Coyote Frontier

by Allen Steele

  So which was more important, transportation or more electrical power for the Clarksburg wood mills? Another matter to be taken before the Colonial Council. Another headache he’d have to deal with. Once again, he remembered the hand-carved sign Ted LeMare had given him for his fiftieth birthday, just after he’d won election as president and, sadly, just a few weeks before old Ted passed away. THE BUCK STOPS HERE: something a long-forgotten president of the United States was reputed to have once said. His own chief of staff didn’t know what a buck was, yet the message was clear nonetheless.

  Time to change the subject. “So how are the kids?” he asked, taking her arm and guiding her around a boulder in the middle of the path. “They getting along?”

  “Rain’s doing well.” Marie snuggled against him. “She’s in third grade, and when she’s not playing practical jokes on everyone, she’s showing signs of becoming an artist. Can’t wait to show you her watercolors when you come over for dinner…she’s got a lot of talent.”

  “Can’t wait to see them. And Hawk?”

  Marie became pensive, staring down at the ground as they walked. “Not so good,” she said after a moment, her hand slipping from his arm. “He’s supposed to be in upper school, but he dropped out two months ago. I only see him when he bothers to come home, and even then he’s…well, barely there.”

  Carlos frowned. “If he’s not home or at school, then where is he?”

  She let out her breath. “Where do you think he is? With his father, of course.”

  Carlos felt something within him go cold. He’d never liked Lars Thompson; even when they’d fought together during the Revolution, he’d been someone Carlos couldn’t turn his back on. Lars’s younger brother had been much the same way—and so was Marie, for that matter—but once the war was over, Garth had straightened himself out, in time coming to lead the colony their late uncle had founded on Great Dakota that now bore his name.

  Clarksburg—once known as Riverport—had been founded by Lars and Marie six years ago, after the magistrate had exiled them from Liberty. In the aftermath of the Revolution, the two had become violent misfits, and making them leave was the only way Carlos could keep them from spending hard time in the stockade. Together with Manuel Castro, the posthuman Savant who’d been left behind when the Union abandoned Coyote, the three of them had spent the next six months exploring the unknown territories west of New Florida. Everyone expected them to return to Liberty once their sentence was completed, but instead Lars had asked his family to join them in establishing a new settlement at the mouth of a river he and Marie discovered on the southeast coast of Great Dakota. Clark Thompson brought a number of other people with them, most of them people who’d once lived in Thompson’s Ferry before it was destroyed during the first major battle of the Revolution, and so Riverport became the first colony west of New Florida.

  No one knew what happened to Manny Castro. The Savant had remained with Lars and Marie until the first boatload of colonists arrived from New Florida, then one morning they found his cabin abandoned. He’d disappeared during the night, apparently taking with him only a rucksack filled with a few hand tools and a datapad. To this day, some claimed to have spotted him deep within the Black Mountains, a spectral figure in a hooded cloak, yet nonetheless Manny never again set foot within a human settlement.

  It wasn’t long before Marie was pregnant with her first child, and one of Clark Thompson’s first acts as the colony’s leader was to preside over her marriage to Lars. This was also one of the last things he did; less than a week later, the roof-beam of a cabin he was helping build fell on him. Riverport was renamed Clarksburg in his memory, and Lars had assumed the role as mayor.

  But Lars wasn’t like his uncle. He’d lacked the leadership qualities, preferring to spend most of his time drinking sourgrass ale, and when he wasn’t drunk, he railed at people for not working hard enough. It was only inevitable that the townspeople rebelled; during a midnight meeting of the town council—which Lars himself didn’t attend, because he’d passed out at the bar of the local cantina—a unanimous vote was taken to remove him from office. His aunt, Clark’s widow, Molly, was elected mayor, something which her nephew didn’t discover until he woke up the following morning.

