by Larry Niven
“South side. Fence is broken on south side.”
“Break on the west side.”
“The outer fence is shorted. No power left in the outer fence. All the circuit breakers have popped.”
The searchlights swung through no-man’s land between the fences. Grendels swarmed there. Mines detonated. Pillars of fire rose from cans of buried kerosene. Rifles fired wildly into the melee.
No pattern. They come. They avoid each other, they’ll attack the same target, but they don’t cooperate. No strategy—
If you’re outnumbered bad enough, strategy doesn’t matter. Who said that? My tac officer at the Point, or some ancient Trojan?
There were arcs from the inner fences. Not as many. Off to his left, Carlos was directing flame throwers through the fence. Someone else raced across camp to another fence break.
“Stu. Time to do your stuff,” Cadmann said.
“Okay, but this is it for kerosene. And I’m at three-quarter charge.”
“Charge you’ll get. The outer fence isn’t drawing power any more. Now go before we all do. Outer fence is gone. Protect the inner one.”
“Roger.”
The Skeeter rose into view. Stu must have lifted the instant he heard Cadmann speak.
Once again the Skeeter whipped around the inner periphery as the crew dumped kerosene and other inflammables.
“flares.” Cadmann ordered.
The fires leaped up. Grendels tore at each other, ran from the flame, leaped at the fence; the ground worked with grendels. And gradually the arcing at the fence stopped.
“Cadmann. I hear them, Cadmann. They’re out there. We’ll lose Minerva, and it’s all your fault, you stubborn bastard—”
“Marty.” It was a different voice. It took Cadmann a moment to realize: Geographic had come over the horizon, and Rachel was speaking. “Marty, just take it easy. Cadmann knows what he’s doing.”
They said more to each other, as if Cadmann couldn’t hear. He turned off the speaker.
Cadmann knows what he’s doing.
“Stu.”
“Yeah?” Stu sounded sleepy again.
“Better start shuttling people out. Women and wounded first. Get ’em up to the Bluff.”
“Cad—you sure? You’ve held this long—”
“I’ve held this long, and Marty isn’t about to sleep or relax or anything else. I want that Minerva out of here. It’s one less damn thing to worry about.”
“Okay, buddy. Can’t even say I’m sorry.”
“He will be,” Jill said.
“Uh?” Cadmann frowned.
“No picnic at the Bluff. We can’t hold them here, with the fences and minefields and power for the Skeeters. No picnic at the Bluff.”
“Yeah. You don’t need to tell everybody.”
“I won’t.” She went back to the searchlight.
The Skeeter took off five minutes later.
Jill Ralston bit her lip, fighting through the pain. Her eyes were huge and frightened as Cadmann belted her into the Skeeter. She was the last female defender of the camp. Her burned left arm was wrapped in gauze; it looked like a big white pillow. Her thin face showed determination and an edge of pain. Her short mane of coarse red hair stirred in the Skeeter’s turbulence.
Cadmann tested her belt, grunted in satisfaction. Jill flinched as he brushed her bandaged arm.
“What’s my assignment once I get to the Bluff?”
“Have Jerry take care of that arm. Get some rest if you can. You’re going to need it. By that time I’ll be up there too.”
“Don’t be long,” she said, settling back into the Skeeter seat, voice already becoming drowsy.
Cadmann slammed the Skeeter door closed. “Take it, Stu.”
“Roger.”
The autogyro’s rotors whipped dust around him. It rose and peeled away.
“Precious cargo, amigo,” Carlos said from behind him.
“One day you’re going to sneak up on me and I’ll shoot you. Precious. Should she have been on Geographic?”
“No, no, she is not pregnant yet—”
“I see.”
“But I did rescue her from the ridge.”
“And heroes get their rewards.” When her arm heals. If it heals. And if it doesn’t, old Carlos may be the best medicine she’ll ever find.
“Quiet.”
“Too quiet. But I like it.”
“Enough meat for all, I think,” Carlos said. “They fight and they feed, but they prefer not to feed on each other.”
“Son of a bitch. I think you’ve got it,” Cadmann said. “But can they cooperate?”
