Footsteps in the Sky

by Greg Keyes

  “I can,” Sand interjected. “I can now.” She was chagrined to find a tear trickling down her face.

  “You’re back with us,” Kalnimptewa told her, very gently.

  “This is what your mother came to understand, child,” Yuyahoeva told her. “Out there alone, running … a Hopi without her people is only half a person. Your mother was like that, too, after she came up from the lowland school. She doubted everything, thought she was alone, all by herself. Nearly drove her crazy, Sand. Keeping her secret all those years must have been hard, too. I pity her for that.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Tuchvala said.

  “We’re talking about being Hopi,” Sand told her, brushing away the tear. “About belonging. The Kachina are a part of us, of what we are together. As real as stone or air. It doesn’t matter that we can’t touch them. But we need them. We need each other. I nearly got both of us killed, Tuchvala, because I was thinking as if I were the only person on the Fifth World.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I, Tuchvala. But now that I’m back here, I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Yuyahoeva reached over to pat her hand.

  “It’s okay. And it’s not all your fault. I called you a two-heart that day, because you made me angry. Because I was grieving for Pela. And. … Because I knew, deep, that you were right about your mother.”

  “They killed her because of me?” Asked Tuchvala.

  “I think so,” Yuyahoeva reluctantly agreed. “It’s hard for me to think like a lowlander, like Hoku, Tuchvala. To kill someone just because there is a small chance that they might interfere with your plans. As if one person’s plans could be that important. Pela would have told us, you see, would have warned us about your coming. I suppose that when the lowlanders knew your ship had started down, they silenced her. Not your fault, Tuchvala.”

  “No, it’s not,” Sand told her, and laid her arm on the other woman’s shoulder.

  “But,” Yuyahoeva added, “Now we can work together. Tuchvala, you can have a place here, in the mesas, if that is your wish. There must be a lot we can learn about each other. After all, we’re both farmers.”

  “Yes,” Tuchvala agreed, attempting a smile and almost making it look natural.

  They sat in silence for a moment, and a cold, hard thought crept into Sand. It chilled her newfound warmth, sliced through her growing sense of harmony.

  “What about my father?” she asked. “What about Red Jimmie?”

  Yuyahoeva brought out his tin of tobacco, a cornhusk and a small pair of scissors and began to make a cigarette. He bent to the task intently, almost as if he hadn’t heard Sand at all. She was close to repeating her question before he finally answered her.

  “When there is trouble, I suspect Red Jimmie right away, Sand. I’ve always believed him to be an agent of the coast. But he has also served us well, better than the old woman who sent him here could have imagined. Jimmie really is a two-heart, Sand. His feet are in two different places, miles apart. It makes him sick. When the Whipper went out, as soon as I knew, I tried to call it back. The communications had been overridden. I knew it was Jimmie, then; he’s too good with smart machines; he talked the Wings of the Whipper into being deaf, somehow. So we monitored his communications—caught him making a call to the coast. I sent some warriors to arrest him. He’s over in the jail.”

  “I want to see him,” Sand said, trying to keep the harshness out of her voice.

  “You will. If it’s any consolation, Sand, I really think he was trying to save you. If he hadn’t called you out, the Whipper would have caught you both in your mother’s house.”

  “You know about that?”

  “We went back over his calls. We found some even stranger ones; coded and scrambled and in a different language. We still haven’t sorted those out.”

  “Maybe he did try to save me. Maybe it was part of some larger scheme of his. I don’t know or really care.”

  Yuyahoeva shrugged.

  “You can see him tonight.”

  The jail was a squat building suffused with an antiseptic smell of disuse. It had only five cells; each the size of a good-sized room, formed from ugly red concrete with chainglass front walls.

  The outworlder, Teng, occupied the one nearest the door. She was lying on a cot with a feeding tube in her arm, asleep. The next cell held the Parrot-Island man, Alvar. In the third was her father. He was folded into the corner of his cell, head resting on his knees. He looked up slowly as they came in. When his gaze crossed Tuchvala, his face seemed to drain of color.

