Beowulf's Children

by Larry Niven

  “Let’s say I agree with you,” Katya said. “I’m still not sure where you’re heading.”

  “I think I’ve always known that the ideal of sexual chastity was just absurd. It seemed to go against nature. Why give a young man his greatest sex drive at fifteen, and tell him he can’t indulge it until he’s twenty? Clearly, this wasn’t nature—it was harnessing a stallion to a plow. On the other hand, you can’t just rut at will, either. Back on Earth, it led to so much unwanted pregnancy and disease and disruption that it fit the image of a mortal sin.”

  “Women aren’t men,” Katya said. “We see—feel things differently. And we want more. Here on Avalon we’ve been free to do everything we wanted—”

  “Was it enough?”

  “I don’t know. We thought so, but—”

  He nodded. “Did you want more of a courtship ritual?”

  “Something like that. Everyone knows what everyone else’s body looks like. Everyone talks about what everyone else is like in bed. There might be anticipation, but there isn’t much mystery.”

  “And you want that?”

  “Part of me does. Just a part, I think, but that part feels hungry.”

  “What would you like with Justin?”

  “You know, there is something, but I don’t quite have words for it. We’ve known each other all our lives. Sometimes we’ve been lovers, and sometimes not. Sometimes we haven’t even been friends . . . ”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the discovery of a new land and all of that. But the only way to take this land is with children.”

  “That’s the way we felt, a long time ago,” Carlos said. “I think that we lost a little of that as soon as it became clear that the birth rate was going to be sufficient. But . . . on a place like this, so wide and broad, I’m not surprised.”

  “Something inside me just decided that Justin is the one.”

  Carlos let Katya take whatever time she needed to find the right words.

  “Some little switch turned on by itself,” she continued. “I thought that I had everything that I wanted, both freedom and security. But it turns out that I want something else. I want someone who belongs to me.” She looked up sheepishly. “Is that selfish? Is that petty?”

  Carlos squeezed her hand. “No. It used to be what everybody wanted. Then we talked ourselves out of it. Maybe we’re just rediscovering how much of that is in our basic natures. I’ve never been one to fight against my urges. Neither should you.”

  She grinned and squeezed his hand. Suddenly, she jerked her head around, eyes darting as if tracking something invisible.

  “What is it?” Carlos asked.

  “Two bees,” she said. “Moving like bullets.”

  Carlos adjusted his war specs until he saw two flashes. “They’re going right across that valley,” he said. “And over the next ridge.” He estimated the distance. “Too far for today. Let’s go back. We can start in the morning.”

  “I’ll get Justin to pick us up,” Katya said. She thumbed her comm-card. “Justin—”

  The computer answered. “Justin and Jessica have landed in a meadow and are temporarily out of communications,” Cassandra said.

  “Are they all right?”

  “I have detected no cause for alarm,” the computer said primly.

  Jessica lunged backward, trying to rip herself free of the entangling web.

  The forest was all deep shadow, vines and webbing strung among horsemane trees. In the shadow above him, Justin caught a face like a snarling monkey, then the compact torso and long, long limbs that went with it. The beast wasn’t moving. It was singing.

  And Justin had dropped his pack, and with it his tracer, his knife, and all weapons. It would take a minute to run back to get them, and in a minute the creatures would be on her.

  Jessica’s face was turned away from the web, she had managed to get enough leverage to turn her head. “Justin! I can see four of them. They’re just big Joeys . . . ” Her voice died.

  Little snarling faces. They sang with their mouths open . . . sang way back in their throats. Big Chaka had examined several spider devil bodies. Their song would have been perfect for slow dancing. Justin could make out hideous shadows moving into place around Jessica. One tapped along the web, crawling down toward Jessica.

  Justin scooped up two rocks. His first missed entirely. His second struck one of the creatures, and it scuttled back up into the trees. But two others were crawling cautiously down, testing their footing every step of the way.

  Damn, damn, damn. He and Jessica must be larger than anything the Joey-things ordinarily hunted, but would size alone keep them away?

