by Allen Steele
Tereshkova tapped her headset mike with her right hand, murmured something in Russian. She waited a few moments, then entered commands into the keypad between her and Carlos. A double-beep from the comp; she released the yoke, and simultaneously the Isabella made a slight yaw to starboard, aligning itself with the open claws of the docking cradle just aft of the drive ring.
“There. We’re on autopilot now. The ship will guide us the rest of the way in.” She paused, then added, “I’ve told Jonathan that he could just as well let the comp handle this, but he always insisted on flying it himself. I suppose I’m not the pilot he was.”
Cool silence descended upon the cockpit; no one knew quite how to answer this remark. “I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually,” Carlos said at last. “Chris has his people making inquiries, and they’re also searching outside town. If he’s around—”
“Yes, of course.” Tereshkova softened a bit. “I’m certain they’ll do their best. But still—”
“But still,” Wendy interjected, “you said yourself that he appears to have left on his own free will. The survival gear is missing. The main hatch was shut, and you found the remote on the ground. So if he came back here, he must have done it to pick up some things before—”
“Are you suggesting that my second officer deserted?” Tereshkova tilted her head back slightly, almost as if she was challenging Wendy. “I find that difficult to—”
“A fine old naval tradition.” It was the first time that Jonas Whittaker had spoken since they’d left the ground. Until now, he’d been oddly quiet, saying nothing to anyone.
“Sorry, Dr. Whittaker.” Carlos turned around in his seat to gaze back at him. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Nothing. Just a passing thought.” Whittaker continued to gaze out the window. “The stars really are lovely, don’t you think? So strange, though…no constellations I can recognize.”
“We’re a long way from Earth,” Wendy said. “The sky looks different out here.”
“Yeah…” Whittaker laughed quietly. “You’re right. Everything’s different now, I think.”
Carlos regarded the physicist for another moment, wondering what he knew that the others didn’t. Then he turned back around, watched as the Columbus filled the windows.
“You’re right,” he said softly. “I think everything’s about to be different.”
Part 2
THE WAYFARING STRANGER
The rain was coming down hard as the stranger rode into town, a midsummer monsoon that turned the streets to mud and filled potholes with tepid brown water. The weather had chased nearly everyone indoors, so few people saw the wagon, loaded with rolls of bamboo and pulled by a pair of shags, as it moved slowly past the wood-frame buildings of the town center, nor noticed the two men seated together on the buckboard, their shoulders slumped beneath the downpour.
The wagon made its way through Leeport until it arrived at the waterfront, where Boid Creek flowed into a shallow harbor upon the West Channel. A sullen grey mist hung low above the tugboats and barges tied up at the piers; the only thing moving was the revolving beam of the lighthouse. The drayman pulled back on the reins, clicking his tongue at the shags until they finally came to a halt. He glanced around once, making sure that they weren’t being observed, then looked at the young man sitting beside him.
“All right, here you go,” he said quietly. “From here out, you’re on your own.”
Water spilled from the brim of his catskin hat as the passenger slowly raised his head. Everything looked flat and monotonous, as if the rain had washed all color from the world; his poncho was drenched, and his clothes were soaked all the way to the skin. Yet he wasn’t about to complain; despite his misery, he was relieved to have made it this far.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Reaching beneath the seat, he pulled out the backpack and rifle he’d carried with him since leaving Shuttlefield two days ago. “I told you I’d trade for a ride,” he said, once the pack and gun were in his lap. “What can I give you?”
The old man absently rubbed his grizzled beard. “Naah, don’t worry about it. Just glad to have the company for a change.” He smiled. “Unless, of course, I can talk you out of that nice firearm.”
“Afraid I’m going to need it. Sorry.” Pulling the strap across his left shoulder, the hitchhiker climbed down off the wagon. “So where’s this place you told me about?”
“Right over there.” The wagon driver pointed behind him to a log cabin, elevated above the ground by thick blackwood stilts. “The Captain’s Lady. Ask for Dana. Just mention my name…she’ll set you up.”
