Beowulf's Children

She considered. She said, "Yes."

Chapter 26

DEMONS

No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.

SIGMUND FREUD, Complete Psychological Works

Cadma

Cadma

"Years," she said quietly. "Almost a century now."

He didn't turn to look at her.

"None of us have really been ourselves since we left Earth, If we didn't have hibernation instability, we worried because we might. And if we managed to convince ourselves that we didn't, then we had to worry about everyone else. We had to change the entire design of the colony to provide failsafe mechanisms. Backups to backups, in case somebody, somewhere ended up with an ice crystal we didn't count on."

"We did a good job," Cadma

"And then the children were growing up," she continued. She was playing with a desk hologram. It rotated in front of her, a puzzle consisting of a blue globe and wires and a box of sticks. When she touched a piece it flashed. When she moved her finger to another location, the piece moved with her. She made a mistake, and the blue globe fell to the ground and shattered. It re-formed in the air above the desk, and she continued.

"We passed our fears to our children. But they were ours, not theirs."

"Not all of them," Cadma

"The nightmares?"

He nodded. "We never talk about them, not really, but the children know that their parents wake up screaming. They know."

"But you're not dreaming of grendels now, are you?"

A professional question, and he answered as a patient.

"No. I dream of the night up on that dirigible. When Toshiro climbed up behind me. When I turned, and fired." His eyes were tired, and his voice. He felt as old as God. "But I dream Toshiro is a grendel. He's about to eat Ernst. Nobody sees it but me."

"They had no right to take the dirigible."

"Well, no, but by their lights they did, Rachael. They could even believe they had a duty. We denied them the right. And we had no justification for that. Not really. They are what we used to be!" He threw his head back and laughed bitterly. "God, I remember what it was to be their age. Young and dumb and full of cum. Ready for anything, and eager to handle it. That was what we were! What we all were! And what did we turn them into? Pranksters. Carving buttocks onto ice cliffs. Hacking into Cassandra. Flare-surfing off the coast. We gave them no useful place to put their courage. We called them cowards and weaklings. And they know it's something wrong with us."

"Cadma

He spun. "Did you see the attack on the mesa? Did you see Cassandra's playback? Six grendels. Six adult grendels, and the kids took them. One boy died. One grendel got away. Completely hostile weather conditions, a new attack pattern. One loss." The pride in his voice was something that she hadn't heard in him since the night on the dirigible, and she let him go on.

"Those are our children. They can take that land. Not us. We deserve to stay here. And they had to show us. They had to force the issue, because God knows that we never would have."

She had managed to extract a stick from the blue ball, and it was delicately balanced. So far so good...

"What did you want to talk about, Cadma

"Aaron." He spoke the two syllables flatly. "Aaron bothers me."

"Aaron," she said. The blue ball fell and cracked. A chick emerged, grew to adulthood, flew to the floating nest of sticks and laid a blue egg.

Rachael asked, "Why?"

"I talked with Justin about that before they left. I've talked to everyone that I could, except you. And now I have to do that. Something is wrong. He was the author of a situation."

"Yes?"

"When he took Robor, there was no way for him to lose. I don't mean lose the dirigible, I mean... he thought more deeply into this than any of us did, understood in advance every move that we could make, and probably had a way to counter it. At the end half of humankind would be on the mainland, and all under his command."

"And you're feeling intimidated?"

Cadma

Rachael sat back. The blue ball slipped free of its final constraint, and spun happily in the air before her.

"Cadma

"I'm not saying. I'm asking. Is there something wrong with Aaron?"

"Your wife thinks so."

"And Joe and Linda did," Cadma

"No." A long pause. "What is it you suspect?"

"I keep wondering if there might not be some co

"You're worried about some supersociopathic patterns?"

"Yes," he said, and his voice sounded small, even to him.

She was studying him, he thought. Afraid of him. "Cadma

"Of course."

"Couldn't Aaron see it that way?"

He frowned. "I suppose. You know, I never thought about it that way."

"We don't call you a sociopath just because you're capable of taking casualties to further a cause."

"You don't now," Cadma

"Cadma

His smile was thin, and he spoke each word slowly and distinctly.

"You've kept records on every one of us. From the very begi

"Cadma

He brought his face closer to hers. His expression of cynical amusement hadn't changed. "And you decided I was crazy. Right there in the clinic, you staked me out for the grendel."

"We didn't know about grendels!"

"But I did, and I told you."

"Cadma

"Yeah. And I can never, will never forget that night." He straightened and smiled, this time more genuine, but still very distant. "Want to talk about nightmares?" He sat carefully, his eyes never leaving hers. "All right, let's talk nightmares. I'm the only one on this planet who has ever come face-to-face with one of those things and survived. Close enough to kiss it. Close enough to have all the time I needed to imagine it tearing me apart. I have dreamed of it killing and eating me ten thousand times. Unless I completely overestimate you, you've talked to Sylvia and Mary A

Rachael sat pointedly silent.

"I want the files on Aaron."

"For what purpose?"

"I don't know, exactly. Look, we both know he'll do nearly anything—maybe not nearly—to reach his goals. So I want to know more about what those goals are. What's he really up to?"

She shrugged. "You're the security chief. Tell Cassandra it's an emergency."

"I thought of that," Cadma