Coyote Rising (2 page)

The boy stared at him for a long moment, not realizing what he was saying, then his dark brown eyes widened. “You mean . . . ?”

“Yes. I’m talking about Coyote.”

Once again, the boy seemed self-conscious about whom he was speaking to: a spacer, one of those who voyaged into the outer system. The lunar colonies boasted a population of over 7 million, with a couple of million more living on orbitals scattered across cislunar space, yet Mars was still a frontier of only a few hundred thousand residents, and even fewer lived on the Jovian moons. It was rare to encounter a uniformed Union Astronautica officer, and Baptiste knew without asking that the boy recognized the gold braid on his shoulders, the silver bangle dangling from his left ear. This man wasn’t just an officer, but a ship’s captain.

“I’m . . .” The boy hesitated. “I’m joining my family at Copernicus. We’re supposed to be going there. Coyote, I mean.”

“Really?” Baptiste raised an eyebrow; now it was his turn to be surprised. “A future colonist, eh?” The boy nodded. “And which ship are you taking?”

“This one.” The boy touched the side of his book. The dinosaur vanished; he closed the book, ran his finger down the index bar, then opened it again and touched the upper corner of the page. A hologram of a starship appeared. “The
Spirit of
 . . . um . . .”

“The
Spirit of Social Collectivism Carried to the Stars
.” Baptiste hid a smile behind his hand; no sense in telling the lad the truth. Or at least not all of it . . . “I’ve heard of it. The newest colony ship. A fine vessel. Are you nervous? About leaving home, I mean.”

“A little.” The boy idly rotated the image; the
Spirit
turned on its axis, displaying the unfolded flanges of its diametric-drive engine along its cylindrical aft section, the enormous dish of its telemetry antenna raised from the blunt prow of the forward section. “The Moon’s always been home. Never even been to Earth. And now . . .”

“And now you’re going all the way to 47 Ursae Majoris.” Baptiste tapped his lip with his forefinger. “And that frightens you, doesn’t it?” The boy said nothing; he stared fixedly at the image in his book. “So tell me, what’s your name?”

“Tomas. Tomas Conseco . . . Tom.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Señor Conseco. I’m Captain
Baptiste.” He gave Tom a sly wink. “For the time being, you can call me Fernando . . . but that’s just between you and me, eh? If there’s anyone else around, you just call me Captain, or Captain Baptiste.” The boy nodded. “Here. Let me show you something.”

Baptiste reached into the pocket of the seat back in front of him and pulled out his own book. He pressed his thumb against the verification plate on the cover; the book beeped twice, and he selected a coded prefix on the index table, pressed it, and spread the book open in his lap. The holographic image of a planetary system appeared: a tiny star, orbited by four planets. A tap of his fingertip and the tiny system rose from the book, the planets slowly revolving around the star.

“That’s 47 Ursae Majoris,” Baptiste said, pointing to the miniature sun. “It’s a GO-class star, about forty-six light-years from Earth. A little less luminescent than our own sun, which means it’s—”

“I know.” Tomas squirmed impatiently. “We were taught all that in Basic Astronomy. I got an E,” he added proudly.

“Really. So you’re an expert.” Baptiste touched the upper margin of the right page, and the third planet of the system expanded, becoming a ringed jovian surrounded by six major satellites. “That’s Bear, its primary,” he said, pointing to the gas giant. “It’s the third planet of 47 Ursae Majoris. Now, tell me . . . which one is Coyote?” Tom peered at the satellites, then pointed to the fourth one. “Very good. Now then, tell me about the
Alabama
.”

“That was the first starship. It left Earth in 2070.”

“Excellent. I’m impressed. And who was aboard?”

“Some people from the United Republic of America. They were led by Captain Robert E. Lee. . . .”

“Umm . . . almost right, but not quite.” Baptiste closed the page, opened another one. A flat image of the URSS
Alabama
appeared within the book: a smaller vessel, less than half the size of a
Destiny
-class starship and not nearly as elegant in design, the conical scoop of its Bussard ramscoop protruding from the spherical main fuel tank at its bow. “R. E. Lee was the commanding officer, and about half of his crew were loyal to the URA, but the other half were political dissidents whom Captain Lee led in a successful effort to steal his own ship. The theft of the
Alabama
was the first major event in the downfall of the Republic. You haven’t been taught this in history class?”

