Beowulf's Children

"Love sleeping on the ground," he said. Aaron roared as if it was the fu

There was a chorus of ayes.

I'm not being fair, Justin thought. Sour grapes. Selfish. And part of his mind whispered. You could have been the leader if you ‘d wanted to be. But you wouldn't do it, and now Aaron has that and Jessica too.

NickNack was already out of sight. Skeeters went along to assist in herding the chamels. Two hundred chamels, and ten horsemen to keep them under control. Shock prods and tranquilizers for the uncooperative.

Aaron gri

Someone answered, "Rawhide!"

The chamel pen was made of nylon netting strung from poles. Two electric lines kept both chamels and predators away from it. Chaka opened the gate as Justin mounted a roan mare from the remount pool. They call it the ramada, he thought. The word, like most everything else they knew about cattle drives, came from recordings of Earth television shows.

Aaron stood in his stirrups. "All right, we have thirty klicks that's never been explored on foot," he shouted. "The skeeters will scout it for us, but stay in threes! Stay together, stay alive. Nobody gets hurt, right? All right, let's move."

"Heeyah!" Katya had ducked under the pen's netting. She waved her arms and shouted to drive the chamels out.

The males moved with light, birdlike fast-twitch motion, scenting the air and looking for an opportunity to escape. One made a dash eastward. Justin kicked at his horse and again wished for spurs. They weren't needed, but there was something about boots and spurs. He laughed and dashed after the stray, caught up and swatted it with a stun wand. The effect was astonishing. It dropped exactly where it was, quivered, and changed colors twice. Its huge eyes blinked three times, and an enormous tear rolled out of one. Then it scrabbled up onto its haunches, and it looked at him accusingly, as if to say, "You beast!"

He prodded it back toward the herd. It returned slowly, damn near dusting itself off first, its dignity untouched. It humphed like a society matron.

Jessica reined up next to him. "Shut your mouth," she said. "You'll draw flies. Well. You certainly made a fan there, didn't you?"

He rolled his eyes, chucked his mount, and kept them moving.

Tau Ceti rose steadily in the sky, but the air remained cool. They were close to the equator, but heading into the high country, and this was winter in Avalon's northern hemisphere. In summer the high desert might be a blasted heath, but it was tolerable for now.

In fact, it was downright pleasant. There were vast beds of poppy-like flowers, and twice he hopped off his mount to snag samples for Cassandra's information banks. Her major task was cataloging and analysis of all data on mainland animal, vegetable, and mineral forms.

This is the way to tame a continent. You have to let it take its crack at you. Some die and merge with the new world. More are born to take their part of the future.

But all this would have happened, in time. Toshiro died because Aaron was in a hurry.

The way was lazy and long, the sun and the dust and the cool breezes were intoxicants. The chamels sang songs of sadness and loss. He tried to whistle their repetitive rhythm.

Chaka rode up next to him. He rode double with Wendy Powers, who often shared his bed.

"This is the life, eh?"

"No worries, if that's what you mean."

"Right. Hakuna matata," Chaka said.

They rode together for a while, in silence. The chamels lowed and sang. The rumble of their hooves on the hard-packed dirt was a music all its own.

Wendy shaded her eyes with one hand, and with the other pointed at an irregular mound, man-high, a hundred meters to the north. "Another one of those bug hills," she said.

Chaka nodded. "I've counted a dozen so far. Little flying crab things.

Industrious buggers. God, Dad would love it out here. So much to see."

They passed another klick or so before Wendy spoke again.

"Do you ever wonder what's happening on Earth?"

"Sure. I guess. No way to know, though."

"They just forgot about us. That's what I think."

"Probably a bookkeeping error," said Justin.

Chaka snorted and pulled his horse away. Before he did, Wendy swung athletically onto Justin's mount, and wrapped her powerful arms around his waist.

They rode silently for a while, and then she said, "Just like Clint Eastwood in Rawhide."

"Yeah. But the Indians didn't eat you."

"You wouldn't know that from watching the movies, that's for sure."

She was quiet for a while, and then said, "When are you and Jessica going to forgive each other?"

"Taking up Julia Hortha's habits?"

"No, I'm really worried about you two. And don't change the subject."

He shook his head. "She made a fool out of my father. And then made him a killer. Not easy for him to forget something like that."

"Not easy," she repeated. "But hasn't there been enough trouble?"

"Are you trying to make peace?"

She kissed his ear, and blew in it warmly. "Would you accept a peace offering?"

"How do you spell that?"

"Any way you want."

He laughed.

"You know," she said, "I'm not that different from you. You have a foster father, who you love. I love a dream—that's what I have instead of a family."

"The whole colony is your family," he said gently.

"That's the same as having no family at all. Aaron is my family. Aaron's dream. If mistakes were made, they were made on all sides. We've got to let them go."

"You guys. In some ways, you Bottle Babies seem like... one big body with two dozen legs and a dozen heads. Sometimes it seems as if you don't care about anything but each other."

"That's not true, and you know it. I fight with Stu Ellington all the time. Well, almost all the time." She smiled at him, and patted his cheek. "If you're interested, you know where to find me, tonight," she said.

She hopped off the back of his horse, and trotted effortlessly back to where one of the trikes was rounding up a stray female.

Justin hunched forward into his saddle. There was some truth in what Wendy said. There had to be a way of putting things back together. If he didn't see it at the moment, it might still be real.

Jessica nodded hello as he pulled up to the rear of the herd.

"Nice country." He felt cautious, and guilty about the caution.

"Beautiful." No other words followed.

"Jessica," he said—

There was a security buzz on his collar, and he cursed. "Yes, Cassandra?"

"Weather reports have shifted. There is now a sixty percent probability that heavy fog will shroud your intended camp site."

"Is that right? Damn. What would you expect the temperature to be?"

"As low as fifty degrees."

"How close is the nearest ru

"Twelve klicks."

Twelve klicks. Too damned close for comfort. Pity—they had chosen a beautiful site, near one of the wells. Shower facilities had already been erected, but...

Safety before comfort. We need a different route.

Even as he thought it, Aaron's voice was in his ear. "You heard Cassandra," Aaron said. "We should change course. Those in favor of taking the Mesa route please signify."

"Aye... "

"Aye... "

"Aye," said Justin.

"Motion carried unanimously. Let's do it. Skeeters Two and Six—start flying in supplies."

The air grew chill. The chamels labored upward. The fliers scouted ahead, then came back to lift trikes up to the top of the plateau. Two stayed, two others came down the trail they were climbing. Chaka and Derik pulled up next to Justin and revved their trikes. "How's it going?" Derik yelled. He held out a stick of beef jerky.