Beowulf's Children

"Well, he was New Guinea stock. I know that... I peeked. But he's huge at least partially because his parents received such fine nutrition. His father had a literary scholarship to Harvard. One of the cultural outreach programs. His mother was from Papua—a first-generation immigrant, and a national-caliber ru

"I think so..." Cadma

"Most of the Bottle Babies are of northern European stock. A thousand generations of nuclear family. Which they were denied here on Avalon. And Little Chaka, who has the best resistance to that particular loneliness, had in some ways the most support."

"So you're saying he's not like the rest of them?"

"It's possible. He seems to have come out pretty well, don't you think?"

Cadma

"Denzel Washington." They both exploded with laughter. When they died down again, the first morning shadows streaked the ground outside. "When I was in college, it was quite fashionable to take African names. Who the hell knows about my real ancestry? It's all too mixed up. So I just latched on to a Zulu name, and ran with it. And I was young enough to choose the name of a warrior king."

Cadma

The mess hall door opened, and Aaron and Little Chaka came in. Aaron paused in the doorway. The sky outside was just light enough to provide a background, and Aaron seemed huge, intimidatingly large. That was certainly an illusion, but...

Cadma

Jessica came in behind Aaron. "Hi, Dad."

"Thanks for bringing us coffee," Aaron said. "Any left in the pot?"

"Sure," Cadma

"We thought we'd show you around," Aaron said. "There's a grendel lake down at the river forks thirty klicks south of here. It looks like the grendels cooperate in maintaining dams. Like Earth beavers."

"I would certainly like to see that," Big Chaka said. "I want to give my report on the snow grendels—"

"Yeah, what did you find?" Aaron asked. "We paid high for that head."

"I believe my findings are significant," Big Chaka said. "Possibly even worth that price. But I would like to observe the beaver dam before I draw my final conclusions. Has anyone taken water samples from that 'beaver's lake?"

"No, that would be dangerous," Little Chaka said. "Is it important?"

"It may be."

"Well, we can try," Little Chaka said. "But first you should see them. They'll be most active just about lunchtime. We'll go look, and you can give your lecture at di

"Good."

Cadma

She may not want to spend the day in a skeeter looking at grendels."

"That's all right," Aaron said. "There's lots around here to look at. But that dam is in grendel country, rules say to take two skeeters. Jess, how about you and Justin go as backup for the Chakas. Cadma

"Lake?" Cadma

"About ten kilometers," Aaron said. "Don't worry, it's not a grendel lake."

"We thought that about half the lakes on Camelot Island," Big Chaka said. "But there was always a grendel. Always."

"Not here, though," Little Chaka said. "Guaranteed. No grendel, no samlon, and plenty of other wildlife around the lake. Snouters. And some spider devils." He gri

"They certainly died," Big Chaka said. "Something missing in the artificial ecology we set up for them. Possibly we didn't give them enough meat, or the wrong kind. We'll have to set up cameras to observe them in the wild."

"Sure," Little Chaka said. "One of these days."

"You don't sound very interested."

Little Chaka shrugged. "Dad, there's so much to learn here, and those are just bigger editions of the clothesline Joeys we have back at Eden Oasis. We've watched those for years."

Jessica came over. "The ones at Eden are interesting, though. Their mating rituals are a little odd—I wonder if these do the same things?"

"Carnivorous Joeys?" Cadma

"Well, they're related to Joeys," Big Chaka said. "Some structural differences, but yes, they're Joeys."

Jessica nodded. "The ones at Eden use those webs to catch the local equivalent of bees and insects. And birdles. I've seen them catch birdles."

"But these are larger and go after bigger prey," Aaron said. "Their bite is poisonous."

"Not quite," Big Chaka said. "That turned out to be a symbiotic bacterium that lives in their mouths."

"I wonder if they're related to the bear?" Little Chaka said.

"Bears? Son, you haven't told me about bears."

"We've never seen one, Dad. Not up close. Cassandra caught a film of a herd of chamels kicking a critter that was maybe a meter and half long, but it was in the forest and we didn't see the end of the fight. We think they killed it."

"It was about the size of an Earth black bear, so we called it a bear," Jessica said. "But they must be rare. We've never found one."

"They can't be all that rare," Aaron said. "They influenced the behavior patterns of the chamels. But we sure can't find one anywhere."

"Little herbivorous Joeys," Big Chaka mused. "On Camelot and on the mainland. Then at Eden there are larger clothesline Joeys that string out sticky ropes and catch bees and birdles to eat. Here there are even larger spider devil Joeys that can eat a small snouter. And now there's a bear? Is it related to the Joeys too?"

Little Chaka shrugged. "No data. Look, we've got a couple of hours before we go look at the beavers. Let us show you around here after breakfast."

Old Grendel was as close as she could come to happiness. Contentment, perhaps. She had found the water she sought, a pool fed by water that flowed down from the mountains. Cold water. Water that came from the ground. She dove in, and swam against the water, down into a passageway just wide enough for her thickness.

As she wound through subterranean passages, through places she hadn't been since she was a swimmer, she had to conserve her energy. There was no light here, and little heat.

There was danger above, and the danger grew stronger daily. She could smell the changes, and if she didn't respond to them, she was lost. She had lived long enough to have a vague abstract sense of her own mortality. She did not want to die. In the back of her mind, she perceived how this might be prevented.

If only she could make contact.

She swam until there was no air left in her lungs. In agony, she continued. The pain in her lungs eased, became something else, a familiar sensation usually perceived as rage and terror.

There was another use for speed, one that the weirds had not dreamed of. It was an oxygenator, and her body could use speed where there was no air. It enabled her to stay underwater longer than the weirds would believe possible.

She glided. There was no light, but she could smell the currents, feel the water flow from above her, and move through the caverns toward her destination. There were times when rock squeezed her hard, but Old Grendel was a lean one, and she could contract her body into a compact missile.