L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 (10 page)

“Hold your horses!” I muttered eighteenth century mem-ory-cues; data popped into place on my cortex: “But they
did
win, Olongo! Washington started collectin’ taxes like he wanted, an’ Aaron Burr shot Hamilton in a duel.” “Burr?” Olongo mused. “Don’t recall hearing that name before; I’ll make inquiries. But this is precisely my point, sir: you may be from the distant future, but you’re also from an alternative reality, and if that
was
a military uniform I saw Goldilocks processing for you this morning—difficult to tell when there’s only one of the things around—then I believe I know
which
alternative reality.”

My head hurt. I didn’t understand all this “alternative reality” jazz—ideas like that are dangerous, quietly but savagely suppressed by the Academy. But I’d figured out what was wrong now. Somebody—Cromney an’ his gang or even another set of temporal tinkerers on a different mission—somebody’d finally messed things up catastrophically. A significant historic event somewhen had been altered, through carelessness or malice, destroying subsequent history as I knew it, an’ substituting this
Planet of the Apes
thing that was goin’ on.

There
wasn’t
any more Academy, nor any west-Texican Oklahoma City suburbs where I usta hang my nonexistent hat. Findin’
Georgie
wouldn’t do me—or the Freenies— a licka good. There
wasn’t
any future t’go home to.

It was full dark once again; the rain hadn’t let up for a minute. Discussion didn’t end there, but my contributions to it got unaccountably less frequent as I succumbed to a sudden, paralyzing fatigue. Guess I’d been through a lot lately. Mebbe it was the marguerita Goldilocks provided that finished me off. As the Freenies tucked me in—least that’s how I remember it—my thoughts were whirlin’ round in circles down the drain.

If we were well an’ truly stranded here, recoverin’
Georgie
was still my number-one priority. I missed her worse’n any
livin'
creature, an’ she was an incalculably valuable survival asset.

Besides, there was the possibility I could take her backward in time, find the rupture, an’ repair it—hold on,
there
was an ethical snarl! Restorin’ my own time-line’d be at the certain funereal expense of these kindly generous simians I’d met here. Gorillas an’ chimpanzees’d go back t’bein’ drawers of wood an’ hewers of water.

Don’t think 1
ever
cared much for that.

Destroyin’ the North American Confederacy seemed just as rotten as whatever had destroyed my world. One thing for sure: Cromney, Kent, an’ Janof'd gotten me into this— in their case, catastrophic destruction, for preference courtesy of my Colt .45, seemed like a
swell
idea.

I fell asleep reflectin’ that I shoulda followed Aus Clint-wood’s example an’ tidied up my piece. Just hadn’t... seemed... polite... at... the...

8 Boots ’n’ Saddlesores

"
Y
IPPEE; R
T
HE NORMALLY LACONIC
A
USTIN
C
LINTWOOD HOLLERED THROUGH A WIND-BATTERED GRIN, SLAPPING HIS BUCKING STEED WITH A WIDE-BRIM HAT.
H
IS ORNATE SADDLE CREAKED AS STRESSES SHIFTED FROM STIRRUP TO STIRRUP.
H
IS MOUNT VEERED IN CIRCLES, PITCHING, ROLLING, BUT HE HUNG ON GAMELY TO THE SHOUTED SATISFACTION OF THE SIMIAN COW-PUNCHERS GATHERED ON
O
LONGO’S FRONT LAWN.

“Ride ’em, Aus!"

“Ride 'em, cowboy!’’

“Wahoo!"

Clintwood made a final pass, leaned t’starboard, an’, graceful as a prairie hawk, spiraled upward a hundred meters, the dual electrostatic impellers of his chrome-plated sky-scooter rising an octave. He wiped a forearm across his brow, grinned self-consciously, jammed on his
sombrero,
an’ vanished over the pine-covered hogback behind the ranch-house, no doubt already his old no-nonsense self again.

A pale an’ shamefaced sun was makin’ its debut through the drizzle at the opposite end of the valley.

Olongo leaned back in his massive front-porch rocker, finishing his first cigar of the morning, our breakfast—steak an’ eggs—already a glorious memory. Koko perched up on the rail, anxious t’get on with things. I was sitting on an empty nail-keg, dreadin’ the ordeal t’come.

It wasn’t just the liquid nastiness drippin’ from the eaves, though I didn’t look forward t’gettin’ this momin’s borrowed cowboy-suit all soggy. The job hadda be done. Drove me plumb crazy wonderin’ what Cromney an’ his pals’d been up to all this time. It’s just that I’ve never gotten along that well with horse-flesh.

