by Allen Steele
“A pleasure to meet you, sir.” Cortez clasped a gloved fist against his chest. “Welcome to Fort Lopez.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Cortez was younger than Baptiste would have expected for someone in charge of a military installation; no more than twenty-five Earth-years, his beard was probably the first one he’d ever grown. “I hope you’ve been able to keep warm,” he added, at loss for anything else to say.
Cortez smiled, relaxed just a little. “We’re keeping busy, Captain. It helps a little. If you’ll follow me, please, I’ll show you around.” As they walked away from the HLLV, two platoons of Guard infantry were marching down the ramp; Baptiste could hear the shouted commands of their squad leaders as they fell into formation next to the craft. They stamped their feet against the hard ground and hunched their shoulders against the brutal wind. Only Gregor Hull was impervious to the cold; for once, he felt envious of the Savant for his lack of mortal concerns.
“We’ve only been here for the last eight weeks,” Cortez was saying, “just after the beginning to the month, so you’ll have to pardon our lack of facilities. There hasn’t been time to build permanent structures.” He was speaking of the semirigid inflatable domes, each a half acre in diameter, near the landing field. “The forest is about a half mile away, and we’ve begun marking trees for when we get around to—”
“We felt it more important to establish a base of operations as quickly as possible,” the Matriarch interrupted. “I picked the lieutenant for this job because he was instrumental in selecting the site for the bridge we constructed across the East Channel. So far, he’s done a commendable job.”
Baptiste noted the expression on Cortez’s face; he seemed to be chewing his lower lip. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m glad you approve.” Then he pointed to the edge of the plateau. “If you’ll come this way, I’ll show you why Fort Lopez is here.”
“I was wondering about that,” Baptiste said. “After all, if you already have a large force on New Florida, then why put a base west of Midland?”
“New Florida has been compromised, sir. Rigil Kent can sneak across the East Channel anytime they want. They’ve already hit Liberty twice, not to mention the job they did on the Garcia Narrows Bridge . . .” Behind them, Luisa Hernandez cleared her throat. “The Matriarch Hernandez Bridge, I mean . . .”
“We had to look elsewhere for a military base,” the Matriarch said, “and Hammerhead was the most likely place.” She extended a hand from beneath her cloak. “As you can see, here we enjoy a certain geographic advantage.”
They had reached the edge of the plateau. Below them, a sheer granite escarpment fell away; three hundred feet down, waves crashed against jagged rocks. Fort Lopez overlooked the confluence of the Midland Channel and Short River; in the distance to the south lay Barren Isle, barely visible as small dun-colored lump. To the east, they could see the shores of Midland, with Mt. Bonestell on the far horizon. As a military surveyor, Lieutenant Cortez had done his job well. The cliff offered a natural defense against anyone who might try to cross the channel, and the island itself was a perfect place for staging military operations.
“A good choice.” Baptiste admired the view. This would be a great place to build a house, were he to decide to remain on Coyote. That wasn’t his intent; nonetheless, it was tempting. “But I still don’t understand why it’s so important to expend so much effort upon capturing a handful of malcontents.”
The wind ruffled the edge of the Matriarch’s cowl; she pulled it back from her face. “I thought I’d made that clear already,” she said, her voice low. “Perhaps I haven’t. They’ve attacked us again and again ever since we arrived. They’ve stolen firearms, destroyed spacecraft, sabotaged a bridge, ambushed soldiers, and assassinated the lieutenant governor.”
“You have no proof that Savant Castro is dead.” Until then, Gregor Hull had been silent. “I tend to believe that he may still be alive.”
“I have no proof that he is.” Luisa Hernandez shook her head. “With all due respect, Savant, you and Captain Baptiste only arrived recently. We’ve been dealing with this situation for just over six Earth-years. What was once a local disturbance has become a major uprising. Left unchecked, it will metastasize into a full-scale revolution. Rigil Kent . . . that is, Carlos Montero and his followers . . . have made it their mission to chase the Western Hemisphere Union off Coyote. You know as well as I that this isn’t an option. . . .”
