Tales of Time and Space

by Allen Steele

  Which was an easy thing to agree to; wars are fought over territory, after all, and who’d go to war over a place where there’s more elbow room than anyone could possibly want? Besides, the other Talus races had already seen what had happened to the morath when they’d attempted to invade the kua’tah hex: the danui had simply sealed off the morath hex, then jettisoned it into space, toward the sun. It had taken nearly three months for the morath colony to fall into HD 76700, and the few survivors were told to leave Hex and never return.8

  Humans were only the latest race to stake out land on Hex. Our six habs were located about halfway up the northern hemisphere where the surface gravity was about .7-g, less than Earth’s but just a little more than Coyote’s. The Texas Rose entered a spherical node between habs One and Two; a mile in diameter, it was spacious enough to hangar the entire Federation fleet, and indeed, two other vessels were already docked there. Our ships had been coming to Hex for over a year now, bringing materials necessary to turn our hexagon into a little version of Coyote. Now that the Rose had completed its circuit, about half of our cargo would end up here, most of it various items we’d acquired in trade with other races.

  So far, only Hab One—christened Nueva Italia by those who lived there—was settled, and even so its population was still less than a thousand. Not many people on Coyote were willing to pull up roots and relocate so far away from others of their own kind. A small town, Milan, had been built near the western end of the cylinder, not far from the tram station that connected Nueva Italia with the other habs in our hex. The dwellings were prefab faux-birch yurts shipped from 47 Uma, but it was hoped that, once sufficient forestland was cultivated, the colonists would have their own supply of lumber.

  I spent the better part of my first day on Hex driving a forklift, hauling pallets, crates and barrels from the tram to an open-sided shed where the supplies were stockpiled, so I didn’t get much of a chance to look around. Indeed, I was trying hard not to; I’d seen many strange things during my tour of the galaxy, but even this minuscule corner of Hex was mesmerizing. It took an effort to not become distracted by a landscape that lacked a discernible horizon, but instead curved upward on both sides and at either end until it merged with a barrel-shaped sky where a sun perpetually stayed in the same place, never rising or setting.

  Even so, the day on Nueva Italia did eventually come to an end. The danui had programmed the window panes to gradually polarize over the course of hours until a semblance of nighttime came upon Milan. A collection of yurts in the center of town served as a bed-and-breakfast for travelers, and nearby was a small tavern. After knocking off work, I joined the rest of my crew at the tavern. Hex marked the end of our long voyage, and the captain was feeling generous; he told the barkeep that he’d pay the tab for everyone at our table, and so we settled in for a night of drinking.

  I was on my third or fourth pint of ale when I became aware of something tugging at my left foot. Looking down, I found a young woman kneeling beside me; the laces of my work shoes had come undone, and she was retying them for me. Her head was bowed, so the only thing I saw at first was the top of her scalp; light brown hair fell around her shoulders, hiding her face from me. I started to tell her that I could tie my own shoes, thanks anyway, but then she looked up at me.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “Yes…yes, I think you do.”

  “You should be more careful. If you walk around with untied shoes, you might trip over them and hurt yourself.”

  “Good advice. I make mistakes like that sometimes.”

  “People are like that. They do things they don’t mean to do.”

  “Umm…yeah, you’re right. Sometimes you don’t…”

  “Hush.” Jordan reached up to take my face in her hands. “I forgive you.”

  She’d received my letters. That was my first question; any others were unnecessary, or at least just then.

  In time, she would tell how she’d thought about responding, but decided instead to maintain an aloof silence while waiting to see what I’d say or do next. And when she’d heard enough to convince herself that my apologies were sincere and that I really did love her, she left her family and caught the next ship to Hex, knowing that the Rose would eventually make its way there. And then she’d waited for me to show up, to tell me…

  “I got your letters,” Jordan said, once she’d kissed me. “I read every one of them. And I’m sorry, too.”

