The Leagacy of Heorot

The bomb splashed into the dark water and vanished.

One. Two... Carlos counted half consciously... ten, eleven...

WHAM!

It came as a surprise, as it always did, no matter how hard Carlos tried to be ready for it. Water shot skyward, water and samlon and tiny crustaceans and mud.

Now wait...

For about four seconds.

The water exploded a second time as a quarter ton of scale and muscle burst from the surface of the water. The grendel came at an impossible speed over the lip of the sinkhole. It dashed over the flopping samlon that lay at the water's edge. Once it had a firm footing it paused, black bullet body glistening in the afternoon light. Its enormous saucer eyes glared at them—

Then fixed on Carlos. Directly upon him, and he froze in fear and impotent horror. We can't do it. We can't kill this thing...

"Shoot!" Cadma

Someone fired automatically. Then someone else.

Carlos screamed wordlessly. He forced himself to center the grendel in the sights of his weapon.

It was out of the hole, out and charging, moving at speeds that no animal could possibly reach, moving so fast that although time had slowed for Carlos, the creature had become faster, so fast that everything happened at once—and he squeezed the trigger.

Carlos's bolt exploded in the bushes behind the creature. Three other hits. The grendel screamed, then screamed again as it tried to come forward but tripped over its own severed foreleg.

Even then it did not die. It pulled itself up onto the rocks and took off like a good racing car, away from the pain, away from the foaming, smoking water and lancing spears, ru

As Cadma

"Down!" Cadma

Carlos was down. One second later there was an awesome roar, and after that he was showered by dirt and falling rock. Two big mud drops struck his cheek.

"All clear." Cadma

One more.

"Like I said, no brains," Hendrick said. "They'll always go for the river. Plant some mines and wait—"

"Would you have thought of that?"

"Aw, I don't know."

"Nor would I," Carlos said. "Or, let us say it another way. You or I, perhaps we would have thought of the mines, and perhaps we might have thought of whatever it is that we will need when those no longer work. Would you be willing to bet that either of us will think of that before Cadma

Hendrick stood and shook off the dirt from his coveralls. "Lighten up.

Let's go see what we got."

"Yes." Carlos stood. "Let us look at our grendel." His forefinger picked a speck of wet red flesh from his cheek. Not a raindrop.

There wasn't much. Craters in the dirt, splashes of bright crimson, torn alien flesh and bone, a flailing severed tail, ropy red strands splashed against the rocks. Carlos felt a grin pulling his face toward his ears.

Twenty hunters stood up from their positions around the clearing.

All twenty of them. They hadn't lost a single man, and the grendel was as dead as anything had ever been.

"Let's be sure," Cadma

Once again three men moved forward. One stood with flame-thrower ready as the others tossed the satchel charge into the pothole.

WHAM!

Mud, water and samlon showered the area. Carlos stood tensely—

And nothing happened.

"All clear," Cadma

"Damn straight, amigo." Carlos raised his weapon. "Damn straight!" The victory cry built deep inside him, rolling slowly up through his chest and out of his throat like the cry of a more primitive, more basic animal. The others joined in. Twenty hunters, screaming to the cloud-muddied sky, the glory and perfection of the moment co

They were alive, and the enemy was dead, its limbs and guts spread before them. Still the timeless scene seemed somehow incomplete. This was the time when the shamans, the ancient men and women of the village, should scramble out from behind the rocks, should examine lengths of twisted gut, stare into the scarred and lifeless eyes of a foe and speak of the signs within. Eat handfuls of jellied brain and sing of dark portents and bloody dreams.

Then again, he realized that he didn't need diviners to tell him the future.

Here, on Avalon, mankind was the future.

The howls from twenty throats rose to the sky...

Jerry sighed in disappointment as he examined the gutted corpse.

There was samlon meat in its belly. Jerry identified parts of three samlon, two nearly dissolved, one nearly fresh.

"Now we know. Nothing protects samlon," Jerry said. "No great secrets here at all."

"So why are they still around?" Sylvia wondered.

"They probably breed faster than hell, and there aren't enough grendels to wipe them out. That's good news. I guess. There is a limited number." Something attracted Jerry's attention, above the creature's staring eyes. He moved his tweezers under something, and lifted.

Half a meter of limp tubing rose from a cleft in the forehead.

"I'll be damned. Will you look at that? It's got a snorkel for breathing underwater. Here, you can see where the blood vessels fill to lift it. Just like a penis. Sorry."

Sylvia said, "We're out to kill them. You're starting to admire them."

"Know your enemy."

Once the technique was devised, the killings themselves became almost routine. The adrenaline was there, the sense of satisfaction, but experience had dampened the true danger, replacing it with caution and structure.

Because, after all was said and done, the grendels were mortal. Heirs to the same failings as any other creature of protoplasm. Vulnerable to the same techniques of killing that had worked on Earth, evolved through countless big-game hunts and wars since the begi

Flush the beast.

Cha

Bottleneck, and the killing ground.

The second killing team utilized an additional refinement. There was a chance, no matter how small, that a grendel might be hiding, outside the water hole, or might find an auxiliary exit and attack them from the rear. Transverse observers were posted, one for every two hunters facing the killing ground. Two hovering Skeeters watched from above, sca

There were only twelve sites on the entire island with a probability above 30 percent.

Twelve holes. One a day, with the Colony kept under full battle alarm the entire time.

They would not lose another human being.

It was good to have a system: Skeeter above, and a first pi

Where natural walls of rock were insufficient, walls of flame were utilized, flame throwers backed by men and women with rifles and spear guns.

And always, always, a conspicuous bolt-hole. Someplace where a pain-maddened creature could run to safety, to freedom...

To certain death.

So died the fourth grendel, blown in half and then roasted by jellied flame, dead even as it crawled for the depths of the Miskatonic, pitifully torn claws outstretched, eyes open and fixed. Yearning, perhaps, for one last taste of the samlon flashing within.

And the fifth, dead before it ever reached the minefield, Carlos's explosive spear in its brain. He took limited pride: he had been aiming at the heart.

And always, always, there was Cadma