Free Destiny's Road by Larry Niven

this way."
    "Tim?''
    "Tarzana, grown men and women don't talk to each other in Spiral Town. When your grandparents came, maybe they didn't bring lights. They could talk together in the dark where they could be just voices."
    "Mmmm."
    He must have fallen asleep soon after.
    Jemmy taught bicycle riding all morning.
    Cooking over a grill fascinated him. He helped some, but watched more.
    In midafternoon they retrieved their bikes from Twerdahl riders. Again Curdis said, "Time to leave."
    Jemmy said, "I'm not going."
    "What?"
    "Tell the merchants Tim wants to know where Cavorite went. Tim Hann is on the Road."
    He saw Curdis studying him and guessed his thoughts. Is Jemmy crazy? How crazy? He didn't know Jemmy like a brother, and the Jemmy Bloocher he thought he knew wouldn't have killed a merchant. ~
    Curdis said, "They'll take a harder look at Tim Hann if Tim comes back alone."
    "I don't think I'm coming back, Curdis. I can't run Bloocher Farm. I can't talk down a merchant's price while I'm hiding my face! And if Spiral Town gets in another face-off with the caravans- You see?"
    Curdis did. "They'd have to stand without the Bloochers. You'd stand for the Bloochers, but you'd be hiding."
    "Curdis, it's unacceptable. Give Thonny two years, he'll be fine running Bloocher Farm. Thonny doesn't have to hide anything."
    "That's two years before Margery and I can get our own farm."
    "Forgive me."
    "Uh-huh." Curdis's eyes were unfocused: still thinking. "Okay, the caravan'll be starting back this way tomorrow or so. I figured we'd meet them just when they were getting organized, and we'd get you through that way. If you stay, they'll be here in, oh, four days. Tim, are you staying here or pushing on?"
    "I don't know.''
    "You could keep ahead of a caravan. Even on foot."
    "Sure."
    "Or let them catch you in a few weeks, but now you're a Twerdahl with itchy feet."
    "Mmm."
    "Is this really your choice?"
    "Yes."
    "Me, too," Brenda said.
    Curdis blew his top. Brenda shouted back, then cried.
    Jemmy watched them dwindle, pedaling hard, up the Road.
    When he returned to the House of Healing that night, Loria came with him.
     
     
     

6
    Oven Maker
    The northwest coast is mountainous. The southeast coast is wider, and rich in beaches. We'll set clown at the far end 0f the peninsula and explore.
    -Anthony Lyons, Geology
    Twerdahl Town didn't seem to know about bread.
    There was grain growing along the Road. There were rocks about. Children of all ages found Tim Hann strange and interesting, and some would do what he suggested.
    He showed the younger children how to gather grain. The older helped him carry rocks. Upthrusting banyan knees had flaked a great flat shelf of lava from the Road. Four were able to move that. It became the base of Tim Hann's oven.
    His first experiments came out scorched, but two days after his sibs left him, Tim Hann served bread at dinner.
    The morning of the third day- The first of the board riders took their boards from where they were propped against the long wall of the House of Healing. Tim Hann trailed the others, watching them, trying to balance the board on his shoulder as they did.
    The board was a few inches shorter than Tim himself, carved from wood that grew in the swamp. It was heavy and awkward. Playful gusts of wind kept swinging it about.
    Far up the Road toward Spiral Town, there was dust.
    Jemmy stopped and squinted. A plume of dust, far off. He thought he knew what it meant.
    Wend Bednacourt carried her board like a wand. She wasn't stronger
    than he was, but she had the balance. The other riders were running, but Wend trailed back a little. She said, "My daughters have taken an interest in you, Tim."
    "I know. But all the others-" It had taken Jemmy two days to notice that the Bednacourt women were the only women who would talk to him. In Spiral Town that was normal, but here? "Is it something I'm doing?"
    "Tim, do they say marry in Spiral Town?"
    "Yes. Of course."
    Wend shied back a bit to avoid