  Marie stayed married to her husband; she was carrying her second child, and had matured to become a respected member of the community, so she didn’t want to leave him. Aunt Molly successfully led Clarksburg to self-sufficiency, establishing the family business, the Thompson Wood Company, as its principal employer; when she stepped down to let Garth become mayor, he and Marie went ahead with Klon Newell’s idea to build a wind farm on Thunder Ridge in order to provide electrical power not only to the colony—which, with more than a thousand residents, was now third in population only to the twin townships of Liberty and Shuttlefield—but also to the timber mills that had become the backbone of Clarksburg’s economy.

  Yet Lars never regained his standing in the community. Embittered by the loss of authority, estranged from his wife and his younger brother, he’d moved up into the nearby mountains, becoming the boss of one of the logging camps that supplied wood for the mills.

  “The only time I see Hawk is when he and his father come into town for supplies.” Marie stepped over a rotted faux birch that had fallen across the path. “Other than him bringing my son home occasionally, I don’t have much use for him. He’s the father of my children, but…”

  She paused to gather her long dark hair and tie it back into a knot. In the midday light, Carlos saw for the first time that it was threaded with grey. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; there was silver in his beard, and lately he’d found the beginnings of a bald spot at the crown of his head. Nonetheless it was a shock to see such signs of age in his little sister.

  “I married the wrong man, didn’t I?” she said quietly, her hands working behind her head. “If I’d known how he’d turn out—”

  “Don’t beat yourself up.” Carlos looked down from the hillside. Through the trees, he could make out wood-frame houses, see smoke rising from the mills. A pair of swoops circled above them, cawing their dismay at the human presence. “You were a lot younger back then. You couldn’t have known better.”

  “Yeah, well…” She gave him a sad smile. “You know what they say.”

  “Time catches up to you when a year is worth three.” An old Coyote truism, much like boids attack when you’re not looking or don’t eat the winter corn until spring. In this instance, it was a way of saying that time went quickly when you only paid attention to the passing of the seasons. Even though this was only the thirteenth summer he and his sister had spent on this world, they had been here long enough to pass from childhood to early middle age. And yet…

  His satphone suddenly chirped, startling him.

  “Can’t get a break, can you?” Marie murmured, watching as he fumbled to unclasp the unit from his belt.

  “Goes with the job.” Carlos unfolded the miniature dish, held the phone to his face. “President Montero…how may I help you?”

  “Wow, don’t you sound official.” Wendy’s voice was a low purr in his ear. “Should I call you ‘sir’, or is that too much?”

  “‘Sir’ will do.” Carlos smiled as he heard his wife’s voice. “‘Your honor’ would be nice, too. Oh how about ‘your holiness’? I think I’d like that.”

  “Holy fool, more like it,” Marie said.

  Carlos pushed her aside, then turned away. “What’s going on? Something important, I hope.” Although his annual summer trip to Great Dakota was supposed to be diplomatic in nature, he’d come to regard it as a vacation, or at least a reason to get away from Liberty for a few days. Wendy knew this, and that’s why he’d asked her not to call unless it was crucial.

  “Important enough,” Wendy replied. “Have you looked at the sky lately?”

  “Huh?” Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked straight up. The only thing he saw was Uma, blazing almost directly overhead. “I don’t
understand. What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “Are you on high ground?” she asked, and he grunted an affirmative. “Okay, look due east, toward the horizon. Find Wolf, and then look just slightly above it.”

  Carlos peered in the direction she indicated. About a hand’s width above the coast of New Florida, through the light blue haze of the sky, he spotted a bright point of light: Wolf, the outermost jovian planet in the 47 Ursae Majoris system, 1.6 A.U.’s from Coyote. This time of year, it appeared as an afternoon star, rising seven hours before Bear and almost invisible in daylight unless you were searching for it.

  It took him another moment to find what Wendy was talking about, yet when he did, he felt his breath catch: a tiny, luminescent streak, so small that he could have covered it with an outstretched thumb. It might have been a comet, yet the moment he saw it, he knew what it was.

  “Oh, hell,” he murmured.

  The exhaust plume of a fusion engine. The telltale sign of an approaching starship.

