Coyote

by Allen Steele

  Two Coyote months later—Uriel 52, C.Y. 02, five days after First Landing Day—I brought my baby into the world: Susan Kuniko Gunther, named after her late grandmother and the doctor who delivered her. As the first child born on the new world, my daughter’s birthday was considered an historic event. A couple of Council members demanded that I obey the moratorium on new births, but Kuniko refused to perform an abortion, and so there was little anyone could do about it except leave the choice to me. Besides, it wasn’t long before Susan had plenty of playmates; apparently I wasn’t the only lady in Liberty who had been concealing her incipient motherhood.

  Shortly before Susan was born, Chris proposed marriage. I turned him down. I was having a hard enough time being a teenage mother, and I didn’t want to be a teenage bride as well. And I couldn’t wed someone who hated Carlos as much as he did. Which was just as well, for eventually we all saw each other again…but, again, that’s another story.

  Coyote was a different place then, just as I was a different person. We make stupid mistakes when we’re young; we do our best to make amends for them as we get older. We survive by learning; by learning we survive.

  Such is life. So be it.

  Part Seven

  LONESOME AND A LONG WAY FROM HOME

  Six days after he said goodbye to the girl he loved and set out to explore the world, Carlos Montero found himself approaching the coast of Midland.

  A warm wind out of the west snapped at the frayed sails of his canoe, tugged at the lines clasped within his chapped hands. He guided the Orion toward the subcontinent’s western shore, squinting against the midday sun as he searched the limestone bluffs for a suitable spot to make landfall. As he drew closer, though, it became apparent that this was unlikely; surf crashed against sharp boulders beneath the sheer rock walls, sending foamy blue water straight into the air.

  It had taken Carlos a full day and a night to cross the broad delta that marked the confluence of the Great Equatorial River and the East Channel (he couldn’t think of it as the Montero Delta even though he had named it after himself, the first time he saw it only a couple of weeks earlier). He had slept only a few hours the night before, and only then after he folded the sails and locker the rudder in place. Lacking a compass, he had navigated by dead reckoning, depending upon sunrise and sunset for his bearings. He was filthy and hungry, and down to the last few sips of fresh water in his catskin flasks, yet as much as he wanted solid ground once more, any attempt to sail through the shoals would be suicidal. Like it or not, he’d have to go farther down the river.

  He pulled on the lines, tacking to the southwest; the canoe gradually turned, its prow slicing through the cool water. The bluffs loomed above him, a weather-beaten buttress of white stone. Brush and a few stands of faux birch grew along the ridgeline, and swoops pinwheeled above the cliffs, mocking him with their ragged cries.

  I love watching them, Wendy said. The way they catch the thermals…I mean, it’s like they could just soar forever.

  She sat only a few feet away, her back braced against the sailboard. The wind caught her ash blond hair, cast it away from her bare shoulders; she’d removed her halter, and the warm sun freckled the soft skin of her breasts. She didn’t mind him seeing her like this; now that the others were gone, it was just the two of them.

  “Yeah, they’re awesome, all right,” he replied, but when he looked her way, she wasn’t there. The canoe remained empty save for his few belongings.

  “Well, okay then.” He gazed at the bluffs again, tried not to think about her. “Guess I’ll just have to study them all by myself.”

  The sail fluttered softly, the mast creaking against the wind, as the Orion moved past the rocky western coast of Midland.

  About five miles past the delta, the bluffs tapered away, revealing a low, sandy shoreline that offered plenty of places he could run aground. Yet if he was going to make camp for a few days, he wanted to find just the right beach, so he opened his map and studied it. The map was a composite of orbital photos taken from the Alabama, so it lacked much in the way of fine topographical detail, yet it appeared as if a stream made its way down from the inland hills and emptied into the Equatorial only a few miles from his present position.

  That looked good; he’d need a source of fresh water. Glancing up from the map, Carlos could just make out a line of blue-tinged mountain peaks somewhere to the northeast. There were still a few hours of daylight left; he could stand to tough it out just a little longer. So he continued sailing along the southern coast, his weary eyes seeking the inlet.