“Thanks again.” Slinging his pack over his shoulder, the young man turned away, headed for the cantina. The drayman watched as he walked up the steps to the front porch, then he clicked his tongue again and shook the reins, and once more the shags began to move, hauling the wagon toward a side street leading away from the wharf.
The door made a loud creak as the young man pushed it open, causing everyone to look up as he came in. A single large room, with wood tables here and there and a few chairs in front of a stone hearth where a warm fire crackled. Embroidered wool carpets on the log walls, sawdust on the bare floor, a solid rough-bark bar at the opposite end of the room. A handful of men and women here and there, with a few seated around a nearby table, cards in hand and a small pile of chips between them. The place was quiet, more quiet than he liked; he tried not to notice the eyes upon him as he approached the bar, rain dripping off his clothes.
The man behind the bar was built like a mountain, not much older than himself, yet at least twice his size, his enormous girth pushing against the front of his apron. He studied the newcomer as he set down the beer mug he’d been washing. “Pardon me,” the young man began, “but could you—?”
“That gun loaded?”
The young man nodded.
“Unload it and hand it over. House rules.”
Silence, save for the rain lashing at the windows. The bartender’s gaze never left him, yet his right hand traveled beneath the counter. The traveler hesitated, then reluctantly slipped the rifle off his shoulder, unclipped its cartridge, and laid the weapon on the bar. The big man gazed at the rifle with interest. “Haven’t seen one like this before. Where’d you get it?”
“A long way from here.” He spoke quietly, trying to subdue a British accent that, he’d come to realize, many people on this world had never heard before.
The bartender picked up the rifle, inspected it carefully. “Doesn’t look like a Union piece,” he murmured. “You wouldn’t be interested in selling, would you?”
“Just put it away, will you?” The young man dropped his pack on the floor, but didn’t take a seat. “I’m looking for…I’ve been told to ask for Dana. Is she around?”
The bartender was about to respond when a soft voice spoke from behind the stranger’s left shoulder. “Relax, Hurricane, I’ll take care of this.”
Looking around, he saw that one of the women had risen and walked up behind him. An elderly, dark-skinned lady, with silvered hair pulled back into thick braids, her black eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I’m Dana,” she said. “And who might you be?”
The young man groped for words. There were too many people listening, and he didn’t want to come right out with the truth. “Jon,” he said at last. “Paul Dwyer…a friend of yours, I believe…gave me a ride here from Shuttlefield. He said I could—”
“Of course.” Before he could go on, Dana turned to Hurricane. “An ale for each of us, and some food for him…a bowl of chili and a grilled cheese sandwich.” She glanced back at him. “Best we can do in a hurry. I imagine you’re starved.”
“Well, umm…sure, if you—”
“Good.” She snapped her fingers at him. “Now give me that poncho and hat…wear ’em much longer, and you’ll catch pneumonia.” When he hesitated, she dropped her voice. “Don’t worry. I’ve been waiting for you, Second Officer Parson.”
Astonished, h
e stared back at her, and she smiled a little. “Word travels fast,” she murmured, “and right now you need all the friends you can get. So sit down over there”—she nodded toward a small table away from everyone else—“and we’re going to put a decent meal in your stomach and maybe give you a place to sleep tonight.”
“I…I don’t have any money.”
Dana shook her head. “You don’t need any. All I want to know is why the Columbus is here, and why you jumped ship.”
The bowl of chili Hurricane brought him was unlike any he’d tasted before, made with chicken instead of beef. No cattle on Coyote, Parson reminded himself, although what they called “white chili” was just as good as the red variety, if different. In any case, he wolfed it down, swigging ale to cool his mouth.
Dana waited patiently until he polished off the grilled goat cheese sandwich. “More?” she asked. “That’s Dave’s recipe, by the way. It’s supposed to be secret, but let him take a couple of practice shots out back with that gun of yours and he might let you in on it.”
“Who’s Dave?” he asked, and she nodded toward the bartender. “I thought his name was Hurricane.”
“Hurricane Dave. That’s his nickname.” She smiled. “If you’d given him any trouble about surrendering your firearm, you would’ve found out why. Nice guy, but you don’t want to get on his bad side.” She signaled for the bartender to bring another round. “Okay, now, suppose you tell me why you’re here, and why my old shipmate told you to look me up.”
