by Allen Steele
“Oh, please…” Wendy sighed, opened her eyes again. “Susan, I love you very much, but you’re far too protective. Jorge is a very capable young man, and you know it. He doesn’t need you shielding him.” Again, the knowing smile. “There’s a lot of your father in him, even if you can’t see that for yourself.”
Susan opened her mouth as if to protest, then closed it again. Wendy had her there, and she knew it. The Monteros were very proud of their family tradition: three generations of leaders and explorers, going all the way back to the earliest years of the colonies. Susan herself was the first child born on Coyote, and before motherhood had made her overly cautious, she’d been the first naturalist to study chirreep tribes in the wild. Claiming that her own son wasn’t ready to undertake a hazardous assignment would be a betrayal of blood heritage, and she knew better than to say that in her mother’s presence.
“She’s right.” Perhaps I was being opportunistic, but I needed to have Wendy on my side. “Jorge is ready for this. That’s why I’ve also asked him to be expedition leader.”
Susan stared at me, not quite believing what I’d just said. Before she could speak, though, Wendy raised her hand again. “I think…I know you’ve got faith in him. So do I. But I’m just curious why you’re not doing this yourself. After all, you were born and raised on Earth. He’s never left Coyote.”
I let out my breath. Here came the hard part, the real reason why I’d commandeered a gyro in Liberty and flown all the way out there. “Because of something else we learned from Captain Vargas…something I have to take care of here at home. We know who built the bomb that destroyed the Lee.”
No one spoke for a second or two. Susan regarded me with disbelief, while Tomas’s mouth fell open. The chief rose from the couch, moved closer.
Wendy sat up a little straighter. “We already know who was responsible. That priest”—she sought to remember his name—“Cosenza. You’re telling me…?”
“Yes, ma’am. Another person was involved. The chaaz’maha…Hawk, I mean…said so himself, according to Vargas.” I paused. “Or at least that’s what Hawk told him after he was rescued.”
“And how would Hawk know this?”
“He got it from Cosenza’s mind. Apparently he had some close contact with him just before…”
The chief pointedly cleared his throat, interrupting me. “I know about David Laird. His name was in proctor files for a while…a suspected terrorist who had migrated to Coyote about a year earlier. Apparently he once belonged to the Living Earth movement. Hawk helped nail him at the spaceport, back when he was working there as a customs agent. But the magistrates didn’t have enough evidence to convict him on anything other than a weapons-smuggling charge, and since they couldn’t deport him because of the unrest back on Earth…” He shrugged. “Long story. At any rate, he was put on probation, and once he served his time, the proctors had no choice but to let him go.”
“That’s it?” I couldn’t help but be astonished by this admission. “You had a possible terrorist, and you let him loose?”
The chief glared at me. “Do you have any idea how many suspected criminals were coming here during the immigration crisis? If we’d tried to lock ’em all up, we would’ve had to build a prison the size of Midland.” As he spoke, he wandered over to the windows. “Laird didn’t slip away overnight. He remained in New Brighton for a while after the bombing. That’s how I know about him.”
“You were involved in the official investigation team, weren’t you?” Susan asked. “Was Laird someone you checked out?”
“Yes, I was…and yes, Laird was a suspect, at least for a little while.” Hands clasped behind his back, the chief studied the bridge far below. “We’d heard that Cosenza had been seen talking to someone in a cafe a few hours before he boarded the Lee, and that this person had apparently brought him a suitcase. Since there was nothing in Cosenza’s background that indicated that he had any previous demolitions experience, and Laird was thought to be connected to the bombing of the New Guinea space elevator, naturally he was someone we wanted to interview. But Laird had an alibi. He was wearing a parole bracelet that should have interfered with any attempt at violence…Hawk wore one like it, too, for a while…and since our eyewitness couldn’t be positive whom he’d seen in the cafe, we were unable to connect him to Cosenza. Or at least not enough to convince the magistrates to indict him on conspiracy charges.”
