Sky Coyote (17 page)

My people would have been wiped out, as a lot of other tribes had been wiped out, if it wasn’t for the big men in bearskins who appeared out of nowhere to smash the tattooed guys all to bits.

I didn’t know any of this at the time, of course. It was only explained to me later how the big men had their own commandment, their own method of keeping the universe from collapsing, and it was a lot simpler than seeing that everyone got tattoos. They just went around killing anybody who tried to kill anybody else. It was okay for
them
to kill, because they were Enforcers, but nobody else was allowed to. They’d been after the tattooed people for a long time. Eventually they got them all, too.

Which was a shame, in a way, because then the real trouble started …

L
OPEZ WELCOMED ME INTO HIS
quarters with a bow, and I bowed in my turn, sweeping off my tricorne.

“Nice place you’ve got here.” I looked around as I straightened up.

“I like my comforts,” he replied, going to a sideboard where a decanter was set up beside two fine glasses. I realized his rank must be pretty damn high too, to have his personal furniture shipped out to a base at the back of beyond like this one. I’d been a successful operative for longer than I cared to think about, and I didn’t even
own
any furniture. So how had Lopez managed to hang on to those two comfy chairs, that carved walnut sideboard, that Turkish carpet? Not to mention the nice little Rembrandt study, looking sadly out of place on the gray prefab wall. Best of all, it was golden amontillado he was pouring into that Florentine glass. I nearly shed tears as he handed it to me.

“To the Company.” We raised our glasses. He gestured me to one of the two comfy chairs and himself sank into the other one. We put up our feet in front of his heating panel. “That’s more like it, I trust?” He sipped his wine.

“You can say that again,” I sighed. Beyond the dark window a Pacific gale was howling in the winter night. I edged my feet a little closer to the panel. They were bare, of course, because I couldn’t get shoes or stockings on my coyote hind paws. I guess they looked a little odd emerging from my red knee breeches, because Lopez casually remarked:

“The younger members of our organization just can’t seem to get used to the sight of a coyote in a brocade coat.”

“Yes, I’d noticed that.” I cocked my ears and grinned at him. “The alternative is to go nude, though, and I think the New Kids would like that even less.”

“I’ve heard they would prefer it if you wore Company-issue coveralls to clothe your nakedness,” said Lopez mildly, and we both laughed, but it was clear he was dropping a hint. I narrowed my eyes. Not on his eternal life. I looked strange enough as it was.

“Poor future kids.” I shook my head with an air of indulgence. “They’re finding this mission a little hard on their sensibilities, aren’t they? Things must be sort of rough compared with what they’re used to up there in the Platinum Age.”

“They find us outlandish,” Lopez admitted. “Extravagant. Eclectic. Unfathomable.”

“Frightening,” I added. He smiled slightly and shrugged. “Distasteful,” I went on. “They’re barely polite to us. Not that I take it personally, I’m an open-minded kind of guy, but anybody else just might suffer some hurt feelings.”

“Yes, I gather there’ve been some problems with morale,” he mused. “Androids …,” he said, at the same moment I said it. He looked gently pained and shook his head. “That
was
unfortunate.”

“I thought so.” I looked into my glass. Drinking with this muzzle took a bit of concentration, but if I sort of made a long
spoon of my tongue, I could get the sherry down my throat without spilling any.

“And so there have been a few late-night parties where some grumbling went on. A few ill-considered words. A few rash opinions.”

Aha. Lopez was an attitude cop. He was sounding me out over discontent in the ranks.

So I relaxed and sank deeper into my chair, savoring my amontillado and letting it take me back to a certain garden in Madrid where the sun was warm, and just around the corner was a great little wineshop, and just next door to that was a really fine tailor’s, and next to that a lovely old church whose bell sounded the Angelus sweet and mellow through the sleepy air, and if the wind was right, you could barely smell the heretics burning …

“Well, you know, Lopez, I think we all agree that what matters most is the Company. We all want this mission to succeed, we really do. But it’s hard, meeting somebody like Bugleg, to feel confident that this mission is in the best hands. Now, you know and I know that, despite appearances, these mortals are perfectly competent guys.” Boy, was I smooth. “So what if they’re a little culturally limited? I’ll bet they’re swell at interfacing with information-exchange terminals. But some of our old field operatives have trouble appreciating that, you know? Especially with somebody like Bugleg. What’s the story with that guy? Level with me. He’s somebody’s nephew, right?”

The corner of Lopez’s mouth quirked, but his gaze remained opaque. “Now, now. He has his talents.”

“I’m sure he has.” Maybe the guy collected stamps.

“Joseph, I truly understand how you feel.” He reached over for the decanter and refilled our glasses.
I’ll bet you do
, I thought to myself. I accepted my drink, and as I took the glass, I looked him straight in the eye, sincere as hell.

“I’m an old, old agent, Lopez,” I said. “I love my work. The Company is everything in the world to me. All I ask is to know for certain that Dr. Zeus is being run by people who’ll treat it right.” I practically had myself crying, but Lopez saw right through me. He leaned back, sipping his sherry, considering me with bland eyes.

“I feel I can speak frankly with you, Joseph. You’re a Facilitator, after all, and you’ve been around long enough to know a few things the rest don’t know. The conservationists, anthropologists, botanists, and others, they’re not really designed to grasp the big picture. Are they? Too focused on their own particular areas of expertise. Only a Facilitator has the necessary detachment to view a political situation with any real perception. Only a Facilitator—well, an older one, you or I, for example—has the experience to act effectively in that political situation.”

“Maybe,” I said, shrugging, remembering that pleasant little garden where no one could provoke me into revealing anything. Lopez smiled grudgingly at my control.

