The River Horses

by Allen Steele

  I’ve never been much of a religious person. My faith is in the human spirit, not in what most people call God. Nonetheless, if there are angels in the heavens, I pray that they guard and protect those whom we’ve made outcasts.

  They made camp late that afternoon downstream from Liberty, on a brush-covered spit of land formed by the divergence of Levin Creek from Sand Creek. This was boid country; they were near the place where, four Coyote years ago, Jim Levin and Gil Reese had lost their lives in a fateful hunting expedition. Marie knew the story well; Carlos had been on that same trip, back when he was a teenager. She was reluctant to spend the night there, but Lars was nonchalant about the risk they were taking.

  “Look, we’ve got rifles,” he said, “and we’ve got it.” He pointed to Manny, who’d undertaken the task of unloading their gear from the skimmer, now floating next to the gravel beach where they’d dropped anchor. “Better than perimeter guns…it can stay awake all night, and shoot anything that moves.”

  “I can do that, yes.” Manny walked down the lowered gangway, aluminum food containers clasped within each claw. “That is, if I don’t put myself in rest mode. Helps to conserve power, you know…”

  “Shut up.” Lars lay on the beach where he’d thrown down a thermal blanket, his back propped against the still-folded dome tent. He unwrapped a ration bar, carelessly tossing the wrapper into the cloverweed behind him. “When you get done unloading everything, you can set up the tent. Then you can get started on dinner.” He glanced over at Marie. “What do you want to eat tonight?”

  Before Marie could reply, Manny dropped the containers. “Mr. Thompson, I’ll tell you this once, and once only. Appearances notwithstanding, I’m not a robot, and I refuse to be treated as such. If you want anything from me…”

  “You’re our guide, Robby. You volunteered for the job, remember?”

  “A guide, not a slave…and as I was saying, if you want anything from me, then you’ll treat me with common human respect. That begins with not calling me ‘it’ or ‘Robby’ or anything other than…”

  “I dumped your metal ass in the river once.” Lars stared at him. “Give me a reason to do it again…please.”

  Manny gave no answer. Instead, he strode across the beach to where Lars lay, until he was close enough for his shadow to fall across the young man. Lars hastily scrambled backward on his hands and hips, as if afraid that the savant was about to attack him. But Manny merely regarded him for a moment before he slowly turned his back upon Lars and, ever so deliberately, lowered himself to the ground, folding his legs together in lotus position. As Marie watched, the savant rested his hands upon his knees, lowered his head slightly, and became silent.

  And there he remained for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, motionless and quiet, even as daylight faded away and darkness came upon the tiny island. Lars kicked at him, swore at him, even pulled out a rifle and threatened to shoot him. Yet Manny refused to budge; the multifaceted corona of his right eye, now dimmed ever so slightly, reflecting the setting sun a dozen different ways as he meditated upon whatever it was that savants thought about when they entered rest mode. By then it’d become obvious that they would receive no cooperation from him; Marie pitched the tent while Lars was still throwing his tantrum, and she finally managed to get him to help her gather driftwood for a campfire. Dinner came late, and was little more than sausage and beans warmed in a skillet above the fire; when they finished eating, Marie coaxed Lars into gathering the plates and utensils and washing them in the shallows. And still Manny remained inert and silent.

  Bear was rising to the east, the leading edge of its ring-plane a spearhead against the gathering stars, when Marie lighted a fish-oil lamp and used it to illuminate the map she’d spread out on the ground next. “We’ve got to figure out where we’re going,” she said, kneeling over it. “We can’t keep going down Sand Creek…”

  “Why not?” Lars pointed to where it flowed into the East Channel. “Look, that’s only a day away or so. Once we make the channel, all we have to do is follow it until we reach the big river.” By that he meant the Great Equatorial River, which encircled Coyote like an endless, elongated ocean. “Get there, and we can go anywhere.”

  “Not the way we’re going, we can’t.” Marie tapped a finger against the Eastern Divide, the long, high ridge that separated the New Florida inland from the East Channel. “The only way through is the Shapiro Pass. Carlos went through that in a kayak, and it almost killed him.”