“I do not know. Sometimes it seems they do. But Cadmann, they do not talk—”
“Not as we think of talking.”
“Hah. Amigo, if you are willing to believe them telepathic—”
“No, not telepathic. But—hell, Carlos, I don’t know what I mean. Let’s walk around the perimeter.”
“You put me in charge here. Recall?”
“Oh. All right, I’ll go alone.”
The view was much the same everywhere. The outer fence was gone, but the inner held; and the outer fence had lasted long enough to kill hundreds, perhaps a thousand grendels. The minefield had stopped more. Out beyond the inner electrified fence a mountain of grendel dead fed the living. They clumped by the hundreds: twisted, blackened, torn carcasses. Many were stripped to white bone. Tiny insects buzzed fiercely. By daylight the camp would be utterly infested. In days, the stench of rotting meat might poison the valley.
Greg was doing stretches, transferring his gun from one hand to the other for weight. “Quiet,” he said without taking his eyes from the grendel-infested wilderness. “Maybe they don’t make deals with each other, but they do stir each other up.”
“Reading grendel minds is a full-time hobby,” Cadmann answered. “What are they going to do next?”
Greg shrugged. Cadmann kept walking.
For now, the grendels had little incentive to try to break through the inner fence. They looked up curiously as lights shone on them. If someone fired—it still happened but not often—the wounded grendel ran amuck until it aroused others to sufficient fury to attack it.
His tour of the fence completed, Cadmann took the opportunity to sit down. He was exhausted. Adrenaline could certainly carry him further, but it was good to snatch the rest while he could. He pulled a barrel up to the fence and sat heavily.
A groggy, full-bellied grendel walked up to the wire. The tower searchlight slid across the minefield and touched them, joined human and grendel in its bright yellow oval.
The monster stared at Cadmann with the detached interest of a man selecting tomorrow’s lobster.
Cadmann’s teeth showed in a tired grin. “I’m not finished with you yet. Just wait.” He slapped his pockets, looking for a nonexistent cigarette. “Just wait.”
The grendel waddled closer and brushed against the fence. It shied back, whipped its spiked tail at Cadmann. The fence sparked again. The grendel disappeared over the twisted outer wire and into the darkness. There was a scramble of claws and teeth.
Then silence once again. Another searchlight slid over Cadmann, and he shielded his eyes with a grimy hand. He held it out in front of his face, looking for a tremor. It was there, all right, and his craving for nicotine grew stronger. There were no longer cigarettes on Avalon.
Cadmann’s earphone buzzed. Jerry’s voice came on line. “Cadmann . . . rerouting a message from Sylvia. Hold on.”
“Cad?”
“Right here, lady. Your signal’s a little weak.”
“How are you holding up?”
“So far, so good. Evacuating the main camp. A few injuries, no casualties.”
“None? You’re wonderful.”
“Lucky at any rate.”
Grendels wandered around outside the fences, gorged on meat, their bellies heavy. They watched one another suspiciously. Something happened. Cadmann, watching with professional interest,
still couldn’t tell what sparked it, but two grendels blurred into speed, passed each other, curved back in a mist of pink blood, attacked like a pair of enraged buzz saws.
Sylvia said, “Get out of there fast. You’re going to be up to your hips in rain. It’s a major storm. You can’t electrify the fences in the rain, can you?”
“No. How long have we got?”
“An hour. Then it’ll last for days.”
“Rain! You won’t need me!” Marty’s voice broke in.
“Right. We won’t need you,” Cadmann said wearily. “But we do need to get the Skeeters up to full charge. And the spare fuel cells. Marty, if the fences go, you can get out of here. We can’t.”
“Marty—” Sylvia’s voice was horror held under rigid control.
“Hey, look,” he said. “Dammit, I’ll do my duty! But bloody hell, Cadmann, I don’t even know if I’ve still got motors, and you can’t hold on in rain!”
“I know, and it’s hardly a surprise. We’re already sending people out. You want anything else?”
“No.”
“Then shut the fuck up for a while. Sylvia, you have any good news?”
