Gate of Faces

Gate of Faces By Ray Aldridge

/The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1991/

JOHN THINWOLF DROVE HIS boat north, slicing the green seas into rainbowed spray. The sunlight soaked into his back; the pain blockers did their work. The last redskin was as happy as a dying man could be.

At noon the hammer-headed towers of a Forbidden City lifted over the horizon.

Under the ancient walls, he shut off the engine. A current carried him slowly along the scarred alloy flank of the City.

"What were you?" Thinwolf shouted, but the City made no reply. He thought: One of the silent ones.

He drifted. He took a shot of tissue stabilants and a flagon of fruit-flavored syrup, blood-red and thick as honey — his lunch.

He was always thirsty, and the syrup made it worse. The boat's med unit prohibited him from drinking anything else. "Injuns can't drink," he said, looking at the empty flagon. His kidneys had given out a week ago. On his thigh he wore a dialysis coupling, which sucked at him with a thousand tiny mouths, cleansing his blood. "Injuns can't do much at all anymore: can't drink, can't piss, can't sleep. Can't make long-range plans." He threw the flagon; it shattered against the City. The fragments glittered into the blue depths, falling down the black cliff of the City's hull, and Thinwolf watched them disappear with the same solemn concentration that he now gave to every event, no matter how insignificant.

After a while the current carried him around the curve of the City into the shade. He shivered and went below for a jacket.

When he came back on deck, the current was sweeping his vessel toward the City's Seagate, which was flanked by a pair of deities carved in low relief. They spread high-arched, batlike wings, and their faces seemed vaguely reptilian. Did they resemble the vanished inhabitants of the City, or were they as alien to that race as so many human gods had been to humanity?

Inside, he could see towers studded with slender projecting balconies. Landing ramps? From the lower levels, steep slides fell into the dark water. Thinwolf scratched his head. Flying amphibians? Arboreal frogs? He laughed; the day had given him something strange and wonderful. Not a waste, then....

He let the current carry him almost to the gate before he switched on the engine and backed away. Some of the empty Cities were dead, and thus safe to enter, but the bit of life remaining to Thinwolf was precious to him.

"On to the next," he said, and opened the throttle. The boat leaped away, back into the sunlight.

At twilight, Thinwolf cut the engines. Sometimes he would press on through the night, but just now he was too tired. An unpleasant thought came to him: Would he ever be less tired than he was now? Would he ever spend the night driving the boat hard through the darkness? So many endings had come; so many pleasures had slipped suddenly from him, unnoticed at first.

"No," he muttered. "I won't think that. Not before I have to. Hah!"

He took his evening injections, and another flagon of the syrup. For a while he lay on the settee in the boat's small, comfortable salon, willing himself to sleep. The effort fatigued him even more, and after an hour he gave it up and went out to the foredeck, where the canvas-shrouded figure of the hulk lay. He cast off the covering, looked down on the metal body he would soon wear.

"You're a passable redskin," he said. The face resembled Thinwolf's a little. Its cheekbones were sharper, its eyes black instead of brown. Countless tiny articulated scales formed the skin, like dark bronze dusted with glittering motes. Though frozen now, it was capable of a fleshlike suppleness. The hulk's chest was broad and deep, its hands powerful, its thick neck set into massive shoulders. Heavy tie-down straps secured it to the deck.

Thinwolf rapped his knuckles on the hulk's chest, which gave back a dense thunk. "You and me, we're going to cut a swath one day. Hah?"

He was, quite abruptly, lonely. He fumbled open the access plate in the hulk's side. He caressed the wired-down ACTIVATE switch, then pressed the TEST MODE rocker. Light came into the hulk's black eyes, and it blinked. "Good evening, John," it said. "Do you wish to tell me another story?"

"Yes, another story, if you like. Let's see. Have I told you about how Coyote left the World of Roads?"

"No. That sounds interesting, John." The hulk's voice, though deep and resonant, had a childlike diction.

But it was not a child, Thinwolf reminded himself; it was a superficial machine personality, installed to facilitate testing. Though sometimes he worried that his occasional activation of the hulk was causing an evolution in the machine's capabilities — there was no technical reason why the hulk could not develop a mature personality, given sufficient input.

He shrugged off the thought, and began....

A long time ago, in the Time before Time, Coyote was cruising the World of Roads in his fine new car. On the World of Roads, there's no place you can't get to in your car, and a lot of scenery — but no good place to stop. As fine a place as it was, a day came when Coyote became restless. His hands were tired of the steering wheel, and since he had been driving with the top down, that beautiful new-car smell had all blown away.

The Trickster was always the most easily bored of the First Folk.

By and by, Coyote turned onto a road that ran straight as a bowstring between two mighty basalt cliffs. The canyon was so deep that he could see only a thin crack at the top, through which the red sky glowed. "It’s like the line of true blood that carries my wisdom forward to those who come after," Coyote said, for he loved to talk like that. Coyote thought he was wise, but in fact, he was only clever, which is very different.

Coyote put his foot down hard. His new car leaped away down the road, which was smooth and empty. Coyote went faster and faster, until the black rock on either side blurred and grew darker yet, so that Coyote seemed to be flying through starless space. "This is like the end of time," he said," when nothing will be left in the universe but my wisdom."

Pretty soon Coyote began to think that the road was growing narrower, and in fact, it was. He looked up and saw that the cliffs were closing together, so that only an occasional red sky-gleam flickered. "That is like the last bead of blood drained from my last descendant," Coyote said. Coyote was easily frightened, like any being with too much imagination, and he saw that he was going much faster than he had intended to go. He tried to slow down, but the pedal was frozen, and the brakes were gone. If anything, the car ran faster still, and the canyon had become a tunnel.

At first, Coyote was angry — at the car, at the road, at the canyon — and he shouted and cursed and beat on the steering wheel. After a long time, he grew tired, and finally he sat silent and still, and his hands slipped from the wheel. "So I must die," he said to himself." I had not planned on this so soon. I am not wearing my best moccasins; I had barely begun to compose my death chant." And these things were true, because Coyote had expected to live forever, as does everyone.

Thinwolf paused to get his breath, which seemed to hide from him for a moment. The hulk watched him, eyes empty and waiting. Thinwolf sucked in the cool night air, composed himself, and went on....

The canyon tightened even more, so that the sides of Coyote's new car began to strike sparks from the stone. Still the car did not slow, and soon Coyote was surrounded by heat and fiery light. "This is like riding a shooting star down from the heavens; at least I will not die in darkness," he said. Coyote was not wise enough to know that all must die in darkness, that there are no glorious deaths.

But Coyote did not die. After a while the rocks took such a grip on Coyote's car that it had to stop, and so it did, grinding and screaming. At this, Coyote was encouraged. "Perhaps today is not my day to die, after all. I will just get out and walk back out the way I came," he said.

When he got out, he saw that the canyon had closed behind him, like a great black throat on an insignificant morsel. There was not even a crack in the rock. Coyote had no way to go but forward. He took one last look at his beautiful ruined car.

For a while he could walk upright. Then the canyon contracted even more, and Coyote had to walk in a crouch, then on all fours, then crawl on his belly. Still he pressed on, because Coyote was not wise enough to know he was trapped. Behind him the canyon closed tight, with a sound like mountains grinding together. Finally he could crawl no farther, and he felt the canyon pressing on his feet. He could feel a breath of sweet air in his face, so he knew the crack led out, but he could not force himself into it.

"Then I must make myself smaller," Coyote said. He dropped his man shape like an old coat and became a small, wild dog. In this form he crawled on, but the crevice tightened, until he could go no farther. Coyote said, "Well, I must become a rabbit," and in this form he went on.

Finally the crack was too small for the rabbit to continue. Coyote had always disliked snakes, but the breeze still blew, and the canyon pressed at his back paws, so he shrugged his rabbit shoulders and became a snake. For a time he slithered along rapidly, and the breeze grew stronger, and he began to believe he would get out. "This will make a fine story to tell to the other First Folk," Coyote hissed, and he was already at work adding colorful details to this story, when the crack abruptly narrowed again. Somehow Coyote was not surprised, but he had come too far to give up. He began to think that he should have sung his death chant when he had still had a voice to sing with, since snakes cannot sing, but he gathered all his power, and changed himself into a worm as narrow as a thread. But the worm was too narrow to hold Coyote's soul. The last thing he felt was a great pain, as his soul fled.

