Beowulf's Children Part 42

"Twenty seconds."

Trish had lost interest.

It was hard to believe the rumors: that Edgar and Trish were lovers. Trish didn't act like it, and she was nothing like him. Ruth said with some diffidence, "Trish, he's really got something."

Trish smiled one-sided, finished her breakfast cereal in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on, and came over just as Ca.s.sandra turned down the lights. Then they were looking through a blur-edged window at a stand of horsemane trees.

The recording wasn't particularly sharp; a war specs headset wasn't that good. Top crabs leaned from the thickly grown treetop, waved menacing claws at the oblivious man below.

"Slow motion, Ca.s.sie," Edgar said.

It all slowed like a dream. Little Chaka looked up- Even in slow motion, the predator was still falling like a grendel on speed. Ca.s.sandra paused it in flight: a triangular airfoil with sharp horns jutting from the forward corners; eyes on stalks just inboard of the horns; oversized oar-shaped motor fins aft.

Then motion again. The eyestalks retracted; the marauder slewed sideways in the moment before it impacted one of the treetop crabs. One horn smashed directly into the sh.e.l.l, piercing it. The impact flung the top crab into s.p.a.ce, threw it free of the horn.

The top crab hit the ground hard. The predator corrected its spin, pulled up, skimmed the dirt, wheeled around and was on the dying crab. It flipped the crab over, ripped away the ventral sh.e.l.l and began to feed.

"That was from your POV, Edgar. From Chaka-"

Big Chaka made his slow way into the mess hall with his son alongside.

"h.e.l.lo, Ruth. Trish. Edgar, you get that too?"

"Yessir. You show me yours, I'll show you mine."

"Ca.s.sandra, if you will oblige."

"Chaka Junior, your view was from underneath." Close view of a horsemane tree's bare trunk, a stick probing the green mane. Something small and mammaloid was snapping at the stick with long mini-hyena jaws, glaring through Ca.s.sandra's magic window with murderous eyes. Suddenly the view swung straight up. A variety of Avalon crab was studying them, its arms waving restlessly, claws snapping.

Pause. "Observe the claws," Ca.s.sandra said. A cursor arrow indicated the top crab. "Here they're much longer than on our two Camelot varieties.

Chaka, shall we designate this-"

"Sikes's Top Crab Number One," Big Chaka said firmly. Edgar looked around with an unbelieving grin. Ruth smiled to see it.

"As you wish."

Motion resumed. Something smashed into the crab, knocked it into s.p.a.ce, clung for a moment, then separated . . . and it all froze. The cursor arrow moved to the predator, which from underneath was nearly featureless. "Here the claws are recessed, almost invisible, and the mouth likewise. The eyes were retracted. Now-" Motion: the predator was spinning out of control. Eyes emerged, then paddle-shaped fins adjusted: its spin stopped in an instant. Paddles played as the creature dropped. Canards emerged in front. It actually brushed the gra.s.s pulling up, swung back like a guided missile, and-braked.

Its claws were airfoils, canards. Retracted, they fit recesses that faired the crab sh.e.l.l into a smooth hull. Its mouth was startling: huge and square, not just a mouth but an air brake too. The thing hovered for an instant, with claws extended and mouth wide, then dropped onto the dying top crab. It was the claws that did the work of ripping the sh.e.l.l open and tearing the meat into gobbets.

The view s.h.i.+fted: Ca.s.sandra was running Edgar's view again. A reincarnated top crab chittered from a treetop. Something dived from the sky in slow motion . . .

Trish Chance said, "Ruthie, when you do talk, you're worth hearing.

Guys, that was fun, but I'm off to see the Scribe."

Ruth glowed. And didn't notice Trish's overdone wink, nor Edgar's nod.

"The Scribe. I've only seen it on the holostage," Edgar said. "Is it as awesome--?"

"More. They're calling it 'Asia.' "

But the enthusiasm had leaked out of her, and Edgar noticed. "Aaron's still out there?"

"Yeah. Did you hear? Aaron thought he'd solved the killings, Linda and Joe. He didn't, and he's furious . . . "

"He's there, and you're here. Anything happen?"

She paused awkwardly. Then: "I told him I was pregnant."

Edgar stared. Gently he asked, "How long?"

"I've only known for about two weeks. It was that long before I got up the nerve to ask Ca.s.sandra."

"What's he think?"

"He said, 'Your parents will be so pleased.' Then changed the subject."

"He'll never be Father of the Year, but he'll try to keep your dad happy. There were too many close votes on personnel," Edgar said. "Lord knows Zack would rather French-kiss a grendel than trust me. Camelot got hit with one of those weird flash-typhoons last week. Zack walked into the comm shack drenched. I said. 'It seems to be raining,' and he went for a second opinion."

"Is that why Aaron keeps me around? Some of the time? n.o.body talks to me but you, Edgar. I know I don't own him, but when Jessica's around it's like I don't even exist."

He nodded. "No. You don't own him. But that's no reason for him to treat you like sleet, either. Ruth, I'll shut up any time I'm told to."

"Oh, no, Edgar."

"Okay. Do you really think you were needed to distract Carolyn McAndrews?"

She looked away. "No." And began moving away.

" 'Course not. Carolyn would have let Trish walk right up to her." Edgar followed. "So it follows that Aaron didn't have to seduce you just to get your help stealing Robor."

