Footsteps in the Sky

by Greg Keyes

  “I’m doing a job, just like you,” Jimmie said, petulantly. “I work for the Vilmir Foundation; I’m no traitor to them.”

  “You bastard,” Teng said, feeling real humor. “You aren’t like me. There is no deception in what I do. I kill people. I make things happen, and I blow things up. What I don’t do is tell people I’m somebody I’m not.”

  Alvar thought you were someone else, a little voice said. You led him to believe you could love him.

  “So I could, if he loved me,” she whispered. “So I don’t lie.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jimmie asked, puzzled, and Teng realized she had just spoken her thoughts aloud. A bad habit and one that she would have burned out when they got back to Plano Bello. In three years, with this asshole. Who would she fuck on the way?

  The screen suddenly showed a ship tracking them. By their exhaust, probably. Though these ships burned alcohol, the fuel was enriched with kerosene, which left a tell-tale flag of hydrocarbons behind. Another thing the storm would help out with. But of course, whoever was in the pursuing ship must know where Teng was going anyway.

  “That’s a Bluehawk,” Jimmie said over her shoulder. “It’s faster than us. And it must be …” he paused in consternation. “Must be Hoku himself.”

  Teng snorted. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. Their climb was leveling off as automatic controls prevented the flyer from rising above its capability to compress air. As jets, these craft were almost worthless.

  “Tell me about the alien,” Teng insisted.

  “She claims to have been created by one of the ships. She grew the human body from cell tissue the first probe took, twenty years ago.”

  “Why?”

  Jimmie hesitated. “She says that the ships themselves are nearly broken down, that they can’t see human beings as sentient. They have come to some sort of impasse, so as one of the ships wants to sterilize the planet and the other wants to let it be. The third one could break the tie, but it is most damaged of all.”

  Teng frowned. “An avatar. This woman is an avatar of one of those ships. Then she does know their secrets.”

  “Presumably.”

  “And she thought she could convince the other ships somehow, by taking human form?”

  “Again, presumably. To prove to them that we are sentient. They seem to have a different definition of sentient than we do.”

  “Ah. Well, we can riddle that out when we get to the Mixcoatl. We will be much better equipped to help her communicate with her ships than these colonists.”

  “I know,” Jimmie said. “Else. …”

  “Else what, traitor? Else you would have let me stay in jail?”

  The old man was silent then. Teng continued. “You’re right, of course. The Foundation wants as much as anybody to prevent a holocaust. Where would be the profit in that? But if she can convince them not to use their powers—whatever they may be—she can almost certainly tell us how to interface with them eventually. Or she could have told the colonists, and that would be bad.”

  “I know,” Jimmie repeated. “I’ve thought all of this out.”

  “Sure you have, traitor. You’ve been thinking this through since you sent the Foundation that laser message, twenty years ago.”

  “Fifteen,” Jimmie corrected wearily. “Fifteen. When it happened, I didn’t yet have access to the observatory satellite and its comm laser.”

  Teng was watching the oncoming sky. It looked like boiling pitch, but she spared one incredulous glance over her shoulder.

  “You must mean local years. You sent your message to Plano Bello twenty standard years ago.”

  Jimmie was silent for a long moment. The flyer had begun to buck against headwinds; soon they would be in hell for sure.

  “Checking your math?” Teng asked sarcastically.

  “No,” said Jimmie. “Whoever sent the Reed that first message—it wasn’t me.”

  The ship nosed into the pitch and began to boil along with it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Corn girl’s tit! They went in!”

  Hoku spared Homikniwa a startled glance. The little man rarely spoke in expletives, rarely registered real excitement at all.

  “More balls than Coyote,” Homikniwa continued, darting an appreciative glance at Hoku. “She must be one hell of a warrior.”

  “No doubt,” Hoku answered dryly. What was that he felt? Jealousy? Because Homikniwa admired someone else?

  He realized that Homikniwa was waiting for something.

  “Can we follow them? Climb above the storm?”

