Beowulf's Children

"And?"

"Your dad took a hard left turn here. Tricky. Then... Skeeter range is five hundred miles. Your father carries at least one spare, and doesn't like to space his fuel dumps further than eight hundred miles apart. That probably puts him about here-"

"Give me a vegetation map," Justin said.

Cassandra displayed some of the vegetation to be found in the area. "He brought back some Avalon succulents last time. Does that narrow things?"

Cassandra searched, and came up with a twenty-square-mile sprawl that met all of the conditions.

"Not bad," Justin said. "Look for heat sources." Four little pulses of red appeared. "Volcanic, on a cycle?"

"I've got a better idea," Edgar replied. "Cassandra-when was the last routine scan?"

Her familiar voice was warm and cool. "Eighteen hours ago, at the present level of magnification."

"Nighttime. Give me a thermal scan. Compare it to the chart we just made... and compare it again to... say, anything before three days ago, back to a month."

Edgar turned to Justin. "Does that about cover it? When was the last time your dad was out?"

"About two months."

"Good enough. So all we should have out there are some geysers, and maybe another hunter. Not likely in that little area, but maybe. Exclude all of that, and we'll have his campfire... "

"He likes wood-burning stoves," Justin said suddenly. "He's got a cabin, but it'll have a chimney."

"And... bingo."

They were looking directly down at a mass of trees near the eastern edge of Isenstine glacier. "Camouflaged," Edgar mused. "You could skeeter right over and never see it. That fire is stone dead now."

"Dad would put the fire out. He's very serious about that kind of thing."

"So. Time for the stove to cool. Figure he left five hours ago... "

Edgar rolled his eyes up, and thought. "With refueling... the skeeters make about a hundred and eighty kilometers tops... he should be right about..." He poked his finger at the map. "Here. Give or take fifty kilometers or so."

He gri

They went in through the mountains, and past the savage crevasses of Isenstine Glacier. Justin could almost feel the cold.

And there it was, a flickering shadow. A red circle enclosed it and Cassandra zoomed in to show something that looked like a brine shrimp larva skittering across a pond. It was there one moment, gone the next. But Cassandra was on its track, now, locked on, and Cadma

It was Skeeter II, its silver-blue length magnified by satellite optics. The view was from not quite overhead. It was a tiny bit of metal and plastic, a thing of Man flying across an impersonal wasteland. It carried plant samples and three of the human beings Justin Faulkner loved most in all the world.

"He'll need to make one more fuel stop," Edgar said. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his seat. His round face wore a smile of enormous self-satisfaction. "But that won't take fifteen minutes. This close to home he'll probably want to push it. I'd set ETA at about three hours."

"Edgar... " Justin gri

"I know," Edgar said. "Sometimes I amaze even me."

"Three hours before he shows... " Justin glanced at his watch. "I want to get at him with a full report before anyone else can tell him what's happened." He squeezed Edgar's shoulder. "Thanks a lot, Edgar."

"First choice. Stringfish."

"You got it."

Justin ran out of the communications room, ideas and thoughts of saltwater eels swimming dizzily in his head.

Chapter 4

MOUNT TUSHMORE

To compare

Great things with small...

JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost

The eastern wind turned unexpectedly fierce, burning right through the furs surrounding Cadma

Mary A

Sylvia, on the other hand, loved it. She was locking up the foamed plastic dump shed, motions brisk and merry. "That was the last one!" she called over the wind. "We'll have to restock before we take our next run!" Then she crunched across the ice to help with the pushing.

Mary A

Mary A

They piled into the autogyro's passenger cab. Cadma

Cadma

Mary A

There were times when Mary A

"Cad?" she said. "If you don't get this thing into the air, we may walk home."

He nodded without speaking, still trying to read the gusts. He patched into Cassandra on a secure line, and got a quick weather feed: no sign of the quick, violent storms that made traversing Isenstine so hazardous. This was just bad wind, not likely to get much worse. Carefully he engaged the engines, satisfied with the steady hum as the new fuel cell sparked to life. Nose and top and tail rotors spun into blurred motion one at a time, whipping more snow from the ground. He engaged the de-icers and the wiper blades.

"All right. Buckle in," he said u

The skeeter leaned forward against the wind and began to scoot along the ice. Then, nose-heavy, it lifted from the ground, spun a quarter-turn as a gust punched them, and rose into the sky.