God's Dogs Book 2

In one of the huts on the mountain I left the words, “Right Food, Right Action, Right Awareness” inscribed on a pinewood plaque above the fireplace. The three cannot be separated from one another. If one is missing, none can be realized. If one is realized, all are realized.

Masanobu Fukuoka

Quinn was on a farm in the foothills above Shentong Temple on the Buddhist planet of Penglai. Coyote teams, of which Quinn was a team leader, followed a deployment rotation that dictated every five years he would spend six months off combat operations. He chose the farm because he grew up in a university town. He felt that getting back to the land, in a fundamental way, was important for his spiritual growth – let alone his mental health.

The farm followed four principles: no cultivation, no chemical fertilizer, no weeding by tillage or chemical herbicides, and no dependence on chemicals of any kind.

In the late fall, before the rice harvest, white clover along with winter grains were seeded by broadcasting it among the growing rice fields. During the rice harvest, the seeds were trampled into the ground. After thrashing the rice, the rice straw was cast about the fields randomly to protect the clover and grain seeds from birds and rodents.

The rice was sown in winter or early spring, wrapped in mud balls to protect them from birds and pests. It was sown among the winter crop that was pushing through the ground. A light coating of chicken manure was also spread.

By late spring, the winter grain was harvested by hand, and that straw was spread throughout the fields. Mid-summer rain was allowed to stand for a week or so before it was drained, thus encouraging the rice to grow.

By autumn the rice harvest was ready. And the cycle repeated. With this ancient method, some 1,500 pounds of rice per each quarter acre of land was realized. The winter crop of barley and rye showed similar yields.

The farm followed a ‘nature’s approach’ to farming with its orchards and vegetables as well. On nearby farms, the Three Sisters approach, pioneered by Native Americans, was employed: squash, corn, and legumes. In both cases, the workload for the farmer and his dozen or so helpers rounded out to a few hours per day per person over the calendar year.

This schedule left Quinn with ample time for meditation, training his martial arts forms – itself a form of meditation, and performing the simple tasks of living: hauling water, gathering fire wood, cleaning his one-room earthen-floor hut, and sharing meals with his companions at the farm.

If nothing else, it was a grounding experience. He reflected on that as he sipped tea from a ceramic cup and watched the sun set in a cloud-tossed sky. He was perched on a rock, overlooking the farm. Behind him was his 4X8 mud-walled hut, set at the edge of an orchard. A warm breeze fluttered around him as the air cooled, sending the warm air up the mountain.

Quinn was feeling refreshed. His six-month sojourn was coming to an end. As such, his mind began to drift to the problems he would face when he returned to lead a Coyote team.

The war with the Empire of Man was over. The empire worlds, for the most part, joined the League of Planets. To do so, each world agreed to a charter prohibiting force and fraud on a broad scale – between government and the people, between parties in commercial transactions, between individual agreements, and so on.

Each world also paid a tax to support League services. The tax was a percentage of the Gross Planetary Product minus the numbers derived from the calculation of the Gross System Well-being. The services provided by the League were a space fleet and marines to address any external threat to individual worlds, from invasion to humanitarian crises, a Marshal’s Office for inter-world law enforcement, a Supreme Court, and a Senate.

These services were sorely strained in the war, as were the planetary contributions. The planets answered levies for ground troops with their militias, supplies and ships from their industries, and SpecOp troops like the Coyotes from planets like Penglai.

At the end of the war, the chains of command were confused. Rapacious corporations tried to take advantage of the situation, but alert Senators used the Coyotes to remove that rot from the body politic. That brought about a bureaucratic and corporate crisis. The challenge was to close the loop. Bureaucracies were created to make peoples’ live easier, but instead grew to manage people for the ends of those who ran the bureaucracies. Closing the loop meant bringing bureaucracies back to serving the people. That was now an ongoing educational process far from completion.

Coyote teams still deployed to the former empire to deal with local warlords or pirate organizations, but local militias were standing up to take over those responsibilities within their own planetary systems.

Periodically, the Marshal’s Office used Coyote teams to attack political and corporate corruption, but that need was also dwindling.

Quinn knew there was always a job for those like him who were sworn to protect the people. Still, he wondered what form it would take next.

His teammates, Moss, Pax, and River, would be concluding their own six-month respites. Moss was working as a server and prep cook on one of the orbiting space stations. Pax was herding animals on a ranch. River chose to work as support staff for the silpin nirmanakaya, a craft tulku, named Raina, also aboard an orbiting space station.

In a week, they would be reunited at the monastery, engage in rigorous training to get them up to deployment shape, and be off on another adventure. Quinn felt ready to return to his true calling.

The team straggled in for the evening meal at the cafeteria in the Coyote compound. It was one of the many specialized compounds in the Shentong Temple. There were primary and secondary schools, apprenticeship programs, areas for monks and nuns to continue their training, a massive administration and support staff, and the family housing and work places, along with the management folks for this regional center.

Spreading out from the temple were the farms and ranches of the people the temple supported. There were also managed forests, trading villages, distribution centers, and networks of roads with inns for travelers and tourists.

The team ate dinner and recounted their experiences over the last six months and retired early to bed. In the morning, they met in silence at the main gathering hall. Quinn knew the significance of that. A Coyote had died in battle.

Once the team returned with their fallen comrade, they went into a month-long mourning process. That included prayers for the dead from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was a series of instructions to guide the soul through the after life, the bardo states, and it was a solemn commitment the living provided for the newly freed soul.

