Sky Coyote (31 page)

“What we would like to hear first is the true story of how the universe came into existence, followed by a description of Him and any earthly manifestations He may or may not assume, and then any notable miracles worked by Him or His prophet, and of course the body of His laws—uh—but why don’t you just tell
us in your own words? And please stop us at any time if you need a drink of water or anything like that. All right?”

“Very well.” The stranger drew a deep breath, trying to ignore the dazzling prospects opening before him—or maybe it was Imarte’s bosom he was trying to ignore—and, raising his fine, loud voice, he began:

“In the beginning was Vacancy and Emptiness, but He was before the beginning.

“Then Vacancy and Emptiness became Pallor and Oblivion; but He was not pale, and He was conscious. Then Pallor and Oblivion became Explosion and Falling Outward, but He did not move, He was in the still center. Then Falling Outward became the Night, full of stars; and the Earth was in it, and He looked upon the Earth.

“And He saw her bear many children, but they followed no Law. He was angry with the children of Earth for this, and so He came to Earth and was born as one of her children too. He was more beautiful than the Sun, but He was so terrifying to the guilty children of Earth that she had to hide Him at first. Still He was like a fire shining out of a grave, and made His Law known to them.

“Earth taught all her other children to worship Him. Now, those who obeyed, He spared. But to those who would not worship Him, His avengers came, bringing terrible torment; the Bear to bite, the Scorpion to sting, the Rose to grieve, the Rattlesnake to poison …”

I sighed and left as discreetly as I could. The missionary ignored me and kept going, and Imarte listened, rapt, stars in her eyes, drinking in his every word. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard the same old spiel, as I had, in a hundred ancient tongues, in a hundred different centuries; but this was her line of work, and it
gave her as much delight as rare maize cultivars gave Mendoza or fake temples gave Houbert.

Not to knock the guy’s religion or anything.

And speaking of religion, here was my own little prophet of Revealed Truth waiting for me just outside the door! Kenemekme pushed a chaplet of flowers up from where it had slipped over one eye and looked at me terribly earnestly.

“Is it true what they’re saying, Uncle? Is that one of Your enemies in there? Why don’t I just go in and explain about how nice You are?”

“Thanks, nephew, but I have my spirits in there working on him.” I took him by the arm and led him away.

“I could play some music for him,” he offered. “I composed the most beautiful song this morning, all about the light and how it shines and shines.”

“That’s just wonderful. Say, I’ll bet the sea would like to hear your song, don’t you think so? How about you run down to the beach and play some tunes to the waves?”

“What a beautiful thing to do!” Kenemekme looked enchanted. “I’ll go right now.” He ran away, breaking into his weird little dance as he went.

“Sky Coyote?” Sepawit was pacing nearby, looking unhappy. “How long am I going to be kept out of my house like this?”

“Not much longer, Sepawit, I promise.” There had to be a more convenient place for Imarte to conduct her researches. “I’ve got my spirits on him now, softening him up. They’ll get him to talk in no time.”

“Sounds like he’s talking well enough,” Sepawit said with a scowl. He was right; the stranger’s trained voice was carrying right through the walls, so that all Sepawit’s neighbors were getting an earful of the Youthful Miracles of Chinigchinix. He had
reached the part where the Boy Divinity takes His elderly blind aunt digging clams and tricks her into entering a sea cave, which He then walls up so she drowns at high tide, which is okay (as He explains to His disconcerted family) because she’s really a sorceress, only nobody but Him knew.

“The spirit is letting him think he’s converting her. Lulling him,” I explained. “Once she has his confidence, she can trick him into revealing the invasion plans.”

“If You say so.” Sepawit looked down and sighed. “I don’t suppose You could try to find out what became of my Speaker?”

“Sumewo. Right. She’ll ask, but … the Tongvans had to have captured him, Sepawit. How else would the guy know to come straight here, to this village? And they had to have made him talk, and to do that … well, the outlook isn’t good. I’m pretty sure he’s dead, Sepawit.”

Sepawit turned his face away. “I thought he must be.” After a moment that wasn’t enough, and he covered his face with both hands, and drew a deep breath and held it. Finally he managed to say, “But I have to know, Sky Coyote. You understand.”

“He was your son, wasn’t he?” I guessed. Behind us the droning voice went on, describing the birth of a prophet to a young girl who had never slept with a man. Sepawit nodded miserably.

“Not Ponoya’s. My firstborn. From a long time ago. He was a brave boy … would have made a great chief. He became my Speaker when he was only sixteen.” He choked off. “He volunteered—oh, Coyote!”

I sighed. So many old masks to try and fit on over this coyote face. All afternoon I’d been wearing the Persecuting Inquisitor; now I had to put on the kindly Father Confessor.

“You know what happens to a soul like that, when it leaves the body? Flies straight over the rainbow bridge to paradise, straight as an arrow,” I told him. “After all, this wasn’t a boy
who died in a stupid accident, or in a fight over a woman, or of illness. He was willing to risk his life for his people! And a strong soul, and a good soul, comes back sooner, because it has the most work to do in this world. You’ll see him again, Sepawit.”

“Will I see him where you’re taking us?” he asked, without much hope.

“Well, no, because you won’t be dead. But there are higher paradises, and you’ll move on to them eventually, and he’ll be there.”

“If he’s dead.” Sepawit turned his head in the direction of the house, where the stranger had begun to sing a hymn. “There’s always the chance, of course, that he isn’t. It’s not knowing that’s killing me. Maybe the Tongvans aren’t as bad as we think, maybe they’ve treated him well. What if he’s alive, and we leave here, and we leave him behind us? What if … it makes me afraid to go, Sky Coyote, white men or no white men.”