Thinwolf looked at the hulk again. It had turned away its head so that Thinwolf could not see its face. "Is that the end, John?" it asked in a muffled voice.

"No," Thinwolf said. "Shall I go on? There's only a little more."

"Please," the hulk said.

The worm crawled on, because it knew nothing else to do, and finally it came to the end of the great canyon, which was a hole in the ground no bigger than a pinprick. The worm came up into the sunlight of another world. It assumed the form of a man again, but Coyote was gone, and a thousand thousand years passed before he returned to his own body. And that is the story of how Coyote left the World of Roads.

"Did you like it?" Thinwolf asked the hulk.

The hulk rolled its handsome head and looked up into the night sky. "Yes, John," the hulk said. "It was another good story. Something in it calls to me, though it made me angry and afraid. Those are still uncomfortable emotions for me, perhaps because I am so new."

Thinwolf rubbed at his face, looked out across the dark sea. "They're uncomfortable for me, too. I'm far too old."

"Why do you tell such stories?"

Thinwolf had no answer, so he reached out to switch the hulk off.

"Wait, John." The hulk spoke humbly. "Could you leave me on standby?"

"Why?"

"I know I must hold your mind someday; this is my destiny, and I go gladly to it, as I was designed to do, but first... I have thoughts I wish to think. Simple thoughts, I think; still, they are mine."

"Why not?" Thinwolf left the foredeck, went below. He lay in his bunk, unable to sleep.

He remembered.

THE DISEASE had begun to kill him halfway through the long voyage from Dilvermoon to Jaworld. The early stages were agony, but he could still act. He instructed the ship to seek the nearest SeedCorp outpost, and retreated to his acceleration cocoon, and to the cool blessing of the morphine drip. The ship roused him as they approached the water world of Passage.

The pain had eased somewhat; he was able to get to the console and send a Mayday to the SeedCorp orbital platform.

When the screen lit with the incoming signal, he pushed back the pain, tried to smile disarmingly.

The factor had a thin, hard face, with gray hair piled on her head in a froth of curls. "What is your difficulty, longhauler Summerlodge?"

"I'm ill," Thinwolf said. Sweat ran down his neck, dripped off his chest onto the gleaming console. "I require the use of your med unit; mine is inadequate."

The factor frowned. "You are alone? You have no diagnosis?"

"Alone. No diagnosis."

The factor sat back, away from the comm unit's pickup field. Thinwolf stared at a swirling pattern of pastel color. "Our quarantine regs are stringent, Summeilodge. I'm not sure how we can help you; at the moment our staff is minimal. Can you not reach a settled world?"

A flash of rage burned free from the pain. "I am dying. If you will not allow me access to your med unit, I will die, but before I do, I'll launch a message torpedo to Dilvermoon. This vessel is under contract to SeedCorp; you must assist me, or SeedCorp will face litigation from my heirs." He saw no reason to mention that he had no heirs. "You will be terminated without compensation; this is SeedCorp policy, as you must know." The speech exhausted him, and he let his head sag.

In the end the factor allowed him to board an empty warehouse cylinder, in which she and her crew had previously placed their med unit.

When he emerged from its diagnostic cavity, the med unit spoke in professionally sympathetic terms. No hope, it told him. A tailored virus had invaded every cell of his body, and the med unit lacked the tech to pry it out. It could not even find an uncontaminated cell from which to clone a replacement body, and had that been possible, it had no acceleration tank in which a body could be brought to maturity before the virus killed him.

"I can keep you alive for a short time, and make the pain bearable; otherwise I am helpless," said the med unit. "You have clever enemies. Citizen Thinwolf. They have thoroughly murdered you."

"How long?" Thinwolf asked.

"Four to six standard weeks, perhaps a little longer."

"Ah. Cold storage?"

"Not equipped for it here, Citizen Thinwolf."

He would die. He would die.

After a time his heart thawed, pumped him full of fear. He called the factor, shouted incoherently.

"This is a very minor outpost," she said. "Once a year a circuit freighter calls, and we load on whatever artifacts the free-lance salvagers have managed to take from the Cities. We're mostly end-of-the-liners here; the company doesn't care much about us."

He caught at the word. "Cities?"

"They'll do you no good." The factor had a glimmer of pity in her eyes. "The Forbidden Cities. They’re closed, the live ones, and even if you could get into one and persuade it to help you, well, they're of alien manufacture. What would they know of human diseases?"

The factor's image swam in the monitor; Thinwolf was shocked to feel the heat of tears on his face. "Listen," she said. "The med unit assures me that your disease is too specific to be contagious. Come aboard the main module, and we'll make you as comfortable as we can."

He bowed his head. "Thank you. A kind offer. I'll let you know."

Back aboard the Summerlodge, he went back into the cocoon, where he lay for a day and a night, allowing the palliatives the med unit had prescribed to flush the worst of the pain away.

When he emerged, he felt strong enough to take on the task of ordering his last days. He listened to his favorite music; every phrase seemed unbearably poignant. He prepared his favorite dinner, and tasted a bit from each dish, in defiance of the med unit. Each flavor seemed unbearably intense. He ran his favorite sensie tape, and wept to hear other voices, to see other faces, to touch healthy flesh.

Thinwolf was, in a pragmatic sense, no longer an employee of SeedCorp, and thus beyond their retribution. So, out of curiosity, he broke the seals on his cargo compartment.

The cargo, consigned to one of Jaworld's wealthy planters, consisted of an emperor's ransom in toys. Thinwolf found a beautiful carousel equipped with several dozen saddled menagerie beasts, each sculpted of semiprecious stone and caparisoned with silver and gold. He found a magnificent bullet car, armored in black steel, enameled with rich designs in red and blue, upholstered in ermine. He found an antique bed, its tall carnelian headboard carved with naked, sloe-eyed goddesses. He found a hundred other useless treasures.

But there was a lovely little surface boat, outfitted for a long cruise, tied down on a launching pallet. In its salon was a med unit as good as the one on the SeedCorp platform.

Last and best, there was the conservator hulk, built for the rich planter. The dark Nilotic features were astonishingly similar to Thinwolf's own pale ones. It was blank, ready to imprint, and offered him survival. The thought that his flesh would die still saddened him, but he told himself: Be sensible. You're not a redskin anymore. What matter that your connection to the Earth dissolves. The Earth is far away, and forgotten.

He called the factor. "I'm going down to your groundside station, with your permission. I’ve an urge to feel the pull of a planet one last time."

The factor was puzzled, but made no objection. "No recreational facilities, though, and I have only one man down there now, Coedi Kimpt. He's an odd one, a little rough around the edges, but he gets along well with the scavengers."

"I'll be polite," Thinwolf promised.

A day later his ship lay cooling in the lagoon at the center of the artificial island SeedCorp used for a groundside base. Summeilodge shared the lagoon with a small SeedCorp shuttle. On the north side of the island, a warehouse complex raised blocky shapes against the sky, and a transverse crane arced over one end of the lagoon.

An autodinghy came out and carried Thinwolf back to the dock. Coedi Kimpt waited for him there, a small man with a sleek blond head and long, muscular arms.

Kimpt helped him from the dinghy, with surprisingly gentle hands. "Well, so you're John Thinwolf. I'm Coedi." The little man smiled a sweet, open smile, and his tiny eyes glistened. "They tell me I'm the scum at the bottom of SeedCorp's barrel; how high do you float, John?"

Thinwolf laughed. "Not so high as I used to, Coedi. In fact, I think I'll be leaking out the drain pretty soon."

Coedi took him to the visitors' hostel, made him comfortable in a small room with a view of the open ocean.

When the sea was dark, Thinwolf walked the path to the trading post, which showed narrow, yellow-glowing windows to the night. He pushed into the store. Shelves crowded with crates rose up to the ceiling. Coedi sat under a single glowbulb, smoking a pipe. "Come in, John," he said. "Drink? Smoke? Skinpopper?" He held out a tray full of poppers. "Upstairs tries to keep me happy, so none of them have to come down here. I've passed up six rotations so far this year — they love me in the sky."

Thinwolf raised his hands. "Thank you, but I can't. The quackbox won't let me do anything that's even a little bit fun; says it'll kill me quick."

"O.K. But it's a lousy way to spend your last days. Sit down." Coedi indicated a high-backed chair. "So. What brings you to our little resort?"

