Steele, Allen - Glorious Destiny

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Glorious Destiny

Allen M. Steele

Asimov's (2002-12)

"Glorious Destiny" is the final story in a series that will soon be published by Ace.

The novel-length version will be entitled Coyote. Two tales in that series, "Stealing

Alabama" (January 2001) and "The Days Between" (March 2001), have been

nominated for Hugo Awards. The author is now working on a second set of Coyote

stories, the first of which—"The Mad Woman of Shuttlefield"—is already in our

inventory.

Liberty: Zamael, Gabriel 16, c.y.3 / 1906

The comet had appeared a couple of weeks earlier, in the last few days of Hanael

before the winter solstice that marked the end of the Coyote year. At first it was little

more than a hazy white splotch that hovered just above the southeastern horizon after

sundown, and no one in Liberty paid much attention to it until its nimbus grew

brighter and a distinct tail began to form. Eighteen nights later, its luminescence was

rivaled only by Bear, until the superjovian rose high enough to eclipse the comet so

that it couldn't be seen again until it made a brief reappearance in the northwestern

sky a couple of hours before dawn.

Like everyone else in Liberty, Robert Lee notices the comet; lately, though, he's

given it little more than a passing glance. As chairman of the Town Council, other

matters rank higher on his list of priorities. The last of the autumn crops are in, and

although the colony won't have to worry about food shortages this winter, swampers

discovered the corn stored in one of the silos shortly before they went into

hibernation; the tunnels they dug beneath the refurbished Alabama cargo module

threaten to undermine its foundation and eventually topple it. Two more colonists

have come down with ring disease; it isn't contagious and is easily treated with

antibiotics, but Kuniko Okada has privately warned him that the drug supply is

running dangerously low. One of the aerostats was toppled two weeks ago by a severe

windstorm; if it's not rebuilt soon, the council will have to start rationing electrical

power.

And then there's the storm that's been forming a few hundred miles east of the

Meridian Sea, slowly gathering force as it creeps eastward along the Great Equatorial

River. It's still on the other side of the planet, so it's possible that it might die off, but

if it doesn't it'll soon rip across the southern plains of Great Dakota and slam straight

into New Florida.

Tonight, though, the sky is clear: no clouds, no wind, the stars serene in their

crystalline beauty. As Lee marches across the light snow covering the frozen mud of

Main Street, he spots a small group of people gathered outside the grange. They've

built a small fire within a garbage barrel and clustered around it to keep warm, yet

their eyes are turned upward. It's not hard to figure out what they're watching.

"Evening, folks," he says. "Comet keeping you busy?"

Everyone looks around. Smiles, murmured greetings: "Evening, Mr. Mayor,"

"Hi, Captain," "Hello, Robert," and so forth. Now he can make out individual faces,

shadowed by the parka hoods and downturned cap bills: Jack Dreyfus, Henry

Johnson, Kim Newell, and Tom Shapiro. Tom, Jack, and Kim are former Alabama

crew members, of course, Henry was once a civilian scientist, yet people seldom

make such distinctions any more. Lee's the only person anyone still addresses by his

former rank, and then only out of habit.

There's a child among them: Marie Montero, almost nine. No doubt there's other

kids inside, but she's always been shy, preferring the company of Tom and Kim, her

adoptive parents. It seems as if ages have passed since Tom was Alabama's First

Officer and Kim was a Liberty Party loyalist who had to be held at gunpoint while the

ship was being stolen from Highgate; now they're married, and the bulge beneath

Kim's parka shows that it won't be much longer before they add another member to

their family.

"Looked at it lately, Mr. Mayor?" This from Jack Dreyfus, standing on the other

side of the barrel. "We're trying to figure it out."

"Looks like a horn!" Marie proclaims. "A big friggin' horn!"

"Marie! Language!" Kim gives the child an admonishing glare, then looks at

Tom. "She's spending too much time with grownups. Look what she's picking up."

