Beowulf's Children

"Excuse me?"

Cadma

"We haven't been man and wife since the day Toshiro died. She just pushed me toward Sylvia."

He paused, as if waiting for Rachael to say something. The silence stretched almost another minute.

"I thought once... that what I wanted was Sylvia. But not like this. Mary A

"And you think you can help her?"

He nodded.

"By showing her she was right," Rachael suggested. "Aaron is a monster, and only she knew."

Cadma

"Ruth's pregnant."

"You've talked to her? Good. I worried about... that. How long?"

"Two months, she thinks. Cadma

Cadma

Rachael Moskowitz sat behind her desk.

Her body felt tired, but her mind was very much alive.

Of all the Earth Born who had been frozen at Hecate Town on the Earth's Moon, stacked aboard Geographic, thawed and refrozen for tasks aboard Geographic during their trip across ten light-years and two hundred years of time, and finally thawed for the last time on Avalon's alien soil... only Rachael Moskowitz knew herself undamaged. Only Rachael could know that. And that was both a blessing and a curse.

She wasn't certain about Cadma

"Cassandra," she said. "Aaron Tragon. Psychological evaluation file."

Cadma

Now it was vines and crops, pens for those animals of Earth and Avalon that could exist side by side. The mountain stream brought ice-cold water into their home, and nurtured their fields. Then it joined the Miskatonic, to bring life to the entire valley.

He spiraled the skeeter down to the landing pad with hardly a bump. Sylvia joined him at the pad, her golden hair flowing behind her. She looked like an angel.

She kissed him lightly. Before Cadma

He nodded. He slipped his arm around her waist, and they walked into the house together, through the fragrant living room.

In the center of the house was the common bathroom, with the big triangular tub and the steam-shower.

Once upon a time he might have had daydreams... two women that he loved, both married to him... it was easy to let erotic fantasies run wild. But it had never really worked out like that.

In the second and third year of their three-way relationship, there had been some gentle explorations of the sensual potential. Massaging, and group dancing, and even sleeping three in a bed on cold nights. But it became clear that this was happening out of Mary A

There were more occasions, once on Christmas, and once on his fiftieth birthday, when he found himself bedded by both of his beloved. But they were tolerating each other's presence; there was no genuine joy in the intimacy. And knowing that Mary A

The three of them kept separate bedrooms, and there was a gentle ebb and flow of interest between them. He would visit their rooms, or they his, and the spontaneity of it consisted of offerings and acceptance or rejection earlier in the day. That situation had continued for years.

Within the last four months, Mary A

Sylvia ran her fingers through Cadma

She was close to him, the slowly ebbing heat of her still warming him, as it always did. In every way she was a comfort. "I'm not sure," he said.

"Right here." She brushed it, and then blew a little warm air along it, ruffling his hair. "I can't imagine why I never saw it before... "

"There's a first time for everything. That one is a memento from Zimbabwe. Shrapnel. My hair hid it. Until recently."

She sighed and cuddled closer. "Oh well, the women in my family go for that increasingly high-forehead look."

"Hah hah."

"No... really. You lucked out."

They were quiet then again. The twin moons were both high, and their, light silvered the bedposts.

"What did Rachael have to say?"

"She'll look." He traced a line along Sylvia's neck, and then clasped her shoulder firmly. He kissed it. "I wanted to thank you for how you've been with... Mary A

She pooh-poohed him. "For what? I haven't done anything."

"I know that you look at it that way. That's one of the reasons that I love you."

"Just one of them, though."

"Just one."

They lay quietly together, and listened to the sound of the Amazon, and the cooing of the Joeys. Clouds drifting in from the east. Later, they would obscure the moon, but not now.

"Are you thinking about the kids?"

He nodded his head. "And about myself. About who I was, when I started this trip."

"The journey here?" she said, knowing that wasn't what he meant.

"No. The whole thing. Is that a sign of getting old?"

"What?"

He laughed at himself. "Not asking complete questions. Wishing that there was someone who could read your mind."

"No, that's infantile behavior." She bit his chest lightly, nibbling with sharp teeth.

"Well, that's a relief."

"I'll bet."

"What I meant was that I think back over my life. Everyone I know is dead, or here on Avalon. Ghosts."

"It doesn't help that they've never contacted us," she said.

"Never. Not for eighteen years. Christ. What happened back there?"

"I can feed the files in. Want to see them?"

"Christ. It's been so long. Sure. Go ahead."

Cadma

It was said that Cassandra should be allowed to see everything at all times, that her security was absolute. Cadma

"Please play back the most recent communique from Earth."

"Loading now, Cadma

The wall in front of them dissolved.

There was a blast of music, and then a sound of laughter. The words A MESSAGE FROM EARTH floated there in neon, garish red.

And there followed a kaleidoscope of images:

Art exhibits in Milan. Starvation in Beirut. The inauguration of the United Nations Presidium. Images of sports. A string of faces, name-dropping at grendel speed. A play with a London background. Some chitchat from the outer-system colonies.

Each of these could be expanded upon and investigated, and they had been, endlessly. The play was detective fiction with missing clues. The inauguration might be fiction too, given that the Secretary-General was a dead ringer for the sixties' Richard Nixon. Ballet in lunar gravity had become a strange new sport. Even the familiar sports events followed complex new rules, never described. The sound bites were no more interesting than the photo opportunities.