by Allen Steele
As it turned out, we had a good view of the mountainside. Beyond the edge of the clearing, the northern slope stretched away as a vast, unexplored forest, a thin mist hanging above the treetops. Just beyond the visible horizon lay the North Sea, the widest point of the North Circumpolar River. Every so often, we caught sight of thunderbirds soaring overhead; now that we could see them a little better, it was evident that they had a wingspan of nearly eight feet, and their circling patterns indicated that they were raptors, possibly related to swoops. Despite our circumstances, Carlos was fascinated by the vista. If we hadn’t been awaiting rescue, I think he might’ve packed up his gear and wandered down the mountain, just to see what he could see.
“I’m going to have come back here sometime,” he murmured, his arms crossed together upon his knees as he warmed his boots by the fire. “I just think I’d like to do it differently, though.”
I recalled that he’d said much the same thing just before we crashed. “Uh-huh. Next time, we gotta watch out for high-flying birds. Especially the big ones.”
“Well, yeah…but that’s not what I mean.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking about the ExEx, especially about what happened to you. I couldn’t say so while we were still aboard ship, but that shouldn’t have happened. You were careless…”
“I know, I know.” Using a branch to stir the fire, I shook my head. “I’m really sorry about that. If I hadn’t…”
“Let me finish.” He raised a hand to shush me. “Yes, you were negligent…but, hell, my grandson shouldn’t have even been on board in the first place. An expedition like this is no place for a kid his age. In fact, I’m not even sure if half of the scientists on the LeMare should be there. They’re book-smart, sure…but how many of them would know how to handle a situation like this?”
“You’ve got a point.” I remembered the number of times I’d had to stop naturalists from blindly charging off into rain forests without first considering what might be lurking out there. Scientific interest is no excuse for lack of common sense, but that seldom occurred to a lot of the university students aboard the LeMare. “Maybe survival training…”
“No. Not just that. Something more…knowledge of how to live in the wild, without having to rely on a guide to keep them out of harm’s way. Without even having a ship as home base. Just the clothes on your back, and being able to use a rifle as well as a microscope. That’s what we’re going to need if we’re going to explore the rest of this world.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Charlie. “Kind of like the Militia, you mean, only with a different set of skills.”
“No. Same skills…just different priorities.” Carlos seemed to think about it for a moment. “Sort of an exploration corps,” he added, then he grinned. “In fact, that’d be a good name for them…the Corps of Exploration.”
“The Corps of Exploration.” I liked the way it rolled off my tongue. “Catchy. Of course, you’d have to get Goldstein to fund something like that…”
“The hell with Morgan.” Carlos scowled as he picked up a twig, snapped it in half, and flung it into the fire. “You know the real reason why he bankrolled the ExEx? He isn’t interested in exploration for its own sake…just finding locations for new settlements, so he can corner the market on the real-estate business.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Goldstein might have a hidden agenda. When I thought about it, though, it made perfect sense…or at least it did if you knew Morgan. “You certain about this?”
“Oh, yes. He told me so himself. After all, I’m one of his major investors.” Carlos let out his breath. “And the hell of it is, he may be right. A long time ago, a friend of mine said to me that, even if a thousand ships arrived over the next hundred years, they still wouldn’t bring in more than a million people. He was generalizing, of course…but that was during the Occupation, when Union ships took nearly fifty years to get here. Now that we have the starbridge, we’ve got shuttles landing at New Brighton on a daily basis. And before long…”
He stopped himself, and instead quietly gazed off into the distance. It seemed as if he was trying to decide whether to confide in me, so I said nothing. After a few moments, he looked back at the fire again. “You know why I dropped out of the ExEx to head home?”
