Starborn and Godsons

by Larry Niven

  “Oh, Gramma . . Yes. It . . I felt like a man. Heroic. Like I could grab the world by the throat, and shake it. You know how you guys are always talking about how the younger generation lost its urge to explore?”

  “Yes . . .” Her face softened. “We love you, though.”

  He gestured dismissively, as if unaware of her discomfort. “It’s all wired together. Grendels. The universe is filled with things that almost killed us. You changed us, programmed us to fear them. Didn’t you think of what that would do? Yes. A lot of us lost our drive. It wasn’t laziness. It was fear. We’ve created a new set of possibilities.”

  “The armor?”

  He nodded. “But not just what it is. What it represents. Something happened when I faced that grendel. Something in the back of my head.” He tapped it. “I looked at it, face to face. I’m the only child of the Earthborn to do that and survive. Well . . except for Aaron.”

  “Aaron is insane,” Sylvia said. She said the words simply, without affect, as if the three words were a brick wall holding back an ocean of pain.

  “There’s that, yes. But I could feel myself. It was fear beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. But when that bastard couldn’t get to me . . when it screamed when I hit it . . .”

  He smiled. And in that smile were warm, lethal memories.

  “And you remembered you were a human being?”

  “More than that. But that, too. I remembered that a human being isn’t just his body. Our bodies are weak. I’m my tools. I’m the knowledge we pass from generation to generation. I am every human being who ever strove and fought and learned and then taught his tribe what he learned. I’m my grandfather.”

  “Yes, you are. I see it more all the time.”

  “I can only wonder what he would have thought of the newcomers.”

  “I don’t know. But I know who you should talk to . . .”

  They said it together. “Uncle Carlos.”

  ♦ ChaptEr 26 ♦

  psych profile

  Cadzie found Carlos working on a bed piece, something commissioned by the Godson commander. It was a large piece, with drawings laid out where there would soon be carvings, depicting pterodons against a misty mountain.

  “Stunning.”

  Carlos smiled. “Might take a year to finish.” A sigh. “I like long-term projects. I go to bed at night thinking about them, and wake up in the morning eager to get to work. Good for a man.”

  “I think this one will be classic,” Cadzie said, running his fingers along the sanded wood. “What is the price?”

  Carlos sipped from his coffee mug. “Well . . let’s just say that the Godsons appreciate great cocoa. I’d forgotten how it tastes.”

  A year of work for a cup of cocoa?

  His uncle shook his head, as if reading his mind.

  “Let’s just say that I’ll probably die before I run out.”

  He held out the cup, and Cadzie sipped. Sweet, hot, very good. Very, very good. But Carlos could see he was unconvinced. “Memories,” he said. “Reminds me of things, people, places I’d forgotten.”

  “I don’t need to understand, Unk. I’m happy if you’re happy.”

  Carlos scanned him. “You look different. I heard about some craziness on the mainland.”

  “Would you like to see?”

  Lounging in Carlos’ spacious den, a place of bound books, paintings, big couches and two mounted grendel heads, they watched the video from Cadzie’s point of view, Major Stype point of view, and Marco’s perspective.

  Carlos’ girlfriend Twyla, the camp’s premier psychologist, was watching as well. As she did, Cadzie noticed that she crossed and uncrossed her strong shapely legs, wound her long, white-streaked hair around her fingers again and again.

  Wind. Unwind. Cross. Uncross.

  She watched the footage repeatedly, from different angles. The suits. Marco’s drone camera. An orbital-eye view.

  What was she looking at? Or searching for?

  “What do you think?” Cadzie asked after the third time.

  Carlos clicked his tongue and said, “Repeat. Cadzie’s view,” and the first video, from hideous close range, played once again. It was Carlos who had asked to see the battle from another, and yet another point of view. He couldn’t get enough. “I think that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Carlos said. Twyla said nothing.

  “Why?” Cadzie asked, hoping to draw her out. “I mean, I think so too. But why is this more than, say, Aaron taming grendels?”

