by Allen Steele
Marie stood up, her legs shaking. When Lars didn’t move, Carlos glanced at Chris. The Chief Proctor stepped forward, pulling his stun gun from his belt. Seeing this from the corner of his eye, Lars hastily rose from the crate, yet he wasn’t done giving him lip. “Class act, Mr. Mayor. Out-of-the-way place, no one around to watch, the maggies nowhere in sight. And two blueshirts to do the dirty work.” He glanced at Marie. “I told you the power’s gone to his head.”
Marie wasn’t nearly so brave. “Carlos,” she murmured, her mouth trembling with newfound fear, “I’m your sister. You can’t let them do this. It’s not right.”
For an instant, he saw once more the little girl who used to bug him to read her bedtime stories when their father was too busy with his work. But she was an adult now—twenty years old—and very close to becoming someone he’d never recognize again. He had to do this, for her own sake.
“Whatever you think I’m going to do, you’re wrong.” Carlos lowered his voice. “No one’s going to touch you. You’re going to walk out of here without a scratch. Which is more than I can say for the poor guy you attacked yesterday.”
“Well, when we see the maggies—” Lars started.
“You’re not seeing the magistrates. There’s not going to be a court date for you—or at least not unless you insist. But I’ve met with them already, and I’ve been told that, if they find you guilty, you’ll spend the next six months in the stockade.” He peered more closely at him. “Six months Coyote-time, and Chris here will make sure you and Marie are assigned to cells as far apart as possible. The only time you’ll see the sun is when they let you out to clean septic tanks and dig ditches, and in the middle of winter that can be a real bitch.”
“You’d do that, wouldn’t you?” Marie’s eyes were cold.
“You bet. I’ll see to it personally that your time is as hard as I can make it.” He looked at Chris. “You with me on this?”
“Oh, yeah.” Chris gave them his most callous grin. “I’ve got a lot of lousy jobs for y’all to handle. And it’s funny how often I forget to turn the lights off or change the sheets.”
“On the other hand,” Carlos went on, “there’s always an alternative. Something a couple of hardcases like you are well suited for.”
He sauntered past them to a Union Guard patrol skimmer parked nearby. “You’ve seen this kind of machine before. Marie, I remember that you once identified it for me . . . an Armadillo AC-IIb. Just like the one we captured on Goat Kill Creek.”
“Uh-huh. Even got a chance to operate it.” She gave the skimmer a passing glance. “Let me guess. You want us to clean it.”
“No, I want you to take it.”
She stared at him. “You want us to . . . what?”
“You heard me. I want you and Lars to take it.” Carlos slapped his hand on its armored hull. “Drive it out of here. Leave, go away. Go exploring. We’ll equip you with one month’s rations, two rifles and ammo, a medkit, sleeping bags, tents, lamps . . . whatever you need to survive. Even a satphone so you can report in. The Union left a comsat network in orbit, so you’ll be able to keep in touch.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t . . .” Marie shook her head in confusion. “I mean . . .”
“What’s the catch?” Lars regarded the skimmer with astonishment. “I mean, you can’t just be . . . y’know, cutting us loose like this without some strings attached.”
“Oh, there’s strings attached all right.” Leaning against the skimmer, Carlos held up a finger. “First, you can’t stay on New Florida or head for Midland. If you’re seen by any of our scouting parties, or try to enter any of the settlements, then you’ll be arrested and sent back here. For the next six months. After that, you’re free to return.”
“But if you’re only giving us one month of rations—”
“Then I guess you’ll have live off the land. But you two spent time in Rigil Kent . . . you know how to hunt and fish.” Carlos held up another finger. “Second, once every forty-eight hours, you use the radio to report to me personally. Tell me where you are . . . and, more importantly, what you’ve seen. I don’t care if it’s nothing but swamp or grassland or another hill, I want to know what you’ve found out there.”
“You want us to just”—Maria waved a hand in some imagined direction—“go exploring. Wander around. Look for stuff.”
“That’s right. In the five years we’ve been here, no one has yet crossed the West Channel to see what’s on Great Dakota, or gone north to check out Medsylvania, or seen the Northern River. The war’s kept us too busy. So you’re going to be our scouts. Do that for the next six months, and you can consider your sentences commuted as time served for the benefit of the Coyote Federation.”