“We’re aware of that, Matriarch.” Baptiste paused. A gyro was lifting off the landing pad, its rotors clattering as it rose above the shuttles parked near the HLLV. He waited until the noise abated, then went on. “Have you tried to talk with the original colonists? Open a dialogue with their leaders?”
“I met with Robert Lee shortly after we arrived.” She lifted her chin, almost as if daring him to challenge her. “In fact, he led a small group to the Glorious Destiny. . . . It was his idea to negotiate, not mine. I attempted to reach an amicable understanding, but he refused, and instead abandoned the Liberty colony and fled to Midland. Since then, their actions have been nothing but hostile.”
“Which makes me wonder what you may have said that would have caused them to—”
“Captain, I refuse to stand here and listen to someone second-guess what was done six years ago. As the colonial governor, my duty is to maintain a Union presence on this world. Your duty is to back me up, by force if necessary. I say that it’s necessary.”
“I only wish to . . .”
“Point out the alternatives, yes. Your objections are noted.” The Matriarch turned away. “Come with me now. We have work to do.”
Baptiste watched as Hernandez began striding back toward camp, Savant Gregor following her. He let out a breath, looked out over the channel. Cortez remained with him. At first the younger man said nothing, then he stepped closer. “You have to forgive her, sir,” he said quietly, his voice almost lost in the wind. “Ever since Savant Castro disappeared, she’s been . . . well, obsessed . . . with tracking down Rigil Kent.”
“So I see. . . .” And to that end, she’d laid a trap, in hopes that Montero would take the bait. “And how do you feel about it? Do you think that she may have exceeded her authority?”
Cortez stiffened, his eyes raising to meet his own. “I lost several friends at Thompson’s Ferry,” he replied. “Please, sir, don’t speak to me of excessive authority. I owe Rigil Kent.”
Then he walked away, leaving Baptiste standing by himself. Feeling cold, and in a trap of his own.
GABRIEL 75/1917—MT. ALDRICH
“This is as good a place as any.” Carlos gently pulled the reins, lifting the shag’s heavy head and bringing the beast to a halt. He shifted sideways on his blanket saddle, looked back at Chris. “Need a hand there?”
“No, I . . . how do you . . . ?” Chris yanked too hard; his shag bellowed in protest, and once again attempted to shake its rider off its hairy back. This time, it nearly succeeded; thrown off-balance, Chris stayed on only by grabbing two fistfuls of matted fur. The shag grunted and shook again like an enormous dog coming out of the water. Then, resigning itself to rude treatment, it obediently knelt on its elephant-like legs, giving Chris a chance to slip his feet over the side.
“A little better.” Carlos suppressed a grin as the shag farted loudly. Chris staggered away from the animal, holding his nose as he massaged his aching backside. “You’ll get the hang of it after a while. Once they get used to you, you hardly have to . . .”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure.” Chris regarded the shags with disgust. They resembled water buffalo with dreadlocks, save for elongated snouts with upward-curved tusks like those of a wild boar. Despite their ferocious appearance, the herbivorous creatures were as docile as cows and easily trained as pack animals. “I would have rather walked.”
“We’ll be doing that soon enough.” Climbing down from its back, Carlos took the shag’s reins and, coaxing it with a click of the tongue, led it to the nearest f
aux birch. Once it was tied up, the beast raised its snout, peeled a strip of bark off the tree, and began munching upon it. They’d left behind the three shags Marie and the Thompson brothers had ridden, after moving their blankets and bags; since shags had an unerring sense of direction, Carlos knew they’d make their way back to their point of origin. “They don’t like having riders when they’re going downhill,” Carlos went on as he pulled off the saddlebags, “so we’ll have to lead them once we head down the mountain.”
Following Carlos’s example, Chris gingerly approached his own shag, took it by the reins, and tugged it over to another tree. They had spent the better part of the day climbing Mt. Aldrich, following a game trail that led around the eastern slope of the mountain. Now they were on top of a ridge a few hundred feet below the summit. Through the trees, they could make out the other side of the valley; Uma was setting behind Mt. Shaw, with Coyote’s sister worlds Raven and Fox beginning to glimmer in the dark purple sky.
