Coyote Frontier

by Allen Steele

  Attracted by the sound of his voice, Lord Jim prodded Cassidy’s shoulder with his nose. “I know what you’re thinking,” Cassidy went on, reaching back to stroke the stallion’s coarse brown mane. “Just an old injun legend, right? But what it means is that people…mine, yours, everyone else’s…never stay in one place for very long. We run out of room, the sun gets too hot, the waters too high. That, or we fight with each other, or the monsters appear. Whatever the reason, sooner or later, we have to leave.”

  He paused. “Now it’s that time again. Time to build the boats and pack up the animals, and follow Coyote to another world.”

  No one said anything. We’d fallen quiet while Joe told his story; now the meaning of the Navajo myth was beginning to sink in. We’d been so engrossed in the finer points of diplomacy, the paragraphs and subclauses of international treaties and trade agreements, that we’d all but forgotten that greater things were at stake. Humankind, along with its predecessors, had inhabited Earth for millions of years, yet our time was over. The waters were rising and there were monsters among us. We had to leave.

  Carlos cleared his throat. “Maybe we can work something out,” he said softly, taking my hand. “If we can build stables in Liberty so that…”

  The door creaked open just then, and Mike Kennedy reappeared. There was a worried look on his face; without a word, Goldstein excused himself and headed outside. Cassidy waited until the door shut behind him, then he turned back to us. “Glad to hear that, but I kinda doubt anyone there knows much about taking care of horses.” He caught my eye. “No offense intended, ma’am, but—”

  “No, I agree.” I stepped over to Lady Jane’s stall, petted her neck. This time she didn’t shy away from me. “All I know is how to muck out stalls. We’ve got shags…sort of like water buffalo…but we’re going to need someone there who’s got more experience with horses than I do.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “Got a suggestion for someone who might want to bring these guys to Coyote?”

  Cassidy’s expression remained stoical, but a corner of his mouth ticked ever so slightly. “As a matter of fact…”

  The door swung open again; we looked around as Morgan marched back into the shed. There was an expression on his face I hadn’t seen before: anger, like someone who’d just been threatened and wasn’t about to back down. “All right, fun’s over,” he said. “Time for you to get out of here, fast.”

  “What’s going on?” Carlos asked. “Have we done something wrong?”

  “You, no…me, maybe.” Morgan took a deep breath. “One of my people in Atlanta just learned that the government has issued warrants for your arrest. Appears that, even though I’d cleared this side-trip with the WHU embassy in London, the police have been given instructions to take you into custody as soon as you arrive in Atlanta on charges of customs violation.”

  “Customs violation?” I was stunned. “But we were told we had—”

  “Diplomatic immunity, of course. And you’re also official guests of Patriarch Amado.” Morgan shook his head. “Nonetheless, you’re to be detained until further notice.”

  “What?” Carlos was just as shocked as I was. “But they can’t do that! They—”

  “Shut up and listen.” Morgan’s voice was cold. “My contacts got the whole story. The government wants to use customs violations as an excuse to lock the three of you away. Apparently someone high up wasn’t satisfied with the deal you made in London. That, or Marcos set you up for a double cross. Either way, as soon as you arrive in Atlanta—”

  “We’re under arrest.” Carlos’s face was grim. “Let me guess…we’d be held until our government negotiates our release. And that, of course, would mean fine-tuning the trade agreement a little more in their favor.”

  “I don’t know the details, but yeah, that sounds about right.” Frustrated, Morgan pounded a fist against a post. “Damn it, I thought I had this whole thing worked out. They weren’t supposed to—”

  “You say a shuttle can land here?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah, it can, but my cruiser can…” Morgan looked at the satphone Chris had taken from his pocket. “What’s that?”

  Chris didn’t reply; he was already punching in the emergency prefix Dieter had given him. “Mike, tell your people to get word to Atlanta that we’ll be there soon. Tell ’em to say that…I dunno, we’re looking at horses.”

  “Don’t say that!” Morgan’s face went pale. “No one knows about them!”

