Coyote

by Allen Steele

  “Look,” she continues, “this is the first contact we’ve had with Earth since we left. I’ve got to know for myself what happened back there. I didn’t have many friends in the hostel, but I did leave a few behind. I just want to find out…”

  “Okay, okay.” Lee holds up a hand. “Carlos can take care of Susan while you’re away, right?” She snuffles back tears, gives him a weak nod. “And you’ll pay attention to everything that occurs, and write reports for the Council and…um, your official history?” She nods again, and he sighs. “All right. Against my better judgment, you’re on the team. Go see Ellery about…”

  He doesn’t get a chance to finish before she throws her arms around him. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you so much…”

  “All right. Okay.” Grateful there’s no one here to witness this, Lee gently pries the girl off him, daubs the tears from her face. “Now hurry up…we’re lifting off in an hour. You’ve got just enough time to say goodbye to Susan and Carlos.”

  “Yes, sir.” She’s already heading for the ramp. “Be back soon as I can.” She pauses at the open hatch, looks back at him. “And Captain?…thanks for believing in me.”

  Lee forces a smile, gives her a short wave that she accepts with a beautiful smile before she rushes down the gangway. The moment she’s gone, though, he closes his eyes, leans heavily against the hatchway, and prays that he hasn’t made a mistake.

  Orifiel / 0940

  The muted rumble of engines being revved up, then a crackling roar that ripples across the frozen marsh as Plymouth slowly ascends upon its VTOL jets. Carlos quickly reaches down to cup his hands over Susan’s ears; the little girl quails back against him, yet she doesn’t seem frightened so much as astonished. Her eyes are huge as she watches the spacecraft rise; a blast of hot air rushes across them, an instant of summer on a cold winter morning.

  “Wave bye-bye to Mama.” Carlos picks up Sue’s arm, raises it above her head. “Go on, Sue…wave bye-bye.” Susan gazes up at him solemnly, not quite comprehending what he’s just said even though she watched Mama walk up Plymouth’s gangway just a few minutes ago, then she silently waves her tiny hand just as she’s been taught. Then she loses her balance and falls down on her rump.

  Carlos scoops her up, straddles her across his shoulders. Susan squeals in delight and immediately loses interest in the Plymouth. By now the shuttle has reached cruise altitude; its blunt nose tilts upward, then its scramjets kick in and the gull-winged spacecraft soars upward into the slate grey sky. Within a few seconds, it disappears through the low clouds, leaving behind only a pair of smoky contrails. A minute later, there’s a loud boom from far above as the craft goes supersonic.

  The crowd watching the launch begins to dissipate, townspeople tucking their gloved hands in the pockets of their parkas as they turn away, talking quietly to one another. Even though no official announcement has been made by the Council, everyone already knows about the Earth ship. Until they hear back from Plymouth, there’s little to be done; Carlos supposes he could put Susan in Kuniko’s care and go down to the boathouse to get some work done. The thirty-four-foot faux birch longboats he and several others have been building for the past several months are practically finished; they only need to have their masts fitted with rigging.

  Besides, it’ll help take his mind off Wendy. He tried to talk her out of going, insisting that the flight is nothing that Captain Lee and the others can’t handle on their own, yet she was adamant about going with them. When the captain turned her down the first time, Carlos was secretly relieved, but she went back again, and this time…well, he should have figured that she’d eventually win. When it comes to arguments, he’s already learned that Wendy seldom loses.

  “C’mon, little creek cat,” he says. “Piggyback ride to Aunt Kuni’s house!” Susan babbles happily in baby-speak as she grasps the hood of his parka, and he’s just turned to walk back toward town when he hears a voice behind him.

  “Surprised you didn’t go up yourself,” Chris says. “Thought a hero like you wouldn’t pass up the chance for more glory.”

  Carlos looks around, sees Chris heading toward him. He looks better than he did last night, but not much; there are dark circles beneath his eyes, and Carlos has little doubt he’s suffering from a wicked hangover. Just behind him, his mother trudges through the snow; her parka hood is turned up, yet once again Ms. Levin throws him an icy glare before she looks away. Sissy Levin has barely spoken to him since he returned from his journey down the Great Equatorial River, yet what little she’s said has always been brutal.

