by Allen Steele
C O Y O T E F R O N T I E R
Hugo Award-winning author Allen Steele’s acclaimed, “terrific, break-out book” (Robert J. Sawyer] of interstellar exploration, Coyote, was boldly followed by Coyote Rising, “the Revolutionary War of the future” (Midwest Book Review). Now, Coyote Frontier concludes this epic trilogy—with humanity’s last chance to colonize a new Earth…
The revolution that won Coyote’s independence from Earth’s government is twenty years in the past. Large areas of the planet remain unexplored. Coyote’s aging computers, aircraft, and medical equipment are badly in need of replacement. And the colony’s survival is in question.
Hope arrives in the form of the European Alliance starship Columbus, delivering a starbridge—an invention that allows almost instantaneous travel between Earth and Coyote. With Earth in ruins, humankind needs a new home—and Coyote is its last, best refuge. But this technology may prove to be more of a detriment than a boon. Now the colony’s hard-won independence depends on the descendants of Coyote’s original settlers—and those who have their own agendas for its future…
Former freedom fighter Carlos Montero, now in his fifties and burdened with the responsibilities of leadership. Manuel Castro, the savant and former lieutenant governor of New Florida, now a hermit who may hold the key to the survival of those whose company he has renounced. Jonas Whittaker, the genius inventor haunted by the loss of the wife and daughter he sacrificed to save his own life. And Morgan Goldstein, an entrepreneur seeking to exploit Coyote’s natural resources—even if it means ruining the planet itself.
As Coyote’s future hangs in the balance, a larger question looms: Can the human race settle a new world without bringing forward the problems of the world it left behind?
Novels by Allen M. Steele
NEAR-SPACE SERIES
ORBITAL DECAY
CLARKE COUNTY, SPACE
LUNAR DESCENT
LABYRINTH OF NIGHT
A KING OF INFINITE SPACE
THE JERICHO ITERATION
THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE
OCEANSPACE
CHRONOSPACE
COYOTE TRILOGY
COYOTE
COYOTE RISING
COYOTE FRONTIER
Collections by Allen M. Steele
RUDE ASTRONAUTS
ALL-AMERICAN ALIEN BOY
SEX AND VIOLENCE IN ZERO-G: THE COMPLETE NEAR-SPACE STORIES
AMERICAN BEAUTY
Nonfiction by Allen M. Steele
PRIMARY IGNITION: ESSAYS 1997-2001
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2005 by Allen M. Steele.
Text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
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First edition: December 2005
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Steele, Allen M.
Coyote frontier : Allen Steele.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-441-01331-7
1. Space colonies—Fiction. I. Title
PS3569.T338425C6925 2005
813'.54—dc22
2005050812
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
Ron Miller—
the man who painted Coyote
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
Book Five: Amid the Alien Corn
PART ONE: Bridge of Stars
PART TWO: The Wayfaring Stranger
PART THREE: The Black Mountains
PART FOUR: A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Book Six: Coyote’s Stepchildren
PART FIVE: Emissary to Earth
PART SIX: Quartet for Four Seasons
1. Winter Horses
Spring Encounters
Summer Fires
Autumn Leaves
PART SEVEN: Parson’s Rebellion
PART EIGHT: Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
Epilogue
Coyote Calendar
Acknowledgments
Sources
Coyote Colonists
MONTERO FAMILY
Carlos Montero—president, Coyote Federation
Wendy Gunther—Carlos’s wife; former Colonial Council member
Susan Montero—daughter; naturalist, Colonial University
Kuniko Okada—Wendy’s adoptive mother; former chief physician, URSS Alabama
THOMPSON FAMILY
Lars Thompson—logging camp foreman
Marie Montero—Lars’s wife; Carlos Montero’s sister
Hawk Thompson—son
Rain Thompson—daughter
Garth Thompson—Lars’s brother; mayor of Clarksburg
Molly Thompson—Lars’s and Garth’s aunt; owner, Thompson Wood Company
DREYFUS FAMILY
Barry Dreyfus—captain, Orion II; Alabama colonist
Will Gentry—first officer, Orion II; Barry’s partner
Jack Dreyfus—Barry’s father; former Alabama engineer
LEVIN FAMILY
Cecelia “Sissy” Levin—musician
Ben Harlan—Sissy’s second husband
Chris Levin—Chief Proctor, Liberty, Cecelia’s son
CAYLE FAMILY
Bernie Cayle—farmer
Vonda Cayle—professor of History, Colonial University
Dana Monroe—bar owner; former Alabama chief engineer
Jud Tinsley—crew member, Orion II; former Alabama executive officer Paul Dwyer—wagon driver, former Alabama crewman
Henry Johnson—astrophysicist
Manuel Castro—savant; former lieutenant governor, New Florida colony
Tomas Conseco—Carlos Montero’s chief of staff
“Hurricane Dave” Peck—bartender
George Waite—tugboat captain
T
illie Van Owen—logging camp cook
EASS Columbus—Crew
Anastasia Tereshkova—commanding officer
Gabriel Pacino—first officer
Jonathan Parson—second officer
On Earth
Jonas Whittaker—physicist, Federal Space Agency
Roland Shaw—director of Internal Security, United Republic of America