She seemed astonished. "No!" Then suddenly grinned. "But he sent Trish to you."

"Sent Trish Chance to distract me. Then I think he told her to stop.

Trish doesn't take orders worth a d.a.m.n, you know."

Ruth had reached the coffee vat. She drew two cups and tried to fill them, still without looking at Edgar. The vat was empty. "We're going to seed coffee in the hills around Point Ten," she said.

"Below where the snow grendels popped up?"

"Yeah."

"That's a kicky notion. Snow grendels were bad enough without coffee nerves. So, have you told your parents?"

"About what?"

"About the plans for a coffee crop," Edgar said gently.

Ruth looked up, smiling bravely. "About the baby, you mean. No. I haven't told them."

"How long since you last talked to them?"

"None of your business."

"Right." Edgar plucked the two cups out of her hand. "Come with me."

He walked away without looking back. Ruth dithered, then followed. Followed him into the big tent that belonged to Edgar and a junkyard of computer equipment, and the little cappuccino device that had been with him since the magic hurricane.

He made cappuccino in silence save for the earsplitting shriek of steam jetting into milk. Ruth took the cup from him and said, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to shut you up."

"Okay. When?"

"Once since we got the go-ahead to come here. I couldn't stay in Camelot, Edgar. The way they looked at me! But Aaron took me with him-this far-and it wasn't that I wasn't taking Mom's calls, it was just I was always somewhere else. I talked to her once. A month ago. But Dad never calls. He talks to Aaron and says to say hi."

"You could call."

"I should call. I know I should call."

"Better talk to your mother first. Colony psychiatrist, she'll have a good idea how your dad will take it."

She nodded. "I should call."

"Take your coffee with you."

She didn't move. She sipped, not looking at him. He asked, "You don't want me listening, do you?"

She considered. She said, "Yes."

Chapter 26.

DEMONS.

No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.

SIGMUND FREUD, Complete Psychological Works

Cadmann Weyland slammed his fist down on the table next to the chair. Coffee splashed on his pants and the rug. Rachael, Zack's wife and the colony psychologist, shook her head ruefully. "Cadmann-all the way from Fafnir Ridge to end up on my throw rug? What a waste!"

Cadmann dropped six paper napkins on the spreading stain and put his foot on the napkins. "I'm sorry. I really am. Rachael, I just don't feel right. I haven't for months."

"Years," she said quietly. "Almost a century now."

He didn't turn to look at her.

"None of us have really been ourselves since we left Earth, If we didn't have hibernation instability, we worried because we might. And if we managed to convince ourselves that we didn't, then we had to worry about everyone else. We had to change the entire design of the colony to provide failsafe mechanisms. Backups to backups, in case somebody, somewhere ended up with an ice crystal we didn't count on."

"We did a good job," Cadmann said.

"And then the children were growing up," she continued. She was playing with a desk hologram. It rotated in front of her, a puzzle consisting of a blue globe and wires and a box of sticks. When she touched a piece it flashed. When she moved her finger to another location, the piece moved with her. She made a mistake, and the blue globe fell to the ground and shattered. It re-formed in the air above the desk, and she continued.

"We pa.s.sed our fears to our children. But they were ours, not theirs."

"Not all of them," Cadmann said.

"The nightmares?"

He nodded. "We never talk about them, not really, but the children know that their parents wake up screaming. They know."

"But you're not dreaming of grendels now, are you?"

A professional question, and he answered as a patient.

"No. I dream of the night up on that dirigible. When Tos.h.i.+ro climbed up behind me. When I turned, and fired." His eyes were tired, and his voice. He felt as old as G.o.d. "But I dream Tos.h.i.+ro is a grendel. He's about to eat Ernst. n.o.body sees it but me."

"They had no right to take the dirigible."

"Well, no, but by their lights they did, Rachael. They could even believe they had a duty. We denied them the right. And we had no justification for that. Not really. They are what we used to be!" He threw his head back and laughed bitterly. "G.o.d, I remember what it was to be their age. Young and dumb and full of c.u.m. Ready for anything, and eager to handle it. That was what we were! What we all were! And what did we turn them into? Pranksters. Carving b.u.t.tocks onto ice cliffs. Hacking into Ca.s.sandra. Flare-surfing off the coast. We gave them no useful place to put their courage. We called them cowards and weaklings. And they know it's something wrong with us."

"Cadmann . . . "

He spun. "Did you see the attack on the mesa? Did you see Ca.s.sandra's playback? Six grendels. Six adult grendels, and the kids took them. One boy died. One grendel got away. Completely hostile weather conditions, a new attack pattern. One loss." The pride in his voice was something that she hadn't heard in him since the night on the dirigible, and she let him go on.

"Those are our children. They can take that land. Not us. We deserve to stay here. And they had to show us. They had to force the issue, because G.o.d knows that we never would have."

She had managed to extract a stick from the blue ball, and it was delicately balanced. So far so good . . .

"What did you want to talk about, Cadmann?"

"Aaron." He spoke the two syllables flatly. "Aaron bothers me."

"Aaron," she said. The blue ball fell and cracked. A chick emerged, grew to adulthood, flew to the floating nest of sticks and laid a blue egg.

Rachael asked, "Why?"

"I talked with Justin about that before they left. I've talked to everyone that I could, except you. And now I have to do that. Something is wrong. He was the author of a situation."

"Yes?"