by Larry Niven
The animal pens were on the outskirts of the main camp. Dogs and pigs had their own pens, the horses a well-fenced running space. The chickens were cooped near the machine shop, closer in to the main compound.
Cadmann stopped to examine the wire surrounding the pens. His face taughtened into a frown. Their "hot wire" wasn't even warm; the power had been switched off months before. The barbed wire beyond that was down in three places that he could see. He scraped at a brownish patch of rust with his thumbnail.
"Let it go," Sylvia chided.
"Look at this." His voice was flat with disgust. "The strands are slack, and the power line is broken. Doesn't anybody give a damn anymore? We haven't been here long enough to get this lazy."
"Cad—" Sylvia's pale slender fingers covered his, prying them away from the strand. She gripped his hand tightly.
"Look, I know I keep getting outvoted, and I can live with that." He was mortified to hear the petulance creeping into his voice, to see the maternal concern softening her eyes. "Listen. You keep telling me that there are things about this island that bother you. We've only got one shot at this. Nobody's going home, and no one's sending any reinforcements. It only makes sense to be a little paranoid. That's why we picked an island, isn't it? To localize the dangers?"
She squeezed his arm. "I can't change your mind, so I'll try not to want to. Listen. Why make a big thing about it? Why not just fix the fence yourself?"
"Sounds good."
"Good. I'll send for you when we're ready for the barbecue."
Just before they took the last turn into town, Cadmann looked back at the farmers and felt a brief pang of jealousy. They, in wresting victory from the soil, were the true hunters, the true warriors. Ultimately their efforts would determine the future of the fledgling community.
The sun was warm, but far warmer was Sylvia's hand against his arm.
The community had grown in a strangely organic manner; the first crewmembers to build their individual prefab huts had built them close together within the defensive perimeter.
Perimeters. Three rings. Electric fence, minefield, barbed wire. It made sense at the time.
Cadmann's folly.
And one of these days they'll make me go dig up the mines. No enemies.
No dangers. Nothing. And all that fucking work to build fences.
Most of the colonists had only been awake for eight months, and already they were beginning to get sloppy.
As they had been awakened and shuttled down, the camp expanded, filling the defensive compound, then spreading outside it. From above, the Colony looked like a spiral nebula or a conch shell sliced sideways. Cadmann's home was at the center.
The colonists outside the fence had more room, larger lots—but their location showed their status. Colonists. They were not among the First Ones. Everyone on Avalon was equal, but some were more equal than others. The First Ones had landed four months earlier and had social status—at least those who hadn't wasted time and effort building needless fences and mine fields had status.
The muffled whirr of a power saw grew louder, and the dry smell of sawdust more distinct, as Cadmann wove his way through the narrow streets that divided off the flat-roofed houses and foam-sprayed prestructured domes. Some of the domes had been left in their original tan. Others were painted, some with a kaleidoscope of colors. Here and there were strikingly realistic murals. We have a lot of talent here. All kinds. Speaking of which—The saw changed pitch as Carlos Martinez spotted Cadmann and lifted a hand in greeting.
Carlos's dark, lean body glistened with perspiration as he glided the saw over the planks. The thorn trees at the perimeter of the clearing provided a generous supply of wood, but it was knotty and coarsely grained. Only a master craftsman like Carlos could have made anything but firewood of it, and the carpenter was deliciously aware of his valued position.
Half the Colony's dwellings had a table or bed frame by Carlos. It was doubtful that he would ever have to take his rotation in the field to earn his share of the crop.
"Cadmann! Mi amigo." Carlos wiped his brow and extended a sweaty palm that Cadmann shook firmly. Carlos was a true mongrel, and gloried in it. Originally from Argentina, his bloodline was predominately black, his cultural leanings anyone's guess. His Spanish was atrocious, but he interjected it into his conversation regardless. "I heard that you had gone off with the lovely Senorita Faulkner."
"Senora," Cadmann corrected. He moved in for a closer look at the woodwork on the bench. It was the beginnings of a headboard for Carlos's bed, and already penciled on it were mermaids cavorting in improbable couplings with virile mermen and grinning sailors. He sighed.
