The Leagacy of Heorot

The wire grid rectangle of their heater sputtered with flame as Cadma

He unsnapped his rifle case and lifted free his most prized possession.

It was a Webley semiautomatic express rifle. Its high-energy, mushrooming .44 slugs delivered a staggering load of hydrostatic shock. The Webley had been thoroughly checked out back at the camp, but he reexamined it now. Cadma

He adjusted his infrared goggles and switched them on, peering at Ernst. The big German was a blotch of orangish light in the middle of a blue field. When Ernst moved, the warm air trailing him left an ocher trace image.

Cadma

Ernst folded his legs and sat, long face quiet.

"And we are just about ready," Cadma

Muscle memory. Tactile as opposed to visual or auditory cues. He works well with his hands. He remembers. Surely Rachel can work out some kind of occupational therapy for Ernst based on manual skills...

Their heater died. Ernst leaned his rifle against the thorn barrier and reached around into his backpack for a new tubular cartridge of jellied fuel. He slid it into the heater, and tiny blue flames sprang to life. The flare of light from the goggles was a shade too bright. Cadma

There was nothing left to do but wait.

Cadma

I Blas Gogerddan heb dy dad

Fy mab erglyw fy llef

Dos yn dy ol i faes y gad

Ac ymladd gydag ef.

Dy fam wyf fi a gwell gan fam

It golli'th waed fel dwfr

Neu agor drws i gorff y dewr

Na derbyn bachgen llwfr...

He sang in a soft, unmelodic tone. As he continued, the rust flaked off his vocal chords, and he began to find notes with something other than shotgun precision.

"Cad-man. What you sing? Don't know those words."

"Oh, oh—damn, I'm sorry. The song's in Old Welsh, Ernst. My grandfather taught it to me when I was a pup. Guess I've never quite forgotten it. A man named Geiriog scribbled it down, and Granddad liked it." Cadma

He leaned back against his bedroll and closed his eyes. "It takes place during a great battle, when one of the warriors bolts and tries to hide behind his mother's skirts. She's not exactly a peacemonger. The best I ever translated the song went:

Into the hall-alone, my son?

Now hear your mother's prayer.

Go back onto the battlefield

And aid your father there.

I'd far prefer your blood be spilled

Like water on the ground

Or have you in your shroud arrayed

Than as a coward found.

Go thou into the hall and see

The portraits of your sires.

The eyes of each and every one

Alight with raging fires.

Not mine the son who would disgrace

His family's name and home.

"Kiss me, my mother dear," he said,

She did, and he was gone.

He has come back unto the door,

No longer does he live.

His mother cries, "My son, my son!

Oh God, can you forgive?"

Then comes an answer from the wall,

"While rivers run through Wales

Far better is the hero's death

Than life when courage fails..."

The silence following the song was total, and it took a few moments for Cadma

That's what a man is made of...

"Do you like that?" he asked, almost shyly.

"I like, Cad. I like song. You teach it to Ernst. Soon."

An unstrained chuckle bubbled up through the embarrassment, as Cadma

He stared into the heater. It was a poor substitute for a campfire, and he felt vaguely discontented. He made a fist, examining it in the dim light. His skin was the same tough, weathered hide it had been since his late twenties. A faint smile: Let's have a big hand for the oldest, strongest fingers on Avalon.

Absently he caressed the stock of the rifle, ru

Ernst reached out with one large hand and gripped Cadma

Together they waited.

Relationships.

There is a relationship between hunters, between hunter and prey, between a hunter and his own body, his aches and pains and fears. Between a hunter and time itself.

They mingle, this complex set of interrelationships which varies in every case, and within a single hunt varies from instant to instant.

But whatever the variables, there is one thing that remains constant:

There comes a moment in which time ceases to have meaning, when aches and pains and fears dissolve into insignificance. When friendship or antagonism, hesitation or eagerness all meld together to create an instant of pure feeling, clear intention, when the observed and the observer are one. At this moment the mixture of awareness and involvement is like a supersaturated solution: one vibration, one degree's variance of temperature triggers irrevocable change, a shockingly abrupt crystallization of potentials.

Cadma

Waiting without wanting. Preparedness without hope. Empty vessels, delicate balances awaiting a trigger.

Joshua the calf strained at his tether, pulling toward the northern edge of the plateau. He was staring out into the darkness to the south, eyes huge and shiny, all sound stuck in his throat like a chunk of frozen grass. He reminded Cadma