  “But we don’t have a kayak. We’ve got that big mother over there…”

  “Even worse.” Marie let out her breath, looked up at him. “I’ve been through it, too, remember? In a keelboat, back in ’03 when we evacuated Liberty. That was in mid-winter, when the water was high, and even then we nearly ripped out the bottom of the boat. The rapids…trust me, this time of year, the rapids are murder. We’ll never make it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.” Lars had learned not to argue with Marie about the terrain of places where she’d already been. He pointed to the Garcia Narrows Bridge, northeast of their present location, where it crossed the East Channel to Midland from the Eastern Divide. “So we cut across country, take the bridge…”

  “Can’t do that either. That’ll take us into Bridgeton and Forest Camp—” she indicated the settlements on the east and west sides of the bridge respectively “—and we were told to stay away from the other colonies.”

  “C’mon…you’re not taking that seriously, are you?” A smirk came to his face. “I got friends in Bridgeton. Lester, Tiny, Biggs…I’m sure any of them would put us up for a few days.” He gave her a wink. “Maybe even six months, if we play our cards right…”

  “Or they would turn you in as soon as they saw you, and avoid jail time themselves.”

  Startled by the unexpected sound of Manny’s voice, Marie looked up to see the savant gazing at them. Sometime during the last few minutes, he’d risen from his perch at the water’s edge and turned to face them, a black specter half-visible by the firelight.

  “No one will help you,” Manny went on, as if he’d been part of the conversation all along. “The word is out, or at least it will be by the time you make it to the next town. You’re persona non grata. Bad company. Anyone who associates with you risks stockade time. I wouldn’t count on…”

  “I thought I told you to shut up.” Lars scooped up a handful of gravel, flung it at the savant. It clattered off his metal chest, ineffective as it was impulsive; Manny didn’t move, but simply stood there. Lars shook his head and looked down at the ground. “God, I need a drink. Didn’t we bring any booze?”

  “Did you ever stop to consider that drinking may be the source of all your…?”

  “If you want to help,” Marie said, “you can start by not lecturing us.” Picking up the map, she stood up and walked over to him. “We need a place to go. If we can’t go south or east, and north takes us back to Liberty…”

  “Then it’s obvious, isn’t it? You should follow Horace Greeley’s advice.”

  “Who the hell is Horace Greeley?” Lars muttered.

  “‘Go west, young man, go west.’” Taking the map from Marie, Manny studied it for a moment. She was surprised that he could see it without the aid of a flashlight, then remembered that he was gifted with infrared vision; bearlight was sufficient for his electronic eyes, even if one of them was permanently damaged. “If we cross Sand Creek and go west by southwest for about fifty miles, we’ll arrive at the confluence of North Creek and Boid Creek. And if we follow Boid Creek upstream for another hundred and twenty miles, we’ll reach the West Channel, just past the mouth of the Alabama River. From there…”

  “Wait a sec.” Marie held up a finger, then dashed back to the campfire to pull a pocket light from her pack. Bringing it back to where Manny stood, she switched it on and held it over the map so that she could read it as well. “Oh, no…no, that’s no good. That’s almost two hundred miles through back country, with the first f
ifty across dry land.”

  “The skimmer is designed for all-terrain travel. Deflate the pontoons, and it’ll operate just as well in high grass. It’ll run a little slower, granted, and we’d do well to avoid heavy brush, but once we reach Boid Creek, we’ll make up for lost time.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Robby?” Still not rising from where he sat, Lars snapped a branch in half and fed it into the campfire. “Back country means boid country. Maybe you don’t have anything to worry about, but us flesh ’n blood types…”

  “I have no more desire to encounter boids than you do, Mr. Thompson. I doubt they’d distinguish very much between a savant and a baseline human…and I’ve asked you not to call me Robby.” He returned his attention to Marie. “The first fifty miles will be the toughest, I grant you that, but with luck and skillful driving we can probably travel the distance in only a day or two. Once we reach Boid Creek, we’ll be on water again. After we reinflate the pontoons, we should be able to cover…”

  A harsh scream broke the quiet of the evening, a high-pitched howl that drifted across the savannah and caused the hair on the back of Marie’s neck to stand. She immediately switched off her light, even as Lars looked around for where he’d left his rifle. Only Manny was unperturbed; pulling back the hood of his cloak, he turned his head toward the direction from which the sound had come, as if searching for its source.

