by Larry Niven
The first grendel to enter Camelot had killed seven, and wounded many more. One grendel had nearly devastated the entire colony. But that was twenty years ago.
They were learning. They would have to learn even faster.
The chamels were herded through the second fence, and across the second drawbridge, as Justin swung down off his horse.
The rotors on her skeeter were still revolving as Katya jumped down. She spotted him as she stopped at a data post and uplinked her flight records. Then she ran at him, thudded against his chest. He threw one arm around her, feeling . . . protective?
It wasn’t the kind of feeling that he had for Jessica. Perhaps that was familiarity. Family. It felt good to have Katya next to him—
“You need a refresher course,” he said.
He was holding a marble statue.
She said, “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Tomorrow, the play tent. We’ll shoot some virtual grendels together. I’ll spot—”
“Spot me nothing.”
The camp was all prefabricated buildings, squat one-story jobs with spacious windows and red roofs. The streets were wide, with enough room to play or wander. Herds of dogs and a few older kids ran in the streets. It was like Camelot made new. First the area was sterilized with flamethrowers, then Earth grasses were planted.
Then the dirigible created a series of supply depots along the way, along the rock islands dotting the ocean between Camelot and the continent.
One step at a time, until the proposed camp site was supplied and protected. Only then did the human beings enter to construct fences and buildings.
Jessica and Aaron ran up from the side, laughing, Chaka and Trish behind them. “Me for the mess hall,” Aaron called.
Justin agreed heartily. Dinner sounded great.
Justin felt comfortable in Shangri-la. There was nobody older than twenty, and everything was made to their specifications. It was like a larger, wealthier version of Surf’s Up.
When they entered the mess hall, there was a roar. They hoisted Aaron up on their shoulders and carried him around the room, and he was handed a huge flagon of beer. Conversations were conducted at a yell: the walls throbbed with an Abo-Asian jazz fusion performed by computer wavetable synthesis from scores and themes they fed to Cassandra. Someone had dubbed that the Shangri-la Symphony Orchestra.
It was raucous, and it was home.
Posted on the walls were the totals for the week’s work quotas. The entire encampment, the eighty-five of them over here from the island, was broken up into six teams, each with their own duties and responsibilities. The discipline and organization was taken over by internal teams. There was play, there was revelry. There were biweekly orgies. But God help anyone who didn’t meet his quota, or was too drunk, too drugged up or sexed out to take his security post, or till the fields. It wasn’t an economic system for the ages, but within this small community where everyone knew everyone else, it worked well enough. There was enough to eat, and there were some luxuries, and everyone could spend at least half time on interesting work.
That night’s service detail brought in the food, and the conversation died to a gentle roar.
“Well, what do you think?” Edgar asked Jessica.
“I think it looks great. More paint on the inside, and a few more decorations. The most important thing is the new buildings.”
“Most important thing is that all of the quotas are met. The dirigible is coming in day after tomorrow, and we want to be certain that we’re ready.”
“What’s the tally?”
“Nine tonnes of refined ore—Deadwood is running fine. Zack should be happy.”
She noticed that the conversation had died down. Everyone understood the question behind the question.
Edgar Sikes said, “Nobody has the remotest idea what happened in Deadwood Pass. We’ve analyzed from every angle. Whatever killed Linda and Joe was just gone. We haven’t a clue. We shipped in a grendel-proof shelter and sealed it and installed air tanks. It should stop anything.”
“Best bet?”
“Eh. Some sort of gas cloud,” Edgar said. “Volcanic origin, something that acted like an acid.”
“But wasn’t an acid?”
“Certainly didn’t leave acidic traces. But that’s the way it acted, and that’s what we have to assume.”
He dipped his finger in water and drew on the table. “Look here. The best guess we have is that the wind blowing up over the mountains carried a pocket of caustic gas with it. It hit them before they had any chance at all.”
“And Cadzie?”
He bared his teeth. “Don’t know. Best guess is that she sealed the baby in the blanket. The acid cloud passed before it could leak in. But Aaron’s sure it was something alive, something that veers away from Cadzie blue.”
“Sealed it airtight? Against something that ate the flesh from their bones, and left no trace? You believe this?”
“. . . No,” he said. His plump, babyish face was tight with frustration. “But I don’t believe in an invisible monster either!”
“Monsters from the id,” someone sang.
“Oh, shut up. Anyway, we’ve combed the area. Dirt, rock, and soil samples. We found nothing out of the ordinary. The usual decomposed leaves, crushed rock, animal droppings, and general crud that makes dirt anywhere.”
“Animal droppings?” Chaka asked, his interest roused. “What kind of animal?”
“We don’t know,” he said. “Not turds, more like a fine dry mist of concentrated shit sprayed over everything. Aaron was sure it was something alive. You hear about that?”
“Yeah.”
“The Scribe has a blue lip. There are other Avalon plants and animals that use blue to signal poison. I found four in Cadmann’s garden at the Stronghold! We looked hard at that slice of skin Aaron cut, and it really is poisonous. But Cadzie blue is a darker color.”
Chaka brooded. “Dammit, Edgar, it’s such a neat notion.” He suddenly grinned. “And Aaron is so massively embarrassed.”