Carlos stood off to the side, watching Chris as he pulled a tent from one of the saddlebags and began to unroll it on the snow-covered ground. “You can help by gathering some wood,” Carlos said. “The stuff on top is wet, but if you dig under it, you can find—”
“I know how to find firewood.” Chris eyed the rifle that Carlos pulled off his shoulder and leaned against a boulder. “You’re awfully trusting, you know that?”
Carlos shrugged as he assembled the tent poles. “What would you do? You have no idea where you are. Without me, you’d be lost.” He glanced up at the sky. “Better hurry. It’s going to be dark soon.”
Chris hesitated, then turned and walked away. By the time Carlos had finished erecting the dome tent and had unpacked the camp stove, he reappeared with an armload of dry branches. Carlos watched as Chris kicked aside the snow, built a miniature tepee of twigs, then used a pocket lighter to set fire to some leaves he’d tucked beneath the kindling. Within minutes, a small fire was burning, bringing a little patch of warmth back to the world just as the last light of day was fading.
They ate in silence, dining on rations reheated on the camp stove. As night set in, Bear began to rise to the east; it was a clear night, and soon the stars began to come out. Carlos left Chris with the cleanup; while he was scrubbing the plates and pan with water he boiled on the stove, Carlos walked over to the tent and produced a small catskin flask from one of the saddlebags.
Chris raised an eye as Carlos uncapped the flask. “What is that stuff?”
“Bearshine.” Carlos took a sip, winced, and offered the flask to him. “You remember Lew Geary, don’t you? This is his stuff . . . good old-fashioned corn liquor. Try some, it’s good.”
“I’ll pass, thanks. Stopped drinking.”
“Sorry. Didn’t know.” Recognizing his faux pas, he capped the flask, then sat down on the saddle blanket he had spread out next to the fire. “Glad to hear it. You were in pretty sad shape there for a while.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Chris picked up a branch, absently stirred the coals. “Nothing like a little family tragedy to turn you into the town drunk.”
Carlos hesitated. The memories of their last days together in Liberty were still sharp. “If you want me to apologize for David again . . .”
“I’m over that.” Chris shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault. David brought it on himself. He did something stupid, and . . . well, he’s dead, and that’s it.” He was quiet for a moment. “And I’m not going to blame you for Wendy, either. She had a choice between you and me, and she picked you. How is she, anyway?”
“Wendy’s fine.” Carlos fed another piece of wood onto the fire. “Susan’s growing up fast, going to school. We’ve got a dozen or so kids in Defiance now, so Wendy and Kuniko have their hands full, taking care of them.”
“Good.” Another pause. “And my mother?”
“Doing much better, now that she’s . . .” Carlos stopped, reluctant to say more.
“Now that she’s away from Shuttlefield?” Chris looked up from the fire. “Go ahead, say it. ‘Your mother’s great, now that she doesn’t have you around . . . ’ ”
“You know that wasn’t what I was going to say.” Carlos felt his temper rise. “Why are you making this hard? I’m trying to . . .”
“Make friends again?” Chris remained irritatingly calm. “Was that your idea? Take me up in the woods, have a little cookout, slip me some booze. Pretty soon I’d soften up and let bygones be bygones? C’mon, old buddy . . .”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why not? Old buddy, old friend, old pal . . . best friend from childhood, all that.” Chris smirked. “You know, even our names are alike. I was born just a couple of months before you, our dads were friends, so your father picked another name that began with a C. Chris and Carlos, Carlos and Chris. The folks thought it was cute. . . .”
“Stop it.”
“Then you abandoned me. When the Union showed up, you locked my mother and me in a cabin while everyone else made a clean getaway. You know how hard that was, knowing that we were dirt so far as . . .”
“You transmitted a message to their ship, telling them where we were located.” Carlos glared at him. “If anyone’s guilty of betrayal, it’s you, not me. And then you joined up with them, became their Chief Proctor.”