  “It’s not close,” he said. “No less than two miles, at least. But…”

  “But what?” Marie peered into the darkness. Once again, she became aware just how vulnerable they were. The narrow creeks on either side of the island offered little protection from what was out there.

  “Wait,” Manny said softly. “Just wait…” Then they heard another boid cry, this time from a slightly different direction, and a little louder than the first. “Ah, so,” he added. “That would be the mate. They work together, frightening their prey into making them run first one way, then another, until they become disoriented. Then…”

  “I got the idea.” Yet in all the years she’d spent on Coyote, this was the first time she’d heard of this. Not even Carlos, who had a boid skull on his cabin wall as a hunting trophy, possessed that kind of insight. “So what do we do?”

  “Keep the fire going. They associate open flame with brush fires caused by lightning storms, and they tend to avoid those. Otherwise, all we need to do is stay where we are and make as little sound as possible. We don’t want to draw their attention.” Folding the map, Manny handed it back to her, then walked over to the fire, where Lars crouched, rifle at hand. “Thank you for allowing me to recharge, Mr. Thompson. If you’ll give me your weapon, I’ll be happy to stand watch tonight.”

  Lars gazed at him warily, unwilling to surrender his carbine. “Give it to him,” Marie said quietly. “He knows what he’s doing…I think.”

  “Believe me,” Manny said, “I do.” Lars hesitated, then stood up and, without another word, relinquished the rifle to the savant. Manny checked the cartridge to make sure that it was fully loaded, then tucked it beneath his right arm, pulling back his robe so that it wouldn’t get in the way. “Now go to bed, both of you. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” Standing a little straighter, Lars tried to muster what remained of his earlier bravado. “So what’s for breakfast tomorrow, Robby?”

  “‘I don’t use it myself, sir…it promotes rust.’” Manny’s voice became deeper and more mechanistic as he said this. It sounded like another quote, yet Marie couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Humiliated, Lars slinked off to the tent, muttering something she didn’t quite understand. She watched while he fumbled with the zipper, waited until he went inside, then turned to Manny.

  “Thanks, Savant Castro,” she murmured. “I appreciate it.”

  “Of course, Ms. Montero.” His voice returned to its former inflection. “And, by the way…my name’s Manny.”

  She nodded, and began to walk away. Then she paused to look back to him. “I’m Marie,” she said, as quietly as she could.

  “Good night, Marie. Sleep well.”

  From the diary of

  Marie Montero;

  Uriel 49, c.y. 06

  Decided to start a diary today—this is my first entry. Found an old logbook in the bottom of the tool compartment while searching for something to help us clean grass from engine blades. Figure since we’re going to be out on our own for a while, might as well keep a record of where we’ve gone and what we’ve done. Got to report in every other day, so it’ll help me keep track of stuff. Wendy’s been keeping a journal for years, seems to help her put everything in perspective (is that the right word?), so maybe if I do the same thing it’ll help me, too.

  Lars says I’m wasting time doing this, but I’ve got a lotta time to waste. Just spent last two days making our way across New Florida—seen nothing but grass, grass, and more grass. Trees now and then, but it’s pretty much the same thing: miles and miles of grass, tall as my chest. Every ten miles or so we have to stop because the stuff gets caught in the fans and clogs them up, so when the engines start to overheat Lars pulls over and then Manny and I have to get out and yank all that grass out of the cowlings while Lars waits for the engines to cool down. But when we’re not doing that, the only thing I have to do is sit there. Lars won’t let me drive, and he doesn’t like it when I talk to Manny. So it’s pretty boring.

