Coyote

by Allen Steele

  The gong sounds again, interrupting her, as the ceiling resumes its normal appearance. “Transition completed,” Manny says, slipping his feet from the stirrups. “If you’ll follow me, please, I’ll take you to the Matriarch. She’s anxious to meet you.”

  There’s a haunted look in Wendy’s eyes; Lee now knows that it was foolish to have brought her along. He could easily order her to return to the Plymouth, but that would solve nothing. As she walks past him, following Manny toward a hatch on the other side of the compartment, she briefly meets his gaze, and in that moment he realizes she knows he’s lied to her. Indeed, perhaps she’s suspected it all along.

  Nothing he can do about it now. All he can do is wait for her to discover the truth.

  The passageway down which Manny escorts them is wide enough for two people to walk abreast, yet it’s strangely vacant, and silent save for the background hum of the ship. They pass closed doors marked with words in a language Lee doesn’t recognize. Without explanation, the Savant leads them into a lift. He utters a foreign word; the doors iris shut, and the cab begins to rise.

  “Excuse me,” Henry asks, “but what language are you using?”

  “English.” If Manny could smile, Lee could swear that he’s doing so now. “Anglo, to use the proper term. English has changed quite a bit over the last two centuries. Only the Savants and a handful of the crew are fluent in the older form. You’ll have to forgive the Matriarch when you meet her…she knows enough to get by, but it’s still new to her. That’s the reason I’ve been sent to greet you…besides being your guide, I’m also your translator.”

  “You just mentioned the crew,” Lee says. “How many are aboard?”

  Manny replies with something in Anglo. “Loosely translated,” he adds, “it means, ‘all good things in all good time.’”

  Lee says nothing. At least the numerals on the control panel are Arabic; they boarded on level 8, and now it looks as if they’re heading for 12. If they have to make an escape, this is useful information.

  The lift opens, revealing darkness. Lee steps out, looks up…and finds Coyote hovering directly above him.

  The effect is startling; it’s as if he’s standing outside the ship, with nothing separating him from the void. Coyote fills the star-flecked black sky; through patches of clouds he can see the Great Equatorial River meandering past yet-unnamed islands, with Bear rising just beyond the horizon. For an instant it seems as if the walls have disappeared, until he looks down again and sees himself surrounded by tiered rings of varicolored lights: instrument consoles, arranged on two open decks, with the cowled forms of other Savants silhouetted before them.

  “Our command center.” Manny has quietly come up behind him. “We’re in the bow. The view is projected by the ceiling…artificial, of course.”

  Lee stares up at the dome. The ship is somewhere above the eastern hemisphere; now he can make a dense, spiral-shaped cloud formation above the equator. The winter storm is still moving eastward, churning its way toward the other side of the planet. The winds are probably already rising back in Liberty; they can’t remain aboard Glorious Destiny much longer, or it’ll soon be too dangerous for Plymouth to attempt a landing.

  “Very impressive,” he says, pretending a nonchalance he doesn’t feel, “but our time is rather short. If you could take me to Matriarch Hernandez…”

  “Captain Lee, I am here.”

  A woman emerges from the shadows, her hands folded together. Dressed in a gold-trimmed blue robe, her auburn hair cut close to her scalp, she seems to be middle-aged, her face plain yet her eyes sharp and piercing. She steps into the light, raises a hand palm outward, a formal salutation. “Matriarch Luisa Hernandez, I am,” she says haltingly, her accent so thick it’s difficult to understand her. “Meeting you…pardon…it is a pleasure to meet you, Captain. No…an honor, instead. I have not…never I have…”

  Frustrated, she shakes her head, then turns to Manny and says something in Anglo. “The Matriarch is embarrassed by her lack of language skills,” Manny says after a moment. “She’s honored to meet someone who occupies such a heroic place in history. Indeed, were it not for the actions of you and your brave crew, the United Republic of America might have never fallen, and so this conversation would not be taking place.”

  “I don’t understand.” Lee looks back at the Matriarch. “What do you mean by that?”

  She speaks to Manny once more before she looks back at Lee. “Savant Castro explains better than can I,” she says.

