Coyote

by Allen Steele

  Reese no longer stares at the wall. His eyes have lowered to meet Lee’s; it’s hard to read what’s going on behind them, nonetheless Lee can see that he’s beginning to comprehend his situation. “Colonel, I don’t blame you for attempting to stop us,” he continues. “Again, if I was in your position, I might have done the same. You were acting under orders, and I respect that. Yet you and your men refused to leave the Alabama when I gave you the chance to do so…”

  “Which makes us your prisoners.” Reese’s voice is cold.

  “Not anymore, no.” Lee shakes his head. “I’m sorry I had to place you in biostasis, but there was no other way. I couldn’t allow you to take one of the shuttles back to Highgate, because we’ll need both of them once we reach Coyote, and I wasn’t about to jettison you from the airlock, because that would have been murder. So technically you’re stowaways.” He pauses. “However, I hope you’ll come to accept your situation and decide to join us as crew members…reluctant or otherwise.”

  For an instant, it seems as if Reese might cave in. His stance relaxes a little, and there’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Sensing this, Lee starts to rise from his bunk, prepared to offer his hand in friendship. Then Reese’s expression becomes glacial once more, and he looks away from Lee.

  “Thank you for the offer, Captain,” he says. “I’ll present it to my men for consideration.”

  “That’s all that I ask, Colonel.” At least for the time being.

  “Yes, sir. Is that all, Captain?”

  “Just one more thing…” Lee glances down at the sheet of brittle notepaper he discovered on his desk shortly after he entered his quarters for the first time; like the ledger books, it’s covered with Gillis’s handscript. “Do you know a junior officer aboard this ship? One Eric Gunther…an ensign?”

  “No, sir.” No visible reaction. “Is there any reason why I should?”

  Lee hesitates. “Perhaps not. I just thought you might have met him.”

  “That name is unfamiliar to me. May I go now, sir?”

  Lee nods; he notes that Reese doesn’t salute him before he turns to leave. Not that he was expecting him to do so; it’s enough that the colonel knows where he and his men stand. Cooperation may or may not come later.

  And as for Ensign Gunther…that remains to be seen.

  The colonel lets himself out, sliding the door shut behind him. Lee lets out in his breath, then reopens the ledger he had been studying before Reese arrived. It’s the first volume of the novel Leslie Gillis had written during his years of solitude; the unlucky crewman had filled thirteen ledger books, with a fourteenth found open on his makeshift desk, his pen still resting upon the sentence he had left unfinished before his mysterious death. Lee had two of his officers bring the ledgers to his quarters before anyone else had a chance to read them. From what little Lee has managed to skim through, however, Gillis’s works comprise a long fantasy epic about the adventures of one Prince Rupurt; the captain believes that this is the young man who appears in the murals Gillis had painted in the ring corridor and the wardroom.

  Yet that isn’t what intrigues him. Once more, Lee turns to the first two pages of the first volume. Unrelated to everything else which follows, it appears to be Gillis’s first-person account of having spotted a bright object—“a moving star,” as he describes it—from the wardroom window.

  Gillis didn’t give a specific date when he spotted the anomaly—indeed, it seems as if he had taken pains to cover every chronometer within the ship, as if he didn’t want to be reminded of how much time had passed—but he mentioned that the incident occurred about six months after his revival. That would be approximately nine months after Alabama left Earth; the ship would have been deep within interstellar space by then, far beyond the outermost reaches of the solar system.

  And then there’s this passage, written in Gillis’s plain handscript:

  I’m not certain, but I’m almost sure—dead sure—what I saw was another ship. I don’t know where it came from or where it was going. All my tries to contact it failed, yet there can’t be any other explanation. Maybe I’m desperate, but it can’t be an hallucination or any natural object. I know what I saw. I’m positive it was a starship.

  Lee reads this part of the book again. Then, very carefully, he grasps those first two pages of the ledger, rips them from the binding. He takes a few moments to pluck out the scraps of torn paper, then he folds the missing pages in half and slips them into his shelf, hiding them between a pair of operations manuals.

