by Allen Steele
“Holy crap,” Jaime murmured. “Would you look at that?”
I looked around to see a figure in a hooded white robe step through the hatch. At first I thought it was a Savant—just what we needed, another goddamn posthuman—but quickly realized I was wrong. For one thing, Savants wore black; for another, there was also a huge bulge on his back, as if he was carrying an oversize pack beneath his robe. He kept his head lowered, so I couldn’t see his face.
And right behind him, a long line of men and women, each wearing identical robes. A few had their cowls pulled up, but most had let them fall back on their shoulders; unlike the other passengers, they weren’t carrying bags. What really set them apart, though, was an air of implacable calm. No hesitation, no uncertainty; they followed their leader as if they knew exactly where they were going. Some actually smiled. I’d seen all kinds come off the shuttles, but never anything like this.
The first guy stepped off the ramp, stopped, turned around. Everyone behind him halted; they silently watched as he bent over. The shuttle’s thrusters had melted away the snow, exposing charred grass and baked mud; he scooped up a fistful of dirt, then he rose and looked at the people behind him. He said something I didn’t quite catch—“the promised land” was all I heard—before everyone on the ramp began to yell:
“Amen!”
“Thank you, Reverend!”
“Hallelujah!”
“Praise the Lord!”
“Oh, yeah. Go tell it on the mountain.” Jaime glanced at me. “All we need now, a bunch of . . .”
Then his mouth sagged open, and so did mine, for at that instant the leader opened his robe and let it drop to his feet, and everyone got their first good look at who—or what—had just come to Coyote.
Two great wings the color of brown suede unfolded from his back. They expanded to full length, revealing serrated tips and delicate ribbing beneath the thin skin. Then he turned, and his face was revealed. Narrow eyes were sunk deep within a skull whose jaw had been enlarged to provide room for a pair of sharp fangs; above his broad mouth, a nose shortened to become a snout. His ears were oversize, slightly pointed at the tips. Like everyone else’s, his body had been shaved before he had entered biostasis, yet dark stubble was growing back on his barrel chest. His arms were thick and muscular, his hands deformed claws with talons for fingers.
A murmur swept through the crowd as everyone shrank back; only the gargoyle remained calm. Indeed, it almost seemed as if he was relishing the moment. Then he smiled—benignly, like he was forgiving us—and bowed from the waist, folding his hands together as if in supplication.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice oddly mild. “Didn’t mean to shock you.”
A couple of nervous laughs. He responded with a grin that exposed his fangs once more. “If you think I’m weird,” he added, cocking a thumb toward the hatch behind him, “wait’ll you get a load of the next guy.”
Revulsion gave way to laughter. “Hey, man!” Jaime yelled. “Can you fly with those things?”
Irritation crossed his face, quickly replaced by a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let me try.”
Motioning for everyone to give him room, he stepped away from his entourage. He bent slightly forward, and the batlike wings spread outward to their full span—nearly eight feet, impressive enough to raise a few gasps.
“He’s never going to make it,” someone murmured. “Air’s too thin.” And he was right, of course. Coyote’s atmospheric pressure at sea level was about the same as that of Denver or Albuquerque back on Earth. Oh, swoops had no trouble flying here, nor did skeeters, or any of the other birds and bugs that had evolved on this world. But a winged man? No way.
If the gargoyle heard this, though, he didn’t pay attention. He shut his eyes, scrunched up his face, took a deep breath, held it . . . and the wings flapped feebly, not giving him so much as an inch of lift.
He opened one eye, peered at Jaime. “Am I there yet?” Then he looked down at his feet, saw that they hadn’t left the ground. “Aw, shucks . . . all this way for nothing.”
By then everyone was whooping it up. It was the funniest thing we’d seen in months . . . and believe me, there wasn’t much to laugh about on Coyote. The batman’s followers joined in; they could take a joke. He let the laughter run its course, then he folded his wings and stood erect.
“Now that we’ve met,” he said, speaking loudly enough for all to hear, “let me introduce myself. I’m Zoltan Shirow . . . the Reverend Zoltan Shirow . . . founding pastor of the Church of Universal Transformation. Don’t be scared, though . . . we’re not looking for donations.” That earned a couple of guffaws. “This is my congregation,” he continued, gesturing to the people behind him. “We refer to ourselves as Universalists, but if you want, you can call us the guys in the white robes.”
A few chuckles. “We’re a small, nondenominational sect, and we’ve come here in search of religious freedom. Like I said, we’re not looking for money, nor are we trying to make converts. All we want to do is be able to practice our beliefs in peace.”
“What do you mean, universal transformation?” someone from the back of the crowd called out.
“You’re pretty much looking at it.” That brought some more laughs. “Seriously, though, once we’ve set up camp, you’re all welcome to drop by for a visit. Tell your friends, too. And we’d likewise appreciate any hospitality you could show us . . . this is all new to us, and Lord knows we could use all the help we can get.”
He stopped, looked around. “For starters, is there anyone here who could show us where we can put ourselves? No need for anyone to haul anything . . . we can carry our own belongings. Just someone to show us around.”
