Coyote Rising (10 page)

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 about 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.