  “You don’t have to be.” She was sitting beside me at the table, her hands in mine. The rest of my crew, realizing that we needed to be left alone, had quietly moved to another side of the room. “Anything you said, I don’t…”

  “No. That’s not what I mean. Your letters…I’m sorry, but I don’t have them any more.”

  “What did you…?”

  “I had to get here somehow, and my family didn’t want me to…well, you know how my parents feel about you. So I sold your letters to buy passage out here.”

  “I don’t understand. Who would buy my letters? Who’d even want to read…?”

  “Who do you think?”

  Who, indeed?

  Of course, I forgave her for this. Love is a matter of forgiveness, if nothing else. Since then, we’ve had a very happy life together, here on Hex, where the sun never sets and we have plenty of neighbors to keep us company.

  All the same, we try to avoid the hjadd. They know enough about us already. How our story ends is none of their business.

  1 Let me explain the Talus. In short, it’s a loose alliance of the Milky Way’s starfaring races—or at least those who’ve built starbridges—formed to promote diplomacy, trade, and cultural exchange. Sort of a galactic club, so to speak, with humankind as the members who’ve only recently paid their dues.

  2 I’ll explain starbridges, too. They’re a means of getting from one place in the galaxy to another, very fast, by using zero-point energy generators to create artificial wormholes within giant rings. You have to have one at your departure point, though, and another one at your destination, for you to get from here to there. A religious fanatic blew up the first one we humans built in the 47 Ursae Majoris system because he didn’t like aliens. Leave it to a nutjob to screw things up for everyone else.

  3 The hjadd were the first extraterrestrials our people encountered, and also our primary sponsors in the Talus. They’re from a planet in the Rho Coronae Borealis system and look a little like giant tortoises, only standing upright and without shells. Nice folks, albeit a little persnickety. Oh, and they eat marijuana the way we eat oregano. Go figure.

  4 Seriously. There isn’t. I know it’s a children’s book, and quite old at that, but if you haven’t yet read Green Eggs and Ham, stop reading this story right now and go find a copy. Come back when you’re done. You’ll thank me for it.

  5 I’m told that the sorenta went to all the trouble to do this because they wanted their god to come down from the sky and pay them a visit. Which raises the obvious question: if their god had never visited them before, how did the sorenta know what it looked like? I cannot figure out religion…

  6 And let me tell you: that’s a hell of a lot of banjos.

  7 “Hot jupe”: hot Jupiter. An old-time name that spacers still use for jovians that are way too close to their suns. Not nice places to visit. And, yes, we are weird…but fun, once you get to know us.

  8 Last footnote, I promise…but this is just one example of why war is nearly nonexistent within the Talus. Some of the member races are just too damn powerful for anyone to screw around with.

  This is the last Coyote story…I think.

  I spent eleven years writing the Coyote series, along with the novels set in the same universe and associated stories such as this, and although I had a great time, it was never meant to be the only thing I’d write for the rest of my life. In fact, considering that Coyote was originally intended to be a stand-alone novel, I’m amazed that it led to a trilogy, a duology, three spinoffs, a book-length novella,
and a handful of short stories.

  But it was only inevitable that the day would come when I’d realize that I’d said all that needed to be said, and if I carried the series any further it would become redundant and mediocre. So I stopped work on a sequel to Hex that was becoming rather silly, told my editor and my agent that enough was enough, then filed away all my notes and maps and turned my attention to other things.

  I thought this was the end. A couple of months later, though, I went to Orlando, Florida, to attend the 100 Year Starship Conference, a gathering of scientists, futurists, and science fiction writers during which plausible near-term scenarios for interstellar travel were discussed. During the conference, my old friends Greg Benford and his brother Jim approached me about writing a story for an anthology, Starship Century, they were co-editing as a product of this conference. They wanted me to write what would amount to the anthology’s keynote story, so I decided to set it at the conference itself…and somehow, it became not only a new Coyote story, but also both a prelude and a coda to the series as a whole.