  The sun was beginning to set to the west, the leading edge of Bear’s ring plane coming up over the eastern horizon, when he finally spotted the inlet. Carlos tacked to starboard and let the wind carry him all the way to shore; perhaps it wasn’t the safest way to approach, and he prayed that there weren’t any reefs lurking just beneath the waves, yet he was just too tired to paddle the rest of the way in.

  Sand crunched beneath the canoe’s keel as it coasted into the shallows. His legs stiff and aching, he climbed out and shoved the canoe onto the beach. Once it was out of the water, he furled the sail, then waded ashore.

  He was more exhausted than he thought. He was only halfway to the trees marking the edge of the beach when his vision blurred, and he felt his legs begin to give way beneath him. Intending only to lie down for a minute and catch his breath, he collapsed on the sand.

  Rolling over on his back, he gazed up at the darkening sky. Then his eyes closed, and within moments he was asleep.

  In his dreams, once again he was aboard the Alabama.

  He was alone. The circular corridor that curved its way around the ship’s hub was deserted, yet beneath the ominous thrum of the engines he could make out voices, unintelligible yet distinct, as if they were just around the bend.

  He was naked, his bare skin cold and slippery with the gelatinous blue fluid of the biostasis cell from which he had just emerged, yet he was no longer thirteen years old and shaven bald, but his present age of sixteen, with his hair grown past his shoulders. Not wanting anyone to find him without his clothes on, he began to hurry down the passageway.

  Just ahead, he spotted a floor hatch leading down to the hab modules. If he could duck down the manhole, he might be able to make it back to his bunk before he was spotted. Yet the hatch cover was shut; he knelt before it and twisted at the lockwheel, yet it refused to budge.

  Somewhere behind him, footsteps. Now the voices were closer, and he was certain one of them belonged to his father. He had to get away, or Papa would scold him for wandering around the ship naked. Standing up from the manhole, he turned to run down the passageway, yet it felt as if his feet had turned to lead; try as he might, he could barely move.

  There was a fishing pole in his hand. From its hook dangled a boy’s vest, stitched together from creek cat skin. Desperate for clothing, he started to put it on, until he realized that he had seen it before. It had once belonged to David Levin. It was much too small for him, and besides (David was dead) David would be angry if he found him wearing it.

  Still carrying the vest—the fishing pole had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared—he continued trudging down the corridor. He could move a little faster, yet the voices were just behind him, and there were no more hatches. There was wetness against his feet; looking down, he saw there was an inch of brackish water on the floor, as if a pipe had burst somewhere deep within the bulkheads. The ship was being flooded; he had to find a way to plug the leak, or everyone would drown.

  Looking up again, he found he was no longer alone. An old man stood in the passageway. Wearing a long robe, his back half-turned to him, he was carefully painting the corridor wall, a slender brush grasped within his right hand. Carlos didn’t recognize him, but the painting was all too familiar: it was one of the murals the crew and passengers of the Alabama had found when they awoke from biostasis, 230 years after leaving Earth.

  The old man lowered his brush, slowly turned to him
. He regarded Carlos with solemn grey eyes. Have you read my book? he asked, even though his lips never moved.

  “Please…can I borrow your robe?”

  The old man ignored the question. Water sloshed around his ankles, but he didn’t seem to notice. Have you read my book? he asked again.

  “Yeah, yeah, I read your book!” He could hear the voices again; they had become angry, and they were just a few feet away. “Please…I need to put something on, and the ship’s getting flooded!”

  The old man regarded him sadly, then turned back to the wall. When you’re done, let me know how it turns out.

  Finally, Carlos could see what the old man was painting. It was a picture of Prince Rupurt. Yet instead of Rupurt’s face, he saw his own…

  Suddenly, he heard Papa’s voice: Carlos! Where did you leave the canoe?

  He whipped around, expecting to see his father. Instead, he found a boid. The giant avian crouched within the corridor, its enormous beak stained with blood, its tiny eyes locked on him with murderous intent.

  The creature threw itself upon him…

  Screaming, Carlos hurtled out of sleep.