  EASS CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS / NOV. 2, 2339 (RELATIVE) / 1532

  “MECO in sixty seconds, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pacino.” Anastasia Tereshkova nodded to her first officer in acknowledgment. She checked her lap belt to make sure that it was securely fastened, then gently touched the wand of her headset mike to activate the intercom. “All hands, stand by for main-engine cutoff. Repeat, MECO in one minute and counting.”

  Settling back in her chair, Ana took a moment to glance around the command deck. As expected, the flight crew were already at their stations, watching the screens of their consoles as Pacino commenced final countdown to the end of braking maneuvers. Of course, the AI was fully capable of performing this task automatically, just as it had for all other important functions over the last forty-eight years and nine months. Nonetheless, her second officer, Jonathan Parson, had insisted upon assuming the helm. He was a young officer, though, and this was his first deep-space mission, so Ana wasn’t about to deny him the privilege, however unnecessary it may be.

  She quietly watched from behind as Parson rested his hands upon the helm, keeping an eye on the master chronometer as the last seconds ticked away. At the instant the clock reached 00:00:00, he snapped a pair of toggle switches. A second later, the low vibration she’d felt beneath her feet ever since she awakened from biostasis faded away, and she felt her body pull slightly against her straps.

  “MECO complete. Main engines in safe mode.” Parson checked his nav screen, then glanced over his shoulder at her. “On course for 47 Uma B, ma’am. All systems green.”

  “Very good, Mr. Parson.” Ana relaxed a little, savoring the momentary sensation of weightlessness. However much she personally enjoyed freefall, it wasn’t a good idea to let it last very long; although most of the crew was accustomed to this, some of her passengers might get ill if it persisted. “Initiate turn-around maneuver, please, and stand by for MCF.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” As Parson’s hands moved across his console, Ana turned her attention to her lapboard. Displayed upon its screen was a miniature image of the Columbus, the long shaft of its stern pointed in the direction of flight. As she watched, lights flashed along the midsection maneuvering thrusters just aft of the shuttle cradles. She didn’t need to study the screen, though, to know that Columbus was rotating 180 degrees upon its secondary axis. Brilliant beams of sunlight pierced the rectangular windows and quickly traveled across the low ceiling of the command deck until they reached the aft bulkhead, then formed long shadows as they raced back across the floor before fading out as the windows polarized against the glare of 47 Ursae Majoris.

  Ana glanced at Pacino. He met her eye, gave her an encouraging nod. He, too, had been quietly observing the second officer’s performance, and was just as impressed as she was. “Turnaround maneuver complete,” Pacino said. “Ready to initiate MCF, Captain, on your mark.”

  “Mark.” Although she was watching Parson as he pressed a couple of buttons on his board, she almost didn’t notice when the Millis-Clement field was reactivated, restoring 1g gravity to the ship. Her body settled back in her seat, yet she observed this only in an abstract sort of way. For the last twenty hours, Columbus had been traveling backward, its fusion engine delivering constant thrust to decelerate its entry into the 47 Uma system. Now that the ship faced forward again, the fat ring of its diametric drive no longer blocked the view; she could see 47 Ursae Majoris as a distant sun, still two and a half A.U.’s away. Yet it was more than just another star. If she looked more closely…

  Yes, there it was: a ruddy spot of light, bisected by a thin line. Bear, the third planet out from 47 Uma, closely surrounded by a small family of satellites. Dog, Hawk, Eagle, Snake, Goat…

  And there, just barely visible. Coyote.

  Ana’s hand trembled as she touched her mic again. “All hands, stand down from maneuvers.”

  “Captain, we should be able to transmit now.” The communications officer turned to her. “Do you wish to do so?”

  “Yes, please.” Electromagnetic interference from the fusion engine had rendered radio communications impossible until now. “Ku channel, between 15 and 18 gigahertz,” she said. That was the band commonly used by older spacecraft; if anyone on Coyote had observed the Columbus’s arrival and was monitoring deep-space radio, this was the frequency range they’d most likely monitor. “Use both Anglo and Old English,” she added. “We don’t know who might be listening.”

