Coyote - A Novel of Interstellar Exploration Part 15

The gun trembles in Gunther's hand. His eyes shift nervously, moving from Lee to the man he can't see behind him. "Colonel Reese, you're with the Service.

You're on our side. You can't..."

"Sorry, son." Reese remains an invisible presence. "Things have changed."

"Colonel Reese is.still loyal to the Republic," Lee says, "but he's accepted the reality of our situation. The Republic is forty-six light-years from here.

Government orders no longer apply... his, yours, mine, no one's." He opens his hands. "You want to execute me as a traitor? Guilty as charged. But what purpose is killing me going to serve?"

The gun wavers, pulls away from Lee. But now there's hopelessness in Gunther's eyes, the empty withdrawal of a man who has lost everything he has come to believe in. The barrel begins to move toward his head...

"Don't do it, Eric." Lee keeps his voice low and steady. "Think about Wendy. She's going to need you."Gunther rapidly blinks. "When she... when she finds out... I mean, about Gillis..."

"She doesn't have to know." Lee shakes his head. "So far as everyone else is concerned, Les was revived by accident. Everything we've talked about stays here. From now on, we're starting fresh."

He holds out his hand, beckoning for the ensign to give him the gun. "Come on, Eric. We've only got 103 people. We're going to need every..."

The gun whips toward Lee, the barrel pointed straight at his eyes. "Long live the Republic! G.o.d bless...

I".

His body is punched forward even before Lee hears the muted con flllen M. Steels cussion of Reese's rifle. Gunther's arms splay outward; his finger convulsively squeezes the trigger. There's a single gunshot; somewhere behind him, gla.s.s shatters. For an instant, Lee thinks the bullet has. .h.i.t a window. Yet the decompression alarms don't sound, and now Gunther's body pitches toward him, red globules of blood spewing upward from his back.

Lee catches the crewman in his arms. Gunther stares up at him, his breath coming in ragged gasps. From the corner of his eye, Lee sees his gun tumbling away.

Gunther stares up at him, his mouth twisted in agony. Then his eyes, still filled with hatred, grow dim.

Lee's still holding him as Reese emerges from the shadows. He silently regards both men, then slides open the rifle, ejecting the next flechette in the chamber. "Sorry," he says quietly. "No other way."

Lee doesn't answer. He waits until he feels Gunther's body become limp within his arms. "It was an accident," he says. "Something went wrong during closeout."

He looks up at Reese. "Better that way, don't you think?"

Coyote Base 9.9.00 (12.21.3296 rel.) 2218 GMT "There was no uuay to save him. He was in the ring corridor, trying to shut the inner hatch to C6. No one knew he was there. He had gone back on his own initiative to check the modules. So when C6 was jettisoned, he... well, we couldn't even retrieve his body."

Charred black wood hisses and snaps, tossing sparks high into the cold night. All around him, silence; men and women stand or sit in a circle around the bonfire, huddled within their parkas, hoods pulled up over their heads. Tonight was supposed to be meant for a celebration; instead it's become a wake.

Of all the ways Lee imagined the first day on the new world would end, this was not one of them.

Reese regards him from the other side of the fire. The colonel has said little since the Mayflower landed, and he has remained silent while the captain told the story of how Eric Gunther died: heroically, in the line of duty. All he has to do is open his mouth, proclaim that everything Lee has said is a lie, and the colony would be... well, perhaps not destroyed, but crippled at the very least, for without faith in their leader the colony would flounder, torn between feelings of loyalty and betrayal. And it would be so easy for Reese to do. Just a few words...

Yet Reese only nods, ever so slightly; no one else notices the look that pa.s.ses between the two men.

Wendy Gunther, sitting in her tent being comforted by her friends and a couple of adults, need never know the truth.

