Coyote Frontier

by Allen Steele

  Sails catching the warm autumn breeze, wheel creaking softly as Barry turned the rudder to starboard, Orion II glided across still waters, hugging the coastline as it headed for the inlet. A leisurely sojourn down an unexplored river; not a bad way to spend the last week of Barbiel.

  Nonetheless, he had a feeling that it would be more than that.

  Barren Isle was a small, diamond-shaped island between Midland and Hammerhead, straddling the equator about a hundred miles northwest of the Meridian Archipelago. Carlos first visited it in C.Y. 2, when he’d set out on his own to explore the Great Equatorial River in a handmade canoe—the original Orion, after which this fifty-five-foot keelboat had been christened—yet although he’d spent nine days upon the island, he had only paddled along its southern coast and never gone farther ashore than the beach. It wasn’t until several years later that anyone set foot on Barren Isle again, and this time it was a research expedition from the Colonial University, sent to investigate the aboriginal species he’d called sandthieves and which they now knew as chirreep.

  “So you were the first to find them.” Sitting on a barrel on the forward deck, Pacino munched on an apple as he watched the riverbanks drift by. “Why did it take you so long to tell anyone?”

  Carlos didn’t answer at first. Crouched on his knees in the bow, he slowly let a plumb line slip through his hands into the creek, carefully counting the knots tied at regular intervals along its length until he felt the lead weight at its end touch bottom. “Mark twain!” he yelled back to Barry, then grinned at Pacino. “Ever heard of Samuel Clemens? American writer? He took his pen name from that call…means we’ve got two fathoms below us.”

  “Fascinating.” Pacino took another bite from his apple. “But you didn’t answer my—”

  “Same reason I called this place Barren Isle. Name like that, I didn’t think anyone would be interested in coming here.” Carlos hauled back the line, rolling it around his elbow as a tidy coil. “If I had my way,” he reflected, “no one would still know about them. Would’ve been my own little secret.”

  “Didn’t last very long, did it?” Pacino had gnawed the apple to the core; he pulled back his arm, flung it toward shore. It didn’t reach the ground, though, before one of the swoops that had followed the keelboat since it entered the creek dove down from the sky to snag it in midair. The other birds shrieked in avarice, then circled the boat even more closely, hoping that the intruders would discard another tasty morsel. “Damn,” Pacino said. “Hungry little buzzards.”

  “Everything we do here has an effect.” Carlos dropped the line into a wicker hamper, brushed his wet hands on his trousers. “That swoop you just fed, for instance. It’ll digest your apple, and somewhere nearby it’ll crap out the seeds. If they land in the right place, then apples might grow somewhere on the island.”

  “Glad to make a contribution.”

  “Maybe…but what sort of long-term effect do apples make upon an ecosystem where there’s never been any apple trees before?” Standing up, Carlos gazed at the landscape slowly moving past them. Sandy lowlands, bleak and dun-colored, devoid of forest; desert country, seemingly lifeless, save for scrub brush and small, stunted trees. “That’s why I didn’t tell anyone about the sandthieves…the chirreep, I mean. This is a new world. We’ve got to be careful what we do here.”

  “So how did—?”

  “Things happened that were beyond my control.” It was a long story, and Carlos didn’t feel like repeating it now. “Watch what you throw overboard, all right? Excuse me.”

  Stepping past Pacino, he went aft. Will and Jud were minding the sails; Whittaker sunned himself on the mid-deck, his arm draped across his eyes as he took an afternoon nap. Climbing the short ladder to the upper deck above the cabin, he found Barry at the rudder, studying the river with a wary eye; Tereshkova sat on a bench next to him, quietly observing every move he made. Two captains: one accustomed to traveling by water, the other intrigued by a form of transportation that didn’t require an AI.

  “So far, so good.” Barry’s gaze never strayed far from the river. “I’ll need another sounding before long, though.”

  “No problem. Maybe we can teach our first officer to handle that.” Carlos glanced at Tereshkova. “Think Mr. Pacino is up to it?”

  “He can learn.” She hesitated. “May I ask which way we’re going? Our course, I mean.”

