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!"