Coyote Frontier

by Allen Steele

  No answer from the Magellan. Carlos smiled. Ana had correctly figured out the situation. Her crew might be reluctant to open fire upon another EA vessel…but if they fired upon the starbridge, then both ships would be stranded far from Earth. Yet while Drake’s crew would be welcome on Coyote, the same couldn’t be said for the Magellan’s. Pacino knew this. Checkmate.

  Vogel again: “Captain Tereshkova, this is an act of mutiny.”

  “Yes, sir, it is.” A slight pause. “Several members of my crew have had no part in this, and wish to transfer to the Magellan. The rest of us hereby resign our commissions, and hereby request political amnesty from the Coyote Federation.”

  Carlos’s eyes widened. This was a surprise. He’d been counting on Ana’s friendship to pull them through, yet he hadn’t realized how strongly she had come to feel about Coyote. And apparently more than a few of her crew felt the same way.

  “Do you understand now?” Until now, Parson had been quiet. “Do you see what this place does to you?”

  Carlos had no time to answer that. “Ambassador Vogel,” he said, “you’ve seen what we can do. If you attempt to take control of the starbridge, we’ll destroy it. It’s that simple. Order the Magellan to stand down, or we’ll be forced to take drastic measures of our own.”

  “Then your intent is to abrogate the treaty.”

  “Nothing of the kind.” Carlos let out his breath. “We want peaceful relations with Earth. Believe me, we do. But we refuse to let the EA, or anyone else, dictate terms to us at gunpoint. We’ve told you this before, and we’ll tell it to you again…Coyote is our world, and ours alone. Do you understand?”

  Silence. Glancing up at the screen, Carlos could see that Magellan parked only a few kilometers from Drake. Both ships continued to hold position, their weapons still locked upon one another. He could only imagine what was going on back in Liberty.

  A tap on his shoulder. Parson had moved up behind him. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Whatever happens next, I just want to say that.”

  “I’m not doing this for you.” Carlos glanced at Susan, found warmth in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in quite some time. “You get my daughter into something like this again, and we’re going to have…”

  “Gatehouse, this is Magellan.” Pacino’s voice returned. “Ambassador Vogel has advised us to withdraw, pending cease-fire from the Drake. Do you copy?”

  “We copy, Captain.” Carlos paused. “Wendy, what’s the word down there?”

  “Dieter has agreed to take the matter before the council.” Wendy’s voice was relieved. “Magellan is returning to Earth, once…um, uninvolved members of the Drake crew are shuttled over.” Another pause. “It’s over. It’s all over.”

  A knot between his shoulders and his neck suddenly relaxed. “We copy,” he murmured. “Thank you, dear…I mean, Madam President.”

  He closed his eyes, let stale air escape from his lungs. He turned to give Susan a hug, only to find that she’d wrapped her arms around Parson. It was the first time since she’d been a teenager that he’d seen his daughter kiss another man; he didn’t know whether to feel protective, angry, or merely amused…and decided to simply feel relief that Susan had finally found someone.

  I wonder how serious this is, he thought. But there were other things he needed to consider just now. He turned to Jonas. “Get your people up here. I think they’d like to know what’s happened.” Jonas grinned as he released his seat belt and pushed himself toward the access hatch. Then he looked at Manny. “Savant Castro…?”

  “Manny, please.” The Savant solemnly regarded him with one red eye.

  “All right. Manny, then…” He shook his head. “Do you think you could arrange for a ride home?”

  “That shouldn’t be difficult, sir. The skiff is still docked with us, after all. And we do have a qualified pilot aboard.”

  “Oh, right.” With all that had just happened, he’d managed to forget about the Virginia Dare. He shook his head; it had been a very long day. “Thank you…and call me Carlos, please. I hate it when people call me Mr. President.”

  Pushing himself over to a chair near the window, he settled into it. “Y’know what?” he asked no one in particular, gazing out at the distant starbridge. “I could be wrong, but I think we just had another revolution.”

  “They sort of sneak up on you, don’t they.” Still holding on to Susan, Parson turned to him. “And by the way, Mr…I mean, Carlos…while I have your attention, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask of you.”

