Coyote Frontier

by Allen Steele

  He didn’t raise his voice, yet even if he’d shouted it wouldn’t have made much difference. A hush fell across the people around us; it seemed as if everyone moved in a little closer. Dieter winced, and even Amado seemed to be taken aback; for a moment, his condescending attitude was replaced by one of respect, however reluctant.

  “I appreciate your candor, Señor.” The Patriarch’s voice was quiet. “I think our negotiations will be…interesting, to say the least.”

  “No doubt they will,” Carlos said. “I’m looking forward to them.”

  The two men silently regarded one another for a moment. Then Amado went on. “You’ll hear my government’s opinion on this matter when we meet before the General Assembly. Until then, I hope that you and your wife will have a pleasant stay.”

  “Thank you,” Carlos said. “I’m sure we will.”

  Amado nodded, then unexpectedly he offered his hand. Carlos hesitated, then he accepted the handshake. “One more thing,” the Patriarch added. “Regardless of the outcome, my government wishes to extend to you and your wife an invitation to visit the Union. We understand that you were both born and raised in the Norte Americano provinces. Perhaps you’d like to see your home country again before you leave?”

  We’d received nearly a dozen similar requests all evening. Carlos responded just as he did to all the others. “Thank you. Our time here is limited, but if we can…”

  “Of course.” Amado withdrew his hand. “Consider it an open invitation, at your leisure.” A formal bow in my general direction. “Señora…”

  “Señor,” I said, with as much frost in my voice as I could muster. A dark look, and then the Patriarch disappeared back into the crowd.

  Chris moved closer. “Watch where you step,” he whispered. “I think he left a slime trail.”

  I was too irritated to find this funny. Until this moment, no one had challenged Carlos’s standing, either as President of the Coyote Federation or as its designated emissary to the United Nations. Yet Marcos Amado had insinuated Carlos was merely some upstart yokel, representing a province with pretensions of statehood.

  I was still seething when a hand gently touched my elbow. “Your husband took care of that quite well,” a voice said softly, and I turned to see the short fellow who’d caught my eye a couple of minutes earlier. “I’m impressed. Marcos doesn’t usually back down like that.”

  “Neither does my husband.” From the corner of my eye, I could see Chris moving closer to protect me, yet this gent seemed as harmless as Amado had been menacing. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  “Forgive me.” An elaborate bow, with head lowered and hands spread aside. “Morgan Goldstein, m’lady, at your service. I suppose you could say that I’m a diplomat without résumé—”

  “As always, Mr. Goldstein, you flatter yourself.” Vogel appeared at my side. “How did you get in here?” he asked, although he didn’t appear to be perturbed. “I thought this was by invitation only.”

  Feigning insult, Goldstein arched an eyebrow. “But I did indeed receive an invitation, Dieter. The very best money could buy.”

  Vogel shook his head as he looked at me. “Be careful of this one,” he said. “Herr Goldstein apparently believes that because he can buy and sell entire countries…”

  “Only buy,” Goldstein added. “I rarely sell.” Ignoring Dieter, he turned to me again. “Truth to be told, I’m merely an entrepreneur, and only modestly successful at that.” Vogel made an uncharacteristically rude noise with his lips, which Goldstein chose to overlook. “When I heard that you and the president were going to grace us with your presence, I hopped the first suborbital I could find.”

  “Don’t let him fool you,” Dieter murmured. “He owns his own fleet.”

  “True, but they’re always committed to something else.” Goldstein glared at him. “Dieter, don’t you have something else to do?”

  For a moment, it seemed as if Dieter wavered. Goldstein said nothing, only waited patiently. Then, much to my surprise, Vogel stepped away, apparently deciding that a nearby ambassador and his wife needed his attention. I was amazed; it was the first time that evening that Dieter had left our side.

  “That’s impressive,” I murmured. “Do you often order chief consuls around like that?”

  Goldstein smiled. “My dear lady, I never order anyone around. I merely offer alternatives.” He paused.

