Coyote

by Allen Steele

  Alone in the darkness, Lee waits, just as many years ago he lay awake in the desert night, waiting for the coyote to come to him.

  He hears a metallic creak from somewhere behind him: the hatch being pushed open. Yet he doesn’t turn, not even when he detects the soft movement of someone entering the deck.

  “Hello, Mr. Gunther,” he says. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Lee rotates his chair. Eric Gunther hovers near the nav table, grasping a ceiling rail with his left hand. Although Lee can’t see him clearly, the glow of the instrument panels is reflected upon the barrel of the .38 automatic in his right hand.

  Gunther actually seems surprised. “You knew?”

  “You’d eventually find a way to get me alone…if not here, then down there.” Lee pauses. “I hoped you might change your mind, but when a gun turned up missing I knew it had to be taken by you. When I saw that you volunteered for the close-out, I decided to make this meeting a little easier.”

  “I don’t understand. How could you have…?”

  “Mr. Gillis figured it out first.” Lee rests his hands upon the armrests, making sure that they’re in plain view. “He left a note for me before he died, informing me that the ISA had placed you aboard the ship as a security precaution. Your mission was to destroy the ship if it was hijacked, but of course that didn’t happen…Gillis was revived from hibernation three months after launch instead of you. There was a mistake, and your cell assignments were switched. An error on someone else’s part…or at least so he believed.”

  Lee slowly shakes his head. “But it wasn’t a mistake, was it? At the last minute, you made that switch yourself, didn’t you?”

  Gunther’s confusion fades into anger; the gun inches upward. “It doesn’t matter. You’re guilty of treason against the Republic…”

  “Oh, but it does matter.” Lee folds his hands together. “After I found his note, I asked the AI why his cell…originally your cell…had been programmed to open three months after launch. That’s when I discovered your orders to destroy Alabama if the launch orders weren’t confirmed by the president. Gillis discovered this long before I did…but what he neglected to ask was exactly who had switched the cell assignments. He assumed it was an accident…but it wasn’t.”

  He points toward Gunther. “According to your crew profile, you were one of the mission candidates, but you didn’t make the first cut. My guess is that, when the ISA offered you this assignment, you accepted because it would bump you back into the mission. In fact, you went so far as to make sure that your daughter Wendy was brought aboard as a colonist. You figured that you’d never be revived, but since you didn’t want to take any chances…”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “As you like.” Lee gently nods. “Anyway, since you weren’t able to delete the AI program, you picked another crew member at random and had him take your place in the rigged cell. As a member of the life-support crew, you were able to alter the cell assignments. So Les was the one who got the dirty end of the stick, and you…” He shrugs. “Well, now here we are.”

  “And here we are.” Now the gun is pointed straight at him. “For treason against the United Republic of America…”

  “My guess is that’s the part that really bothers you.” Lee keeps his voice even as he stares past the barrel at Gunther. “I’ll admit I’m guilty of treason…but if I’m a traitor, then so are you. You were given direct orders to destroy this ship if it was hijacked. Orders that you deliberately disobeyed…and now you’re trying to demonstrate your loyalty to the Republic by killing me instead. A little too late for that, isn’t it?”

  The look on the ensign’s face tells Lee that he’s hit a nerve; this must have been what set Gunther off. Yet the gun is still aimed straight at him, and Gunther’s eyes are furious with hatred. “I…”

  A soft metallic click from somewhere behind him. Gunther’s eyes widen as he recognizes the sound: a rifle’s safety being disengaged.

  “Thank you, Gill,” Lee says quietly. “I think I can handle this.”

  “If you’re sure, Captain.” Reese’s voice is a low murmur from the shadows behind Gunther.

  Lee nods in his direction, then looks back at Gunther. “Colonel Reese is standing about eight feet behind you. If you fire, he fires next…and even if you don’t fire, I imagine the colonel would be able to take you down.”

  The gun trembles in Gunther’s hand. His eyes shift nervously, moving from Lee to the man he can’t see behind him. “Colonel Reese, you’re with the Service. You’re on our side. You can’t…”

  “Sorry, son.” Reese remains an invisible presence. “Things have changed.”