  He saw the smile on his daughter’s face. “I can imagine what it is,” he replied.

  Part 8

  WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN?

  An exchange of vows, a pair of slender gold bands slipped upon fingers. A formal pronouncement made by the justice of the peace. Finally, an embrace and a kiss. As the wedding guests stood to applaud, the bride and groom turned and, arm in arm, stepped out from beneath the rose-decked trellis, smiling bashfully as they strolled down the red carpet laid upon the grass between rows of folding wooden chairs.

  From the front row, Carlos watched as Susan was led away by Jonathan Parson, and suddenly realized that his strongest emotion was neither happiness nor relief, but rather astonishment. Had it really been only thirteen summers ago that his daughter was born? No, not even that long; today was Muriel 45, the midmonth Raphael of the third month of spring, and Susan’s birthday was Uriel 52, near the end of summer, a little more than four months from now. Where had all the years gone? One minute, she’s a baby in your arms. The next…

  Hearing Wendy snuffle, he looked around to see tears running down her face. “Sorry,” she whispered, wiping her eyes with a linen handkerchief. “I’m being silly. It’s just that…”

  “I know.” Putting an arm around her, he watched Susan pause to accept a hug from one of her friends. “They make a beautiful couple, don’t they?”

  Wendy was about to answer when, from the other side of Sand Creek, there was a volley of gunshots. Members of the Colonial Militia, led by Chris Levin, firing their carbines into the air. Although Susan had been too young to fight in the revolution, nonetheless she was the daughter of a veteran—of the legendary Rigil Kent, in fact—and thus entitled to receive the customary seven-gun marriage salute. Although he’d known it was coming, Carlos flinched anyway; this was a tradition he’d come to despise, no matter how many weddings he’d attended. Too many bad memories.

  The volley barely interrupted the Coyote Wind Ensemble as they performed Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” Carlos reflected again upon how many other people from Susan’s life were here. Quite a few were original colonists. Seated next to Wendy, also wiping away tears, was Kuniko Okada, who’d delivered Susan at birth. There was Dana Monroe, brought in from Leeport by Paul Dwyer, who’d also furnished the shag-drawn wagon that carried bride and groom to the river side. Bernie and Vonda Cayle, Henry Johnson, Lew and Carrie Geary, Sissy Levin, his old friend Barry Dreyfus and his parents Jack and Lisa…all had insisted upon being here, with a few older ones like Henry and Vonda making the effort to hobble down to the river. This was a special day for everyone who’d come here aboard the Alabama; they’d watched Susan grow up, and they had their own memories of her as a child.

  Yet there were others, those who’d been among the subsequent waves of colonists. Benjamin Harlan, standing beneath the trellis, serving as justice of the peace. His mate, Allegro DiSilvio, conducting the ensemble as they wove their way into a reprise of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.” Klon Newall and Fred LaRoux, who’d come in with their families from Midland.

  Carlos glanced over his shoulder, caught a brief smile from Morgan Goldstein, who’d flown in this morning from New Brighton. Indeed, Morgan had paid for the reception; Wendy almost refused, insisting the bride’s family would take care of this. After all, Goldstein had run against her in the last presidential election on a prodevelopment platform that sought to put the brakes on the environmental and endangered-species legislation
that her administration had recently spearheaded, only to discover that most of the colonists sided with the incumbent. He’d lost by several thousand votes, a decisive majority when it came to Coyote’s expanding yet still small population. Carlos persuaded Wendy to accept his offer in the spirit in which it was intended, as a peace-making gesture, and she’d reluctantly accepted.

  Yet, without a doubt, the strangest member of the wedding party was Manuel Castro. Standing beside Jonathan Parson, offering Susan’s ring at the appropriate moment, the irony was lost on no one: the former lieutenant governor of Liberty during the Union occupation, now acting as best man at the wedding of the first child born on Coyote. Yet Jonathan had been adamant; Manny Castro had offered him sanctuary when he was on the run, and now he’d have the Savant stand up for him at his wedding. Many here were visibly uncomfortable by his presence—Dieter Vogel had almost refused to attend, relenting at the last minute if only for diplomatic reasons—but Molly Thompson had taken the occasion to sew a new cloak for Manny, the light brown shagswool she’d selected making him look much less sinister.

