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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART ONE - TWELVE FROM COYOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PART TWO - ANATOMY OF AN IMPOSSIBILITY

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  PART THREE - THE TESSELLATED SKY

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PART FOUR - BIG SMART OBJECT

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PART FIVE - SANCTUARY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  TIMELINE

  Acknowledgements

  SOURCES

  Books by Allen Steele

  Novels

  THE JERICHO ITERATION

  THE TRANQUILLITY ALTERNATIVE

  OCEANSPACE

  CHRONOSPACE

  Near-Space Series

  ORBITAL DECAY

  CLARKE COUNTY, SPACE

  LUNAR DESCENT

  LABYRINTH OF NIGHT

  A KING OF INFINITE SPACE

  Coyote Trilogy

  COYOTE

  COYOTE RISING

  COYOTE FRONTIER

  Coyote Chronicles

  COYOTE HORIZON

  COYOTE DESTINY

  Coyote Universe

  SPINDRIFT

  GALAXY BLUES

  HEX

  Collections

  RUDE ASTRONAUTS

  ALL-AMERICAN ALIEN BOY

  SEX AND VIOLENCE IN ZERO-G: THE COMPLETE “NEAR SPACE” STORIES

  AMERICAN BEAUTY

  THE LAST SCIENCE FICTION WRITER

  Nonfiction

  PRIMARY IGNITION: ESSAYS 1997–2001

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2011 by Allen M. Steele.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Steele, Allen M.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-52890-7

  1. Space colonies—Fiction. 2. Life on other planets—Fiction. 3. Space warfare—

  Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.T338425H49 2011

  813’.54—dc22

  2011008661

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For mothers everywhere . . . especially my own

  It is easy to imagine a highly intelligent society with no particular interest in technology. It is easy to see around us examples of technology without intelligence. When we look into the universe for signs of artificial activities, it is technology and not intelligence that we must search for.

  —FREEMAN DYSON, DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE

  PROLOGUE

  The following is an extract from a document submitted to the Talus High Council by Saromajah Saj Sa-Fhadda, hjadd Prime Emissary to the Coyote Federation. Translation by Dr. William Manofsky and Dr. Larry Manofsky of the School of Astroethnic Studies, University of New Florida. Due to differences in nomenclature and systems of measurement and chronological reckoning, certain names, dates, and distances have been substituted with Anglo approximations. Historical references are annotated by footnotes.

  To the High Council of the Talus and His Holiness, the chaaz’braan: my most respectful greetings and salutations, with hopes that my humble words will be received with patience and understanding.

  By now, I trust that the High Council has become acquainted with the race known as human, who have recently become members of the Talus. Although humankind developed starfaring technology in only the [last three centuries], with a large colony established in the [47 Ursae Majoris] system in the last [seventy years, Gregorian calendar], they have already come to be regarded as an ambitious and curious species, eager to make contact with other races and, whenever possible, establish trade or cultural relations. It is the yearning of this colony world—known in their dominant language as Coyote—to become a respected member of the galactic community that compels me to report on their current disposition.

  In order to fully understand humans, a brief review of their recent history is necessary. Their homeworld, Earth, is located [forty-six light-years] from Coyote, or [54.4 light-years] from Talus qua’spah. Coyote was originally settled by political refugees from Earth, who stole their race’s first starship, which had been built by an authoritarian local government. 1 Because this large but rather primitive vessel was powered by a ramjet-augmented nuclear-fusion engine, it was capable of traveling at only [20 percent] of light-speed. As a result, it took [270 years, Gregorian] for this ship to reach the [47 Ursae Majoris] system, where a habitable world, the fourth moon of a gas giant, had been detected by Earth-orbiting telescopes.

  Despite the fact that they were confronted by an unfamiliar and often hostile environment, and possessed limited technologic resources, the settlers managed to successfully make a new home for themselves, their population suffering only relatively few fatalities during their [first year, LeMarean calendar] on Coyote. Yet the colony had barely become self-sustaining when it received an unwelcome surprise: the arrival of another starship from Earth, this one much larger and faster than the first. During the long period it took for the first ship to travel to Coyote, scientists and engineers on the human homeworld had managed to invent a warp drive that, while not capable of achieving light-speed, was nonetheless able to make the same journey in a fraction of the original time.