Maggie Kendrick—physician, Federal Space Agency
Angelo Margulis—chief administrator, Highgate
Dieter Vogel—senior consul, European Alliance, Highgate
Farouk Sadat—secretary-general, United Nations
Marcos Amado—U.N. ambassador, Western Hemisphere Union
Sir Ian Rutledge—U.N. ambassador, European Alliance
Morgan Goldstein—entrepreneur
Mike Kennedy—bodyguard
Joseph Walking Star Cassidy—equerry
PROLOGUE
LIBERTY, NEW FLORIDA—MURIEL 91, C.Y. 17
The next-to-last day of Muriel came as the mellow aftermath of a long rainy season, the morning warm and dry, with a clear blue sky vacant of clouds. Tomorrow was the summer solstice; the students would get the day off to prepare for their finals, but by the end of the week they’d be returning to the farms and ranches from which they’d come, and then Colonial University would close its doors for the month of Verchiel. So today was a day for reflection, for taking stock of the world, and, just perhaps, wondering what lay ahead.
As was her custom, Vonda Cayle decided to hold her final class outside. It would have been a waste of a fine morning to keep her students cooped up; the classrooms were well insulated, of course, and each one had its own woodstove, but they’d never been equipped with fans, and as spring had faded into summer the rooms had gradually become stifling even with the windows thrown open. For this last session she wouldn’t need blackboards or maps, though, so Vonda moved the class out to the quadrangle, where they took seats upon the lawn surrounding the small pond that lay in the middle of the campus, while she claimed the bench beneath the shade of a faux birch.
Giving her students a few moments to settle down, she gazed upon them with a certain fondness that she’d never expected to find at the beginning of the trimester. This year’s World History class had been a little larger than usual: fourteen pupils, their LeMarean ages ranging from six to eight, with the youngest little more than teenagers and the oldest in early adulthood. The sons and daughters of immigrants, none had been born on Earth, and all were young enough to be her own children. They’d come here from towns as close as Shuttlefield and colonies as distant as New Brighton, their tuition either paid for by their families or, as in the case of a few of the older students, work-study scholarships that enabled them to live in the dorms while doing all the small but necessary jobs that kept the university running on a day-to-day basis. The first time she’d met them, they were all strangers; now she regarded them as friends, even if some of them didn’t think of her the same way.
Very well, she thought. We’ve spent the last four months together. Now let’s see how much they’ve learned.
“All right, now…” Leaning her cane against the bench, Vonda gently clapped her hands, bringing an end to murmured conversation. “If everyone is ready…”
Her lecture book was spread open in her lap, a soft breeze pulling at its handwritten pages. She gazed down at it for a moment, as if preparing to deliver another lecture, then she slowly and deliberately closed it.
“And they all lived happily ever after,” she said. “The end.”
For a few seconds, they stared at her in bewilderment. Pens paused above blank pages of notebooks, ready to jot down everything she said, only to find that she was saying nothing. A few tittered laughs, politely muffled behind hands. An insolent cough from somewhere to the left; she didn’t have to look to know where it came from. She waited, her hands folded together in her lap, pretending to study the grasshoarder that had just touched down on the ground beside her.
“Pardon me, Professor Cayle, but—”
“Yes, Aaron?” She didn’t look away from the tiny bird as it pulled at a blade of swampgrass. “Is there something you’d like to add?”
Aaron hesitated. One of her older students, he’d always been shy about making his opinions known, until she’d carefully coaxed him out of his habitual timidity. “Well, I mean…surely there must be more. After all, yesterday we only got up to”—he flipped back a page of his notebook—“Hamaliel ’13, when the Columbus arrived.”
“That’s correct, yes. But this material has been covered by Contemporary Politics and Trade, hasn’t it? And since I don’t want to be redundant with everything Professor LeBeau has been trying to teach you, I’d just as soon leave it alone.” An offhand shrug. “We all lived happily ever after, and that’s that. The end. Anyone care to argue with that?”
“Nope. I’m satisfied.” Raven slapped her notebook shut, started to stand up. “Thanks, Professor, this has been a—”
“Did I say class was dismissed?” Vonda looked the black-haired young woman straight in the eye. She froze, then slowly sat down again, not looking away until she lost the staring match with her teacher. “Like I was saying,” Vonda continued, “we all lived happily ever. But then again”—and now she favored them with a coy smile—“I could be wrong.”
