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He watched, motionless, as she climbed onto the Minerva. With a final wave, she disappeared into the airlock.
That was that. It was almost all done. There was nothing left but to face the grendels.
Chapter 29
HOLDING
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves!
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, "Intimations of Immortality"
Geographic hadn't changed. Sylvia had seen it like this through a tiny window when the next-to-last shuttle brought her to board humankind's first interstellar spacecraft. Minervas had ridden the hull like limpets; they were gone now. The hull was scarred by decades of cosmic rays and micrometeorites. Skin tension had pulled the empty fuel tank to half its size. Yet this was still Geographic.
What was missing was inside. Electronics. Hydroponics, life support, computers, everything that could be used below had been sent down to Avalon. Geographic was no longer an interstellar spacecraft.
The air processors can't support more than thirty people for even seventy-two hours. We'll be breathing soup after fifty. "She's dead," Sylvia said.
"Not dead. Sleeping," Rachel said.
"Bloody right." Zack was grim. "We'll all live to take her to the planets—"
"Yeah, sure—"
"You are damned right, ‘Yeah, sure!'" Rachel said. "What is this?
Giving up already?"
"No," Sylvia said. "Little tired."
"We're still Homo interstellar. The one and only, now. If we fail here, what lesson will we teach in Sol system? There won't be another ship for a thousand years. Maybe never. We came as conquerors. Some of us died as prey, but we ate the samlon too. When we get through this, we'll eat every samlon in the Avalon rivers while our crops are growing. Jesus, I wish I'd recorded that!"
Zack crowed, "Me, too! Rachel, with a speech like that I could get elected to anything!"
Stu fired the retros, and the Minerva began to pivot. The restful azure curve of Avalon passed the window. Tau Ceti crested the horizon, rose like a flaming gemstone. Talons of searing white light raked at the shadows.
Avalon was neutral. The children of Earth might die, they might thrive. Avalon would embrace their bones or their progeny with equal warmth.
Mist swirled below. Rain coming? Mary A
Tweedledum's cold nose thrust into her hand. "Good dog," she said absently.
The mist began to close again. For the moment everything was tranquil. The rapidly flowing Miskatonic, the neat lines of the Colony, the rows of unharvested crops. Off to the left, a Skeeter moved in curves. There was no trace of grendels. A picture-postcard day, for Avalon.
The wind rose again, a clean, brisk east wind. She treasured the feel of it, the way it wound around her, through her, dried and cooled the perspiration on her skin.
"Cadma
But he was down below her, with his own concerns. For now she was on her own.
Suddenly large hands were on her shoulders, massaging deeply. Waves of heat flooded away the fatigue and her knees sagged. She looked up over her shoulder.
"That's wonderful, Jerry. I'm yours."
"Dump Weyland and it's you and me, babe. Are you all right?"
"My body wants Jessica." She touched her breasts, the moist patches where she had leaked through the bra shields. "I think that she's crying for me. But we have six women up there who can make milk for her. She'll be all right."
"How about you?"
She gri
Even from below, the changes were apparent. The house had expanded. Thirteen of Hendrick's crew had deepened and widened the foundations and reinforced the roof and walls with quarter-inch metal sheeting. That had been a cheerful time, when they reshaped Cadma
Jerry and Mary A
When the main camp was overwhelmed, Cadma
The Bluff's cultivated rows of corn and hybrid melon cactus would never survive the onslaught. What was ready to be harvested was being gathered for storage. Perhaps when this was all over, they could begin again.
The Joes were restless in the cages. Twenty of them squealed and chattered, pressing their noses against the wire. They exuded sour, pungent fear musk. Something was coming from the south, a horror that had sent their ancestors fleeing into the mountains... but the Joes didn't know. It was the massive influx of strangers that had upset them.
Mary A
She examined his drawings, matched them to the plateau that was now below them. The ground was turned and broken into dark moist chunks, save for a pathway ten feet across. That path zigzagged through the field. "Mines—all through this crescent." She pointed. "Except for the path marked with stakes. The mines are live now."
Jerry took the sketches. "Too bad we don't have the fuel for a moat. That might have worked. These asterisks... right, that's the last line of defense, what Cadma
"Africa," Mary A
"Then it should work here," Jerry said. There was more hope than certainty in his voice. "The Zulus could think. Grendels react in fixed-circuits. Their attack patterns are genetically predetermined."
"Or mostly are." Mary A
"Dispersion," Jerry said gently. "Random action. Evolution works better if there's random elements. Most of the grendels will be wired up to do what's been successful in the past. Not all. We'll have to be careful of that." He continued studying the sketches. "Mine field blows them apart. Smell of blood gets them into that feeding-frenzy state. They'll attack each other as quickly as us. Only—"
"What, Jerry?"
"They're not supposed to reach the mines. They'd be ten kilometers uphill from their water source. The internal heat should kill them if they go on speed."
"They fooled us before."
"Yeah. Yeah. If they get here at all, they've fooled us again. Then what'll they do? Sniff out the mines? Learn to fly?" His bemused eyes suddenly focused on hers. "Oh, Mary A
Mary A
She flinched as Minerva One plunged from the sky to rock the valley with its scream. She turned and watched as the shuttle dipped beneath the lip of the plateau and disappeared. "How long?"
"For which? For the Colony? Maybe eight hours until the first fence goes. Then Cadma
"Pray to God. But it will, won't it?"
"I don't know. Honestly! We'll know if it does, because they won't need Minerva Two any more, and we'll see it take off."
She nodded.
"Mary A
"Yes?"
"Just in case... I just wanted you to know that Cadma
Liar. She smiled. "Come on, flatterbox. There's work to do, and not much time to do it in."