Beowulf's Children

by Larry Niven

  And feeling.

  She knew it, but couldn’t quite make the thought rise up to consciousness.

  That might have hurt a little too much.

  The entire colony was on the beach as Robor floated into the bay. Cadmann drew his coat collar up around his jaw. The cold seemed more piercing somehow, as the mist rolling in off the ocean penetrated coat and shirt and skin. Around him, radios crackled. A dozen rifles were held in crossed arms.

  Perhaps Death is aboard the Robor, he could almost hear them thinking. It was what he wondered. It was the fear that had lurked just beneath the surface of their loves and growths and actions, every day for twenty years. And now it had come home to roost.

  The air was filled with the ocean’s steady, rolling roar, the crackle of the radios, and no other sound at all. Then they heard the purr of skeeter engines. Out of the fog loomed Robor like some great mythical beast bearing its dreadful, beloved cargo. Its gigantic red lips glistened in the mist. As soon as the lines dropped, colonists chased after them to tie them to the docking loops.

  The mood was dark, probably the worse he had seen since . . .

  Remember Ernst, Cadmann . . . ?

  His memory didn’t want to go over it again. And over it, and over it.

  Someone yelled an instant before one of the docking lines slapped across his face, smashing his head back. His hands flew up to fend off the blow. His hands clasped the flagging rope as he pulled. His hands and shoulders ached. As Stevens and Carlos lent their weight to his line he reached up a trembling hand to feel his right cheek. His fingers came away bloody, and he said something ugly.

  Robor touched down. The rampway opened.

  ♦ ChaptEr 14 ♦

  the trial

  I, John Brown,

  am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land

  will never be purged away but with blood.

  —John Brown, Last Statement

  There had never been much need for a formal courtroom. Most problems were handled in a counselor’s office. Really severe cases, such as the time years before when Harlan Masters tried to horsewhip Carlos, were decided in the council meeting room off the main assembly hall.

  It wasn’t a very large room. Seven First Generation, four men and three women, sat at a dinner table with their backs to a bright window, so that it was hard for Jessica to see their faces. Everything had been done in a stilted formal manner that she wasn’t used to. Like something out of an old Earth novel.

  “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

  She couldn’t even tell who had asked that. Probably her father. No one had slept for almost forty-eight hours, so that all the voices sounded alike, unbearably weary. The forensic reports, diagnostics on the mining apparatus, the computerized clarification of the death scene, depositions from each Biter and Scout . . . all of these had taken their toll.

  “Yes,” she said. “We were out of contact. I’m not going to lie to you about that. I know that it was against the rules.”

  “And what were you doing while you were out of contact?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with my sister’s death.”

  Cadmann’s fingers were folded carefully, and he looked up and down the panel. “We are attempting to determine the cause of the disaster. Your delayed reaction time may well have been a contributing factor. If some of you had stayed behind, or been closer, or responded to your radio links . . . ”

  “What are you insinuating?”

  “They might have tried to call you on their comm-links!” Cadmann half-stood. “She was your little sister. You should have looked out for her!”

  “The camp was secured, dammit!”

  “Yes,” Cadmann sat back down. “It certainly was. I ask you again, what were you doing?”

  We were sleeping it off and I am damned if I’ll tell you that. “We slept late. Grendel Scout graduation runs late, and there’s an orgy after the ceremonies.” She said that defiantly. “We weren’t scheduled to be back earlier.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Cadmann said. “But it’s a damn shame. More eyes, more rifles, you might have done something.”

  “Do you think that hasn’t tortured me ever since we saw—what we saw?” she demanded. “Colonel, I plead guilty to the childish prank of being out of communication, but the fact is that we couldn’t have got there in time to do or see anything to begin with.”

  “She’s right,” Zack said.

  Silence. Somewhere outside, a tractor coughed to life. Zack said, “Can you think of anything else we ought to know? Thank you. That is all, for now.”

  Jessica looked defiantly from one of them to the other, and then lowered her voice. “No one here lost more than I did. No one. I loved her, dammit. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face, and I ask myself: was there something I should have done? Is there anything I forgot? Is there . . . ”

  “Thank you, Jessica,” Zack repeated. “I think that will be all. For now.”

  Jessica stared at Cadmann as if she was expecting him to say something else. Something more—anything more. She turned, and left the room.

  Cadmann fought to keep himself focused on the moment. But it was all he could do to keep his mind away from that terrible moment when the oilcloth was carried down from Robor and he had unwrapped it, carefully, gingerly, as if what lay within it could still be wounded by human effort.

  One set of those bones had been his youngest daughter. The other, one of his oldest friends.

  He had only known Joe Sikes for, what . . . ? A hundred and twenty years? And there was a thing that stood between them, but they’d recovered from that . . .

  “This is an inquest, not a formal trial,” Zack announced carefully. “I do warn you that anything said here may be used as evidence in a trial if this board of inquiry decides to file formal charges. Do you understand this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “State your name.”

  “Aaron Tragon.” There was the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. This was all being recorded, and there was no chance that Cassandra didn’t know who he was, but the rules said that you state your name to begin formal hearings.