  “No one asked me to go.” Carlos keeps walking, his hands wrapped around Susan’s ankles. “Besides, this is Wendy’s business. She doesn’t need me.”

  “Hey, how ’bout that…something you and I can finally agree on.” Chris’s smile is bitter, without humor. “How long did it take you to figure that out?”

  This is just as pointless now as it was last night; Carlos knows he should just let it go. It’s been nearly a year and a half, by Gregorian reckoning, since they went down the river together, yet Coyote’s long seasons collapse time, makes everything seem shorter. They’ve come a long way since they left Earth, and not just in terms of distance; they boarded the Alabama as kids, and now they’re both young men who’ve suffered the loss of parents and, in Chris’s case, a brother. Chris loathes him, yet Carlos still maintains hope that he can reach through his anger to find the boy he once considered his best friend.

  “What happened to you, man?” Carlos stops, looks straight at him. “You’ve changed. There’s something…I dunno, but it’s ugly, and I wish you’d get rid of it.”

  Shock appears on Chris’s face. He stares at Carlos in surprise, and Carlos suddenly realizes that this is the first time in many weeks, perhaps a month, that he’s spoken to him like this. All through autumn and into winter, Chris has chided him, baited him, tried to pick fights, finally leading Carlos to avoid contact with him altogether. Maybe it was because Wendy was always nearby, often out of sight but never out of mind. But now she’s gone, at least temporarily, and it feels as if a shackle has been loosened.

  “I…I haven’t changed,” Chris protests. “You’re the one who’s…”

  “Yes, I have,” Carlos says. “I’ll admit it…I’m not the same guy I was last summer. A lot’s happened since then, and none of it’s been easy. There are things I did back then that keep me awake at night, and believe me, there’s no way I think of myself as a hero. But I keep going, because I’ve got my kid to take care of…”

  “His kid, you mean.” Ms. Levin has also stopped; from the corner of his eye, Carlos can see her glaring at him. “That’s my granddaughter you’re holding. I hope you’re treating her right.”

  Carlos suppresses a sigh; they’ve been through this many times before. When Wendy was still in the early stages of her pregnancy, there was some doubt over who was the father. Although it seemed certain that Carlos was responsible, there was also the fact that Wendy had a brief affair with Chris. Dr. Okada settled the question through DNA tests, yet even after she certified that Susan was Carlos’s child, and Chris reluctantly accepted her findings, Sissy Levin remained adamant in her belief that Susan was Chris’s offspring, even going so far as to accuse Kuniko of tampering with the test results and lying to everyone involved, including the Town Council. This occurred during the depths of her breakdown, yet even though her depression has stabilized—at least she’s no longer threatening suicide—Sissy continues quietly to insist that Susan is a grandchild who has been unjustly taken away from her.

  “Mom, please let me handle this, okay?” Chris gives her a sharp look, and Ms. Levin seems to fold into herself. “Go on home. I’ll make lunch for us, all right?”

  His mother nods numbly, then turns and starts walking toward town, her head bowed. Watching her leave, Carlos feels pity for the once-strong woman who used to make grilled cheese sandwiches for them. “I hope she’s doing okay,” he says quietly.

&nb
sp; “Some days are better than others. This isn’t…” Then Chris seems to remember that he’s supposed to be angry. “What do you expect? If it wasn’t for you…”

  “How many times do you want me to say I’m sorry?” Carlos feels Susan impatiently squirm against the back of his neck. “Okay…I’m sorry. I’m really sorry about what happened to David, and I’m sorry about your father…”

  “And last night? After you set me up at the Cantina?” Chris’s eyes are cold. “Maybe you’ll be happy to know that Lew’s barred me from his place again. Only beer joint in town, and I can’t go there anymore.”

  Maybe it’ll do you some good, Carlos thinks, but he doesn’t say this. “I didn’t set you up, but if you want to think that…”

  “Yeah, right, you’re sorry. Heard it before, means just as much as it did the last time.”