  This second vessel was sent by a government that had succeeded the original one.2 Unfortunately, this new government was
just as authoritarian as its predecessor, and it soon became clear that it intended to take control of Coyote, by military force if necessary. Hopelessly outnumbered, and aware that more ships were on the way, the original colonists decided to flee into the unexplored regions of their new world. From their wilderness retreat, they waged a war of insurrection against the invaders. After a long and bloody conflict, they regained control of the original settlement, driving away their enemies while allowing newly arrived colonists to remain on Coyote.

  At this same period, scientists and engineers of yet another government on Earth3 managed to unlock the secret to hyperspace travel. As circumstances would have it, this occurred just when they also detected an object of unnatural origin passing close to the edge of their solar system. Using an experimental starbridge already placed in orbit around a minor planet in the outer system, a small starship4 was dispatched to investigate this object, which the humans had named Spindrift.

  Unknown to them, Spindrift was Shaq-Taaraq, a planetoid that had been transformed into an interstellar ark. It bore the sole remaining members of the taaraq race, whose homeworld in the [Lamba Aurigae] system had been destroyed by the rogue black hole colloquially known as the Annihilator. As the High Council may remember, when the hjadd discovered Shaq-Taaraq and found its passengers in long-term biostasis, my people placed a starbridge in orbit around the ark. This starbridge contained an automatic beacon programmed to transmit warnings to any vessels that approached Shaq-Taaraq without our permission and which would also alert us via hyperspace link if those warnings were ignored.

  This is what occurred when the human starship approached Shaq-Taaraq. In hindsight, we now realize that we erred in assuming that any race that might find the ark would naturally belong to the Talus and thus would be able to translate our warnings. However, the humans erred as well in believing that any aliens they encountered would be hostile; their ship was armed with a nuclear weapon, which, although crude, nonetheless posed a significant threat to the ship my people dispatched to investigate the intrusion at Shaq-Taaraq. Our ship was forced to detonate the weapon launched at us, and the explosion destroyed the human vessel, with the loss of all aboard.

  Before that happened, though, the humans had sent an exploration team to Shaq-Taaraq’s surface. One member of the team died while exploring its interior, and the other three were subsequently marooned when their mother ship was destroyed. Unable to return to Earth, they activated their landing craft’s emergency beacon, then went into biostasis cells. Our vessel located their craft a short time later. We brought the survivors to Talus qua’spah, but did not revive them for [fifty-six years, Gregorian], during which time hjadd researchers sought to access their craft’s computers and thereby translate their language.

  Once this was accomplished, we were able to gain an understanding of who these strangers were and why they had come to Shaq-Taaraq. In this way, we also became aware of the possible existence of a colony in the [47 Ursae Majoris] system. However, it was not until we revived and questioned the survivors that we came to realize that their mission had not necessarily been hostile in intent, and that their weapon had been launched in haste by a panic-stricken commanding officer.

  By then, the Earth government that dispatched the ship to Shaq-Taaraq had subsequently sent a similar vessel to Coyote, where it had built the first starbridge linking the colony world to Earth. The colonists had only recently achieved political independence from their homeworld when the Talus allowed the survivors of the Shaq-Taaraq expedition to use the newly established starbridge to travel to Coyote. My predecessor, Mahamatasja Jas Sa-Fhadda, went with them. Heshe became the first Prime Emissary to Coyote, and it was through hisher efforts that diplomatic relations with humankind were established.

  My people built an embassy on Coyote, yet we decided not to do the same on Earth. Although we were willing to make contact with humankind, we determined that their homeworld was dangerous. It had a long history of violence, its global environment was collapsing after centuries of neglect, and its political infrastructure was in chaos. So when we decided to let humans visit Talus qua’spah and meet the chaaz’braan, we were careful to make sure that they came from Coyote, not Earth.