  “I don’t think so,” Homikniwa answered. “Climb above it, I mean. But shit, we know where they’re going. Once she got clear of the mesa, she turned straight to the sea, to her landing drum.”

  That was what Hoku had let slip by him. He had been so concerned with his own situation, he hadn’t checked in with the cadres at the drum. The ones he had ordered to attack it. He rectified that by commanding the shipboard computer to contact his captain there.

  Captain Rosa looked bedraggled and worn. He shoved back his mop of unruly black hair nervously when he appeared on Hoku’s screen.

  “Captain,” Hoku said, using his best “confident” voice. “What’s going on down there?”

  Rosa glanced away from his terminal, possibly at some sight denied Hoku, possibly to avoid eye contact.

  “I … Not well, Mother-Father. These people have weapons we’ve never seen. Swarms of metal bugs that find our flyers and ignite on them. And on my men, Hoku. Pulse weapons that ruin the trackers on our missiles. We’ve scored some hits, but I doubt that we have hurt them; the drum looks solid, and most of it is underwater.”

  “You’ve used the submersible weapons?”

  “Three dozen. As far as we can tell, none of them ever detonated. But they have taken out ten flyers, with those damned bugs and with some kind of energy beam.”

  Ten flyers. Hoku tried to avoid grimacing. He wanted to shout, but Rosa was no incompetent; he just had no experience fighting wars. Nor, for that matter, did Hoku.

  “Captain Rosa,” Hoku said, trying not to reveal his reluctance, “Pull back to a five kilometer perimeter. Stop fighting them, now. Get our men out of there. There is a flyer from the pueblos on its way there. When you have contact, I want you to bring it down. If you can get it with sonics or a lightning net, do so. If not, I want you to shoot it out of the sky, understood?” If he couldn’t get his hands on the alien, then damned if the Reed would. And double-damned if Jimmie would escape him. The landing drum might be equipped with defenses proof against Hopi weapons, but the pueblo flyer would not be, no matter how good this Teng was.

  But that was last ditch. Time still remained to catch the flyer before it was too late.

  “Follow her, Hom.”

  Homikniwa grinned, and Hoku suddenly realized that his friend was relishing this.

  “Just like the old days, Hoku, eh? No armies or computers. Just me and you.”

  Hoku laid his hand on Homikniwa’s shoulder before he turned back into the cabin.

  “Like the old days,” he agreed.

  Hoku appeared briefly in the hatchway to the cockpit.

  “Kewa, see that everyone is firmly strapped in. We will be flying through rough weather soon.”

  “How rough?” asked the moon-faced woman who Sand had been watching tend Alvar.

  “Rough,” Hoku said. He began to withdraw, been then turned back to her.

  “I appreciate your help and your advice, Kewa. When this is over, there may be a better place for you on my staff.”

  “I don’t ask for any reward, Hoku, except to study the alien if we catch her.”

  “That and more, Kewa.” Then, wryly, “If we live through this. Strap in tight.” Then he closed the hatchway behind him.

  Sand watched
Kewa’s face as she checked her restraints. The woman looked both exhilarated and frightened. Who was this woman to Hoku? His lover, perhaps?

  Kewa caught her gaze. “If Hoku lets himself sound worried,” she whispered, “then there must be very good reason to worry indeed.”

  “All his own making,” Sand shot back.

  “You’re not the one to talk. You could have taken Tuchvala to the clan council or to the coast. Instead you kept her selfishly to yourself. Why? Because she looks like your mother?”

  Sand had an angry retort for that, but it died on her lips. What was the point? And Yuyahoeva, in his own way, had told her the same thing. She had not been thinking of the people, but of herself, and of ghosts. Thinking too much about ghosts had the inevitable consequence of creating more of them. Chavo, for instance. Now maybe Tuchvala and Jimmie, everyone on this flyer, whoever had been killed back on the mesa when Hoku took control of it. All lead back to the ghost of Pela in Sand’s brain.

  “Sand.”

  It was Alvar.