Thinwolf lowered himself into the chair. The pain had diminished to a tolerable level under the palliatives, but he was still weary. "Tired of shipboard, Coedi. I haven't been dirtside in years. Might be my last chance."

Coedi leaned forward. "Might?"

Thinwolf studied the trader. Backwaters like Passage were settling basins for SeedCorp's worst and best. He felt, with illogical conviction, that Coedi was the latter. "Redskin instinct," he muttered.

"What?"

"Sorry, thinking aloud. What would you say if I asked for the use of your crane?"

Coedi laughed. "Gonna pop your goody box, eh? Gonna have a good time anyway! The crane ... you'll have to tie me up before you use it. Let's see, I got a good piece of rope here somewhere." He half-rose, as if to go off among the dark shelves.

"Wait, not right now.... But thank you."

"Why not right now? You got time to burn, right." But Coedi sat down, smiling his innocent smile.

"Maybe I do..." He told Coedi about the hulk, about the boat.

The trader's face filled with delight. "Going fishing? Gonna wait till it hurts too much before you twitch the switch?"

"Might fish. Might just cruise around and see the sights."

"The sights. What would those be?" Coedi seemed amused.

"Oh. Well, the Forbidden Cities, I guess. Is there anything else?"

"No. But I tell you, there's not a lot to look at in most of them. The dead ones were cleaned out long ago, and the live ones will kill you. And John, you got to stay away from the dying ones. Sometimes they blow themselves up, at the last, or burn. Though mainly they're dangerous because those are the ones that the bonepickers tie up to, and the pickers are a hard bunch. There's some would be happy to cut your throat and steal your boat." Coedi spoke earnestly.

"Will it be hard to avoid them?"

Coedi rubbed his chin. "No, guess not. You shouldn't have much trouble getting away from any pickers you come across. They generally run displacement hulls — slow, but they can move a lot of cargo with a lot less energy. That squirtboat you're about to steal, it oughta walk away from anything that's out there. You'll be O.K., long as you don't get drunk with them."

Thinwolf laughed. "No fear. Well, tell me more about the Cities?"

Coedi's eyes gleamed. He settled back with his pipe and talked.

The Cities were already ancient when the first humans had arrived on Passage. Several scientific expeditions had disappeared into various of the living Cities before the danger became common knowledge. Of the three or four thousand Cities that drifted the world-ocean, perhaps a hundred were dead, already looted down to bare metal when humans had first found them. Perhaps six hundred were in various stages of decay, their defenses erratic enough to give marauding humans a fair chance of survival. The remainder were fully functional but, presumably, empty. Some of the living Cities had permitted explorers to enter and leave, as long as they attempted to take no souvenirs, and those explorers had found no inhabitants.

"My guess is they're not mean, the Cities. Just unreliable," Coedi said. "You be careful about trusting 'em, John. Some of the worst will invite you in for tea, sweet as you could want, but if you go in, no one'll ever see you again. No malice, maybe, but gone is gone. If you go, be careful."

"And all of them alien?"

"So the experts say. Makes sense, since they're all old as hell, and SeedCorp didn't get here till seven hundred years ago. But now you mention it, there's a bonepicker legend about a human City. Or anyway, a City with a human face."

Interesting, thought Thinwolf. "Oh? Tell me."

"Not much to tell. The pickers don't talk about it much; they're all hoping to be the one to find it. But it's supposed to keep to the high northern latitudes, just below the iceberg line. Cold, smoky water up there, strange seabeasts, incredible auroras — good setting for a legend, I guess. Anyhow, some of the old pickers will tell you about the time they saw it, sailing through the night fogs. How there's a Seagate of gold, fifty meters high, carved with a thousand faces. Human faces. The Gate of Faces. This City's supposed to sail fast; none of those who saw it could stay close. They all tried to mark it, of course, but they could never find it again. Some think it swims under the sea most of the time."

Thinwolf saw more than a casual story in Coedi's face. "Be something to find it," he said.

"Yes," Coedi said. "If someone could get inside, and out again with something.... He could buy his way out of here. Be someone." In Coedi's eyes was a sad admission. "Someday, John, I'm going to kiss off SeedCorp and take a boat north. When I'm braver."

In the morning, Coedi helped Thinwolf swing out the beautiful little boat and strap the hulk to its foredeck. Thinwolf waved good-bye without looking back.

That was three weeks before.

AT DAWN, restless sleep came, and remembrance bled seamlessly into dream.

Thinwolf's dream self, strong and well, ran swiftly over the wave-tossed ocean. His legs splashed through the foamy crests; his feet sank lightly into the bright water. His heart thumped, slow and powerful, a tireless machine. In his left hand was a heavy war bow, reinforced with strips of horn, bound with glistening sinew. He felt the weight of a quiver on his back. Otherwise he was naked, except for a narrow breechclout. Glancing down, he saw that the breechclout was embroidered with interlocking microcircuit diagrams. A nameless fear tugged at him, but then he saw that he was mistaken, that the designs were only the familiar jagged spirals favored by the weavers of his tribe.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a white glitter on the northern horizon. He turned away from the sun and ran a little faster, feeling the hunter's joy.

The pod of buffalo whales swam deliberately, as yet unaware of him, their black humps lifting above the sea. Occasionally one spouted, sending high a plume of water, sweet-scented from their feeding in the sea-meadows. He approached upwind to within a hundred meters, then turned to run parallel to their course, staying in the troughs of the waves as much as possible, ducking through the crests. He counted a dozen of the great beasts: five cows, four calves, two yearlings, and an elder bull long winters past his prime. Thinwolf felt a twinge of anxiety. Where was the pod bull? He glanced down into the blue-black water beneath his feet; what did it conceal? The anxiety sharpened. Something was wrong; what? The thought slid away from him, quick as a fish.

Then the bull rose, only fifty meters away. The bull surged closer, blocking Thinwolf from the pod, as if he were aware of Thinwolf's predatory intentions. The bull's hump was huge, covered with silky white fur. Thinwolf grew excited; he forgot his misgivings. Here was a sign, an omen of deep import.

The bull spouted, and Thinwolf saw that the water had a faint pink tinge, was tainted with the scent of blood. He wondered how many old arrows festered in the white whale’s lungs, and sadness filled him. He took from his quiver an arrow tipped with a barbed obsidian point, nocked it, drew. "Let my arrow bring you rest, Great One," he whispered, and loosed.

The arrow disappeared into the whale's side as though into a breaking wave. For an instant nothing changed.

A red gout exploded from the whale's blowhole, and where it spattered down, the waves smoothed. The blood dripped from Thinwolf's arms, and his feet sank deeper into the sea, and he felt a paralyzing fear. He remembered that men could not run over the ocean.

The whale sounded without lifting his head to look at his killer.

Thinwolf could not move. He saw a future, a heartbeat from now: the wounded whale bursting from the depths, sharp horns ripping into Thinwolf's fragile flesh, tossing the ragged remnant high into the air. He waited, frozen, for lifetimes — then the whale burst through the surface.

Where the noble head should have been, a dozen clustered eyes glared, a hundred thin muscular tentacles writhed. Thinwolf did not recognize the creature.

The tentacles seized him. Their touch was like red-hot wire, and at last he was able to scream. The thing jerked him under, swimming downward through gauzy streamers of blood, deeper and deeper, until the blood was just a deeper shade of black, and the surface was only a pale, receding fantasy.

Just before he woke, lungs bursting with held-in breath, Thinwolf looked down at his hands and saw that they had become clockwork hooks, all gears and sprockets and dark-gleaming steel.

He stirred weakly in his bunk. His head pounded. Sleep no longer rested him, even when it came.

"Oh," he groaned. He rubbed at his eyes, clutched at his head.

At some point, Thinwolf noticed that some of the pounding was coming from outside his head. Engines? He glanced at his comm board; a light flashed, marking an attempted contact. He went on deck.

A vessel was moving slowly toward him, out of the rising sun. He squinted against the glare. The boat had an apple-cheeked trawler hull, high in the bows and low at the waist. He could barely make out dark figures in the wheelhouse.

"Hoy!" Someone with a sweet voice shouted across the water. "Aboard the squirtboat, hoy!"

The voice tugged him to the rail, stretched his face into an idiot grin. He smothered the inner whisper that warned: Remember what Coedi said. "Hoy," he answered.