"Senora." Carlos smiled mischievously. "It is true that sometimes I forget."
"It'll get easier to remember." He patted his stomach. "She's got a passenger on board now."
Carlos raised his eyebrows in lecherous speculation. "She is taking on good flesh, no? My people, we appreciate a—" he screwed up his mouth in a dramatic search for the right word—"a substantial woman."
"Substantial."
"Si! A helpmate in the fields, a comfort by the fireside. Ah, the days of old..."
"Cut the crap," Cadmann said without heat. "Your family never got closer to the fields than the handle of a whip. They've had silk on their backs and diplomas in their pockets for six generations. At least." He turned and worked the latch of his own foam-frame igloo.
Behind him Carlos sighed. "With men like you, who can wonder that romance is dying in the world?" The rest of his monologue was drowned out as the saw revved up again.
Cadmann groped out to find the curtain cord and drew it to let in a spray of sunshine. It might be a month before Tau Ceti Four saw such a bright day again, and he was loath to waste it. The sun was already low in the sky. Preparations for the barbecue would begin when twilight fell. The colonists who were working the day shift would put aside their farming and building and repair work and gather on the beach for good food and good fellowship.
He wanted to grab his toolbox and go out to the fence, but his solitary bed, nestled beneath a sheltering bough of drip-dried underwear, called to him in a voice that his suddenly heavy muscles couldn't ignore.
I'll just sit for a moment, he told himself. The water mattress sloshed pleasantly under his buttocks as he settled his weight into it. He rarely noticed until he was tired, but Avalon's gravity put an extra ten pounds on him every second of his life.
The waning sunlight cast deep shadows in the room, here and there glinting on the shelves and boxes that held the last remnants of another life. Everything he had been was in this room. The hundred and sixty people who made up the crew and passengers of the Geographic were his only family and friends.
It wasn't much, but it was enough. Enough, because the behaviorists and sociologists and colony planners said it was enough. Because they, in their infinite wisdom, had calculated exactly how many pressed flower petals and class-album videodisks were required to stave off depression: just enough to stimulate the fond memories, not enough to create an incurable homesickness.
His world. The silver-gilt college trophies, reminders of victories in Debate and Track and Wrestling, were holograms. Hologram images of smiling women whose warm lips and smooth bodies left frustratingly little impression on his memory. How long had they been dead? Thirty years? Forty?
They'd been planning another colony even before Geographic launched. A statuesque New Yorker named Heidi had talked about riding the next starship to build a colony at Epsilon Eridani. Maybe she had. It would have launched twenty years after Geographic. She might even now be wondering which of her old beaus was still alive.
There were disks of favorite movies—his personal collection, though in principle they were part of the camp library. There, a shifting hologram of his command post in Central Africa. A peacekeeping force, nothing more, until the revolutions. "Sergeant Major Mvubi! We're moving out!"
"Sir!"
We were needed. Then.
>
His clothing was all nonsynthetics that might take a generation to replace. How long would it be until they thawed out the silkworms and the mulberry bushes for them to feed on? Not exactly a high priority item...
He didn't remember closing his eyes, but when he opened them he was lying down, and the sun had set. Cadman grabbed his toolbox and a folding stool and hustled from the room. Getting old is one thing, dammit! Senility will just have to wait.
Chapter 2
ON THE BEACH
Glory to Man in the Highest! For Man is the master of things.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, "Hymn to Man"
A jeep roared by, full of colonists who were full of beer. "Grab some wheels and we'll race you to the beach!" Cadmann waved and pointed to his toolbox. They razzed him and careened out of the compound, singing.
Electric lights were wavering to life around the camp as workers changed shifts. The party atmosphere was infectious. Avalon's inadequate twin moons would smile on a beachful of frolicking spacefarers.
The folding stool's seat was several centimeters too small, but as he bent to the task of repairing and refastening the wire, he forgot the discomfort.
