Sky Coyote (29 page)

“What else is there to use? And don’t think
that
doesn’t cost plenty. Hey, do You use something else for sanding in the World Above?” Nutku stepped too close, and the frame filled with a picture of his chest. I set the holocamera on my shoulder and pointed it at the work team, trying to focus on the boys and not on Jomo and Chang.

“Well, we’ve got a few things …” I hedged, but Nutku pushed on:

“See, Sky Coyote, I’ve been wondering about something. I know you said we’re all going to lose our markets in the World Above, but are You really, absolutely positive nobody’s going to need canoes where we’re going? What’s Spirit Who Buys at Retail going to do with all those he bought, or this one?” Nutku gestured at the one that was being constructed for the documentary. “Maybe nobody uses canoes to get around up there, but couldn’t there be some way to create a market? The spirits must go fishing once in a while. What if we came up with some sort of sales strategy, you and I, huh? What do you think?”

I was about to let him down tactfully, when an idea hit me.

“You know, it just might work!” I remembered MacCool’s comment about how popular Chumash woven sandals were
becoming with our operatives. “Have you ever thought about diversifying?”

“What, make other stuff besides canoes? But canoe building is what I know,” protested Nutku. He was clearly thinking about the concept, all the same, because a moment later he added, “Which is not to say I can’t turn out wooden bowls and boxes, especially with inlay decoration.”

“Even canoes, maybe!” I said, thinking about luxury bases like New World One, to say nothing of the Company’s Day Six resorts for twenty-fourth-century tourists who wanted to go primitive. “You’re right, spirits do go fishing once in a while. What I’m seeing here, though, is that you have a monopoly on a marketable commodity. Nobody else can make the things you and your people make, and as soon as the other Sky People see how beautiful your merchandise is, I’ll bet it’ll be in demand. If you organize with Sawlawlan and the others—I wonder if you couldn’t start production again, once you’re in the World Above? Some canoes, but also baskets, bowls, inlaid carvings, sandals, the kind of stuff people like to buy ready-made.”

“Small items they could easily take away with them if they were traveling,” breathed Nutku, his eyes lighting up.

“Things that would have a special value because they’d been made by you, the craft masters of Humashup, and wouldn’t be available anywhere else,” I suggested.

There was an outburst of profanity from Chang; the adze he was using had just broken. “See, if you’d been using it correctly, that wouldn’t have happened,” Jomo told him smugly.

“We’d have to make damn sure they wouldn’t be available anywhere else,” mused Nutku, rubbing his chin. “Some kind of bigger and better brotherhood system to put pressure on imitators, if you know what I mean.”

“Hey! You wouldn’t have to break a single arm,” I told him. “We’ve got this law in the World Above about unauthorized use of somebody else’s guild mark.”

“Master Nutku?” One of the boys came forward tearfully. “The spirit broke my new adze! My father’s gonna kill me—”

“Oh, shut up and take a new one from the basket,” Nutku told him. He turned to grin at me. “The spirits are paying for it, after all.”

Bit by bit, the town of Humashup began to take on an empty and untidy look, the way a house will when people are packing up to move. One day the chisels stopped ringing in the stone-workers’ yard: the last mortars, the last bowls had been made for the holocameras, and nobody would need any more. That ringing was subtracted from the sound of village life, but the subtraction wasn’t noticed.

Next, the adzes stopped chuffing in the cured pine, the last canoe was finished, and Nutku’s boatyard was silent. The boys were glad to clean the pitch and the fragrant shavings off their fingers, glad to kick back and relax for a change. They were still thinking of the upcoming flight as a kind of vacation, nothing more. Only Nutku had grasped the idea that the rules of the game were about to change forever. You’d think that mortals would understand the end as a concept—it’s what defines them as mortals, after all—but they never do.

It was my job, of course, to let them in on the truth and conceal it at the same time. I was sort of an anesthesiologist. I capered for the Chumash, I kept them laughing with funny stories, I diverted them with songs and sleight of hand (or paw). I came up with facile answers for the ones who asked awkward questions.

Mostly facile answers, anyway. Sometimes you have to come up with more.

We’d all gone down to the beach to watch the canoe launching—not the beach at Point Conception, where the base was, but the closer and convenient beach the Chumash frequented. It had turned out really well, that last canoe, that midrange model with spear racks (safety bladders optional), and, since people still had to eat until the day of our departure, the fishermen were taking it out to see what they could get.