  Jessica screamed at them. They retreated for a moment, then started down the vine again. “Justin,” she said, her voice deadly calm. “They’re not scared of us. They’re coming back down. Not a whole lot of doubt about that.”

  Justin pried at a nearby branch. Dammit, it was more vine than branch, and entirely too pliable. He tugged at it, and it just bent. It could have held his weight.

  He was desperate. The loam underfoot was thick and soft; years of fallen leaves had decomposed to make the rich compost. No weapons there. He was naked, dammit.

  Freezing hell! The first time in his life that he let lust overwhelm him and this happens?

  He went to Jessica, who had managed to pry her face an inch or two away from the web. “I think,” she said. “I think that maybe I can get out of this.”

  Justin tugged a rock out of the ground, and touched it to the web. He pulled. The mucilage was horribly strong. The spider devils were centimeters closer, and the lullaby was calming him against his will. If he had the radio, just the radio, he’d turn it on high and play them some old Riot Rap—

  “Listen to me!” she said harshly, almost a whiplash. “You have to go back for the grendel guns. I can keep them away that long.”

  He had a sudden, horrific vision of the piglet, and the spidery things which injected it with venom, and then tore it to pieces.

  “The hell I will.”

  “Justin!”

  “The instant I go, they’ll be all over you,” he said. “We can barely keep them away with the two of us.” And the wordless music was pulling him down to fatalistic despair.

  Her breath was heavier now. “Well—it’s the only chance we have. I can’t break the glue.”

  “Sing!” Justin commanded.

  “Sing? Sing what?”

  “Anything! For the beauty of our land, for the beauty of the skies.”

  It was a children’s song they’d learned in school. Jessica joined him. “For the love which from our birth. Over and around us lies—”

  The lullaby wavered, warbled out of tune and faltered. Encroaching spider devils backed away. This was something new. “It works! I can keep them off,” Jessica said. “Get the guns!”

  “It won’t hold them. Source of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise—” Justin’s mind ran feverishly. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let’s just wait a minute. Look at this stuff. Remember what Chaka said? This isn’t made from their own bodies. It’s a patchwork, and the foundation is leaves. Chewed leaves. They spread this mucilage on top of it. And everything that they catch in here must struggle, so they have to keep patching it.”

  “So what?”

  “So Chaka said they’re at the mercy of their building materials. The web is no stronger than the plant material underneath it.”

  “How does that help . . . never mind,” she said. “If you’ve got an idea, you’d better use it fast. For the beauty of each hour, of the day and of the night. Hill and vale and tree and flower. Sun and moon and stars of light—”

  The spider devils crawled toward them. Their humming changed. “They’re keeping harmony with us!” Jessica shouted.

  “Change the tune! The knight came home from the quest! Muddied and sore he came. Battered of shield and crest, bannerless, bruised and lame!”

&nb
sp; “That’s a cheerful one!”

  “Sing, damn it! Here is my lance to mend. Here is my horse to be shot! Aye they were strong, the battle was long but I paid as good as I got!” Justin tugged at the vine.

  “I don’t remember the words!”

  “My wounds are noised abroad. Theirs my foemen cloak. You see my broken sword, but never the blades that she broke!”

  Justin returned to the vine he had been unable to break, and examined it soberly. “I hope to God that you’re as strong as you look,” he said. It was five times thicker than any of the vines used in the web itself. How old were the web’s supporting fibers? How long had they been in place? What was the average size and weight of the animals these creatures fed upon?

  He wrapped both arms around the vine, and set his weight, pulling it toward the web.

  The spider devils changed their tune again.

  “Hurry!” she screamed. She tossed her whole body violently, and for an instant the spider devil scampered back up into the shadows. “Here is my lance to mend! Here is my horse to be shot! Aye, they were strong, the battle was long, but I paid us good as I got!”

  With an effort that racked her spine, she turned to see Justin pulling the branch after him, forcing it to bend a few inches at a time. The soil provided little traction, taxing Justin’s knotted, wiry body to the breaking point. He grunted and pulled, lost ground, pulled again, and couldn’t quite make it reach.

