Beowulf's Children

The tip of the stick flew into bits, and they jumped back a foot or two.

"Freeze me blind," Cadma

Dr. Mubutu spoke gravely. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I think that we can state, officially and for the record, that we have discovered a second life-form on this planet that uses speed."

"What exactly does that mean?" Sylvia asked.

"I want to think on it before I say." Big Chaka looked thoughtful. "We have a lot to talk about tonight when I give my report," he said. "But now I want to see the beavers."

Carlos looked thoughtfully eastward. "I think I will follow those bees," he said. "Katya can show me the beavers another time."

Chapter 32

THE BEAVERS

Bees accomplish nothing save as they work together, and neither do men.

ELBERT HUBBARD

"So," Carlos said, climbing steadily. Dios mio—he was glad for the regular fitness sessions with Cadma

Katya laughed, and held a branch aside for her father. She paused, stopping to search for the trace of a trail. She held her hand up, and whispered, "Stop. Listen."

He did, and heard the sounds of wind in the trees, and a far-off animal burr. And something else.

An insect sound. A slight buzzing.

"Look," she said. Another dead animal lay before them, this one picked to the bone. A couple of the weird bee-crabs picked over the bones. She whispered into her collar. "Cassandra, We have a visual bee sighting. Small carcass. Six or seven bugs."

"Acknowledged."

She wiped her forehead with her banda

"Prying," Carlos said distinctly. "I was prying."

"Yes. Well, I think that we're getting along fine. We've had some genuine moments here. I like what's happening." She smiled at her father shrewdly. "Why? Why are you so concerned about me? You've done quite well all these years, and you've never had a real relationship."

"None permanent, but some were very intense."

"But none permanent. Bobbie?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I just never got that close again. Parlor psychoanalysis might say that I don't think I'm worthy."

"And you think that I should? Isn't that a bit of a double standard?"

"You're worthy."

"Well, hey," Katya said, and blushed. She'd been watching the bees come and go from the carcass. Now she pointed. "The nest must be over there, beyond that ridge. Shall we go look?"

Cadma

They had climbed high enough above the forest that he could see over it and down into Shangri-La, see and feel the pulse of life within. It reminded him of a time long before, when he had looked down on Avalon Town. That was in the colony's early days. He was a younger man. A stronger man. A man with far fewer doubts and aches. He was with his best friends, Ernst Cohen and Sylvia Faulkner.

She was pregnant then, pregnant with Justin. She had struggled to keep up. Not admitting her weakness, the...

Very real differences between men and women.

He and Ernst. How much he had loved Ernst. And how much of that love was the sort of love you feel for a faithful animal? One who never questions, never rebels, who follows you without question? Dr. Ernst with ice on his mind. Dr. Ernst, once one of the most brilliant humans alive, and now with the mind of a twelve-year-old. If that.

How much is our humanity measured in terms of our relationships? Every man feels more... human in the presence of a faithful animal. Or slave?

God. He hated these thoughts. And here was Aaron, so much like Ernst had been. Strong. And tall. And brilliant. But Aaron had his mind. All of his mind.

What he had never really had was a family.

If there were problems in that young head, well, for God's sake! The kid was only nineteen years old. What would he be doing if he were on Earth? In his second year of college? Perhaps a grad student. Or maybe he would have taken a year or two off and backpacked through Europe. Or spent a year on an engineering scholarship on one of the energy satellites?

Maybe he would have lucked out. The lunar colony. Or maybe he would have done what Cadma

But no Terrestrial option would have placed Aaron in the kind of situation he faced on Avalon. He was making decisions that might well influence the whole future of humanity, here, a thousand billion miles from the cradle of mankind. Too much stress. Too much isolation. Too little support.

It was his job to reach out to Aaron. Perhaps it wasn't too late to be friends. He had to try.

Just after local noon Justin and Jessica flew barely thirty meters above the river and followed it south toward the fork. It was an old river with many twists and turns, but it ran fairly straight here as it fell four hundred meters in less than twenty klicks. Tau Ceti burned brightly through thin high clouds, and Justin watched Skeeter l's shadow as it was overtaken by Little Chaka's craft. He resisted the urge to turn their trip into a race: Big Chaka was Skeeter IV' s passenger, and Big Chaka hated speed.

Their radio crackled. "How close have you been?" Big Chaka asked.

"We've scouted by air many times," Jessica answered. "Haven't had time to organize a trip on foot. That's grendel country, and we try to stay out, because the only way we know to deal with a grendel is to flush it out and shoot it."

"And that tends to disrupt the ecology," Justin said. "Aaron doesn't like that."

"Nor should he," Chaka said.

"Yeah. Anyway, this is a genuine Avalon Surprise. We seem to find a new one every week."

They were approaching the fork where two rivers combined to become the big river that ran south past Deadwood and on to the sea. They turned to follow the northwest branch, and just beyond the fork Little Chaka slowed and hovered his skeeter. They were above a wide rough oval of blue water. At the far downstream end the hills on either side of the stream came together to form a narrows. A line of boulders stood in the water there, and behind the boulders a matted webbing of tree trunks and branches formed a dam. Broad, powerful dark shapes swam in the lake.

Justin held his breath. This was something that they hadn't even videoed for Cassandra. Little Chaka wanted it as a surprise for his father. There was a long pause. Skeeter IV hovered only twenty meters or so above the water. The water surface rippled in waves. A broad, powerful shape glared up at them. Its oddly flattened body reminded Justin of an aquatic ankylosaurus. Broad, powerful tail, triangular head. He wondered if it had feet, or flippers. One thing was certain: despite the surface differences, they were looking at a variety of grendel.

"Like a beaver dam," Big Chaka finally said, wonderingly. "It's beautiful."

Jessica and Justin exchanged smiles. "Have you ever actually seen one.

Dr. Mubutu?" she asked.

"You bet. In Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I grew up."

"And there—" Little Chaka said. "Do you see?"

"I sure do, son." Big Chaka's voice held deep contentment, as if he were listening to a new music composition, or enjoying a good meal. "Two grendels are pushing that log into place, and another is watching us watch them. Take us closer to that spillway, please. The one on our right."