Parson wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You were on a ship together? Which one?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Dana’s eyes rolled upward. “Figures. Sometimes I think he’s forgotten himself.” She pointed to the fireplace. Mounted above it was a twisted piece of metal nearly as long as his arm, blackened as if it had endured an inferno. “See that? It came from the Alabama. There’s a serial number on it that identifies it as belonging to Deck H2, the engineering section. Friend of mine recovered it from the wreckage on Hammerhead. Now, ask me why I’d display a hunk of junk like that in my place of business.”
Parson’s eyes widened. “You’re one of the original settlers.”
“Lieutenant Commander Dana Monroe, former chief engineer. Paul Dwyer used to be one of my officers, back before he took to driving a shag-wagon between here and Shuttlefield.” She smiled again. “Don’t look so surprised. Did you really think all of us live in Liberty?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Maybe because we enjoy having elbow room.” Dana reached up to take the fresh mugs of ale Hurricane Dave had just delivered to the table. “When Liberty and Shuttlefield started to get crowded, some of us decided to pack up and move out here. One nice thing about frontier life…if you don’t like where you are now, there’s plenty of places left to go.”
“My feelings precisely. Paul told me that this is a good place to hide out for awhile. Lot of people come through, on their way to Great Dakota.”
“Uh-huh. Once the mills got built in Clarksburg, they needed a place to ship their lumber. So the barges come upriver and offload their wood here, and then guys like Paul put it in their wagons and haul back across the island to Liberty and Shuttlefield, then bring stuff we need on the way back. So this is a port town, and since every port needs a watering hole…” She shrugged. “Well, there you have it.”
“Odd place to find a former starship engineer.” Parson smiled as he sipped his ale. “Judging from the name of this place, I take it you and Captain Lee enjoyed some sort of relationship.”
“You can take it whichever way you want,” Dana said, her voice taking on a certain edge, “but you’re going to find yourself on the other side of that door if you don’t wipe that grin off your face. And since I’m also the mayor, you’d do well not to make me mad.”
“No offense intended.” Parson felt his face go warm. “Many apologies.”
“Apologies accepted. Besides, you still haven’t answered my question.”
Parson didn’t reply at once. Instead, he gazed around the cantina. It was midafternoon by now, and although the rain continued to patter against the roof, most of the regulars had left, save for a couple of drunks passed out near the hearth. Hurricane Dave moved about, wiping down tables and carrying empty mugs back to the bar. The Captain’s Lady was quiet, yet its namesake clearly wasn’t.
“The Columbus is here to build a starbridge,” he said. “That’s a means of forming an artificial wormhole between here and Earth, so that—”
“Ships can travel instantly between here and there. I know that part already.” Dana absently tapped a finger against her mug. “We may be out in the boonies, but we’ve got a satphone, and I still have friends back in Liberty. Same ones who told me about you. What I want to know is why.”
“It’s not complicated, really. Earth’s resources are running low…in fact, they’ve pretty much been used up. The colonies on the Moon and Mars helped some, but not nearly enough. The human race needs to expand beyond the solar system if it’s going to survive. Coyote’s our best chance.”
Dana peered at him. “You mean to say no one has found any other habitable worlds? Not even after all this time?”
“Oh, there might be more. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. There’s a good likelihood that there may be a habitable planet around HD70642, but that’s 90 light-years from Earth.” He shrugged. “18 Scorpii is almost as close as 47 Uma, and it has Earth-size planets, but so far as we’ve been able to tell, they’re dead as Mars. Like I said, this is the garden spot of the universe.”
“And so you’ve come here? To take what little we have?”
“‘What little we have…’” Parson gazed out the window. “If only you knew. A storm like this…just a minor inconvenience, right? Where I’m from, we’ve had to build seawalls around much of the southern coast of England, just to keep London from being flooded.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what it’s like back home.”
“This is our home,” Dana said defensively, then her tone softened. “That bad, huh?”
“I doubt you’d recognize the place.” Parson took another sip of ale. “If you have a complaint, though, you’re going to have to take it up with someone else. What the European Alliance wants is not my concern anymore. I resigned my commission two days ago. All I want now is a fresh start.”