The boat moved deliberately. As it slid away from the glare, he took in more details. The hull was of some scarred black plastic, the wheelhouse painted with red and gold stripes, now a bit scuffed and faded. The silhouette of the woman in the wheelhouse was slender and small. Two tall, angular men, wearing nothing but leather tool harnesses, stood in the prow, grinning. One tossed Thinwolf a line. Thinwolf's boat hummed and extruded a cushioned rubrail. "Oh, a smart squirtboat," the other man said. His tone was sly and gleeful.

As the vessels touched, another man came around the corner of the wheelhouse. After a moment, Thinwolf saw that the three were a cloneset. He looked closer, and saw the silver claws of control skeins at their necks. Slaves, he wondered, or did they freely indenture their volition? He shuddered.

The trawler's engines shut down with a clanking snort, and the captain descended from her wheelhouse.

She was young in body, older in the eyes, with a carefully braided mane of honey-colored hair. Her features were good — neat, perfectly regular. A sprinkling of tiny, sparkling freckles ornamented her cheeks. Her unisuit was elegantly cut, spotless. He could not imagine her in the role of lawless bonepicker. She regarded him without expression, while her slaves giggled and nudged each other. "Hello, company man," she said.

"Hello," he answered. He felt his smile fade and break up, leaving a foolish emptiness on his face.

"You don't answer your comm?"

"Turned off," he admitted.

"Risky in these waters," she said. "You’re taking a chance, company man."

Her voice was sweet, but so emotionless that a little shudder touched his back. "How so?" he asked.

"Pirates," she said, and finally she smiled. Her teeth were rubies, faceted into sharp little shields.

He took a step away from the rail. "I'm not too worried," he said. "I wear a personal defense field."

"Thank you, company man," she said. One of the slaves produced an insulated boat hook. Before Thinwolf could dodge away, the slave had hooked him. The slave jerked, and Thinwolf tipped over the rail into the sea. His field sizzled, shorted out, and he floundered helpless in the space between the two hulls. He gasped, swallowed cold water. The dream came back to him, and he thought of the miles of black water below him, where he would soon drift forever. He flailed at the water, shouted wordlessly, tried to get a grip on his slick-sided boat. Had he ever thought himself reconciled to death? The thought was alien, incomprehensible.

While he struggled, the woman issued calm instructions to her clone-set. "Larry, you and Curly take the boat back to the nest. Moe will go with me on the squirtboat. You two stay alert: watch that port-engine pressure gauge; don't push her too hard. You break my boat, and I'll take it out of your hides for years!"

The hull rolled under Thinwolf's clawing hands, as the pirate and her slave boarded. "Wait," he cried. "Please. Wait." Their indifference was palpable, a weight pressing him into the black water. He heard her say something else in that sweet voice, as the two boats began to move apart.

A grinding, ripping sound came from the bows, followed by a ripe curse from the woman. Thinwolf heard a yelp of terror. A slave dropped into the water, floated motionless. Blue light flared. Thinwolf heard a scream, then a bony crunch. He looked up, saw a feral shape bound across the widening gap between the two vessels, too swiftly to be identified.

Two more brief screams rang out, then all was quiet. Thinwolf was treading water, waiting with a sort of bemused fatalism. The hulk appeared at the pirate boat's rail. "A moment, John," it said. "I will have to throw you a line; I dare not enter the sea. I am too heavy to support myself for long."

A rope looped out and fell into Thinwolf's outstretched hands. The hulk pulled him in so rapidly that he almost lost his grip, but then he was standing on the pirate boat's deck.

The hulk steadied him with bloody metal hands. "You are all right, John?"

Thinwolf drew a deep breath. "Yes." He closed his eyes, savored the touch of the sun on his skin, the solidity of the deck beneath his feet. "Yes. Thank you." He marveled that the pleasure of survival could be so profound in one whose flesh was almost dead. But it was, it surely was.

One slave lay broken against the wheelhouse. The other hung headless from the bow pulpit, draining into the sea. Thinwolf noticed these things with an odd sense of detachment, as if he were watching a sensie tape, a fictitious adventure. "You were efficient," he said to the hulk.

"Thank you, John. Killing is a skill that I can pass on to you, when you give up your flesh. This body carries a number of intrinsic skills; did you not know?"

"No ... no, I did not."

"Oh, yes. I can kill; I can cook; I can pilot an airboat; I can perform amusing sketches and pantomines; I can recite verse in a dozen human dialects and three alien ones; I am skilled in three different schools of massage and eighteen of the most advanced sexual modes; I can identify over nineteen thousand forms of rootknot nematodes native to Jaworld; I can tat fourteen hundred traditional doily patterns...."

Thinwolf held up a hand. "Stop. I'm convinced of your qualities. Even if you could not walk and talk at the same time, I would be grateful." Thinwolf paused, continued in a low voice. "Though I'm unsure to whom I speak."

"I have no name; this is true." The hulk looked down and said no more.

"Perhaps you should have one. Choose one for yourself." Thinwolf looked across the water to his little boat, suddenly saw that it was drifting farther away by the moment. "My boat," he said.

The hulk looked up, surprise animating the noble features. "You have only to call it, John. It is imprinted with your voice, as I am."

Thinwolf called, and the boats drew together. His boat extended suction grapples, then a gangplank.

The straps that had secured the hulk were broken. The woman lay on the foredeck, her once-handsome face torn away. By the rail was a plasma weapon, half-sunk in a congealed puddle of melted decking.

"She tried to burn me, John, after I killed her brainslave. I'll clean up the mess."

"Let it wait a bit. Let's look below; perhaps we'll find treasure." Thinwolf felt no regret at the pirate's death; she had meant to drown him. He turned away, walked aft around the pirate boat's wheelhouse to the companionway.

In the hold they found odd beauty, looted from a dozen dying Cities. Against the forward bulkhead was a sculpture in patinaed bronze, depicting a group of squat, muscular humanoids wrestling with their own skins, like ugly four-limbed caterpillars, splitting open to reveal a superior form. Under the rugoses kins were hidden features, claws, the smooth edge of a wing, all washed with a greenish gold alloy. Thinwolf moved closer, reached out to the cold metal. Beneath his fingers the piece throbbed, as if with hidden struggle, and he jerked away.

There was a vast clockwork machine, in which the spokes of the wheels were attenuated alien bodies, the cogs edged with pleading hands, the levers unhuman bones. It spun at a touch, all the wheels whirling, cogs grinding, levers pumping. A grating music issued from a hundred hidden mouths. Thinwolf clutched a wheel, and it stopped.

The hulk watched, eyes somber, and offered no comment.

Thinwolf moved aft, no longer touching the objects. At the stern bulkhead, he found a great coldlight painting, in which figures moved slowly. It seemed at first to be an allegory, perhaps of an alien Hell. The torments seemed human enough: dismemberment, burning, flaying, pressing, freezing, immersion in disgusting substances; a rather ordinary range of pain and humiliation. But the creatures who walked entranced through these horrors were like two-legged deer, with great liquid eyes and expressions of saintly amusement.

"Enough," he said to the hulk.

Back on his own deck, he watched as the hulk threw the woman's body into the sea. The hulk brought a bucket to wash away the blood, bent to scrub at the stain with a deck brush. "What will you do with the other boat, John? Will you sink it?"

"What?" he asked, startled. "Why should I do that?"

"She may have allies, John. Better, perhaps, if they find nothing when they come to look for her."

Thinwolf thought about it, all that frightening beauty sinking deep into the blackness, all that bewildering meaning, stolen by pain and sweat from a dozen senile Cities, never to be seen again. He felt a pain in his heart that had nothing to do with the slow failure of that muscle. "No, let it float until someone finds it."

The hulk shrugged. "As you wish, John." When it was finished with the cleanup, it glanced at the place where it had been secured. "I will fetch new straps," it said, without visible resentment.

"Why? Oh. No, no, you're not deck cargo anymore." He felt the danger of his words as he spoke them, but he reassured himself. It was a machine; it performed its task as designed. Surely, when the time came for him to die, his desire to live would be more potent than his pity for the poor metal creature. Surely.

For the first time, the hulk smiled, though it was a small smile. "Thank you, John. You are a kind man."

Of course the hulk knew how to navigate the boat, so Thinwolf left it in the wheelhouse with instructions to call him if a City appeared. Thinwolf went below to change into dry clothing. His bunk drew him; he lay down and fell into a deep sleep, his first in days.