  “Aaron Tragon, you were in charge of the children’s expedition.”

  “No, sir. Justin was in charge. I was second-in-command,” Aaron said carefully.

  “Why do the younger Scouts say you were in charge, then?” Zack asked.

  Aaron shook his head. “I guess because we don’t make a big thing of it,” he said. “Justin and I both know what to do, and it never came to any conflicts, so I suppose the kids didn’t know.”

  “Or care?”

  “Yes, sir, or care,” Aaron said. “I’m sorry sir, but it just wasn’t a big deal.”

  “All right, I can understand that. But you were second-in-command. You were aware that the communications cards had all been turned off?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “It was a tradition,” Aaron said. “Maybe a silly one, but—this is Graduation Night, something we Seconds do, and—”

  “And you don’t need no stinking First listening in?” Carlos prompted.

  Aaron nodded. “Something like that. We wouldn’t put it in quite those terms.”

  “You resent the First?” This was from Julia Chang Hortha, agronomist, nurse, counselor, and a minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, the closest thing to a formal church they had.

  “Well, sometimes, ma’am,” Aaron said. “Not the Earth Born so much as all the rules.”

  “Rules are important,” Zack said automatically.

  “Sure they are, for—” Aaron cut himself off. “Yes, sir, under many circumstances rules can be very important.”

  “But not for you?” Cadmann asked carefully.

  “Not always for us, no sir. Colonel, we are of age in any civilization you had on Earth. Full voting citizens entitled to full rights, including the right to live under laws we h
ave consented to. Aren’t we?”

  Everyone in the room knew what Aaron hadn’t said: “Laws made by people in full possession of their faculties, not by those with ice on their minds.”

  “You have made your point,” Zack said. “But the fact remains that you consented to the rules before you went to the island. Didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes. We had no choice.”

  “Consented under duress?” Carlos asked carefully.

  “If you prefer.”

  “All right, Aaron. Tell us what happened.”

  “Yes, sir. We were awakened by a panic message from the watch officer, Edgar Sikes. That is all recorded. He told us there was trouble at the minehead. He was highly disturbed and shouting.

  “Jason, Jessica, and I took the skeeter after telling Toshiro Tanaka where we were going and instructing him to set up a complete defensive perimeter at the camp for the protection of the children.”

  “Yes. That was well done,” Cadmann said.

  “Thank you, sir. We then proceeded to the minehead. Again this is all recorded. When we arrived, we saw no large animals and nothing that could have attacked the campsite. Linda Weyland and Joe Sikes were unrecognizable, identifiable only by jewelry. The dogs were mere skeletons.

  “We were hesitant to approach the site but we had no choice since there were no signs of the baby. We then found the child alive and unhurt. Jessica took the baby and locked herself in the skeeter. When she was secured there I photographed the site and recovered the human but not the animal skeletons. At your suggestion, I was as brief as possible. We returned to the children’s camp. We then assisted in getting everyone aboard the dirigible and returned to the island.”

  “Anything you would have done differently?” Cadmann asked.

  “No, sir. By the time we got to the minehead, it was far too late for—for medical remedies. They were not merely dead but—” He put his fingers to his temples and shook his head. “Absolutely nothing we could have done would have been of the slightest use.”

  “And there was no sign of what killed them? No clue, nothing?” Dr. Hortha asked.

  “None I saw. As we got closer there was—”

  “Yes?” Zack prompted.

  Aaron’s eyes drooped, he wasn’t seeing Zack. “Motion. Yellow dust in a wind. Sir, I’m not sure I saw anything, and I can’t find it in the satellite recordings. If it was there, it blew away before we could get close. But after we found the baby and before we left, I looked again. The dust was just the usual dust that always blows across the pass. It’s a dusty place, more so because we diverted the stream away from the pass. I’m sure you all know that.”

  Cadmann looked up from his papers. “Thank you, Aaron, we both know that whatever the formal chain of command, you’re the real leader of the Second.”

  “If so, it’s unofficial, sir,” Aaron said. There was little expression in the face, or to the voice . . . but somewhere, back in the cave where Aaron Tragon lived, something had shifted and coiled. He was warier now.

  “We also know of a group that we call the Merry Pranksters. Now, you’re either their leader, or you know exactly who is, and who’s part of that group.”

  Aaron shrugged. Now his face had no expression at all.

  “And we all know that during trips to the mainland, you have private gatherings. Some of these involve the younger children and are part of the graduation ceremonies. Some do not. We haven’t interfered because it is important that you assume as many of the responsibilities of this colony as possible. Some of us understand that you really are citizens, you know.”

  “Yes, sir. And?”

  “What I want to know is . . . were you performing such a ceremony the night that my daughter was killed?”

  “Yes, sir, we were.”

  “Were you further away from the encampment than you had been directed to travel?”

  At the corner of Aaron’s mouth, a muscle spasmed. “Yes, sir, we were.”

  “Were you out of radio communication?”

  “To all but an emergency alert, yes, sir.”

  “And it is conceivable that Linda might have been too confused, or in too much pain, to remember proper procedure for an emergency message.”