"Yup," Tom mutters, "helluva shame." Chuckles from all around, but Lee barely

hears this as he gazes up at the sky. The comet's tail is very long now, stretching

almost halfway to the edge of Bear's rings as the giant planet slowly rises above the

horizon. Yet it doesn't taper down to a point, the way a comet's tail normally would,

but fans outward instead, forming an elongated cone as seen from profile. Beautiful,

yet discomforting in its strangeness.

"Y'know, she's right," Jack says. "Kind of looks like a trumpet." He grins.

"Gabriel's Trumpet. Good name, kid."

Marie blushes, hides behind Tom. "Beats hell out of me." Henry murmurs.

"Sorry, guys, but I can't figure this one out."

"What do you mean?" Lee asks. Before he turned to farming, Henry Johnson was

an astrophysicist. If anyone here should be an expert on comets, it would be him.

"Well, for one thing, the tail's going in the wrong direction." He points to the

comet. "Shouldn't be doing that. Solar wind from Uma would be blowing dust off the

nucleus, sure, but away from the sun, not toward it. And spreading it out like that...?"

He shakes his head. "Might happen if the dust is being deflected by Bear's

magnetosphere...but if that's the case, then it's a lot closer than we think."

"It's not going to hit us, is it?" Kim's voice is low, concerned.

"Oh, I doubt that. Bear's gravity will probably pull it in long before it comes

close enough to be any sort of threat. One of the benefits of having a gas giant for a

neighbor...sort of a huge vacuum sweeper for comets and rogue asteroids." Henry

gives the others a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We're just going to have a light

show for another week or so."

The group laughs, albeit nervously, and shuffles their feet in the snow. "Well,

have fun," Lee says, and ruffles Marie's hair as he walks past. "Don't stay out too

long, or you'll catch cold." The little girl favors him with the salute that she's seen her

guardians and other former crewmen give him on occasion. Lee dutifully responds in

kind; even after nearly four Earth years on Coyote, he's still regarded as captain by

most people. He supposes he should be honored, although he prefers to think of

himself as an elected public official rather than a commanding officer.

He opens the heavy front door, steps into the foyer, takes a minute to remove his

parka and hang it next to the other coats and jackets. Warm air rushes across his face

as he opens the inside door; someone has stoked a fire in the wood stove, and the

meeting hall is nice and toasty. The grange has become the center of Liberty's social

life, particularly during the long months of winter. There's probably a dozen or so

people hanging out at Lew's Cantina; every so often Lee will spend an evening there

himself, but generally he prefers the more placid ambiance of the grange. Chairs have

been pushed aside to make room for card tables; there's a couple of bridge games

going on, but a few people are also playing chess or backgammon, and some of the

younger children are huddled around a Parcheesi board. Dogs lounge on the

blackwood floor, showing only slight interest in the mama cat nursing her kittens in a

nearby box. A platter of home-fried potato chips and onion dip has been laid out on

the side table beneath a watercolor painting of the Alabama; a pot of coffee stays

warm on the stove in the center of the room, itself fashioned from an old oxygen cell

salvaged from one of the habitat modules.

And there's music. A three-man jug band—the Crab Suckers, a private joke no

one else understands—is on the raised platform at the front of the room, where the

council usually sits when the monthly town meeting is in session. With the exception

of Ted LeMare's antique Hammond harmonica, brought with him from Earth, their

instruments were hand-made by Paul Dwyer, the bassist, and their repertoire mainly

consists of twentieth century blues and country standards. But they've been working

out some original material lately; as Lee walks in, Barry Dreyfus, Jack's boy, is

singing:

"Catwhale, stay away from me.

Catwhale, stay away from me.

Just lost in your river, can't you see?

Catwhale, stay away from me..."

Not quite up the standards of Barry's idol Robert Johnson, but for homespun

music it isn't bad. Lee helps himself to a mug of black coffee, and reflects upon the

circumstances that inspired this song. Barry was one of the members of the ill-fated

Montero Expedition, the group of teenagers that attempted to sail down the Great

Equatorial last summer. Considering the fact that one of his friends was killed when a

catwhale attacked their canoes, the lyrics are strangely light-hearted; perhaps black

humor is Barry's way of dealing with David Levin's death.