“No. You wouldn’t want to fall into the white men’s hands,” I said emphatically. “I didn’t tell you as much as I could have about them, you know. Your people would have been too scared. South of here, way south of here, they came for a tribe that was bigger and richer than you could ever imagine. Only a handful of white men against this powerful tribe, but you know what happened? They walked right into the biggest village and took their chief prisoner, without striking a blow. That tribe are all slaves now, the ones left alive. And you and I could walk south right now, Sepawit, for only a few moons, and you could see with your own eyes the graves of their babies stretching to the horizon. You think that doesn’t make me sick with fear for all of you? And they’re coming for you, Sepawit, don’t kid yourself. They’re creeping up on the Tongvans just as surely as the Tongvans are creeping up on you.”

“Maybe the white men won’t last forever,” he sighed. “Maybe
there’ll come an age of the world when they’ve all gone away and we can be born again back here. And then I won’t … then my son can be the chief he would have been.”

“Of course he will,” I said. “But meanwhile your other son will grow up free and happy, and he’ll never have to watch his mother being raped by conquerors, and he’ll never be sick a day in his long, long life. And why? Because you’ll all be safe with me, in the place I’m taking you. Think about it, Sepawit. You don’t really have a choice here, do you?”

“No, of course not,” he replied. His gaze wandered to the house again. The stranger was singing:

He had a beautiful voice. All of Sepawit’s neighbors were coming out to listen.

I
TRUDGED WEARILY BACK TO
the base by my devious ways and had myself a sponge bath. It didn’t do much toward taking away the psychological stench, but not even peeling off my skin would have done that.

I used to soap up in various wooden or tin tubs after a session in the dungeons of the Holy Inquisition. Anybody in his right mind would have bathed, the places were so foul. The worst part wasn’t working in the questioning chambers; it was being sent to fetch prisoners from the filthy cells where they’d been sitting forgotten for weeks or even months. Worst of all was opening a door and seeing a buzzing mass of flies whirl up from something that wasn’t going to have to worry, ever again, about whether or not it was Jewish. Or maybe it was worse to open a door into darkness and meet the stare of a child, alone there, forgotten by everybody except some rabid priest who’d authorized red-hot pincers for her mother.

Maybe that was my last straw, maybe that was the moment I finally came to the place Budu had been when he watched Christians eating Moslem corpses. Not that I hadn’t seen children die
before. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of seeing them die over centuries, being able to rescue only the perfect few for immortality. Maybe it was just my amazement that the kid never cried.

She didn’t cry once while we were interrogating her. She was so angry. Her anger fascinated me; there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d refuse to break. Even when we began to wear her down, when she was terrified by having been shown the torture chamber, when she was confused and exhausted, she didn’t cry. I think she was four years old, at most.

And she’d fit all the physical parameters. With an iron soul like hers, I thought she’d make a great Facilitator someday, so I spirited her off to the hidden lab where Marigny and I ran the rescue operation. I couldn’t believe it when he came out later with that look on his face.

“What do you mean, she’s not up to specs?” I hissed. “I scanned her myself. She’s optimum for augmentation, for Christ’s sake!”

“She scored high on everything, but that’s the problem,” he muttered, not looking me in the eye. “She’s a Crome generator, Joseph. Not much, maybe only force two, but the readings are there. Look at the brain imaging, if you don’t believe me. Any score above .009, and the Company doesn’t want them. You know that.”

I knew. Some mortals generate Crome’s radiation spontaneously. Actually everybody generates some, under sufficient stress, but mortals who produce above a certain amount tend to do fl
ukey
things like levitate small objects and see the future. If it were controllable or predictable, the Company could make use of it; but it isn’t, so we don’t. And when you’re transforming a mortal into an immortal, you
really
don’t want anything uncontrollable
or unpredictable in the equation, because any mistakes you make aren’t going to go away. Ever.

But what was I going to do, send the little girl back to her cell to die? One more lousy deed in my life that was becoming an unending string of lousy deeds, just so I could occasionally get a good deal on something or someone Dr. Zeus wanted.

She’s stressed
, I told Marigny subvocally.
That’s why she’s scoring so high. So, you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to fudge the test results so they read under .009, and nobody’s ever going to know you did it. I’ve already forgotten what I just said. You owe me, Marigny!

Out loud I said, “Well, you’d better go back and double-check to be sure. Did you remember to factor in the medication I slipped her?”

“Oh, my gosh, that totally slipped my mind!” exclaimed Marigny. He wasn’t as good a liar as I was, but he was good enough. “I guess I’d better go back in and take another reading.”

So he did, and this time Mendoza scored nice and low on the Crome test, and we shipped her off to Terra Australis Base to be processed for immortality. I couldn’t believe it when I found out she’d become a botanist. I’d been certain that the kid was Facilitator material.

Then again, would I want a daughter to have to do the kind of work I do?

“Are you out of your mind?” I took off my tricorne and flung it down on the conference table so hard that papers fluttered everywhere and styluses rolled off. “This guy is poison! He already has my people arguing. Everything we’ve done so far could be jeopardized. All that cooperation, all that trust could go.”

“With respect, Joseph, you’re overreacting.” Imarte kept a
tight hold on both ends of her stylus. She looked demurely down the table at Lopez. “You should see the man, sir. He’s no warrior, not by any stretch of the imagination. He came on a peaceful mission to evangelize for his faith. While I agree that he mustn’t be allowed to do that, for the sake of our own mission, we have an incredible opportunity to learn from him. And we certainly can’t mistreat him in any way! Not only is it in violation of our code and everything we stand for, it wouldn’t give the Chumash a very good impression of us.”