  Jessica sobbed. “No use! Get the—”

  And then insanity. Justin braced himself on one foot, and took his left foot and reached up, jammed it between the strands of the web.

  “Are you crazy??!”

  “Fuck, yes,” he gasped. Using the left foot, the stuck foot, for a brace, he jumped up with the right and jammed it through likewise. He was now suspended almost parallel to the ground, holding on to the vines with his arms, his feet entwined in the web. “Think about it!” he gasped. “We’ve probably got five times more stress on this web than it was ever meant to hold. Fight, damn it! We can tear this thing apart!”

  Jessica was certain he had lost his mind. There was nothing to do but match his insanity. “Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig—”

  “And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite, and the crew of the captain’s gig!” Justin continued.

  Her leg. One leg was almost free of the web—it had never collided. She pulled herself back, and the whole jury-rigged mass shifted. She ignored the chittering sound from the trees. Something scampered down, darted at her with open jaws. She lurched violently and shivered the web. The spider devil retreated a foot. “O elderly man, it’s little I know of the duties of men of the sea, and I’ll eat my hand if I understand how you can possibly be—”

  She stretched out desperately with her leg, but couldn’t reach Justin’s vine. Too late, she saw the second spider devil. It crawled down from Justin’s side, and bit his thigh.

  He screamed, cursed, convulsed so violently that for a moment she thought he would rip himself free. No such luck, but the monster scuttled back up to safety.

  Justin groaned, and his eyes rolled up in his head. His face was dark with effort, and blood drooled from the leg wound.

  “Justin!” Jessica screamed, but was distracted by a pain in her hand. A bite, and a spider devil vanishing into shadow. Flaming agony spreading up her arm.

  Pain and mortal fear gave her what muscular strength could not. Or maybe Justin’s struggles had finally pulled the branch close enough. Jessica contorted, and hooked her leg over the branch.

  The two of them, together, pulled now. Justin’s mad eyes met hers, and he swallowed. “Come on, Jessica. One, two three—pull! Says he, dear James, to murder me, were a foolish thing to do, for don’t you see that you can’t cook me, and I can—and I will—cook you!”

  They heaved with every ounce of strength they possessed, screaming verses to send the spider devils scurrying back up into the trees—momentarily. But now the entire nest had awakened. Five more spider devils, curious, worried perhaps, crawled back out of the shadows. They descended delicately along the ropy, gummy vines. They’d already picked up the tune of “The Ballad of the Nancy Bell.”

  “For the joy of human love! Brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild—”

  “Source of all—” Jessica stopped singing as the devils joined in harmony.

  Justin screamed as another monster bit him, and she barely jerked her face aside as a pair of jaws clacked shut an inch from her cheek.

  “Heave!” he screamed, and they did, both of them, and the vine creaked, and their spines creaked, and the web creaked—

  The web ripped. They pulled on the vine and a big piece of web came down. Old bones tumbled out from somewhere above.

  “To thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise!”

  Riiiiip. The spider devils shrieked and clambered over one another to get back up into the trees. The web was coming apart rapidly now. More of the vines began to break. Now they were supported by the mucilage alone, and that wasn’t strong enough. Justin hit the ground on the side of his head. Jessica ripped half-free, and screamed with laughter as a big chunk of web came with her. Her arm and both legs were free, and she had the leverage to pull the other arm free of the main web. A huge patch of gummy vines still covered her. She turned and tugged at Justin’s legs until she had them free, and dragged him back away from the vines. His legs were swelling, black and red. Her arm was swollen too, and numb.

  “Justin,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I think I can walk.”

  He stumbled a couple of feet, and Jessica put her arms around him, helping him back to the water. She snatched up their comm-cards. “Cassandra,” she called. “We’ve been bitten by spider devils. Need medical attention fast.”

  Justin’s hands shook as he pulled his shirt on. He tried to get his pants on. When his hands touched the bruised flesh of his thighs, he howled, and had to abandon the attempt.