  “You’re new here, so you don’t know better…that both Dieter and Marcos are playing the same game.”

  “And what game is that?” Carlos asked.

  I hadn’t noticed that he’d come up behind me; apparently he’d been listening the entire time. Yet Goldstein wasn’t surprised; his eyes nor his ears missed anything. “Seeking control of your world, of course,” he replied, his voice just low enough for us to hear. “Herr Vogel seeks to ingratiate himself with you, while the Patriarch believes that he can win through intimidation. Two different means, but ultimately the same objective.”

  “And you, of course, aren’t interested—”

  “Oh, but of course I am.” Goldstein flagged down a passing ’bot, took a glass of wine from its platter. “The difference between me and them…and indeed, everyone else here…is that I have a gift to offer to your world, with no strings attached.” He took a sip from his wine. “Oh, perhaps just one, but I think you’ll find it difficult to reject. As I said, I merely offer alternatives.”

  “And that is…?” Carlos asked.

  “Another time. When we don’t have so much company.” He paused, his eyes shifting to see who was around us, then he went on. “Marcos invited you to pay a visit to the Union. May I suggest that you take him up on this…but when you do, you let me know first, so that I can arrange private transportation.”

  His left hand went into his jacket, came out again with an engraved card. “This is my private number,” he said, handing it to me. “I can be reached anytime, day or night. Please don’t lose it…you can’t possibly underestimate its importance.”

  Another bow, then Goldstein said good night and drifted away, just as Vogel detached himself from the brief conversation he’d just had. By then Carlos had slipped the card into his pocket. We said nothing of this to Dieter, and shortly afterward Carlos requested that we return to our suite.

  I didn’t know quite what to make of the mysterious Morgan Goldstein. Yet somehow, I had a feeling that we’d found a friend. I certainly hoped so. Because I had no doubt that we’d also found an enemy.

  The next morning, we appeared before the United Nations.

  Beneath the cavernous dome of the General Assembly Hall, delegates were seated at oak-top desks arranged in concentric tiers overlooking a circular floor where the U.N. seal had been engraved in blond marble. High above, a ring-shaped array of viewscreens was suspended from the ceiling; although Anglo was the official language, simultaneous translations were offered to the delegates through comps imbedded within their desks. The flags of the member nations hung from the walls, and were also displayed on the front of each desk.

  Carlos, Chris, and I were escorted to an elevated dais facing the Secretary-General’s podium. The hall was packed; every seat had been taken, and even the public gallery was filled to capacity. Floaters hovered about our table, their lenses constantly trained upon us; glancing up, I saw myself on one of the screens, my face enlarged to giant size. Taking a deep breath, I looked down and self-consciously shuffled some papers, trying to appear more calm than I actually was.

  The Secretary-General was Farouk Sadat, a tall, thin Egyptian with slate-grey hair. Dieter had briefly introduced us to him the night before; I’d liked him, even if he was a bit stiff. Once he took his place, he banged his gavel on the podium to bring the session to order. A quick roll call was taken, then Sadat formally introduced us to the General Assembly. It soon became clear that the Secretary-General took unabashed pride in welcoming the delegation from Coyote; he congratulated us not only for undertaking humankind’s first exp
edition to the stars, but also for successfully establishing its first interstellar colony. That made me relax a little; at least he was on our side, or so it seemed.

  After offering further congratulations to the European Alliance for having demonstrated the viability of hyperspace travel, Sadat relinquished the floor to Carlos. Gathering his notes, my husband stood up and walked to the rostrum. Despite my advice to wear the formal attire that had been tailored for him only yesterday, Carlos decided that he wanted the delegates to see us for what we really were. So it was in clothes made of hemp, shagswool, and catskin—the same outfit he wore when he presided over formal meetings of the Colonial Council—that the President of the Coyote Federation addressed the U.N. General Assembly.