Avalon's moons cast double, divergent shadows with their bluish glow, and the stars were brilliantly sharp and clear. No crickets. And along about evening the nightbirds aren't beginning to call because the things they use for birds here don't sing. And maybe we'll fix that, with bluebirds and mockingbirds if the goddam ecology people want them. I wonder if they brought crickets?
Cadmann unwound two meters of wire and scraped at the clotted dust surrounding the loose connection, then clipped the old wire free and attached the new. He fired the soldering torch.
Do they still stand retreat at the Academy? Cadets in archaic uniforms standing in rigid rows, plebes telling jokes in hopes of making upperclassmen laugh and be seen by the officers... sunset guns, bands, the Anthem, the flag lowered slowly to the beat of drums... He attached the leads from the voltmeter. The needle jumped into the red. Done.
Mist had rolled in from the sea. The stars were gone; the moons were wavery blobs. Cadmann felt pinpricks of moisture on his face.
A calf on the far side of the wire grunted longingly and shuffled over, looking at him with huge, liquid eyes. Cadmann reached through and petted it, and it licked his hand.
"No mother, eh, girl? Must be tough not to have a mommy cow to love you." Its tongue was rough and warm, and it moved more urgently now as it tried to suckle at his hand.
Cadmann laughed and pulled his fingers away. The calf shivered. "Aw, come now, you can't suckle my fingers... " Then he saw fear in the calf's eyes. Its head jerked to and fro, then stopped abruptly as it stared toward the stream.
The other animals moved toward him. They stood together in clumps. A filly whinnied with fear, and Cadmann came to his feet.
"What's bothering you, girl?"
The feeding stalls were enclosed by the electric fences and narrow walkways. Cadmann carefully stowed the tools and went into the compound. What's bothering them? The filly was to his right. Instead of trotting over to him she bucked. Cadmann opened the gate to her pen. "Heidi. Here, girl." She moved warily. "Here." He ruffled her mane. "Shhh. Heidi, Heidi," he crooned. "Quiet, girl."
Night came suddenly. Both moons were at half stage: bright enough, but they left pools of dark shadows through the barnyard, some of them back by the dog pen. There were ten young German shepherds in the pen, and their ears were flattened against their heads. They growled deep in their throats, teeth bared in the moonlight.
"Hello?" There was no answer. "Who the hell is out there?" There was nothing, in the pens or beyond in the deep shadows leading to the bluff. The sound of the panicked animals was a rattling cacophony. Cadmann stood still and listened. Nothing. Carefully he took out the Walther Model Seven pistol and checked the loads. Silly. Nothing here. If Moscowitz sees me with this he'll take my pistol away. He slipped off the safety, then put it in his pocket and left his hand there.
What in the hell was going on? He looked back at the animal pens. The German shepherds, dogs bred for their loyalty and intelligence, were going berserk. The wildest of them was also the eldest, a nearly full-sized bitch who was actually biting at the electrified fence, touching it and recoiling, returning again and again.
Cadmann ran to the pen's gate and gave a low whistle. "Sheena. Come, girl. What's out there? What is it?" She came to him slowly, and stood trembling, panting, eyes fixed and staring out into the darkness. He opened the gate, careful of the other dogs. "Back. Come, Sheena."
He left the gate open long enough for Sheena to get out, then grabbed the fur at the scruff of her neck when she tried to run ahead. These dogs need training. It's time. She growled low in her throat. The others barked furiously. Sheena strained ahead.
All the animals were yowling now. Darkened windows behind him filled with light.
"What son of a bitch is screwing with those dogs?"
"Zee virgin, she is mine!"
Another light blinked on. A male voice bellowed, "Hey, you! I just got to sleep. Will you for Christ's-? Oh. Cadmann. Cadmann, a lot of us are on the night shift. Cam you wrap that up fast?"
"Sure, Neal. Sony."
The window slammed. The dog strained at his hold on her mane. "Easy, girl-" Cadmann dug in his heels. Never go out at dusk without a flashlight. Rule One. And I forgot.
"Cadmann!"
Cadmann jumped. Sheena strained just at that moment, and his grip slipped. The shepherd sped baying into the dark.
"Good going, Weyland."