“Actually, yes.” Even through the static, her excitement was plain. “Cad, this ‘superhemoglobin’ in the sacs above their lungs is what gives them their speed. The speed is attack mode—for hunting and for defense against other grendels.”
“Right.”
“Jerry seconds my assumption. We know that they trigger on the smell of blood. In the water they undoubtedly trigger on the smell of superhemoglobin metabolites as well. Almost certainly it’s an involuntary response.”
Her voice dissolved into static for a moment, and Cadmann tapped his earpiece. “Wait a minute. Jerry? I need some enhancement here. Filters . . . something. Thanks.”
The static died down.
“Can you hear me now?”
“Better. Go ahead.”
“Collect grendel corpses. Cut out the sacs, liquefy in water and feed it through one of the Skeeter crop-spraying attachments. Spray it over a mass of grendels. It should drive them berserk.”
Despite his fatigue, Cadmann grinned. “Thanks, hon. That just might work.”
“My pleasure. Cadmann . . . how is Terry holding out?”
“He’s all right. Already up at the Bluff.”
The floodlights flickered, dimmed, then strengthened again. “That’s all the talk, Sylvie. We’re losing the lights.”
“How many of you are left?”
Cadmann made a quick assessment. Skeeter Two was just humming back in. “Seventeen. Another three loads. We should be all right for that long. These grendels are feeling lazy. I’ll talk to you later. Jerry? Are you there?”
“Nowhere else.”
“Good. Get someone digging through the miscellaneous equipment up there. We need a blender, food processor, something like that. And the crop-spraying attachment for the Skeeters. Have both ready in an hour.”
“Got it.”
Skeeter Two was fully charged. In an orderly fashion, the men retired from their positions and retreated to the makeshift landing pad. Two climbed up into the cabin. Three crammed into the cargo hoist beneath.
Skeeter Two swooped back out. Skeeter One was coming in. He’d want to put a full charge on it for what he had in mind. Cadmann counted rapidly. There were only six men left, quickly and quietly dismantling the machine guns. The grendels displayed only token interest.
“Rick,” Cadmann called softly. The little machinist left his post and scurried over.
Cadmann was examining a section of fence that bulged inward with dead grendels. “They killed each other here, drove each other across the minefield and into the fence. They pushed from behind while the ones in front burned.” His voice held a savage satisfaction. “I want to cut a piece away here. Can we get a bypass on the current, cut a hole in the fence and drag some of these bastards through?”
“Can do. What do you have in mind?”
“Butchery. I need one man to stand guard with a flame thrower. Someone to cut the fence and monitor the current. A man to drag them through. I’ll do the rest. That’s four of us. Two more at the north and south corners of the camp to give warning. Right now, I don’t think we have much to worry about. You choose the crew, and make it fast.”
Rick scrambled from man to man, whispering to them. One at a time they left their posts, and joined Cadmann. As if by magic, tools appeared, and wire, and a voltmeter.
The fog drifted in quickly as the air lost heat. Its mist cloaked them as they worked.
Rick whispered, “Now,” and shut down the power. The camp lights brightened as the overworked batteries were unburdened. Two men, working quietly and swiftly, ran a cable from one fence post to the next, severed the electric leads, and spliced. They nodded, and Rick threw the switch. The camp lights dimmed and then strengthened.
They tested the fence section: not a flicker from the voltmeter.
Cadmann grabbed a pair of clippers and locked their jaws into the fence links. He gritted his teeth, scissoring the handles. One at a time the links broke, and he moved on to the next until they had cut a semicircle two feet in diameter.
A grendel head popped through the hole, inverted, looking up at them with fixed, milky, dead eyes. Cadmann sank a baling hook into its neck and dragged it through the opening.
Rick said quietly, “You wouldn’t want to do that to a live and curious grendel. Whack the tail with a stick first and see if it wiggles.”
“Hell, Ricky, there isn’t any back end to this one.” Cadmann went for another, but he picked up a stick first.
The mass of grendels outside the fence were only vaguely interested in the butchery. One at a time, corpses were pulled through and hacked apart with a machete. Cadmann chopped the glands out, tossed them into a bucket. He slashed the corpses until his arms ran with blood.