  Nearly fifteen years since First Landing Day, by the LeMarean calendar, and now the stepchildren of Coyote were growing up. Carlos reflected upon this as he and Wendy joined the procession following the bride and groom from the altar. It wouldn’t be long before he’d be a grandfather. He didn’t feel that old, yet there was silver in his wife’s hair, and on cold mornings he felt a certain stiffness in his shoulders and knees when he got out of bed. I’m still young, he reminded himself. Hell, Wendy gave me a physical just last month, told me I was…

  “Tell me this isn’t happening.” Marie came up beside him to squeeze his arm and whisper in his ear. “Your baby’s too young for this.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Carlos stopped to give his sister a hug, noting that her eyes were red-rimmed as well. “Last time I checked, she was…”

  “Thirty-six, by Earth reckoning.” Wendy had stopped crying. “Back there, she’d be an old maid. Here…”

  “Call it prolonged adolescence.” It wasn’t anything no one hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it was the diet or the fresh air, or maybe it was the psychological impact of longer seasons, yet the average life span of a Coyote inhabitant was much longer than someone on Earth. Even without the aid of gene therapy, the most elderly colonists were in relatively good health. And the young…“Don’t question it. How was the trip over?”

  “Not bad. Dana put us up last night at her inn.” Marie nodded toward Rain; she was with her Uncle Garth, chatting with Sissy Levin. She hesitated, then added, “I dropped in on Hawk. He’s doing better.”

  “Hmm…yeah, I think so, too.” This was something the family still didn’t care to talk about. Following the incident at the starbridge, Hawk had been handed over to the magistrates to stand trial for his father’s murder. The Liberty Compact didn’t have capital punishment, yet he might have remained in the Liberty stockade for the rest of his life if Wendy hadn’t interceded on his behalf. As it was, he was committed to a rehab farm outside Leeport for the next three years, with parole possible if he successfully went through psychiatric treatment.

  The discovery that Hawk was responsible for Lars’s death had been rough on Marie and her family, yet the aftermath of the starbridge affair had hurt Carlos and Wendy as well. The magistrates had sentenced Susan and Jon to six months in the stockade, with the last two months commuted to community service. Their punishment did little to assuage the anger of many colonists, who thought that they’d put the lives of the Gatehouse crew at risk for what was essentially a protest action; some claimed that they would have received stiffer sentences if Susan hadn’t been the president’s daughter. At Carlos’s insistence, the wedding was delayed until late spring; by then, the two of them had served their time, and the incident had faded from memory.

  “C’mon. The reception line’s forming up.” Wendy tugged at his arm. “You don’t want to miss that, do you?”

  Carlos glanced at the tent set up nearby. Rows of linen-covered tables, with fresh-cut wildflowers and bottles of waterfruit wine. On the buffet line, roast pork and red potatoes, steamed greens and goat’s cheese, with a wedding cake and casks of sourgrass ale awaiting the party to follow the reception dinner. Even a box of hand-rolled Minnesota cigars, imported from Earth, for those who cared to indulge in such decadence. True to his word, Morgan Goldstein had spared no expense.

  “Sure. Let’s go.” It was worth shaking a few dozen hands. And besides, his daughter was waiting for him. Radiant in her wedding dress, the afternoon sun casting a halo around her veil, she gazed at her father with a certain shyness. A little girl who’d finally grown up, but nonetheless hadn’t outgrown her father.

  So he went over to kiss his daughter on the cheek, and shake hands with his new son-in-law, and take his place in line to receive the congratulations and best-wishes of the wedding guests. Never once did he glance up at the sky, nor did he suspect that, very soon, something would come from it that would change everything.

  The long afternoon wore on. The dinner was splendid, the atmosphere relaxed and informal. Carlos had just danced with his daughter and was waiting for her and Jon to cut the cake, when Tomas Conesco appeared. The moment Carlos spotted him, he knew there was trouble.