Tomas looked embarrassed. “I didn’t do so well in history,” he admitted. “I got a U.”

“Well, now . . . we’ll have to make up for that, won’t we?” Baptiste opened another page; an ancient photograph appeared, flat and unenhanced by holographics: Lee standing at the lowered gangway of one of the
Alabama
’s shuttles, shaking hands with an older gentleman. “That’s Captain Lee with Roland Shaw, the Republic’s Director of Internal Security. This picture was taken on Merritt Island, the old Gingrich Space Center in Florida, just before Lee escaped with the forty-seven dissidents he managed to smuggle aboard the
Alabama
 . . . quite a story in itself. No one knew it at the time, but Shaw was part of the conspiracy. He secretly worked behind the scenes to help Lee get all those people aboard the
Alabama
.”

“What happened to him?”

“Shaw? He was arrested for high treason and was executed. . . .”

“No, I mean Captain Lee.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.” But the boy was clearly fascinated, and so Baptiste obliged his interest. “The
Alabama
managed to escape with only minutes to spare, and no one’s heard from Captain Lee or his crew since then. Whether they’re dead or alive, no one knows. They’re still on their way to 47 Uma, and won’t arrive until 2300 . . . by our reckoning at least. It’ll seem a little shorter for them.”

“That’s the part I don’t understand.”

“Well, when you approach the speed of light, time passes more slowly. Since
Alabama
has a cruise velocity of twenty percent light-speed, this means that, even though two hundred and thirty years will have passed by the time it reaches Coyote, for everyone aboard it’ll seem as if only two hundred and twenty-six years have passed. A difference of a little more than four years.”

Tomas looked unsettled by this knowledge, and Baptiste smiled. “But since the
Spirit
has a cruise velocity of ninety-five percent light-speed, it means that it will take only a little more than forty-eight years to get there. For everyone aboard it’ll seem as if only about fifteen and a half
years have passed. By Earth reckoning, you’ll arrive in 2308, about eight years after the
Alabama
.”

Tomas’s eyes widened. “You mean I’ll be able to meet Captain Lee?”

“Maybe.” Baptiste shrugged. “His ship still hasn’t arrived, and neither have the four colony ships that have been launched since then. Remember, radio waves travel at the speed of light. Since nothing travels faster than light, no one here will hear anything from Coyote for quite some time to come. So we won’t know until we . . . that is, until you . . .”

“You’re the captain, aren’t you?” Tom didn’t look away as he said this. “The captain of the
Spirit
, I mean.”

No point in hiding the truth any longer. Baptiste closed the book and put it away. “You’re quite intuitive.”

“I figured it out when I saw your uniform.” Tomas looked straight ahead. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you . . . sir, I mean. Captain Baptiste.”

Across the aisle, a woman opened her eyes. Baptiste met her curious gaze, and she quickly looked out the window, feigning disinterest; her companion continued to snore softly. “Well, for the short time we’ve got left together, let’s keep on being friends, shall we? I’m still Fernando, and you’re still Tom. Okay?”

“Okay. Sure.” The boy’s voice was very soft; now that he’d admitted knowing who his traveling companion was, he seemed more nervous than before. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

“You may ask anything you like.”

“Is it . . . ?” Tom hesitated. “Is it very dangerous, where we’re going? Coyote, I mean?”

“It’ll be difficult, yes,” he replied, carefully gauging his words. “Like I said, there are things you’ve taken for granted before that you’ll have to do without. And you’ll have to work hard to make yourself at home. Coyote is a whole new world, so it’ll be like starting over on Earth back when hardly anyone lived there. You’ll have blue skies and fresh water, and you won’t have to worry about airlocks or radiation or . . .”

“I know. That’s what my father tells me. But . . .” He stopped, still refusing to look at Baptiste. “That’s not what I meant. Could I . . . could I be killed?”