“So where is he now?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know.” The chief looked over his shoulder at me. “Do you?”
I shook my head. “I put out a call to the New Brighton proctor’s office, but they told me that he left Albion many years ago and hasn’t been seen there since.”
“Which means he could be anywhere.” The chief folded his arms together, turned his back to the window. “If he is who we think he is…”
“I’d say that it’s pretty certain that he built the bomb,” I added. “Vargas didn’t just pick his name out of a hat. He told us that he’d heard Hawk say that Laird was the person responsible. In fact, he let us know this on his own accord…we didn’t have to ask him.”
“Then he’s probably gone as far away as he can get.” The chief sighed, shook his head. “Laird was probably afraid that someone would eventually put two and two together, so he disappeared as soon as he thought he was no longer under the microscope. In any case, he’s had a nice, long head start. Good luck catching up with him…if that’s what you mean to do.”
And that was the crux of the matter. I turned to Wendy. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Cosenza was the person who killed your husband, along with everyone else…almost everyone else…who was on the Lee, but Laird was the man who built the bomb. Still, it’s been over six years…”
“Are you asking if we should go after him?” When Wendy looked at me again, her eyes had gone cold. She might have been an old lady, but in that instant, I saw the woman who’d once fought alongside her late husband in the Revolution.
“No, ma’am.” Again, I found myself wishing that this conversation was between only the two of us, with no one else in the room. That couldn’t be helped, though, so I went on. “That’s not the question. I’m going to find him, even if I have to do so by myself. In fact, that’s probably what I’ll have to do. The Corps can’t get involved in this…we’re under the auspices of the Militia, but law enforcement isn’t part of our charter. So I’m going to have to take a sabbatical from the Corps if I’m going to track him down.”
“The proctors…” Susan began.
“They won’t be able to help, either.” Chief Levin shook his head again. “Regardless of what Vargas may have told you, I know that the magistrates won’t accept that as anything but hearsay. And without an arrest warrant from the maggies, the proctors can’t touch him.”
“All the same, I want Laird.” I looked Wendy straight in the eye. “I also lost someone aboard the Lee. Do you remember?” Gazing back at me, she slowly nodded: yes, she remembered Lynn Hu, although she’d not known her as well as I did. “So here’s my question, ma’am…if I find him, what do you think I should do with him?”
Again, the room went quiet. Everyone knew what I was saying, even if I didn’t come right out and say it. The law couldn’t touch David Laird; from there on, any actions I might take would be my own, without any legal authority. Yet if I was going to be an avenger, I wanted to know whether I had Wendy’s blessings.
For a long time, she said nothing. Then she closed her eyes and slowly let out her breath. “I think…I think you should do whatever you believe is best,” she said, in what was little more than a whisper.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I understand.”
Wendy nodded, then opened her eyes again and looked up at Tomas. “I’m very tired, and I think it’s time for my medicine. Would you help me, please?”
Tomas quietly moved behind her to grasp the handles of her wheelchair. Before he took her away, though, Wendy reached out to clasp m
y hand. Her fingers were fragile, yet her grip was surprisingly firm.
“Thank you for coming to see me, Sawyer,” she said. “When the time comes, I know you’ll do the right thing…for both Carlos and Lynn.”
I nodded. There was no need for me to say anything, because nothing more needed to be said. We understood each other perfectly. Tomas wheeled her away, leaving me with a question that had been answered and a task to be performed.
Susan followed Tomas and her mother from the living room. She didn’t bother to say farewell, and judging from the look on her face, it was all too clear that she was relieved to see me go. Truth be told, I was ready to leave. A little more than an hour had passed since my arrival, and my pilot was probably getting cold. Besides, I had a lot to do back in Liberty.
I was halfway to the vestibule when Chris Levin stopped me. “Could I have a word with you?”
“Sure, Chief. What’s on your mind?”
A wary glance toward the back of the house. “Perhaps we ought to talk outside,” he said, keeping his voice low. “This should be between the two of us.”
