Coyote Frontier

by Allen Steele

  Morgan paused by the bar to pour some more scotch. “The starbridge was still being tested when Patriarchs from the Union Astronautica made high-level contact with their counterparts in the European Space Agency. Their lunar radio telescope at Mare Muscoviense had picked up a very strong radio signal from outside the solar system…only two light-years from Earth, in fact, about halfway to Proxima Centauri. Not a message, but simply a regular, repeating signal, almost like a beacon. Since it came from interstellar space relatively close to Earth, it didn’t appear to be a pulsar. The EA repositioned their own deep-space radio telescopes in the same direction, and came to the same conclusion—”

  “A starship.” Carlos said this flatly. “Not one of ours.”

  “Maybe.” Morgan shrugged as he walked back toward us. “Maybe not. Further observations didn’t detect anything that looked like engine exhaust, yet mass spectrometers revealed a large object containing traces of carbons, dioxides, various heavy metals. Whatever it was, it appeared to be bigger than a ship, but at the same time it was too small to be defined by planet-finders. But if it wasn’t a vessel or a planet…”

  He sat down again. “Well, of course, a mystery like this just has to be investigated. But the Union Astronautica didn’t have anymore starships left in its fleet…in fact, they’d virtually bankrupted themselves building those five ships they’d already sent to Coyote…and they knew that the EA was building its first manned starship, the Galileo, and was preparing to use it to give KX-1 its first operational test. So, in a rare instance of détente, the WHU and the EA agreed to engage in a joint mission. Launch the Galileo through the starbridge, then send it out to intercept Spindrift.”

  “Spindrift?”

  “That’s what the object was code-named.” Morgan absently swirled the ice around his glass. “Of course, what the public was told was that the Galileo was engaged in a scientific mission to explore Kuiper Belt plantessimals.” A lopsided smile. “Not that many people cared. By then, things were going seriously downhill here on Earth, so most folks thought…well, it just wasn’t worth thinking about.”

  He sighed as he stretched out his legs once again. “So, few people noticed or even cared when we lost contact with the Galileo. It went through the starbridge on this side, came out the starbridge on the other end, transmitted back some images of the Belt. And that was it…that was the last we heard of the Galileo. The public was told that it had suffered some sort of catastrophic failure, perhaps a collision with an asteroid, and that’s what they believed.”

  “But you don’t,” Carlos said.

  “From what I’ve heard, once the Galileo concluded its survey, its crew went into biostasis for the intercept mission to Spindrift. The onboard AI sent back a report indicating that all systems were nominal. After that…” Morgan shook his head. “Nothing. No one knows whether it even reached Spindrift. By then, though, construction of the Columbus had been completed. Its command crew was briefed about the loss of the Galileo, but they were instructed not to reveal anything of this to anyone on Coyote.” He looked at Carlos. “Captain Tereshkova must think highly of you, if she told you as much as she did.”

  “We’ve become friends.” Carlos gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, dear. Ana let me know a little, but she made me promise—”

  “Sure.” I was still sore at him, yet there’s a difference between pillow talk and state secrets. I was married to a chief of state; I was used to the idea that, every now and then, there were matters that I really had no business knowing about. Yet there was more to the disappearance of the Galileo than what Morgan had just told us.

  Almost everyone on Coyote knew the story of Leslie Gillis: the chief communications officer aboard the Alabama, prematurely revived from biostasis only three months after the ship had left Earth. Very few people knew the reason why—that it hadn’t been an accident, as everyone believed, but because his cell had been sabotaged by my own father—but what had happened afterward had become legend. Gillis had remained alive aboard the Alabama for the next thirty-two years, alone and without any company, writing The Chronicles of Prince Rupurt as his sole escape from his dreary existence. Those books had become required reading for every child on Coyote. Indeed, Carlos had read them to Susan when she was a little girl.

  What was less known about those stories, though, was their source of inspiration. When Captain Lee had read the ledgers in which Gillis had handwritten his tales, he discovered a brief description of a mysterious light Gillis had spotted from the ship’s wardroom window: a distant light that wasn’t a star, passing the Alabama like a ship in the night without responding to any radio messages the communications officer had transmitted.