As the crowd of all the Coyotes in residence settled onto meditation mats, three Coyotes faced the group from a raised platform. They began the ritual for the day.

"O, noble one, at this time, when your mind and body are parting ways, pure reality manifests in subtle, dazzling visions, vividly experienced, naturally frightening and worrisome, shimmering like a mirage on the plains in autumn. Do not fear them. Do not be terrified. Do not panic. You have what is called ‘an instinctual mental body,’ not a material, flesh and blood body. Thus whatever sights and sounds that may come for you, they cannot hurt you. You cannot die. It is enough for you to recognize them as your own perceptions. Understand that this is the in-between.”

After that introduction, the three went on to the specific prayers for the exact day after the death of their teammate. The Coyotes in attendance added their meditational energy to the prayer, thereby aiding the soul of their comrade on its journey.

The ritual ended after two hours, and they exited the hall to gather at the cafeteria for breakfast. They did so still in silence. Then, once they were all seated, an acolyte spoke.

“Creator, in gratitude we begin our day. Guide us on our path.”

Then one of the three Coyotes who were mourning their lost team member approached a lectern near the acolyte. He opened a folder and spoke.

“In remembrance of our friend, Tamil, his birth family sent us these memories of him. I will read to you about who he was as a child.”

The reading went on until the breakfast period ended. The Coyotes cleared their tables, and exited the cafeteria. The rest of the day followed the schedule of a normal day.

Since they were newly returned, Quinn’s team made its way to Master Lu’s office. The office was spacious but sparsely decorated. A large desk was at the far wall with a few chairs before it. To their right was a cozy alcove with a bay window. The window framed the mountains, and a morning fog obscured their lower reaches.

Master Lu studied the team as they entered. They looked relaxed. Quinn’s tan square face showed fewer worry wrinkles; Pax’s almond-shaped eyes almost twinkled with life; Moss’ bronzed boyish demeanor hinted at a more relaxed sarcasm; and River’s even features showed a deep confidence that came from passing the many trials by fire she had now integrated.

Lu lifted his stocky frame from his desk and directed them to the couches in the alcove where he joined them.

“Welcome back,” Lu said as he sat.

“Thank you,” Quinn replied as they settled.

“We’ve made a few changes since you’ve been gone. As the war and reconstruction efforts wind down, we have a surplus of Coyote teams.”

“Never thought I’d hear that,” Moss observed.

Lu’s round face creased into a grin. “It seems a decadent luxury, to be sure. I’ve needed to become creative in assignments; although, requests for teams are never wanting.”

“What about our recruiting from Amazonia?” River asked. “Is that still happening?”

“Yes,” Lu answered. “We have turned much of the administrative duties over to Amazonia, and they now field requests on their side of League space. They also conduct the first four years of training for their candidates. The final two years are here. At least for now. That will change. I see their organization becoming self-sufficient in a few years, so that it becomes an independent entity.”

Pax leaned forward. “Will they still be Coyotes? Or will their organization evolve according to their own cultural norms?”

“The latter, of course,” Lu replied, “and I suspect a name change eventually, as well as different uniforms and organizational culture.”

“That’s as it should be,” Moss allowed. “Amazonia is not a Buddhist world, after all. Maybe they could call themselves Leprechauns.”

Quinn smiled and put in, “They would be responsible for the west side of League space, and we for the east side. What about the Galactic Congress?”

The Congress was mostly core-ward, galactic north, of League space. The Congress was an organization that ministered to the space-faring nations throughout the galaxy and would soon invite the League to join. Because of the vast distances involved, a patronage system evolved over the millennia that the League was trying to avoid. Hierarchies of more advanced civilizations caring for less advanced ones, while bureaucratically efficient and a good match for hierarchically structured cultures, it would stifle human civilization. The League was negotiating for a more independent role in the Congress that no one was sure how to operationalize.

Lu answered, “The talks have begun with League diplomats, but the formal announcement of the existence of the Congress is still pending. It will be a slow process. Your mission there is still a sticking point, I’ve heard, but there is a growing interest in using Coyote teams nonetheless.”

“So, no time soon,” Moss remarked.

“We’ll see,” Lu smiled. “For now, though, we’ve reconfigured the deployment cycle for Coyote teams. With the surfeit of teams, we have the luxury to do things in a more psychologically sound way.”

Moss snorted. “Instead of jumping from crisis to crisis.”

“Yes,” Lu confirmed. Then he went on, “Block leave, which you’ve just finished, is followed by a stint as trainers to Coyote candidates. That is followed by intensive training as OpFor with the militias that come here for advanced training, or our own militia. After that, you become available for off-world assignments for two years. Then a year of training and mentoring Coyote candidates. Then two years on assignment. And that closes the cycle with six months block leave.”

“It’s a good schedule,” Quinn said.

“We think so,” Lu agreed, “and we have the personnel now to spread the workload in this more humane way.”

River spoke up, “So now we’re trainers?”

“Now you’re trainers,” Lu smiled. “The boot camp cycle is beginning. You’ll spend six weeks at a regional training center. The NCOs that actually conduct the boot camp are expecting you, and they will assign your duties.”

“Boot camp?” Moss exclaimed in an offended tone. “A bunch of eighteen year olds? You’re kidding, right?”

Lu tossed him an enigmatic, Cheshire cat grin and stood. He went to his desk and grabbed a data cube. “Here are your orders.”