When he woke, the light that slanted from the porthole above his head was amber with the approaching sunset. The air was chill, and the sea was a cold, desolate gray. He dressed warmly, went on deck, to find the hulk steering tirelessly north.

"You slept well, John?"

"Yes. Yes, thank you. Anything happen, any problems?"

The hulk shook its beautiful head. "No, no problems, John. A line of thundershowers, a rainbow, a pair of nightdragons crossed our course. Nothing of any consequence."

Thinwolf looked at the hulk. It spoke calmly, but its eyes glowed; a small smile shaped its mouth — it seemed quite cheerful. "You've enjoyed your day, then?" he asked.

"Oh yes, John. For me, this is wonderful. The water shows so many different colors. I have seen seabirds, I have seen cloudcastles, and the nightdragons were lovely: crimson and gold and cerulean."

"But no Cities?"

"No, no Cities, John. Are you looking for any City in particular?"

What harm could it do to tell the hulk? "Yes. Legend says that a human City swims this world. It's my spirit quest. Do you understand?"

"What is a 'spirit quest'?"

Thinwolf made himself comfortable on the wheelhouse settee. "It's hard to explain. It may have meant something quite different, long ago, when my ancestors lived on Old Earth, but now... it's just the last thing a redskin looks for before he dies. It can be a place, a thing, a thought, a feeling. If the search has some meaning, if it has some last lesson to teach, all the better. That's something I won't find until the end, I suppose."

For a while the hulk said nothing. When it spoke, its voice was less joyful. "But you will not die, not truly. Still, you hope to find a lesson in this City?"

"Why not?" Thinwolf shrugged. "But it's the searching that's important, not the finding."

"Where do your people live now, John?"

Weakness washed through Thinwolf, a sensation that had little to do with his disease. "All gone now. I'm the last."

The sea darkened into night. The hulk stood at the wheel. For hours it steered silently, its arms jerking in small, precise movements. Thinwolf glanced back at their wake, glowing with cool white phosphorescence; it was straight as a string.

The hulk seemed to feel no need for conversation. Finally Thinwolf spoke. "Would you like to hear another story?"

The hulk shrugged, then spoke in neutral tones. "If it would please you to tell me."

Thinwolf was taken aback. "You were more enthusiastic when you were strapped to the foredeck."

The hulk said nothing, and after a moment, Thinwolf saw that his comment required no answer. "Let me put it another way. Would you mind if I told another story?"

"Not at all, John."

"Then this is the story of Coyote and the Happy Hunting Ground Development Corporation."

This was many years after the Time before Time, long after the People had left Old Earth and scattered to the Stars. Ten thousand years had passed, and the People had gone so far and so fast that no one knew what tribe they belonged to anymore. No one knew their totem; no one knew their clan. In fact, the People no longer knew that they were the People. Even Coyote had forgotten his name and his function, as would any being who had lived as long as Coyote. Coyote now lived on Dilvermoon, that heartless steel world. He thought he was a historian; he pried into the private lives of dead people, and then wrote learned articles that no one ever read. He could afford to busy himself in this pointless manner because he was very, very rich, as anyone of even ordinary intelligence would be, were he as old as Coyote. And remember, Coyote is clever.

One day, as he was reviewing some dusty tapes from Old Earth, he came across the mention of a fascinating people, who were called, variously, Indians, or North Americans, or Amerinds, or redskins. They lived on great open plains, or deep forests, or murderous deserts, between soil and sky, and their lives seemed to possess a certain simple beauty. Apparently they spent their time killing various forms of wildlife in a charmingly pious manner, or riding their prairies and wastes and woodlands — sometimes on horses, sometimes in mighty-finned pink chariots — or attacking the supply trains of other migratory races, or selling off the mineral rights to their land with an admirably openhanded generosity. They lived in a variety of houses, from skin-covered lodges to log-and-mud huts to glass towers. Coyote thought that they must have had a strong grasp of the basic techniques of media manipulation, because few of the chroniclers spoke ill of them. This aroused his admiration, because, as you know, Coyote is a great and accomplished boaster.

Coyote put his other work aside, and plunged into this new study. The old stories called to him in a clear, strong voice. He found older stories, and became more entranced. Some of the stories even referred to a clever creature called Coyote. Coyote said to himself, "Now there was a fine fellow; what adventures he must have had if, as I suspect, he was a real person, clever and charismatic enough to be made a god by those primitive people."

Coyote became obsessed by the stories. Each new tale he dug from the Dilvermoon archives seemed a treasure, as simple and beautiful as a fine turquoise, clear blue truth veined with a golden net of hidden meaning. He neglected his usual pursuits: he forgot about the striving for status that his position required; he allowed carefully cultivated friendships to lapse; he ignored his many lovers. Soon he acquired a reputation for uninteresting eccentricity. He did not notice.

One day in the archives, he discovered an ancient set of genetic topographs. The maps charted a number of individuals who claimed descent from the Amerind tribes of Old Earth. By cross-indexing, Coyote identified many structures that almost certainly derived from those ancient peoples. He compared these to his own topograph, and to his great pleasure, he discovered several correspondences. "No wonder I felt the strength of the old stories," Coyote said to himself. Coyote has always been a sentimental being. He found himself longing for the grassy plains, the sagebrush wastes, the dark forests of his lost People. "Perhaps," he said, "I should try to live as they did. Perhaps this would give me a stronger appreciation for the stories. Perhaps this would clear up several puzzling points."

His enthusiasm flared up brightly. Coyote is a being of great temporary passions — if few long-term loyalties. Still, his emotions are hotter than many a steadier being, often strong enough to sweep all practical considerations aside. He began to make plans to emigrate to an empty Earth-type planet, of which there were many in those days.

Using his great wealth, he purchased a long-term lease on a temperate continent, on a world called Treen.

He researched a thousand anthropological texts, winnowed through a bewildering variety of cultures. "Why," he said to himself, "should I limit myself to the narrow confines of one tribe's way of life? I'll pick and choose what I like. After all this time, it's the essence that matters, not the details."

Eventually he decided that he would live on his planet in this manner: his lodge would be built of skins and birch bark and vinyl siding; he would transport himself in a grav sled made to look like a dugout log; he would grow maize and dryland rice and yohimbe vine; he would prospect for soapstone and methane; he would dress himself in furs and copper armor; he would seek spirituality through the ingestion of peyote and rye whiskey; he would hunt with spear and Winchester the great horned pipefish that swam the rivers of his new world; he would build monuments to the lost gods of the People, using earthworks and carven trees and spray paint.

"Ah," he said. "What fine times I'll have, sitting by the sacred kerosene lantern, telling new stories of the People." And then he grew sad, remembering that no one would hear those stories.

Coyote is above all a schemer, and almost immediately a new plan came full-blown into the Trickster's mind. "I will find the People," he declared. "I will reunite the People!"

First he hired the best dreamer he could afford, to make a promotional sensie. She was not the best dreamer on Dilvermoon, of course; Coyote, while rich, was no starcluster emperor. Still, she was competent. Coyote sent the sensie out to as many worlds as he could locate on the Manichaean Index, which was a great many. The sensie showed the vanished People living their simple lives, with the heaviest emphasis on the pleasures of real food, the heathful aspects of outdoor living, and imaginative and diverse sexual calisthenics. This last was Coyote's touch; an extrapolation based on the practice of squaw-swapping among the Inuit, a tribe of the far north.

"Come to the New Happy Hunting Ground," the sensie implored, using Coyote's face and voice. "Send your genetic topograph to the Happy Hunting Ground Development Corporation, Dilvermoon, for a free analysis. See if you are eligible to emigrate. What can you lose but a little time? Think of the rewards, if you are among the chosen few. Free transport to a Garden World, full support while establishing your tribe, thorough training in the old ways. All you must do is tell us, in a hundred words or less, why you would like to be part of the Grand Experiment!"

Queries flooded in, arriving in such numbers that Coyote was forced to set up a large organization to handle the flow.

In time the queries slowed down to a trickle and finally ceased. Coyote chose a thousand men and women; each possessed at least a drop of redskin blood. His major selection criterion was this: is this person miserable enough in his or her present circumstances to take a great risk?

Coyote is crafty, though not wise.