  He’ll let others read Gillis’s fantasy novel. In fact, he’ll have someone scan them into the ship’s library subsystem. From what he’s read so far, it seems harmless—tales of a prince wandering across an alien world, that sort of thing—and it might entertain the children. Yet no one else must ever know what Les had seen—what he thought he had seen—during his lonesome ordeal.

  Things are much too complicated already.

  URSS ALABAMA 8.28.2300 (12.8.2296 rel.) 1206 GMT

  “Gentlemen, ladies, may I have your attention, please…?”

  Lee patiently waits for everyone to quiet down; only a few seem to have heard him, so he raps his knuckles on the table. “If I could have your attention, please,” he says again, louder this time, “we’ll get started.”

  The noise gradually subsides as the crowd turns its attention to him. The mess deck is filled to capacity, and then some; with the exception of a couple of officers who have volunteered to remain on duty in the command center, every man, woman, and child aboard the Alabama has shown up for the meeting. Every seat at the long benches that run down the center of the room has been taken; a couple of dozen people stand against the walls, while others sit cross-legged on the floor. A few are seated on the serving counter, and one person even stands upon the ladder leading down to the wardroom. No one’s comfortable; the ship’s mess was never intended to be occupied by nearly a hundred people at once.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Lee continues once the room has gone quiet. He stands at a table on one side of the compartment, the wallscreen behind him. Seated on either side of him are the members of his executive staff. “Sorry about the crowded conditions, but it can’t be helped. With any luck, this will be the last time we’ll have to get together like this…or at least aboard ship. The next time we hold a general meeting, it should be where we’ll have a bit more elbow room.”

  Laughter, some scattered applause. A small girl squatting on the floor—Marie Montero, if he remembers correctly—looks up at her mother, gives her a querulous scowl. “What does he mean?” she demands. “What’s so funny?” Rita shushes the child, then picks the girl up and settles her in her lap. Lee can’t help but notice that the mother isn’t smiling.

  She isn’t the only one who’s unamused. Leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the compartment is Colonel Reese, flanked by his troops. Reese gazes stolidly back at him, his arms folded across his chest; Lee observes that, while almost everyone else has either found Alabama ball caps or, as many of the women have done, tied kerchiefs around their shaved heads, the soldiers are wearing their Service berets. He also notes that the civilians are giving them plenty of room; one of the soldiers has propped a foot upon a bench, arrogantly taking up a place where someone could have been seated.

  No. This sort of thing can’t go unchallenged. “I think we have another place where someone can sit,” Lee says, then he turns toward the man standing on the ladder and points to bench where the soldier is resting his foot. “We’ve got a seat for you over here, if you want to take it.” Then he locks eyes with the soldier. “I’m sure no one will mind.”

  The guy on the ladder hesitates, then climbs down and makes his way toward the vacant seat. The soldier glares at Lee, then Reese whispers something to him, and he reluctantly removes his foot from the bench. The civilian sits down in front of him, careful not to look his way. A few murmurs from around the room, which Lee pretends not to notice.

 
; “As I was saying,” Lee goes on, “I hope this will be the last time we’ll have to meet like this, or at least while we’re still aboard ship. Our present ETA for arrival at our destination is about twelve days from now. By shiptime that’s December 19, 2296…back on Earth, it’s September 8, 2300. Since we’re going by the ship’s clock, the first date is the one that matters. Those of you whose watches are still on Earth-time will want to reset the calendar function to this standard. However, we’ll continue to use Greenwich Mean Time for timekeeping purposes for a little while longer.”

  Although the flight crew nod, many of the civilians glance at one another in confusion. Lee was expecting this; indeed, that’s the reason he called the meeting. “There’s a lot about all this that may seem strange,” he says. “Although the flight crew has been specifically trained for this mission, many of the civilians”—he tactfully avoids using the term D.I., with all of its connotations—“are unprepared for what lies ahead.”

