Coyote Rising (47 page)

Dana followed him, but Kim hovered within the airlock. “Look, you guys don’t need me,” she said. “Maybe I ought to stay back, keep the boat warm.”

She was clearly unsettled by the silence, nor could Lee blame her. It felt strange to be back here again. “Suit yourself. See you in a few.”

‘Thanks, Captain. And . . . the docking cradle?”

“I’ll take care of it topside.”
Plymouth
was mated to
Alabama
only by its docking collar; until they entered the bridge and reactivated the AI, Kim would be unable to remote-operate the cradle that secured the shuttle to the ship. A minor safety precaution, but best not to leave anything to chance. “We’ll be back soon. Don’t go away.”

“Not without you. Good luck.” Kim retreated to the shuttle, careful to
close the inner hatch behind her. Lee watched her go, then he and Dana pushed themselves over to the central access shaft leading up through the ship’s core.

The darkened shaft echoed softly as they floated upward, its tunnel walls reverberating with the sound of their hands grasping the ladder rungs. Lee was tempted to make a brief tour of his ship, yet there was no reason to do so; with most of the crew modules missing, there was little to be seen, save the hibernation modules and the engineering and life-support compartments farther up the hub. He briefly considered climbing up to the ring corridor on Deck H1, where Leslie Gillis—poor Les, condemned to a solitary existence for thirty-five years—had painted a vast mural across its walls. Sometime in the future, he’d have to visit the ship again, perhaps even dismantle the bulkheads and have them shipped home so that Gillis’s artwork could be preserved for future generations. But now wasn’t the time.

Lee stopped at Deck H4, undogged the hatch, and pushed it open. The command compartment was cold and dark, with only a few muted lights gleaming from beneath brittle, fungus-covered plastic covers that shrouded the consoles and instrument panels. The rectangular portholes remained shuttered; the chill air held a faint scent of dust and mildew. Something on the far side of the compartment moved; when he aimed his penlight at it, he spotted a maintenance ’bot scuttling away upon spidery legs.

“Like a haunted house,” Dana said softly. “Only we’re the ghosts.”

She’d felt it, too. “Let’s make this a little less spooky.” Lee turned to a wall panel next to the hatch, found the switch that illuminated the compartment. “All right, we’re in. Let’s go to work.”

Dana went straight for the com station. She pulled aside the cover and shoved it beneath the console, then tapped a few instructions into the keyboard. “Just as I figured,” she murmured, studying the screen. “Main antenna’s been disabled. Won’t track incoming signals.”

Of course. The Union had figured out that the resistance movement was using satphones to keep in touch with one another. Once the Union knocked out
Alabama
’s ground-to-space relay system, then the guerrillas were unable to communicate across long distances, even though Rigil
Kent had already stopped using satphones for fear of revealing their whereabouts. “Can you fix it?”

“No sweat. I’ll reboot the AI, then I’ll have you enter your code prefix. Once that’s done, I can realign the antenna. With any luck, we’ll have the satphone back in thirty minutes, tops.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Take a break. I’ll call when I need you.”

“Thank you, Chief.” Lee pushed himself over to his chair. It had been many years since the last time he’d sat there; the soft leather was cracked and worn, and creaked softly as he settled into it. He had to search for the belt straps that held him in place, and another minute passed before he remembered how to open the lapboard. How strange. He could skin a creek cat, milk a goat, chop down a faux birch, make a fire with damp wood . . . yet now his hands wavered above the keypad, uncertain of what to do next.

He sighed, shook his head.
Come on, Lee, get on with it. There are people down there depending on you.

He took a moment to lock down the
Plymouth
. And then, almost as if of its own accord, his right hand sought out the controls that operated the window shutters. Dana was still at the com station keyboard, awakening the ship’s computer from its long slumber; he had a couple of minutes to kill, and it had been many years since he’d enjoyed the pleasure of looking down upon a world from space. As the shutters slowly rose, he unfastened his belt again, then guided himself hand over hand along the ceiling rails until he reached the nearest porthole.

From an altitude of 450 miles, Coyote lay before him as a vast blue-green plane that curved away at either end, its clear skies flecked here and there with tiny clouds. 47 Ursae Majoris had risen from behind the planet; Lee winced and held up his hand, then the glass polarized, blocking the worst of the glare.
Alabama
was passing over the daylight terminator; looking down, he could see the first rays of dawn, just touching the east coast of New Florida.

With any luck, Red Company and Blue Company would already be in position. Once he and Dana reactivated
Alabama
’s communications system, the two teams, along with White Company, would be able to talk to one another via satphone, coordinating their movements without fear of
having their transmissions intercepted by the Union Guard. At that point, the operation would enter its second phase. But until then, he could steal a few moments to . . .