  Tom had received a wedding invitation, of course, but he’d begged off. The Budget Committee was scheduled to meet tomorrow morning to discuss the next quarter, and as Wendy’s chief of staff he felt it was more important that he work through the weekend in order to make sure that the executive summary didn’t contain any errors. So when Carlos saw Tom standing nervously on the other side of the tent, searching the reception for Wendy, he realized that something more urgent than a glitch in the spreadsheets had brought him here.

  Wendy noticed him, too. Seated near Carlos at the head of the table, she interrupted her conversation with Ana Tereshkova to raise a hand. Seeing her, Tom moved through the crowd; he did so without raising much attention, although a few guests looked up when someone not wearing a suit appeared in their midst. Making his way to the president’s side, he bent down and whispered in her ear.

  Carlos tried to catch what Tom was saying, but the background noise drowned him out. Wendy listened intently; she said nothing, and kept her expression carefully neutral, yet from the look in her eyes Carlos could tell she was surprised. She whispered something to Tom and sent him off, then she leaned across the table to Carlos.

  “Something’s come up,” she murmured. “I’ve got to go.” She stood up, then hesitated and looked at Ana. “Would you come with me, please?”

  “Of course, Madam President.” Uncrossing her legs beneath her crinoline skirt, Ana rose as well. Since the events of last autumn, she’d become commodore of the newly formed Coyote Federation Navy. It wasn’t much of a fleet, to be sure: the CFSS Robert E. Lee—formerly the EASS Drake—along with two shuttles and a skiff, yet they were what the colonies had purchased from the European Alliance in exchange for renegotiated passage rights through the starbridge. And although Admiral Tereshkova was now a family friend, it was an indication that something important had occurred when she addressed Wendy by her honorific.

  Carlos was pleasantly inebriated—three glasses of wine and a fine cigar had put him in a mellow state of mind—but sobriety quickly returned. “I’m coming with you,” he said, pushing back his chair. Wendy started to object, and he shook his head. “Don’t argue. Not unless you want to cause a scene.”

  That shut her up, however reluctantly. “Give Susan and Jon my apologies,” Wendy muttered. “Tell her…I dunno, just tell her something…then come with us. We’re heading back to GH.”

  So it was left to Carlos to saunter over to the head table and make excuses to the bride and groom. Although Susan was mystified by her parents’ sudden departure, she’d had a few glasses of waterfruit wine herself, and thus was happy beyond the point of caring. Jon was curious, and started to ask questions, yet a stare from his new father-in-law r
eminded him of his place; he remained in his seat, and poured another drink for Jonas Whittaker. Few people took notice when Carlos slipped away from the reception, and joined Wendy, Ana, and Tom on the dirt road leading from Sand Creek into town.

  “All right,” he said, “someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “First, Mr. President,” Tomas said, “let me apologize for…”

  “Never mind.” Wendy pulled up the hem of her skirt to keep it out of the dirt. “Just tell him what you heard.” She glanced back at her husband. “You’re gonna love this.”

  “About a half hour ago,” Tomas continued, “a ship came through the starbridge. An Alliance shuttle…”

  “I didn’t know one was scheduled.” Carlos sidestepped a clingberry bush. According to the renegotiated agreement, all incoming Alliance starships were supposed to be cleared in advance with the customs department.

  “There wasn’t.” Tomas’s voice rose. “When the bridge was activated from the other side, our people on the Gatehouse didn’t know what was going on. No prior notification. No data sent. It just…it just happened, that’s all.”

  “But you said it was an Alliance shuttle.” Carlos was confused. “If it was from—”

  “That’s the point,” Wendy said. “It’s an Alliance shuttle, but it didn’t come from Earth.”

  Carlos stopped. “What…?”

  “Not from Earth,” Wendy repeated, halting to look at him. “Our Gatehouse sent a hyperspace message to Starbridge Earth. They confirmed…nothing had been sent through from their end.”

  “We even linked our comps, to confirm the information.” Tomas stopped as well. “The Alliance denies any involvement, and the records prove it. Their starbridge hasn’t opened since the Magellan went through three weeks ago.”

  “Then who…?”

  “The ship identified itself as the EAS Maria Celeste.” Wendy’s voice was flat, yet there was a note of incredulity. She looked at Tereshkova. “Tell him.”