Somewhere out in the darkness, far beyond the glow of the lanterns set up around camp, a hideous cryripples across the gra.s.slands. Several people glance in its direction; others visibly shudder. No one has yet seen a boid, as the creatures have come to be called, yet their footprints have been found in soft mud: three-toed avian tracks nearly eighteen inches j~ in length, several feet apart from the other, suggesting a large flightless bird of some sort. Reese's men have set up automatic machine guns around the camp's perimeter; they're programmed to fire upon anything that enters the range of their infrared motion detectors, and Tom Shapiro has reported that the guns fired briefly a couple of times the night before.

The boids have kept their distance since then, yet the soldiers continue their patrol.

Lee waits until the boid has quieted down, then he goes on. "We were supposed to break out the liquor tonight, have a party, but... well, perhaps that wouldn't be appropriate at this time." Murmurs of agreement. "By shiptime, in four days it'll be Christmas. Maybe we should wait till then. But I would like to say a few words I've been saving for now."

As he speaks, Lee unb.u.t.tons his parka. "Just before we left Earth, before I boarded the shuttle to Alabama, I had a final meeting with Ben Aldrich, the Launch Supervisor at GSC. On behalf of his team, Ben gave me something he wanted to be taken here. I didn't want it, but I took it anyway, and I've kept it in my cabin until we were ready to board the Mayflower."

From an inside pocket, Lee pulls a plastic-wrapped object: a URA flag, its single star visible through its transparent pouch. As hs pulls out the folded flag, he observes the reactions of the people gathered around the it... flllen M. Steele fire. Loathing, respect, wonder, fear, contempt... but never pride, or love.

"Until a few hours ago, I meant to use the occasion to burn this thing." A sharp hiss from someone in the back of the crowd. "Like many of you, I was once loyal to the United Republic of America. Like many of you, I was betrayed by its government. I hated what became of my country, and..."

He stops, shakes his head. "No. I've never hated my country, nor the people who live in it. I only despise the things a few selfish men did to destroy America.

In the last few days, though, I've come to realize that my opinion isn't the only one that matters. Many among you still honor this symbol. If I were to burn it, they would be offended... but if I were to raise it on a mast, not only would it be an insult to everyone who feels as I do, but it would also betray the memories of all the men and women who sacrificed their freedom, even their lives, so that we could come to this place."

He lets the moment linger, allowing everyone to think about what he has said. The flag weighs heavily in his hand; with a casual flick of the wrist, he could easily toss it into the flames. The flag is more than two hundred years old, its fabric brittle with age; the fire would consume it within seconds.

Some of these people would cheer, while others...

"So I'll do neither. I intend to keep it as a reminder of our past, for better or worse. I won't burn it, and I won't bury it, and I won't hide it... but neither will I ever allow it to be raised above our colony. It's part of history. Let it stay that way."

"Amen," someone says. Others mutter the same in agreement, although a few shake their heads. Through the flames, Lee catches a glimpse of Gill Reese; the colonel has turned away, shouldering past those around him as he quietly departs the meeting. Once again, Lee realizes that although he and Reese have put aside their differences, they will never be friends.

"By much the same token, I've given some thought about what we should call our colony..."The crowd quiets down once more. As leader of the expedition, this is his prerogative. "I'm reminded of what became of America, and who was responsible for its demise. Those people took a great word... a fine word... and corrupted its meaning until it stood for something different. Tonight, I want to take it back."

He hesitates, takes a deep breath. "Liberty. The name of this place is Liberty."

Part Four LIBERTY JOURNALS From the journal of Dr. James Levin: December 24, Christmas Eve. No reason to celebrate, though. We suffered two casualties today.

Most of Alabama's cargo and hab modules landed where they were supposed to after they were dropped from orbit, but C4's chute got its lines tangled and came down in a swamp about two miles northeast of Liberty. The module broke apart when it crashed; pieces scattered all over the place, some ending up in a creek and the rest spread out across the marsh. Thank G.o.d C4 wasn't a cargo module, or we'd really have a problem, but it was a loss all the same; we were counting on dismantling the hull and interior bulkheads for temporary shelter.