  “Certainly.” Carlos bent down to open a cabinet and withdraw a rolled-up chart, which he spread out across the bench next to her. Like most maps of Coyote, it was a montage of high-orbit photos; although overlaid with grid lines for latitude and longitude, there were very few place-names, and those were for the major waterways that surrounded the island: the Midland Channel to the west, Short River to the east, and the Great Equatorial River and the Meridian Sea to the south and southeast.

  “We entered here,” Carlos said, pointing to the inlet just south of the northern tip of the island, where the Midland Channel split off from Short River. “The creek we’re on now will take us about sixty miles to this other creek.” He tapped a finger upon the Y-shaped confluence of a longer waterway that flowed southwest from Short River. “And then we’ll follow it due south until it empties into the Great Equatorial. Another two hundred miles or so.”

  Tereshkova studied the map. “And this will take us how long?”

  “About five, six days. Maybe a little longer, if we get hung up.”

  “Hung up?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Orion’s got a five-foot draw.” Barry didn’t look back at them as he spoke. “That means we need at least five feet of water beneath us before we drag bottom. If that happens…say, we run aground on a sandbar or something…then we’ve got a choice. Either get out and push, or abandon ship and walk the rest of the way.”

  Tereshkova blanched, and Carlos caught a sly wink from Barry. “He’s just putting you on,” Carlos said. “We’ve had a lot of rain lately, so the creeks are running high. And even if it did, I’ll just call for a gyro to pick us up. We’ve got the satphone.”

  “Unless you throw it away, of course.” Barry meant that as a joke, but then he caught the sour expression on Carlos’s face and quickly shook his head. “It’ll never happen.”

  “So long as it doesn’t.” She didn’t notice the silent exchange as she studied the map more closely. “You don’t have names for these creeks. Why not?”

  “Sort of a tradition.” Carlos shrugged. “Most of this world is still unexplored. There’s many islands and waterways we haven’t yet visited, and we’ve only named the major land masses and channels near New Florida.”

  “Not exactly,” Barry said. “There’s the Northern River, and the North Sea, and Medsylvania and Highland and Vulcan. And the major volcanoes…” Again, Carlos glared at him. “But that’s just because they’re pretty obvious and we needed to call them something.”

  “So we reserve that privilege for those who see them first.” Carlos paused. “You’re our honored guest. Would you like to name this creek?”

  This caught Tereshkova by surprise. “You…you can’t mean that.”

  “Sure I do.” He grinned at her, then pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. “Name it, and I’ll put it on the map. When we get home, I’ll have the university add it to the official atlas. Simple as that.” He didn’t tell her that whatever name she chose would have to be ratified by the Colonial Council; so long as she didn’t pick anything obscene, though, it would probably pass muster.

  Absently touching a forefinger to her lips, Ana pondered the question for a moment. “Valentina,” she said at last. “I’d like to call this Valentina Creek.”

  “Sure. Nice name. Any particular reason?”

  “For Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.” Embarrassed, she looked away. “My ancestor, at least so I’ve been told.”

  Carlos glanced at Barry, and his friend raised an eyebrow. History repeating itself; Robert Lee, the commanding officer of the A
labama, also had a famous ancestor. Carlos nodded, then he inscribed VALENTINA CR. on the map. A simple act of diplomacy, he told himself, but one that he hoped would break the ice.

  It seemed to work, for a smile briefly appeared on Tereshkova’s face. “Thank you,” she said, then she excused herself and went forward to join Pacino.

  “Nice idea,” Barry murmured. “Now maybe she’ll talk to us.”

  Carlos shook his head as he returned the pen to his pocket. “Talking to us isn’t the problem,” he said quietly. “It’s what she’s going to say when she does.”

  By evening, they had traveled nearly thirty miles; the river had become a little more narrow, but not so much that it hindered navigation. Carlos waited until the shadows grew long across the brown waters, then he asked Barry to pull over at a dry bank on the east side of the creek, a likely looking spot for a campsite. Will and Jud lowered the sails, then picked up long-handled oars and began maneuvering the keelboat over to the bank. After watching them for a minute or so, Pacino picked up another oar and came to their assistance; Carlos had taught him how to use the plumb-line earlier that afternoon, and he seemed to enjoy learning to do things in such an old-fashioned way.