  “Chris…”

  “Forget it. What’s the point?” Then he glances up at the sky, watching the contrails as they’re whisked away by the breeze. “But, y’know…I kind of hope that’s a Republic ship. It’d sure be sweet to see someone come down here and…”

  He stops, shakes his head. “Never mind. Go back to…whatever.” He turns his back to Carlos, begins following his mother. “Take it easy, hero. Don’t lose any more sleep.”

  Carlos waits a few moments to let Chris get ahead of him, then he falls in with the last of the townspeople leaving the landing pad. Susan restlessly kicks at the side of his face; he’ll probably have to change her diaper once they’re home. Wendy’s been gone for only ten or fifteen minutes, and he misses her already.

  He scarcely notices that the wind has begun to rise.

  PLYMOUTH: Orifiel, Gabriel 17 / 2612

  “Wendy? Time to wake up.”

  Captain Lee’s voice in her headset nudges her from a dreamless sleep. Wendy opens her eyes, glances across the aisle of the passenger compartment. Henry yawns and stretches; Dana’s seat is empty, though.

  “I’m here,” she mumbles. Her mouth tastes like cotton; she reaches beneath her couch for the plastic squeeze bottle of water she’d stashed down there. No response; Henry motions to the wand of his headset, and now she remembers that she has to tap it to activate the comlink. “I’m up, Captain,” she says. “Where are we?”

  “Last place we were when you sacked out.” Dana’s voice. She must have gone forward to the cockpit. “But we’re no longer alone, just in case you’re interested.”

  Wendy and Henry trade a look, then both of them scramble to unbuckle their seat harnesses. Wendy’s first out of her couch; floating upward from her seat, she grabs the ceiling rail, then begins pulling herself hand over hand toward the cockpit. The bulky space suit she’s wearing hinders her movements, but she manages to squeeze through the narrow hatch ahead of Henry.

  The view from the cockpit is spectacular. Three hundred sixty miles below, Coyote stretches out before them as a vast, curving plain, the green-and-tan landscapes of its continents and major islands crisscrossed by the aquamarine veins of river channels and tributaries, the Great Equatorial River cutting through them as a broad blue swath. They’re passing over the eastern hemisphere; it’s early morning down there, which means it must be close to midnight back in Liberty. Bear would be somewhere behind them.

  “Not down there,” Lee says quietly. “Look up.”

  Wendy raises her eyes, and her breath catches in her throat. Through the center window, she sees an elongated shape, off-white and reflecting the sunlight, the apparent size of her forefinger yet steadily growing larger: cylindrical in form, wasp-waisted at its center, slightly wider at one end.

  “Twenty nautical miles and closing.” In the left seat, Jud Tinsley keeps an eye on the instrument panel. “On course for orbital rendezvous.”

  “Very good.” Lee glances back at Wendy and Henry. “I know it’s tight up here, but try to find a place where you’re out of the way.” Wendy looks around, finds Dana jammed into the narrow space behind the right seat; she moves over a little more to make room for her. Henry tucks himself behind Jud’s seat, murmuring an apology when he jostles the pilot. Plymouth’s cockpit wasn’t designed to hold so many people, but it can’t be helped; there are no windows in the back of the shuttle.

  Lee waits until everyone is settled, then reaches the com panel and flips a couple of switches. Wendy hears the soft purr of carrier static in her headset. “WHSS Glorious Destiny, this is Coyote spacecraft Plymouth, do you copy? Over.” He waits a moment. “WHSS Glorious Destiny, this is Alabama shuttle Plymouth, formerly URSS Jesse Helms. Do you copy? Please acknowledge, over.”

  Silence. Lee looks back at Dana. “I’m transmitting on the KU frequency band,” he says, cupping a hand around his mike, “but I don’t think they’re picking this up.”

  “Maybe they’re using…” she begins.

  “URSS Jesse Helms, this is WHSS Glorious Destiny.” The voice they hear is clear, but not the same one they heard before. “We receive you. Do you receive us? Over.”

  Smiles and relieved laughter, until Captain Lee raises a hand to quiet the others. He unclasps his headset wand. “Affirmative, Glorious Destiny, we…um, receive you. We are presently in low orbit, at coordinates…” He pauses to check a comp screen. “X-ray one-eight-point-nine, Yankee four-seven-point-five, Zulu three-three-zero, distance eighteen nautical miles and closing. Do you copy? Over.”