  He was on the beach once more. Night had fallen, and the tide was beginning to rise; cold surf lapped at his bare feet, and Bear had fully risen above the horizon, shrouded by filmy grey clouds. His canoe gently bobbed with each wave that came ashore; if he didn’t do something about it, the tide would soon drag his craft out into the river and carry it away, leaving him marooned and without any supplies.

  Carlos scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the Orion by its bow deck, hauled the canoe out of the water and all the way up onto dry land. Once he was sure that it was safely beyond the high-water mark, he fumbled around in its middeck until his hands located his pack.

  His flashlight was in the top of the pack. Its solar battery hadn’t been recharged lately and its beam was dim, so he kept it on only long enough to let him see what he was doing. Once he’d unloaded his gear—a bedroll, a rolled-up tarp, some cookware in a five-gallon pot, an automatic rifle and a fishing pole, a near-empty food locker, a couple of catskin flasks, and a bag filled with hand tools—he took down the mast and placed it on the beach alongside the rest of his stuff.

  By then his eyes had become night-adjusted, so he switched off the flashlight and worked by the wan light cast by the ringed planet. Above the rumble of the surf, he heard the nocturnal chitter of grasshoarders; every now and then, his ears picked up the mating cry of boids, yet they were so far away that he wasn’t alarmed. On the other hand, he was reluctant to start a fire, or at least until he was sure of his surroundings; the creatures tended to be drawn by light, and he didn’t want to tempt fate just to make himself a little more comfortable.

  So he laid his tarp down next to the canoe, unrolled his blankets on top of the plastic sheet, and placed his rifle next to it, where he could easily reach it. The night was cool, so he put on long pants and a sweater—a vague memory of his dream; had he been naked?—and once he was burrowed beneath the blankets, he reached up and pulled the canoe upside down over him, forming a shelter that would protect him from any early-morning rain showers.

  He was still thirsty, and his stomach growled and felt sore, yet there was nothing he could do about that until morning. Tomorrow, he’d take care of all those things. For the moment, though, he was warm and dry, and reasonably secure.

  Yet as Carlos dropped off to sleep once more, he couldn’t shake the uneasy notion that he’d been paid a visit from the spirit world. Not by his late father, who figured somewhere in his half-forgotten dream, or even by David, whose death had haunted him for the last several days, but by the person who’d painted the murals: Leslie Gillis, the crewman who had been accidentally revived shortly after the Alabama left Earth, and who had spent the next thirty-two years alone aboard the starship, writing a fantasy story about the adventures of Prince Rupurt and using the corridor walls as another medium of expression.

  Carlos had read the entire book, but he’d never met Gillis. How strange it was that he would dream of him.

  The following morning, Carlos carried his fishing rod over to a nearby inlet. After giving himself a drink, he dropped a line into the water and waited for breakfast. It wasn’t long before a redfish snagged the small piece of bread he put on the hook; he carried his catch back to the beach, where he cleaned it and cooked it on a spit over a small driftwood fire. The fish was good, and it filled his stomach; when he was done, he wrapped its head and guts in a plastic bag and put them in the food locker. Sometime later, he’d use them as bait for a trout line.

  He found a thicket of spider bush near the beach and had a long, satisfying squat, and when he was done he carefully buried his leavings beneath dead brush; no sense in letting the neighbors know he was there. Returning to the stream, he took off his clothes, waded in, and gave himself a bath. He luxuriated in the clear, fresh water, letting the slow current peel away the grime and dried sweat, and when he finally emerged he felt better than he had in several days.

  The next order of business was setting up camp. He didn’t intend to remain there for very long, but in the meantime he had no desire to continue sleeping beneath an overturned canoe, nor did he want to put up a tarp. If boids were nesting nearby, neither his boat nor a tent would protect him should they discover his presence. So he had to build shelter, however temporary it might be.

  About fifty yards from the beach, a short hike along the stream bank through tall sourgrass, Carlos discovered a small grove of blackwood trees, faintly resembling Japanese bonsai yet much larger, with deep knotted roots and flat-topped upper branches that spread out over ninety feet to form a thick umbrella. He sauntered among them until he found a tree with a branch low enough for him to pull himself up. Even more fortunate, nearby was a dead faux birch, apparently struck by lightning during a storm long ago; its branches littered the ground, and most of them were still solid and hadn’t yet been rotted by rain or flood.