  As the com officer moved to comply, Ana unbuckled her seat belt and carefully stood up. It had been more than forty-eight hours since she’d emerged from biostasis, yet her legs still felt weak. She let out her breath, then walked over to the helm. “Good job, Jon,” she said quietly, patting him on the shoulder. “You handled that beautifully.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” Parson barely glanced her way, but when he did there was a guarded look on his face. “Set course for rendezvous with Coyote?”

  “Please do, by all means.” A brief nod in response, then he turned back to his console, opening a window on his console’s main screen that depicted a heliocentric diagram of the 47 Uma system. As she watched, he began entering new coordinates into the navigation subsystem, even though this was a task, like the turnaround maneuver, that AI could have handled just as efficiently.

  A strange person, she once again reflected. Of the thirty men and women aboard Columbus, she knew Jonathan Parson the least well. Much of that could be owed to British reserve; that, and the single-minded determination of a young man who’d made his way through the ranks to become second officer aboard the second European Alliance starship. Yet even before they’d left Earth, he’d quietly rebuffed her attempts to get to know him better. Like Melville’s Bartleby, he seemed to have no life outside his job. He came out of his cabin, did his shift, then returned to his cabin. When he ate, he did so alone; when he bathed, it was when no one else was in the officer PQ. He spoke to no one, and after a while no one spoke to him. Very efficient, and very weird.

  Well…she had other things to worry about just now. “Carry on,” she murmured, then turned to see her first officer beckoning her from the remote-imaging station. “Yes, Mr. Pacino?”

  “New pictures of Coyote,” he replied, pointing to a pair of flatscreens. “Something here you might want to see.”

  On the left screen was an optical image of the world, as captured in real-time by the navigation telescope mounted just above the main deflector. Although still fuzzy, it depicted a large moon: a planet, really, a little larger than Mars, its green-brown terrain traced by an intricate network of blue waterways, with white icecaps at its northern and southern poles. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen close-up images of Coyote since they’d entered the system, yet once again she was struck by its beauty. A marble in the cosmos, Earth-like yet definitely not Earth.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Once again, it was as if Gabriel could read her thoughts. They’d served together for so long, though, that this wasn’t a surprise. I
ndeed, for a little while during training, they’d indulged in a brief, furtive affair, before deciding that it was better for their respective careers if they no longer slept together. “But that’s not what concerns me. Look here…”

  He pointed to the screen on the right. High-resolution radio inferometry, a little less than fifteen minutes old, depicting an image of the planet as seen by radar beams directed at the planet and bounced back to the Columbus. “See something?”

  Ana studied the screen. Monochromatic whorls and deep depressions and long lines: a topographic map of the world, more informative than the optical image, yet showing nothing unusual so far as she could see. “All right,” she said after a moment, “I give up. What are you trying to show me?”

  “Here’s a hint. It’s not what you see…it’s what you don’t see.” Pacino expanded the focal point, allowing her to view the planet from a wider perspective, then waited for her to respond. When she didn’t say anything, he pointed to a pair of tiny black dots suspended above Coyote’s equator. “Low-orbit satellites…communications, possibly meteorological. Much what we’d expect. But if we can see those, shouldn’t we also be seeing…?”

  “You’re right.” Ana leaned closer, resting the knuckles of her hands against the console. “Where’s the Spirit? Or the Alabama?”

  The first ship to 47 Ursae Majoris had been the URSS Alabama, launched by the United Republic of America in 2070. Hijacked, really, and that tale was legend in itself. No other starships had followed it for nearly two hundred years, until the Western Hemisphere Union had sent out five more ships between 2256 and 2260, each using the diametric drive that allowed for near light-speed travel. The last ship launched was the Spirit of Social Collectivism Carried to the Stars; it was known that the four previous Union vessels had been ordered to return to Earth once they’d delivered colonists to Coyote, but the Spirit had a military mission and was supposed to remain here until further notice. And one would naturally expect to find the Alabama still in orbit above Coyote.