Beowulf's Children

Cadma

And closed the door behind him.

"Listen," Carlos said as soon as they were alone, "Edgar fixed the weather report to get us off guard. Supplies have been stolen. Most of the skeeters have been disabled."

"Is Robor secure?"

"No way of knowing. Communications are sealed-we couldn't even contact you."

Cadma

Cadma

"Justin. Can you read me. Testing. Justin."

"Static clearing up now." Justin's voice crackled and then clarified.

"Cassandra. Interference originating from the house? Please track my message to Justin, and its rate of reception, and give a probable epicenter for disruption."

Cassandra barely paused. "The main house."

"Thank you very much. Justin. Get down to the colony. Pick up Zack, and get someone on skeeter repair. We need shock rifles. Meet me at the beach."

They aimed the skeeter into the wind, and flew northward. The distant mountains laughed at him.

Jessica looked back toward the mountains as if expecting that any moment they would part, and her father would appear.

Aaron's hand touched her shoulder. "Jessica. It's time to go-"

The loading was done. Radio messages from the main colony were sheer chaos. It would be hours before any effective force could be mounted against them. They had prefabricated huts, weapons, and a year's worth of food for twenty people. They had all of the instruments and apparatus needed to found a research station. There was mining equipment on the mainland.

Jessica carried her bags up the gangplank. Robor was theirs, by stealth and by subterfuge. She had planted the disrupter in her father's house. By the time anything could be done, they would be far from land. Any negotiations could be carried out by radio.

It was bad. In some deep sense it was even wrong. But the Earth Born had left them with no options.

The door slammed behind her. On the roof of Robor, the skeeter engines whirled to life. Robor lifted from the ground.

"Edgar," Cadma

He's got them monitoring the lines. All right. Cassandra. Code Beowulf.

Are personal code lines corrupted?"

"Code Beowulf acknowledged. Voice pattern Cadma

"Ragnarok."

"Acknowledged. Your line is secure. Standard emergency frequencies are not under my control."

"Thank you. Secure the message to Justin Weyland."

"Can you trust him?" Carlos said nervously. "He might be a mole."

"Not in him," Cadma

They swept in through the mountain passes, and looked down onto the half-deserted village of Surf's Up, the rain-drenched swept thatch roofs glistening in the clouded moonlight.

Some small figure pointed up at them, but then they were over the water and swinging south to the dirigible dock.

"What are you going to do?" Carlos asked nervously.

"Talk some sense into them, I hope." He cleared the ridge of coast, and saw what he feared-a black emptiness where Robor had once nested. Waves crashed against the sand, and the concrete pad was completely empty.

"Damn." Cadma

"We can't," he said grimly. "We don't have time. We're the only ones, Carlos. If we turn around, by the time we get to the colony, and switch batteries, and get back out here-they'll be out of skeeter range, and that's our only link to the mainland. It's now or never."

"And to the mines," Carlos said absently. "But is it worth what this will cost, compadre? They are our children."

"They're ru

"Cassandra. Can we have a trace on Robor?"

"I'm sorry," she said coolly. "That information is not available at this time."

"Damn!"

"Damn indeed, my friend," Carlos said quietly. "We're almost out of juice."

The rain pelted against their windows, and wind buffeted them. The storm might not have been Edgar's fictional typhoon, but it was no summer breeze. Lightning flashed at the horizon. A fist of wind slammed into the skeeter, knocking them sideways, and Cadma

There was nothing to be seen below them but blackness. "Getting altitude isn't going to help us. If the engine quits, we can autorotate, but we won't glide."

"Let's do it anyway," Carlos said mildly. "It will give me a few extra seconds to pray."

"If you want to confess all the sins on your conscience, you should have started last Tuesday. Nevertheless..."

Cadma

Chapter 18

ROBOR

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

ARTHUR WELLESLEY, Duke of Wellington

It was a power relay switch. One piece, carefully removed. The problem had to be diagnosed, and new parts brought from Electronics. No real vandalism, just a twenty-minute stall.

Justin was airborne, with Zack and Hendrick beside him. He was almost blind with anger. The entire camp was in a frenzy, and there was just no telling what could come of this.

Zack looked at Justin for the tenth time. "And you knew nothing about any of this."

"Not a goddamned thing, Zack."

"According to Cassandra, someone placed a very powerful disrupter in your father's house. More delay tactics. Who could have done a thing like that?" Zack's voice was cracking.

Jessica.

"I don't know, Zack. And I won't make irresponsible guesses."

"No, I don't suppose you would."

They headed into the mountain passes.

The alarm buzzer sounded. They had only a minute or two of juice left in the fuel cell.

Cadma

Nothing. He repeated his message, and then sat back, arms rigid against the wheel, listening to the static.

Jessica heard her father's voice, and then heard it cut off. She ran down the corridor, just in time to see Trish turn away from the controls. "What was that?"

"A bluff," Trish said. "And not a very good one, at that."

"What did he say?"

"He said that his skeeter was almost out of fuel, and asked for permission for an emergency landing." Jessica's mind spun. It was a bluff. It had to be. A freshly charged skeeter had more range than that. But what if it wasn't freshly charged? Christ...

"Trish..." she began.

"Aaron ordered radio silence," Trish said flatly. "And that's what we're going to have."

A shock wave hit Skeeter XII, and they jolted to the side. Wind and rain and an ugly laboring in the engine all mixed together. They plunged about three hundred feet before Cadma