There was no way to get used to the stink. Putrescence wasn’t far advanced, but it was flavored with puffs of weird chemical reek from the speed glands.
“That’s it,” he finally whispered. “My arm is numb.”
Skeeter One floated back in over the camp. They disconnected the last batteries and hooked them to the Skeeter’s cargo hoist. Two men piled into the cabin, and the Skeeter rose up and disappeared into the fog.
Cadmann, Ricky and two other men stood in the center of a deserted camp. Beyond the fence, the grendels growled and snored, utterly sated.
Cadmann used the comcard. “Greg! Come and get your ride.”
“Yo.” Far down the line of the inner fence, a shadow detached itself and jogged toward the lights.
“Damn, they’re quiet now,” Ricky said. He depressed the trigger of the flame thrower, testing. Fire squirted out and puddled on the ground.
“Not for long. They’re gorged now. Come tomorrow their bellies will be empty again. Corpses will begin to putrefy. Maybe they’re scavengers, and maybe not. Between the survivors here and the ones still coming north, we’re going to have our hands full, believe it.”
“Still . . . it’s just too damned quiet.”
Skeeter Two came in for them.
“Find me an empty barrel,” he said to Rick. “Half fill it with water.”
The little man tested two, then found one. “This’ll do.” He ran a hose in. Water thrummed against the side of the barrel.
Cadmann shook his arms. Drops of orange blood and superhemoglobin spattered against the ground. The wind shifted slightly, and grendels stirred, alarmed by the scent.
He dumped a quarter of the bucket into the barrel and sloshed the brew around with a stick. God, it stank.
“All right, you two squeeze into the cabin. Ricky, with me in the hoist.”
Carlos leaned out of the Skeeter. “What’s the plan, amigo?”
“Just take us up gently. Hover over the fence. I have an unpleasant present for our friends.”
“Bueno. Send them my very best regards.”
Cadmann touched his thro
at mike. “Jerry. Is everyone accounted for?”
“The whole camp. We haven’t lost anyone. Just get out of there, will you?”
We made it! No one dead. Christians: 2,000; Lions: zip. “Marty.”
“Yo.”
“We’re getting out of here. Give us five minutes and the Minerva’s all yours. Five minutes, and you’re gone when you want to be.”
“Whoopee! Cad—look, I didn’t mean to be a drag—”
“Fine. Out.” He took one last look around. “All right, Carlos. Up! Wh—?”
Two shadows moved at surreal speed. The first grendel, the prey, hit the inner fence and died in a blue flare. The second smacked into the first in the same instant. The fence tore. The second, living grendel rolled, found its footing, swiveled its head. Its legs blurred and it . . . expanded . . . It was coming straight at him. Cadmann tried to bring up his rifle. Twenty meters away, the grendel jarred to a stop. It screamed at him: a challenge. In that moment, Greg fired from the side.
The grendel was outraged. It whipped around and was gone, charging into a second stream of bullets. It hit Greg and knocked him flying, turned, and was coming back at Cadmann when three streams of bullets chewed it to rags.
Rick sprinted toward the spot where Greg had fallen. Cadmann called, “Rick. Back. Now.”
Rick stopped, looked, and found two grendels investigating the break in the inner fence. He ran.
Cadmann was set to lift the barrel. Rick, puffing, took the other side. They climbed into the cargo hoist and braced the barrel between them. Cadmann’s stomach lurched as the Skeeter swung up, lifting above the deserted camp. The lights were dimmed now, save for the beam from the belly of the Skeeter. The Colony looked asleep, almost peaceful.
“Any final words?” Rick asked bitterly.
The Skeeter flew over the fence. Its light revealed a dozen grendels burrowing their way into a heap of the dead. Three were at Greg, pulling him apart like a chicken.
“Yeah,” Cadmann said flatly. “My challenge. Dump it!” They tipped the barrel over, and the gallons of bloody fluid rained down.
Suddenly, there was a storm of activity. Speed-drunken grendels streaked from every direction, congregating beneath them in a hissing mass. He could hear their screams even above the whip of the rotors.