  “All right, then tell him we’re having lunch. Dinner. Whatever. Just stall for time.” Chris turned away from us; clasping the phone to his face, he murmured something we couldn’t hear.

  “Do it,” Morgan said. Kennedy nodded, then hurried out of the shed. “That should buy us an hour or two. I’ll have the field cleared for a shuttle touchdown.”

  I nodded. It would be close, no doubt about it, but with any luck an EA shuttle would be here before anyone. And I was more confident about making our getaway aboard an Alliance shuttle than Morgan’s aerocruiser; the former could make a quick sprint for space, while the latter could be forced down by military aircraft.

  “Sorry your trip has to end this way,” Morgan said. “Believe me, this wasn’t what I’d planned.”

  Carlos nodded, then he put a hand around my waist. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, giving both of us an unexpected smile. “This isn’t the first time.”

  I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Once again, we were fleeing Earth, just one step ahead of the law.

  Two days later, we were back on Highgate.

  Little more than an hour after Chris made his call, an ESA military shuttle touched down on the landing field at Morgan’s farm. Our rescue was a covert operation; the shuttle was a stealth spacecraft with chameleon outer-plating that allowed it to become virtually invisible, its crew trained for black-ops missions such as this. The pilot didn’t even cut his engines; a couple of soldiers hustled Carlos, Chris, and me aboard, and we’d barely had a chance to buckle our harnesses before the bat-like craft took off again. Once the shuttle reached high orbit, it rendezvoused with a freighter bound for Highgate. The ride back to L1 was twice as long as the one to Earth, and the freighter’s passenger cabin was considerably less comfortable than the one we’d enjoyed aboard the Von Braun, but it was far better than the treatment we would have received in Atlanta.

  Besides, the long ride allowed the EA to concoct an alibi for our abrupt disappearance. While being shown around Morgan Goldstein’s farm, it seemed that I had the misfortune of being bitten by a mosquito. Since none of us had been vaccinated for malaria—a lie; we’d received inoculations before leaving Highgate—and the hospitals in the area had been closed for some time, it seemed only prudent that we return to England at once, so that I could receive proper medical attention. To back up our story, Morgan even sent his aerocruiser back across the Atlantic. It was later announced that the Coyote delegation had decided to leave immediately for Highgate, in order to prevent being placed in quarantine before returning to our world.

  As cover stories went, this one was pretty lame, yet the Union wasn’t about to call our bluff. If they had, the Alliance could have produced their own intelligence reports regarding our planned arrest, and that would have been even more embarrassing. So we made apologies for cutting short our trip, and they expressed sympathy for my condition; no further questions were asked, and no more lies were given.

  As it turned out, though, our sudden departure didn’t hurt our mission. The day after we returned to Highgate, the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of formally recognizing the Coyote Federation. There was a last-minute objection from the Western Hemisphere Union—Patriarch Amado wanted the World Court to take up the issue of the Alabama’s hijacking—but that was overruled by the Secretary-General as a historical event that had little to do with current issues. The Union therefore abstained from the final vote, but otherwise it was unanimous.

  Some people are just sore losers. It didn’t stop us
from opening a bottle of champagne. But we also decided that it would be a long time before the Coyote Federation signed any trade or immigration agreements with the WHU.

  Carlos and I spent our remaining time aboard Highgate in the EA diplomatic suite, engaged in teleconference meetings with representatives from the various countries with whom we’d negotiated tentative agreements. While the Von Braun was being prepped for its trip to 47 Ursae Majoris through Starbridge Earth, thousands of pages of documents were transmitted to us; we went through each one, signed the less binding ones, and put aside the rest for the Colonial Council to ratify. In the meantime, we also received dozens of personal gifts—cases of wine, sculptures and paintings, rare books, clothes and jewelry—that we accepted on behalf of the Federation, then sent away to be packed aboard the Von Braun.

  Dieter Vogel returned to Highgate, with a surprising bit of news: his government had asked him to be the European Alliance ambassador to Coyote. We gladly accepted his latest diplomatic post, and that called for another bottle of champagne to be uncorked: Coyote had its first official envoy from Earth.