  “Sand. Listen to me. This would have happened anyway. No matter what you did, the Reed would have come. Teng and me, and the soldiers. You haven’t any idea what they can do. Shit, neither do I, but I have my guesses. They put the revolt on Serengeti down in two days. On the coast or on your pueblos, they would have found her.”

  Sand did not want to speak to this man. He was like her father, in turns evil and contrite. He never stood anywhere, but always shifted from one foot to the other. Still, there were things she had to know.

  “Who are you?” Sand asked, just loud enough for him to hear her over the hum of the engines. “Who are you really?”

  If Alvar was trying to smile, he failed.

  “An idiot. An idiot named Alvar Washington, from Earth. From the Fourth World. I thought I wanted this, Sand, but I was wrong.”

  “Wanted what?”

  Alvar sighed, and then did manage a rueful grin. “Sand, your people were right to leave Earth. There’s nothing there anymore but memory and fantasy. Anybody worth a damn came out here, long ago. Or else they’re too poor. Everyone is poor on Earth, Sand.”

  “You thought you were worth a damn, so you came out too?”

  Alvar nodded, miserably acknowledging the way she used his own words. “Yeah, that’s about it. But the colonies have been planted, and the only jobs left are the ones like mine and Teng’s: making sure you all stay in line. They don’t tell you that when you sign up. Just that the pay is good, that there is adventure beyond your imagination, and that the ultimate reward could be to live for ten lifetimes. Sand, when you live on Earth, all you want is something real. There, everything is illusion. Can you understand that?”

  “That’s why you came? Why my father came?”

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “Because your life is real,” Alvar said.

  Sand bristled. “You can have my fucking ‘real’ life, Alvar. Hard work, an asshole for a father, my mother dead for no good reason. You want that? Take it.”

  “It’s better than what I had,” Alvar said, gently.

  Sand had no retort to that, for it doused her anger suddenly and inexplicably. There was something sincere about the Fourth Worlder that almost—but not quite—made up for his despicable qualities. And there were things that interested her more than Alvar’s psychological profile. She turned to Kewa.

  “Will we catch the outworlder and Jimmie?” And Tuchvala?

  Kewa nodded. “If they can be caught, Hoku and Homikniwa can do it. Sometimes I think they are the hero twins.”

  “Better not let Hoku hear you say that. He punishes deference to such superstitious ideas.”

  Kewa shrugged. “I know you can never like Hoku. …”

  “He killed my mother.” Not Jimmie, Sand thought suddenly, though Jimmie may have delivered the fatal tool. But Jimmie couldn’t help doing things like that when men like Hoku told him to do it. Now Jimmie was trying to thwart Hoku. Shouldn’t that please her, at least a little?

  No. Because Jimmie was taking Tuchvala away from her, and he was working against Hoku only because someone stronger had come along to play the fool for.

  Kewa was still talking, outlining all of the “good” that Hoku had done in his life. Sand let it all slip by. Her anger stayed away; what was done was done. If Hoku could get Tuchvala back from the Reed, that would be a good thing, whatever crimes he had committed against Sand and the Hopi people.

  The Bluehawk dropped like a stone. Alvar shrieked and Kewa gasped, but Sand rode it out, braced herself. Then the airfoil slapped against air that would support it again, a shock that jarred her bones and teeth. A little of the Dragonfly came over her, a detachment, as the Bluehawk began to shudder, pitch and yaw wildly. Sand admired this Homikniwa, whoever he was. He was a pilot.

  “Sand.” It was Alvar, who looked green. “Sand. I’m sorry about … about back there.”

  “Forget it,” she said. “It was both of us and neither of us.” As she said it she meant it. Alvar had not raped her; her memory was clear on that count. And the fact that he wanted her to know, now that they might die, struck her as almost sweet.

  Or, typically, contrite.

  The Bluehawk nearly upended, and then miraculously righted itself, and Sand’s excitement grew. If only she were at the stick! She had never flown a Bluehawk, never bonded with one, but she could. She felt it in her bones, along with the surge of the storm. The flailing of the flyer had become a constant motion now, and Sand settled into it. A few loose objects were hurling around the cabin; a slate-black notepad, a shirt, and tube of something. Sand felt her fear and worry thin away, evaporate.