“Like I had a choice? You guys weren’t going to take us back. What else was I supposed to do? Live in the squatter camp along with all those poor bastards they’d conned into leaving Earth so that they’d have a source of cheap labor?”
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Is that it?” Carlos shook his head. “They’re going to ruin this place. Every few months, another ship arrives, bringing another thousand people. . . .”
“Gosh, really?” Chris rolled his eyes in mock surprise. “Why, if a thousand more ships arrive over the next . . . oh, say, a hundred years . . . then we’ll have a million people on this planet. Why, we might even have a population explosion!”
“Given our limited resources . . .”
“Oh, c’mon” Chris chuckled as he looked askance at Carlos. “We’ve barely explored one tenth of this world. Even if the Union emptied all the cities and sent everyone here, we’d still have miles of elbow room.”
“Is that what you want? To have this place become just like Earth, complete with its own dictatorship?” Feeling the darkness encroaching upon them, Carlos stood up, walked over to where he’d left his rifle. He brought it back to the campfire and laid it down next to him. “That’s why we came here in the first place, to get away from all that. So far as I’m concerned, the Union is no better than the Republic.”
“And you really think you’re going to get them to pack up and go home? Dream on.” Chris gestured toward the rifle. “Why’d you do that? You said yourself that I’m not going anywhere.”
Carlos didn’t reply. He unstopped the flask and took a sip of bearshine that burned its way down his throat. He was surprised when Chris reached out his hand. “I thought you said you stopped drinking.”
“It’s cold. Unless you’ve got some hot chocolate stashed away . . .”
“Haven’t had hot chocolate since we left Earth. Be my guest.” Chris accepted the flask from him, upended it, and took a slug. He gagged, coughed into his fist. “Sorry,” Carlos murmured. “Should have warned you . . . it’s powerful stuff.”
“God!” Chris gasped, pounding his chest with his fist. “Now I remember why I don’t drink anymore.” Tears seeped from the corners of his eyes as he thrust the flask back toward Carlos. “So . . . why’d you get your gun? Worried I might run away?”
For a second, Carlos was tempted to tell him the truth. For better or worse, they were talking to one another for first time in years. Yet he still couldn’t trust Chris, and they still had another day of travel before they reached Defiance. If they made it as far as Johnson Falls . . . “Up here at night, sometimes you hear things.” He pulled the rifle a little closer. “I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“What things?” Chris unbuttoned the canteen from his belt and drank some water. “The boids stay in the lowlands and the creek cats are in hibernation. What’s going to bother you up here this time of year?”
“Remember Zoltan Shirow? The First Church of Universal Transformation?”
“The freak with the bat wings?” Chris laughed. “Oh, boy, do I remember him. I heard he brought his people over here from Thompson’s Ferry early last year. Good riddance . . . whatever happened to him, anyway?”
“They tried to hike over Mt. Shaw, but they got caught in a nor’wester. Everyone died up there except their guide. Ben Harlan. You might know him . . . ?” Chris shook his head. “Anyway, Ben managed to make it down the mountain. When we found him, he said that they’d killed each other. When the food ran out, they went cannibal.”
Chris whistled beneath his breath. “No joke.”
“No joke. After the snow melted, Ben and some other guys hiked back up, found the place where he’d last seen them. From what I hear, it was pretty gross. But when they counted the bodies, they came up two short . . . and it’s hard to miss someone with wings and fangs even as a skeleton.”
“So what are you saying?” Chris peered at him from across the fire. “Zoltan’s still running around up here?”
Carlos was tempted to uncork the flask again. He reconsidered and left it alone. “We’ve had patrols in these mountains for the last year. That’s how we found you guys. Every now and then, they’ve come back, saying that they’ve seen things, heard things. . . .”
“Oh, get off it. I’m too old for ghost stories.” Chris stood up, arched his back. “Go ahead, keep your gun handy if you want. I’m going to get some shut-eye.” He shambled over to where he’d left his pack, hauled it to the tent. “Tell me if you see Zoltan. Maybe he’d like some of that rotgut you carry around.”