Like wind passing over a wheat field, heads turned toward Aaron . . . who was apparently half-asleep.
Edgar said, “We have a piece of the lip itself. We have views through several sets of war specs. We have Justin’s flash photographs. Cadzie blue is darker.”
“Why don’t you let me take a look at that stuff you collected?”
“Well . . . all right, Chaka. Right after dinner?”
Chaka smeared a trace of the dropping sample on an analyzer sheet, and ran it into the kiln.
“What are you looking for?” Justin asked.
“I don’t know. But Pop considers it to be the largest threat to the colony.”
Aaron nodded. Somewhat to Justin’s surprise, Aaron had wanted to come over, had cut his participation in the revelry short.
Columns of numbers danced in the air as the computer began its analysis.
Aaron ran his finger through the air next to the column. “Phosphorus, carbon. Lots of nitrogen.”
Justin asked, “As much as you would expect from a carnivore?”
“Sure. Urea—”
“And this stuff, it’s what a mammal would turn urea into. Unless it’s a hominid,” Chaka said. “This matches what we know of Avalon biology.”
“Not grendel, though?”
“No, not grendel. Way less water, for one thing.” Chaka muttered under his breath to Cassandra, and the images of the droppings expanded. “It’s like dust. And . . . there’s more than one kind here. Lots of animal life up there, nothing very large.”
“Could be barking up the wrong tree.”
“Wrong damn forest. I can’t tell anything until we match the droppings with the animal samples that we have currently, and keep going. We might be able to determine a phylum. I doubt if we can get closer than that.”
“Hell of a riddle,” Aaron said. He looked troubled. “I know what I want to do. I want to take a look on the west side of that mountain ridge. There’s somethi
ng over there. Volcanic? Organic? Don’t know. But something on that mountain somewhere killed two people, and I want to find out what it was.”
“What about Stu’s funeral?” Justin asked.
Aaron nodded. “Tomorrow morning. But before Robor arrives. Stu was Star Born, and we’ll mourn him privately.”
All eighty-five of Shangri-la’s Star Born were crowded into the main recreation hall. The eighty-sixth was buried out on the Scribeveldt, his grave marked by a pile of stone as tall as a man, and recorded to the centimeter in Cassandra’s files.
Katya walked somberly to the southeast corner of the rec room, and placed a foot-tall wooden plaque against the wall. With eight clean hammer-strokes she nailed it to the wall. On it were two lines of etched letters. The first read: stu ellington. Beneath it, greater love hath no man.
There was another plaque on that wall, toshiro tanaka.
rest well, sensei.
She returned to the front of the hall, and stood beside Justin.
Aaron Tragon stood before them. He wore a dark shirt and pants. His flaxen hair lay down around his shoulders. He gazed out at their assembled faces, and began to speak.
“Most of those who have fulfilled this duty before me,” he said, his voice swelling to fill the room, “have commended the institution of the eulogy. It is good, they have said, that solemn words should be spoken over our fallen friends. I disagree. Acts deserve acts, not words.”
Someone behind Katya said, “Amen to that.”
“But I can offer no act to equal that of Stuart Ellington. So it is with apologies to our fallen friend that I offer only words. We cannot understand Stu’s sacrifice merely by considering the life he saved, or the life he lost in so saving. We must look to the sacrifices made to conquer Avalon, the world which we have inherited, with all of its terrors and treasures.
“Twenty years ago there came from Earth a group of men and women who dreamed of Humanity’s destiny among the stars. These courageous folk were willing to invest their lives in that dream. And all of us here descended from that dream.”
There were quiet nods of agreement.
“Most of you were born into the world through the bodies of your mothers, children of Love.
“But others of us—like me, like Chaka and Trish, like Stu—were children of the dream itself, brought into the world by mind and force of will. Mind and Heart together have inherited this world . . .
“Stu enjoyed his garden, and his mathematics, and his flying. God, how he loved his flying. The true wealth of Avalon is found in the fact that pleasure motivates us—not the pain of lesser cultures. We don’t have discipline on Avalon—we have hunger. Hunger to grow, to learn, to share. We are lovers of beauty, of wisdom, of knowledge. We differ from the states which preceded us in regarding the man who holds aloof from public life not as ‘quiet’ but as useless. Together in debate and action we have created every aspect of this world, and of that, we may be proud.
“For we are at once the most adventurous and the most thoughtful human beings who have ever lived. But there is a price for the wealth, the opportunity, the beauty which fills our lives. Stu paid that price. More of us will pay it. We may pray to be spared his bitter hour, but remember his sacrifice and hope that if your moment of duty comes, you may discharge it as nobly.
“It is because of this nobility that I do not mourn. For I know that we have been born into a world of manifold chances, and that he is to be accounted happy to whom either the best life, or the best death falls. The two are joined inexorably as one.
“There is only a plaque to celebrate Stu here. His body belongs to the soil, to the cycle of life. This whole planet is the sepulcher of a brave man, and Stu’s story is not merely graven on this plaque, but lives on in our hearts as we think of him, and strive to follow his example. As we try to lead a life, or die a death, one half so noble as his.”
