Beowulf's Children (13 page)

"Mom-"

"It wasn't," Mary Ann said. "You think of Earth as some kind of paradise lost? An Eden? It was a horrible place, where all the education in the world wouldn't save you from losing your job, and there was nowhere you could go without graffiti, and smutty drawings, and criminals, and people demanding handouts and accusing you of being a criminal if you didn't give them something. Where... Jessica, it's safe here, really safe, but it wasn't safe on Earth. That's why we came here!"

There were murmurs of agreement from the First.

"Well, Mom, you make Earth sound more dangerous than the mainland."

"It was," Cadmann muttered. "We forgot that."

"It's still the end of the debate, amigo," Carlos said. "Jessica still wins."

"Yeah," Cadmann said. "And we'll have to plan it."

"What you mean ‘we,' paleface?"

"We've got some time, though," Cadmann said. "First they go look at the mines, initiate the Grendel Scouts. Time enough for serious planning when they get back."

Jessica thanked the audience and made her way back to her father. She quietly touched his shoulder. "Thanks, Dad. Mom."

Cadmann put his arms around Mary Ann and Sylvia, drawing them in close. Mary Ann chuckled. "If I know your father, you might be taking that thanks back in a few days. He's going to put you through the wringer."

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

"Jessica-can you and Justin come up for dinner?" Mary Ann brushed a strand of blond hair out of her eyes. "It would be nice to have a family dinner. We've been gone, and you'll be going over to the mainland..."

"Not tonight," Jessica said apologetically. "This is going to be big news at Surf's Up. I think that I need to be out there tonight."

Sylvia looked up at Cadmann. "How long do you think it will take to set up a lowland expedition?"

"Skeeter-based? Scouting out a location? A little preliminary work." He closed his eyes, musing. "Built it around the Robor vehicle. A fairly quick in-and-out. I would say no more than twelve hours, preparing for a much more thorough expedition in maybe a... month?"

Jessica nodded happily. "You're reading my mind, Dad."

"Plans will be on Cass by tomorrow morning. Okay?"

"Finest kind."

The meeting was breaking up. Jessica and her brother headed toward each other, hugged fiercely, and collected in a cluster with some of the other Second. They headed out the door together.

A hand smacked Cadmann's shoulder, and he turned around to face Aaron Tragon.

As usual, the sheer size of the young man hit Cadmann, hard. Reminded him of a friend... long ago.

Ernst. First casualty of the Grendels.

As such he should have felt a touch of nostalgia, of loss. Ernst had died because Cadmann thought he could handle it. Could handle everything.

And for a moment it felt as if Cadmann were moving in slow motion, Tragon's glittering, wide smile so intense and intimate that it seemed that the other shapes in the room faded to nothing.

The full force of Tragon's personality was so strong that Cadmann had to consciously remind himself where he was. Not in the past, but here, in the present, as if he had awakened from a micronap.

"-you for backing us, Cadmann. Jessica said that we could count on you."

His smile was dazzling.

"I imagine that you'll be going over?"

"Wouldn't miss Grendel Scout initiation."

"Good," Cadmann said, and meant it.

"Not that Justin can't take care of the kids," Aaron said carefully.

"Well, good night, sir. Thanks again."

Aaron turned, but before he could walk away Ruth Moscowitz blocked his path. She stared up at him in admiration. Aaron paused and took her hand. "You look lovely tonight, Ruth."

She beamed. "I thought you were just brilliant."

He touched her right hand to his lips, winked at her, and strode off to rejoin his coterie. Ruth took her right hand in her left as if she wanted to wrap it in tissue paper.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Mary Ann said.

Sylvia chuckled. "He's a nice young man. I can understand what Jessica sees in him."

Mary Ann's smile was ghastly. "Let's get home, Cad. I'd like to build a big fire in the bedroom. Get really toasty. Okay?"

"Sure."

Sylvia unwound herself from his arm, and headed off. "I want to check with Linda on her simulations. I'll be up to the Bluff later, all right?"

"No problem." The crowd was thinning now. Cadmann took Mary Ann's small hand in his, squeezed it gently. "Things are changing fast now. It had to happen."

