Beowulf's Children

"Make sculptures?"

He smiled. "We all have our little refuges."

They paused, listening to the rain hammer against the walls, the ceiling. A steady, arrhythmic thrumming. According to Geographic, the first wave of rain would die away by morning. There would be peace, followed by more rain, in waves, for at least a week. And beyond that week, another storm front, and then yet another. They could wait it out. It was what they were here for.

"When the sky clears," Carlos said, "I'll take a skeeter up in the mountains. To the coordinates Aaron gave us. I will find your father's bones, I think." He sipped at his coffee. There was something in his eyes that she couldn't quite read. "His comm card was still broadcasting. I will find his bones. I believe that I owe your father that much."

Then he closed his eyes, and drank, and didn't say another word for the rest of the night.

The merciless torrent tore the beaver dams into splinters', and the rivers swelled, changed course, flooded across the plains. Flash floods and waterspouts raged, whirled, tore the sky ever more brutally, made it bleed.

The water roared across the plain, and sank down into the nests, the bee nests that the Star Born had seen, but not understood. There were thousands of them across the southern portion of the continent. Each was home to tens of thousands of bees.

There was chaos, and they responded by huddling, and then swarming up and out. The water beat them back. They collapsed their tu

And waited.

For months now, they had fed their special variety of speed—enhanced "royal jelly" to selected embryos within the nest. Now it began to pay off, and the first of the new queens were shaking the water from their motor wings.

Edgar sheltered his head against the rain, and walked out in the ankle—high mud, and sloshed across the encampment. The lights of the distant mess hall were dimmed by the intensity of the rain.

He caught sight of a small shape huddled in the downpour against the wall of one of the dorms. Without knowing entirely why, he headed in that direction.

It was Ruth, and when she saw him coming, she ran in the opposite direction, sloshing through the rain. It was probably impossible but he would have sworn he heard a sound through the downpour, a small, hopeless animal cry.

He caught up with her, happy for his newfound stamina—it was damned difficult to make headway through mud this deep.

He grabbed a shoulder and spun her around. The rain had streaked her hair across her face. Her eyes were wide and staring. She didn't seem to recognize him. He guided her into one of the storerooms.

She shivered. Her teeth clattered until he thought that she would crack the enamel.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

She looked at him, through him. And was silent.

She stopped shuddering. Her skin looked very fine to him. Almost porcelain. Almost translucent. She looked to so i

"You're going to catch your death," he said.

"I don't care,'" she said. "I... just don't care." She sounded so lost, so helpless.

He sat her down on a barrel, peeled the cowl back from her head.

"What's the matter? Why don't you care?"

"I don't know what I'm doing here," she said.

He started to speak, then realized how hard it was for her to say even that much, and kept silent.

"I came for Aaron. I thought that maybe there was a way to be... with Aaron."

She lowered her face into her hands. "What am I doing? Why am I here?"

Aaron didn't want Ruth. Or anyone. All Aaron wanted was this continent.

"What you did," Edgar said finally, surprised to hear the words escape his lips, "was follow your heart. You had to try."

She looked up at him, and focused on him, as if she were seeing him for the first time. And then lowered her face into her hands, and began to sob. And finally, after a long time, he pulled a barrel next to her, and put his arm around her. She let him.

After a while she leaned her head against his shoulder, and she cried, and he listened to rain, for a long, long time.

Two days later, the rains ceased. The waters began to recede, and the plains began to drain. The earth absorbed the waters, and finally the sun touched the earth again. Dark clouds still fringed the sky.

The earth trembled. And then began to crumble. And from within the ground crawled first one, then ten, and then a hundred, and then a million bees.

Tens of millions. Swarming. Hungry.

The Death Wind had come.

The second day after the rains ceased, Carlos was in Skeeter II, Evan Castaneda in Skeeter IV. They rose up over the mountain ridge, floating like insects on a breeze. Justin crouched next to him.

"Are you all right, amigo?" he asked. The question was one of those existential absurdities that friends were obliged to ask each other. Justin looked at him bleakly.

He didn't answer directly. "Look at the grendel dam," he said instead, pointing below them and to the east. "Utterly destroyed. They're pretty harmless most of the time, I guess—but who knows how they behave in a disaster like this?"

"Mmm." Carlos swung around. There was apart of him that didn't want to complete their stated mission, that would rather do anything in the world than find what they expected to find.

"How is Jessica?" Carlos asked. His voice had grown quieter. Much quieter. Justin could barely hear it above the hum of the rotors.

"She's made her choices," Justin said. "She thinks she's more use back at the camp."

There was something that he hadn't said, of course: Caring for Aaron.

Something had certainly happened to Aaron up there. There was some core of the man that was different. Exposed. Torn. Damaged. Something. Justin couldn't quite believe Aaron's account of what happened. Something was wrong. Had Aaron panicked and abandoned Cadma

Or perhaps it was just seeing death, so stark and violent. Justin remembered watching Stu die in the snow. The image was locked away from him where the pain couldn't reach. Where he didn't feel it. That way, he didn't have to think about barbecues at Stu's house, or playing five-card stud, or skeeter racing with a friend and brother. It was just too painful to think about those things.

And maybe that was what was killing Aaron. No one can ever quite live up to his own self-image. Maybe Aaron just got a dose of reality.

Justin ground his palms against his eyes. Father. Cadma

They were maybe twenty minutes from the coordinates when the nightmare began.

The wind had shifted. He looked out of the main window, and saw a huge dark cloud billowing across their path.

"Hey, Justin. Any idea what this is? Where in the world would a dust cloud that size come from, after a rain like this?"

The question was hardly out of his mouth before the radio clattered in a burst of static. Evan. His voice was taut with fear.

"It's not a dust cloud. Mayday, Mayday—"

Justin saw the edge of the dark cloud touch Skeeter IV. Above the skeeter was a sparkling; the skeeter lurched. The blades were sparkling, little bright flashes in the smoke... and in that moment, Justin knew the face of their enemy. He screamed to Carlos, "Get us the hell out of here! It's bees!"

Carlos's hands were lightning at the controls. The skeeter tilted far over, away from the approaching swarm.

"Bees in the rotor blades. They're exploding. Vicious little flying cherry bombs—"

Death was coming. Death was almost here.

Jessica and Aaron crossed Shangri-La's main square. The buildings had all stood up under the assault of the elements. When the tarps were dragged down, the new timbers were unwarped and sun-dried. There was repair work to be done, but it would be completed within the week. They walked out to the horse pen, next to the chamel pen on the outskirts of the camp, near the double electrified fences.