  Will there ever be a new Coyote novel? I don’t think so. On the other hand, I’ve said that before, right after I finished Coyote Frontier, so I’m hedging my bets a little. But for now…

  CATHEDRALS

  Florida Ballroom 5 was a ballroom in name only; Frank doubted that it was large enough for even a half-decent foxtrot. He found himself envying Orange Ballroom D just down the hall, where the keynote speeches had been held; it had a couple of thousand chairs, with screens big enough to be seen from the back of the room. But the conference’s breakout sessions—as many as five occurring at any one time—had been scheduled for these smaller rooms where there were only a few dozen seats, often forcing many of the attendees to stand along the walls or sit on the floor.

  At one of yesterday’s sessions, Frank had heard John Cramer call the conference “Woodstock for nerds.” Frank had missed Woodstock—in 1969 he’d been at Marshall Space Center, helping NASA plan those last two Apollo missions that the Nixon administration killed—but he supposed that the analogy was as good as any. Sure, the conference didn’t have tents, mud, brown acid, or Jimi Hendrix playing the “Star Spangled Banner” at sunrise, but nonetheless there was a sense of freewheeling, wide-eyed possibility that a hippie would have grooved on. He smiled at the thought. Did anyone still say groovy? Or was he just showing his age?

  At the podium beside him, Jim Benford was wrapping up his introduction for this afternoon’s session on breakthrough propulsion systems. Frank shuffled his notes as he pretended not to notice that the room was half-empty. Only about thirty or so people had shown up to hear him speak. Which wasn’t bad, really—before he’d retired from Stanford, his lectures typically had only a dozen or so grad students—but this morning’s talk on faster-than-light travel had been standing room only. Once again, he scolded himself for being a bit reserved in his choice of title for his presentation. “Warp Field Mechanics” sounded a little more intriguing than “Quantised Inertia and FTL,” but wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as “Terraforming Planets, Geoengineering Earth” or “Hostile Journey and Destination—Yes, But Weapons?” And none of them rocked—oh, yeah, that was the word that replaced groovy—like “Did Jesus Die for Klingons, Too?” Frank had no idea what that was about, other than it belonged to the program track for philosophical and ethical considerations, but he had little doubt that it had jammed Florida Ballroom 7.

  His thoughts were interrupted by scattered applause from the audience, and he looked up to see Jim stepping away from the podium. Frank picked up his notes, pushed back his chair, and sauntered toward the podium, exchanging a brief smile and a nod with Jim as they walked past each other. He laid his notes upon the podium and picked up the wireless remote used to operate the projector in the back of the room. Half of the conference speakers had run into trouble with the damn thing—apparently it used a version of PowerPoint few of them were familiar with—and he prayed that he wouldn’t embarrass himself, at least not that way.

  Never mind that now. The next twenty minutes were his. Frank glanced at the longhand notes he’d written on a yellow legal pad—an explanation of the Alcubierre metric; a discourse on the problems inherent in generating a warp bubble within spacetime; speculation on the creation of boost shells within pseudo horizons; the possibility of constructing a toroidal capacitor ring as a means of harnessing negative energy—and realized that it wouldn’t be wise to jump straight into his presentation’s most technical material. This wasn’t Stanford; if he wanted to keep his audience from wondering what Jesus might say to a Klingon, he’d better open with something a little more compelling than equations.

  A remark someone said to him over breakfast that morning came back to him. Frank wasn’t above cribbing from his colleagues, so he stole it.

  “You know,” he began, “I’ve been thinking about how we should go about interstellar travel, and it occurs to me that we do this much the same way the great cathedrals of Europe were built…”

  As he spoke, his voice was amplified by the podium mike, while his image was caught by the Sony digital camera mounted on a platform in the back of the room. Both fed straight into one of the half-dozen or so DVD recorders saving the conference’s sessions for posterity.