Capt. Lee sent people out to salvage whatever they could find. He hasn't taken any chances; every time a group leaves camp, two soldiers have gone with them as escorts. Col. Reese's men have cut the sleeves off their URS uniforms and wear them over their shirts. We've started calling them blue- shirts, which they don't seem to mind very much. They're adequate protection against the boids... or at least so we a.s.sumed.

The gra.s.s was higher than Jorge expected, a dense green wall through which he could barely make out the soldiers moving ahead of them. He beat it down with a tree branch as he made his way through the marsh, pausing now and then to swat away the long-winged insects that infested the swamp, and swore to himself that this would be the last time he'd volunteer for anything.

"I'm an engineer, for G.o.d's sake," he muttered. "This isn't what I..."

"What?" Behind him, Rita's voice was nervous. "Did you say something?"

"Never mind. Just thinking aloud."

His wife should have stayed behind with the kids; he knew that now, flllen M. Steele and regretted asking her to join the salvage party. But she'd become so self-involved lately, barely saying a word to anyone as she worked in the community kitchen. She was frightened of the place; at night she seldom moved far from the fire, and she twitched every time she heard a boid scream somewhere out in the darkness. It was time for her to get used to living here; Coyote was their home now, the comforts of Hunts- ville 230 years behind them. Yet perhaps dragging her into the marsh wasn't such a good idea after all.

"I'm thinking," she began, "maybe when we get back, we can ask Carlos if he'd mind..."

"There's the parachute!" one of the soldiers shouted. "We've found the chute!"

Looking up, Jorge spotted a hand above the tall gra.s.s, clutching a large swatch of red-and-white fabric.

"There's more stuff over here!" Boone called back.

"It's all over the place!"A dozen feet ahead, Gill Reese turned toward the civilians bringing up the rear. "Okay, we've found the crash site. Everyone, c'mon up front." Then he vanished into the gra.s.s, jogging in the direction of the corporal's voice.

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir." Somewhere behind Rita, Jorge heard Jack Dreyfus. The propulsion engineer emerged from the gra.s.s, Beth Orr following him; like Jorge, Jack was carrying a stick to knock down the greenery. He stopped, wiped sweat off his forehead, grinned at him and Rita. "Are we having fun yet?"

"Loads." Jorge smiled back. Jack may have been one of the Alabama crewmen who resisted the takeover of the ship, but they've tacitly agreed to put that in the past. Carlos and his son, Barry, became friends while they were still aboard ship; it only made sense for their parents to do the same. "Better catch up, or Reese'll..."

"Salvage party! Front and center!"

"Too late. There he goes again." Beth stepped past Jack, paused to gaze closely at Rita. "Are you okay?"

Rita was out of breath, her face covered with a film of sweat, pieces of gra.s.s stuck in her hair. But she shook her head. "No, no... I'm all right." She took a deep breath, glanced at her husband. "Let's just get this done so we can get out of here."

"That's my girl." Jorge put an arm around his wife, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. A wan smile in return, then she nodded bravely and fell behind him as he turned to follow the trail of knocked-down gra.s.s.

They came upon a small, irregular clearing. A shallow brook snaked through the marsh; the ground was soft and muddy, the air thick with skeeters. Not far away, a stand of blackwood rose from the opposite side of the brook, their broad canopy casting shadows across the clearing. Scattered across the swamp were bits and pieces of man-made debris: bent fragments of hull plate wedged into the mud at odd angles, mangled sections of bulkhead resting here and there. Gla.s.s crunched beneath Jorge's boots; looking down, he found himself standing on a shattered porthole.

"Not much left to take home," Jack murmured.

"Enough to matter." Colonel Reese watched as Boone gathered the torn remnants of the parachute he discovered. "This was a hab module... that means it has bunks, lockers, ladders, all that stuff. Everything we haul out of here is one less thing we have to build from scratch."

"Colonel... with all due respect, this is a junkyard." Jorge gestured to the swamp surrounding them.

"Maybe we can find some wiring, a circuit board or two if we look hard enough, but..."

