Coyote Discovers Mars

Coyote was born into chaos. A lone technician decanted him from his artificial womb and toweled him dry. Around them stood the ruins of the Valles Marinaris genetics lab, which had been destroyed by a rockslide a few months earlier. Nervously the technician glanced at his email alert which read, "Cydonia Base has lost its primary scout dog. Replacement required at once."

When Dr. Begay, chief ecologist for Cydonia, came to collect the animal one year later, he was very upset. "What have you done, enhancing a coyote like that?" he raged. "You make us wait a year for a replacement, and now this?"

Coyote cowered in one corner and the technician in another. "I lost most of the dog embryos in the rockslide so I took this one out of the wildlife library," the technician explained. "It's close enough."

"It is not. A coyote is already much smarter than a dog, and much more unruly too."

"Well, it's all I have," said the technician, just a touch more boldly. "Take this one or go back to having robots carry your instruments and set up your beacons."

The ecologist's broad shoulders sagged. Robots were expensive, and getting spare parts meant dealing with the bureaucracy on Earth. In the end the two struck a deal. Dr. Begay gave the technician money and the technician reluctantly handed over a small black box.

"You won't need to use this much," he said. "I've taken him out many times and tested him like any other scout animal. He obeys the voice commands just fine."

But Dr. Begay only shook his head and put the box in his pocket. "My Navajo grandparents told me all the Coyote Stories. Never trust one that pretends to be behaving."

The technician opened Coyote's cage and Coyote jumped in. Dr. Begay loaded the cage into the back of his truck and drove up and out of the Valles. Coyote watched the lab vanish into the distance and lowered his tail. Vainly he scratched at the cage door and whined. He had liked the technician. Dr. Begay seemed cruel.

The truck drove for the entire day out across a flat, dry plain before stopping at sunset. After donning an oxygen mask, Dr. Begay opened Coyote's cage and let him out to do his business and get some exercise. "It's not that I hate coyotes," Dr. Begay explained in a muffled voice. "Coyote is one of my favorite folklore characters, but for your sake I hope you're nothing like him."

Coyote cocked his head to one side and looked at the doctor. The man had a stocky frame and dark skin, very unlike the technician.

Dr. Begay noticed how Coyote peered up at him, so he squatted down and reluctantly scratched him between the ears. "How much English do you understand? Walk over there." Dr. Begay pointed.

Coyote obliged.

The doctor shook his head and laughed. "This is what happens when you give a coyote enhancements meant for a dog, a double dose of intelligence," he said. "Do you know the story of how Coyote got his cunning?"

Coyote didn't, so he sat down on the hard packed Martian dirt and hoped Dr. Begay would tell him. "Well," said Dr. Begay, adjusting his mask. "At the beginning of the world all of the animals were alike. Cougar didn't have his speed, Bear didn't have his strength, Bluebird didn't have her wings, and Coyote was just like the rest of them." Dr. Begay paused and adjusted his mask again.

Coyote put his ears forward and back. He didn't know what a bear or a cougar or a bluebird was. He had heard the term "animal", and he knew that he was an animal, so he imagined these creatures as strong, swift, or winged coyotes. Of course, the only wings Coyote had ever seen were on insects. Mars didn't support any birds. Coyote tried to hold this image in his mind as Dr. Begay went on.