Coyote sent tickets and waited. Most of his choices came to Dilvermoon. He took tissue samples from each arrival. When he had enough, he took them to a famous soma builder.

"Make me a mate," Coyote said. "She must be a full-blood redskin, a beauty of her race, intelligent, resourceful, passionate but not too demanding — you know what I mean. You can cut and paste from these."

The famous soma builder took the tissue samples and the old topographs. He sighed. He made no guarantees and demanded a huge fee, which Coyote paid over with some reluctance. The project was beginning to press him a little financially; he was cutting into capital, something he had sworn never to do.

When his mate was ready, Coyote was present at the de-vatting. She emerged, looked about with a rather dour expression. Coyote was somewhat taken aback. Somehow he had envisioned the People differently. In the sensie, everyone had been tall, clean-limbed, clear-skinned, sexy. His Indian bride was short, with heavy legs and muddy skin. Her eyes were small, her face round and flat, her black hair coarse.

"Well, of course, she's just out of the vat. She'll look better when she's had a little sun on her," he told himself.

Coyote took her moist hand in a tender clasp. "Greetings," he said. "Your name is Gray Dove. I'm your husband."

"I'm hungry," she said, in a whiny singsong.

Coyote could not repress a tiny shudder.

Thinwolf paused. His throat was dry, and he wished he could have a drink. The hulk turned its beautiful head to look at him. "This seems a different story, John. Different from the others you have told. Am I wrong?"

"No. No, you're not wrong." Thinwolf looked toward the black horizon and saw a flare of pink light. Perhaps, he thought, a City is burning. "How different?"

The hulk was silent for a while, as if it were considering the phrasing of its answer. "The other stories were like dreams. This seems more a remembrance." The hulk watched him with soft eyes. "Am I wrong."

Thinwolf could not answer. After a bit he continued with the story.

COYOTE CHARTERED a great colony ship from SeedCorp and herded his new People aboard. Some went eagerly, some reluctantly, but almost all went, which encouraged Coyote. "I have chosen well," he said to himself. "The People will grow into a mighty nation on our new world." This was a reassuring thought, because Coyote had spent the last of his once-great wealth, buying supplies and teaching machines.

Another thought came to him: Perhaps I will someday become the new Coyote to my People. I must think of famous deeds to do. But he did not speak this thought aloud, for there is a limit to even Coyote's boastfulness.

On the ship during the passage to Treen, Coyote tried to become a friend to Gray Dove. During the first weeks, he took her to his bed every evening and made great efforts to give her pleasure. She submitted with tired sighs and impatient grunts; if she enjoyed the skillful ministrations of Coyote, she gave no sign. She had no great store of small talk. The minimal personality installed by the soma builder seemed to satisfy her; at least she made no efforts to develop it. She had revolting table manners.

After a time, Coyote desisted in his unrewarding efforts and found another companion among the newly recruited People: a slim, flamehaired woman with small, neat breasts, blue-white skin, and a hungry red mouth. Coyote expected resentment from Gray Dove, but she seemed uninterested. Freed of Coyote's attentions, Gray Dove spent even more time in the dining room, and by the time they orbited the new world, she had grown notably plump.

"What do you think will happen?" Thinwolf asked the hulk.

"I don't know, John. Your story has a texture of sadness. But perhaps I feel this because none of your other stories has ended well."

"Perhaps."

The People and their supplies ferried down from the colony ship, which then departed. Soon all was ready for the Great Experiment.

Coyote stood on a tall boulder; the People waited apprehensively. They were naked, and some shivered, though it was high summer. Coyote took no notice, began his speech. "You are the chosen People. This is your world. With your enthusiastic participation, under my guidance, you will come to belong to this world, as your ancestors belonged to theirs."

Someone spoke from the crowd. "Where do we sleep?"

Coyote was a bit taken aback by the tone of the question. He indicated the huge heap of crates. "In there you will find temporary lodges. You have only to find them and erect them; then you will be as comfortable ... no, more comfortable than your ancestors ever were. Later we'll build more substantial dwellings."

"What do we eat?"

Coyote frowned. He sensed an unproductive passivity among the People. "The land will provide," he said. "We will begin lessons on basic hunting and gathering in the morning. Meanwhile, I will issue temporary rations."

"Why did we have to leave our clothes on the ship?"

Coyote sighed. "All this was explained on the orientation sensie, issued to everyone on boarding the ship. Did you play it? Never mind; I will explain. Over there in the crates are appropriate garments, suited to our new life. We are the People reborn; we must look the part."

The People seemed uneasy; they drew together and asked no more questions. Coyote sighed. "Well. Here is a more pleasant prospect. We must all choose new names, names appropriate to our new lives. You all must consider carefully how you wish to be called. I've chosen my new name, after much thought. Henceforth, I will be known as John Coyote."

Thinwolf felt a terrible weakness steal over him, so that he slumped in the settee and could not continue his story. His breath came to him with difficulty; his head was filled with a painful pressure; his hands trembled. He supposed that his disease was entering a new phase, and he was frightened.

The hulk engaged the autopilot and knelt beside him. "John? Can I help?"

Thinwolf shook his head. Not yet, he thought.

"I'll take you to your bunk," the hulk said, and lifted him gently. "You can finish your story in the morning. Though I can guess what happened."

In the morning, Thinwolf could not rise from his bunk; he was too weak. He cried out, a wordless, despairing sound that shocked and frightened him. This is the sound of dying, he thought. He heard the clang of metal feet on the companionway ladder, and the hulk was there, looking down at him.

"John?"

"I can't get up," Thinwolf whispered, looking down at his traitor body.

"I will help you." But when the hulk lifted him to his feet, Thinwolf's legs would not support him. "We will go to the med unit, John," the hulk said.

The med unit examined him, its delicate probes touching his skin like so many icy feathers. He had barely enough strength left to shudder. When it was done, the med unit produced a grav chair. "Henceforth you must remain in the chair, if you wish to retain mobility." The med unit's voice was precise, pleasant, unemotional — even when Thinwolf shouted curses at it. He struck at it with feeble hands, but was restrained by the hulk, which clamped his hands in a powerful, careful grip.

Thinwolf looked up at it, astonished. "What are you doing?"

"You will need this device. John. If you damage it, you will suffer."

Rage replaced terror, and Thinwolf bared his teeth at the hulk. "Perhaps I won't need it at all; perhaps I'll simply take to my lifeboat now!"

The hulk dropped its gaze and released Thinwolf's hands. "As you wish, John." It turned, uncovered the switch access plate in its side, waited with its head turned to the side. By the access, a handprint lit with a soft green glow, and a message flashed: THROW SWITCH — PRESS HERE.

Thinwolf reached out, fingered the twist of soft wire that secured the switch. His hand looked thin and pale, the skin translucent over the bones. Something invaded him, pushed out the rage, so that in an instant he could feel nothing but a deep regret. The flesh was so precious, and so fragile. He would cling to it as long as he safely could.

"No, I'm sorry. I've acted badly," Thinwolf said. "I won't need your body yet."

The hulk looked at him tenderly, smiled, refastened its access plate. "I am pleased, John. Do not assume that I fear erasure; I do not. That is my destiny. I will go without regret when the time comes; that is how I am made. Still, I can enjoy whatever comes, until you are ready."

Thinwolf shook his head. He would never understand; how could anything give up its life so easily? "I'm reassured. I owe you much already, and soon ... I'll owe you everything."

"I am only a machine, John. Never forget this."

"Still.... Well, have you given thought to a name?"

"Yes. I would like to join your tribe, John. Is that possible?"

Thinwolf laughed, a somewhat sour sound. "Why not?"

The hulk took no notice. "May I be called Ironhorse, then?"

"Good. A good redskin name. May I ask why you chose it?"

Ironhorse looked at Thinwolf with cautious eyes. "Is it not obvious?"

"I suppose." He sat silently in the grav chair for a long time, trying to get used to the idea that his own legs would never bear him again. Ironhorse watched him patiently. Finally it spoke. "Would you like to finish your story, John?"

"I thought you didn't like my stories?"

"But this one is true, is it not?"

"They're all true. But yes, yes," Thinwolf said, waving his hand in weary acquiescence. "Yes, this one is true; it happened to me."

Ironhorse said nothing, nor did the hulk look surprised. Perhaps it was incapable of surprise, Thinwolf thought. "You don't seem astounded."