"Then we'll just'have to look, won't we, Mr. Montero?" Reese turned, whistled sharply; Boone stopped wadding up the parachute, looked around at him. "Bill, let these people take over with that. I want you on guard duty."

"Guard... ?" Jack Dreyfus stared at the colonel. "I thought you were going to help us?"

Reese shook his head. "Our job was to get you here and look after you. Your job is salvaging whatever you can find. That was what Captain Lee ordered."

He unshouldered his flechette rifle, cradled it in his arms. "You have an objection?"

Jack said nothing. He and Beth gave each other a look, then they trudged over to where Boone haddropped the parachute. Jorge didn't move.

"If you think this is the way it's going to be," he said quietly, "you're dead wrong."

Reese didn't reply. The two men regarded each other with mutual contempt for a few moments, then Jorge took Rita's hand. "C'mon... let's see what we can find."

Jack was right; there was little here that was usable. The hab module had virtually disintegrated when it hit the ground; very little of what had remained inside survived the crash, and that which did was usable only as sc.r.a.p material. But it was enough to be able to get away from Reese for a little while, so they began picking their way through the swamp, Jorge fetching odds and ends out of the mud and tossing them into the plastic bag Rita carried. As they worked, Rita chatted about things that needed to be done-building a cabin for their family, how to continue Marie's and Carlos's education, digging a latrine for just themselves -while Jorge only half listened, still privately fuming about his run-in with Reese. Once they returned to camp, he'd have a word with Captain Lee, tell him what...

Just a few yards away, something stirred in the tall gra.s.s.

Half-bent over to pick up a wire, Jorge froze. It could have been the wind... yet the midafternoon air was still, with barely a light breeze. And it occurred to him that the swamp was silent, save for the voices of the others some distance away.

Suddenly, he realized that they had strayed too far from the rest of the party. Yet they were no longer alone.

The boids were nocturnal. At least that was what Jim Levin believed, and that was what he had told Jorge just the previous day. Yet save for a few tracks found outside the camp's defense perimeter-large, three- clawed prints, like those of an enormous avian-no one had yet laid eyes upon one of the creatures.

And Jim could be wrong...

"And that's why I think we will find we ought to..." Rita stopped, gazed at him. "What? You see something?"

"Honey," he said, very quietly, "just stay still. Don't say a..."

That was when the boid attacked. The last thing Jorge heard was his wife's scream.

They brought Jorge and Rita back to Liberty, then I followed Reese and Boone back to where they shot the boid. It was already covered with creek crabs, but Reese kicked them off and let me examine the creature. It looks like something from a nightmare-the beak alone is two feet long, with a sharp hook at its end, and since its feathers are the same color as the gra.s.s, it's perfectly camouflaged.

Blood everywhere, most of it belonging to Jorge and Rita. I went off into the gra.s.s and got sick. Then I remembered why I was there, so I made notes and took pictures. Guess there was bound to be something like this: a tiger in the jungle, a wolf in the woods.

I'm forced to consider the fact that the fault may be my own. Since we've heard the boids only at night and spotted them early in the morning or late in the afternoon, I a.s.sumed that they're nocturnal. I told Jorge that just yesterday. As Liberty's resident exobiologist, these people are accepting my judgments at face value. I should know better than to jump to conclusions without more evidence.

They're digging graves for the Monteros now, by torchlight out by the edge of the camp. Sissy's taking care of Carlos and Marie, and Chris and David are with them. Haven't seen Wendy Gunther-she andCarlos are friends, but she lost her father only three days ago, when her dad was killed while helping Capt.

Lee close down the Alabama. Maybe she's not ready for this yet. Can't blame her. Neither am I.

We've been on Coyote for only four days, and already we've got three orphans on our hands. What the h.e.l.l are we doing here?

From the diary of Wendy Gunther: December 25, Today's Christmas. Hip-hip-hooray. I'm miserable.