  The camera softly purred as it focused upon him, capturing the projection screen in the background…

  When Karen Cho’s grandfather died, his passing was newsworthy enough to be mentioned on the front page of the Liberty Post: DAVID CHO, ORIGINAL ALABAMA COLONIST, DIES. The story went on to explain that Dr. Cho was one of the fabled “d.i.’s” who hijacked the URSS Alabama in 2070 and was therefore among the 109 people who, after a 230-year journey, reached the 47 Ursae Majoris system to establish the first colony on Coyote.

  The reporter who’d written the story apparently thought his readers needed a history refresher, because he went on to reiterate—rather unnecessarily, in Karen’s opinion—what every child who had been born and raised on Coyote had been told since their first days of school: how a small group of conspirators led by Captain R.E. Lee had managed to substitute half of the ship’s military crew with d.i.’s who had been arrested and were on their way to a government re-education camp. The article went on to explain that one of them had been Karen’s grandfather, an engineer who’d worked for the Federal Space Agency until his questionable loyalty to the United Republic of America had caused him to be branded as a dissident intellectual—the term for those who hadn’t toed the Liberty Party line—and dismissed from his job. Nonetheless, Dr. Cho had been among those responsible for the design of humankind’s first starship, and so when Captain Lee and his closest associates hatched the conspiracy, he and her grandmother (who’d died before Karen was born) had been among the civilians who were smuggled aboard the Alabama.

  Karen knew all this, of course. She’d grown up hearing the stories, from both her parents and from her grandfather himself. However, what she’d been told as a child had exaggerated her grandfather’s role in the hijacking, making it seem as if he’d charged aboard the ship, fighting Federal Service soldiers shoulder-to-shoulder with heroes like Capt. Lee, Tom Shapiro, and Jorge Montero. It wasn’t until years later that she understood how this was an embroidered version of how things actually happened. The hijackers hadn’t taken Alabama by storm, but instead had come aboard rather quietly, using subterfuge rather than force. There had been no fight in the main airlock, as legend has it, and her grandparents had done nothing more than go to their berths, strap in, and wait for others in the command center to usurp control of the ship’s computers and engage the launch sequence. Indeed, it was this discovery that led Karen to become a historian; she decided that she’d rather know banal reality than glorious fantasy.

  All the same, she’d honored and respected her grandfather, and after her own parents were killed in a ferry accident on the Great Equatorial River, she’d cared for the old man during his last years. By then, Gran’pa barely remembered Earth
at all, and even had trouble recalling the details of how he’d come to Coyote. Unfortunately, this sort of senescence wasn’t uncommon among original colonists; doctors at the University of New Florida believed that degeneration of neural tissue was a long-term aftereffect of the centuries-long biostasis they had endured aboard Alabama. Even Marie Montero, the younger sister of former Coyote Federation president Jorge Montero, had been afflicted by this.

  So Karen had brought Gran’pa into her home while she finished her graduate studies at the university, and it was shortly before she received her master’s that the old man quietly passed away while taking an afternoon nap. Karen had been expecting this for quite some time, and although she grieved at the death of the last member of her immediate family, there was comfort to be taken from the fact that Gran’pa’s death had been peaceful and without pain.

  His memorial service was remarkably well-attended, even if she didn’t recognize many of those who showed up. Gran’pa had few friends left, and although Karen had her own supporters, she suspected that most of the people there simply wanted to pay respects to one of the Alabama colonists. Karen spoke for a few minutes, and then David Cho’s shroud-wrapped body was placed upon a wooden bier and set afire. The service was followed by a wake, but Karen showed up just long enough to accept a few condolences before going home.

  As her grandfather’s sole survivor, it fell to her to settle his final affairs. Gran’pa had left everything to her, so it became mainly a matter of going through his belongings and deciding what to discard, what to give away, and what to keep. This was a sad but rather mundane chore until she came upon a small nylon bag among the things he kept in his desk.