Asimov's SF, May 2003 by Issue 05 # May

Author:Issue 05 # May
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-10T14:00:59+00:00

The Manwoman of Shuttlefield by Allen M. Steele

“The Madwoman of Shuttlefield” is the first story in a new series of the author’s popular “Coyote” stories. The novel-length version of the first set of tales, entitled Coyote, garnered glowing reviews from The New York Times and elsewhere when it was released by Ace in hardcover last December.

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On the first night Allegra DiSilvio spent on Coyote, she met the mad woman of Shuttlefield. It seemed like an accident at the time, but in the weeks and months to follow she’d come to realize that it was much more, that their fates were linked by forces beyond their control.

The shuttle from the Long Journey touched down in a broad meadow just outside the town of Liberty. The high grass had been cleared from the landing pad, burned by controlled fires to create a flat expanse nearly a half-mile in diameter, upon which the gull-winged spacecraft settled after making its long fall from orbit. As she descended the gangway ramp and walked out from beneath the hull, Allegra looked up to catch her first sight of Bear: a giant blue planet encircled by silver rings, hovering in an azure sky. The air was fresh, scented with midsummer sourgrass; a warm breeze caressed the dark stubble of her shaved scalp, and it was in this moment that she knew that she’d made it. The journey was over; she was on Coyote.

Dropping the single bag she had been allowed to take with her from Earth, Allegra fell to her hands and knees and wept.

Eight months of waiting to hear whether she’d won the lottery, two more months of nervous anticipation before she was assigned a berth aboard the next starship to 47 Ursae Majoris, a week of sitting in Texas before taking the ride to the Union Astronautica spaceport on Matagorda Island, three days spent traveling to lunar orbit where she boarded the Long Journey … and then, forty-eight years in dreamless biostasis, to wake up cold, naked, and bald, forty-six light-years from everything familiar, with everyone she had ever known either long-dead or irrevocably out of her reach.

She was so happy, she could cry. Thank you, God, she thought. Thank you, thank you … I’m here, and I’m free, and the worst is over.

She had no idea just how wrong she was. And it wasn’t until after she’d made friends with a crazy old lady that she’d thank anyone again.

* * *

Liberty was the first colony on Coyote, established by the crew of the URSS Alabama in A.D. 2300, or C.Y. 01 by LeMarean calendar. It was now 2306 on Coyote by Gregorian reckoning, though, and the original colonists had long-since abandoned their settlement, disappearing into the wilderness just days after the arrival of WHSS Seeking Glorious Destiny Among the Stars for the Greater Good of Social Collectivism, the next ship from Earth. No one knew why they’d fled—or at least those who knew weren’t saying—but the fact remained that Liberty was built to house only a hundred people.

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