  Somewhere up ahead, Tuchvala was riding in this storm. How good a pilot was the offworlder? Good enough to save Tuchvala’s life? She would have to be. Poor woman, poor new creature. She would be sick now, Sand guessed; she had been sickened by that minor bit of acrobatics Sand put the Dragonfly through; this would be far worse. If Sand were there, she would hold her, comfort her. Sand held that image, and in her mind, behind her closed eyelids, the image transformed, so that she was clinging to a vast metal flyer, shaped like an hourglass, and suns were whipping past her, flaring blue as they approached, glowing red as they receded, and a bare, bare wind began to heat her shoulders and arms. She was such a ship herself, bound to her sisters, eons crawling by. She was Sand, in love with her mother and the land that was theirs together. She was Tuchvala, being stroked by her strange new friend, held, loved.

  Something broke, back in the guts of the Bluehawk. Something broke, and the fabric of the metal her chair was bolted to twisted, rippled like a sheet drying on the clothesline as a breeze came along. Sand had lost her sense of up and down—she felt by turns weightless and incredibly heavy. There was another shriek, not of metal but of human vocal cords, and a buzz, like thirty children humming the same flat little tune. Sand felt the blood sucked from her face by some unseen force, felt it balloon her feet with tightness. The sound faded out, the storm went away, and Sand softly listed into a warm, dark country.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Once, a solar flare licked us as we fell past a star. My sisters and I watched it coming, felt the outer wave fuzz our sensors. Then the pulse hit.

  We were much younger then, still thinking alike for the most part. But in that moment when that electromagnetic wind blew through our minds, my sisters became as distant to me as another galaxy. Along my backbone brain, my tohodanet scrambled, and I became chaos. Sensory impressions became disjointed and mixed, others vanished entirely. My thoughts became strange, unrecognizable as my own. We would have all ended there, if our creators did not build redundancy into their designs.

  My tohodanet rebuilt itself from protected memory, but because of the nature of that consciousness, images and fragments of the chaos remained. It was then that I realized how
fragile our selves were, that one day that which was “us” would leak out into the great suck of entropy and never reconstitute itself.

  Being human was a constant reminder of this, but the drug introduced into my system distorted that realization beyond all measure. Already afraid of becoming the sum of my limited sensory impressions, I felt my consciousness melt onto the bizarre reordering of my physical impressions, become a mere interpreter of pointless cross-circuiting. Only later did I even understand about the drug; at the time I assumed that the mesh of human brain and my tohodanet had finally become untenable, the fit broken down.

  Sand would call it nightmare; my abduction by Sand’s father and the woman, Teng. The ride through the storm. None of it made the least sense to me; my concerns were all inside my watery, organic brain.

  It was only after the crash, as they pulled me out into the storm that lucidity began to return, and I realized I could be sane again, or what passed for that when one was human. But then, of course, my memory was clouded by pain, pain I never imagined could be felt. It was no mere reminder that my body was injured: it was the universe itself.

  Teng stared up into the pounding rain and laughed. It was a nonsensical thing to do, and she realized that a little madness was stalking her reason, but she indulged it.

  Lightning coiled and struck above, like a snake.

  The storm had certainly been a gamble, but due to Jimmie’s poor planning (she hated men) it had been necessary. The pitiful excuse for a flyer would never lift again, but with any luck she still had a chance to get back to the drum. Without their satellites, with this storm, nothing could see them. But the flyer from the drum—the one she had called for to meet her halfway—might be able to. If her pursuit had skirted the storm, that would become all the more easy. If they had not, well, they were probably down too, or flown on over her.

  “What the fuck do we do now?” Jimmie hissed, shivering. “I think her leg is broken.”

  Teng glanced over at the “alien” who was staring at her with glazed eyes. The hallucinogen in her blood stream was probably wearing off now. Teng crouched back under the survival tent, licked a few raindrops from her lips, tasted the blood washing down from her scalp wound. She rain her fingers up the woman’s leg, experimentally.