Jomo had carefully positioned two holocameras on the beach and waded out with the third one for triangulation. Our other anthropologists had been thrilled by the news, and there were a whole bunch of them gathered on the shore, avidly watching-recording the ceremony. Nutku and three other guys were carrying the canoe on their shoulders, while the fifth waited, knee-deep in the surf, both oars over his shoulders.

“All right now!” hollered Nutku proudly, showing off for the spirits. “This baby’s going to cut through the water like a Shoshone after a duck! Come on, boys, march! Give me some room!”

“Give me some room!” echoed his bearers.

“Don’t give up!” Nutku sang out like a drill instructor.

“Don’t give up!”

“We’re almost there!” Nutku told them.

“We’re almost there!”

“EEEE-ha!” Nutku charged into the water.

“Eeee-ha!”

They wrestled the canoe out through the surf, and the new owner waded uncertainly after them. I was cheering with everybody else, until the security tech appeared at my elbow.

“Jesus!” I leaped into the air. “Give a guy some warning, can’t you? You’re too good at your job, you know that?”

But he looked grim. Grimmer, I mean, than security techs usually look. “We’ve caught the intruder. Mr. Lopez said you were to deal with the situation immediately.”

“Me? Is there a problem?”

“The Chumash know about it. Our rabbit just walked right into the village. We’ve got him isolated in one of their huts, but people are curious about him. He won’t shut up, either.”

I got a bad, bad feeling. Sepawit noticed me talking to the tech and approached hesitantly. “Has something happened, Sky Coyote?”

“Uh … the spirit tells me that a stranger has come to Humashup,” I translated.

“Maybe it’s my Speaker!” Sepawit’s face lit up with hope. “Is he all right?”

I thought fast. “The spirits aren’t clear about what’s going on. I think I’d better get back there right away.”

“Let’s go.” Sepawit sprinted ahead of me. How to tell the guy he wasn’t going to like what he found, that he should leave this to old Uncle Sky Coyote? I couldn’t think of a way, so I just dogtrotted after him. Halfway there, the tech and I caught up with him, and he limped after us into Humashup, winded and puffing, holding his side.

Scared and curious Chumash were clustered a short distance from Sepawit’s house, in front of which two of our security guys stood guard, tall, green, and impassive. From inside a voice was droning on and on in some kind of chant. Mrs. Sepawit (actually her name was Ponoya, I remembered now) approached us tearfully, leading their little boy by the hand.

“Sepawit, what’s going on? Uncle Coyote, the spirits threw me
out of my own house! They have a stranger in there, and they’re not letting anybody see him—”

“Stranger?” Sepawit’s face fell. “It’s not Sumewo?”

“No!” she replied, as the security team leader came up to me and saluted.

“You’d better go in there, sir. He sounds like a spy. Potential compromise.”

Sepawit pushed ahead of me, and what was I going to do, tell him to keep out of his own house? I did manage to get through the doorway at roughly the same moment, at least, so we saw our visitor at about the same time. I felt Sepawit’s silent cry of disappointment. Myself, I was surprised.

After all, this was the guy whose rage I’d felt miles away, who’d been evading our patrols for weeks; I guess I’d been expecting some wild-eyed commando savage with dreadlocks. Not this little man. He wasn’t Chumash; Shoshone, maybe, but there wasn’t much identifying stuff like tattoos or ornaments, only a pattern of lurid purple burn scars on his chest. He was stark naked, in fact, but that was because the belt and pouches he’d worn had been confiscated. He was sitting on the floor, hands bound behind him, and he was chanting as we entered. Praying. I know praying when I hear it.

But he broke off when we entered, and stared up wide-eyed. He had an open, kindly face, mild of expression. When his gaze fixed on me, he gave a little gasp and a shiver, almost of pleasure. But he forced himself to look at Sepawit.

“Sepawit, my friend,” he said in perfect, unaccented Chumash, and what a sweet, deep, authoritative voice he had. “I’ve come to ask you a question.”

Sepawit stared. “What? How do you know my name?”

“Tell me, Sepawit, if you saw your neighbor’s little child fall
into water, and your neighbor wasn’t there to see, would you rescue the child yourself?”