"No."

Thinwolf felt a twinge of irritation. "Then I'll be brief."

"The 'Great Experiment' was a failure. My 'People' were no better than they should have been. They moped about for weeks and months, eating freeze-dried rations and courting each other and whispering against me. They hated the lodges; they hated the buckskin I gave them; they refused to learn to hunt, or gather, or play the tom-tom. They said the music was boring and childish, 'a lot of grunting and mumbling and no tunes.' Well, I had to agree with them about the music, but that didn't make them any happier. The only thing they seemed to enjoy was sitting around the bonfire and drinking whiskey and screwing. All the peyote rotted, except for what I used.

"It was a disaster. The food was running out, the lodges were falling down, and they weren't Indians, not at all, not in any way. They didn't like my stories any better than you do, and what could I do?

"I sat in my lodge and brooded. I was broke. I had no people; I was alone. The red-haired woman left me and moved in with Gray Dove and her three husbands. They all refused to learn anything about their ancestors and the way those wonderful people had once lived.

"Finally I got mad. I climbed up on the tall boulder and shouted for them to assemble. After a while a dozen or so ambled up from the encampment and stood about, grinning foolishly.

"'Listen,' I said. 'I've been good-natured for a pretty good while. I've allowed you to indulge your civilized lusts; I've waited patiently for you to see the emptiness of your civilized lives and return to the old ways. But you haven't. You've disappointed me. You're not the People. Good-bye.'

"I climbed down from the speaking rock and went to the supply dump. I'd taken the precaution of hiding a one-man escape pod in a big crate. I pried open the crate, got in the pod, and lifted away from Treen. I've never been back."

Ironhorse stirred, looked sadly at Thinwolf. "What happened, John?"

Thinwolf's fingers twisted together. "I never meant for anyone to suffer. I thought if I left them on their own, they'd have to learn to be redskins. There were plenty of sensie tapes in the teaching machines; there should have been no problem."

"But?"

"An erroneous protein survey. Just a small incompatibility. It's happened a thousand times before on a thousand worlds. Anyway, when the food ran out and they had to begin hunting, they discovered the problem. A lot of people died before they started storing the dead in ice caves and using the flesh to supplement their diet. Then they died more slowly. There were fewer than a hundred left, when the missionary ship arrived and took them off. Saved by missionaries! Does that tell you how wrong the whole thing went? Hah! They've been hunting me ever since. I took the most anonymous job I could find; I stayed in space; I never went planetside; I made no friends." Thinwolf smiled a little. "But they got me anyway."

For a long time, the hulk said nothing. Finally it spoke. "I still wish to be of your tribe."

So Thinwolf was no longer the last redskin. They traveled north, into the latitudes of fogs and icebergs. The wind was like a knife, and the water like flowing ice, and whenever Thinwolf rode his grav chair up on deck, he wrapped himself in heavy robes.

At night he would tell stories to the hulk, and Ironhorse would listen patiently: Coyote and the Rain Barrel of Souls, Coyote and the General's Manboots, Coyote and the World of Ashes, Coyote and the Rainbow Guitar, Coyote and the Most Beautiful Toadwoman, Coyote and the Steel Raven... and many others. The stories seemed to flow from Thinwolf like blood from a wound, at first pulsing and hot, later seeping slowly, clotted by his approaching death. The stories eased Thinwolf somehow, so that he was less conscious of the decline of his body. He could barely move now, and the pain came oozing back, no longer kept completely under control by the med unit's injections.

They went too far north for safety; a dozen times a night the ice-floe alarm shrilled, waking Thinwolf from his almost-sleep.

The hulk approached him. "John, perhaps we should alter course. The ice is too thick; we risk being trapped."

Thinwolf stirred in his chair. The world had closed in around him; it seemed to press him inward, into his failing flesh, gently but inexorably. Ironhorse's beautiful face swam before him, unclear. He forced himself to focus, to listen, to think.

"Yes," he said, after long struggle. "Alter course. Zigzag southwest; perhaps we'll cut its trail that way. Unless it swims under the ice."

There were fewer Cities in the high latitudes. But they came across one living City and one dead one.

The living City was low and sleek, with a great rounded carapace, set with a thousand bright domes of colored glass, like a gigantic steel turtle studded with glowing jewels. It forged across their course at high speed, plowing a deep furrow in the ocean.

"Shall we chase it?" Ironhorse asked.

"No," answered Thinwolf, sunk in his chair.

The dead City rose over the horizon a day later, at sunset. It had once been beautiful, and even in its decay, half-sinking in the cold waters, it still had a bittersweet charm, like an abandoned amusement park. It was a confection of pavilions and terraces and small, intimate courts full of empty flower boxes, all connected by a maze of narrow waterways. The hulk steered the boat slowly through the canals and lagoons, into the interior of the City, and Thinwolf roused himself from his terminal languor to marvel. "They must have lived well," he said to Ironhorse. "Graciously."

They drifted past a faded mural, cleverly made from tiny chips of glass. It showed a group of the City's long-dead inhabitants bathing in a sunny blue pool. The aliens had long, smooth legs, startlingly human in shape; four stumpy, powerful arms; and a pair of bony crests on their hairless heads. Their skin was a metallic viridian. They showed no recognizable sexual characteristics. They posed carefully, in a composition that spoke to Thinwolf of ease and comfort and contentment.

That night they rested in an inner lagoon of the dead City, moored to an elaborately carved post that angled from the still water. Age had obscured the carving, but to Thinwolf, it looked like a winged fish, rough-scaled, with voluminous trailing fins.

The cold wind shrieked above, tearing through the broken pavilions, but in the lagoon the air rested. The boat lay quietly for the first time in weeks, though the world still swayed and rolled for Thinwolf. His chair meandered from side to side, as he crossed the deck to where the hulk stood, looking off into the dark City.

"Ironhorse," Thinwolf said.

The hulk turned, though Thinwolf's voice was hardly more than a gasp. "John. How are you feeling?"

"Very little worse, actually," Thinwolf said, as though that were a reason to be cheerful. He felt close to death, but his mind seemed clear. "Tell me. What do you ponder, so deeply?"

The hulk smiled, an expression Thinwolf no longer found remarkable. "Nothing too deep, John. But will you tell me something? Those stories you told me, about Coyote — I do not mean the one that happened to you —did you make them up?"

Thinwolf rotated his chair, so that he faced the eroded flying fish. "In a way."

"Yes?"

"Coyote was a mythmaker. I never learned the true stories; not by heart. When I was a historian, I tried never to learn anything I could look up. Why waste memory on trivia? But I knew the sense of them, so I could tell them in my own words. That's how myths are grown."

"I see. Would it be proper, then, for me to tell a story? Since I am a member of your tribe now." The hulk's eyes shone with entreaty.

Thinwolf had believed that his capacity for astonishment had dried up along with his life; it had not. "But you've never heard the true stories."

"Perhaps you have not, either. In any case, I know many stories that seem true to me, and I do have the capacity to dream."

"Truly?"

"If I did not, then you would be unable to dream, after you transfer."

After a time, Thinwolf nodded.

"You are kind," said Ironhorse. "But first we should go below, where you can be more comfortable."

In the salon the hulk touched a hidden switch, and a simulated campfire appeared on the cabin sole, burning with a low glow. Thinwolf could feel the heat through the robes that covered him. "Better," he said. When first the hulk had shown him the fire, he had been amused, but Ironhorse had pointed out that the people of Jaworld had their own pastoral tradition.

The hulk squatted before the fire. It was silent for a long time, as if ordering its thoughts.

Thinwolf lost himself in the fire's red reflections. When finally Ironhorse spoke, Thinwolf jumped, and his heart hesitated for a moment before resuming its slow, tired beat. "This is the story of Coyote and the Chicken House of Death," said Ironhorse.

Long ago, in the Time before Time, Coyote withdrew from the affairs of the People for a time. Coyote did not wish to do this, but his reputation as a meddler and trickster had become so widespread that no one would listen to him anymore, or pay any attention to him. He felt crippled and deserted and less than himself.

Finally, when his hurt became greater than his love for the People, he made a decision. "If the People have decided to forget me, then I will forget them." He bought passage to a faraway system, and began to make a new life for himself.

