Beowulf's Children (26 page)

"It was a spiritual ceremony, Mr. Halperin. We have the freedom to practice what we will—"

"You got stoned and fucked your brains out!" Spittle flew from Halperin's mouth. "What the hell is so damned spiritual about that?"

"Do I have to answer that?" Aaron demanded.

"I'd appreciate it if you did," Zack said.

Aaron paused. When he spoke all of the incredible blowtorch intensity of his will was focused onto Zack.

"I didn't choose to come here," Aaron said, his voice so soft and low that they had to strain to hear it. "I didn't ask to be born not of woman.

You brought us, and gave us a world filled with opportunity—"

"And dangers," Cadmann said quietly.

"Yes." Aaron smiled. "Dangers. You brought us here, into a situation which you couldn't possibly understand, a very dangerous situation indeed. And many of you died. Did you hold a tribunal then? Did you judge each other? Did you ask each other questions about how you prayed, on those nights?"

Damn straight we did. Cadmann wouldn't have spoken anyway—

"How dare you question us!" Aaron thundered. "How bloody god damn dare you! We are not your possessions. And I am not your child. Not the child of any of you. You made damned certain of that, didn't you? Not one of you would give me his name. My name came from a record book. The only place I could call home, the closest one of you I have to a father, is the man whose bones I picked up out there on that pass! You think you lost something out there? So did I!"

"Aaron," Julia Hortha said.

"No, ma'am, I won't calm down. Not this time! You hypocrites! You believed that because you fed us and clothed us and taught us we should be freezing grateful to you... well, we are. But don't tell me what god to worship, or how to worship It. It is none. Of. Your. Freezing. Business."

He had lowered himself so that both knuckles rested on the table, and he stared directly into Zack's face.

Then he stood up. "Of all of you, only Cadmann is a man," he said. "The rest of you can go to hell. Cadmann. You have always told me the truth. You have always spoken from your heart, not from some freezing rule book. What do you say?"

The entire room turned to look at Cadmann.

He felt small. Finally he spoke. "I lost a daughter," Cadmann said. "For reasons that are still unclear. But that was an accident, a result of another of the hideous secrets this planet conceals from us. I can't hold that against you. But you agreed to follow certain procedures. And you broke your word. We are a community, and a community must have its rules. We can't break away from that."

Aaron seemed to be hearing beyond the words, and gave the barest of nods to Cadmann. "And so?"

"And so," Zack said. "The mainland is off limits. There will be no human return there. Robotic probes will be devised to learn what needs to be learned. You'll help us design them. You'll help us ask the questions they will answer."

Aaron seemed to grow dark. "We lost one of ours. Administrator. We have a right to our revenge."

"You have no right!" Zack exploded. "Don't you understand what you represent?"

"We decline to represent anything! We're not your frozen fetuses anymore. We are living creatures, with our own wills, and our own needs! We are not your freezing children! WE are the future of this planet. You are its past."

"There will be no return."

Aaron glared at them. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Then he nodded curtly.

"Is that all, then?"

"It is," Zack said.

Aaron Tragon turned, heel-toe, and left the room.

THE VERDICT

I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics, they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.

THOMAS MANN, The Magic Mountain

The clouds were gray, tinged with orange where Tau Ceti licked them from beneath, at the seventh dawn after Robor's return. A lone pterodon circled overhead, skawing mournfully to the misted cairn of Mucking Great Mountain. Its angular wings flapped somberly.

The early light had yet to transform the fertile fields and roads and buildings of Camelot into a community. It remained a sleeping thing, and but for the four hundred people gathered in the small graveyard, it would have seemed deserted.

The coffins were small. Not much was needed for bones. Mary Ann had asked that her child be cremated. Cadmann told her gently that that was out of the question: additional tissue tests might be needed at some future time.

She asked that Linda be buried up on the Bluff; but every member of the colony wanted to be present for the ceremony. A compromise was reached. The ceremony was performed in the colony graveyard. Joe and Linda would be buried up on the Bluff, side by side.

