Beowulf's Children

Sylvia rose from the bed and walked to the door, pausing to look back. Mary A

Sylvia closed the door behind her, and sagged against it, exhausted. She wanted to cry, but the tears just hadn't come, as if fatigue were mourning enough. Somewhere within her there must have tears for Cadma

She could not find them.

She had never told him, and now she never could. And almost no one knew the truth. Certainly Aaron had not. But Sylvia knew. And her mother's heart knew that her love might have gentled him, nurtured him, even as her rational mind begged her not to carry that weight into her life. It was too much for one woman to bear.

What would Cadma

I want you to live, he said in a voice so clear he might have been standing beside her. Death comes soon enough. Live, my love, and be a comfort to Mary A

"I knew," she whispered. "I always knew."

Edgar led them into the kitchen/computer room. He felt them stop in the doorway, and turned to watch their reaction.

They had walked into an Avalon beehive.

Cassandra and the Chakas had constructed it in one-to-one scale. The hologram space was much larger than the kitchen itself. They had set off their insecticide bombs, they had placed their cameras, set off their monotone sirens, and recorded the sonics passing through the nest, all before the final swarming. Between the computer imaging and the fiber-optic cameras, they had managed to map virtually the entire bee colony.

It was like a volcano, with branching side pockets and rooms for the infants, breeding grounds, and a huge queen chamber. The creatures lay dead in heaps of thousands.

For that instant they were stopped by the wonder of it. Then Edgar's family pushed in behind him.

Edgar moved to the keyboard.

Ruth was just behind him, chin on his shoulder. Her body was starting to swell in earnest. Her father was trying to peer between them without getting too friendly with Edgar himself. Her mother Rachael hung back a little: Zack must be feeling claustrophobic too. And Trish was on the other side of Edgar, in contact along his whole left flank, and damn, it was hard to concentrate.

He felt barely able to move. His home had seemed big enough, too big even, when it was Edgar alone.

But his fingers remembered. The bee nest faded. Then the holostage ran through a rapid sequence of scenes while Edgar played tour guide.

"Shangri-La is essentially dead," Edgar said. "The instruments we left there make it a test case for what's happening to the continent.

"Not a living plant anywhere. The crops are gone right down to the dirt. You don't see any bees now, but any time something living comes in range, the bees boil out and strip it.

"This is of interest, though. Something big—grendel-sized—pushed in the door to that storehouse. Inside—" Dammit, he'd forgotten the code.

Trish reached past him and tapped. The screen went dark, nearly. "The lights are burned out," she said.

"Yeah, but look around. Near the back, a lot of cans are missing, and soft drinks too. That's a hot plate over here, and whoever was using it kept the area clean. He's gone now, I think. Aaron."

Zack said, "It may be you've got Aaron on the brain, Edgar. All three of you."

Zack, Rachael, Ruth, Edgar, Trish. They had to be together, but it was awkward. They kept adjusting their positions. Edgar could talk to Trish, Ruth could talk to her lover and her mother, Zack could talk to Rachael, and if Zack wanted to know about mainland conditions he had to talk to his son-in-law.

"I was never sure," Edgar said. "I told myself he set me up to fall out of that tree, but I was never sure until he killed Colonel Weyland. Now I want his blood."

Ruth said nothing.

Trish asked, "Uncle Zack? Don't you want Aaron dead?"

Zack said, "What are things like elsewhere?"

Bracketed between Ruth and Trish... he'd had daydreams like this, sandwished, but he'd never dreamed of parents-in-law present. Edgar wondered if Trish was enjoying this. He was just glad he'd cleaned the place up.

He tapped and the view jumped. "That was a chain of grendel lakes, dammed lakes, when we planted the camera." The lakes were a wide muddy river now. Edgar's cursor indicated a distant dust devil dancing through stripped trees. "Bees," he said. "There aren't any more grendels here. Some samlon, maybe, but as soon as they come on land, sszzz. Even the beaver grendels must be eating their young now. It's the only way a grendel can stay alive while these death winds are blowing. And that is how Avalon evolution set you up, Zack."

He tapped again. Now the view looked across sparse, tall grass, with water gleaming in the distance. "Any idea where you are?"

"The Scribeveldt," Zack said.

"Yup. On the back of a Scribe. Katya set a skeeter down on Asia's back and left a camera."

"Huh," said Zack. He watched for few seconds. "Is that a pterodon nest?"

"More like six, but I haven't seen a pterodon since I started monitoring this. Then again, Asia has been easing her way toward the river. As long as the Scribes don't all go down to the river at once, the pterodons can commute. Asia will get her pterodons back when she leaves."

"Edgar, is that guesswork?"

"Pretty much."

Trish asked, "How close do the Scribes get to water? You still get pictures from orbit—"

"The paths still avoid each other. I think they don't want to mate.

There are bees everywhere. They don't bother the Scribes much—"

"You can't go back to Shangri-La," Zack said. "Tell you what, Edgar. Work up a scenario. Your next colony on the mainland is in the Scribeveldt."

Edgar turned to see if his lover's father was serious. From many objections he picked one at random. "It's out of Robor's range. We'd have to set up staging points—"

"Fine. In a couple of years your first staging point can be the minehead, or Shangri-La. You left supplies in both places, and—"

Trish burst out laughing. Her hand closed hard on Edgar's shoulder and shook gently. "Soft One, how can you not love it? We'll put little tent-towns on the knolls. They're not big, but the Scribes go around them and the grendels can't reach them—"

Edgar was studying Zack. He'd never seen the old man smiling like that. A mad smile. "Zack, didn't you use to be way conservative?"

"Sure. A little stodgy, maybe? Just do the best plan you can, Edgar.

If it looks crazy we won't do it."

Ice on his mind. But—Rachael and Ruth changed glances, a secret look Edgar knew he'd better learn to interpret.

Rachael Moskowitz didn't have ice on her mind. And she'd supported Zack in power since before Edgar Sikes was born. But Zack kept making mistakes... well, one mistake, one backbreaker of a mistake, and ever since then—

Ever since then, every time he was challenged, Zack backed down. That was the problem, that was why his brain seemed riddled with ice crystals. He'd withdrawn his objections to the mainland colony. Was he regretting that now?

"Hell, we can live on the Scribes' backs!" Trish crowed. Zack nodded, just listening as she babbled. Trish loved the Scribeveldt colony. When Trish fell in love with an idea, she fell hard. She'd do most of Edgar's work for him. But had he, had they all totally misunderstood the First?

Edgar burst out, "Zack! What was it with those freezing blankets?"