Something caught his eye: a brownish red cloud hovering just below the horizon.
Alabama
had crossed the East Channel and was above the western side of Midland; now they were above the Gillis Range, he could see that the cloud lay above the subcontinent’s eastern half. At first he thought it might be a storm front, yet there had been no indication of foul weather when
Plymouth
had lifted off. The closest edge of the formation seemed to taper downward; like the funnel of an enormous tornado, it rose from the high country past Longer Creek, where . . .

“No,” he murmured. “This can’t be happening.”

“Robert?”

Lee didn’t respond. He’d heard his wife, but only faintly, as if from a thousand feet away. It wasn’t until she’d pushed herself across the command deck and gently touched his arm that he pointed down at the massive fumarole below them. It took a few moments for her to realize what she was looking at; when she did, he heard her gasp.

“Oh, lord . . . that’s Mt. Bonestell isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.” He took a deep breath. “Hurry up with the com system. We’ve got a problem.”

0551—M
T
. B
ONESTELL
, M
IDLAND

When the world came to an end, when the apocalypse finally arrived
, it was with all the fury and thunder foretold by the biblical scriptures Sareech had read long ago.

First the ground shook, an earthquake that rippled the mountainside
as if Satan himself had suddenly flexed his arms somewhere in the caverns of Hell. He could hear trees snapping as if they were little more than dry twigs, the vast forest crashing down upon itself in waves of percussion that steadily moved toward him, and through it all was the odor of sulfur, heavy and poisonous, as the morning sun disappeared behind a thick, black pillar of smoke that ascended upward into the heavens, blocking out the dawn, eradicating all warmth, all light, all hope.

The
chireep
were in full panic. For many days, they had felt the tremors, smelled noxious odors rising from the flanks of
Corah
, the mountain upon which they had built their city. Some had fled—the unfaithful, those who were more afraid of
Corah
than Sareech’s holy wrath—but most remained behind, believing that their god-from-the-sky would save them. Now they swarmed through the tunnels of the cliff dwellings even as the walls began to cave in, burying alive the young and elderly; they huddled together on parapets, crying out to him in words that he barely understood:

Save us,
Sareech!
Rescue us! The destroyer has awakened! Use your powers to send
Corah
away! We call upon you, please stop this!

This was the moment for which Sareech knew he’d been destined. Many years ago, far beyond the stars, he’d been Zoltan Shirow. He had been born a human, had lived his early life in that mortal shell, understanding nothing of the cosmos until the Holy Transformation had occurred. Not recognizing his own divinity, believing himself to be a mere prophet, he’d traveled to this world with his followers, only to discover that, as humans, they were inherently sinful, damned beyond hope of redemption.

One by one, his congregation had perished in the mountains. Only one among them he managed to save, after they consumed the bodies of the others in order to stay alive. Greer stood beside him; her body had become frail to the point that she was unable to walk without the aid of a stick, and her blue-green eyes had grown dark and haunted, her hair grey and matted. It had been a long time since he’d last heard her speak, yet she was still his consort even though she was no longer able to share communion with him.

Nonetheless, she was a holdover from his past. The
chireep
were his
true people. They’d found him, worshiped him as a god, and, in their doing so, Zoltan had discovered his destiny. He was not a prophet, but far more. He was Sareech, capable of taming the Destroyer.

So now, as the ground quaked and ancient forests tumbled and the air itself became foul, Sareech stood his ground. Standing on top of a wooden platform high above the cliff dwellings, he raised his arms, let his batlike wings unfold to their farthest extremity.

“I am Sareech!” he shouted. “I am God!”

As he spoke, a hideous black curtain rumbled down the mountainside, a wall of superheated ash that ignited the undergrowth, setting bushes and fallen trees ablaze. Even the bravest of the
chireep
were running away; chirping madly, they scrambled downhill in one last, desperate effort to escape. Two of his followers clutched at his legs, their oversize eyes insane with terror, their claws digging into his calves and knees, no longer even praying for salvation, merely hoping that death would be swift.

Only his consort remained unmoved. Beneath the cowl of her ragged white robe, she stared at him, ignoring the ash descending upon them. Her eyes challenged him, daring him to justify his claim to divinity.

At last it was the time. It was within his power to perform a miracle; it was the moment when he would conquer the elements. Opening his hands, Sareech reached forth, calling upon the black mass hurtling toward him to part on either side, just as Moses had once willed the Red Sea to open wide and allow the escape of the Children of Israel.

“I am Sareech! I am—”

“Go to hell,” she said.

Then a wall of ash struck them with the force of a hurricane. He had one last glimpse of his consort—her head lowered, her eyes shut, her tattered robe catching fire—before she was swept away like an angel in flames.

In the next instant he was pitched off the parapet, hurled toward the ground far below. As hot ash filled his lungs, roasting him from the inside out, and his skin was flayed and his wings were ripped from his back, he had one last thought, as if a solemn and merciless voice had finally spoken to him.

You are not God.

0610—M
IDLAND
C
HANNEL