  “Understood, Helms,” the voice says after a moment. “We have acquired you. Please stand by.”

  “Understood. Standing by.” Again, Lee muffles his headset. “Not good,” he says quietly. “That’s the second time they’ve called us the Helms, even though I first identified ourselves as the Plymouth.”

  “Alabama didn’t have a shuttle called the Plymouth,” Dana says. “Maybe they…”

  “Plymouth, do you receive?” A new voice: feminine, with an accent that sounds vaguely Hispanic. “Est…this is Matriarch Luisa Hernandez, commander of Glorious Destiny. With whom am I speaking, por favor? Over.”

  “Got it right this time,” Lee says, then he takes his hand from the mike. “This is Captain Robert E. Lee, commanding officer of the URSS Alabama. Good to hear you, Captain…I mean, Matriarch Hernandez. Welcome to Coyote. Over.”

  Another pause, only this time they can hear other voices in the background. Wendy listens hard, but she can’t make out what they’re saying; it sounds like a polyglot of English, Spanish, and French. The others seem just as perplexed; Lee looks over at Tinsley, shakes his head.

  “Thank you, Captain Lee,” Matriarch Hernandez says haltingly after a few moments. “We’re certainly…ah, pleased to learn that you’re still alive.” Now Wendy knows it’s not her imagination; Glorious Destiny’s commander speaks English only as a second language. “We have…um, attempted to contact you previous, but…ah, until now, there has been no response.”

  Lee’s prepared for this. “My apologies, Matriarch Hernandez. Our communications system is rather deficient.” A blatant lie, but one that hides the fact that the colony is unwilling to expose its location through high-gain radio transmissions. “When we saw you coming, we launched a shuttle to intercept your ship. May we have permission to rendezvous and dock with you, please? Over.”

  This time, the delay is even longer. Almost a minute passes before Hernandez comes back online once more. “You have permission, Captain Lee. Our external docking hatch is located on the forward section of our vessel. It will be marked by a blinking red beacon. One of my crew will meet you at the airlock.”

  “Understood, Matriarch Hernandez. We’ll be docking in about a half hour. I’m looking forward to meeting you. Plymouth over and out.” He clicks off the comlink, looks at the others. “What do you make of that?”

  “So far, so good,” Tinsley says quietly. “But why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

  “Same here,” Lee replies. “But they’re opening the front door.”

  The ship is huge, much larger than anyone suspected. Over twelve hundred feet long, it�
�s more than twice the length of the Alabama, and at least three times more massive: two enormous cylinders, each about five hundred feet in length, joined at the center by a slightly smaller midsection. The forward section is encircled by rows of perpendicular windows, indicating the presence of at least five passenger decks, yet there are also portholes within the hemispherical bulge protruding from its blunt bow.

  The aft section is more mysterious. Elevated above the otherwise featureless cylinder are four long convex vanes, running parallel to the hull; wedge-shaped flanges rise from the rear of the vanes, just past which is the giant bell of the fusion engine. At first Lee thinks they may be heat radiators, yet as Plymouth moves closer he hears a low whistle from behind his seat.

  “Got an idea what those things are?” he asks, peering over his shoulder at Henry.

  “I’ll be damned.” The astrophysicist is clearly awestruck. “I think these people have a diametric drive.” He points to the vanes. “If I’m right, those are field generators.” Then he gestures to another set of flanges at the front of the ship; these are folded down against the hull. “Positive and negatives polarities would be generated from either end of the ship, so that it creates an asymmetric field around itself. In that way, it warps spacetime around itself and…”

  “You mean, like a wormhole or something?” Wendy asks.

  Henry shakes his head. “No, no…nothing so exotic. This is something else. The concept goes all the way back to the mid-twentieth century. My team at Marshall played with it for a while, but no one could figure out how to make it work, though, so we stuck to developing a Bussard engine. But it looks like someone came along behind us and licked the energy-conservation problem. Probably using zero-point energy as a power source.”

  “Then why include a fusion engine?” Dana asks. “That’s like putting a mule harness on a race car.”