Sylvia held Cadzie, who was oddly quiet. The past week had been hard for him.

Cadmann looked out at his friends and family, and tried to hold his voice even. "We knew what we did when we came here. We entrusted our seed, breed, and generation to a world no human being had touched. We knew that there would be grief, but also joy."

Mary Ann clung to his arm, wan and fragile and shattered inside.

"There has been joy here, so far from Earth. There has been—" He faltered. The words wouldn't flow. "The joy of hard work, shared by friends and family. The joy of discovery, of a new land. The joy of love and birth and growth. There is a price for everything in this life, and we thought we had paid that price."

His vision clouded. "We were foolish enough to think that one generation can pay the way for the next. God has showed us that each must pay his own way through life. My daughter is gone. The man she loved, our friend and companion for twenty years, is gone." He looked out over the faces in the crowd. He knew each one of them. Had been present when many of them were born. This was their world...

Wasn't it?

"By a miracle, their baby, my grandchild, was saved. We have an obligation to keep that child—" Gently, softly, he took Cadzie from Sylvia's arms. "—this child safe. He belongs to all of us now. We have . ... The hurt was bubbling up now, faster and faster and he didn't seem to be able to get the barriers up in time to stop it. "We have to keep this world safe."

He held Cadzie to his chest, felt the life in that small bundle. Smelled the fresh baby smell, and heard the small heart beating, and knew how close, how terribly close death had come to this small thing that he loved so dearly. Suddenly the ground had struck his knees. How had that happened? Sylvia was prying Cadzie out of his arms. His forehead struck Linda's coffin, and all of the things that he had never said, had thought that there would be time to say, boiled out of him, scorched him with their scorn, and turned all of his carefully planned words into a, miserable slurry of lies.

And when, after a while, Sylvia and Justin helped him up, and the final words were spoken by Zack, Cadmann felt high above himself, with the pterodons, up in the clouds, watching these small, insignificant people scratching in the dirt of Avalon, burying their dead in the earth that would, too soon, receive them all.

Aaron's den was crowded with bodies and talk, and warmed by a crackling thornwood fire. Chaka pressed his big palms against the northern window, feeling the vibration as big fat sparse drops shattered against it. Beyond the deserted beach, waves rolled and crashed as if attempting to wash all trace of Man and his words from Avalon.

A tiny human shape rode a sliver of wood and plastic atop a black wave. Idiot. Probably showing off for the kaffeeklatsch that had not invited him.

Chaka turned, for the thousandth time examining Aaron's living space, speculating on what it revealed about the Star born's de facto president. It was small, actually—smaller than many of the other Surf's Up dwellings. Not elaborate, or richly appointed.

But what it was, was precise, to a degree that made Chaka vaguely uncomfortable. Aaron had designed and built it himself. Every joint of wood dovetailed into every other joint with machined precision. The couches were built into the walls, chairs fitted to tables, windows slanted to give the illusion of more room and positioned to catch the maximum of natural light.

But there was something almost... what? Womblike? Aaron's lair was really a bachelor pad, without room for a cohabitant, no matter how often or intensely he might entertain overnight guests.

He knew, for instance, that no woman had ever slept on Aaron's narrow bed. It was too narrow for lovemaking—such intimate activity invariably took place on the living-room divan. Or the floor, or the shower, or standing up in a hammock. Aaron was nothing if not a sexual athlete. The bed was almost too narrow for sleep. Even unconscious, Aaron's discipline was Spartan.

A kitchen/dinette for meals, a living room for guests, a den for conspirators, a library for study, an exercise room for physical torture, and a bedroom for sleep, all fitted about one another like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, in perhaps two-thirds the space of the average dwelling. Odd.

Katya made coffee at the counter along one wall, using the elaborate samovar she had installed to keep a constant supply of hot water. She seemed to be giving the conversation only half of her attention. The rest of her mind was probably evaluating the relational dynamic between Jessica and Aaron. Jessica stood next to Aaron's chair, idly fondling his hair. Not that Katya was directly interested in Aaron—any fool could see that she was in love with Justin. But a Tragon-Weyland alliance would affect Avalonian history for the next three centuries.