  “Fluke-enhanced grendels,” Twyla murmured. “They are smart, have a small amount of control. And . . Aaron’s people milk the speed glands. That lowers the aggression quite a bit. And Aaron is batshit.”

  “Is that the technical term for it?”

  “My professional judgment.”

  “Sylvia concurs.”

  “We have to deal with him,” Carlos said. “But don’t trust him.”

  “You think he murdered Grandpa, don’t you?”

  Carlos’s face spoke volumes. When he said nothing, Twyla said, “Little Shaka can’t remember. Concussion. The only witness.”

  Carlos said, “You looked right into a grendel’s eyes when it was on speed, and survived. It was close enough to . . .”

  “I could smell its breath through the armor.”

  “Dios mio. What was that like?”

  “A little like the speed coffee, actually. I felt buzzy afterwards. More than just adrenaline dump.”

  Carlos chuckled. “Makes sense. And you survived, and since that time, you’ve felt a little odd.”

  “Maybe a lot odd. Like something opened up in my head. I told Gramma that I wondered if the reason we lost some of our drive was fear of grendels. The second generation didn’t even want to go to the mainland much.”

  “And third gen is split between Surf’s Up and the dam.”

  “Yes. Like they are waking up. Slowly.”

  “Are you thinking . . ?”

  “Wake them up fast.”

  Carlos chuckled. “You are ambitious. Twyla darling, you’ve been pretty quiet. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that you’re both missing something.” Twyla said. She hit the button, played the vid from the beginning again, this time from Major Stype’s point of view. “Missing what?” Cadzie asked.

  “You’re not looking closely enough at the medical scanners.” She pointed at the hologram, froze the image. Indicated the string of symbols and numbers running along the edges. “Look at Marco’s readouts.”

  “What about them?”

  She raised her voice to command pitch. “Cassandra, overlay scans for Cadzie, Marco and Stype, please. Clear graph lines.”

  Almost instantly, a series of overlaid 3-graphs, like green, red and blue ocean waves viewed sideways, appeared floating in the air before them.

  “Compare them to Cadzie’s. He had a typical hormonal and physiological response to fear. The hormone dump: cortisol, adrenaline, norephinephrine . . normal. Same with brainwaves, breathing rate, heartbeat . . the whole thing.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Stype didn’t. She didn’t have a fear response.” She paused. “She had a pleasure response. Dopamine and phenylethylamine. Normal human beings don’t respond to stress like this.”

  “She’s a soldier,” Carlos said. “Experience makes a difference.”

  “Not like this,” Twyla said. “And I’m not sure the Godson ranks represent real-world experience. Actual combat. Carlos . . you knew Cadmann. How did he react after dealing with a grendel, successfully?”

  “I’d say that he locked the fear up inside himself, somewhere deep, and would react later. Adrenaline dump.”

  “That’s normal,” Twyla said. “This is different. It looks like . . .” She seemed uncomfortable speaking her thoughts.

  “Like what?”

  “Well . . her brain released neurohormones like oxytocin and prolactin, as well as endorphins.”

  “That’s . . like a
n orgasm, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Stype’s emotional profile is more like sex than combat.” She paused. “To me, at any rate. Hell. Maybe I’m talking out of my ear.”

  “Are you saying she’s a freak?”

  “I’m saying that I’m not sure our new guests are as normal as we thought. If this is typical of them, well . . .”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well . . .” Twyla said, twining and un-twining her hair around her forefinger. “It reminds me of something someone might do to modify human beings for a specific purpose, for combat. Tie the pleasure and fear receptors together in some odd way. Heighten aggression, reduce pain, and something else.”

  “Something like what?” Carlos asked.

  “Make killing pleasurable.”

  ♦ ChaptEr 27 ♦

  maps

  Cassandra’s new home, the concrete bubble of the recessed computer facility, always seemed a little too cool to Cadzie. He turned the lever to open the big yellow steel doors, and was astonished. “Never saw this locked before,” he muttered, and got another surprise.