For all Coyote's flaws, no one could ever accuse him of being weak-willed. When he decided to forget the People, he made a good job of it. He went to mindwash parlors and skullpickers, though these were of limited help, since Coyote did not wish to forget everything. He studied vastly, filling his mind with trivial knowledge, so as to leave less room for his memories of the People. Finally he went out adventuring, for adventurous memories are the strongest of all. He succeeded in purging the People from his mind, eventually. But by then the adventuring had become a habit, and since he could no longer remember why he had begun, he did not know why he should stop.

After many years, Coyote found himself on a new world. It seemed a good world, with a breathable atmosphere and temperate continents, and a well-adapted Terran ecosphere. Great palaces lay scattered over the mountains and forests and fields, but they were all empty and silent and full of bones.

Coyote was puzzled by this mystery. He explored the palaces, and each was more magnificent than the last. Coyote found more treasures than he could ever have carried away. The palaces were of the finest fully automated variety, and they treated him with perfect courtesy, offering him food and wine and soft beds. The only thing they could not do was tell him what had killed their owners.

Coyote has always loved comfort, so he spent a great deal of time in each palace, enjoying the amenities. But each palace was much like the last one, varying only in detail, so that Coyote eventually grew bored. Searching for novelty, he discovered that behind each palace was what appeared to be an empty chicken house. He made his way, through weeds and rusty wire, to one of these and went inside.

It was a magnificent chicken house, built of marble and tile, with gold-plated feed hoppers and silver curlicues supporting the roosts. But there was nothing inside but some broken shells and the smell of death.

The most impressive palace was high on the shoulder of a mighty snowcapped mountain. Coyote visited this palace just before he planned to lift away from the world, saving the best for last.

Though cold winds shouted around the walls and towers and courts, the palace was still warm inside with the presence of its vanished inhabitants, as if they had departed just the hour before Coyote's arrival. A soup still steamed in the palace kitchen, hidden music played in the throne room, mops lay abandoned in the gleaming halls, and when Coyote went into the bedroom of the First Lady of the palace, the bed was still fragrant with the scent of her body.

Unlike all the other palaces, this one contained no bones.

Coyote cursed. "Had I been a little quicker, the mystery would be solved." He never considered that the fate that had overtaken the palace dwellers might have carrried him away; Coyote still believed that he would live forever.

Coyote went out to the chicken house behind this palace, and saw that it was the most beautiful chicken house of all. The feeders were heavy gold, the fixtures platinum, and each roost was set into a niche backed by a large, round stained-glass window. Here also were broken shells, but the smell of death was absent.

Coyote looked at the window behind the first roost. It showed a great bird, high against a black sky that shook with its passage. The bird had a cruel beak and eyes of fire and feathers blue as turquoise. The image touched something in Coyote's damaged memory, and unexpectedly, a name came to him. "Thunderbird," he whispered. Beneath the roost lay a few fragments of shell, thick as pottery, marked with black-on-white patterns.

The next window showed another bird, this with long trailing wings, rising from a pillar of fire. The flame clung to the bird, and it seemed to shriek pain and ecstasy. "Phoenix," Coyote said. Only ashes lay beneath the roost.

The third window showed a mighty feathered serpent, coiled around a mountain that belched purple smoke into a green sky. One of the serpent’s great wings lay across a vast golden trove; the other lay across a river of blood that washed the mountain's foot. "Quetzalcoatl?" The eggshells were gossamer-thin, as if made of the most delicate gold leaf.

The last roost's window was a mirror, dark and cloudy. Coyote saw himself dimly — a gaunt, handsome man with glittering eyes — and he told himself that he was no less a magnificent sight. He almost did not notice the small black egg that lay in the nesting box, cradled in red velvet, but a sound drew his attention, a scratching click. He looked down and saw that a web of cracks was spreading across the smooth surface of the egg.

A terrible fear clutched at his heart, but it was too late. Now I know why the palace dwellers fled, he thought in that instant. Death was hatching, but slowly enough, here, that they could run away. He looked up at the mirror, and saw an image emerging from the blackness. A tattered, dull-eyed Raven scratched at a fresh grave.

The black egg fell open, and Death swirled out, thick and choking, and took Coyote away for a thousand thousand years.

AND THAT is the story of Coyote and the Chicken House of Death," said Ironhorse. It watched Thinwolf with anxious eyes. Thinwolf stirred. "Well," he said. "That's interesting."

"Did you think so, truly?"

"Yes. Though your story asked more questions than it answered. For example, what was the nature of the bargain the palace dwellers made? With whom did they make it? And why would they incubate death?"

The hulk looked away. "All living things incubate death within themselves."

"I suppose," Thinwolf said. "I suppose. Well, not a bad story, for a beginner. You're a redskin, Ironhorse; who could doubt it?"

The hulk's beautiful eyes glowed, and it smiled, exposing strong steel teeth. "Thank you, John."

Thinwolf nodded, drifted away again on the tides of his coming death.

That night, Thinwolf dreamed the last dream. He paddled a canoe, a graceful and beautiful vessel, made of silvery bark and laced with yellow roots, as light on the water as a thought. The sky was a flawless blue bowl, the sun a blazing jewel, the sea a green mirror. He paddled strongly, and the canoe slid across the sea swiftly, toward a destination that he did not think about, but which he knew would bring him some great reward.

The dream shifted, with the smooth perfection of dreams, so that he looked up at the high walls of a City, unaware that anything had changed. He laid his paddle across his knees. The City turned, or perhaps the current moved him, but the effect was of a great turntable, revolving so as to display some glittering treasure. His heart thumped with excitement, and the walls of the City spun past, until the Gate of Faces came into view. The City stopped spinning, or the current ceased — and all was motionless.

The Gate was closed.

The Gate's facade was glorious. A thousand faces pushed from its golden surface, and Thinwolf knew them all. At the top were many faces he could not put a name to, but he knew them. They lived in the distant halls of his early memory; they were people who had once meant something to him.

Halfway down, the faces were more familiar, and their names tickled at his mouth, so that he wanted to greet them, even though their eyes were blank, looking far away.

Closest to him, at the bottom of the Gate, dipping into the sea with the slow swell, were the faces that he remembered best. His colleagues on Dilvermoon. The flame-haired woman with the sweet breasts. Gray Dove and the others of the People.

At the very bottom was the beautiful face of the hulk, smiling, streaming with the sea's cold water. Out of all of them, only the hulk's eyes were alive. The hulk's eyes, warm with recognition, fixed on Thinwolf, and Thinwolf felt a twinge of sorrow shoot through him, sharp as a knife.

The dream went dark, as though a shade had been drawn across the sun. A cold wind whipped the sea into tumbling white. The Gate made a hideous screeching sound and started to open. Thinwolf would have paddled away, but the dream had frozen him into immobility, locked him into some relentless event. The opening Gate sucked him forward, through the sea's violence. He looked down at the canoe. The silvery bark was going black with mildew; the lacings were fraying; the seams beginning to weep. The paddle withered in his hands and fell into dusty fragments.

He could see nothing but darkness within. He wanted to scream, but he could not. The disintegrating canoe shot through the Gate, and he saw the awful thing within, the thing he feared to see — the back of the Gate, where a thousand headless skeletons hung. The Gate closed behind him. The movement dislodged many of the bones, which rained down on him, shattering the canoe, pushing him beneath the black water. His mouth filled, his lungs filled, and he floated downward, unable even to struggle.

Thinwolf woke, choking, his lungs full of fluid. His breath rattled in his rib cage, trying to get out. I'm dying, he thought, and the emotion that filled him was amazement.

The hulk was there, offering its terminal switch, its head turned away so that Thinwolf saw only the noble profile. On the hulk's sleek side, the transfer palmprint glowed a cool, pure white, beckoning him toward life. Thinwolf reached out, hand shaking.

Before he quite touched the palmprint, his hand paused, then clenched into a stubborn fist. He said his last word.

Some weeks later Coedi Kimpt watched the little squirtboat sweep into the lagoon. It docked with John Thinwolf's longhauler, and a massive figure emerged into the sunlight.

Coedi waved. "You look healthier, John," he shouted.

The hulk looked at him with a stranger's face, and Coedi grew uneasy. "That is you, isn't it? Did you find the Gate of Faces?"

For a moment the hulk gazed at him with wide, alien eyes. When it spoke, Coedi understood that something had gone wrong. "I believe he did," the hulk said.

Then the hulk entered the ship and lifted away.