To this day, I don’t know why I raised my hand. Perhaps it was because I was charmed by a dude who looked like a bat and spoke like a stand-up comedian. Maybe I was just interested in finding out who these people were. I may have even wanted to see if they had anything I could beg, borrow, or steal. A few others volunteered, too, but Shirow saw me first. Almost at random, he pointed my way.
And that’s how it all began. As simple as that.
The Universalists had brought a lot of stuff with them, much more than they would have normally been allowed under Union Astronautica regulations. Their belongings were clearly marked by the stenciled emblem of their sect—a red circle enclosing a white Gaelic cross—along with their individual names. As I watched, each church member claimed at least two bags, and they still left several large containers behind in the shuttle’s cargo bay. True to Shirow’s word, though, they politely declined assistance from anyone who offered to help carry their stuff; two members stayed behind to safeguard the containers until someone came back for them. And so I fell in with the Universalists, and together we walked into town.
It’s hard to describe just how awful Shuttlefield was in those days. Adjectives like stinking, impoverished, or filthy don’t quite cut it; slum and hellhole are good approximations, but they don’t get close enough. Zoltan didn’t seem to notice any of this. He strode through Shuttlefield as if he was a papal envoy, ignoring the hard-eyed stares of hucksters selling handmade clothes from their kiosks, artfully stepping past whores who tried to offer their services. At first I marched with him, pointing out the location of bathhouses and garbage pits, but he said little or nothing; his dark gaze roved across the town, taking in everything yet never stopping. After a while I found myself unable to keep up with him. Falling back into the ranks of his congregation, I found myself walking alongside a small figure whose hood was still raised.
“Doesn’t speak much, does he?” I murmured.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “Zoltan likes to talk. He just waits until he has something to say.”
Glancing down at her, I found myself gazing into the most beautiful pair of blue-green eyes I’d ever seen. The girl wasn’t more than nineteen or twenty, only half my age, and so petite that it seemed as if she would wilt in the cold; yet she carried abo
ut her an air of calm that seemed to make her invulnerable to the winter chill. She met my eye, favored me with a delicate smile.
“Just wait,” she added. “You’ll see.”
“That’s assuming I hang around long enough.” I didn’t mean it to sound insulting, but it came out that way.
She let it pass. “You’re with us now, aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m trying to find a place for you to camp.” We were near the middle of town. “We’re not going to find anything if we keep going this way.”
“What about over there?” This from a man walking along behind us; like the girl, his hooded cloak lent him a monkish appearance. He pointed to a small bare spot of ground between two camps. “We could put . . .”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” I shook my head. “That belongs to the Cutters Guild. And next to them is New Frontiers turf, the people who came on the second ship. Set up here, and you’re in for a fight.”
The girl shook her head. “We don’t wish to quarrel with anyone.” Then she looked at me again. “What do you mean by ‘turf’?”
That led me to try to explain how things worked in Shuttlefield. “And what do the authorities have to say about this?” she asked. “We were told that there was a local government in place.”
“Government?” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “It’s a joke. Shuttlefield’s run by the Central Committee . . . Matriarch Hernandez and her crew, Union Astronautica officers from Glorious Destiny. We rarely see them down here . . . they’re all in Liberty. So far as they’re concerned, everyone here is just a supply of cheap labor. As long as we don’t riot or burn the place down, they don’t give a shit how we live.”
The girl blanched. “What about the Guard?” she asked. “Aren’t they supposed to protect the colony?”
“Look around.” I waved a hand across the shantytown surrounding us. “You think there’s law here? I’ve known guys who’ve had their throats cut just because they didn’t pay their rent on time, and the Guard didn’t do . . . um, squat about it. Same for the Proctors . . . the blueshirts, we call ’em. They work for the Committee, and their main job is making sure the status quo is maintained.”
“So why don’t you leave?” This from the man walking behind us. “Why stay here if it’s so bad?”
I shrugged. “Where would we go?” Before he could answer that, I went on. “Oh, sure, New Florida’s big enough for another colony, and there’s a whole planet that hasn’t been explored . . . but once you get outside the perimeter defense system, you’re on your own, and there are things out there that’ll kill you before you can bat an eye.”
“So no one has left?”
“The original colonists did. That was a long time ago, though, and no one has seen ’em since. Generally speaking, people who come here stay put. Safety in numbers. It ain’t much, but at least it’s something.” I shook my head. “All hail the glories of social collectivism and all that crap.”
A look passed between them. “I take it you don’t believe in collectivist theory,” the girl said, very quietly.
Back on Earth, publicly criticizing social collectivism could earn you a six-week stay in a rehab clinic and temporary loss of citizenship. But Earth was forty-six light-years away; so as far as most people in Shuttlefield were concerned, I could have stood on an outhouse roof to proclaim that Karl Marx enjoyed sex with farm animals, and no one would have cared. “I’m not a believer, no.”
“So what do you believe?”
Zoltan Shirow had stopped, turned to look back at me. I’d later learn that there was little that his ears couldn’t pick up. For the moment, though, there was this simple question. Everyone came to a halt; they wanted to hear my answer.