  Toad’s voice came out of the speaker above the door.

  “Hullo, Cadzie. Give me a moment. You’re alone?”

  “Sure I’m alone. What’s going on?”

  “Wait a sec. Okay, come on in.” There was a series of loud clicks, then the handle turned and the door slowly opened. Inside were a couple of younger kids Cadzie remembered from a Grendel Scouts class he’d taught last summer. They were staring at game screens, obviously cooperating in some game or another, and barely looked up. “Hi, Cadzie,” the girl mumbled before going back into her game.

  But they each had a grendel gun.

  Cadzie went down the lighted corridor to the computer room. Toad was busily reading a screen full of information. No one else there.

  “What’s with the locks?”

  “Carlos’s idea,” Toad said.

  “Why?”

  “He and Zack said ‘security.’”

  “And that’s why there are two Grendel Scouts with grendel guns playing Mineballs in the entryway?”

  Toad continued reading the document on the screen.

  “Yup.”

  “All right, what in the name of loose grendels is going on?”

  Toad swiveled to face Cadzie. “You do know Cassandra accepted Zack as the last of the Geographic Society trustees?” When Cadzie nodded, Toad said, “So Zack told her to ignore restrictions on remembering things about the Godsons. Seems Cassie’s been a busy girl since then.”

  “Busy? How?”

  “Don’t know exactly. Just reading up on it now. After Zack and Carlos had a private session with Cassie, Zack decided we needed some security. I was up all night helping put the locks in.”

  “And Jokie and Kim—I think that’s their names—and the grendel guns? They’re security?”

  “All I could get to volunteer on this short notice. You want to take a turn sitting out there? And we put those up this morning.” He pointed to an ornate gun rack on one of the bare walls. There was room for five grendel guns. Three were present.

  Cadzie couldn’t control himself. He burst out laughing. “That’s ridiculous! Security against what? We’ve never needed any security!”

  “Well, we never had Cassie down here where she’s vulnerable,” Toad said earnestly. “Yeah, a couple of junior Grendel Scouts isn’t much security, but maybe it’s better than nothing.”

  “And you’re afraid someone will do something to Cassie? You too?”

  “Well, we already did, once, didn’t we?”

  “Come on—wait. We? You were in on that?”

  “Sure. So was my father, you know. And Joanie. But we’re not the only ones here, are we?”

  “Well—you mean the Godsons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You spent a lot of time with them. They brought you home. And you don’t trust them.”

  “I do trust them. Or thought I did. Now I’m reading what Cassie told Zack and Carlos, and I’m not so sure.”

  “I need to read that.”

  “Guess you do.”

  “But whatever Cassie says, this isn’t security.” Cadzie waved at the gun rack and toward the entry way. “Locks, bored kids with grendel guns, that’s not security.”

  “Probably not, but what would be?”

  “Toad, I don’t know. I doubt we have anything that would keep those people out of anyplace we have once they decide they want in! I went hunting grendels with them—”

  “I heard that.”

  “Nearly got myself killed, but they took care of the situation. Them and the powered armor they loaned me. Toad, they’re—well, they’re awesome. And what we’ve got isn’t security, I guarantee you that. And what would make them want to hurt Cassandra?”

  “Well, I know one thing that would. If that old man up in orbit, that Speaker Augustus tells them to, they’d burn us out and to hell with anyone who tried to stop them. Yeah, I know that sounds silly, you wouldn’t do that just because Carlos or Zack told you to, but I was up there with them, Cadzie, I saw the way they treated him! He was nice and polite and he didn’t give many orders because they did everything they thought he wanted them to do before he could ask, but when he said Joey they jumped and asked how high on the rise.”

  Cadzie looked at the screens in front of Toad. “What are you working on?” Cadzie asked. “Defenses?”

  “It’s a map of Avalon,” Toad said. “We can shift through different views: humidity, photographic, topographic, thermal . . Cassandra has been a busy girl.”