"Catwhale, don't eat me.

Catwhale, don't eat me.

There's a lot of other fish you can have for free.

Mr. Catwhale, don't eat me...puh-lease!"

Morbid, yes, yet then Lee notices Wendy Gunther sitting nearby. Her legs

crossed, her left toe tapping the floor beneath her long catskin skirt, as she bounces

baby Susan on her knee. Wendy's another member of the expedition; the last line of

Barry's song refers to her near-death experience, but if she thinks it's in bad taste,

there's no indication. Susan smiles in delight, babbles something that may be a

compliment.

We've raised a tough generation, Lee thinks. Almost four Earth years, and the

kids are hard as nails.

He can't decide whether he likes that notion or not. Wendy's just turned eighteen,

yet not only is she now a mother, but in the last election she managed to get herself

voted onto the Town Council, replacing Sissy Levin when she unexpectedly resigned.

Wendy ran for office on the platform that Liberty's younger generation needed a voice

in the colony government, and since then she's carried out her responsibilities well.

Lee can't complain about her performance, yet whenever he sees her, he feels a

twinge of long-suppressed guilt. Her father...

Enough. There's another reason he's ventured out into the cold Gabriel night.

Taking his coffee mug with him, he crosses the hall, briefly nodding or waving to

everyone whose eye he meets, until he reaches a door off to one side of the room.

A narrow corridor takes him past the council meeting room, the armory, and the

records room. His office door's shut, but there's light under the crack; he hears

Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" from within. He quietly opens the door, steps inside.

Dana Monroe is seated at his blackwood desk, studying the screen of his comp; she

doesn't look up as he comes up behind her, but smiles as he leans over to give her a

kiss on the cheek. "Wondering when you'd get here," she murmurs. "What took you

so long?"

"My turn to wash up after dinner, remember?" Lee finds the spare chair, pulls it

over next to the desk. "That stew you made was pretty good. What'd you put in it?"

"My secret ingredient." She notices the annoyed expression on his face. "Okay,

it's what I didn't put in. You told me you don't like garlic, so I left it out this time.

Better?"

"Much. Thank you." Dana had been a better Chief Engineer than she was a cook;

when she moved in with him last summer, one of the things she had to learn was that

her new mate was surprisingly temperamental about what he ate. Otherwise, they

have an easy relationship; although Lee has officiated at nearly a dozen civil

ceremonies and Dana's helped Dr. Okada deliver four babies, neither of them was in

any rush to get married and start a family. Let someone else be fruitful and multiply;

their job is managing the colony. "So what's the forecast?"

"Hmm...not good." There's a close-up image of the storm on the screen; the time-

stamp shows that it was captured by Alabama's cameras as it passed over Coyote's

eastern hemisphere an hour and a half ago. She taps the keypad, and now there's a

more distant view: a dense swirl of white clouds, shrouding the Equatorial River

about five hundred miles east of the Meridian Sea. "Looks like it's picking up

moisture off the river," she murmurs. "Still a long way off, but it's growing. Unless

something changes in the next day or two it's coming our way."

Lee nods. For the most part, the Alabama colonists made the right decision by

establishing a settlement close to the equator. Winter on New Florida isn't as brutal as

it is in the northern and southernmost latitudes, and they have the advantage of longer

growing seasons, from early spring through late autumn. Nonetheless, Coyote's global

climate is cooler than Earth's, and Bear's tidal pull frequently plays havoc with wind

patterns. Their first winter was relatively mild; it only figures that the colony would

eventually have to deal with a major snowstorm.

"There's still a couple of large mountains in the way," Dana says. She points to

the major range that straddles Great Dakota, the continent west of New Florida.

"Probably won't stop it, but they may blunt the worst of it."

"So we can hope," Lee says. "At least we've got some advance warning. If we

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