Beowulf's Children

Fire burned within her, a slow blaze of complete exhaustion. She had been underwater for almost twenty minutes now, crawling and swimming continuously, and moving steadily up and up. Moving. She knew that she might be crawling to her death, but she was driven to know more. The risks she took now might change everything. The weirds were intruders in a situation unchanged since the begi

Her fear was fading now... and when her fear was quite gone, she would be dead. She understood that she was nearing the end of all limits, that only few seconds remained... and then...

Light above her. She moved more quickly now, holding on to the last fading traces of her fear. She plunged up into the light, up into the wavery oval, through the water, out into the air, great lungs like bellows, gulping and expanding. Life was hers once again, and she might yet cheat the great mother, death.

Time raved at her back, but she could do nothing now but breathe.

There was no speed left in her. She couldn't fight a snouter, now.

Not long after dawn, they walked northwest from Shangri-La.

A pufftree shook violently as they approached the strip of forest.

Justin looked for what had done that, but there was nothing to be seen.

Shangri-La was built on a flat area. To the east the land fell away to the river and grendel country. North and west were mountains. A thin strip of forest ran along the base of the mountains. The trees grew like green puffballs of varying size, shells of branches and orange-veined leaves, hollow inside. They'd spaced themselves, leaving room for man-sized creatures to squeeze between.

"Every pufftree is a little ecology," Little Chaka said. "Each one a little different. It's better to have armor, but if you probe with a stick first you can avoid getting bitten. There's a vicious little Joey that likes to lurk in here, and where the Joeys didn't get to—Here, Dad—" He bent over one of the smaller trees and pulled the branches apart with his hands. Holding the hole open with his elbows, he poked his stick and flash inside, blocking the opening with his body.

"Nothing," he said.

Katya had a bigger tree open. She was ready to dodge away, but—"Nothing big. I can smell something ranker than Joeys. We scared them away."

Their nice little walk had turned into a mob scene. Aaron, Carlos, Big Chaka, Little Chaka, Jessica, Sylvia, Katya... Justin met his stepfather's grimace with a helpless grin. Any living thing would flee the pounding of feet.

Little Chaka was investigating another pufftree. He said, "I was going to say, don't squeeze between two trees unless you've looked inside. We'd better do that anyway. It's a symbiosis. The way the trees space themselves, they can force big animals into range of the things that live inside. I've found a carnivore Joey and two kinds of nesting birdles, both vicious—Hey!" His stick poked and probed as if he were fencing, there in the dark inside the puffball. He retreated, and a big flying-saucer crab buzzed out after him; and another; three, four. Chaka was tapping them lightly, knocking each off balance as it came near, and the birdles were furious. Suddenly they all veered off and away, downhill.

Big Chaka was sitting against a puffball, laughing. It was clear he didn't have the strength for anything else. Sylvia and Katya were snerkling behind their hands, and Cadma

Uphill from the fringe of pufftree forest was rock and low scrubby bush like things with thorns. This was serious climbing. Cadma

They'd gone less than two kilometers in the hour since they left the pufftrees.

Thirty meters away, Aaron said, "Ouch!"

"What's going on?"

"Something bit me." Aaron hopped to his feet, and slapped his chest. "Three of the darned things," he said. "Not a sting, a bite." Something that looked like a tiny crab or a big flea lay crushed on the ground. A second crawled away slowly.

Carlos picked the crushed life form up on the end of a foot-long twig. Enough of its insides bulged out that it adhered to the twig easily. It was thumb sized, with a sharp-looking pair of mandibles. Suddenly, its shell unfolded, and crumpled wings began to blur the air.

"Whoa!" Carlos said. The little wings beat so violently that the whole twig shook. The twig jerked and trembled, and then was quiet.

Cadma

"Energetic, too," Dr. Mubutu said. "It looks a lot like speed, doesn't it?"

The others gathered around. "Where did you find this?" Cadma

"Where were you sitting?"

They looked at a patch of ground near Aaron's feet, and found no more of the little creatures.

From a few feet away Carlos called, "Over here!"

He poked under a bush dotted with light purple, somewhat fleshy flowers that reminded him of orchids. Several of the insect-like creatures hovered around the blossoms like hummingbirds.

"Nectar?" Katya asked.

"Nope. Something stinks."

They brushed blossoms aside, and uncovered the decomposed body of a creature the size of a woodchuck. It seethed with little crabs.

"Jesus," Cadma

"Bite like a bitch," Aaron said.

Sylvia took out her first-aid kit. "Let me see."

"It's just—"

"Let me see," she said.

"Yes, ma'am." Aaron unfastened his shirt.

Sylvia swabbed the wounds clean, then poured on peroxide. It foamed as if it would eat him alive. "There. It looks clean enough but—Dr. Mubutu, may I borrow your portable unit?"

Little Chaka was carrying for both Chakas. He shrugged off his backpack and unzipped it, pulling out a metallic boxy contraption as big as both his hands: a portable analyzer. Sylvia took the twig from Cadma

Blam.

The miniature unit jarred in her hand. Seams popped.

They all jumped. Then Big Chaka quickly leaned forward and sniffed.

Black smoke rose from the ruined analyzer.

"Dear God," Sylvia said shakily. "What was that all about?"

The device's shattered components barely clung together. Carlos said, "Pranksters?"

For a moment, the glade crackled with tension.

"Pranksters?" Sylvia demanded, still shaken. "What idiot would sabotage your analyzer?"

"Calm," Carlos said. "I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious. I see that Dr. Mubutu understands."

Big Chaka nodded. He turned to Cadma

"Bang?"

"We need to find another of these things. Don't disturb those on the corpses. We may not want to irritate them."

They had the crushed bug on the end of a stick. Justin and Katya had built a small, busy fire of sticks and bits of moss. Chaka Mubutu held the bug out over the fire. Its legs curled, its shell peeled up and—

Blam.

The sharp sound was as loud as a firecracker, and about as powerful.