Beowulf's Children

Sand whipped in all directions as Justin touched the skeeter down. He dismounted and ran to the open barbecue pit, kicked off his shoes, and did a kind of victory dance, screaming, "We're going over, troops!"

They howled like mad dogs, and Little Chaka hurled a beer pod. It slapped Justin just above his heart. It stung, but the pod didn't break.

He grabbed a lady and got a long wet kiss, and then grabbed another one and did it even better, then plopped down in the sand and popped the beer open.

Derik Crisp spread big beefy hands. "So?"

"So the mining machinery is down. Great timing. They've got to go over."

"Great timing." Derik gri

"Me? No," Justin protested. "Hey, that'd be real sabotage, nasty stuff."

"Sure," Derik said. "Sure." He was still gri

Justin said, "I never thought of that. Who could do that?"

"Edgar," someone yelled. "Yeah, but he wouldn't."

"Depends on what he's offered," Little Chaka said.

Jessica had come ru

"Yep," Derik said. "Edgar Sikes could sure as hell do it."

"And no one else," Jessica said. "Gee, Linda's got enough generation problems without that." She shook her head. "And I saw Linda's files, sure, if anyone can fake it Edgar could have, but I just don't believe it." She looked accusingly at Justin. "The explosions were real; now, how did they happen?"

"Sheesh! Why me?"

"Why Edgar?" Jessica demanded. "Same reason. Who else could it be? Who could have done Mount Tushmore?"

"You wrong me," Justin said, but he had trouble hiding the pride in his voice.

"Aaron," Derik said. "Aaron Tragon could have done it."

Jessica nodded vigorously, and a lot of Justin's pride faded.

"I'm going to call them," Derik said suddenly.

"Hey now, wait-"

"No, just to talk to Linda. See if she knows anything." Derik went to put through the call.

Derik and Linda had been a thing, once, for about ten days. Calling her right now might cause Joe Sikes to shove his phone down his throat. Jessica would have stopped him... but others were gathering around them now. "What's the word?" someone called.

"We're going," Jessica answered. "Not just the chicken run for the candidate Scouts."

The light from the screen had been a view of the mining site on the mainland. Now it was Linda Weyland standing fourteen meters tail, holding four meters of baby Cadzie under one arm. Jessica couldn't hear her or Derik.

Aaron Tragon waded out of the water carrying a sand-colored writhing shape. The thing wrestled with him, but he had it by the blades. He dropped it onto the grill and went for a towel.

The crab struggled as it cooked. It was a Camelot sea crab. They'd found more than twenty variations already, all with a bifurcated shell and four mobile limbs, but-"This one's new," Chaka said.

"Study it quick," Aaron suggested.

There would be no rescuing the beast. Chaka knelt above the fire pit, one hand bladed below his eyes to shield them from the heat. He watched the crab move, noting the play of the joints. The crab had two wide fins for swimming, and the shell had expanded into a big aerodynamic plate. The forelimbs were agile little spears now trying to fight the fire. The armored wrist/elbow joints were almost human in their agility.

"More incoming natives. Those wrists. You can't help wondering if something's waking them all up at once," Chaka said. "I want the shells."

Another skeeter touched down neatly next to Justin's, and Stu Ellington hopped out. Six more came over the mountains in tight formation. Two carried firewood. One brought food from the main encampment. The others brought passengers, and the party grew until it seemed that the beach would sink under their weight.

Aaron Tragon strode among them, and slipped one brawny arm around Jessica's waist. "Well, now," he said merrily. "I think we can call that a major victory."

"Let's take a look at Dad's plans first," Jessica said. "And then we can decide how much victory we've got." She was about to pull free, reflexively. Justin saw her decide: she leaned back against him. They had been casual lovers for nearly a year now. Casual: Justin had never seen Jessica change a plan to be with Aaron. Or any other man. Sometimes he wondered-

Justin felt someone kneading his shoulders. He looked around just enough to catch a glimpse of dark hair. Long. Wavy. A face not pretty, but made beautiful by devastating eyes. Eyes to drown in, to die for. Katya. He reached back and grabbed her, pulling her close to him, and craned around to gnaw on her neck.

She was dripping wet and cold as death, and their torsos touched from ankles to eyebrows. A wave of cold washed through him, and he couldn't seem to control it. It had been a long time, and he was surprised by the strength of his reaction.

One of the other kids said: "So-who's going over?"

Derik turned the volume up and Linda's voice blasted over the beach.

"We are! Joe and Cadzie and me, we're going in first."

Justin, not quite watching Jessica over Katya's shoulder, saw sudden shock instantly swallowed.

They'd spoken once, when an older friend was seven months pregnant, and Jessica had remembered this-

The adults around her were half a dozen fully pregnant women, her mother included. Jessica had been five or six, pretending to play, but listening. And the women must have been locked in a dominance game, detailing their prenatal discomfiture. Little Jessica had listened in awe and horror, stupefied by the realization that she would one day be slow, and fat, and vulnerable just like the big ones, the adults...

Fu

The baby Cadzie was holding her prisoner. Before his birth she was already imprisoned, heavy and slow. Now she couldn't even attend a beach party. Now she was burdened by what Cadzie needed: milk, diapers, the cobalt blue blanket, the bassinet, the conversations that wouldn't happen because everyone wanted to talk about the baby instead: the distractions.

A cacophony of voices was rising. "I want to go." "Me too." "Hey, who's better at making a camp than me?"

"Room for a lot of us," Justin said. "We can take, what, twenty Scouts and fifteen Seconds. And the candidates, but they come back with Linda and Joe, but still, we could really do it up right. Set up primary base on the Mesa, and a secondary down at Heorot. Do a little... fishing."

Jessica got into the spirit of it instantly. "Take two of the skeeters and survey—"

"Get the initial surveys from orbit. Let Dad spot two or three likely areas—"

Aaron was into it now. "Listen-we only need three skeeters to move the blimp, but four is safer. We can set up crisscrossing fire zones for the one that touches down."

"Touches down?"

"Plants, soil samples, plant some seismic detectors, hell, we can do some serious work!"

Aaron swept Jessica up in his arms and smooched. When he set her down she gave him her very smokiest gaze, linked her arms around his neck, and drew him close for some very serious kissing, her hips rolling against him in a clear "all systems go" alert. Justin couldn't seem to look away. When they broke, she reached out and licked the underside of Aaron's upper lip. Onlookers might as well have been on Isenstine.