Destinys Road

by Larry Niven

At the start of the novel, the main character, Jemmy (he changes his name several times over the course of the novel) is around age 10. The novel then proceeds to skip through time in the various sections of the book including his teenage and young adult years, ending when he is in his forties. At first, he lives in his birthplace, Spiral Town, at one end of the Road—no one there knows what lies beyond a short distance down the Road.

Jemmy's adventures begin as a late adolescent when, in self-defense, he kills someone working for the merchants and is forced to flee Spiral Town. He winds up a distance down the road in a fishing community where he changes his name and appearance, and becomes a cook. He marries into the population. When a different caravan comes through town from Spiral Town, they arrange with the village elders to hire Jemmy as a chef. He proceeds on the caravan to the Neck, the isthmus which joins the peninsula to the mainland from which the caravans come. No locals, like Jemmy, are permitted on the mainland.

At the Neck, Jemmy is told he must return to his town on the next caravan—the same one he fled Spiral Town from. He instead flees by sea. Taking refuge on a boat left over from the time of Landing, he floats around the peninsula to a point beyond the Neck. There, in a storm, he goes ashore and is found by prisoners at the Windfarm—sentenced prisoners who farm speckles. All speckles come from the area and are rendered infertile by irradiation; the monopoly is rigorously maintained.

The others use clothing that Jemmy has salvaged to plot an escape, led by the violent Andrew. They break out and evade pursuit. Andrew has planned all along to kill Jemmy, but Jemmy literally gets the drop on him and kills him in self-defense. Jemmy leaves the other prisoners, taking money they have found and a supply of speckles, and flees once again.

Twenty-seven years later, Jemmy is a pit chef at a beach resort along the Road. His wife is burned in an accident and he is forced to leave his place—a place, as it turns out, of hiding. He finally reaches his lifetime's goal of seeing the other end of the Road, and Destiny Town. There, he is able to access the Cavorites computer library and learn the true history of Destiny, a discovery which hardens him.

After his wife dies from a freak drug interaction during her burn treatment, Jemmy takes his father-in-law's widow Harlow back to the site of the prisoners' hideout, where he had planted fertile speckles. They still survive, and he takes some, sharing the secret with Harlow. They then return to the beach resort, of which Jemmy, by his wife's death, is now part owner. The two contrive to join a caravan, and Jeremy returns as a merchant's chef, unknown to his former townsfolk, to Spiral Town.

During the trip, Jemmy makes his attempt to break the speckles monopoly. All along the Road, he distributes gumdrop candy covered with dyed speckle seeds to children. After distributing the candy, he sows speckle seeds in potassium-rich areas such as manure piles and graveyards. The next time the merchants try to withhold speckles, they will be in for a surprise.