  “Colonel Reese is still loyal to the Republic,” Lee says, “but he’s accepted the reality of our situation. The Republic is forty-six light-years from here. Government orders no longer apply…his, yours, mine, no one’s.” He opens his hands. “You want to execute me as a traitor? Guilty as charged. But what purpose is killing me going to serve?”

  The gun wavers, pulls away from Lee. But now there’s hopelessness in Gunther’s eyes, the empty withdrawal of a man who has lost everything he has come to believe in. The barrel begins to move toward his head…

  “Don’t do it, Eric.” Lee keeps his voice low and steady. “Think about Wendy. She’s going to need you.”

  Gunther rapidly blinks. “When she…when she finds out…I mean, about Gillis…”

  “She doesn’t have to know.” Lee shakes his head. “So far as everyone else is concerned, Les was revived by accident. Everything we’ve talked about stays here. From now on, we’re starting fresh.”

  He holds out his hand, beckoning for the ensign to give him the gun. “Come on, Eric. We’ve only got 103 people. We’re going to need every…”

  The gun whips toward Lee, the barrel pointed straight at his eyes. “Long live the Republic! God bless…!”

  His body is punched forward even before Lee hears the muted concussion of Reese’s rifle. Gunther’s arms splay outward; his finger convulsively squeezes the trigger. There’s a single gunshot; somewhere behind him, glass shatters. For an instant, Lee thinks the bullet has hit a window. Yet the decompression alarms don’t sound, and now Gunther’s body pitches toward him, red globules of blood spewing upward from his back.

  Lee catches the crewman in his arms. Gunther stares up at him, his breath coming in ragged gasps. From the corner of his eye, Lee sees his gun tumbling away.

  Gunther stares up at him, his mouth twisted in agony. Then his eyes, still filled with hatred, grow dim.

  Lee’s still holding him as Reese emerges from the shadows. He silently regards both men, then slides open the rifle, ejecting the next fléchette in the chamber. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “No other way.”

  Lee doesn’t answer. He waits until he feels Gunther’s body become limp within his arms. “It was an accident,” he says. “Something went wrong during close-out.”

  He looks up at Reese. “Better that way, don’t you think?”

  Coyote Base 9.9.00 (12.21.2296 rel.) 2218 GMT

  “There was no way to save him. He was in the ring corridor, trying to shut the inner hatch to C6. No one knew he was there. He had gone back on his own initiative to check the modules. So when C6 was jettisoned, he…well, we couldn’t even retrieve his body.”

  Charred black wood hisses and snaps, tossing sparks high into the cold night. All around him, silence; men and women stand or sit in a circle around the bonfire, huddled within their parkas, hoods pulled up over their heads. Tonight was supposed to be meant for a celebration; instead it’s become a wake. Of all the ways Lee imagined the first day on the new world would end, this was not one of them.

  Reese regards him from the other side of the fire. The colonel has said little since the Mayflower landed, and he has remained silent while the captain told the story of how Eric Gunther died: heroically, in the line of duty. All he has to do is open his mouth, proclaim that everything Lee has said is a lie, and the
colony would be…well, perhaps not destroyed, but crippled at the very least, for without faith in their leader the colony would flounder, torn between feelings of loyalty and betrayal. And it would be so easy for Reese to do. Just a few words…

  Yet Reese only nods, ever so slightly; no one else notices the look that passes between the two men. Wendy Gunther, sitting in her tent being comforted by her friends and a couple of adults, need never know the truth.

  Somewhere out in the darkness, far beyond the glow of the lanterns set up around camp, a hideous cry ripples across the grasslands. Several people glance in its direction; others visibly shudder. No one has yet seen a boid, as the creatures have come to be called, yet their footprints have been found in soft mud: three-toed avian tracks nearly eighteen inches in length, several feet apart from the other, suggesting a large flightless bird of some sort. Reese’s men have set up automatic machine guns around the camp’s perimeter; they’re programmed to fire upon anything that enters the range of their infrared motion detectors, and Tom Shapiro has reported that the guns fired briefly a couple of times the night before. The boids have kept their distance since then, yet the soldiers continue their patrol.

