Beowulf's Children (55 page)

His war specs were on thermal mode.

The shadows went orange. The trees surrounding the lake floated in a ghostly haze. There was little there that could have been seen in broad daylight. The entire mood was quiet, calm.

A sudden movement behind the stand of trees captured his attention instantly. What the hell... ?

A small, bustling shape emerged from the brush. A snouter, one of the pig-like things common in the lowlands and reasonably plentiful on the high plateaus. It saw Cadmann twenty meters away, squeaked, and started to turn.

In a sudden blur of motion something tore out of the woods and slammed into the snouter so fast that he didn't have time to think. He watched, fascinated, as the monster that had suddenly emerged raised its head, blew flames into the night air.

The back of Cadmann's neck went cold and clammy.

A grendel.

God. What was it doing here?

Well, in one way it was a stupid question. At the moment, it was feasting. Cadmann shouldered his rifle, and prepared to fire. The grendel stopped.

And looked up.

Directly at him. Cadmann's finger was on the trigger. He felt the tension of it, felt the trigger's breaking point, knew that another gram of pressure would send the bolt of electric death on its way.

The grendel's eyes. They saw him. And for the first, the very first time ever he didn't feel emptiness there. It wasn't death and destruction.

It was... something else. Something even more disturbing.

He waited for the grendel to attack. Why? Was he giving it a chance? Was that like some bullshit Western gunfighter credo, some small-town marshall in a bad B movie? It's your move, Ringo...

He didn't know why, but he just couldn't bring himself to pull that damned trigger. There he stood, facing this thing with its teeth slimed with blood, its muzzle befouled with black, and the snouter's carcass still twitching in front of it. Cadmann just couldn't bring himself to move.

Cadmann heard motion behind him. Sylvia and Aaron. Aaron's rifle was off his back and into firing position—

Cadmann waved violently. NO! Aaron paused.

The grendel lashed its tail around and into the corpse. It dragged the body into the brush, and was gone.

Cadmann lowered the rifle.

"That was a grendel!" Sylvia said.

Cadmann nodded.

Sylvia looked at him strangely. "You didn't shoot. You didn't let Aaron shoot."

"We were in no danger," Cadmann said. "It wasn't going to attack us.

It was just hungry."

"Yes, but—a grendel?" Sylvia said wonderingly. She turned on Aaron, blazing. "You said this lake was safe!"

"It was," Aaron said. "We were sure it was. There's no way a grendel could have got in here—"

"Except that one did," Cadmann said. "And I think that's enough excitement for the day. Let's call in the skeeters for a ride back."

Aaron nodded. "Right. And I want to ask Chaka a few questions..."

Old Grendel ran.

In an instant she was out of sight of the weirds. She didn't slow. She was into the blowholes before they could have seen where she disappeared. She was underwater and swimming hard before the speed could leave her blood. If the Strongest One changed her mind, brought other weirds to kill her, they would not find Old Grendel.

Her life had hung by a ragged toenail. But she had learned! That one had not killed her. That other was about to kill her, and that one had waved her back. That one was the Strongest One, and she was willing to deal with Old Grendel!

They would meet again. But not here. She began to prepare for the long swim back to the river.

THE DEVILS SING

As lines so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet:

But ours so truly parallel

Though infinite, can never meet.

ANDREW MARVELL, The Definition of Love

Carlos paused on the far side of a glen. The bees had disappeared into the trees, and there was nothing to do until he spotted another one.

Katya offered him a drink from her canteen. They leaned against the tree together. "Let's rest here for a minute. We'll catch the next bee that comes along."

"You know," Carlos said carefully, "I really wasn't surprised that you wanted to come over here. Considering that Mr. Justin was here."

She laughed.

"Yes. That's what I thought." He paused for a moment, and Katya leapt into the breach.

"You know," she said, "Justin's great, but there's something missing."

"And what is that?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. But sometimes I think that all of the freedom we have has made us too blase. I... " She shook her head. "I don't want to sound too retro."

Carlos's brown eyes softened. "You know, sometimes I forget that you are a woman."

"Well, thanks a lot."

"No. I mean that I forget that you're grown. It is impossible to ever forget that you are female."

She brushed a hand through her hair, shaking out a magnificently leonine mane. "Really?" She seemed cautiously pleased.

"Do you realize that this is the longest period of time that we've ever been apart?

She nodded. "Have I changed much?"

"No. Not really. But when I think of you, I envision a little girl chasing after me, trying to get my attention. If I see you every day, it doesn't really hit me how wrong that image is. But after months... well, the contrast jars a little."

"I hope you like it."

"I love it. Love you. You're everything that I might have hoped for in a daughter."

She took his hand. "Is something bothering you?"

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I grow more conservative with age. I was always the camp rake. I had my pick of the women here—whether they were married or not."

"I'm shocked."

"Naturally. It's just one of those things that is true—women have never been difficult for me. Sex has always been natural and comfortable.

There was never a lot of moral or spiritual baggage attached to it"

"Just a natural human function? That's what you always taught me."

"But understand—we came from a culture in which human beings have been limited in their sexual expression for thousands of years. The aftermath of a terrible sexual plague left earth even more conservative.

And when we finally came out of that time, there was a general celebration, a rejection of much of what had gone before "

"Sounds a lot like Avalon."

"No. It wasn't. Because remember that European culture's underpinnings were a guilt-ridden vision of sexuality. Perhaps the twenty-second century's hedonism was a healthy reaction to that conservatism—but the truth lies somewhere between the extremes."

"Meaning?"

"It may be something is lost when all of the restraints are thrown away."

"Are we moralizing here?" she teased. "Carlos? The great seducer himself?"

