Beowulf's Children

by Larry Niven

  Now the Veldt was drying off, grass was spreading again, and the paths Cassandra could see from orbit were forming knots.

  “Everything is breeding like mad,” Edgar told the colonists in the assembly hall, and the greater number who were only in virtual attendance. “I can’t see any reason not to begin the conquest of the mainland with the Scribeveldt. And I see no reason not to go now.”

  And the questions began.

  “We’ll establish dumps at Shangri-la and Eden both. They’re close together, they can serve as alternate routes. We don’t want any cities there the next time Tau Ceti goes into maximum, but they’re safe now.”

  And continued.

  “Sure, grendels. We’ll want to stay clear of the river, but we can run pipes . . .

  “There’s no trace of bees, anywhere we’ve got cameras. Nobody thinks they’re extinct, but they must have died back . . .

  “Before we build anything permanent in the Scribeveldt, we’ve prepared some hardened cameras. I want to know what lives under the Scribes . . .

  “Aaron? Well, something raided the stores at Shangri-la until they were almost gone. That was a year ago. Your guess . . .

  “The blankets? Yeah, Uncle Zack figured that out two years ago, and he was right. Zack, you want to explain that? Remember to talk slow for these people.”

  ♦ epilogue ♦

  the shaman

  Two years later . . .

  Chaka scanned the bluff, finding no evidence of a grendel presence.

  “We’re clear,” he said. With Trish and Carey Lou watching shotgun, he rappelled down the side of the cliff into the water. The samlon were young. There would only be one grendel in this area, and that one was . . . well, curious.

  They searched much of the day, and it was Chaka who found it, and called Justin.

  A human skull, cracked and chewed, but human.

  Justin took it from Chaka gently. He folded it to his chest and sank to his knees in the water, eyes half-closing. No one spoke. After almost a minute, he slipped it lovingly into a plastic bag. Before Tau Ceti slipped below the horizon, they found part of a pelvis, and a few more bones, and that was all. Justin looked around the river, and then said, “All right. Let’s go.”

  Chaka nodded, and they rode the winch up the cliff face, and didn’t say anything more until they reached the skeeter.

  Sylvia met them back at the camp. She was grayer now, but just as tall, her face more stern. Since Mary Ann’s death a year before, she was, more than any other woman in the camp, the Matriarch. She had slipped into that role unwillingly, but with authority.

  Carlos stood behind her, his left hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

  It was almost dark, and the evening wind plucked at the edges of her coat as she waited for them to disembark. Justin stopped two feet away from her, his hands filled with the remains of his father, her husband, a plastic bag wrapped in black cloth.

  Sylvia took the bag as if it were made of spun glass. “We’ll bury him on the Bluff,” she said.

  Carlos nodded. “Exactly what he would have wanted.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I have an urn,” he said quietly. “I have worked on it for a year. I would like to show it to you.”

  Suddenly, her eyes burned. Sylvia closed her eyes hard. Now was not the time. Later perhaps. Now she would be strong for Carlos, as he had been strong for her. They had almost lost equally. Not quite. But almost.

  “There is only one more thing to do, then I can go home,” Little Chaka said. Big Chaka was back on Camelot Island, too infirm for travel now. He spent most of the time at Surf’s Up, puttering, writing his memoirs and training the two new dolphins. Little Chaka didn’t really like being away from his father for extended periods.

  Edgar and Ruth were beside them. Scully followed her with a tight fist on her skirt. Ruth’s son, and Edgar’s. The genetics might have been Aaron’s, but Edgar had been there to help deliver Scully. As far as he was concerned, he was the father.

  “How do we go about this?” Edgar said.

  “We are going to find a skeleton, or we are going to find Aaron,” Justin said. “One or the other. But I want to know that he is dead. It ends.”

  Chaka cocked his rifle. “It ends.”

  They searched all that day, and into the night, and found no trace. They knew Aaron had survived the bees. The storehouse in Shangri-la had been raided regularly for canned goods. But though they scoured by skeeter and by foot, with Cassandra’s eyes and with hunting dogs, over swamp, Veldt, mountain, and river, of Aaron himself there was no trace. On the third day, just as the hunting parties were quitting for the day, dogs barked and guards yelled at the southern end of the camp.

  Two figures approached a rebuilt section of fence. One was human. One definitely was not.

  Justin was barely aware of Chaka and Trish at his side, Sylvia behind him, as he ran to the fence. With every step, the hated face and form of his enemy grew clearer. All the world seemed to focus down to this one man, his entire life to this single moment.