  Lee waits until the boid has quieted down, then he goes on. “We were supposed to break out the liquor tonight, have a party, but…well, perhaps that wouldn’t be appropriate at this time.” Murmurs of agreement. “By shiptime, in four days it’ll be Christmas. Maybe we should wait till then. But I would like to say a few words I’ve been saving for now.”

  As he speaks, Lee unbuttons his parka. “Just before we left Earth, before I boarded the shuttle to Alabama, I had a final meeting with Ben Aldrich, the Launch Supervisor at GSC. On behalf of his team, Ben gave me something he wanted to be taken here. I didn’t want it, but I took it anyway, and I’ve kept it in my cabin until we were ready to board the Mayflower.”

  From an inside pocket, Lee pulls a plastic-wrapped object: a URA flag, its single star visible through its transparent pouch. As he pulls out the folded flag, he observes the reactions of the people gathered around the fire. Loathing, respect, wonder, fear, contempt…but never pride, or love.

  “Until a few hours ago, I meant to use the occasion to burn this thing.” A sharp hiss from someone in the back of the crowd. “Like many of you, I was once loyal to the United Republic of America. Like many of you, I was betrayed by its government. I hated what became of my country, and…”

  He stops, shakes his head. “No. I’ve never hated my country, nor the people who live in it. I only despise the things a few selfish men did to destroy America. In the last few days, though, I’ve come to realize that my opinion isn’t the only one that matters. Many among you still honor this symbol. If I were to burn it, they would be offended…but if I were to raise it on a mast, not only would it be an insult to everyone who feels as I do, but it would also betray the memories of all the men and women who sacrificed their freedom, even their lives, so that we could come to this place.”

  He lets the moment linger, allowing everyone to think about what he has said. The flag weighs heavily in his hand; with a casual flick of the wrist, he could easily toss it into the flames. The flag is more than two hundred years old, its fabric brittle with age; the fire would consume it within seconds. Some of these people would cheer, while others…

  “So I’ll do neither. I intend to keep it as a reminder of our past, for better or worse. I won’t burn it, and I won’t bury it, and I won’t hide it…but neither will I ever allow it to be raised above our colony. It’s part of history. Let it stay that way.”

  “Amen,” someone says. Others mutter the same in agreement, although a few shake their heads. Through the flames, Lee catches a glimpse of Gill Reese; the colonel has turned away, shouldering past those around him as he quietly departs the meeting. Once again, Lee realizes that although he and Reese have put aside their differences, they will never be friends.

  “By much the same token, I’ve given some thought about what we should call our colony…”

  The crowd quiets down once more. As leader of the expedition, this is his prerogative. “I’m reminded of what became of America, and who was responsible for its demise. Those people took a great word…a fine word…and corrupted its meaning until it stood for something different. Tonight, I want to take it back.”

  He hesitates, takes a deep breath. “Liberty. The name of this place is Liberty.”

  Part Four

  LIBERTY JOURNALS

  From the journal of Dr. James Levin: December 24, 2296

  Christmas Eve. No reason to celebrate, though. We suffered two casualties today.

  Most of Alabama’s cargo and hab modules landed where they were supposed to after they were dropped from orbit, but C4’s chute got its lines tangled and came down in a swamp about two miles northeast of Liberty. The module broke apart when it crashed; pieces scattered all over the place, some ending up in a creek and the rest spread out across the marsh. Thank God C4 wasn’t a cargo module, or we’d really have a problem, but it was a loss all the same; we were counting on dismantling the hull and interior bulkheads for temporary shelter.

  Capt. Lee sent people out to salvage whatever they could find. He hasn’t taken any chances; every time a group leaves camp, two soldiers have gone with them as escorts. Col. Reese’s men have cut the sleeves off their URS uniforms and wear them over their shirts. We’ve started calling them blueshirts, which they don’t seem to mind very much. They’re adequate protection against the boids…or at least so we assumed.

