by Kage Baker
“So I am.” I turned and bowed to two more gentlemen of the same august sort, whose feathered topknots poked at the ceiling. “Reverend sirs! May your divinations produce answers. May your sacrifices find favor. May your rituals go smoothly.”
“Welcome, Uncle Sky Coyote,” they fluted. That left a couple of lean men with staring eyes. These were the ones with tattoos, knotted hair, animal parts strung about their persons, and a general look of having partaken way too frequently of certain vegetable alkaloids.
“Learned doctors,” I tried. “Best of luck in your pursuit of knowledge.” That seemed to please them. They began to rock back and forth where they sat.
So far, so good. I whisked my tail out of the way and sat down casually. Their eyes all widened. I must have sat on something sacred. I checked over my shoulder and yes, I was sitting on some kind of intricately painted skin. Okay, I’d forge ahead.
“Now, naturally enough, you don’t have to tell me why you asked me here. I can tell you. You want the truth about my revelation of the other evening. You’re all initiates, and you know there’s more here than can be understood by those who have not traveled the secret paths.” Right? Right, guys? After a breathless pause Sepawit nodded.
“We knew that story about the white men was a cover for something. It’s the Chinigchinix thing, isn’t it?”
Who? What? I opened my mouth for a bluff while I accessed hastily, but was saved the trouble of some fast thinking by one of the shamans, who leaped to his feet.
“I am one with Sky Coyote and I speak for Him! I can tell you what is in His heart. The white men represent the followers of Chinigchinix who dwell in the south. Do they not paint their heads with white clay? And their Sun is not our own true Sun but an angry god who drives out all gods but himself and visits terrible punishment on unbelievers! Sky Coyote is trying to tell us that Chinigchinix is readying his people to invade us. So says Sky Coyote!”
There was silence for a moment as we all took that in.
“Thank you, Pahkshono.” Sepawit gave a slight cough. “Now, Coyote—”
“No!” One of the priests jumped up. “My knowledge is greater than his! You only have to look at Sky Coyote to see the truth. Has He not sat in the midst of the sky map of the summer solstice? This signifies the intrusion of celestial forces into our Middle World. And does His tail not point in the direction sacred to the autumn harvest? By this, we may know the time of the divine invasion. Plainly, the Sun is attempting to kill us by sending a great drought which is to wipe out this year’s harvest.”
All this made me nervous. I crossed my legs.
“Liar!” shouted yet another shaman. “See how Sky Coyote has negated your specious interpretation of His revelation, which is utterly clear to anyone with any real hermetic training. By sitting on the sky map, Sky Coyote is plainly demonstrating His contempt for you and your dependence on astrology. Are not the stars celestial bodies like the Sun? We can infer from this that by ‘white men’ he means the stars. Sky Coyote warns us that dependence on the so-called wisdom of the stars will lead us to damnation.”
“That is precisely what He is not saying,” said the astrologer priest severely. “By sitting on the sky map, obviously Sky Coyote acknowledges that the same cosmic system supports those in the World Above as in our world. Even the Sun Himself must follow the preordained celestial patterns. If you think Sky Coyote came all the way down to Earth to overturn the existing order, you’re vastly mistaken.”
“And yet, isn’t that what He’s saying?” countered one of the priests. “The existing order is about to be overthrown by these white men, whatever or whoever they are. What we ought to be asking ourselves is, What is the reason? I think it must be that our people have strayed into evil ways and wrong thinking. The young have no respect for their elders, divorce is on the rise, and there is no proper respect paid to the sayings of the priests anymore. We have grown decadent. Do we not deserve this terrible punishment?”
“No!” cried another shaman. “Sky Coyote wants us to be irreverent. He is the spirit of divine anarchy! His message is that He will save us just as we are, in fact He will carry us away to a world of everlasting pleasure where we can sin more enthusiastically and reach ever wilder levels of chaos!”
“Now, hold it! Hold it! Hold it!” I interjected.
“Hold what?” they replied in unison.