  Aaron walked with the help of a crutch. His right leg looked as if it had been broken and badly set. His once-beautiful face was scarred and puckered with pink weals. His left eye was glazed and sightless.

  The grendel . . . God, the grendel . . . walked alongside him.

  Without thinking, Justin raised his rifle. Chaka pushed it aside. “Wait,” he said breathlessly. “Wait.”

  Aaron turned and spoke to the grendel in a clear, commanding voice: “Stay.”

  And it did. It squatted, waiting. A whisper ran through those assembled. There was just no believing this.

  “Aaron Tragon. I arrest you for murder—”

  Aaron laughed in his face.

  “That is so like you, Justin,” he said in his calmest, clearest voice. “Trying to arrest someone who isn’t here.”

  Justin was dumbstruck. “What? What are you trying to pull now? Whatever it is—”

  “Aaron is dead,” Aaron said. “Dead. Aaron is eaten.” He smiled, and looked out at them as if what he had said made sense. Just exactly as if it had made sense. Justin wanted to laugh. But couldn’t. And didn’t like that at all.

  Aaron looked at them as if they were his dearest friends, long-lost kin with whom he longed to share a deep and precious secret. It was damned strange. “I can give to you what you have always wanted,” he said confidently.

  Trish finally spoke. “And what the hell is that?”

  “Peace,” he said. “Peace with the beasts.” He turned. “Come,” he said.

  And the grendel came, and sat by him. It made that cooing sound.

  “Yes,” Aaron said to it. “They are afraid. You are afraid. It is a place of fear.”

  Justin’s head spun. Hatred and confusion and a strange excitement so intense it felt like nausea welled up strongly enough to cause vertigo. He turned to Chaka. “He’s crazy. Just plain nuts!”

  Chaka said, “Are you sure? And what difference does it make? Can you talk to grendels?”

  Trish’s arm trembled. Her rifle went up, but Chaka’s hand closed on the barrel. “No.” Chaka said. “You have no right. If anyone has the right, it is Justin.” He paused, that confusion entering his voice as if it were an emotional virus. “Justin—what do you say?”

  Justin could barely move, couldn’t think. An intelligent grendel. And a human being who could communicate with it. What would his father have given for this? He could blow this insane bastard’s head off right now—

  And betray everything that Cadmann had lived for.

  “Goddammit, kill him!” Trish screamed. “Don’t you realize it’s just another of his con games? If you let him live, he’ll own this planet in ten years!”

  Aaron’s smile was fond, but remote, the thin smile of one who sees more than anyone else and knows he will never be understood. “Trish, no one owns this planet,” he said. “Neither human nor grendel. And least of all the man who was Aaron Tragon. But together . . . ”

  Nightm
are, Justin thought. What would Colonel Weyland have done? We think we know so much more than they do, but—“Keep him safe,” Justin said. “We need to ask Zack.”

  Trish and Edgar took Aaron’s arms and led him away. He halted them when he came to Sylvia, and they stood and waited for him as if he were still the master. “I am sorry for what Aaron did,” he said. “You will want to know that Cadmann died well.” He nodded to his guards and limped away.

  Sylvia watched as the procession receded. Her shoulders slumped. Suddenly, unbidden and unstoppably, the tears she had not cried for two years streamed down her cheeks in a cleansing torrent. As if a dam within her had suddenly given way. As if in some manner she didn’t understand, Aaron Tragon had given her the greatest gift of her life.

  Chaka gingerly approached the grendel and knelt by it. She watched him in return. Amazed at his own daring, he actually reached out and ran his fingers over her pebbled skin, felt the living fire within, and marveled. “It is you, isn’t it, Old Girl? Name of God,” he whispered. “What are we going to do with you?”

  Old Grendel felt peaceful. Working together, she and the Strongest Weird had survived the bad times. Now the dark one she had saved before would stand between her and the others. Would protect her as she had protected him.

  This was strangeness. But these weirds worked together like dam builders. She knew things. Could show them, perhaps. And as she grew older, and not so able to hunt, perhaps they would help her in turn.

  She wondered about the Strongest Weird. For two years they had lived together, and she had begun to understand some of the weird’s sounds. The world of vocal communication was another explosion of strangeness. She wondered what they would do with that one. Strongest Weird was a God of some kind. Perhaps they were all Strongest Weird’s children.

  She didn’t know. But the Death Wind was dwindling. More bad times would come, but they would find something new in the world.

  Grendels. Weirds. Together.