  Aaron thought for a moment. “Yes, sir, it is possible. I might even think it likely.”

  Cadmann nodded. He could respect this boy. He was a good one.

  “And you can agree that it was your duty to remain within range of the base camp, which you did not. And to remain in contact, which you also chose not to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Zack interrupted. “I have another question.”

  Aaron regarded him almost as if he were an intruder. “Yes? Sir?”

  “During this period of time when you were out of communication, were you intoxicated?”

  Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, sir, we were.”

  “And the intoxicants were not on our list of . . . ” Zack struggled for a word.

  “Sir. They were not on the list of recommended inebriants. But if it had been beer, or marijuana, the results would have been the same. We made a mistake. But the choice of psychoactives has nothing to do with that.”

  “I disagree,” Zack said. “From the very beginning, from the discovery of that eel, to the discovery of the explosions on the mainland, to the way we were pressured into this operation, to your behavior on the mainland, this entire affair has been handled in an irresponsible, childish, criminally stupid fashion.”

  Aaron turned back to Cadmann. “Sir. Our actions on the mainland were disastrous as it turned out. We certainly broke rules. But normal safety precautions were taken, with the exception of radio links, and proximity. I submit to you that whatever killed Linda and Joe might well have killed anything else nearby. And in any event, we weren’t supposed to be up there that night or that morning. Yes, we used teacher plants and then connected with each other—”

  Zack was unimpressed. “You mean you got high and had a sex orgy.”

  Aaron didn’t rise to the bait. “We put the littler ones to bed first. We chose Toshiro Tanaka to stay straight and be in charge. And while we’re talking for the record here, I want that record to show that the kids were our responsibility, and we met that. Not one of them was killed or hurt. They were our responsibility. Not the people up at the mine, who would have been there even if the rest of us hadn’t gone to the mainland at all.”

  “Aaron—” Julia said.

  “Yes, Dr. Hortha, I should calm down,” Aaron said. “And I will. But I wanted this on the record. We met our responsibilities.

  “As to what we were doing, that is the business of the Star Born. The Second, if you like that term better. But we are all adults, and the nature of our ceremonies is no concern of you Earth Born.”

  “I say it is!” Manny Halperin had been quiet until this explosion.

  “It was a spiritual ceremony, Mr. Halperin. We have the freedom to practice what we will—”

  “You got stoned and fucked your brains out!” Spittle flew from Halperin’s mouth. “What the hell is so damned spiritual about that?”

  “Do I have to answer that?” Aaron demanded.

  “I’d appreciate it if you did,” Zack said.

  Aaron paused. When he spoke, all of the incredible blowtorch intensity of his will was focused onto Zack.

  “I didn’t choose to come here,” Aaron said, his voice so soft and low that they had to strain to hear it. “I didn’t ask to be born not of woman. You brought us, and gave us a world filled with opportunity—”

  “And dangers,” Cadmann said quietly.

  “Yes.” Aaron smiled. “Dangers. You brought us here, into a situation which you couldn’t possibly understand, a very dangerous situation indeed. And many of you died. Did you hold a tribunal then? Did you judge each other? Did you ask each other questions about how you prayed, on those nights?”

  Damn straight we did. Cadmann wouldn’t have spoken anyway—

  “How dare y
ou question us!” Aaron thundered. “How bloody goddamn dare you! We are not your possessions. And I am not your child. Not the child of any of you. You made damned certain of that, didn’t you? Not one of you would give me his name. My name came from a record book. The only place I could call home, the closest one of you I have to a father, is the man whose bones I picked up out there on that pass! You think you lost something out there? So did I!”

  “Aaron,” Julia Hortha said.

  “No, ma’am, I won’t calm down. Not this time! You hypocrites! You believed that because you fed us and clothed us and taught us we should be freezing grateful to you . . . well, we are. But don’t tell me what god to worship, or how to worship It. It is none. Of. Your. Freezing. Business.”

  He had lowered himself so that both knuckles rested on the table, and he stared directly into Zack’s face.

  Then he stood up. “Of all of you, only Cadmann is a man,” he said. “The rest of you can go to hell. Cadmann, you have always told me the truth. You have always spoken from your heart, not from some freezing rule book. What do you say?”

  The entire room turned to look at Cadmann.

  He felt small. Finally, he spoke. “I lost a daughter,” Cadmann said. “For reasons that are still unclear. But that was an accident, a result of another of the hideous secrets this planet conceals from us. I can’t hold that against you. But you agreed to follow certain procedures. And you broke your word. We are a community, and a community must have its rules. We can’t break away from that.”

  Aaron seemed to be hearing beyond the words, and gave the barest of nods to Cadmann. “And so?”

  “And so,” Zack said. “The mainland is off limits. There will be no human return there. Robotic probes will be devised to learn what needs to be learned. You’ll help us design them. You’ll help us ask the questions they will answer.”

  Aaron seemed to grow dark. “We lost one of ours, Administrator. We have a right to our revenge.”

  “You have no right!” Zack exploded. “Don’t you understand what you represent?”