Bloocher had fled from the summer caravan.
In Twerdahl Town he'd stopped, and married, and when the summer caravan caught up, he'd been Tim Hann of Twerdahl Town, cooking in firelight and fading sunset.
Winter came and went, and the spring caravan brought strangers who picked up Tim Bednacourt and carried him the length of the Road.
-But the Road continued an unknown distance into the continent. and Cavorite's trail went with it- And the autumn caravan would carry him back. Should he let Rian give him a gorgeous send-off? Or Senka? Or would they be busy in Tail Town tonight? Or should he wait to meet the women of the autumn caravan?
His mind could see no threat. He'd serve these strangers as he'd served the spring caravan, and live his life out in Twerdahl Town.
His adrenal glands were screaming bloody murder.
Senka set him a few errands up and down the caravan while the wagons ran onto the Neck for two klicks and a bit. The wagons stayed on the broad side, the bay side of the midline hump. They were a hundred meters apart when Damon loosed his chugs to join the others, a little early today, with the sun still half up the sky. The autumn caravan had turned theirs loose too. Half a thousand chugs all flowed into Haunted Bay, spreading out so that one long wave entered the water.
Had a chug ever investigated the other ocean?
Haunted Bay continued around, the shore curving into distance and mist. Otterfolk must be out there, all the way around the curve of island and mainland both.
Lines of wagons faced each other across the Neck.
The Neck was Road: softly contoured gray rock crazed with cracks. Big cracks served for the barbecue fires; little cracks could break an ankle. A frozen lava pool ran from sea to sea. Rounded edges dropped into two oceans. A ridge ran down the middle, the last remnant of mountain range. There was no trace of life save for the wagons.
Cavorite drifted back and forth until the whole of the Neck glowed red and orange, to bar any living thing that might cross from the mainland. Humanity's rule of the Crab was not to be challenged.
Under direction of the chefs, yutzes carried the caravan's stores of fruit and vegetables to the midpoint. Tables were arrayed there, a permanent feature. The chefs laid fires and started root vegetables and pots of beans. Gaudy merchants watched them from the far caravan.
Where were the chugs? They'd been underwater too long.
A woman walked across to join them. She was hefty, formidable, like Marilyn Lyons. Her robes blazed with color: cloth that had not yet felt the dust of the Road.
“I'm Willow Hearst.” She had a carrying voice. “Randy and I work Hearst wagon. Hearst and Jabar wagons carry the cooking gear and the chefs. Go back to your wagons and get your possessions. We'll sort you out when you come back. We'll still have plenty of light.”