“You’d be a fool if you weren’t concerned about the future, and I happen to know you’re no fool. I’ve read your personnel file, you know.”

Hadn’t everybody?

“It’s an impressive record,” he went on. “Only three disciplinary incidents in your whole career! And I was tempted to discount that last one. Tell the truth: weren’t you taking the heat for that protégée of yours? She’s on this mission, in fact, isn’t she, the botanist Mendoza? Presumably she’s older and wiser now. Let us hope.”

“It was just one of those things,” I said, trying to sound as though this was something I hadn’t thought about in decades. “Kids! What can you do? They always seem to want to learn the
hard way. She’s straightened out, though. They always do, eventually.”

“How true,” he said, sipping his drink. “Setting aside the incident with the young lady, however—I was particularly struck by your ability to see clearly and function correctly in, let’s say, personally complicated difficulties.”

What did
this
mean? How far back in my file had he read? It can’t have been easy to interpret my expression through all the appliance makeup, but he was managing. He smiled reassuringly.

“You’ve made some difficult choices, in your time, but you always chose correctly. That business with the old Enforcers, for example.”

Yikes.

I let myself look sad and shook my head. “Poor old guys. But, you know what they lacked? That same quality you were just talking about. Detachment. They were damned good at their jobs, but it made them a bunch of loose cannons in the end. I was really relieved to hear they’d been retrained before they could do themselves more harm.”

His stare was like an icepick, but he wasn’t going to pry anything else out of me. Not on this subject. He seemed to accept this and went on convivially:

“Your feelings do you credit, especially since they’re tempered by wisdom. You know what I admire in you? Your ability to trust.” I almost grinned, but he held up his hand and went on: “You’ve been able to understand that this operation—by which I mean the whole thing, from its beginning, before either of us was created—couldn’t have been conceived, planned, or carried out by people who didn’t know exactly what they were doing. You have never, for one moment during your very long career, questioned the authority over you. Not because you’re a drone
or a toady, either. You have always understood that, whoever might be running things, their plan was sound.”

“Like I said.” I lapped up some sherry to break the mood.

Then he truly surprised me.

“You know what you have to keep in mind, Joseph? They’re children, the mortals. No more than children. Life is so simple in that bright future of theirs, they’ve never had to trouble themselves to learn how to do more than play. For some of them it’s very, very creative play, mind you, but … it has a certain uncomplicated quality, shall we say. Because, like children, they’re bored by complicated things. More than bored: they feel threatened. Give a child mashed potatoes and butter, and he’s happy. He doesn’t want to try the rich sauce with capers, in fact he’ll cry if he’s forced to taste it. You see what I mean?

“But, listen, Joseph. A child is easy to control. Keep him happy, and he’ll believe what he’s told to believe. The mortals believe that they’re running the Company, that they make the decisions, that they have the ideas. The child believes the world revolves around himself. Nursie knows better, but of course she doesn’t tell him so.

“Though,” he added thoughtfully, “he will learn the truth, someday.”

What was I to make of this? I took a gulp of wine and looked askance at him. He might be letting me in on some genuine secret politics, but on the other hand he might be baiting a trap for a seditious renegade.

Well, he was sounding out the wrong man. I’ve worked for the Spanish Inquisition, and this is one game where I know the rules, thank you very much.

I shook my furry head. “I’m afraid this is all too deep for me. I’m just an old field agent, and maybe I’m a little out of touch
with the way my betters are running things these days. But, you know, I’ve always felt we operatives shouldn’t trouble ourselves with that end of the business. If you tell me that whoever’s in charge knows what’s best for Dr. Zeus, why, that’s good enough for me, and I’ll take your word for it.”

“You’re an honest fellow, Joseph,” purred Lopez. “You touch my heart. Another glass of amontillado?”

“Have some greens, Sky Coyote.” Nutku passed me the dish. It was full of wild onions and miner’s lettuce. The greens had been steamed limp and were getting limper in the stifling air of the sauna.

“Thanks.” I helped myself, and he leaned back with a grimace.

“My personal shaman says they’re good for me, but what does he know? It’s my spirit I pay him to take care of, and at pretty damned exorbitant rates at that. What I say is, after working my butt off to get where I am, it’d be a fine thing if I couldn’t eat steak when I wanted to.”

“You’ve got a point,” I agreed.

“Let’s have a little more mist, shall we?” Kaxiwalic poured some more water on the hot stones. They hissed and sent up dense clouds, making it harder to see in the already blurry air. Not that my eyes gave me any problems, but I was praying that the fancy circuitry in my prostheses wouldn’t be affected by all the damp heat.

“Now
thaaat’s
more like it,” Kupiuc groaned, easing his big body backward. Even here he’d brought his charmstone with him, a small polished artifact he had the nervous habit of rolling between his fingers. “What a day I had. What a day. My ex-wife is after me for child support again.”

“No kidding?”

“The she-whale. She wants me to get all three boys into the
kantap down there at Syuxtun. She’s obsessed with status. What I say is, let the kids be fishermen or something. At least they won’t have to put up with job stress the way their old man does. Anyway, she’s wasting her time on the youngest one. He’s a lousy little hoodlum; I had to beat him when he was up here last summer. Caught him stealing! It’s a shame when you have to say it about your own flesh and blood, always assuming he is, of course, but the kid’s just no good.”

This met with frowns from his fellow sweat-lodge members.

“Huh.” Nutku cleared his throat. “Kantap’s a good start in life for a boy, though, you know. It might turn him around. He’d be running with the right crowd, too, not a bunch of losers like hunters. The kantap made
you
what you are, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, well, of course,” Kupiuc hastened to say. “Don’t get me wrong. But I’m not made of money, am I?” His charmstone was describing ever faster and tighter circles in his palm.