  “The Matriarch has asked me to provide a brief historical summary,” Manny says. “It’s important that you know these things. When you stole the Alabama, it was the first of a chain of events that eventually led to the URA being toppled by domestic insurrection. A few months after you left, government news agencies officially reported that the ship had been destroyed…an act of sabotage perpetrated by a member of its crew. The fact that Eric Gunther’s daughter is among us only further confirms that this was an untruth, that he was an operative placed aboard by the Internal Security Agency…”

  “My father?” Wendy’s voice is strangled, disbelieving. “I don’t…are you saying my father was a saboteur?”

  Manny says something in Anglo to the Matriarch. Her eyes grow wide; no longer stoical, she regards Wendy with astonishment. “This thing…you do not know?”

  Lee turns, sees Wendy’s confusion. “I couldn’t tell you,” he says quietly, taking a step toward her. “I’m sorry, but…”

  “You knew?” She backs away. “You knew my…?”

  “Wendy, please listen to me. The government placed your father aboard the ship to blow it up in case it was hijacked. He never intended to carry out those orders…he brought you aboard, didn’t he? I didn’t know any of this until after we arrived, when he tried to kill me, because he was still loyal to the Party…”

  “So it wasn’t an accident.” Now there’s cold fury in her eyes. “You killed him…or had him killed.”

  “Wendy, no. That’s not the way it was.” Lee steps closer toward her; she starts to back away, but he grasps her arms. “There’s more to this than they know,” he says, his voice low, “but this isn’t the time to…”

  “So when were you going to tell me?” She stares back at him. “Or were you ever going to…?”

  “I’ll tell you everything, but not now.” Lee lets go of her. “Right now, I need you to stay calm and record everything that’s being said. You told me you could do this…now I’m depending on it. Can you do that? Please?”

  Wendy doesn’t respond, only looks down at the floor. After a moment, she nods. Dana moves closer, puts her arm around her shoulders, offering comfort to her. Without a word, Wendy raises her pad; her hand shakes as she makes notes with her stylus.

  There’s an uncomfortable silence within the command center. The Savants have turned to watch, their ruby eyes glittering in the darkness. Lee lets out his breath, turns back toward the Matriarch. “My apologies,” he says. “This is…something she didn’t know.”

  The Matriarch gives a sympathetic nod, says something in Anglo. Manny listens, looks at Lee. “Our fault for having brought up a matter that shouldn’t have been discussed.”

  “Thank you.” Lee straightens his shoulders. He still has a mission to perform. “You were saying…? About the insurrection…”

  “Yes, of course. The government attempted to claim that Alabama was destroyed by sabotage three months after launch, but then the underground net provided evidence that it was hijacked from Highgate, with you yourself as the conspiracy’s leader. When the government couldn’t deny that any longer, it produced one of the main conspirators, the former director of the Internal Security Agency…”

  “Roland Shaw. Yes, he helped us get away.” Lee remembers the last time he saw Shaw: he shook his hand at the launch pad just before he boarded the shuttle. I hope you find what you’re looking for, he said. “What happened to him?”

  “The government put him on trial for hig
h treason. He was found guilty and publicly executed.” Lee winces, and Manny hesitates before continuing. “It wasn’t an empty death. The organization he helped build gained more converts, and the fact that the Alabama had been stolen demonstrated that the government was not as indomitable as it once seemed. Small groups of insurgents began making contact with one another, forming networks. Within months, there were acts of sabotage all across the Republic…”

  “Remember the Alabama.” There’s a hint of a smile on the Matriarch’s face as she raises her hands to form the thumbs, forefingers, and index fingers in an A shape.

  “That was the sign of revolution,” Manny explains. “It took nearly twenty-six years for it to gain sufficient strength to topple the government, yet in the end a mob stormed the capitol and placed President Rochelle under arrest…”

  “Joseph Rochelle?” Lee raises an eyebrow. “My father-in-law became President?”

  “No…Elise Rochelle, his daughter. Your former wife…she stopped using your name after you left. Elected by Congress to a life term following…”

  “Never mind why. What happened to her?”