The President stopped rocking, stubbed out his cigar on the side of his boot-heel. “Well, sir, I suppose we must be off. That was, after all, our purpose in arising at such a shocking hour.”

Olongo figgered there wasn’t any reason a gentleman rancher oughta keep the same ungodly time-table medieval peasants had before electric lights an’ late-late-shows got invented. Today was an unwelcome exception; we had miles t’make, no surplus of daylight t’do it in.

Koko jumped up, nearly knockin’ me over. The three of us, followed closely by Color, Charm, an’ Spin, crossed the broad graveled yard to the horse-bam. No chrome-plated cayuses for us. Matching Clydesdales were already saddled up for the gorillas. A brace of Shetland ponies waited for the chimps who’d go along. Standin’ there in the not-too-unpleasant-smellin’ gloom, I sized up the midsized mare they’d picked out for yours truly, while she did the same t’me.

We weren’t gonna like each other.

I’d been checked out on horses at the Academy; main problem at one-sixth gee’s stayin’ velcroed to the saddle. I walked around to the big gray’s port gunwhale, keepin’ a respectful distance from her iron-shod torpedo-tubes. “What are you doing, Bemie?”

“What’s it look like, Koko? Gettin’ on m’horse.” “Well, there’s really no need to mount from the left. Our animals are brought up ambidextrous!” T’make the point, she hopped up on the right side of her fringe-footed beer-dragger. “See?”

So much for my equestrian expertise. I shoved a reluctant foot into the stirrup. They’d bullied me into a paira gaudy Justin winkle-pickers, after all. Somethin’ gruesome about gettin’ thrown an’
dragged.
Just when I was nicely off-balance there was that old familiar tuggin’ at my pants leg. “Bemie, are you
quite
certain you’re up to this?”

I looked back over my shoulder. “Ambassador, your heartfelt concern’s duly logged, an’ I appreciate y’wadin’

through all this
caballo
exhaust just t’do my hypochondri-ackin’ for me. But I’m feeiin’ fine—now leggo my leg!” Charm shook his eyestalk, sharing a look of pessimism with the other two Freenies behind him. “You weren’t feeling fine last night, Bernie. There was more to your fainting-spell than simple fatigue or a small volume of alcohol, I’m certain of it.”

Now he mentioned it, I’d thought it was a little strange, myself. One minute I’d been chewin’ the fat with the Feath-erstone-Haughs, an’ the next, a Yamaguchian was rollin’ that Nudie’s bedspread up under my chin.

“I’m teliin’ you, I
didn't
faint!” I wrapped both hands around the saddle-horn. “I passed out—there’s a difference!”

“Bemie, my fellows and I have been thinking about this and are deeply concerned about your health. Haven’t you noticed yourself how your attention wanders, even lapsing into somnolence, whenever—”

“Charm, you an’ your little buddies better leave the thinkin’ t’me. That’s the whole point t’religion, ain’t it? An’ when’d you ever heara
God
gettin’ the punies? Now get outa my—
unh!”

I heaved a leg over the leather, dingin’ to the pommel for dear life. The Ambassador an’ friends scooted hastily clear of the hoofs. The saddle creaked an’ canted—I dunno, they never seem t’screw ’em on tight enough. Meanwhile, the reins’d gotten outa hand somehow, the ends droppin’ on the ground. I leaned forward, stretchin’ painfully to retrieve ’em as the mare gave me a sardonic look.

“Okay, dog-food. so I
don’t
know what I’m doin’. Let’s see
you
drive a time-machine!” I shook my head t’clear out the cobwebs.

She snorted, dropped her nose into a clump of hay at the back of the stall, nearly pullin’ me off over her neck.

Koko pranced her stallion up to tower over this fourlegged practical joker an’ me. “Don’t let her do that, Bernie. Show her who’s boss!”

I jerked up on the reins without effect. “I think she knows!”

By some special dispensation from Mr. Murphy, I finally got the animal moving, backed up, turned around, an’ followed Koko an’ Olongo out into the drizzle, chimpanzees providin’ a rear-guard. As we crunched an’ clopped our way across the graveled yard, three little forlorn Army helmets, incandescent pink, dwindled gradually in the distance, wavin’ their periscopes in sad farewell.

One thing about travelin’ by mare’s-shanks: it’s
slow.

