Beowulf's Children

"Yes," she said. "We were out of contact. I'm not going to lie to you about that. I know that it was against the rules."

"And what were you doing while you were out of contact?"

"I don't see what that has to do with my sister's death."

Cadma

"What are you insinuating?"

"They might have tried to call you on their comm links!" Cadma

"The camp was secured, dammit!"

"Yes," Cadma

We were sleeping it off, and I am damned if I'll tell you that. "We slept late. Grendel Scout graduation runs late, and there's an orgy after the ceremonies." She said that defiantly. "We weren't scheduled to be back earlier."

"You're right, of course," Cadma

"Do you think that hasn't tortured me ever since we saw—what we saw?" she demanded. "Colonel, I plead guilty to the childish prank of being out of communication, but the fact is that we couldn't have got there in time to do or see anything to begin with."

"She's right," Zack said.

Silence. Somewhere outside, a tractor coughed to life. Zack said, "Can you think of anything else we ought to know? Thank you. That is all, for now."

Jessica looked defiantly from one of them to the other, and then lowered her voice. "No one here lost more than I did. No one. I loved her, dammit. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face, and I ask myself: Was there something I should have done? Is there anything I forgot? Is there... "

"Thank you, Jessica," Zack repeated. "I think that will be all. For now."

Jessica stared at Cadma

Cadma

One set of those bones had been his youngest daughter. The other, one of his oldest friends.

He had only known Joe Sikes for, what... ? A hundred and twenty years? And there was a thing that stood between them, but they'd recovered from that...

"This is an inquest, not a formal trial," Zack a

"Yes, sir."

"State your name."

"Aaron Tragon." There was the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. This was all being recorded, and there was no chance that Cassandra didn't know who he was, but the rules said that you state your name to begin formal hearings.

"Aaron Tragon, you were in charge of the children's expedition."

"No, sir. Justin was in charge. I was second-in-command," Aaron said carefully.

"Why do the younger Scouts say you were in charge, then?" Zack asked.

Aaron shook his head. "I guess because we don't make a big thing of it," he said. "Justin and I both know what to do, and it never came to any conflicts, so I suppose the kids didn't know."

"Or care?"

"Yes, sir, or care," Aaron said. "I'm sorry sir, but it just wasn't a big deal."

"All right, I can understand that. But you were second-in-command. You were aware that the communications cards had all been turned off?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"It was a tradition." Aaron said. "Maybe a silly one, but—this is

Graduation Night, something we Seconds do, and—"

"And you don't need no stinking First listening in?" Carlos prompted.

Aaron nodded. "Something like that. We wouldn't put it in quite those terms."

"You resent the First?" This was from Julia Chang Hortha, agronomist, nurse, counselor, and a minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, the closest thing to a formal church they had.

"Well, sometimes, ma'am," Aaron said. "Not the Earth Born so much as all the rules."

"Rules are important," Zack said automatically.

"Sure they are, for—" Aaron cut himself off. "Yes, sir, under many circumstances rules can be very important."

"But not for you?" Cadma

"Not always for us, no sir. Colonel, we are of age in any civilization you had on Earth. Full voting citizens entitled to full rights, including the right to live under laws we have consented to. Aren't we?"

Everyone in the room knew what Aaron hadn't said: "laws made by people in full possession of their faculties, not by those with ice on their minds."

"You have made your point," Zack said. "But the fact remains that you consented to the rules before you went to the island. Didn't you?"

"Well, yes. We had no choice."

"Consented under duress?" Carlos asked carefully.

"If you prefer."

"All right, Aaron. Tell us what happened."

"Yes, sir. We were awakened by a panic message from the watch officer, Edgar Sikes. That is all recorded. He told us there was trouble at the minehead. He was highly disturbed and shouting.

"Jason, Jessica, and I took the skeeter after telling Toshiro Tanaka where we were going and instructing him to set up a complete defensive perimeter at the camp for the protection of the children."

"Yes. That was well done," Cadma

"Thank you, sir. We then proceeded to the minehead. Again this is all recorded. When we arrived we saw no large animals and nothing that could have attacked the campsite. Linda Weyland and Joe Sikes were unrecognizable, identifiable only by jewelry. The dogs were mere skeletons.

"We were hesitant to approach the site but we had no choice since there were no signs of the baby. We then found the child alive and unhurt. Jessica took the baby and locked herself in the skeeter. When she was secured there I photographed the site and recovered the human but not the animal skeletons. At your suggestion I was as brief as possible. We returned to the children's camp. We then assisted in getting everyone aboard the dirigible and returned to the island."

"Anything you would have done differently?" Cadma

"No, sir. By the time we got to the minehead, it was far too late for—for medical remedies. They were not merely dead but—" He put his fingers to his temples and shook his head. "Absolutely nothing we could have done would have been of the slightest use."

"And there was no sign of what killed them? No clue, nothing?" Dr.

Hortha asked.

"None I saw. As we got closer there was—"

"Yes?" Zack prompted.

Aaron's eyes drooped, he wasn't seeing Zack. "Motion. Yellow dust in a wind. Sir, I'm not sure I saw anything, and I can't find it in the satellite recordings. If it was there, it blew away before we could get close. But after we found the baby and before we left, I looked again. The dust was just the usual dust that always blows across the pass. It's a dusty place, more so because we diverted the stream away from the pass. I'm sure you all know that."

Cadma

"If so it's unofficial, sir," Aaron said. There was little expression in the face, or to the voice... but somewhere, back in the cave where Aaron Tragon lived, something had shifted and coiled. He was warier now.