  “She was supposed to stand trial in Havana for crimes against humanity, but she took her own life before it got that far. She…”

  “Crimes against humanity?” Lee stares at him in shock. “What sort of crimes?”

  “The underground movement didn’t act alone. It managed to gain assistance from outside the Republic. New England, Canada, and Pacifica were the strongholds…arms were smuggled across the borders, government comps were cracked, fugitives taken into hiding. When President Rochelle became aware of that, she ordered bioweapons strikes against Boston, Seattle, and Montreal. Over eight hundred thousand people were killed by superflu in New England and Canada, and nearly three hundred thousand died in Pacifica.”

  Lee closes his eyes, lowers his head. He’d fallen out of love with Elise long before he decided to steal the Alabama, and just before he left Earth she had attempted to betray him to the ISA, only to be thwarted at the last minute by Roland Shaw, an act for which he eventually paid with his life. She had always been cold, yet he never would have believed her to be capable of such evil. Somehow, in the intervening years, the Liberty Party must have twisted her soul, transforming her into a monster…

  He feels a hand touch his arm. Looking up, he finds Henry Johnson next to him. “You okay?” he whispers. Feeling numb, Lee nods. Henry turns to the Matriarch. “Why are you telling us this? What does it have to do with why you’re…?”

  She holds up a hand. “Patience. All to be explained.” To Manny: “Continue.”

  “After the Liberty Party was overthrown,” the Savant says, “the government collapsed virtually overnight. What used to be known as the United Republic of America had become an anarchy. Thousands more perished over the course of the following months, either from plague, starvation, or random violence. During the crisis, the countries bordering the Republic and elsewhere in the Americas formed the Western Hemisphere Union, with its capital in Havana, in the neutral nation of Cuba.”

  “You said something about that,” Lee murmurs. “The Treaty of Havana, signed in…What was the date?”

  “April 26, 2096. Liberation Day, as it’s now known. The first major act of the WHU was to dispatch military troops to North America to restore civil order and provide humanitarian relief. Once this was accomplished, the Union set forth to rebuild El Norté…not as an independent nation, but as a province under the stewardship of the WHU.”

  Lee stares in disbelief at the Matriarch “You’re saying my country no longer exists?” Manny interprets, and she nods gravely. “And what sort of government did you install?”

  “Social collectivism.” Her chin lifts with pride.

  “Under social collectivism,” Manny says, “all individuals are treated as equals. The barriers that once divided people—capitalism, class status, racial inequality, so on—have been eradicated, replaced by a system that rewards the individual on the basis of his or her contributions to the greater good. No one is rich. No one is poor. There is no hunger, no civil strife, no political turmoil…”

  “Sounds familiar.” Henry murmurs. “I think that was tried before. Russia, Eastern Europe, and China, during the twentieth century.”

  The Matriarch appears baffled; she doesn’t understand what he just said. “You’re alluding to Marxist socialism,” Manny replies. “An early version of collectivism, quite crude in execution. Our system is different. Believe me when I tell you that collectivism works. It’s not only responsible for rebuilding North America, but it’s also allowed us to make the technological advances that have made ships like this possible. Were it not for collectivist theory…”

  “Just a moment,” Lee says. “What you just said…‘ships like this.’ Are you telling us that there’s more than one?”

  Matriarch Hernandez apparently understands this, for she smiles. “Glorious Destiny, only one…the first. More there are. See.”

  She raises her left arm from beneath her robe, touches her bracelet, and the dome above them changes.

  Lee looks up, sees the Moon as seen from Lagrangian orbit. Scattered in a broad swath across space are three giant vessels identical to Glorious Destiny, each in various states of construction—some mere skeletons, others near completion—surrounded by dozens of tiny vehicles, moving back and forth, transporting hull segments from one place to another. In the far distance, he can make out a ring-shaped space station, possibly a construction base. A shipyard, more vast than any ever built before.

  “This is Highgate,” Manny says, “as we saw it shortly before we left. The vessels you see are three of our five sister ships, each capable of carrying one thousand colonists in biostasis…”

  “A thousand…?”