“Uh-huh. Just the two of us.” Lars gave Marie a lascivious grin. “Oh, I think we can go along with . . .”
“No. Not just the two of you. I think you need the mature guidance of a responsible adult.” Stepping away from the skimmer, Carlos turned toward the rear of the shed. “Manny? If you’d join us, please?”
The Savant detached himself from beneath the shadows of the skimmer behind which he’d been hiding. He limped slightly upon his left leg, restored to near-complete motor function by a couple of machinists, and he remained blind in one eye, yet his body had been cleaned up, and once again he wore the black robe that had been taken from him by Clark Thompson.
“It’d be my pleasure.” His left eye gleamed as he turned his head toward Lars. “I believe we’ve already met. Thank you for such a delightful swim. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“Uh-uh!” Lars backed away. “No way I’m going with this . . . this—”
“Yes, you are,” Carlos said. “Not only that, but I expect you to treat him with all due respect, because if he doesn’t come back with you—”
“I assure you, Mr. Mayor, I intend to survive this trip.” Castro hobbled toward Lars, extended a claw from beneath his robe. “We have much to talk about, Mr. Thompson. Or may I call you Lars? My friends call me Manny.”
Marie turned to Carlos. “You’re not giving us a choice, are you?”
“Sure I am.” Carlos touched her shoulder. “Come here.”
He led her away from the others, shaking his head at the nearby blueshirt when he tried to follow them. “This is how you’re going to grow up,” he murmured once they were alone. “You’re getting freedom, and all the responsibility that comes with it. It’s the same choice our parents had when they decided to come here. It’s the choice I had many years ago. And now it’s your turn.”
“I . . . I don’t . . . !” The corners of her eyes glistened. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go.”
“Nobody does,” he said softly. “We just have to make it up as we go along.” He gave her a hug, kissed her gently on the cheek. “It’s your world now. Go find it . . . and come back safe.”
And then, before he could give himself a chance to reconsider, he released her. Turning his back on his sister, Carlos walked away, not looking back until after he’d shut the door behind him.
Morning had come upon Liberty, cool and quiet, with a warm breeze drifting in from the south. Roosters crowed within pens, answered by the barking of dogs, the nagging of billy goats. He could smell breakfast being prepared within a thousand kitchens, hear the faint sounds of townspeople rising to do their chores. Another day upon Coyote had begun.
Tucking his hands in his pockets, Carlos Montero began walking back toward town. Ready to see what awaited him today, in the land of the free, the home of the brave.
COYOTE CALENDAR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to express his gratitude to his editor, Ginjer Buchanan, and his literary agent, Martha Millard; to Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams, for publishing an early version of this novel as a series of stories in Asimov’s Science Fiction; to Judith Klien-Dial, Ron Miller, and Horace “Ace” Marchant, for their support and advice; and to his wife, Linda Steele, for keeping him sane during
another journey into the wilderness.
October 2001–April 2003
Whately, Massachusetts
SOURCES
(Author’s note: For additional citations, consult the Sources page of Coyote.)
Berry, Adrian. The Giant Leap: Mankind Heads for the Stars. New York: Tor Books, 2000.
Fisher, Richard V., Grant Heiken, and Jeffrey B. Hulen. Volcanoes: Crucibles of Change. Princeton University Press, 1997.
Harris, John. Wonderwoman and Superman: The Ethics of Human Biotechnology. Oxford University Press, 1992.
Macauley, David. Building Big. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
Rampino, Michael R. “Supereruptions as a Threat to Civilisations on Earth-Like Planets.” Icarus, 156: 562–569 (2002).
Slater, Lauren. “Dr. Daedalus.” Harper’s Magazine, July 2001.
Contents
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
PROLOGUE
Book 3 Saints and Strangers
Part 1 THE MADWOMAN OF SHUTTLEFIELD
Part 2 BENJAMIN THE UNBELIEVER (from the memoirs of Benjamin Harlan)
Part 3 THE GARCIA NARROWS BRIDGE
Part 4 THOMPSON’S FERRY
Book 4 Revolution
Part 5 INCIDENT AT GOAT KILL CREEK
Part 6 SHADY GROVE (from the memoirs of Wendy Gunther)
Part 7 LIBERATION DAY
Part 8 HOME OF THE BRAVE
COYOTE CALENDAR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOURCES
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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