“The Union is collapsing, and Government House needs to have you there to negotiate with their leaders. That’s what you said…”
“Yes, yes, that’s what I told you and the others last night. But I didn’t tell you why I’m needed there.” He picked up another twig, absently played with it in his hands. “Remember, the Union never ratified the U.N. treaty, so therefore they haven’t been granted emigration rights. In fact, there’s been little in the way of a formal relationship between the WHU and the Federation. We’re even having trouble deporting a suspected terrorist whom we caught trying to pass through customs last year. They don’t want to claim him as one of their own, and we don’t have anything on him but a weapons charge, so all we’ve been able to do is keep him on probation and hope he doesn’t…”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Getting off the subject there. Anyway, the WHU hasn’t been able to establish any colonies here because they refused to recognize the Federation. But now the Union is falling apart, and from what we’ve heard, the reason why they’re having a revolution is because living conditions have become so bad that their entire social structure has broken down…not that it ever worked well in the first place. So now they’ve got several million people on the verge of killing each other for a bag of potatoes, and the ones who are able to do so are getting out of there any way they can.”
Carlos paused. “Any way they can,” he said again, “and anywhere they can. Do you see what I mean?”
Suddenly, the fire wasn’t warm enough to ease the chill that went through me. “They’re coming here, aren’t they?”
He shrugged. “Can’t blame them. Not many other places for them to go. Europe and Asia are already overcrowded. Africa is a madhouse, and the Middle East is in ruins. The lunar and Mars colonies are stretched to the breaking point, and you’d have to be crazy to go to Jupiter…”
“But here?” I shook my head. “Sure, we’ve got enough room, but…”
“Sawyer…” He bent his head to rub the back of his neck. “My parents were among the D.I.s who hijacked the Alabama. My father risked public hanging just to get me and my sister out of the United Republic…and believe me, as bad as the Union may be, the URA was worse.” He sighed. “Coyote has always been about second chances. We can’t go slamming the door now, not when there are so many lives at stake. Like it or not, this place may be their best hope…their only hope.”
“So that’s why you’re going back. To try to work something out for the refugees.”
Carlos didn’t reply, but instead pushed himself to his feet. Perhaps his legs had gone stiff from having sat so long, which was why he limped away from the fire, but at that moment he looked older than his years, like someone who was carrying the weight of the world. Perhaps he was.
“You want my advice? See as much of this world while you can, while it’s still wild. Maybe even get that Corps of Exploration started. I might be able to help you there, if you want to take it seriously. But…” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Keep doing what you’re doing, while you’re still able to, because Coyote is about to change. When it does, nothing will ever be the same again.”
I started to say something, but didn’t get a chance, for at that moment I heard something new: the distant clatter of rotors, as from an approaching aircraft. Carlos heard it the same time as I did, and we both looked around to see a gyro approaching from the west, flying in low above the treetops.
“Looks like our ride is here,” Carlos said. “Better go wake up the others.” Then he walked farther out into the clearing, raising his arms above his head to wave the pilot down. “And don’t forget to put out the fire!” he called back. “Don’t want to burn this place down, do we?”
By the
end of the day, we were back in Liberty.
The rescue gyro touched down on Mt. Pesek just long enough for the four of us to climb aboard, and within minutes we were airborne, leaving behind the wrecked gyro and an extinguished campfire as the only evidence that we’d ever been there. En route to Hammerhead, a Colonial Militia medic looked us over; he was faintly surprised that we’d come away from the crash as well as we did. He replaced Charlie’s makeshift neck brace with an inflatable version of the same, but when he chided our pilot about losing his aircraft, Carlos informed him that, if it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Banks’s flying skills, he’d probably be digging four graves just then.
A little more than an hour later, we touched down at Ft. Lopez, where Carlos, Lynn, and I transferred to a long-range gyro. I caught only a brief glimpse of the outpost; the hurricane had only made a near miss, but that was still enough to rip the shingles from several rooftops and overturn one of the solar farms. Luckily, the communications tower had remained standing, which was how the fort received both Charlie’s mayday and our transponder signal.