  He clicked through different selections, each of them concealing and revealing different aspects of their subject area. “And . . magnetic.”

  And here, Cadzie saw that there were numerous “hot spots” of magnetic concentration. “What are these?” He pointed at a gray-toned, frozen series of waves. “Some kind of natural outcroppings?”

  Toad shrugged. “We don’t think so, no. And note this . . when you overlay cthulhu signatures over the coastal node, we see tremendous activity.”

  Cadzie pointed to reddish zones. “What about these inland centers?”

  “No, but that could mean the activity is underground.”

  He pointed to one in the middle of the northern desert.

  “Then this . . is the largest on the planet?”

  “Yes. In the middle of an alpine meadow. About halfway to their north magnetic pole.”

  Big and Little Shaka had come in silently and were watching. Little Shaka said, “Only thirty miles from the Snowcone pitchblende mines. No one has ever reported anything unusual.”

  “Whatever this is,” Little Shaka’s father chimed in, “it would seem there are smaller versions of the same pattern in these coastal nodes.” His voice quavered, but his mind was still sharp.

  “What do we know about these areas?” Cadzie asked.

  “If we overlay topology and deep scans, this one looks like a fjord leading to an underground cave system. We don’t know what’s in there. But we do know this . . .” He rotated back to thermal scans.

  “Grendels,” both Shakas said at once.

  They laughed, and the son added: “Those are definitely grendel heat signatures.”

  “Cthulhus and grendels . . together. Wonderful.” Cadzie grunted.

  “From what we know of both, and it isn’t much, it could be predation. A breeding ground raided by predators?” Big Shaka asked.

  “If that means the grendels are their enemies . . .”

  “How could they not be?” Big Shaka asked. “There is possibly an intelligent species on this planet that has learned how to cope with grendels, or at least survive in the same ecology. Allies. You know . . .” He stretched, grinning. “I feel like a doorway just opened. This planet is suddenly a lot more interesting.”

  “What’s our move?” Cadzie asked.

  “I’d say that we mount an expedition,” Big Shaka said. “We want to investigate the closest large node
with the lowest level of grendel activity. Give us options.”

  Cassandra flashed three options in the air, shapes and colors and depths of field indicating they’d been weighted for different factors.

  Little Shaka studied and weighed them, then said: “Far left. I think we could skeeter in, take zodiacs into the caves. Two kilometers in, apparently. We can do that.”

  Big Shaka sighed. “I’d give anything to go. But this old body has run out of tricks. Son . . be my eyes.”

  ♦ ChaptEr 28 ♦

  the lost mission

  The first community meeting since the arrival of their guests filled the main mess hall with a joyous clangor, and a happy crowd of Starborn, Earthborn and Godsons. Carlos sat at the center of a folding table positioned at the front of the room, feeling an excitement he’d not experienced in years. Perhaps decades. He cleared his throat and banged a spoon against an empty canning tin. “Attention, please. We have a terrific agenda in mind today. Specifically, an expedition which will be both dangerous and rewarding. Cadzie?”

  Cadzie stood. “I’ve known most of you all my life,” he said. “The Earthborn created our world, but that world was warped by our fear of the grendels. I understand: our parents and grandparents were simply trying to keep us alive. But our new friends brought a gift we never even knew we needed: freedom from fear.”

  To this, there was general agreement and cheering.

  “And,” he continued, “our psychologists say that this gift cannot be given, it must be earned. It is time we earned it. Time we began taking this world, not huddling here on the island, or along the coasts.”

  “How do you suggest we do this?” Narrator Marco asked. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to the cameras and sensors floating around him, but those were in constant motion, currently focused on Cadzie himself.

  “We propose a series of expeditions, combining experienced explorers and newbies, so that all with sufficient will might accept this new challenge, move into this next phase of our journey.”

  “The focus,” Joanie chimed in, “the initial focus, will be learning about the creatures that may well be our allies on this planet.”