I nodded, and he followed me to the vestibule, where I took off the moccasins Tomas had loaned me and retrieved my boots and parka from the closet. Once the chief put on his coat, we stepped outside. The sun was a little higher in the sky, spreading the false warmth of a winter’s day across the divide; the wind had died down a bit, and it was easy to pretend that springtime was just around the corner rather than three months away.
As we walked across the veranda, I waited for the chief to say what was on his mind, but he didn’t speak until we had trod down the steps and were on the path leading back to the gyro. Another glance over his shoulder, as if to make sure that we weren’t being overheard, then he began.
“I think I can help you. In fact…and I know this is abrupt…I’d like to come along.”
It was abrupt, so much that I halted in my tracks. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Chief, but…”
“Stop calling me that.” A fleeting smile. “I know it’s something you’re accustomed to, but I haven’t been chief proctor in quite a while. Besides, it’d probably be better if you don’t. So just call me Chris, all right?”
“All right, Chris.” I hesitated, then went on. “Look, I could use any assistance you can give me, but this is something I’d rather do on my own. And it’ll be better if no one else gets mixed up in this.”
I turned to continue walking down the ridgeline, but Chris remained at my side. “I understand that. But if you’re going to find Laird, you’re going to need more than a little help. In fact, you’re going to need a lot of help.”
“I don’t see how you can…”
“Just hear me out, all right?” He laid a hand across my forearm, gently stopping me again. Reluctantly, I paused to listen to him. “I may not be chief proctor anymore, but I still have a lot of contacts in the law-enforcement community. There isn’t a proctor in the provinces I haven’t talked to at one time or another, and most of them owe me favors. So I can lay my hands on info that…well, with all due respect, you’re just not going to get.”
I was skeptical of his claim and didn’t try to hide it. “Chief…sorry, Chris…I have a hard time buying that. As head of the Corps of Exploration…”
“You’ve got pull, sure…but you said yourself that the Corps isn’t in the business of tracking down criminals. Proctors have resources that you won’t have, particularly not if you intend to do this as a private citizen.”
“And you would, even though you’re retired?”
He nodded. “It would mean calling in a few debts. But you’re better off having me along than trying to go at this alone.”
He had me there, yet I was still unconvinced. “It’s not going to be easy. In fact, I imagine this could take some time. No telling how far Laird might have gone in six years, or where he’s holed up. So it’s probably going to be a hard road to wherever he…”
“If you’re trying to say that I’m too old for this sort of thing…well, you’re wrong.” He glanced back at the house again. “Wendy and I are about the same age, but my health is a lot better than hers. I’m not going to try to claim that I could pass Corps basic training, but I’ve done my best to stay in condition. I can still run five miles, and every morning I work out by chopping firewood. My doctor tells me I’ve got the body of a fifty-year-old…which makes me a little younger than you, all things considered.”
He was exaggerating, of course, but I couldn’t deny that Chris was in pretty good shape for an old guy. He would’ve had to do so in order to stay on the job for as long as he had. So that was another argument I was bound to lose, short of challenging him to arm-wrestle me…and somehow, I had the feeling that he’d probably pin me in ten seconds.
“Why would you want to do this?” I glanced over at the gyro. The pilot had been keeping warm by returning to the cockpit; now that he saw me coming, he’d climbed out again, and was impatiently stamping his boots against the packed snow. “I’ve got my reasons to go at it alone. I don’t see how you have anything at stake.”
“You lost someone on the Lee, sure…but so did I.” Chris hesitated. “Look, Carlos Montero was my best friend. In fact, at one point in my life, he was my only friend. Wendy and I go back a long way, too.”