Some knowing chuckles from the brighter students, the ones who’d become accustomed to her deliberately provoking arguments. Vonda tossed aside her notebook, disturbing the grasshoarder and causing it to take flight. “I’ve spent all last spring telling you how and why we came here. Day after tomorrow, you get your finals. The ones who are good at memorizing facts and figures are going to do well. The ones who’ve written good papers will get passing grades, too. And some of you”—she refrained from looking at Raven—“are going to muddle by, and with any luck I won’t have to see you here again next fall.”
Outright laughter this time, although not from Raven, who was red-faced and seething. “But right now,” Vonda went on, “I’m not interested in rote-memorization or writing talent. I want to know what you’ve actually learned, not just what you’re able to parrot back to me. So today…”
She paused. “No notebooks. Put ’em away, right now. If I see anyone peeking at them, they get a failing grade for the day.”
Near the back of the group, another young woman raised her hand. “I don’t understand, Professor,” Zephyr said. “I mean, what are we supposed to talk about?”
“Good question.” Vonda nodded. “Perhaps we can start with you, then. Tell me, why did I come here?”
Zephyr blinked in surprise. “You? Well…to teach this class, I guess.”
“No, no.” Vonda shook her head impatiently. “Tell me why I came to Coyote in the first place.”
Zephyr hesitated. “Umm…you were aboard the Alabama, the first ship…the one that left Earth in 2070, I mean. And you told us that you’d been one of the intellectual dissidents—”
“Dissident intellectuals,” Vonda corrected. “Or D.I.s, for short. Go on.”
“The D.I.s were a group of radicals that the government persecuted because of their beliefs, so they hijacked the Alabama and—”
“Wrong.” Vonda looked around. “Anyone want to take a stab at it?”
“The D.I.s weren’t radicals,” Aaron said. “It was the Liberty Party who were the radicals, not the D.I.s. Once they took control of the government, they renamed the country the United Republic of America, rewrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, instituted martial law, abolished all other political parties, suspended free elections, established reeducation camps—”
“All those things, yes. And Zephyr’s correct when she says that the D.I.s were persecuted because of this.” Vonda smiled; she had little doubt that Aaron would ace his final exam. “But she got something else wrong. Anyone else?”
“The D.I.s didn’t hijack the Alabama.” This from Carter, idly plucking at the grass between his legs. “Tha
t was done by Captain Robert E. Lee, along with members of his crew. The D.I.s were just passengers they managed to smuggle aboard at the last minute, so they didn’t have anything to do with…”
“Uh-uh.” Erik shook his head. “A lot of D.I.s were part of the conspiracy. If it hadn’t been for the ones who’d worked for the Federal Space Agency, Lee wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”
“Absolutely correct.” Vonda shifted a little on her bench. “Although it was Captain Lee’s plan, he had considerable assistance from many of the D.I.s…my own late husband, among them.” She frowned, and added, “This is something a few of you are going to have to study a little more closely. I guarantee, you’ll get a question about this on the exam.” A few students, Raven among them, started to reach for their notebooks; one sharp look from their teacher, though, and they left them alone. “Let’s move along. The Alabama managed to escape from Earth, and after…oh, I must be going senile, I forget how long—”
“Two hundred thirty years…or two hundred and twenty-six years, shiptime.” This from Snow, the most literal-minded member of the class. “Give or take a few months, of course, due to the time-dilation factor of twenty-percent light-speed, along with—”
“Relative time will do, thank you,” Vonda said, to the accompaniment of scattered chuckles; Snow was well liked among his classmates, but he was also something of a hairsplitter. “So the Alabama arrived in the 47 Ursae Majoris system on August 26, 2300, and reached Coyote on September 7, 2300.”
“First Landing Day,” Raven chirped. “Uriel 47, C.Y. 1.”
Vonda tried not to show her disgust. That particular date was taught to every child almost as soon as they learned how to read; next to Liberation Day, it was most significant holiday of the year. Only the boys who weren’t infatuated by Raven’s charms didn’t smirk at her attempt to curry favor; everyone else glanced at each other and rolled their eyes.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Vonda said. “And so we lived happily ever after…right?” Even Raven’s latest boyfriend cracked up at this, and received a glare from her in return. “No, I think not,” Vonda continued. “We had quite a few problems, starting with the fact that we had to learn how to live off the land, while at the same time contending with a number of natural predators…boids, for instance. The first year here was quite harsh, but somehow we managed to make it through the winter, and by the beginning of Gabriel, ’03, Liberty had become a self-sufficient colony. But then…”