Dana said nothing. Her fingers gently drummed against the table as she regarded Parson thoughtfully, as if trying to make up her mind what to do with him. “Guess everyone is entitled to start over,” she said after a while. “That’s what we did. But you can’t stay here. Not if people are looking for you…and they probably are, if you’ve jumped ship.”
“I imagine my captain is rather put out with me just now, yes.”
“Then it’s only a matter of time before we’ll have Proctors knocking on our door. Surprised they haven’t already. But since it’d be bad for business if I tried to hide you—”
“I see.” Parson drained his mug with one gulp, then stood up. “Well, thanks for the hospitality, but perhaps I’d better move along. If you can tell me—”
“Did I say I was kicking you out? Sit down and shut up.” Leaning back in her chair, Dana turned toward the bar. “Hurricane? When’s the next boat for Clarksburg?”
The bartender put down the plate he was polishing, walked over to a sheet of paper tacked to the wall at the end of the bar. “The Helen Waite leaves at seven in the morning, providing the weather lets up. Everything else is docked till then.”
“Thanks.” Dana looked back at Parson. “I’ll put you up in a guest room tonight. In the morning, you need to find slip three and go to—”
“Helen Waite.” Parson smiled. “That joke’s rather old, you realize.”
“Tell that to the skipper. His name’s George Waite. Helen’s his wife.” Dana grinned. “George is an old friend, and he owes me a favor or two. He’ll carry you down to Clarksburg. Don’t worry about the fare. You should be able to work something
out with him.”
“Thank you.” Parson hesitated. “But if Clarksburg is as big as I’ve heard, then it’s only a matter of time before someone finds me there.”
“If you stay long, sure.” Dana prodded Parson’s pack with her foot. “Looks like you took a lot of stuff with you when you deserted. I saw the rifle. You got everything you’ll need?”
“Bedroll, some clothes, a lamp, and a knife. Everything I could pilfer from the skiff’s survival kit, plus whatever else I could barter in Shuttlefield.” He gestured to his poncho and hat, now drying on a hook near the fireplace. “Amazing how much you can get in trade, just for a spare datapad. Figured I was going to be living off the land for awhile.”
“You’ll need more than that if you’re planning to homestead. Winter here is rough.” Pushing aside the empty mugs, Dana leaned across the table. “Clarksburg’s just your next stop. There’s someone farther in-country you need to find. He lives up in the mountains, so it’ll be hard to reach him, but I can provide some directions. And if and when you do find him, you’ll have to make some sort of accord with him. Sometimes he’s hard to get along with. All the same, he may be able to help you.”
“Why’s that?”
Dana favored him with a sly smile. “Because I said so. And because you’re both looking for the same thing.”
The Helen Waite was a stern-paddle tugboat, sixty feet long and built of wood and iron, its steam engine fired by a coal-burning furnace that belched acrid brown smoke from its top-hat. It looked like something that should be on display in a museum, yet according to its captain it’d been built only three Coyote years ago. Noting his interest, George Waite decided to let his new passenger get a closer look; he was put to work shoveling coal into the firebox, and it wasn’t long before the traveler began to miss the sophistication of diametric warp drives.
The tug chugged out of the Leeport harbor shortly after sunrise, dragging behind it six flat-bottom barges, empty save for a load of bamboo and several bushels of corn being brought over from New Florida. The monsoon had passed during the night, and the new day was bright and clear, the white sails of fishing boats dotting the blue waters of the channel. When Parson got a chance to take a breather, he sat on a barrel on the aft deck and watched while the coast of Great Dakota slid past, the distant peaks of the Black Mountain Range growing larger with every passing mile. The captain stood within the pilot house, quietly humming to himself as he navigated the channel by memory, turning the wheel now and then to avoid shoals, his only landmarks the occasional bluff or tall tree upon the shore. Again, it was a far cry from everything Parson had ever known; he’d spent years learning how to control the helm of a starship, and only a few days earlier he’d brought the Columbus’s skiff to a safe landing at Shuttlefield, yet compared to George Waite’s sublime mastery of the channel he felt as innocent as a child.