I knew the story; indeed, I was surprised that I’d forgotten it. When Carlos, Wendy, and Chris were teenagers, during the earliest years of the Liberty colony, the three of them ran away to explore Coyote, using a couple of handmade kayaks they’d built in a boathouse near Sand Creek. Chris’s younger brother, David, had been on the trip, too, as had Barry Dreyfus. The only adult to go with them was Kuniko Okada, the Alabama’s chief physician and Wendy’s adoptive mother; the boys didn’t know it then, but Wendy was pregnant with Susan, and Dr. Okada had insisted on joining them in order to keep an eye on her adopted daughter’s condition.
The trip had ended in disaster. The whole thing had been Carlos’s idea, but he hadn’t thought things through as well as he should have. By the time they reached the Great Equatorial River, their rations had run low, prompting David to attempt shooting a passing catwhale. The creature attacked the boats, destroying one of them, and David lost his life. Chris blamed Carlos for his brother’s death, and when the Western Hemisphere Union subsequently invaded Coyote, Chris betrayed the other colonists by taking sides with the Union. It wasn’t until the Revolution that the two young men ended their feud, with Chris rejoining the colonists and, later, participating in the Liberation Day assault on Union Guard strongholds in Liberty and Shuttlefield.
The tale was recounted in Wendy’s memoirs, and had become a well-known chapter in Coyote history. Only the night before, I’d seen Carlos’s kayak in the museum. Yet I’d overlooked the fact that, without Carlos, Chris might have remained an outcast and possibly been sent back to Earth along with the surviving Union Guard soldiers. So it was no wonder that he wanted to find Laird as much as I did; the old man had his own score to settle.
“So you figure you owe him,” I said.
“I owe them both.” Chris’s mouth tightened. “For the last few months, I’ve been coming out here once a week, just so that she’ll have someone besides her daughter and Tomas to be with her. And the toughest part has been knowing that there’s nothing I can do to save her. Getting the man who helped Cosenza kill her husband won’t do anything about that…but with any luck, at least she’ll die knowing that his death has been avenged.”
I understood what he was trying to say. Nonetheless, I remained reluctant to bring him along. “You realize, of course, that even if I manage to track him down, it may not…well, may not be possible to put him under arrest.” I didn’t look him in the eye as I said this, but instead raised my hand to let the pilot know that I wouldn’t be there much longer. “The maggies…”
“I know what the maggies said.” Chris continued to stare at me. “I can’t condone…well, whatever it is you may have in mind…but there’s nothing
wrong with acting in self-defense.” He paused. “And accidents sometimes happen, y’know, particularly when it comes to apprehending suspected felons. Either way, you’d do well to have a witness. Just in case any questions are raised about your conduct.”
I looked at him again. He said nothing but simply nodded. Without saying as much, we both knew what each of us had in mind. It was entirely possible that David Laird would never be put under arrest, or that he’d never face the magistrates in a court of law. If that happened, any justice he’d receive would be of the frontier variety, from the barrel of a gun or at the end of a rope.
“All right, then. You’re in.” I let out my breath. “Unless you hear from me again before then, be at Fort Lopez a week from today. We’ll set out from there. Pack light, but be prepared to rough it for a while.”
“Not a problem.” Chris raised an eyebrow. “I take it, of course, that my equipment should include a gun?”
“A gun, sure…but no badge or uniform. Once we leave Hammerhead, we’ll be private citizens. You won’t be a chief, and I won’t be a general. Understood?”
He smiled. “Understood. Besides, I gave up my badge and uniform when I retired.”
I nodded, then he silently extended his hand to me. I shook it, then turned to walk the rest of the way to the gyro. A few minutes later, I was airborne again; looking back at Traveler’s Rest through the passenger window, I saw Chris standing where I’d left him, watching me go.
For the next week, I’d be helping Jorge and Inez prepare for their expedition to Earth. And then we would undertake a mission of our own.
Part 3
THE HOUSE OF THE TALUS
Cape pulled around himself for warmth, hands shoved in his parka, Jorge watched as the spacecraft was towed from its hangar on the government side of the New Brighton spaceport. He didn’t like what he saw. “You’re sure the Corps couldn’t have gotten us something better?” he asked his father.