  Carlos began by acknowledging the European Alliance for their hospitality, then offered his appreciation to the U.N. for allowing him to address its General Assembly. Then he gave a brief description of the world we’d discovered. Much of this was pretty dry—facts and figures, some historical background—but we’d also brought a datafiche containing images of Coyote. While he spoke, pictures were projected on the overhead screens, and an awed hush fell upon the hall as the delegates received their first look at our home: the vast savannahs of New Florida, the Gillis Range of Midland, and the Black Mountains of Great Dakota, the broad expanse of the Great Equatorial River, Bear rising at sunset above the West Channel. As Carlos went on to describe the progress we’d made in establishing permanent settlements, there were more images: street scenes of Liberty and Shuttlefield, the Garcia Narrows Bridge, tugboats upon the East Channel, the timber mills of Clarksburg, the towns of Leeport, New Boston, and Defiance.

  Thinking back on it now, it may have been unwise to show them all this. Compared to what Earth had become, Coyote must have looked like Eden: forests and mountain valleys, clean air and fresh water, miles upon miles of terrain upon which no one had ever set foot. Paradise, virgin and unspoiled. With every picture they saw, their hunger must have grown; like starving children who’d long gnawed the bones of their world, they were now being shown a proverbial land of milk and honey.

  Yet there would have been no point in pretending otherwise. They would’ve found out for themselves what Coyote was like. And besides, just as much as they wanted what we had, we wanted what they had, too. So while the images were still on the screens, Carlos laid out the basic tenets of our proposal.

  In exchange for formal U.N. recognition of the Coyote Federation as a sovereign entity, and Coyote itself as an independent world, we’d be willing to negotiate trade agreements with member nations of the General Assembly. Spacefaring nations could also sign right-of-passage agreements with both the European Alliance and the Coyote Federation, which would give them access to the starbridges, with all parties involved being signatory to their terms. We would allow those countries to establish their own colonies, but only if they agreed to strict immigration limits and also signed a nonaggression pact prohibiting military forces on the new world; those colonies would also be subject to the terms of the Liberty Compact, which ensured basic human rights to everyone who came to Coyote. After a six-year probation period—two years by the LeMarean calendar—new colonies would be allowed to join the Coyote Federation, and thus have permanent representation on the Colonial Council.

  It was a hard bargain, and we knew it. Yet this was what the executive committee had hammered out during countless meetings that had lasted late into the night. Although we certainly desired to have relations with Earth, we didn’t want a repeat of the Union occupation: invasion by a militant power that sought to impose their social system upon ours, even as it dumped thousands of ill-prepared immigrants on our shores. This time, there would be no Union Guard, no squatter camps, no matriarch with ambitions of empire. We’d fought hard for our freedom; we weren’t about to give it away.

  All the same, it took a lot of courage for Carlos to stand before the nations of the world we’d once known as home and say these things. Yet he never stammered; his hands didn’t shake as he turned the pages of his speech, and his gaze remained calm and unwavering. In the many years I’ve known my husband, after all the things we’ve been through together, I’ve never been more proud of him than I was at that moment. I hadn’t known his father very long before he died, but I did know Captain Lee; Jorge Montero may have been Carlos’s flesh and blood, yet it was then that I realized that my husband’s spirit had come from another man.

  When Carlos finished, murmurs swept through the hall. As customary during U.N. meetings, there was no applause. Carlos returned to his seat; beneath the table, I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. Chris nodded to him, but his expression was stoical. Looking around, I saw aides in whispered conference with ambassadors who peered at their notes. We’d run up the flag; now we’d see who saluted.

  The Secretary-General thanked President Montero for his presentation, then opened the floor for comments. One at a time, delegates took a turn at responding to what Carlos had said. Most were carefully neutral—the ambassador of the Pacific Coalition, for instance, reiterated Sadat’s admiration for the progress we’d made in colonizing the new world, and stated that his country looked forward to negotiations with the Coyote Federation—but others were a little less forthcoming. The Israeli ambassador told us that, while his country was also interested in pursuing a trade agreement, it was primarily interested in immigration; he expressed hope that small, nonspace-faring countries such as his would eventually be allowed to claim unoccupied islands as colonies. The ambassador from India expressed concern that raw materials imported from Coyote might pose unfair competition with the same materials exported from the Near East; he wanted to know how much we intended to ship back to Earth, and whether it would be subject to tariffs. The South African ambassador stated that, while he respected the Coyote Federation’s desire to be recognized as an independent entity, we should take into consideration Article II of the U.N. Space Treaty of 1967, which forbade signatory nations from claiming any planet as sovereign territory; in that regard, in accordance with Article I of the same treaty, Coyote should be considered the rightful inheritance of all humankind.