“He said it three times,” observed one of the diviners.
“So much for a message advocating anarchy!” crowed the astrologer priest. “By ‘Hold it’ Sky Coyote signifies that we must contain ourselves and our wasteful urges.”
“You timid equivocator!” thundered a shaman. “He meant, ‘Hold on to the concept of liberation through excess’!”
“Wait—” I said.
“For what?” demanded a shaman.
“How long?” inquired a diviner.
“Where?” asked the astrologer priest.
“Sky Coyote, I wonder if I might have a word with You outside for a minute?” murmured Sepawit. I got up and went out with him. Behind us a furious discussion of my posture ensued.
“Look, er, Coyote … I’m no theologian or anything, so I’m afraid Your answer might go right over my head, but I need to know: how serious is this Chinigchinix threat? Am I going to have to organize a war party? Because if I have to, it’s only fair to tell You, we wouldn’t have a chance. The Chinigchinix cultists are fanatics, and there are thousands of them. They keep growing in numbers, too, because they forcibly convert their captives. My Speaker isn’t away on business—I’ve had him out gathering intelligence for the last ten moons, and what I’ve been hearing makes my blood run cold. The priests don’t know. The people don’t know. I’m the only one who’s put all the facts together, and I don’t know what to do. You must have come here to save us from them. Tell me, Sky Coyote, that’s why You’re here.” The poor guy was shaking.
“You’ve worked hard for my people, Sepawit. Do you think I’d let you down?” I soothed him in the voice I’d used in confessionals in Madrid. “You don’t have to worry about Chinigchinix. We’ll be safely out of here before anything happens.”
“But You have no idea how fast they move,” he rattled on. “At least—excuse me, of course You do. It started down south among the Tongva, at a village called Yang-Na. They had this prophet who’s supposed to have been born on Huya Island, who went around telling everybody that there’s only one god and any one who doesn’t believe that will suffer horrible punishment. He convinced his people to fight for this god, and they’ve been taking every village in their path. All the tribes to the east have gone over, and most of the island tribes, and it’s been spreading north. They’re fanatics! They still trade with us because we make things they want, but in my opinion it’s only a matter of time before they declare holy war.”
“I know, my child,” I told him. It was a story I’d learned a long time ago. Almost the first story I’d ever learned, now that I come to think of it; and later I’d seen it acted out in Egypt, and in Byzantium, and in North Africa. One man becomes convinced he’s found a truth so important, the whole world must be forced to acknowledge it.
“And they always conquer.” He looked at me with haunted eyes. “It’s as though they really do have the most powerful god on their side. This prophet’s followers aren’t afraid of anything in battle—my spies tell me it’s because they’re all on drugs. And they say—” He looked away from me. “They say You’re the Evil One. They say You used to be a servant to their god, and that You did something terrible and were cast down among the nunasis.”
“Boy, that figures.” I shook my head. “What do you think, Sepawit?”
“I know You’re our uncle. I know You’ve always helped us in the old stories. But even in the stories You lose sometimes. What will happen if You lose now?”
“We won’t stick around here long enough to find out. Sepawit, I think you’re a brave man, and a wise man, or you wouldn’t be so scared. Will you
help me save our people?”
The sound of argument from inside the sacred enclosure grew louder. Sepawit glanced over nervously. It sounded as though somebody was throttling the astrologer priest.
“Of course I will. Tell me what to do.”
“Just follow my orders. I really am going to get you all out of this, Sepawit, but you have to see to it that everybody cooperates with me. I don’t want any more argument or second-guessing out of that bunch in there.” I nodded at the sacred enclosure. “You’re the chief, after all. They have to obey you, right?”
“Supposedly,” he replied. “It would be a help, Coyote, if You could tell me which of them was right.”
“All of them, naturally,” I replied. “And none of them, of course.”
Well, how else is a god supposed to answer a question like that?
It was a lot to think about, walking home. Isn’t it funny how patterns repeat themselves? Unless you’re immortal, though, you don’t usually get a chance to appreciate just how often they repeat themselves.