  On the other hand, the expedition wasn’t going to rough it as much as Carlos had eleven years ago. No need to build lean-to shelters or erect tarps; the Orion II carried four two-man dome tents, each with its own heat-cells. Nor would they have to go fishing for their evening meal; coolers stowed below deck contained enough fresh food to last them a week, and a portable stove to cook it on. There were folding chairs, and although they had battery-powered lamps to supply light for the campsite, Jud took it upon himself to gather wood for a fire. All things considered, they’d come equipped with all the comforts of home…even rolls of toilet paper, to be conveniently placed next to the latrine Will had dug a short distance away.

  There were also a couple of tripod-mounted automatic guns, rigged to a motion-detector system, which they could set up to guard the perimeter. Yet Carlos decided not to do so. “Not necessary,” he said, kneeling next to the stove as he stirred the pot of curried chicken he’d prepared. “I can tell you for a fact that there’re no boids on this island.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Standing close to the fire, Tereshkova nervously eyed the sandy grasslands surrounding them. “You said yourself that you never went farther inland than the beach.”

  “Because I didn’t hear them at night, that’s why.” Carlos raised the ladle to his lips, took a taste. A little bland, perhaps, but he doubted the others would like their curry as spicy as he did. “And since the last expedition didn’t report any, I think it’s a safe bet that they’re not indigenous. Probably not enough game to support them.”

  “Too bad.” Sitting in a chair nearby, Whittaker warmed his feet by the fire, a glass of waterfruit wine in hand. One more luxury item they’d brought with them. “I’d sure like to see one up close.”

  Barry laughed out loud, but the metal plateware in Jud’s hands rattled as he unpacked them from the kitchen box. Carlos stared intently at the pot. “No, you don’t,” he said softly. “If you’re close enough to see a boid, then that’s too close.”

  Too late, Whittaker realized the faux pas he’d just committed. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot. Your folks…”

  “Don’t worry about it. Happened a long time ago.” Carlos used the ladle to lift up a small piece of chicken; he nibbled it and decided that it was cooked well enough to be edible. The rice in the other pot was already done, so he gestured for Jud to hand him a plate. “Even if boids once inhabited this island, our guess is that the chirreep probably took care of them long ago. So far as we’ve seen, they don’t coexist in the same place at the same time. Probably because the chirreep locate their nests and destroy their eggs, denying them the ability to reproduce. After a while, the boids get the message and move on.”

  “Like we did on New Florida.” Barry took a plate from Jud, put some rice on it, let Carlos spoon some curry on top of that, then passed it to Will. “Once we learned how to control their population around Liberty, they migrated south and stayed there.”

  “And good riddance.” Carlos caught a questioning look from Tereshkova. “My parents were killed by boids,” he added. “Two days after we landed. So I…well, I’m not a big fan of them, if you know what I mean.”

  “I understand. And I’m sorry.” Ana accepted the plate handed her, then sat down in the empty chair by the fire. “But these chirreep…if they’re here on the island, and they’re capable of killing boids…”

  “I’m not going to worry about sandthieves…chirreep, I mean…too much.” Carlos continued to serve dinner. “Not enough to set up the guns, at least. Before we go to bed, though, everything either goes back on the boat or into the tents with us. They’ll steal anything they can carry away if you give ’em half a chance.”

  “So you’re not threatened by them.” This from Pacino, and not as a question.

  “No. They’re just a nuisance. They don’t go after humans.”

  “I’ve heard different.” Pacino accepted the plate Barry handed to him. “The timber operations on Great Dakota…haven’t they had problems lately? Chirreep sabotaging the log flume, attempting to break a dam.”

  “We’re still looking into this.” It was something Carlos was reluctant to talk about. His daughter Susan was the naturalist the university had sent into the Black Mountains to investigate the reports, and she’d returned adamant in her belief that the chirreep had to be protected at all costs, even if it meant shutting down the logging camps. As her father, Carlos believed her without reservation, yet as president he had to weigh preservation of the chirreep’s natural habitat against the necessity of allowing timber to be harvested in the Black Mountains. This had led to more than a little friction between father and daughter lately. “That’s an exceptional situation,” he went on, carefully picking his words. “The chirreep aren’t dangerous. They’re just…something we didn’t expect.”