“I . . . I don’t believe in anything,” I replied, embarrassed by the sudden attention.
“Ah . . . I see.” His eyes bore into mine. “Not even God?”
Silence. Even in the frigid cold, I felt an uncomfortable warmth. “I . . . I . . . I don’t know.”
“So you believe in nothing.” Shirow nodded almost sadly. “Pity.” Then he turned to look around. “So tell me . . . where should we pitch our tents?”
So far as I could see, there was nowhere these people could set up camp. All the available, turf had already been claimed. “There’s a few acres just south of here,” I said, pointing in the direction I’d been leading them. “That’s where everyone from your ship is being put.”
“Thank you, but we’d rather have some privacy. Is there anyplace else?”
The only vacant area left was out near the swamps where the tall grass hadn’t yet been cut down. Sissy Levin and Allegra DiSilvio lived out there; but Sissy was insane, and Allegra was a hermit, so people tended to leave them alone. I figured that was as good a place as any for the Church of Universal Transformation.
“Over there,” I said. “There’s only a couple of people out that way.”
Shirow nodded. “Very well, then. That’s where we’ll go.”
“You’re going to have a hard time. It hasn’t been cleared yet.”
“We’ll manage. You know why?” I didn’t answer, and he smiled. “Because I believe in you.” Then he turned to his followers. “Come on . . . that’s where we’re going.”
As one, without so much as a single word or question, they turned and began to follow Shirow as he marched off in the direction I’d indicated. Astonished, I watched as one white-robed acolyte after another walked past me, heading toward a place I’d picked almost at random. So far as they knew, I could have sent them toward a boid nest, yet they trusted me. . . .
No. They trusted him. With absolute, unquestioning faith that what he said was right. I was still staring after them when the girl stopped. She turned, and came back to me. Once again I found myself attracted by those bright green eyes, that air of invulnerability.
“Do you want a better life?” she asked. I nodded dumbly. “Then come along.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe in you, too.” Then she took my hand and led me away.
The Church of Universal Transformation had come to Coyote well prepared for life in the wild: thirty-one dome tents complete with their own solar heaters, with room for three in each; brand-new sleeping bags; hand and power tools of all kinds, along with a couple of portable RTF generators to run the electric lamps they strung up around the campsite; a ninety-day supply of freeze-dried vegetarian food; adequate clothing for both winter and summer; pads loaded with a small library of books about wilderness survival, homesteading, and craft-making; medical supplies for nearly every contingency.
All these riches were carefully packed inside the cargo containers; once I showed them the unclaimed marshland outside town, fifteen men went back to the landing field and unloaded the crates from the shuttle, lugging the crates across Shuttlefield past townspeople who watched with curiosity and envy. When I asked how they’d managed to get around the strict weight limitations imposed by the Union Astronautica, they merely smiled and gave noncommittal answers. After a while I gave up, figuring that the church had greased a few palms here and there. Compared to the miserable living conditions endured by everyone else in Shuttlefield, the Universalists were ready to live like kings.
Yet they weren’t lazy. Far from it; as soon as they had all their gear, they took off their robes, put on parkas, unpacked their tools, and went to work. A half dozen men used scythes and hand axes to clear away the spider bush and sourgrass, while several more picked up shovels and began digging a fire pit and the women erected tents and foraged for wood. Although they weren’t yet acclimated to Coyote’s thin air, they seldom rested and they never complained; they smiled and laughed as they went about their labors. When one person needed to take a breather, another person simply picked up where he or she had left off.
During all this, the Reverend Shirow walked among them, wearing a wool tunic with long slits on its back through which his wings protruded. Now and then he’d take a few whacks with an ax o
r lend a hand with a shovel, yet he didn’t do much work himself; instead he supervised everyone, instructing them where and how to do their jobs, sometimes pausing to share a few quiet words with one church member or another. Zoltan’s private tent was the first to go up, though, and once it was ready for occupancy it wasn’t long before he vanished into it. No one seemed to mind; it was as if he had the right to excuse himself while his followers busted their asses.
After a little while I found myself joining in. I told myself that I had nothing else worth doing that day, that I’d get paid for helping unload their stuff from the shuttle. The truth of the matter was that these people fascinated me, and I wanted to be with them. . . .
Well, no. Not quite. One of them fascinated me: the girl I had met earlier. Her name was Greer—no one used their last names, and I never learned hers—and when she shed her shapeless robe, I saw that she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. So, yeah, sex was on my mind, but if getting laid was my only consideration, I could have just as easily bargained an hour or two with one of the ladies at the Sugar Shack. Greer was different; she had accepted me without reservation, despite the fact that I was stranger in dirty clothes, and had told me that she believed in me even though I’d already told her leader that I didn’t believe in God or, by extension, he himself.
When you meet someone like Greer, all you want to do is become part of her world. So I put aside my reluctance, picked up a shovel, and spent the better part of the day helping a few guys dig a couple of deep-pit latrines. It didn’t put me any closer to Greer, since she was one of the women erecting the tents, but I figured that I had to take this slowly, show her that I wasn’t just a creek cat on the prowl.