  “Jesus!” he croaked a word that meant nothing at all to Sand. “Jesus,” he repeated, and then rolled over, put his face into the corner, and began to retch. The air circulation picked up a sour fetor of vomit and alcohol.

  “Get her out of here!” he shrieked, between his dry heaves, grinding his face against the rough concrete. “Get … her … out of here!”

  Yuyahoeva took Tuchvala gently by the arm and lead her from the building. Sand watched her father’s quivering form for several sickening moments.

  “She’s gone,” she said, trying to keep her voice flat. Was this the man who had first taken her out in a Dragonfly, first taught her to greet the sky? Or was it the man who beat her mother, who humiliated her in front of her family, who came home screaming and drunk?

  And why was she thinking such silly shit? He was the latter, always the latter, and any good he had ever done was as useless and unreal as rain over the ocean.

  Red Jimmie slowly turned around, wiping vainly at his face with the cuff of his beige shirt.

  “It’s true, then,” he grated.

  “True enough.”

  “What do you want?”

  “What we all want. To know what you’ve been doing this whole time. To know what the lowlanders know.”

  Red Jimmie looked at her for a moment as if stunned. Then he threw back his head and yowled. It took Sand some time to realize that he was laughing, a horrible, insane laugh.

  “They don’t know shit, daughter mine. They don’t know anything. Hoku and his fucking … ignorant plans. Everyone thinks they know it all. …”

  He slacked off, staring at the walls of his cage.

  Sand moved up close to the transparent wall. She placed her hands against it.

  “Mother is dead, father. How did she die?”

  Jimmie sputtered again, less like laughter this time.

  “No more questions. They’ve all been asking me questions. Sand, they have the ojo de verdad. They have other things, too. They’ll get everything they want from me, eventually, if they think of the right questions.”

  “I don’t care about that. Who killed her? Who actually killed her?”

  Jimmie lurched to his feet, lost his balance and leaned heavily against the wall. He swung his head around towards her, and she saw anger there, fury so bright it could be a star.

  “Who?” he hissed, as softly as a foot on sandstone.

  “Who?” he shrieked, and stumbled towards the glass. He cracked his face against it, an inch from her hand. She saw his nose spread comically against the chainglass, saw blood spurt and smear like a blooming rose. He lost balance and slid, leaving a red trail along the transparency.

  “Who the fuck do you think killed her?” he snarled, as he crumpled to the floor.

  “Who do you think?” he pleaded, eyes closed.

  Sand nodded. Who else? And left the room.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A dust devil pirouetted down the dry streambed, laughed at Hoku and vanished. Far up the way, the line of mesas shivered through miles of heat, and a husking wind breathed up from the south.

  Homikniwa had explained to Hoku once why they called the dry, harsh winds husking. How hours and days of stripping corn by hand left your hands raw
and cracked, just as the southern air, bereft of moisture, could wring you out as it sought eagerly seaward. Already Hoku’s lips were dry, cracking. He licked them again and watched Homikniwa, whose eyes surely saw more than his in that blurred distance.

  Would that they could see above him, as well, to where the satellites rebelled.

  Hoku leaned against the Bluehawk, glanced left to the troop carrier half a kilometer across the undulating plain of roach grass. Another kilometer he could not see, but there was another war craft there, and on, forming a semicircle around the pueblos.

  They didn’t think he would cross that imaginary line, did they?

  “I don’t have much choice anymore, do I Homikniwa? Our eyes in the sky no longer see for us. Surely the ship in orbit has already sent a stellar to the Reed, detailing our insubordination. In twenty years, there will be an invasion fleet big enough to put us under. If it isn’t already on its way.”

  Homikniwa nodded. “Twenty years is a long time.”

  Hoku shook his head and answered without heat. He had spent his heat in his room, shouting and striking at the air behind sound-baffling walls. “We won’t win with farm equipment, my friend. We can’t fight starships with shovels. Twenty years won’t change that.”

  “Maybe the aliens won’t either.”

