Beowulf's Children

Justin said, "Nominal," and bit off a chunk. The chamels struggled up the boulder-strewn path. Their hides were a dusty gray now. It was beautiful to watch them change. They were like terrestrial chameleons with a touch of... well, of speed. Everything on this planet was sped up just a touch. Magical. The pace was fast. The trick was to keep pace, to think, to move, to feel just as quickly.

Aaron was right about that. They had to match the rhythms of the planet. Trying to impose Earth's rhythms was a losing proposition. They should stop counting in Earth years... though the change would be a major hassle.

One of the young chamels stumbled, its long and deceptively delicate leg turning badly. It slid back a few feet, and could have fallen. Justin was off his horse in a moment, and behind it just a moment before its own mother got there.

He felt a horseshoe ridge of hard flat bone close on his shoulder, hard.

Chaka came in with the shock prod, and Justin said "No!" and met her eyes squarely, and kept pushing. She backed away, put her great head behind her child's butt, and pushed.

Together, they got the calf up the defile. She sniffed around her child, and the bruised leg, and seemed satisfied. She eyed Justin suspiciously, got between Justin and her offspring, but somehow... somehow seemed less hostile now.

"Trying to gain their trust?" Derik asked. "I suspect that's a waste of time. They're just meat, right?"

"Not so sure," Justin said. "There are lots of creatures we can use for meat. I think that these things are pretty smart, and they've got a hell of a natural advantage. How about hunting? Ever think of that?"

"Hunting. On a big chameleon?" Derik liked it.

The mesa's top was hard and flat. The trail lay across it for nearly a hundred kilometers before dropping into lowlands again. Grendel country. They would skirt the river that carved that valley, then climb back again to the base camp Aaron had named Shangri-La. Exploring, Justin said aloud.

The northern wind whistled. Something hit his face. Cold rain, he thought, then corrected himself. Sleet.

"Flash storm," Evan said in his earphone. Justin could hear the burr of Evan's skeeter in the background. "Just like the ones up on Isenstine. Secondary camp is only five klicks. We're already setting up. You'll be here in an hour, I reckon."

"Sounds good." Prefab corrals, fire, chuck wagon. This was the life.

The daughters of God, two of them, settled on the mesa.

Old Grendel watched from below, from the shade of a deep forest, fifteen kilometers from open water. The weirds had veered away from the river. They never came very close to open water.

Yet they needed water. A tiny rivulet trickled from the heights. It wouldn't cool Old Grendel on the naked rock slopes; but there would be water on the mesa, enough if she was careful. She sniffed snow on the wind.

Many nights ago the weirds had come down from their heights. Two or three tens of them had surrounded and killed one of Old Grendel's daughters. If those were prey, they didn't know it yet.

The river crabs were long gone, the local hunter-climbers had learned to ignore her, and Old Grendel was hungry. If she couldn't find prey in a day or so, she would have to attack the weirds.

They were an awkward long way away, but the hill above them showed trees; it would likely have water, and cover for Old Grendel. Water or no, with the coming snow to cool her she could get above them. It looked like she could hit and run. Creep close. Seek out a loner. Go on speed, hook the loner with her tail, drag her to the cliff and let her roll while Old Grendel moved straight down into the stream.

Then watch. No need to go back right away. Would the loner call for help? Would she live long enough to do that? Would help come? What would they do? She was as interested in that as in a quick meal.

Weirds. The more she saw, the less she knew. The little flyers were not daughters of God. Rigid creatures with wings so fast they blurred to invisibility, they resembled the ubiquitous pattern of the Avalon crab, though God looked nothing like that at all. God was slow and wingless. She floated like a bubble, a bubble that changed its appearance, attempting to hide itself like a puzzle beast. God couldn't move without the little flyers to push. God had a true daughter, a smaller floating thing pushed by one little flyer.

There was cooperation here, as among beaver grendels and other species too. Was it possible that God had tamed, enslaved her own parasites?

And the little prey? The weirds rode God's little flying symbiotes like an infestation. Old Grendel knew about symbiotes and parasites. Some tiny life forms would weaken or kill a creature; some would make it stronger. She had wondered if there was a symbiote that would open a grendel's mind... but it would be too small to see.

Old Grendel had followed the weirds hundreds of kilometers. She lost nothing in so doing. The river-laced meadows that had been her kingdom for most of her life were one vast swamp now. For two years, ever since the sunlight took on that spooky tinge, the rainfall had been increasing. The dammed lakes overflowed; water covered the flats. Old Grendel had left the southland to her daughters, and good luck to them. She would follow the weirds, upstream.

One branch of the river came near their primary nest, the heights where God customarily dwelt. The main river branch ran here, where Little God carried supplies that fed the weirds.

From the moment her mind opened. Old Grendel had known how much more there was to know. There was this about the weirds: no other grendel, no other kind of grendel had studied them like she had. When Old Grendel understood the weirds, they would be her prey alone.

The wind had picked up, and was already blowing the first small flakes their way. The chill was noticeable despite their cheery campfire. "Chamels should be all right." Chaka had slipped into a fur-lined jacket. "We've observed them as high as ten thousand feet, and at temperatures ten degrees lower than anything we're likely to get tonight."

"Good." Justin said, "There was something about that calf, and the way it looked at me. I'd never seen that in one of them before."

"Well? What do you think?"

"I think that there was somebody home. Dog-smart, maybe. I don't know. I liked it. And the way the mother nipped at me, and then seemed to understand what I was doing. I can't help the feeling that it was aware. A little. More than those males we had back at Camelot."

Skeeters had whirled in and out for the last hour. Supplies arrived from Shangri-La. All but a dozen of the herders took the opportunity to go back to the base camp for a shower and a night's sleep.

Jessica came into the firelight with her arm around Aaron. The giant's laughter boomed loudly enough to fill the entire territory. He had won. The First had lost. He sat at the fireside, and lifted his voice against the driving snow. His voice was baritone, and easily penetrated the driving wind:

"In fourteen hundred ninety-two

This gob from old I-taly

Was wan'dring through the streets of Spain

A-selling hot tamal-e... "

Everybody knew the words, and began to sing along with the refrain:

"He knew the world was round-o

His beard hung to the ground-o,

That navigating, copulating,

Son-of-a-bitch Colombo... "

Justin was quiet, but Jessica caught his eye. They shared a smile, and at her urging, he joined in.

"He met the Queen of Spain and said:

Just give me ships and cargo