"I... don't want to talk about it just now. Cad. Take me home."

SURF'S UP

Friendship is Love without his wings!

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, Hours of Idleness

Justin brought the skeeter in for a last approach to Surf's Up. He'd skidded through the mountain passes. The land road would have added an extra five minutes to the trip. The thermals coming over the mountains could be a little hairy, but there were beacons in the pass, both visual and radio, so that it was just dangerous enough to be fun. There were unofficial records for three paths through the mountains under varying conditions: on visual, on radio, blind at midnight, fog, storm.

It kept the lords and ladies of Surf's Up busy, if not out of mischief. It also drove the adults crazy.

When he called in for landing he didn't just get the usual Cassandra go-ahead. He got an audio channel, and from the background noise, the party had already begun.

He shot out of the pass at 120 kilometers per hour accelerating all the way, putting him well ahead of the other Seconds racing him back from the colony. Light flooded the beach from a huge flat vidscreen twenty meters square that showed a daylit mountain scene on the mainland. He took the last few meters skewing sideways, shot straight over Surf's Up and out over the ocean, where a little night action was under way.

Justin had viewed holograms from Hawaii; Malibu, California;

Australia; and other places supposed to have the best surf action on Earth. In Justin's expert opinion, Camelot Island beat them all. The water was cool but not cold, the waves rolled forever, and the surfing season lasted all year long.

Someone was riding his board in with a torch held aloft in one hand . ...o, now that he saw it more clearly, there were three of them, carrying horsemane gum torches that silvered the entire wave crest. Two girls and a guy, and one girl was Katya Martinez, lookin' good.

Sand whipped in all directions as Justin touched the skeeter down. He dismounted and ran to the open barbecue pit, kicked off his shoes, and did a kind of victory dance, screaming, "We're going over, troops!"

They howled like mad dogs, and Little Chaka hurled a beer pod. It slapped Justin just above his heart. It stung, but the pod didn't break.

He grabbed a lady and got a long wet kiss, and then grabbed another one and did it even better, then plopped down in the sand and popped the beer open.

Derik Crisp spread big beefy hands. "So?"

"So the mining machinery is down. Great timing. They've got to go over."

"Great timing." Derik grinned. "So how'd you do it?"

"Me? No," Justin protested. "Hey, that'd be real sabotage, nasty stuff."

"Sure," Derik said. "Sure." He was still grinning, but he read Justin's irritation. "Does this have to be real? Nobody had to blow anything up. Just tell Cassandra to make pictures."

Justin said, "I never thought of that. Who could do that?"

"Edgar," someone yelled. "Yeah, but he wouldn't."

"Depends on what he's offered," Little Chaka said.

Jessica had come running out of the communications room in time to hear them. "You don't really think it's the computer, do you, Justin? Whoever did it would have to be good, really good, they'd have to fool Linda and Joe-" She cut herself off.

"Yep," Derik said. "Edgar Sikes could sure as hell do it."

"And no one else," Jessica said. "Gee, Linda's got enough generation problems without that." She shook her head. "And I saw Linda's files, sure, if anyone can fake it Edgar could have, but I just don't believe it." She looked accusingly at Justin. "The explosions were real; now, how did they happen?"

"Sheesh! Why me?"

"Why Edgar?" Jessica demanded. "Same reason. Who else could it be? Who could have done Mount Tushmore?"

"You wrong me," Justin said, but he had trouble hiding the pride in his voice.

"Aaron," Derik said. "Aaron Tragon could have done it."

Jessica nodded vigorously, and a lot of Justin's pride faded.

"I'm going to call them," Derik said suddenly.

"Hey now, wait-"

"No, just to talk to Linda. See if she knows anything." Derik went to put through the call.

Derik and Linda had been a thing, once, for about ten days. Calling her right now might cause Joe Sikes to shove his phone down his throat. Jessica would have stopped him... but others were gathering around them now. "What's the word?" someone called.

"We're going," Jessica answered. "Not just the chicken run for the candidate Scouts."