Seemed like a quarter past forever before we were across that valley, startin’ up into the trees. One of the chimps galloped around me t’confer with Olongo, then rode on ahead. I was busy unrollin’ the yellow plastic slicker from my saddle cantle, precipitation creepin’ down the backa my neck. I’d
refused
t’wear one of those ten-gallon pizzas like everybody else. But the Confederacy’d solved another age-old problem: didn’t get hot an’ sweaty under the raincoat; somehow it breathed
and
kept me reasonably dry at the same time. I looked down at the mare, water sluicin’ over her forelocks, an’ sneered.

Turned out her name was Bella, an’ from the unhappy moment we laid eyes on each other, it was all-out war. Every sprig of vegetation was her cafeteria. Damn near sprained both arms each time she dipped her head t’grab a snack. She sidled just close enough t’trees an’ boulders t’not
quite
scrape me off an’ took delight in lashin’ me with her rain-soaked rear-end flyswatter.

I’ve known
Spacers
smarter an’ more cooperative than horses.

I did discover that not everybody who hangs around fourlegged motorcycles is uncritically batty about ’em. The remainin’ dogie-puncher ridin’ behind me advised—between ineptly stifled bouts of snickerin’—not takin’ any nonsense from Bella. Told me t’get downright
rough
about it, in a manner he surprised me by demonstration’ an’ which I expected any moment was gonna call the wrath of the Confederate SPCA down on my skinny little shoulders.

I was startin’ my fourth cigar when Olongo waved at me t’join him. The mare broke into a trot, just about givin’ me an inertial appendectomy, until I kicked her an’ she shifted gears.

“Tallyho, old anthropoid! We cut ’em off at the pass yet?” Once started, Bella was tough t’stop. I overshot an’ hadda circle back.

“We’ll see directly,” answered the boss ape. He reached down to his saddlehom an’ flipped the top away. “Go ahead, Austin.”

A tiny, tinny voice replied. Olongo gestured; I flipped my own pommel open. Musta been a lotta transistors inside the hollow titanium saddle-tree; a miniature 3D screen was deliverin’ an aerial travelogue.

“—be sure, but there’s somethin’ there. Mebbe eighty, ninety feet, an’ circular. It’s the lower pasture where you shot that five-pointer last fall."
Clintwood shifted the viewpoint to himself, pulled out his little bag of makin’s, rolled a coffin-nail one-handed, struck a kitchen match off his upper right canine, an’ lit up. Behind him, the mist-blurred horizon tilted crazily as he kneed the scooter into a long, lazy bank.
"I’ll give ya another look!"

Wasn’t too informative. The screen was small; the weather obscured the meadow several hundred feet below. Clintwood wanted t’set down but got vetoed. One well-soaked branch through those kilovolt impellers, fore an’ aft, Olongo cautioned, an’ there’d be fireworks from here to the Da-kotas. Even after sophisticated image-enhancement at both ends, the circularity on the ground was just barely visible,
Georgie'
s size, an’ darker’n her surroundings. I was surprised t’feel my heart flutterin’. Musta been the altitude.

“That’s the girl, Your Prexyship! How soon can we get up there?”

“Austin?”

“Boss, your party’s about three and a half miles due east b’ southeast. I’ll flip back an’ guide you in.”
•

“Nonsense. Get back to the house and dry off, old sod. This isn’t decent flying weather. See what damage you can do the case of Kingsley’s that came in this morning—and Austin?”

“Yeah, boss?"
The camera soared from meadow, up through foothills an’ ghostly peaks, across an eggshell-col-ored sky an’ down t’landscape at the opposite compass point.

“The Escadrille lost its greatest pilot when you were born too late for the Prussian War. Out.” He snapped his saddle-horn shut. “Well, old fellow, not much longer now.”

“Yep,” I answered, strong an’ silent, checkin’ the chamber of my Colt.

The mare twisted around an’ bit me on the knee.

Wasn’t anything about this meadow to distinguish it from any of the other ten I’d stumbled through my first nights here. Thanks to the constant drizzle, y’couldn’t see from one end to the other. We cleared the pines, navigatin’ foot-by-foot from Clintwood’s coordinates.

I rubbed my injured knee, grudgingly thankful for the nearly-indestructible fabric I was wearin’. Just inside the pasture, we pulled up behind a little copse of aspen theoretically between us an’ the timebuggy.

“What now, O Commander-in-Chief?”

Olongo smiled, a ritual learned from humans. Among his own people, baring the choppers meant serious—an’ terminal—social intercourse. “You know, the last Confederate President to bear that title in earnest was Sequoyah Guess, killed leading American volunteers in the Mexican War.”