  Another surprise came only a few hours later, when Dieter’s aide—soon to be former aide, since he refused to leave Highgate—escorted an old friend to our suite. Anastasia Tereshkova arrived wearing a new uniform, this time with a different patch on her right shoulder; she’d been reassigned as commanding officer of the Francis Drake, pending completion of its shakedown run. After that, her primary mission would be to ferry passengers and cargo between Earth and Coyote. Ana also told us that, although Highgate would be home port for the Drake, she’d been allowed to have a residence on Coyote.

  The only sour note came when Ana told us that she and Gabriel Pacino had decided to end their relationship, both professional and personal. Pacino wanted his own command, and once the Drake’s sister ship was christened, it was likely he’d be commissioned as its captain. But more than that, she’d discovered that her first officer had informed their superiors that Carlos had once been a guerilla known as Rigil Kent; she thought this piece of information was something that her government didn’t need to know about the President of the Coyote Federation. That solved the mystery of how Marcos Amado had learned about Carlos’s role in the revolution. One more thing we’d also have to get used to: espionage as a form of diplomacy.

  Yet that was the least of our concerns. We spent one more night aboard Highgate; Chris accepted an invitation from the Pacific Coalition consulate to attend a zero-g handball game, but Carlos and I declined as graciously as we could. Instead, we unplugged all the phones and screens, then spent the evening making love while moonlight streamed through the windows of our bedroom. For a few hours, no one bothered us. No receptions or trade negotiations, no ambassadors or envoys. Just two people lonely for each other’s company, even though we’d never been apart.

  The next morning, with Dieter Vogel at our side, we boarded the Von Braun and made our departure from Highgate. I didn’t look back at the station as the yacht slipped out of Alpha Dock and fell away from the Moon; I was tired, and all I wanted was to go home. Yet as the starbridge grew close, and the pilot announced the countdown to hyperspace insertion, I craned my neck to peer through the porthole by my seat, searching for one last glimpse of Earth.

  My window faced the wrong direction. All I saw were stars, and the darkness of space. Perhaps it was just as well. I was one of Tieholtsodi’s children, being carried away from the Fifth World to the Sixth.

  Coyote was my stepfather now. This time, I’d never leave.

  Part 6

  QUARTET FOR FOUR SEASONS

  1. WINTER HORSES (BARCHIEL 37, C.Y. 14)

  The approaching starship resembled a storm cloud as it passed over the Great Equatorial River, its smooth grey hull casting a long shadow across the waters. Then the roar of its descent engines reached the crowd; they nervously stepped back from the ropes separating them from the landing field, and watched the enormous vessel as it came closer, gradually increasing in size until it seemed to fill the sky above them.

  When it was little more than five hundred feet above the ground, the ship’s stern swung around, making a graceful ninety-degree turn that oriented its tapered bow toward the river, as recessed hatches along the underside peeled open to allow landing gear to unfold. By now the sound of its engines was so loud that everyone clasped their hands over their ears; awestruck, they watched the giant vessel as it slowly made its descent. A hot blast whipped snow from the grassy field, and in the last moments before touchdown, the starship was lost within a thin white haze. Then the ground quivered beneath their feet as the vessel came to rest, and cheers rose from the crowd when they realized the leviathan had landed.

  Carlos waited until he heard the engines being cut back before he removed his hands from his ears. Although he’d known that the Francis Drake was capable of atmospheric entry, until this moment he’d thought it impossible that a spacecraft this big could be safely brought to the ground. Yet there it was: nearly six hundred feet long, its streamlined hull faintly scorched here and there, like a mountain that had come from the sky.

  “Take a good look,” Dieter Vogel said quietly. “You probably won’t see something like that too often…if ever again.”