  Leslie Gillis was convinced that he’d seen another starship. Some believed that it may have only been a hallucination. No one knew for sure. But now…

  “Something to consider, isn’t it?” Morgan glanced at his watch again, then yawned and stood up. “Well, we have a long flight ahead of us, and it’s time for my siesta. See you all when we arrive.”

  With that, he went aft to his private stateroom, closing the door behind him. The steward offered me another drink, but I declined. Instead, I gazed out the window at the blue waters of the ocean, wondering if there was a connection between these two mysteries.

  And realizing that, if there was, the consequences could be deadly.

  Morgan Goldstein’s estate was located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, in a remote valley northeast of Stockbridge. As the aerocruiser shed altitude, I peered out the window to see low mountains covered by forest, with small ponds and farm fields scattered among the hills. At first, it seemed as if this was one small part of the world that hadn’t been affected by climate change, yet as we came closer, I saw vast blackened areas where fires had rampaged through the woodlands, and dry beds where there had once been rivers.

  Here and there, too, were refugee camps: great settlements of tents and shacks, where those who’d been displaced from their homes were trying to make a last stand. The decadeslong heat wave that scorched the South had destroyed agriculture and ruined the watershed, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to cooler regions. They’d made the right decision—for a time, the northern regions had relatively pleasant weather, with shorter winters and longer summers—but even that eventually changed, for when the meltdown of the Antarctic and Greenland ice packs reversed the Atlantic Current, the wind patterns of the Northern Hemisphere had reversed as well. Now New England, too, was rapidly becoming a hot zone; it wouldn’t be long before its mountain forests died, leaving behind only barren highlands and mosquito-infested swamps.

  But until then, Morgan Goldstein had his own private retreat nestled within the Berkshires. Once the aerocruiser touched down on a paved airstrip at the far end of the estate and Kennedy opened the hatch, Morgan led us down the stairs. For a morning in mid-November, the air was warm and humid; the driver of the electric cart that awaited us wore shorts and a T-shirt, and he regarded us with faint amusement as we pulled off the sweaters we’d been wearing when we left London. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, and I was sweltering; if I hadn’t known better, I could have sworn we’d just landed in Jamaica.

  Leaving Kennedy behind to bring our luggage from the plane, we climbed aboard the cart and headed down a gravel road leading away from the airstrip. Morgan took a moment to gaze at a datapad the driver handed him; he grunted quietly, either satisfied or dissatisfied with what he read, then he folded the pad and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

  Morgan had done well with his little getaway. Three hundred acres of crops growing beneath elevated irrigation pipes, the water drawn from cisterns and artesian wells. Two wind turbines, along with a solar farm; all the electricity he needed came from his own energy sources. A large split-level hacienda, constructed of bird’s-eye maple and granite fieldstone, with separate quarters for guests and a swimming pool where they could cool off. And a ten-foot chain-link fence around the entire area, patrolled round-the-c
lock by armed security guards; apparently Morgan was just as serious about maintaining his privacy as he was about self-sustenance.

  Yet it wasn’t until we approached the long pinewood shed that lay near the main house that he stopped showing off his wealth. “Here’s where you’ll see your gift,” he said, then he looked at the driver. “Hit the horn, will you? I want Joe to know we’re coming.”

  I noticed a large paddock adjacent to the shed. It was vacant, but hay bales were stacked nearby, and water troughs had been built within the wooden fence. The shed door opened as the cart came to a halt, and a tall, muscular man wearing bib overalls came out. A native American, his skin was red as copper, his eyes as dark as his long black hair.

  “Mr. Goldstein,” he said as we got out of the cart. “Good to have you back.”

  “Good to see you, too, Joe.” Morgan offered his hand, which the man shook without hesitation; I’d become so used to bows that this simple gesture came as a surprise. Morgan turned to us. “Allow me to introduce you…Carlos Montero, the President of the Coyote Federation, his wife, Wendy Gunther, and their aide, Chris Levin. My friends, Joseph Walking Star Cassidy.”