Aaron closed his eyes, and placed both hands, folded together, above his heart. “Good-bye, Stu,” he said quietly.
♦ ChaptEr 30 ♦
family ties
Sun-girt city, thou hast been
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must he his prey.
—Percy Bysshe Shelly,
Lines Written Amongst
the Euganean Hills
There were those who felt that the intent of Shangri-la was as stated in their formal manifesto: to explore and conquer the mainland. To others, the major intent was to create a world separate from their parents. To a few, the major intent was to party.
By agreement, anyone who didn’t do his share, or compromised camp security, could be sent back to Camelot. Surf’s Up was a more forgiving environment. There had been two such expulsions, both times at Aaron’s insistence. There were no slackers at Shangri-la.
But children want the respect of their parents.
Despite everything that had been said and done, and all of the accusations and protestations of independence, it was noticeable that the streets were a little cleaner, that things moved with a little more sparkle and polish when the dirigible was due to come over from the island.
Much of the work stopped at least an hour before Robor’s imposing shadow fell across the land. The landing pad, surrounded by electrified fence and another trench, was cleared. The landing crews stood by. Everything and everyone was in place.
Aaron, Justin, Jessica, Chaka—the entire Board of the Star Born were there to meet Robor. Today there were special visitors inside.
The skeeters purred gently as they urged it toward its destination. Sudden music blared out: the Shangri-la Symphony Orchestra was now the town band, as Cassandra played a march composed by Derik and Gloria with theme suggestions from Jessica. The tune went from oompah to swing with odd transformations as the dirigible glided into the restraining web. The ground-crew volunteers hauled the mooring lines taut and cleated them down.
“Clear and secure!” Heather McKennie called. The pilot acknowledged, and let down the landing ramp.
Cadmann Weyland was the first out. He waved to Justin and Jessica as he strode down the gangplank. Sylvia followed, then the stooped figure of Big Chaka.
Cadmann and Jessica regarded each other. Justin watched carefully. This was the first time they had seen each other in eight weeks. The longest they had ever been separated. Their relationship had suffered a terrible blow; who knew what might happen?
Sylvia went to Justin, and embraced him. He wanted to lose himself in his mother’s arms. He’d forgotten how much he missed her, how very good it felt to allow himself to be enfolded. She looked a little tired, a little more worn, but still wonderful.
But he kept a bit of peripheral vision on Jessica and her father, and he wasn’t disappointed.
Jessica took the step forward, and held out her hand. Cadmann took it. He held it, and they looked at each other.
Justin could see Aaron’s face over Sylvia’s shoulder. As Chaka and Justin and Jessica embraced their parents, Aaron Tragon beamed like a proud schoolmaster . . . well, not quite.
“How is Mother?” Jessica asked finally.
“She’s fine. Your brother Mickey is watching her. She wanted me to come over to check on you.”
“I can believe that.” Her eyes shone.
There was still so much in his face. She had looked up and into those eyes so many times, over so many years, and she had watched it slowly age like good leather. He was still the man that she knew, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the things that she needed to say.
“Come on,” she said. She took his hand, and led him away from the others. Aaron tried to stay in step with them at first, but she locked eyes with him. This is about me and my father. There really wasn’t a place for him here. He nodded, and turned to something else.
Big Chaka embraced his son. “I saw the grendel brain scans,” he said. “A month ago, Tonya got bitten by a leechlike parasite, didn’t she? While swimming u
priver . . . ?”
Jessica led Cadmann through the streets. They rang with the smell of iron and singed plastic. There were a thousand different projects under way at the same moment. Everywhere, Star Born labored efficiently at a hundred vital tasks.
Little Carey Lou Davidson ran past lugging a bucket of plastic nails. He called, “Hi, Cadmann!” and disappeared into a half-erected wood frame.
Cadmann waved back. “You’ve done well,” he said.
“You must have been able to see most of this through Cassandra.”
“Yes. That was nice, the virtual tour through the streets. But it’s never quite real for me until I can feel the wind on my skin, and smell the trees.”
They walked all the way through the town, back to the stone stairs cut into the mountainside. She took the stairs two at a time until they were above the rooftops, until they could see everything in the colony at one sweeping glance.
She sat him down, and took his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder.
“I wanted you to see this,” she said. “I wanted you to really know that it wasn’t just a pipe dream.”
“I knew, that it wasn’t going to be that . . . ” he said, and his voice trailed off. He was looking out over the mainland shantytown. From here, the individual human voices were as soft as wind chimes, and the sounds of industry dwindled to a burr. There was something of newness in the air, and it was easy to imagine that it was the beginning of a new world. Of course, in some ways it was. He could see more than the camp from here, too. From this altitude, he was looking out over a river plain, seeing the stretch of mountains gently wreathed in fog. There was a mystic quality to the scene. The land was waiting. The land was alive. Beyond the mists lay adventure, and romance.
The clouds on the horizon were a light haze shading slowly from blue to white, to blue again in the sky above. Tau Ceti burned a yellow-orange hole through the haze.
Cadmann inhaled deeply. Jessica watched as something within him tensed and then relaxed, but she didn’t interrupt him.