  Manny’s not such a bad guy, once you get to know him. We chit-chat while we clear the engines, and he’s told me a bit about himself. Turns out that he was once a poet, back on Earth almost eighty-five years ago. Even wrote a couple of books. But he got some sort of disease that caused his bones to lose calcium and deteriorate, so when he got a chance to download his mind into a quantum comp and become a savant, he took it. Hearing this makes me think he’s a little more human than I thought…but then I remember that he used to be the Matriarch’s #2 man, and I try to keep this in mind before I trust him too much.

  Spent last night (our second) somewhere in the savannah. Close as we can tell from looking at the map, we’re about two-thirds of the way to where North Creek and Boid Creek come together. Lars wanted to push on until we got there, but Manny told him that it wouldn’t be smart to travel at night. There’s a lot of stuff out here—tree stumps, ball plants, even boid nests—that we could run into even with the floodlights on. Lars finally listened to him and stopped, but the grass was too high for us to make camp without doing a lot of clearing, so instead we stayed aboard, laying out our sleeping bags on the deck and eating cold rations for dinner.

  Didn’t sleep well. Kept hearing boids all night. Manny stood watch again—nice to have someone who doesn’t need to sleep and who can see in the dark—but I woke up once when I heard something moving through the grass pretty close to us. Looked up, saw Manny standing just a couple of feet from Lars and me. Bear was up high, so I could see him really well. He had his carbine raised to his shoulder and was aiming down at something I couldn’t make out. He didn’t fire, though, but just kept watching, and pretty soon I didn’t hear the boid any more. Almost like it caught sight of Manny and decided not to mess with him.

  Lars missed the whole thing. Just kept snoring away. Took me a while to shut my eyes again, though. When I woke up this morning, though, Manny didn’t tell us what happened. He just gave us some cereal and sliced apples, and stood watch while Lars and I took turns to go off in the high grass to shit and pee. And then we were off again.

  Made North Creek about 2 hours ago. Stopped to reinflate the pontoons, then hit the water and went south down it about five or six miles until we reached the junction of Boid Creek, where we turned W x NW and started heading toward West Channel. Feels good to be on the water again. Making good time now that we don’t have to stop to clear the fans.

  Will use the satphone later to call back home, tell Carlos what we’ve seen so far. Which ain’t much. Stupid idea, sending us out here to explore the world. Ha! Just grass
, grass, and more grass.

  They were on the fourth day of the trip, little more than ten miles from the West Channel, when Marie was nearly killed.

  As Manny promised, the journey became faster once the Armadillo reached Boid Creek and was on the water again. Although they were traveling against the current, it didn’t slow the skimmer very much, so long as Lars kept the engines at full throttle and remained in the center of the creek. They camped overnight on a sandbar just east of the confluence of the Alabama River, and the evening had passed uneventfully; once again, Manny stood watch while Lars and Marie slept in the tent.

  The following morning, though, they awoke to find the sky overcast with iron-grey clouds. While the others had breakfast, Manny used the skimmer’s comsat system to pull up a nowcast report from Liberty. Satellite images showed that a low-pressure front had rolled in from the west during the night, bringing with it a strong chance of storms. Back in the colonies, the change of weather wouldn’t have mattered so much, but out here in the open…

  “We should go as far as we can today,” Manny said, “but we need to get off the water at the first sign of a thunderstorm.”

  “C’mon, what’s a little rain?” Lars peered at him over the lip of his coffee mug. “You won’t melt.” Then he snickered. “Oh, wait, I forgot…you might draw lightning.”

  “If I happen to attract lightning, as unlikely as that may be, then you’ll be the first to know. I sit behind you, remember?” Lars’s smirk lapsed into a dark glower, and Manny went on. “It’s not just lightning we have to worry about…if we get enough rain, we’ll also have to worry about flash-floods. If that happens, we’d rather be on dry land, don’t you think?”

  Despite himself, Lars had to admit that the savant had a point. Until the storms actually came, though, there was no reason why they shouldn’t keep moving. So they put out their fire, struck camp, loaded their equipment back aboard the skimmer, and continued down the narrow river, with Marie and Lars taking turns on the middeck to watch for signs of bad weather.