  Yet it wasn’t until Secretary-General Sadat recognized Patriarch Amado of the Western Hemisphere Union that things got rough.

  “Mr. Secretary General,” Amado began, “while the Western Hemisphere Union respects the opinions of our fellow members, my government questions the validity of the statements made by Mr. Montero. In fact, his assertion that the colonies he represents have a rightful claim to Coyote leads us to believe that he intends to perpetrate a deliberate deception. Indeed, we believe that it is nothing but an outright lie.”

  Low murmurs swept through the room. The Patriarch’s pointed refusal to refer to Carlos as “President Montero” hadn’t been lost on anyone, and his accusation showed that he’d abandoned any pretense at diplomatic niceties. Sadat clasped his hands together beneath his chin; he showed no emotion as he listened intently.

  “First,” Amado said, “the historical record clearly shows that the first starship sent to the 47 Ursae Majoris system was URSS Alabama, and that vessel was under the registry of the United Republic of America when it was launched in 2070. Since the URA was subsequently absorbed by the Western Hemisphere Union in 2096…two hundred and four years before the Alabama arrived at Coyote…this means the Alabama was the rightful property of the WHU long before it reached 47 Ursae Majoris. Second, since no radio transmissions from the Alabama have been received by deep-space telemetry stations, either on Earth or elsewhere in the solar systems, any territorial claims made by its captain and crew aren’t legally admissible under international law.”

  Chris muttered a curse beneath his breath, but Carlos calmly jotted notes on a sheet of paper. “Third,” Amado continued, “between 2256 and 2260, the Union Astronautica dispatched five starships to 47 Ursae Majoris, the first of which arrived less than four years after the Alabama. With five thousand colonists aboard those vessels, the Union has ju
st as much right…and, indeed, even more so…to claim Coyote as the Alabama party, which numbered little more than a hundred.”

  Amado paused; now he glared straight at Carlos. “Furthermore, my government has received reliable information that our peaceful efforts to colonize this new world were met with hostile resistance by the members of the Alabama party, resulting in the deaths of many Union colonists. We’ve also been told that the principal leader of this unlawful insurrection was none other than Mr. Montero himself.”

  This stunned me. How could he have learned this? Carlos’s face went pale; his left hand went below the table, found my own. I grasped it, offering what little comfort that I could.

  “Therefore,” Amado went on, his voice simmering with outrage, “it’s our opinion that the so-called Coyote Federation is little more than a guerilla insurgency, bent upon assuming control of territory that rightfully belongs to the Western Hemisphere Union. The WHU also regards any efforts by the European Alliance to open hyperspace travel between Earth and Coyote to be just as intrusive, and views its sponsorship of an illegal government as nothing less than an intrusion tantamount to an act of war.”

  By now, Carlos was gripping my hand so hard that I was afraid he’d bruise my fingers. Yet he was careful not to show his anger; he stared directly ahead, refusing to let his emotions get the better of him.

  “Thank you, Patriarch Amado,” Sadat said. I thought he was going to allow Carlos a chance to respond, but instead the Secretary-General looked to the other side of the room. “The chair recognizes the ambassador of the European Alliance.”

  Dieter Vogel had also introduced us to Sir Ian Rutledge the night before. He’d failed to make much of an impression upon me: an elderly Englishman, stoop-shouldered and rather frail, like some tired old lord who’d been given a diplomatic position a long time ago and left to rot there. Dieter was seated next to him; he whispered in Sir Ian’s ear, and the old man listened to him for a moment, then nodded slightly.