  “Yes, Captain. Glorious Destiny carries a total complement of one thousand. You haven’t seen them because they haven’t been revived yet. Unless there were any unforeseen setbacks during the last forty-eight years, the remaining five ships of our fleet should be arriving over the course of the next four Earth-years.”

  The scene above him is already history, an artifact of the past. Even now, distant from one another by only a matter of light-years, a convoy of leviathans race toward them at sublight velocity, bearing thousands of passengers in deep hibernation…

  “We are coming to Coyote,” Matriarch Hernandez says slowly, choosing her words with great deliberation. “Seeking glorious destiny among the stars, for the greater good of social collectivism.”

  Liberty: Raphael, Gabriel 18 / 1917

  “Order! Order, please!”

  The gavel bangs sharply against the table, yet it’s swallowed by the tumult of upraised voices. Throughout the jammed grange hall, men and women have risen to their feet, yelling to be heard above each other. At the front of the room, the members of the Town Council sit nervously behind the head table, a couple of them obviously wishing they could be anywhere but here.

  Seated in the audience, Susan cradled in his arms, Carlos watches Wendy from across the room. She sits bolt upright at the Council table, her hands clasped together, her face drawn tight. Little more than an hour has passed since Plymouth returned, and they’ve barely spoken since he met her at the landing pad, yet it seems as she’s joined the rest of the Council only with great reluctance. Something’s troubling her, but whatever it is, she’s refused to tell him about it.

  “Everyone, please sit down!” Once again, Captain Lee pounds his gavel. “We have to get through this, and we’re short of time!”

  Gradually, the noise begins to subside, as those who were standing reluctantly take their seats again. Now several hands have been raised. Tom Shapiro nudges Lee, whispers something to him; he nods, then looks back at the audience. “Let me finish, then we’ll proceed with open discussion. But, please, everyone…we need to keep this on track, so be patient just a little while longer.”

  Scanning the crowd, Carlos sees expressions of fear, anger, even
panic. Captain Lee slowly lets out his breath; like everyone else who made the trip up to Glorious Destiny, he appears ready to collapse from exhaustion, yet when he radioed from Plymouth shortly after departing the starship, he insisted that an emergency town meeting be held as soon as the shuttle touched down.

  “I realize this comes as a shock,” Lee continues once the room is quiet again. “Believe me, it was a surprise to the rest of us. I attempted to explain to Matriarch Hernandez that Liberty is barely capable of supporting a hundred people, let alone another thousand, but she doesn’t understand our situation or…”

  “What doesn’t she understand?” This from Lew Geary, standing next to Carrie off to one side of the room. “We’ve only got enough food to get those of us here through the rest of winter. Except for what we raise in the greenhouse, it’ll be at least three more months before we can plant the spring crops.”

  Murmurs through the audience. “I know that, and you know that,” Lee says, “but either she doesn’t believe me, or she’s chosen to ignore the facts. My feeling is that it’s the latter. The political system she comes from…this ‘social collectivism’…dictates that everyone shares everything in common. What’s mine is also yours, simple as that.”

  “Then they stay in orbit,” Lew says. “You just said that most of their crew is still in biostasis. They wait a few more months, then we can talk about feeding a few more mouths…”

  “More than a few, sounds like.” This from Naomi Fisher, the chief cook. She’s seated next to Carlos with her husband Patrick Molloy, one of the Marshall engineers who helped design the Alabama. Neither of them look very happy about what they’ve just heard.

  “And where are we supposed to put all these guys?” Patrick demands. “In our homes? I mean, even if they remain in orbit until next spring, who’s going to build shelters for them?”

  Across the room, the noise level begins to rise once more. Susan stirs uneasily against his shoulder, and Carlos shifts her from one side of his lap to another; she thrusts her thumb into her mouth, and he gently pulls her hand away from her face. Lee bangs the gavel again. “Order, please…Pat, I don’t know how the Matriarch thinks we’re capable of feeding and providing shelter for all her people, only that she expects us to do it. In her mind, the Alabama is property of the former United Republic of America, which in turn came under control of the Western Hemisphere Union. Since we stole the Alabama and used it to establish a colony, we’re part of the WHU…”