  The grass was higher than Jorge expected, a dense green wall through which he could barely make out the soldiers moving ahead of them. He beat it down with a tree branch as he made his way through the marsh, pausing now and then to swat away the long-winged insects that infested the swamp, and swore to himself that this would be the last time he’d volunteer for anything.

  “I’m an engineer, for God’s sake,” he muttered. “This isn’t what I…”

  “What?” Behind him, Rita’s voice was nervous. “Did you say something?”

  “Never mind. Just thinking aloud.”

  His wife should have stayed behind with the kids; he knew that now, and regretted asking her to join the salvage party. But she’d become so self-involved lately, barely saying a word to anyone as she worked in the community kitchen. She was frightened of the place; at night she seldom moved far from the fire, and she twitched every time she heard a boid scream somewhere out in the darkness. It was time for her to get used to living here; Coyote was their home now, the comforts of Huntsville 230 years behind them. Yet perhaps dragging her into the marsh wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  “I’m thinking,” she began, “maybe when we get back, we can ask Carlos if he’d mind…”

  “There’s the parachute!” one of the soldiers shouted. “We’ve found the chute!”

  Looking up, Jorge spotted a hand above the tall grass, clutching a large swatch of red-and-white fabric. “There’s more stuff over here!” Boone called back. “It’s all over the place!”

  A dozen feet ahead, Gill Reese turned toward the civilians bringing up the rear. “Okay, we’ve found the crash site. Everyone, c’mon up front.” Then he vanished into the grass, jogging in the direction of the corporal’s voice.

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” Somewhere behind Rita, Jorge heard Jack Dreyfus. The propulsion engineer emerged from the grass, Beth Orr following him; like Jorge, Jack was carrying a stick to knock down the greenery. He stopped, wiped sweat off his forehead, grinned at him and Rita. “Are we having fun yet?”

  “Loads.” Jorge smiled back. Jack may have been one of the Alabama crewmen who resisted the takeover of the ship, but they’ve tacitly agreed to put that in the past. Carlos and his son, Barry, became friends while they were still aboard ship; it only made sense for their parents to do the same. “Better catch up, or Reese’ll…”

  “Salvage party! Front and center!”

  “Too late. There he goes again.”
Beth stepped past Jack, paused to gaze closely at Rita. “Are you okay?”

  Rita was out of breath, her face covered with a film of sweat, pieces of grass stuck in her hair. But she shook her head. “No, no…I’m all right.” She took a deep breath, glanced at her husband. “Let’s just get this done so we can get out of here.”

  “That’s my girl.” Jorge put an arm around his wife, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. A wan smile in return, then she nodded bravely and fell behind him as he turned to follow the trail of knocked-down grass.

  They came upon a small, irregular clearing. A shallow brook snaked through the marsh; the ground was soft and muddy, the air thick with skeeters. Not far away, a stand of blackwood rose from the opposite side of the brook, their broad canopy casting shadows across the clearing. Scattered across the swamp were bits and pieces of man-made debris: bent fragments of hull plate wedged into the mud at odd angles, mangled sections of bulkhead resting here and there. Glass crunched beneath Jorge’s boots; looking down, he found himself standing on a shattered porthole.

  “Not much left to take home,” Jack murmured.

  “Enough to matter.” Colonel Reese watched as Boone gathered the torn remnants of the parachute he discovered. “This was a hab module…that means it has bunks, lockers, ladders, all that stuff. Everything we haul out of here is one less thing we have to build from scratch.”

  “Colonel…with all due respect, this is a junkyard.” Jorge gestured to the swamp surrounding them. “Maybe we can find some wiring, a circuit board or two if we look hard enough, but…”

  “Then we’ll just have to look, won’t we, Mr. Montero?” Reese turned, whistled sharply; Boone stopped wadding up the parachute, looked around at him. “Bill, let these people take over with that. I want you on guard duty.”