  Lee reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a remote. “Our current position is here,” he says, as a three-dimensional diagram of the 47 Ursae Majoris system appears on the screen behind him, a small blip moving just within the orbit of Wolf. “About nine days from now, we’ll begin final approach to 47 Uma B…”

  Another touch of the remote, and the third planet in the system expands to fill the screen, its satellites revolving around the superjovian. The captain explains the makeup of the three inner satellites and the two outer ones; this is all redundant information to his crew and the civilian scientists who worked on Project Starflight, yet there are quite a few spouses and children among them who may not know these things.

  The screen expands again, this time to show a close-up of the fourth moon. Like the others, it remains a featureless sphere. “This is 47 Ursae Majoris B4, also known as Coyote. Until earlier today, this was as much as we knew about its physical appearance…everything else we knew about it was through infrared inferometry. A few hours ago, though, we were able to train the navigational telescope on Coyote, and this is what we saw.”

  As he turns toward the screen, he can hear the reaction: several audible gasps and whistles, murmurs of astonishment. Lee can’t help but smile, for although the image is grainy and slightly out of focus, nonetheless it provokes wonder.

  An earth-toned world, like a marble dyed in shades of green and light brown, crisscrossed by slender blue veins. There are distinct blotches of white at its poles—the ice pack at the north is slightly larger than the one at the south—and skeins of hazy clouds obscure areas north and south of the equator. In a sequence of time-lapse photos, the planet slowly revolves on its axis, revealing a wide blue band that completely circles its equator. Oddly, the planet resembles the photographs made of Mars during the early twentieth century, the ones that led Percival Lowell to believe that the red planet was inhabited by a canal-building intelligent race.

  The new world. Lee’s careful not to let his emotions show as he turns toward the crew and passengers once more.

  “There it is,” he says quietly. “That is what we’ve come all this way to find.”

  Before he can go on, someone starts to applaud. It’s picked by others; people begin rising from their seats, putting their hands together, shouting at the tops of their lungs. He looks across the room, sees only gratitude, admiration, even adulation. Lee feels his face grow warm; being regarded as a hero is not something to which he’s accustomed, nor was it something he ever expected. Embarrassed, he looks away, only to see that his senior officers—Shapiro, Tinsley, Murphy, Okada—have also risen to their feet. Even Sharon Ullman, who hadn’t been part of the conspiracy and who had to be subdued by force when they took control of the Alabama, has joined in.

  And yet, even in this moment of triumph, a small voice of doubt nags at him. Once again he remembers the night in Arizona when he lay paralyzed with fear as a hungry coyote prowled around his makeshift sleeping bag…

  So he takes a humble bow and says thank you a few times, all while gesturing for everyone to be seated. After a minute or so the room grows quiet; this time the silence is respectful. He clears his throat and, not quite knowing what else to say, picks up where he left off.

  “That’s Coyote,” he says, and raises his hand when someone tries to start the ovation all over again. “Its diameter is approximately 6,200 miles, and its circumference is 19,400 miles, with a planetary mass a little more than 75 percent that of Earth’s. So it may be a moon, but still it’s a rather large one…almost 30 percent larger than Mars. Which is why it’s been able to retain an atmosphere…”

  “But can it support life?” someone calls out from the back of the room.

  “In the past couple of days, we’ve managed to confirm our previous information.” Lee fumbles with the remote; a jagged bar graph is superimposed over the telescopic image. “Our new data shows the clear presence of water vapor, and since we’ve got absorption spikes…here and here, see…of carbon dioxide and ozone, that tends to indicate the strong concentration of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen, and therefore chlorophyll-producing activity upon the surface. So, yes, there’s already life down there. The planet can support us.”

  More murmurs. Several people close their eyes, their shoulders slumping with released tension. A woman seated nearby raises her hand. “What about atmospheric pressure? Do we know anything about that yet?”

  “We won’t know for certain until we get there, but since the satellite…the planet, rather, for that’s what it is, for all intents and purposes…is smaller and less massive than Earth, we can be sure that the air is thinner. Probably more or less the same pressure as you’d find in high-altitude regions back home, such as in the Rockies. That may cause us some problems at first, or at least until we’ve become acclimated.” More hands are raised, but Lee quickly waves them off. “Let me get through this, please, then I’ll field your questions.”