"I'm not talking about right and wrong. I'm asking what works best? People are lonely, sweetheart. And afraid. And will do anything to fill that loneliness—for a minute, an hour, a lifetime. Sex is probably the very best way to feel... how would you say... not alone."

"Sometimes," she admitted. "There are other times when it can make things worse."

He nodded his head. "I've had a long time to think about this. I think that each stage in a relationship has a different level of communication. In the beginning, both lovers are cautious, and learn about each other gradually. They share memories, take each other to favorite places, and slowly begin to touch. As they get more intimate, they communicate faster and more intensely."

"Sex is probably the ultimate," Katya said. "All the senses are engaged at the same time—"

"If you do it right."

"I'm your daughter. You expect something less?"

"Touche. What I'm saying is that two people eating dinner together can exchange virtually no information, and feel that their interaction was complete. Narrow-bandwidth communication. But sex is so intense that it seems that it just has to mean something. It feels as if you just learned profound and complex things about your lover."

She nodded. "We lie to ourselves about how well we know each other."

"Too often, we try desperately to believe that this other person is the missing part of ourselves—even if only for the night. Maybe it isn't love, but... how about... friendship? Caring? Compassion?"

"Let's say I agree with you." Katya said. "I'm still not sure where you're heading."

"I think I've always known that the ideal of sexual chastity was just absurd. It seemed to go against nature. Why give a young man his greatest sex drive at fifteen, and tell him he can't indulge it until he's twenty? Clearly, this wasn't nature—it was harnessing a stallion to a plow. On the other hand, you can't just rut at will, either. Back on Earth, it led to so much unwanted pregnancy and disease and disruption that it fit the image of a mortal sin."

"Women aren't men," Katya said. "We see—feel things differently. And we want more. Here on Avalon we've been free to do everything we wanted—"

"Was it enough?"

"I don't know. We thought so, but—"

He nodded. "Did you want more of a courtship ritual?"

"Something like that. Everyone knows what everyone else's body looks like. Everyone talks about what everyone else is like in bed. There might be anticipation, but there isn't much mystery."

"And you want that?"

"Part of me does. Just a part, I think, but that part feels hungry."

"What would you like with Justin?"

"You know, there is something, but I don't quite have words for it. We've known each other all our lives. Sometimes we've been lovers, and sometimes not. Sometimes we haven't even been friends..."

"And now?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's just the discovery of a new land and all of that. But the only way to take this land is with children."

"That's the way we felt, a long time ago," Carlos said. "I think that we lost a little of that as soon as it became clear that the birth rate was going to be sufficient. But... on a place like this, so wide and broad. I'm not surprised."

"Something inside me just decided that Justin is the one."

Carlos let Katya take whatever time she needed to find the right words.

"Some little switch turned on by itself," she continued. "I thought that I had everything that I wanted, both freedom and security. But it turns out that I want something else. I want someone who belongs to me."

She looked up sheepishly. "Is that selfish? Is that petty?"

Carlos squeezed her hand. "No. It used to be what everybody wanted. Then we talked ourselves out of it. Maybe we're just rediscovering how much of that is in our basic natures. I've never been one to fight against my urges. Neither should you."

She grinned and squeezed his hand. Suddenly she jerked her head around, eyes darting as if tracking something invisible.

"What is it?" Carlos asked.

"Two bees," she said. "Moving like bullets."

Carlos adjusted his war specs until he saw two flashes. "They're going right across that valley," he said. "And over the next ridge." He estimated the distance. "Too far for today. Let's go back. We can start in the morning."

"I'll get Justin to pick us up," Katya said. She thumbed her comm card. "Justin—"

The computer answered. "Justin and Jessica have landed in a meadow and are temporarily out of communications," Cassandra said.

"Are they all right?"

"I have detected no cause for alarm," the computer said primly.

Jessica lunged backward, trying to rip herself free of the entangling web.

The forest was all deep shadow, vines and webbing strung among horsemane trees. In the shadow above him Justin caught a face like a snarling monkey, then the compact torso and long, long limbs that went with it. The beast wasn't moving. It was singing.

And Justin had dropped his pack, and with it his tracer, his knife, and all weapons. It would take a minute to run back to get them, and in a minute the creatures would be on her.

Jessica's face was turned away from the web, she had managed to get enough leverage to turn her head. "Justin! I can see four of them. They're just big Joeys... " Her voice died.

Little snarling faces. They sang with their mouths open... sang way back in their throats. Big Chaka had examined several spider devil bodies. Their song would have been perfect for slow dancing. Justin could make out hideous shadows moving into place around Jessica. One tapped along the web, crawling down toward Jessica.

Justin scooped up two rocks. His first missed entirely. His second struck one of the creatures, and it scuttled back up into the trees. But two others were crawling cautiously down, testing their footing every step of the way.

Damn, damn, damn. He and Jessica must be larger than anything the Joey-things ordinarily hunted, but would size alone keep them away?

Jessica screamed at them. They retreated for a moment, then started down the vine again. "Justin," she said, her voice deadly calm. "They're not scared of us. They're coming back down. Not a whole lot of doubt about that."

Justin pried at a nearby branch. Dammit, it was more vine than branch, and entirely too pliable. He tugged at it, and it just bent. It could have held his weight.

He was desperate. The loam underfoot was thick and soft; years of fallen leaves had decomposed to make the rich compost. No weapons there. He was naked, dammit.

Freezing hell! The first time in his life that he let lust overwhelm him and this happens?

He went to Jessica, who had managed to pry her face an inch or two away from the web. "I think," she said. "I think that maybe I can get out of this."