  Cassidy nodded, then without another word he sauntered over to us. Carlos offered his hand, but for a moment Cassidy didn’t accept it. Instead, he simply stared at my husband, a long and unblinking gaze as if he was searching for something in Carlos’s eyes. Carlos didn’t say anything; he stared back at him. For nearly a minute, neither man moved or said anything.

  “Yeah, I knew it,” Cassidy said at last, not looking away from my husband. “You’re the eagle. You’ve got his soul.” He clasped Carlos’s hand in both of his own, gave it a hard squeeze; Carlos winced a little, but tried not to show it. “You chose well,” Joe said to Morgan as he released Carlos, then he turned to the rest of us. “C’mon, let’s go inside. Got something to show you.”

  Carlos glanced at me, but said nothing as he followed Cassidy to the door. Chris followed him, but I hung back a step to touch Morgan’s arm. “Mind telling me what that was all about?” I whispered.

  “Sorry,” he murmured. “Perhaps I should have warned you. Joe’s a Navajo. A shaman, in fact. He has…well, a certain way of doing things.”

  The shed’s interior was cool and dark, filled with the rank scent of hay, manure, and animal sweat. My eyes were still adjusting to the gloom when Joe flipped a switch on the wall; lights along the ceiling came to life, and now I saw dozens of stalls, arranged in two long rows on either side of a sawdust-covered dirt floor. Bridles and reins hung from support posts, and well-worn saddles were slung across low beams just above our heads.

  A loud snort from the stall next to me; I looked around to see a chestnut mare regarding me with solemn brown eyes. Just as startled as I was, she hastily backed away, tossing her mane as her hooves shuffled against the sawdust. It had been many years since the last time I’d seen a horse, but old instincts came back to me. “Hey, easy, easy,” I said quietly. “It’s okay, girl. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

  The mare eyed me for a few seconds, probably trying to decide whether to trust a stranger. “Here,” Cassidy said, stepping forward to give me a piece of dried apricot he’d taken from his pocket. “She’ll like this. You feed her by—”

  “I know. Thanks.” Spreading my palm open, I placed the apricot slice in the center of my hand, then reached over the wooden gate. “C’mon, girl…I want to be friends.” The horse gazed at me for another few seconds, then reluctantly ventured closer, tempted by the treat. Her coarse lips gently came down upon my hand, then she nibbled at the fruit, and allowed me to stroke the small white star on her nose.

  “That’s Lady Jane.” Cassidy reached past me to give her a scratch between the ears. “She’s sometimes skittish, but I guess she likes you.” He looked at me. “You’ve been around horses before.”

  “A little.” When I was a teenager, after my father had sent me off to a government youth hostel, I’d spent time cleaning out the stables at Camp Schaefly. One of the counselors had even given me a few riding lessons, but that ended when he’d tried to take advantage of what I’d first thought was kindness. “She’s a sweetheart…Tennessee walker, right?”

  “Uh-huh. So’s Lord Jim, her mate.” The equerry nodded toward the stallion in the next stall. “They’re a matched pair…get one, take the other for free.”

  “In fact, they’re all yours,” Morgan said quietly. “Every single one.”

  “What?” I stared at him. “What are you…are you serious?”

  “Very much so.” Morgan strolled down the aisle, passing stalls occupied by horses that either watched us with equine curiosity or placidly munched at hay. “I told you I had a gift for your world. This is it. Quarter horses, Kentucky thoroughbreds, Percherons, Appaloosas, Arabians, Morgans, Shetlands, even a couple of donkeys…a little bit of everything, forty-eight in all. Some colts and fillies, of course, but all are good breeding stock. My most prized possessions. And yes, you heard me right…they’re yours.”

  “And you want to…?” Carlos’s face showed astonished disbelief. “I don’t understand…you say you just want to…?”