  “You don’t think so?” Carlos asked, and Vogel shook his head. “But if they can do it once—”

  “Too risky.” Vogel shoved his gloved hands in the pockets of his parka, stamped his boots on the frozen ground. “And certainly not very efficient. The trick isn’t getting something this big to land. The trick is getting it to take off again. It’ll take almost a week for the fuel converters to extract enough atmospheric hydrogen to fill the port and starboard tanks, and they’ll burn every liter of it just get to back into orbit.”

  “Then why—?”

  “To demonstrate that it can be done.” Then he glanced at Carlos, gave him a wink. “And, just incidentally, to impress your people.”

  Whether or not he was serious, Carlos didn’t know. He didn’t respond, though, but instead turned to gaze across New Brighton’s landing field. When it became apparent that Shuttlefield wouldn’t be large enough to handle the anticipated flow of passengers and freight—the Drake’s maiden flight had proved that, one month ago—the Council decided to grant the European Alliance’s request to establish a new colony, provided that it also serve as a colonial spaceport. Alliance surveyors scouted several possible locations, and finally settled upon the north shore of a small subcontinent across the Great Equatorial River from both Great Dakota and New Florida. Albion had the disadvantage of being on the other side of the equator, but it also enjoyed a couple of advantages; its equatorial location made it a prime spot for a large-scale spaceport, and its proximity to the river made it ideal for keelboats and barges traveling south from the northern colonies.

  There wasn’t much to New Brighton—a dozen or so log cabins, a meeting hall still under construction, a paddock for livestock and a couple of inflatable domes that served as temporary greenhouses until permanent ones could be built—yet Carlos had little doubt that would change soon enough. The presence of the spaceport alone would assure that the colony would grow very quickly. Although the Coyote Federation had imposed strict immigration limits—no more than a thousand new settlers per colony in a twelve-month period—it wouldn’t be long before more ships began to arrive through the starbridge.

  “We’re impressed,” he said, “but this can’t be the only reason why you asked me to fly down here.” Vogel had arrived last month to assume his post as the Alliance ambassador; the EA consulate was located in Liberty, but he’d spent the last two weeks in New Brighton, overseeing preparations for the Drake’s arrival. Carlos glanced at his watch, thought about the gyro pilot waiting nearby. “If you’ve got something to show me…”

  “I think they’re ready to open the hatch.” Vogel smiled. “If you’ll lead the way, please?”

  Carlos sauntered toward the safety barrier. The Proctor keeping the crowd aw
ay from the landing site recognized them immediately; he lifted the rope to allow them through. The engine-blast had melted the snow in a hundred-yard radius around the ship, and their boots stuck to the mud of the flash-thawed ground beneath. Eventually, Carlos mused, this entire area would have to be paved. Perhaps some walkways, too, and maybe even a control tower.

  As they approached the Drake, Carlos saw that a long ramp was being lowered from the cargo hatch on the forward section. Several crew members had disembarked; Ana Tereshkova was among them, and Carlos walked over to her. “Welcome back, Captain,” he said. “Hope you had a good flight.”

  Hearing him, Ana turned around. “Mr. President,” she said, giving him a warm smile. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Thanks, but I’m no longer president. My term expired at the end of last month—”

  “You’re not?” Ana stopped smiling. “And you didn’t run for reelection?”

  “One term’s enough, thank you. Besides, it’s hard to run against your own wife.” Carlos couldn’t help but grin when her mouth dropped open. “Wendy’s in charge now. I gave her my endorsement, of course.”

  “Of course. But I wonder how her opponents must have felt about that.”

  “There were none. She ran unopposed.” Vogel shook his head. “Apparently politics here aren’t as…shall we say, competitive…as they are back home.”

  Carlos decided to let the remark pass. He’d seen enough of Earth-style politics to last a lifetime. “The landing was magnificent,” he said. “Your crew put on a real show.”

  “Thank you, but I doubt this will be a common occurrence. We mainly wanted to make sure that the Drake was capable of making landfall. From now on, it’ll probably remain in orbit while we use shuttles instead.” She glanced at Vogel. “Besides, as Dieter has doubtless told you, we have precious cargo aboard. Direct descent seemed prudent in this instance.”