Just before we left, the commandant came out to the flight line to greet the president. After apologizing for not having sent a search-and-rescue team sooner, he informed us that they’d just received a satphone message from the LeMare. Although the aft mast had sustained some minor damage and would have to be repaired, the ship had otherwise managed to ride out the storm, with no injuries reported among the crew. Carlos was visibly relieved; he thanked the commandant for telling us this, then led Lynn and me to the waiting aircraft. After what we’d just been through, I would’ve preferred a chance to change into some dry clothes and perhaps grab a hot meal, but Carlos was in a hurry. Ten minutes after we’d arrived at Ft. Lopez, we were in the sky again.
Lynn and I dozed off shortly after the gyro crossed the Highland Channel and was over Midland. She rested her head against my shoulder, and I propped my feet up against the back of the pilot’s seat, but Carlos was still awake when I let my eyes close. We must have been more tired than we thought, because both of us slept through most of the flight; I didn’t wake up until my ears popped, a sign that the gyro was on final approach. Gazing through the porthole beside me, I saw that it was almost dusk, the last light of day upon the East Channel. A brief glimpse of the docks of Bridgeton, which we’d last seen only a few weeks earlier, then the aircraft crossed the Eastern Divide, its landing gear coming down from its wells.
Carlos barely noticed, sitting on the other side of the passenger compartment, a pad propped up in his lap. It looked as if he’d spent the last several hours studying reports relayed to him from Government House. I tried to talk to him, but he clearly wasn’t interested in idle chatter; his mind was on the refugee crisis, and the ExEx was something that no longer held his attention.
And indeed, the minute the gyro touched down in Shuttlefield, a subtle change came over him. He was no longer Carlos Montero, leader of the Exploratory Expedition, but former president Carlos Montero, point man in the high-level negotiations between the Coyote Federation and what was left of the Western Hemisphere Union. A sedan was waiting for him at the airstrip, a couple of proctors ready to escort him to Government House; a handshake, a brief smile, then he was gone.
So was Lynn. If I’d been hoping that we’d consummate our shipboard romance once we got back to civilization, I was sadly mistaken; my girlfriend had become a working journalist on the trail of the biggest story of her career. A hasty kiss on the cheek and a whispered promise to catch up with me later, and before I knew it she was jogging across the tarmac to catch up with Carlos. Apparently President Montero didn’t mind having the press tagging along, because he let her climb into the back of the sedan with him, leaving me behind with the dumbstruck expression of a guy who’d just been jilted.
That was how the Exploratory Expedition ended for me. But the ExEx didn’t come to a finish once Carlos, Lynn, and I left the ship. During the rest of the summer, after I returned to Leeport and prepared to relocate my business to Liberty, I continued to hear reports of the expedition’s progress. How the LeMare sailed westward down the Great Equatorial River, making stops on Pocahontas, Mohawk, and Massasoit, before it crossed the Eastern Meridian and traveled along the Navajo coast until it reached the eastern coast of Great Dakota and, finally, New Florida again. Along the way, its scientists collected dozens of plant and animal specimens, and spotted creatures no one had ever seen before, most notably a heretofore unknown tribe of chirreep living in the deserts of Navajo and, on Apache, a related species of boid that was both vegetarian and remarkably docile.
When the LeMare returned to its home port, the ExEx entered the history books as the first successful circumnavigation of Coyote. Yet few people took notice of the achievement, let alone cared. By then, events had conspired to overshadow the Exploratory Expedition, despite all that it had accomplished.
As I walked away from the airfield, knapsack over my shoulder and gun beneath my arm, I had no way of knowing that something Carlos had said to me on Mt. Pesek would soon be proven correct.
Our world was about to change. When it did, nothing would ever be the same again.
Part 6
CARLOS’S PIZZA
The teacher came to Carlos’s Pizza, bearing wisdom.
