Beowulf's Children

Justin groaned, and his eyes rolled up in his head. His face was dark with effort, and blood drooled from the leg wound.

"Justin!" Jessica screamed, but was distracted by a pain in her hand. A bite, and a spider devil vanishing into shadow. Flaming agony spreading up her arm.

Pain and mortal fear gave her what muscular strength could not. Or maybe Justin's struggles had finally pulled the branch close enough. Jessica contorted, and hooked her leg over the branch.

The two of them, together, pulled now. Justin's mad eyes met hers, and he swallowed. "Come on, Jessica. One, two three—pull! ‘Says he, dear James, to murder me, were a foolish thing to do, for don't you see that you can't cook me, and I can—and I will—cook you!' "

They heaved with every ounce of strength they possessed, screaming verses to send the spider devils scurrying back up into the trees—momentarily. But now the entire nest had awakened. Five more spider devils, curious, worried perhaps, crawled back out of the shadows. They descended delicately along the ropy, gummy vines. They'd already picked up the tune of "The Ballad of the Nancy Bell."

" ‘For the joy of human love! Brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild—‘ "

" ‘Source of all—‘ " Jessica stopped singing as the devils joined in harmony.

Justin screamed as another monster bit him, and she barely jerked her face aside as a pair of jaws clacked shut an inch from her cheek.

"Heave!" he screamed, and they did, both of them, and the vine creaked, and their spines creaked, and the web creaked—

The web ripped. They pulled on the vine and a big piece of web came down. Old bones tumbled out from somewhere above.

" ‘To thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise!' "

Riiiiip. The spider devils shrieked and clambered over one another to get back up into the trees. The web was coming apart rapidly now. More of the vines began to break. Now they were supported by the mucilage alone, and that wasn't strong enough. Justin hit the ground on the side of his head. Jessica ripped half free, and screamed with laughter as a big chunk of web came with her. Her arm and both legs were free, and she had the leverage to pull the other arm free of the main web. A huge patch of gummy vines still covered her. She turned and tugged at Justin's legs until she had them free, and dragged him back away from the vines. His legs were swelling, black and red. Her arm was swollen too, and numb.

"Justin," she said. "Are you all right?"

"I think l can walk."

He stumbled a couple of feet, and Jessica put her arms around him, helping him back to the water. She snatched up their comm cards. "Cassandra," she called. "We've been bitten by spider devils. Need medical attention fast."

Justin's hands shook as he pulled his shirt on. He tried to get his pants on. When his hands touched the bruised flesh of his thighs, he howled, and had to abandon the attempt.

She studied his eyes. No dilation. The swelling didn't seem to be any worse, but that told her little.

"We're about ten minutes away," Little Chaka's voice said. "Was this the same type of spider we captured on the march?"

"Appears to be," she said.

"Then it should be no problem. Use antibiotic paste. The bites aren't lethal. Even the paralytic effect isn't that strong. They need a whole colony to subdue something maybe twice their size. How many bites?"

"Justin took two, maybe three."

"All right. Keep him warm. We'll be there in two shakes. "

Jessica unrolled a blanket from her backpack and wrapped Justin in it.

His teeth chattered. "I'm not going to die, huh?"

"Only if you pull another stupid stunt like that," she said.

"You. How are you?"

She held his face with both of her hands. "Have I ever told you," she said, "that I love you?" And she kissed him, very softly. Then the venom hit and she started to shake. She let go of him before he could notice.

Chapter 35

AUTOPSY

Deduction is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional ma

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, The Sign of Four

Justin limped into the recreation hall, and received a brief round of applause and a kiss from Jessica. It was sisterly, not at all like the kiss they had shared not three hours before, but a sparkle in her eyes that told him that she hadn't forgotten.

Katya took his arm and hugged him. "I hope that your backside is healing."

"You have plans for that?"

"Indeed." She did not look at Jessica.

"So just what did happen?" Cadma

Justin shook his head. "Duh. We'd been swimming, got in a race, and weren't looking where we were going. Just horseplay."

"It's not a grendel zone," Jessica said. "That's a safe area—"

"No longer," Aaron said. "Chaka, we saw a grendel in the north lake. A grendel."

Little Chaka looked puzzled. "How did a grendel get there?"

"And well may you ask." Aaron's voice was icily correct. "As I recall, you were the one who assured us a grendel could never get into that lake."

"I did," Chaka admitted. "And I still don't know how. What happened?"

Aaron started to tell him. Silence fell around him. As his hands waved and his voice rose and fell, Justin found himself gri

Aaron broke off. "Well, however it got there, the whole area has to be reclassified as grendel country. New rules for visiting it. In effect now. Everyone agree?"

There was a murmur of approval.

"That may not be the only surprise today," Big Chaka said.

Cadma

"Listen and decide for yourself," Chaka said enigmatically.

"Yes, well, we should get started," Aaron said. "Hell of a thing about those spider devils, Justin. Hell of a thing." His expression was unreadable.

Cadma

What would have happened if the web hadn't interrupted them? What did he want to happen?

"We're ready when you are. Dr. Chaka," Aaron said.

The room fell quiet. Justin gri

He said (his voice resonant and musical, in teacher mode), "There is much to cover, but let's begin with grendels. You have all seen that grendels on this continent, especially in this area, don't act the way grendels did on Camelot Island. There was the incident today, Aaron, a grendel that did not attack you on sight. There are the dam builders, who certainly cooperate. And the snow grendels, who seem to hunt as a pack. And your other reports. I have examined every mainland grendel observation Cassandra knows of, and I can only conclude that mainland grendels are not the mindless killers our experiences on Camelot suggested. Grendels here—some of them, at least—cooperate on dams, and hunt in groups. They show a rudimentary sense of pla

"The obvious conclusion is that mainland grendels are considerably more intelligent than our island grendels were. If Camelot ‘normal' grendels have the intelligence of an Earth tiger, think of those here as tigers with the intelligence of an orangutan."