“What? What does that have to do with anything?” Sepawit’s brow furrowed. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to explain that to you. What would you do? Would you let the child drown?”

“Of course I wouldn’t! Now, who the hell—”

“Who I am doesn’t matter.
What
I am is His Voice. Now, follow my argument a little further. If your neighbor’s house were on fire, and his women and children asleep inside, and he was with them and also sleeping, what would you do? Would you try to wake them by shouting? Would you try to beat out the flames? Failing that, would you go inside and try to pull them out, even at the risk of getting burned yourself?”

Sepawit controlled his temper with an effort. “Yes, I would. Anyone would.”

“Of course you would, because you’re a good man, Sepawit. Now. You should be able to understand my duty here. I too am a good man. I’ve been sent to pull you from the fire.”

“In what sense?” Sepawit asked, eyes hardening. He was beginning to have some idea who his visitor was. “There’s no fire burning here, stranger.”

“You think not, because you are asleep. You’ve been lulled to sleep by the one who’s set your thatch ablaze. You don’t know what’s happening. He came as a guest to your house, but he hasn’t told you his real name. I know his name, however. He is the Great Thief and Cannibal. He’s come in all his evil to destroy your family, Sepawit, to take them off the face of the earth, and why? To prevent them from hearing the Joyous Message.”

“That’s it!” Sepawit glared at him. “You’re from Yang-Na, aren’t you? You’re one of the Chinigchinix priests.”

The stranger beamed at him. “And, oh, Sepawit, I have got such good news for you. None of his threats are true! He’s been lying to you all along. You’ve been lied to all your life! The Sun isn’t your enemy, and there are no white men coming to do terrible things. All this was a stratagem of the Thief, here.” He nodded at me, a little shy deferential nod, as though I were a celebrity.

I sighed and sat down. Talk about deja vu. Why do I keep running into these guys?

Sepawit’s voice was cold. “Uh-huh. I’ve heard your opinion of Sky Coyote. I don’t care to hear more. What you’re going to tell me is what’s happened to Sumewo. Where is he?”

“Ah, Sumewo,” said the stranger with a nod. “The one you sent to spy on us. He’s safe; safer than he’s ever been, in fact. He knows the Truth now.”

Oh, Sepawit was afraid: sick afraid. I could smell it in the air. But he just nodded and folded his arms. “What’s your business here, really? You’re a spy too, I suppose.”

“Sepawit, I meant it when I said I’d come to save you.” The little man spoke softly, earnestly. “I really mean you no harm, not you, not any of the others. But when He told me I had work to do here, I must confess I had no idea you stood in such danger.” The stranger dared a glance across at me. “We all knew the Thief had a grip on you up here, but I never thought he’d dare to walk among you all in his own flesh! How can you stand it? You must be able to see what kind of creature he is. And such a story he’s told you! You must understand that it’s not true, any of it. There is no evil old Sun who hates you. How can He be the sort of creature the Thief says He is, when all life proceeds from Him? Doesn’t He warm you, doesn’t He make food grow out of the earth for you? Do you think He’d do that if you weren’t His beloved children?”

“I know your line,” said Sepawit with admirable patience. “But if we’re the Sun’s beloved children, why does He let us suffer and die? Why did He beget us so weak and small? Why does He allow evil to trouble us? It makes no sense, and I don’t intend wasting time listening to you tell me it does.”

“But all the evil in the world proceeds from
him!”
The stranger gestured at me with a frantic nod of his head. “He’s the one who gave the grizzly bear his cruelty, he’s the one who stole the fire of eternal life from your homes! Oh, my friend, how he’s lied to you all! You think the world is ruled by a host of petty little gods, more foolish and wicked than men are. I tell you it’s not true! There’s only One, and He’s the Sun and the Moon both, the brightest Being in Creation! He may be terrible to the wicked, but not to those who believe in Him.”

He had that professional magic in his voice that gets ‘em up and storming the barricades. But Sepawit wasn’t buying it—he was too afraid about the fate of his Speaker. He turned in disgust.

“What should we do with him, Sky Coyote? I’ve got boys who can get information out of him. Or do You think You can do something?”

“I’ll talk to him,” I replied wearily. I had the training, after all. “Go out and tell your people it’s all right. Offer your wife my apologies. Oh, and send in one of the spirits, will you?” He nodded and stalked out.