  “Give them to you. That’s what I said.” Morgan reached into a stall to gently stroke the neck of a dappled Appaloosa pony. “They’re my most prized possession, so believe me when I tell you this isn’t a casual gift. You’re taking something very precious to me.”

  “I…I don’t…”

  “Whatever you’re going to say next, please do not let it be ‘no.’” Morgan rested against the gate. “Let me explain. So far as I know, this is the last known breeding stock known to exist. Most of their kind are virtually extinct, save for DNA samples. Starvation, heat stroke, disease…many have even been slaughtered for food. I’ve spent much of my fortune locating the survivors, bringing them here, keeping them alive.”

  He stopped. “For all intents and purposes, they’re the last. In fact, you could say the same for Joe himself. It took almost as much effort to locate him as it did to find Billy here.” He fondly patted the nose of the pony who nuzzled his shoulder in search of attention. “But they can’t stay here much longer. You’ve seen how bad things have become, and I have no doubt that they’ll get worse. On Coyote, they’d have a fighting chance. Maybe they can do what they’re supposed to do, instead of spending the rest of their lives cooped up in this shed.”

  “But how are we supposed to get them to Coyote?” Chris stared at the dozens of horses standing within the stalls around us. “I mean, c’mon…”

  “You’ve got the Alliance on your side, and you’ve negotiated an agreement with the Union. That’ll do for a start.” Morgan nodded in the direction of the landing field. “Shuttles can land there, and my vet tells me that if the horses are sedated and well-braced for the ride to orbit, we can load them aboard the Drake. It’s a risk, certainly, and we may well lose a few in transit, but…”

  “I don’t know.” Carlos rubbed at the back of his head. “I mean, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, I just don’t know if horses would be able to adapt to—”

  “Of course they can.” Cassidy walked forward, his hands in his back pockets. “I’ve seen the pictures of your planet. Grasslands, mountains, plains…everything they’ve lost here, you’ve got there. Adaptation has never been a problem for horses. In the Sixth World, they’d survive very well.”

  “Come again?” I asked. “The Sixth World?”

  “There’s a story among my people, about how we came to be here…this place, the Fifth World.” Cassidy leaned against Lord Jim’s stall. “You see, First Man and First Woman weren’t born here, but in the First World, which they shared with Coyote…the trickster, the one you named your planet after. But that place was too small for them, and there was nothing but darkness, so they migrated to the Second World, where they found the Sun and the Moon…”

  “That’s all very interesting, Joe,” Morgan said, “but I don’t see how—”

  “Bear with
me, please.” Cassidy held up a hand. “But then Sun tried to rape First Woman, so they had to move again. This time, Coyote took First Man and First Woman to the Third World, which was larger than the last two worlds, and there First Man and First Woman found a place of mountains and cool lakes. There were more humans there, so they had many children with them, and it seemed as if they’d be happy. But it turned out that the Third World was ruled by Tieholtsodi, the water monster. One day, Coyote happened to find his children, and he liked them so much that he wrapped them in his blanket and stole them away. When he discovered that his children were missing, Tieholtsodi became so angry that he flooded the Third World, and so the People were forced to leave again.”

  Cassidy scuffed at the packed dirt floor with the toe of his boot. “They built boats of reeds, and loaded all their children and animals aboard, and when the waters rose they were lifted into the sky, where they found the Fourth World. This, too, was a green and prosperous land, and again it seemed as if the People would be happy. But then men and women began to argue over who was in charge…who was responsible for planting crops, who was responsible for hunting, and so forth…and they got so carried away with their quarrels that nothing got done. The crops failed and the animals began to die, and soon the Fourth World, too, became uninhabitable.

  “So once again, Coyote had them build reed boats, and once they did, he led them to another place, and that was here…the Fifth World. But by then Tieholtsodi had discovered where the People had fled and came after them, and when he found the People he told them that he’d destroy their world again unless his children were freed. So the People opened their packs and showed Tieholtsodi everything that they’d carried with them, until finally only Coyote was left. He unrolled his blanket and revealed the monster’s children. Tieholtsodi took his children back and left us alone, and that’s how we came to live in the Fifth World.”