Established in c.y. 15, Carlos’s Pizza was a relatively recent settlement with a population just under a thousand, mostly fishermen. Located on the southwest coast of Midland just east of the Montero Delta, the town derived its unusual name from a perhaps-apocryphal story about the first person to set foot there. When the teenage Carlos Montero set out on his own to explore the Great Equatorial River, the first place he set up camp was at that locale. He built a small tree house in a blackwood tree not far from the freshwater stream that still flowed just outside town, and when anyone from Liberty tried to call him on the satphone he’d carried with him, he would answer it by saying, “Carlos’s Pizza.”
Many years later, after commercial fishermen decided that they wanted to establish a port closer to the Great Equatorial than the one in Bridgeton, they discovered that same blackwood, the half-collapsed remnants of that tree house still hanging to its lower limbs. Someone realized that it had once been President Montero’s camp, and so the name stuck.
The blackwood was long gone, cut down to make room for the processing plant that dominated the town center, but not before an enterprising soul carefully dismantled the tree house and sold its rotting timbers to the Colonial University as a historical artifact. Which was typical of the mind-set of the town’s inhabitants. People didn’t live there for the scenic beauty of the river or its place in Coyote history, but because they wanted to get away from everyone else, and becoming a fisherman was a reliable way of making a living while they hid from the rest of the world.
So Carlos’s Pizza was an untidy collection of clapboard houses, log cabins, and shotgun shacks built along narrow, packed-dirt streets that radiated away from the waterfront, where barks, pirogues, and schooners were lined up at its docks, their masts forming a forest nearly as dense as that which once occupied this little corner of Midland. The village perpetually reeked of fish, not only from the commercial wharf, where they were unloaded from the boats, but also from the processing plant, where they were beheaded, cleaned, scaled, and either cut up as fillets and packed in ice for wholesale farther inland or, in the case of inedible varieties, boned for household implements, chopped up for fertilizer, or boiled down for lamp oil and lubricant. There were a few shops, to be sure, along with such necessities as a meetinghouse, a clinic, a sewage-treatment facility, and a one-room school for the handful of children who lived there, but even those existed only as afterthoughts. The business of Carlos’s Pizza was business, and that business was fish.
Ironically, one thing Carlos’s Pizza didn’t have was a pizzeria. At the town’s only public house, a waterfront inn called the Laughing Sailor, pizza was not on the menu, for reasons the owner never deigned to explain. Therefore, o
ne could not get a pizza in Carlos’s Pizza.
Like Nantucket before it, Carlos’s Pizza was prosperous in its own hardscrabble way yet nonetheless isolated from the rest of civilization. Since the town didn’t have an aircraft landing strip—voted down by the selectmen because they didn’t want gyros bringing in tourists and other unwanted visitors—there were only two means by which to reach the place. The first, of course, was by water, which is how most people arrived there. The second was by the Midland Highway, the long road that meandered alongside the East Channel from New Boston to Forest Camp to Carlos’s Pizza, where it turned northeast to lead travelers into the Pioneer Valley, where Defiance lay.
That was the way by which the teacher came to Carlos’s Pizza. No one noticed him at first, aside from a handful of farmers whose fields lay on the northern outskirts of town, and even they barely paid attention to the shag wagon that moved down the Midland Highway past their lands. They looked up from their work only long enough to recognize this particular wagon as belonging to Yuri Scklovskii, a Russian immigrant who made his living by hauling casks of weirdling oil north to Forest Camp and New Boston before coming home with whatever he could resell to the shops in town.
Yuri sometimes carried passengers. Most travelers preferred to buy passage on one of the riverboats that moved up and down the East Channel, but a four-day ride from New Boston to Carlos’s Pizza was cheaper, if a bit more dangerous. The Midland Highway went through boid country, and although the creatures had learned to stay clear of human settlements, every so often they’d attack someone unwary enough to be caught alone on the road. But Yuri was a crack shot with the rifle he carried on the wagon’s buckboard, and if you didn’t mind having him talk your ear off—he always had something to complain about, in excruciating detail—there were worse ways to travel.