  Despite a cultural misunderstanding that arose during the initial trade negotiations5, the disagreement was quickly resolved, and Coyote Federation was allowed to join the Talus. It was during this time that our first Cultural Ambassador, Jasahajahd Taf Sa-Fhadda, brought a Sa’Tong-tas to Coyote. In keeping with Sa’Tong tradition, heshe gave it to the first individual whom heshe determined to be receptive to its teachings. This person, a former criminal, embraced the wisdom of the Sa’Tong as expressed by His Holiness. He eventually became the chaaz’maha of humankind and began spreading the True Knowledge to his people.

  Although many humans were receptive to Sa’Tong, some were not, with a few actively hostile. One of those who opposed Sa’Tong was a minister of a monotheistic religious sect that, until only recently, had denied even the very existence of races other than humankind. When the chaaz’maha announced his intent to visit Earth, this individual decided to stop him. He carried an explosive device aboard the ship scheduled to carry both him and the chaaz’maha to Earth and detonated it just as the vessel was about to enter hyperspace, destroying both the ship and the starbridge.6

  For the next [three years, LeMarean], Coyote was cut off from both Earth and the Talus. However, the hjadd embassy on Coyote possessed the technology necessary to build another starbridge, and, therefore, my people were eventually able to assist the humans in doing so. However, we made a major stipulation: the new starbridge could only be used as a means of travel to the Talus worlds. Once again, Earth had proven itself to be dangerously immature and needed to be left alone indefinitely.

  Surprisingly, few humans objected to this isolation. By then, Coyote’s population was over a million, and in that time a generation had grown up that had never seen the world of their parents and grandparents (it should be noted that humans generally participate in the raising of their offspring). Even the older colonists had very little nostalgia for their homeworld, and most were happy that Earth would no longer be able to cause problems for them.

  As a result, over the course of the next [three years, LeMarean], relations between the inhabitants of Coyote and the races of the Talus have been both peaceful and prosperous. Using ships brought to Coyote before the destruction of their first starbridge, they have successfully established trade relations with several Talus races, most notably my own people but also the soranta, the kua’tah, and the nord. Humans have benefited from the introduction of advanced technologies, and despite the death of their chaaz’maha, a significant number of them have embraced Sa’Tong as their spiritual philosophy. Although they are still the newest members of the galactic community, they are proving themselves to be worthy neighbors.

  It has recently come to our attention, though, that a new development may soon occur. Through the nord, humans have recently made contact with the danui. However tentative this may be, it is possible that humankind may soon learn of the existence of tanaash-haq. This discovery may have major implications for their relations with not only their current allies and trade partners but also those races whom they have yet to encounter.

  Therefore, it is my recommendation that we closely monitor the situation and perhaps coordinate our actions with the danui. If the humans prove themselves able to successfully cope with tanaash-haq, this will be a major boon to them. Yet the lessons of their initial encounter with the hjadd must not be forgotten.

  They can be a wise and peaceful race, but we should never neglect the fact that they can also behave in rash and often foolish ways.

  PART ONE

  TWELVE FROM COYOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I’M BORED WITH MY JOB,” SAID THE STARSHIP CAPTAIN.

  Andromeda Carson took a sip of merlot as she waited for her comment to sink in. Theodore Harker raised an eyebrow, if only for a momen
t, and she was satisfied. Like Andromeda herself, Ted’s normal expression was a poker face. People who commanded starships tended to be stoics; if she could get this much out of the Chief of Operations for the Coyote Federation Merchant Marine, it meant that he was listening.

  “Well... that’s not something I hear too often.” Harker toyed with his drink, letting the dark red wine run around the inside of his glass. “I have a list of shipless captains who’d love to have your job. Want to see it? You might recognize a few names.”

  “I didn’t say I’m ready to retire. I just said that I’m bored.” Andromeda set her glass down on the blackwood deck beside her Adirondack chair and propped one sandaled foot on the low table in front of her. Beyond the deck railing, she could see sailboats on the Great Equatorial River. It was late afternoon of a warm midsummer day, the sun dappling the blue waters of the New Brighton harbor. “Bored, bored, bored...” she added, singsonging the rest as if she were a schoolgirl.

  “Really.” There was little empathy in Ted’s British-accented voice as he gave her a sour glance. “Perhaps you should count your blessings. You still have your own ship. The same one, in fact, that you used to get here. . .”