  He tied his shirt around the blackwood to mark it, then returned to the beach, gathered his gear, put it back in the canoe, and paddled up the stream until he reached the grove. He hauled the canoe up on the muddy bank, unloaded his belongings and carried them to the tree he’d selected, then pulled out the tool bag and went to work.

  By midafternoon, he’d managed to saw enough of the faux birch branches and lash them together with nylon rope to create a small, rectangular platform, about eight by six feet. Two lower branches of the blackwood grew close enough together to support it without much of a tilt, but high enough above the ground to keep him away from any boids that might happen to roam that way. All he had to do was hoist it up into the tree.

  Carlos had just untied the ropes from canoe’s sail lines when he heard a faint electronic chirp. For a moment he thought it was a small animal, but when it repeated a moment later he realized that it was coming from the satphone.

  He’d pulled the unit out of the backpack shortly after he made camp, unfolding its miniature parabolic antenna before he put it aside. Activating the satphone so that it could receive radio transmissions from Liberty had been something of an afterthought; he had no real desire to speak to anyone from the colony. Apparently, though, someone wanted to talk to him.

  His first impulse was to ignore the call. It might be important, though. Marie, his younger sister, was still there; if something had happened to her, he’d want to know about it. And then there was Wendy…

  Carlos walked over, picked up the unit. He toggled the RECEIVE switch, held the satphone to his ear. “Yes,” he said, “what is it?”

  Carrier static. A couple of seconds went by, then he heard a voice: “Carlos? Is that you?”

  He grinned in wry amusement as he glanced up at the sky. He couldn’t see the Alabama during daytime, yet he knew that it was passing overhead as it did eight times a day, dutifully bouncing the transmission from Liberty. “Sorry, wrong number. I think you’re looking for Carlos Montero. This is Carlos’s Pizza. Can I take
your order, please?”

  Another pause. He waited impatiently, wanting the call to be over; the day was getting short, and he still had to put up his platform, and after that rig a trout line and gather wood for a fire. The voice returned. “Carlos, this is Robert Lee. I’m very glad to hear you, son. We’ve been trying to reach you for almost a week now. Are you all right?”

  Robert Lee, sometimes also known as Captain Lee: former commanding officer of the Alabama, current mayor of Liberty. The man who’d led 104 people across forty-six light-years to a satellite of 47 Ursae Majoris B. Carlos had little doubt that, if the colony somehow managed to survive, one day there would be a statue erected in his honor.

  “Today’s special is the Coyote Supreme,” he said. “That’s goat cheese, creek crab, and redfish, served with a pint of our own sourgrass ale.” On reflection, it didn’t sound half-bad. Except maybe the creek crab. “Will that be take-out or delivery?”

  This time, the pause was a little longer. Carlos shifted from one foot to another. Come on, hurry up…

  “That’s funny,” Captain Lee said at last, although he didn’t sound a bit amused. “I guess…I mean, I suppose that means you’re doing okay.”

  Carlos said nothing, and finally Lee spoke again. “Yes, well…look, Carlos there’s no reason for you to do this. No one here blames you for what happened. You and the others just made a mistake, that’s all. We just want you to turn around and come home. Everything will be…”

  “Sorry, but this offer has just expired. Thank you, call again soon. Bye.”

  He lowered the satphone, clicked it off. He stared at it for a few seconds before he folded the antenna and put the unit aside. Then he returned to the task of building a tree house.

  Taking up residence in a blackwood was a little more difficult than he thought. Although he was safe from any predators on the ground—boids couldn’t climb any better than they could fly, and creek cats tended to shy away from humans larger than a small child—the swoops that also made the tree their home didn’t care much for his presence. All through the night, Carlos was subjected to angry screeches and a steady rain of twigs as the birds attempted to drive him out, and when morning came he awoke to find his sleeping bag spotted with their droppings. Clearly, he was going to have to build a roof for his little tree house.