The light from the screen had been a view of the mining site on the mainland. Now it was Linda Weyland standing fourteen meters tail, holding four meters of baby Cadzie under one arm. Jessica couldn't hear her or Derik.

Aaron Tragon waded out of the water carrying a sand-colored writhing shape. The thing wrestled with him, but he had it by the blades. He dropped it onto the grill and went for a towel.

The crab struggled as it cooked. It was a Camelot sea crab. They'd found more than twenty variations already, all with a bifurcated shell and four mobile limbs, but-"This one's new," Chaka said.

"Study it quick," Aaron suggested.

There would be no rescuing the beast. Chaka knelt above the fire pit, one hand bladed below his eyes to shield them from the heat. He watched the crab move, noting the play of the joints. The crab had two wide fins for swimming, and the shell had expanded into a big aerodynamic plate. The forelimbs were agile little spears now trying to fight the fire. The armored wrist/elbow joints were almost human in their agility.

"More incoming natives. Those wrists. You can't help wondering if something's waking them all up at once," Chaka said. "I want the shells."

Another skeeter touched down neatly next to Justin's, and Stu Ellington hopped out. Six more came over the mountains in tight formation. Two carried firewood. One brought food from the main encampment. The others brought passengers, and the party grew until it seemed that the beach would sink under their weight.

Aaron Tragon strode among them, and slipped one brawny arm around Jessica's waist. "Well, now," he said merrily. "I think we can call that a major victory."

"Let's take a look at Dad's plans first," Jessica said. "And then we can decide how much victory we've got." She was about to pull free, reflexively. Justin saw her decide: she leaned back against him. They had been casual lovers for nearly a year now. Casual: Justin had never seen Jessica change a plan to be with Aaron. Or any other man. Sometimes he wondered-

Justin felt someone kneading his shoulders. He looked around just enough to catch a glimpse of dark hair. Long. Wavy. A face not pretty, but made beautiful by devastating eyes. Eyes to drown in, to die for. Katya. He reached back and grabbed her, pulling her close to him, and craned around to gnaw on her neck.

She was dripping wet and cold as death, and their torsos touched from ankles to eyebrows. A wave of cold washed through him, and he couldn't seem to control it. It had been a long time, and he was surprised by the strength of his reaction.

One of the other kids said: "So-who's going over?"

Derik turned the volume up and Linda's voice blasted over the beach.

"We are! Joe and Cadzie and me, we're going in first."

Justin, not quite watching Jessica over Katya's shoulder, saw sudden shock instantly swallowed.

They'd spoken once, when an older friend was seven months pregnant, and Jessica had remembered this-

The adults around her were half a dozen fully pregnant women, her mother included. Jessica had been five or six, pretending to play, but listening. And the women must have been locked in a dominance game, detailing their prenatal discomfiture. Little Jessica had listened in awe and horror, stupefied by the realization that she would one day be slow, and fat, and vulnerable just like the big ones, the adults...

Funny she'd remembered at all. Maybe it had happened only in Jessica's imagination. It was a story she'd told Justin when she was twelve, when an older friend was pregnant. For an instant, now, Justin saw Linda as her sister did. Trapped.

The baby Cadzie was holding her prisoner. Before his birth she was already imprisoned, heavy and slow. Now she couldn't even attend a beach party. Now she was burdened by what Cadzie needed: milk, diapers, the cobalt blue blanket, the bassinet, the conversations that wouldn't happen because everyone wanted to talk about the baby instead: the distractions.

A cacophony of voices was rising. "I want to go." "Me too." "Hey, who's better at making a camp than me?"

"Room for a lot of us," Justin said. "We can take, what, twenty Scouts and fifteen Seconds. And the candidates, but they come back with Linda and Joe, but still, we could really do it up right. Set up primary base on the Mesa, and a secondary down at Heorot. Do a little... fishing."

Jessica got into the spirit of it instantly. "Take two of the skeeters and survey—"

"Get the initial surveys from orbit. Let Dad spot two or three likely areas—"

Aaron was into it now. "Listen-we only need three skeeters to move the blimp, but four is safer. We can set up crisscrossing fire zones for the one that touches down."