I mean, there my people were, not bothering anybody, hunting and gathering like everyone else in 18,000 B.C.E., moving from a winter cave to a summer camp and back again as the seasons changed, regular as clockwork. The only thing we did that was in the least bit remarkable was paint on rocks and on the walls of our winter cave, and actually only my father did any painting. Aunt Druva did a lot of scrimshaw with mammoth ivory, of course, but that didn’t count.
The paintings did count, because they were almost the first things the tattooed strangers noticed when they came walking into our hunting grounds. This wasn’t a good thing, as it turned out. We had no clue why they started screaming and killing us, but I learned later that they had this god whose principal commandment was that every living soul on earth must be tattooed, or the universe would collapse. Anybody not submitting to mandatory skin art was guilty of not doing his bit to keep the universe in place and must therefore die. Anybody who lavished art on something other than skin was guilty of blasphemy and must also die. They had developed a lot of sound theological reasons for this, I’m told, and we’d have probably listened patiently to them as we submitted to being tattooed; my people weren’t dumb.
Unfortunately the evidence that we were blasphemers was daubed all over the walls of the cliff we sheltered under in summer: leaping deer and lolloping bison in every shade of ocher and umber my dad had been able to mix. He’d been the kind of guy who just couldn’t resist a blank surface, my poor dad. The tattooed guys never even tried to convert us to the Way; they took one look at those paintings and waded in to restore cosmic order with their hatchets.
My people would have been wiped out, as a lot of other tribes had been wiped out, if it wasn’t for the big men in bearskins who appeared out of nowhere to smash the tattooed guys all to bits.
I didn’t know any of this at the time, of course. It was only explained to me later how the big men had their own commandment, their own method of keeping the universe from collapsing, and it was a lot simpler than seeing that everyone got tattoos. They just went around killing anybody who tried to kill anybody else. It was okay for them to kill, because they were Enforcers, but nobody else was allowed to. They’d been after the tattooed people for a long time. Eventually they got them all, too.
Which was a shame, in a way, because then the real trouble started …
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LOPEZ WELCOMED ME INTO HIS quarters with a bow, and I bowed in my turn, sweeping off my tricorne.
“Nice place you’ve got here.” I looked around as I straightened up.
“I like my comforts,” he replied, going to a sideboard where a decanter was set up beside two fine glasses. I realized his rank must be pretty damn high too, to have his personal furniture shipped out to a base at the back of beyond like this one. I’d been a successful operative for longer than I cared to think about, and I didn’t even own any furniture. So how had Lopez managed to hang on to those two comfy chairs, that carved walnut sideboard, that Turkish carpet? Not to mention the nice little Rembrandt study, looking sadly out of place on the gray prefab wall. Best of all, it was golden amontillado he was pouring into that Florentine glass. I nearly shed tears as he handed it to me.
“To the Company.” We raised our glasses. He gestured me to one of the two comfy chairs and himself sank into the other one. We put up our feet in front of his heating panel. “That’s more like it, I trust?” He sipped his wine.
“You can say that again,” I sighed. Beyond the dark window a Pacific gale was howling in the winter night. I edged my feet a little closer to the panel. They were bare, of course, because I couldn’t get shoes or stockings on my coyote hind paws. I guess they looked a little odd emerging from my red knee breeches, because Lopez casually remarked:
“The younger members of our organization just can’t seem to get used to the sight of a coyote in a brocade coat.”
“Yes, I’d noticed that.” I cocked my ears and grinned at him. “The alternative is to go nude, though, and I think the New Kids would like that even less.”
“I’ve heard they would prefer it if you wore Company-issue coveralls to clothe your nakedness,” said Lopez mildly, and we both laughed, but it was clear he was dropping a hint. I narrowed my eyes. Not on his eternal life. I looked strange enough as it was.
“Poor future kids.” I shook my head with an air of indulgence. “They’re finding this mission a little hard on their sensibilities, aren’t they? Things must be sort of rough compared with what they’re used to up there in the Platinum Age.”