  She studied his eyes. No dilation. The swelling didn’t seem to be any worse, but that told her little.

  “We’re about ten minutes away,” Little Chaka’s voice said. “Was this the same type of spider we captured on the march?”

  “Appears to be,” she said.

  “Then it should be no problem. Use antibiotic paste. The bites aren’t lethal. Even the paralytic effect isn’t that strong. They need a whole colony to subdue something maybe twice their size. How many bites?”

  “Justin took two, maybe three.”

  “All right. Keep him warm. We’ll be there in two shakes.”

  Jessica unrolled a blanket from her backpack and wrapped Justin in it. His teeth chattered. “I’m not going to die, huh?”

  “Only if you pull another stupid stunt like that,” she said.

  “You. How are you?”

  She held his face with both of her hands. “Have I ever told you,” she said, “that I love you?” And she kissed him, very softly. Then the venom hit and she started to shake. She let go of him before he could notice.

  ♦ ChaptEr 35 ♦

  autopsy

  Deduction is, or ought to be, an exact science,

  and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

  —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four

  Justin limped into the recreation hall, and received a brief round of applause and a kiss from Jessica. It was sisterly, not at all like the kiss they had shared not three hours before, but a sparkle in her eyes that told him that she hadn’t forgotten.

  Katya took his arm and hugged him. “I hope that your backside is healing.”

  “You have plans for that?”

  “Indeed.” She did not look at Jessica.

  “So just what did happen?” Cadmann demanded. “How did you get caught by spider devils without communications?”

  Justin shook his head. “Duh. We’d been swimming, got in a race, and
weren’t looking where we were going. Just horseplay.”

  “It’s not a grendel zone,” Jessica said. “That’s a safe area—”

  “No longer,” Aaron said. “Chaka, we saw a grendel in the north lake. A grendel.”

  Little Chaka looked puzzled. “How did a grendel get there?”

  “And well may you ask.” Aaron’s voice was icily correct. “As I recall, you were the one who assured us a grendel could never get into that lake.”

  “I did,” Chaka admitted. “And I still don’t know how. What happened?”

  Aaron started to tell him. Silence fell around him. As his hands waved and his voice rose and fell, Justin found himself grinning. Cadmann Weyland, face-to-face with a grendel . . . but the danger was as nothing next to Aaron’s massive embarrassment.

  Aaron broke off. “Well, however it got there, the whole area has to be reclassified as grendel country. New rules for visiting it. In effect now. Everyone agree?”

  There was a murmur of approval.

  “That may not be the only surprise today,” Big Chaka said.

  Cadmann turned to him with a frown. “Good news or bad news?”

  “Listen and decide for yourself,” Chaka said enigmatically.

  “Yes, well, we should get started,” Aaron said. “Hell of a thing about those spider devils, Justin. Hell of a thing.” His expression was unreadable.

  Cadmann hugged Justin and Jessica, and they sat together, the five of them: Cadmann, Sylvia, Jessica . . . just like a family again . . . but Aaron sat on the other side of Jessica.

  What would have happened if the web hadn’t interrupted them? What did he want to happen?

  “We’re ready when you are, Dr. Chaka,” Aaron said.

  The room fell quiet. Justin grinned as he noted another table. Big Chaka, Little Chaka, Trish Chance, Edgar Sikes, Ruth Moskowitz. Interesting family grouping there—and Big Chaka climbed up to the holostage.

  He said (his voice resonant and musical, in teacher mode), “There is much to cover, but let’s begin with grendels. You have all seen that grendels on this continent, especially in this area, don’t act the way grendels did on Camelot Island. There was the incident today, Aaron, a grendel that did not attack you on sight. There are the dam builders, who certainly cooperate. And the snow grendels, who seem to hunt as a pack. And your other reports. I have examined every mainland grendel observation Cassandra knows of, and I can only conclude that mainland grendels are not the mindless killers our experiences on Camelot suggested. Grendels here—some of them, at least—cooperate on dams, and hunt in groups. They show a rudimentary sense of planning. Possibly time-binding—that is, they pass on knowledge to the next generation.