Bloody idiot. Cadmann recognized the angry whine, had trouble matching the thin, almost effeminate frame of its owner with the label Terry Faulkner: Sylvia's husband. "She'll be back as soon as she's hungry."
"Eh?"
"Sheena."
"Oh. The dog. Yeah, I hope so. Listen, Sylvia sent me to get you. If you want to come to the beach party, get moving. We've got the last jeep and we're leaving now."
"Yeah, well..." There was nothing out there now, no sound but rushing water. Screw the picnic. I need a flashlight.
"Are you coming?"
Damn you! "Sheena! Come, Sheena."
"I'm leaving." Terry's thin lips twitched with a nervous tic that made it hard for Cadmann to look him directly in the face. His small fists balled up and set on his hips. "Sylvia said you should come."
Did you ever recover from puberty? What if I throw you in the creek? The dogs were quiet now. Heidi nickered and came to the edge of the pen seeking sugar. "All right."
The jeep slewed around in a tight circle, so quickly that only the ballast of several enthusiastically inebriated colonials kept it from tipping over on two wheels. Zack Moscowitz leaned out of the driver's seat. He was wearing driving goggles above a shaggy black mustache. "All aboard! Will each passenger kindly check his or her own tokens?"
Cadmann grinned in amusement. His or her. Like a book from the twenty-first century. "H'lo, Boss."
Moscowitz wiped at his goggle lenses but only succeeded in smearing the dirt more evenly. "Good to see you, Cadmann. How'd the outing go?"
"Great." Cadmann stood unmoving. Terry had already claimed the seat in front next to Zack's wife, Rachel. There was no other place to sit.
"Here we go, Cad." George Merriot squeezed over to make room. It took some squeezing-George could use a few extra sit-ups.
"Thanks, Major."
"Not any more. Cad."
"Right." Weyland climbed over Barney Carr and Carolyn, one of the
McAndrews twins. He wiggled his way into the middle.
"Seat belts, right? Everybody, right?"
There was a chorus of bored assents. Zack gunned the jeep and roared out of camp. The road out to the beach was smoother than that leading to the mountains, and more frequently traveled. It served the orbital shuttle, which made water landings.
"No problems, Cadmann?" the Administrator shouted.
"Ah-nothing, Zack." Cadmann was mo
mentarily distracted by a whiff of perfume. Carolyn had taken advantage of a bump in the road to lean closer to him. Now if it had been Phyllis... but Phyllis and Hendrick Sills were a pair, and the twins were not identical. Carolyn was sallow in both complexion and personality. He smiled at her anyway.
"What about the fence?"
"Nothing serious. Break. I fixed it."
George Merriot laughed. "Hey, Zack, for a bare instant there, I thought you weren't playing company director this evening."
Moscowitz wove deftly around a pothole. "Never happened. Check that fence in daylight tomorrow, would you, Cad?"
"Enough!" Rachel Moscowitz shouted. "No business tonight. The night shift's on duty. Remember?"
"There was something," Cadmann said.
Moscowitz slowed, his eyes still on the road. "Yes?"
"Bit of disturbance with the animals. They were acting like rush hour at the stockyard. Scared. Crazy." The jeep lurched, and Cadmann gently removed someone's elbow from the back of his neck. "Might not be anything, but you never know. I took out one of the dogs. Sheena. She got away."
"Aw, not Sheena. Where'd she go?"
"Who cares?" George demanded. "They all got out last week. She'll come back."
Zack kept the jeep burning along the track at a racing pace, and as they bumped over a rise near the ring of thorn bushes, Cadmann could see taillights in front of them. We're in the last jeep? Christ, he drives fast. Cadmann asked, "Something special about Sheena?"
Zack said, "Naw, I've been slipping her a few scraps, that's all."
"He wants her in our home," Rachel said. "And we don't have enough room."
"Wouldn't be fair anyway." When Zachariah Moscowitz laughed, his heavy arching eyebrows and thick mustache simply cried for a thick cigar and a round of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady. "Ten dogs, and a hundred sixty colonists. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to get proprietary, does it?"
"No. Zack, stop. I'll go back and find her."