The monitor next to Aaron's huge easy chair looked blank at first glance, and Chaka took a moment to study it. Pale brown, with a fine texture... faded ornate lettering... and then it leapt into focus.

It was the Scribeveldt, that northeastern region of the continent which had never been seen except through cameras aboard Geographic. Flat and featureless, endless pampas, with one river and few streams. Chaka watched cursor points draw tracks in speeded-up motion. They made pale graceful curves that crossed each other rarely, as if something immense was trying to write messages to Geographic.

Chaka cleared his throat and spoke to the computer screen. "Edgar, you on?"

He was looking at the top of Edgar's head. Eyes glanced up, fell again. "Yeah."

Trish Chance's fingers clamped on Chaka's forearm, and she swung him around into a gaudy, passionate kiss. Edgar looked up again, fighting a smile. "I'm here. I'm listening. Hi, Chaka. Hi, Trish. Enough already."

"Hi, Edgar," Trish sang sweetly.

"Edgar, it's official," Aaron said, and it was suddenly clear he was speaking to them all. "No expedition to the mainland. Not even for Grendel Scout graduations. Nothing until they understand what happened."

"That's a quote?" Chaka asked.

"Condensation. Accurate, though."

"They won't understand until we learn more," Chaka said. "And we won't learn until we've been there awhile."

Katya asked, "Chaka? What do you think happened?"

Chaka shook his head. "Avalon Weird. It's a locked-room mystery. I don't have any ideas. Neither does my father." He caught Aaron's change of expression, and met his eyes. Father.

"Your father," Aaron said, "is as likely to have ice on his mind as any other First. Your father is not closer to an answer than anyone else. They will never find out. Something killed our friends. They won't let us go until we know, and we can't know unless we go. It's a perfect dilemma."

"I wouldn't go that far," Chaka said.

"Oh? Why not?"

Chaka sipped black coffee. "The point is, one day we will go back.

This edict won't last forever."

"Sure, we'll outnumber them one day," Trish said.

"I won't wait that long." Jessica stood at the wet bar where Katya waited for water to boil. There was jittery energy in her stance, in her voice. "Something killed Linda. Linda and Joe, but not the baby. How can you sleep, not knowing what did that? You say Avalon Weird, you're talking about something that almost wiped this world clean of us! I have to know what killed my sister."

"Your father's the one who won't let us find out," Aaron said.

Jessica nodded. "Loyalty. Dad's big on loyalty. He'll fight Zack every step, but once a decision is made—"

"Loyalty to the king," Aaron said, skirting sarcasm only by the blandness of his expression. "A cardinal virtue of the warrior."

"Chaka Zulu would agree," Chaka said without a trace of irony. "Courage, obedience to the king, protection of the weak. Universals." He was already thinking in terms of robot probes. Earth's solar system had been explored by probes long before the first men set foot on Mars. Neat little multi-wheeled bugs had crawled over the faces of Mars and the outer moons. Cassandra had to have templates...

"Well, we're not bound by obedience," Aaron said. "To Zack, or Colonel Weyland, or the council, or all the icebound Earth Born at once."

"Ice, ice, ice," Chaka exploded. "Why is it always ice when the Earth Born aren't doing what we want?"

Aaron took a moment to shape his response, and Toshiro stole that moment. "The First are not always wrong. Jessica has the scar to show, and Mack what's-his-name died—"

"Mack Reinecke," Chaka said. "He was a Bottle Baby too, just younger than Justin. Most of you weren't old enough to be there—"

Aaron was listening, silent. The story would get told, no matter what he did.

"Four of the First took us on campout," Toshiro said. "Zack Moskowitz needed exercise. Zack and Rachael, Hendrick Sills, Carolyn McAndrews. They wanted coffee. And they took eight of us, the oldest children, whoever might be big enough to carry his pack. I was eleven. At that, Trish got too tired and Hendrick had to tie her pack to his own. Made Hendrick a little surly.