How could he give an honest answer? All available information indicated that Coyote was habitable. The
Alabama
had a hundred and four passengers aboard when it departed from Earth, and four more ships had gone out since then, each carrying a thousand passengers. By the time they arrived in forty-eight years, the colony on Coyote should be well established. Indeed, toward the end of its flight, the
Spirit
would probably pass the first Union Astronautica ship, the
Glorious Destiny
, on its return trip to Earth.

Nonetheless, no one knew exactly what was out there.

“You won’t die there,” Baptiste said flatly. “You’ll be safe. You have my word.”

He took the boy’s hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze. Tomas smiled and nodded slightly. In that instant a bond was formed between them.

And then the train bumped and began to decelerate, and a few seconds later the ceiling lights brightened. Around them, passengers stirred from their sleep, yawning and stretching their cramped legs. Glancing out the window, Baptiste could make out a silver-blue aura upon the distant horizon, still many miles away but coming closer: Copernicus Centre, the largest spaceport on the Moon. A luminescent speck rose from within the crater wall, a shuttle lifting off for rendezvous with some vessel in lunar orbit.

“My family will be waiting for me when I get in,” Tomas said. “Can I . . . would you like to meet them?”

“That may not be such a good idea.” Baptiste shook his head. “I think this should be our secret.” Then he forced a smile. “Can we keep this between us, Senor Conseco? What we’ve talked about tonight?”

“Sure.” The boy nodded, understanding the situation. “I can keep a secret, Fernando . . . Captain Baptiste, I mean.”

“Thank you.” Baptiste looked away, yet he kept an eye on his traveling companion. And in the last few moments before the train trundled to a halt, he saw Tom’s hand steal toward the book Baptiste had placed in the seat pocket before him. Without making any fuss about it, Baptiste pulled out the book and put it in his own lap.

Coyote still had its secrets. And he had one or two of his own.

The lunar headquarters of the Union Astronautica was located
within the north wall of Copernicus, with the office of the Patriarch occupying a suite high on the crater rim. The south wall was too far away to be seen, yet through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the suite Baptiste could nonetheless gaze out upon the vast spaceport spread out across the crater floor: hangars, dry docks, warehouses, fuel depots, the network of roads leading from one launchpad to another where moonships awaited liftoff.

The Patriarch’s senior aide—a young lieutenant in silver-braided waistcoat, polite yet perfunctory—had greeted him, then requested that he wait there while he informed the chief of his arrival before vanishing through the door leading to the inner sanctum. That had been nearly twenty minutes ago, but Baptiste wasn’t impatient. This was only the second time he’d been there, and the view was spectacular. So he sat on a couch facing the windows and watched as a shuttle to Highgate silently rose into the black sky. Too bad he couldn’t have brought the boy he met on the train—Tomas, was it?—up here; he probably would have loved it.

The door whisked open; the aide told him that the Patriarch would see him. Baptiste picked up his valise, stood up, and followed the lieutenant to the inner office. The aide stepped aside as Baptiste crossed the threshold, then turned and left, allowing the door to shut quietly behind him. Obviously, the chief wanted to see Baptiste alone.

“Captain Fernando Baptiste, at your service, sir.” He snapped to rigid attention—spine straight, arms at his side, legs together—and locked his gaze upon the luminescent emblem of the Union Astronautica above the Patriarch’s desk. Indeed, it was one of the few things in the Patriarch’s office he could see; with ceiling lights dimmed, the office was illuminated by earthlight streaming in thin bars through the window slats.

“Oh, come now, Captain. You’re behaving like an actor in some third-rate skiffy.” A dry chuckle from the other side of the room. “I hate those things, don’t you? Cheap melodrama, usually written by someone who’s only been a tourist . . . if that, even.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I don’t watch skiffies very often.” Baptiste maintained his stiff posture.

“Hmm . . . probably just as well. Still, entertaining enough, for what they are.” A figure glided from the darkness. “If you keep that up, though, you’re going to get a crick in the neck . . . and I’ll tell you right now, I’m not impressed.”