That's a pretty lousy way to begin a diary. Dr. Okada-she wants me to call her Kunikp- now that she's taken me in-suggested that I start keeping one. She gave me a spare pad from her supplies, even tied a little bow of surgical tape around it to make it look like a Christmas present. None of the other kids received any presents-nothing to give-so I guess I should be grateful. But Dad's dead, and it's Christmas, and I hate this place...

Seated cross-legged within the tent she shared with Dr. Okada, Wendy looked up from her pad.

Through the open flap, she could see a couple of colonists stacking wood next to the nearby fire pit; a little farther away, the hum of a portable generator, powering electrical tools someone was using to build something. Murmured conversations, the hard bang of something hitting the ground. It was late afternoon; the air was already getting colder. She zipped up her parka, went back to her writing.

Could have been worse. Carlos and Marie lost both their parents yesterday -killed out in the swamp by a boid. At first we thought it was cute, naming these things after the giant birds in the Prince Rupurt book, but it's not anymore. I guess I should spend more time with Carlos's sister, since he's my friend and all that, but how can I help a little girl when I can hardly stop crying myself... flllen M. Steele "Oh, cut it out," she mutters under her breath. You haven't cried in two days, and you know it. You barely knew your father; he was almost a stranger. If you're going to write a diary, then at least be honest with yourself.

What were our parents thinking when they brought us out here?

Maybe I can understand why Dad did it. After Mom died and he was recruited by the Party to join the Service, I spent eight years in a government youth hostel.

When he asked if I wanted to join the expedition, I was only too happy to go along with him. But it never really occurred to me that I was heading to another planet; all I wanted to do was get out of Schaefly. I mean, you can either go into biostasis for 230 years and wake up 46 light-years from Earth, or spend the rest of your life in a dorm with a baseball bat under your blanket in case another counselor tries to rape you. Talk about a tough choice.

But Carlos's folks, and Chris and David's... were they out of their minds? From what Carlos tells me, they were all about to be shipped off to Camp Buchanan, where they'd be interned along with all the other "dissident intellectuals"-G.o.d, I hate that term-the government was busy rounding up. But what made them thinking stealing the Alabama was any kind of solution? Yeah, so maybe the borders were sealed and there was the European shipping blockade. People still managed to escape to New England or Pacifica. And most of these guys have no survival training, none at all. Maybe I had it rough at Schaefly, but at least I learned how to pitch a tent and start a campfire. Until a few days ago, I don't think many of these people ever spent a night out in the open...

From somewhere in camp, not far away, she heard laughter, then a ragged cheer. Wendy looked up, gazed out of the tent. She couldn't see the cause of the commotion, but suddenly she heard a new sound:voices raised in harmony, singing "The First Noel." As if anyone had the right to be singing Christmas carols at a time like this. She shook her head, bent over her pad once more.

I think I know why they did this. It wasn 't enough just to escape from the United Republic of America-they wanted to stick it right in their face. The government spent a hundred billion dollars, completely ruined the economy, and sent the bottom one-third of the population to live in shacks, just to erect a monument to itself: the first starship. Dad bought into that c.r.a.p, but he was a card-carrying member of the Liberty Party, so that figures.

But Capt. Lee and the other officers who organized the conspiracy... they had a vendetta.

So here we are, the land of milk and honey, and we 'we paid our ticket with four people's lives, including my father's. Now I'm squatting in a tent that leaks when it rains. Haven't bathed in a week, and there are bug bites all over my neck and arms-they call them skeeters: they've got huge wings and they hurt like h.e.l.l when they take a chomp out of you-and tomorrow we've got to start clearing land to raise crops...

"Wendy?" Footsteps outside, then the tent flap parted; Kuniko Okada bent down to peer inside.

"What's up?"

"Writing. Working on my diary." Wendy barely glanced up from the pad. "Kinda busy right now."

"Good... okay. Glad to see you're doing that." Kuniko hesitated. "Hey, we're having a sort of Christmas party out here. Some of your friends are over there. Maybe you'd like to... ?"