  “No other chance, Homikniwa. We have no other hope, and we never did. That’s why I can’t feel remorse.”

  “I would,” said Homikniwa. “A lot of people have died for such a slim hope. There was never much reason to think the aliens could—or would—help us. You’ve known that all along.”

  Hoku stared intently at his fingernails. “No one but you would ever dare talk to me that way, Homikniwa.”

  The little man smiled a rare smile. “I don’t know. That Tech woman laid it on you pretty thick, and that after you burned her.”

  Hoku nodded ruefully. “I don’t know what to do about her, Homikniwa. Even my own people are starting to talk back to me.”

  “It’s a fool that only surrounds himself with people that say what he wants to hear,” Homikniwa reminded him.

  “I’ve got you already,” Hoku growled. “I don’t need her, too. So young. What does she know?”

  “What did you know, when the old lady took you on?”

  “I knew better than to contradict her to her face.”

  “The old lady wasn’t as smart as you are, Hoku. She always wanted to hear ‘yes’. Nothing else.”

  Hoku spat, moistened his crackling lips. “Maybe I’m not so smart either. But I can’t regret these things I’ve done; that would be a waste of energy. I have to move on. And I’m right, Homikniwa. Those ships are the only chance we had, ever will have. The only things that the Reed can’t control or predict. You saw what happened when we tried to use our satellites. Our own satellites, even the ones we built!”

  “Built with Reed components.”

  “Exactly. Exactly.”

  Hoku turned back towards the mesas. Why did they still live there? How could superstition hold them so tightly?

  “Hoku. Here’s one of those things you don’t want to hear.”

  “What would that be, Homikniwa?”

  “That landing drum by Wife-Tell-The-Sea-Point. That ship in orbit. Those are our enemies now. And they don’t have the alien; the pueblos do.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s time for Fifth Worlders to join together, Mother-Father. Time to strike a deal with our relatives in the mesas. They no more want the Reed to take our world than we do.”

  “They won’t accept my authority, Hom. Not now. They caught Jimmie, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “But not before he was able to open the door for us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see soon enough, old friend.”

  “Hoku. Take my advice. Get on the cube and talk to the old man. He’s been trying to call you. There’s been enough killing. We can still plant a field between us, the way things are. If we cross over, then nothing more can be done, and we die fighting ourselves while the Reed laughs.”

  Hoku closed his eyes, saw bright shapes swimming against his lids. So many roads, but he always knew which one to take. In the past, he had always been right, hadn’t he?

  “We won’t kill anybody unless we have to. But we do this my way, Homikniwa, and though I listen to you, you must be with me.”

  Homikniwa reached over and gave his arm a brotherly squeeze. “You’re doing something wrong, Hoku. I can feel it deep, deep. But I’m always with you.”

  “Why?” Hoku asked.

  “I don’t have to explain, Hoku. I am what I am. What I am is loyal. Not to my clan, not to my family—they cast me out. To you, Hoku. Leave it there.”

  “I will,” Hoku answered, gratefully.

  “But I still think you are wrong here. Think about it, Hoku, before you commit.”

  “I have. I’ve been thinking for twenty years. This is the moment to act.”

  The two men stood there a moment longer, Homikniwa slowly shaking his head. Above, the mute sky shimmered as the sun passed midday.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alvar feigned sleep, wishing desperately that he could see what was going on in the cell adjoining his. Through slitted eyes he could make out the woman named Sand, standing in the common chamber. She stood, facing his neighboring but unseen prisoner, body crackling with tension. She reminded him of the high-voltage fence around the arcology, back home. Something you would not dare touch.

  Their words carried to him clearly enough. Alvar knew who he was in jail with, though when they brought Alvar in he had only seen the vague man-shape huddled in the cell next to his. He had no face to put with the cracked, strained voice, but he could imagine one. A drunk—bleary-eyed, soft around the mouth, black, greasy hair. A monster, a traitor to his people, a killer. …

  He might have been Alvar, once. Red Jimmie, that was his name. From Parrot Island. Alvar knew about Parrot Island, because that was his own, fictional home. Which meant that Red Jimmie was his counterpart—the man sent here years ago by the Vilmir Foundation. The spy.