“They find us outlandish,” Lopez admitted. “Extravagant. Eclectic. Unfathomable.”
“Frightening,” I added. He smiled slightly and shrugged. “Distasteful,” I went on. “They’re barely polite to us. Not that I take it personally, I’m an open-minded kind of guy, but anybody else just might suffer some hurt feelings.”
“Yes, I gather there’ve been some problems with morale,” he mused. “Androids …,” he said, at the same moment I said it. He looked gently pained and shook his head. “That was unfortunate.”
“I thought so.” I looked into my glass. Drinking with this muzzle took a bit of concentration, but if I sort of made a long spoon of my tongue, I could get the sherry down my throat without spilling any.
“And so there have been a few late-night parties where some grumbling went on. A few ill-considered words. A few rash opinions.”
Aha. Lopez was an attitude cop. He was sounding me out over discontent in the ranks.
So I relaxed and sank deeper into my chair, savoring my amontillado and letting it take me back to a certain garden in Madrid where the sun was warm, and just around the corner was a great little wineshop, and just next door to that was a really fine tailor’s, and next to that a lovely old church whose bell sounded the Angelus sweet and mellow through the sleepy air, and if the wind was right, you could barely smell the heretics burning …
“Well, you know, Lopez, I think we all agree that what matters most is the Company. We all want this mission to succeed, we really do. But it’s hard, meeting somebody like Bugleg, to feel confident that this mission is in the best hands. Now, you know and I know that, despite appearances, these mortals are perfectly competent guys.” Boy, was I smooth. “So what if they’re a little culturally limited? I’ll bet they’re swell at interfacing with information-exchange terminals. But some of our old field operatives have trouble appreciating that, you know? Especially with somebody like Bugleg. What’s the story with that guy? Level with me. He’s somebody’s nephew, right?”
The corner of Lopez’s mouth quirked, but his gaze remained opaque. “Now, now. He has his talents.”
“I’m sure he has.” Maybe the guy collected stamps.
“Joseph, I truly understand how you feel.” He reached over for the decanter and refilled our glasses. I’ll bet you do, I thought to myself. I accepted my drink, and as I took the glass, I looked him straight in the eye, sincere as hell.
“I’m an old, old agent, Lopez,” I said. “I love my work. The Company is everything in the world to me. All I ask is to know for certain that Dr. Zeus is being run by people who’ll treat it right.” I practically had myself crying, but Lopez saw right through me. He leaned back, sipping his sherry, considering me with bland eyes.
“I feel I can speak frankly with you, Joseph. You’re a Facilitator, after all, and you’ve been around long enough to know a few things the rest don’t know. The conservationists, anthropologists, botanists, and others, they’re not really designed to grasp the big picture. Are they? Too focused on their own particular areas of expertise. Only a Facilitator has the necessary detachment to view a political situation with any real perception. Only a Facilitator—well, an older one, you or I, for example—has the experience to act effectively in that political situation.”
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging, remembering that pleasant little garden where no one could provoke me into revealing anything. Lopez smiled grudgingly at my control.
“You’d be a fool if you weren’t concerned about the future, and I happen to know you’re no fool. I’ve read your personnel file, you know.”
Hadn’t everybody?
“It’s an impressive record,” he went on. “Only three disciplinary incidents in your whole career! And I was tempted to discount that last one. Tell the truth: weren’t you taking the heat for that protégée of yours? She’s on this mission, in fact, isn’t she, the botanist Mendoza? Presumably she’s older and wiser now. Let us hope.”
“It was just one of those things,” I said, trying to sound as though this was something I hadn’t thought about in decades. “Kids! What can you do? They always seem to want to learn the hard way. She’s straightened out, though. They always do, eventually.”
“How true,” he said, sipping his drink. “Setting aside the incident with the young lady, however—I was particularly struck by your ability to see clearly and function correctly in, let’s say, personally complicated difficulties.”