  “So what did you expect?” Tereshkova asked.

  “Not this,” he replied.

  No one said anything for a while after that. They sat around the fire, dining on curried chicken and washing it down with glasses of wine. It was a clear evening, cool but not uncomfortable; Bear was beginning to rise above the eastern horizon, the leading edge of its ring-plane a silver spear thrust into the autumn constellations. Preceding it, though, was a new object; a tiny spot of light, so small that it could easily be covered by an outstretched thumb, yet brighter than either Fox or Raven, Bear’s closest satellites.

  “There’s your namesake,” Jud said, prodding Jonas with his elbow as he craned his neck to stare up at the sky. “Whittaker Station…almost finished, isn’t it?”

  Jonas coughed as if something had just gone down the wrong way; he nodded as he hastily took a sip of water from the flask next to his chair. “I wish…harrumph, ’cuse me…I’d just as soon they don’t call it that.”

  “False modesty,” Tereshkova said.

  “No, ma’am…not at all. I’m rather honored, actually. But if the long-term objective is to construct a network of starbridges, then wouldn’t it be better to name them after the places where they’re built? Starbridge Earth, Starbridge Coyote, Starbridge Kuiper…”

  “Starbridge Kuiper?” Carlos gave him a sharp look. “You didn’t tell me that a starbridge had been built in the Kuiper Belt.”

  For an instant it seemed as if Tereshkova and Pacino exchanged knowing looks. “Well…um, yes, there is,” Ana said. “K-1X. But it was a test facility, built mainly to see if starbridge technology actually worked. It did, but it hasn’t been used since then.”

  “So you’ve sent a ship through a starbridge to the Kuiper Belt.” Intrigued by this revelation, Jud leaned forward in his chair. “Fantastic! What did you find there?”

  Tereshkova shrugged. “Nothing, really. A lot of asteroids, but none of any great interest.”

  “So you’ve b
een there.” Carlos gazed at her from across the fire. “Even if you didn’t find anything, that’s something we haven’t heard before now. What did you—?”

  “Actually, we haven’t been there personally,” Pacino said quickly. “K-1X was constructed by a different vessel. Once it was complete, our sister ship, the Galileo, undertook the initial mission. So none of us were aboard.”

  “Oh…well, that’s too bad.” Jud was disappointed. “So what did the Galileo report?” Uncomfortable silence. “As I said, nothing of consequence.” Ana rose from her chair. “If you’ll excuse me…”

  “Certainly.” Carlos watched as the Columbus’s captain walked away from the fire, her flashlight winking on as she made her way through the tall grass toward the latrine. Pacino paid a small compliment about the excellence of tonight’s dinner, and Carlos commented that it was his wife’s favorite recipe, yet it was obvious that he and Jud had just hit a sore spot.

  They’re hiding something, he thought. What aren’t they telling us?

  They awoke early, shortly after sunrise, and after a quick breakfast of cereal and dried fruit they broke down the tents and boarded the Orion II again. By midmorning, they came to a bend in the river, where Valentina Creek turned due south; consulting the map, Barry estimated that they would reach the confluence of the longer, as-yet-unnamed river by day’s end.

  Although the creek remained deep enough to permit them easy passage, it was also becoming narrower, sometimes less than thirty feet across; the banks became higher as well, often making it difficult for them to see very far ashore. The topography had changed, too; where there had once been only trackless landscapes of sand and high grass, they now caught glimpses of low mesas and dry arroyos, patched here and there by swatches of brush and small, scruffy-looking trees. Jud remarked that it resembled parts of the American Southwest, or perhaps the badlands of Alberta, Canada, where dinosaurs had once roamed. The others scoffed at this, with Tereshkova in particular chiding him for being just a little too imaginative, yet Carlos could see what Jud meant; although reptiles had never evolved on Coyote, it wasn’t hard to visualize the fossilized bones of ancient monsters lying somewhere out there in this wasteland.