“At what price?” Mikkal made a spitting noise, though he did not waste the water. “We’d either have to take steady work to gain the jingle, or become welfare clients, which’d mean settling down as even meeker law-lickers. The end of the Trains, therefore the end of us. Didn’t you know? A tineran can’t quit. Stuff him into a town or nail him down on a farm, it’s a mercy when death sets his corpse free to rot.” “I’d heard that,” Ivar said slowly. “But thought the tale must be an extravaganza, hey? No, it’s true. It’s happened. Tinerans jailed for any length of time sicken and die, if they don’t suicide first. Even if for some reason like exile from the Train, they have to turn sitter, ‘free workers'”—the tone spoke the quotation marks—”they can’t breed and they don’t live long…. That’s why we have no death penalty. Twice I’ve seen the king order a really bad offender cast out, and word sent to the rest of the Trains so none would take him in. Both times, the felly begged for a hundred and one lashes instead.” Mikkal shook himself. “C’mon, we’ve work to do. You unhitch the team, hobble them, and bring them to where the rest of the critters are. Dulcy’ll answer your questions. Since I’ve got you for extra hands, I’ll get my tools resharpened early, this trek.” He performed as juggler and caster of edged weapons and, he added blandly, card sharp and dice artist.
Men erected a collapsible trough, filled it from a water truck, added the vitamin solutions necessary to supplement grazing upon purely native vegetation. Boys would spend the night watching over the small, communally owned herd and the draught animals. Besides spider wolves or a possible catavale, hazards included crevices, sand hells, a storm howling down with the suddenness and ferocity common anywhere on Aeneas. If the weather stayed mild, night chill would not be dangerous until the route entered the true barrens. These creatures were the product of long breeding, the quadrupeds and hexapods heavily haired, the big neomoas similarly well feathered.
Of course, all Ironland was not that bleak, or it would have been uncrossable. The Train would touch at oases where the tanks could be refilled with brackish water and the bins with forage.
Inside the wagon circle, women and girls prepared the evening meal. In this nearly fuelless land they cooked on glowers. Capacitors had lately been recharged at a power station. To have this done, and earn the wherewithal to pay, was a major reason why the migrations passed through civilized parts.
Virgil went down. Night came almost immediately after. A few lamps glowed on wagonsides, but mainly the troop saw by stars, moons, auroral flickers to northward. A gelid breeze flowed off the desert. As if to shelter each other, folk crowded around the kettles. Voices racketed, chatter, laughter, snatches of song.
Except for being ferociously spiced, the fare was simple, a thick stew scooped up on rounds of bread, a tarry-tasting tea for drink. Tinerans rarely used alcohol, never carried it along. Ivar supposed that was because of its dehydrating effect.
Who needed it, anyway? He had not been this happy in the most joyous beer hall of Nova Roma, and his mind stayed clear into the bargain.
He got his first helping and hunkered down, less easily than they, beside Mikkal and Dulcy. At once others joined them, more and more till he was in a ring of noise, faces, unwashed but crisp-smelling bodies. Questions, remarks, japes roiled over him. “Hey-ah, townboy, why’ve you gone walkabout? … Hoping for girls? Well, I hope you won’t be too tired to oblige ’em, after a day’s hike … Give us a song, a story, a chunk o’ gossip, how ’bout that? . . . Ayuh, Banji, don’t ride him hard, not yet. Be welcome, lad … You got coin on you? Listen, come aside and I’ll explain how you can double your money. . . . Here, don’t move, I’ll fetch you your seconds… .”
Ivar responded as best he dared, in view of his incognito. He would be among these people for quite a while, and had better make himself popular. Besides, he liked them.