  So this is what I have to look forward to, Alvar thought.

  The conversation ended, and the Hopi woman turned to leave. Alvar saw her face, the flat, masklike expression, and for a fleeting instant, he wondered if there was anything he could do for her. He remembered the old woman, the mother of the boy Teng killed. Red Jimmie’s crime felt like his own, filled him with shame. Could he atone for the older man’s sins, wipe that terrible look from Sand’s young face?

  He almost shouted as she left, to tell her that he knew things, things that might help. The impulse passed when she left his vision.

  He sighed. Teng would have killed him anyway. And throwing in with these people would be stupid. They were bound to lose. How far behind could the Vilmir warships be? They had cobbled this little expedition together fast, but they must be assembling a larger fleet, too, calling ships in from Earth to Serengeti. Building new ones, despite the immense cost. If he could just bide his time for a few years, he could have it all. No point in going soft over the first woman besides Teng he had seen in three years.

  Teng. He felt a guilty start. How was Teng? They had told him she would live, and he knew that she was in the cell next to him.

  “Teng? Teng!” he whispered, then repeated himself more loudly.

  “Well,” came a voice that was not Teng’s. “You must be the new boy. Welcome to the Fifth World.”

  It was the old man. Alvar did not want to talk to the old man.

  “Speak up, boy.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alvar snapped. Surely someone, somewhere, was listening to all of this.

  “Parrot-Island man! Talk to me! How do you like the adventure of space, the romance of distant worlds
?”

  “Shut up! What are you trying to do?” The old man was insane. He had destroyed himself, and now he would destroy Alvar.

  The voice came back to him, charged with dark derision.

  “Come on, boy. I’ve been doing this for thirty years now. You don’t think I know when I can talk and when I can’t?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re babbling about.”

  “Don’t you, muchacho?” Alvar felt a chill cut through him, as he choked back his answer. The old man had spoken in Norte, the Spanish dialect of the Western States of America. If Alvar had answered. … And he nearly had.

  “I’m not cut out for this shit,” he muttered to himself, softly, and then regretted that, too.

  “The stuff—the equipment they give them to work with here is pitiful,” the old man went on, still in Norte. “The computer systems are centuries behind what I learned back on Earth. No challenge at all, even after all of these years. The things I’ve built into them! They can’t hear us unless I want, old friend.”

  “I am not your friend,” Alvar hissed, still in Hopi.

  “Oh, very good,” the man said, and Alvar heard the distinct patter of applause. “You don’t speak Spanish, but you understand it, eh?”

  “Fuck.”

  “I pity you, boy. Even I was better prepared than you were.”

  Alvar said nothing. Perhaps he had already hung himself, perhaps not. Perhaps the old man wasn’t insane; he no longer sounded so. He sounded icy-calm, clear and articulate. He might really know that there was no one listening.

  “You’ll find out, muchacho. That you can’t ever belong here. But that’s not my problem. Not my problem.”

  He was silent for a moment, and Alvar hoped he had stopped, but Jimmie spoke again, more softly.

  “You ever been to Greece? To Oregon? Argentina?” He sighed, and Alvar could hear him shuffle closer. His head must be pressed against the wall of the cell.

  “I remember once in Argentina. Me and three compadres went out to hunt Moas. Just the three of us, out on that plain, on horseback. The hunting permit cost me every dima I had, but Mary and Jesus, it was worth it. You ever ridden a horse? It’s like having thunder for feet. That night, we ate Moa steaks, drank red wine. The sun went down, I’ve never seen a sunset like that. Kabrina—she was one of my compadres—we went out in the grass with a blanket. We fucked like crazy, and then we lay there all night, watching the stars, while Raphael played music for us on his tiplé. He wasn’t jealous, you know? The best kind of friend, Raphael. I would not sleep that night, or the next. I never wanted to miss another moment of living.”