  He opens another window on the screen: more statistics, displayed in columns. “Fortunately, Coyote isn’t rotation-locked. Its orbit is far enough from Bear that it’s able to rotate on its axis, with both hemispheres turning toward its primary during its day-night cycle, which lasts approximately twenty-seven hours. Because Bear’s located 2.1 A.U.s from its sun, which is beyond what has been previously considered to be the habitable zone, this should mean that Coyote is unable to support life. However, we’ve managed to confirm the theory that Bear reflects enough sunlight from Uma to warm the atmosphere sufficiently to allow for a greenhouse effect.”

  He points to the screen. “We’ve detected a strong magnetic field, which indicates that it has a nickel-iron core…probably some tectonic activity, too, which is good. Dog, Hawk, and Eagle are located within Bear’s radiation belt, but Coyote lies outside that, and its magnetic field and atmosphere should shield us from any ionizing radiation. However, it’s just close enough to Bear that the primary’s gravitational pull probably draws away most meteors or asteroids, so we shouldn’t have to worry much about large impacts. And although Coyote follows a circular orbit around Bear, Bear’s orbit around 47 Uma is slightly elliptical. That means Coyote probably has a regular change of seasons, and since there’s no axial tilt, conditions will be the same in both the northern and southern hemispheres. However, considering that Bear’s sidereal period…its year…is 1,096 Earth-days in length, that means those seasons will be very long…about nine months on average. What effect this has on the native life-forms, we’ll just have to see.”

  The room is quiet. Everyone gazes toward the screen, taking it all in. “Surface gravity is about 68 percent that of Earth’s,” Lee continues, pointing to another column. “That may sound good, but since we’re also dealing with lesser atmospheric density, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be any stronger. Since Alabama is currently at .45 g’s and decelerating, we’ll probably feel pretty sluggish once we set foot on the surface. I recommend that everyone do the daily exercises Dr. Okada has prescribed. Otherwise, we’re going to have trouble walk
ing when we get down there.”

  He points to another column. “However, this is what worries us the most…surface temperature. From what we’ve been able to observe, the average nighttime temperature at the equator is about forty degrees Fahrenheit.” Low whistles from the crowd, and several people shake their heads. “However, bear in mind that we’re looking at Coyote’s far side…that is, the hemisphere that currently faces away from Bear. It’s likely that the daytime temperatures on the near side may be much more temperate. Also, since Bear is about three-fifths of the way through its sidereal period, Coyote is currently going into what we might think of as late summer or early autumn. So although things are cooling off down there, it’s not going to be that cold all the time.”

  Lee clicks back to the original image. “The fact that we’re able to observe water channels tends to support this. The planet seems to be crisscrossed by a complex system of rivers and streams. No major oceans, just lots of channels…perhaps a couple of dozen, all interconnected to one another.” He points to the irregular blue band wrapped around the center of the planet. “They seem to drain into a central equatorial river that gets broader on one side of the planet…almost the size of a large sea at one point. Again, this is something we’ll have to see once we get closer.”

  He puts down the remote. “Anyway, that’s the good news. Coyote appears to be habitable. It may be a bit chilly when we get there, but we’re prepared for that…we’ve got plenty of cold-weather gear in storage, and nuclear-thermal generators to keep us warm until we set up the solar farms. It won’t be easy, to be sure, but we’ll manage.”

  He glances at Tom Shapiro. The first officer says nothing, but nods ever so slightly. Next to him, Jud Tinsley stares down at his folded hands. Now comes the tough part…

  “Here’s the bad news.” Lee’s tone becomes more serious. “As many of you know already, we had an unforeseen…um, occurrence…during flight. One of our crewmen, Chief Communications Officer Leslie Gillis, was accidentally revived from biostasis about three months after we left Earth. We still don’t know exactly why this happened, only that it was the result of a glitch in the ship’s AI.”