Beowulf's Children Part 30

A shock wave hit Skeeter XII, and they jolted to the side. Wind and rain and an ugly laboring in the engine all mixed together. They plunged about three hundred feet before Cadmann managed to regain control. Carlos wiped his hand against the windscreen, clearing away condensation, peering out. It was hopeless. There was nothing to be seen.

"I'm sorry," Cadmann said- A flash of lightning, very close by, too close. It split their universe, blinded them, and Cadmann let some inarticulate sound of effort and anger and fear escape, and they plunged so low that they were momentarily out of the clouds. Another flash of lightning and- "I see it!" Carlos yelled. "d.a.m.n it! Two o'clock. There."

An arc of fire rolled along the underbelly of the cloud, lightning swelling in its belly. And there, gliding like a great dark predator, was Robor.

Cadmann gritted his teeth, and took the skeeter up into the cloud again. "We can make it," he said.

"If we don't, can I quote you?"

They rose up above the flat top of Robor, and Cadmann hit the lights. They were dim, all emergency power draining to the batteries, but enough to illumine the top. There were docks for four skeeters up there, and three of them were in place.

"All right," He said. "I'm setting her down. You take the right-side mooring cable, I'll take the left. If either of us makes it, we're safe."

The engines quit.

"See?" Trish said, laughing. "No SOS. It was a bluff."

Jessica stared at the control panel, and then looked out at the storm.

A bluff. She hoped it was a bluff. She freezing prayed it was a bluff.

Otherwise . . .

They slammed into Robor's landing deck just as another lightning flash tore a hole in the sky. Robor jolted, and then stabilized. Its gyros would compensate, and keep the deck level. It was slick, though. They skidded for three feet before coming to rest.

Cadmann wrapped a mooring cable around his arm and reeled it out. He hopped down to the deck. The wind slammed into him, and Carlos was out the other side with the right-hand cable. There were docking rings countersunk in the deck in numerous locations. The trick was finding one.

A violent shudder struck Robor, and the skeeter started sliding again. Cadmann backed up, slipped to his knees, slid across the deck and toward the edge. The damaged strut collapsed, and the skeeter slid across the plates, right at him. He screamed as he went over the edge, the skeeter right on top of him.

Carlos was on his hands and knees, and his face smashed against the metal sheeting as the skeeter behind him crashed onto its side. He knew in that moment that he was going to die.

It pulled him toward the edge, and his knee hit the anchor ring. He scrabbled for it in the darkness, and found it, flipped it up, and clipped the line into place. It snapped taut in the next instant, and behind him he heard a scream, and a grinding crash, and he knew that Cadmann had gone over the side.

He was on the verge of muttering a prayer when he heard the groan.

"On my way!" he sang. He followed the cable to the wrecked skeeter, and climbed around it, finding handholds every step of the way. He came around to the other side and heard a thump. He peered over, and saw Cadmann hanging there, the cable tangled around his arm.

Jesus. "Cadmann!"

His friend looked up at him. Stunned, not injured. Weyland shook his head, like a water buffalo trying to clear itself, and looked down at the ocean, black and slow, far below him, and then back up at Carlos. "Help me," he whispered. And Carlos extended a hand to him, and helped him up.

Trish found Aaron in the main galley, supervising as the crates were hauled up from the hold and opened. Provisions, and equipment, mostly, and he had chosen well.

"We've got a problem," she said. "We've lost power in engines two and three. We're running on a single engine now."

Aaron's head snapped around. "What?"

"It's true. Five minutes ago. We lost two and-"

Her collar speaker crackled. "Trish. We just lost engine one. We have no power."

"What in the h.e.l.l!" Aaron seemed to grow, his face reddening, and his entire body growing even as they watched. "We'll be blown back toward land, dammit!"

"I'm afraid so. We have the rudders and stabilizers-"

"I'm going up," he said. "Something is very wrong up there."

Carlos slapped Cadmann's shoulder as the first trace of a human figure appeared over the side of Robor.

The wind howled around them, and Cadmann had to scream.

"Get back, dammit. I have a grendel gun, and I'll use it."

"Cadmann?" Aaron yelled back cautiously. "d.a.m.n. How did you . . . ?"

"Power of human stupidity. Just get back down."

"We'll crash if we don't have our power, you know that."

"No, you won't. I'll give you engine one again. You are going to use it to turn around, and head back to land. And then you are going to put down."

"Cadmann. Your daughter died. We have to do something. We have to find out what it was, or her death will be for nothing."

Cadmann was tired and sore. His shoulder throbbed. "Listen to me. We can't talk about that now. I don't have any choice but to turn you around. Let's not let this get any worse than it is."

"Worse than it is. All right."

There was a flicker of movement behind him, and Carlos suddenly screamed, his entire body arcing, Cadmann spun and fired at a figure against the clouds. The grendel gun bucked in his arms. He fired a dart directly into Toshiro Tanaka's chest. Toshiro's hair flew out in a corona, and his teeth clamped on his tongue. Blood shot from between his clenched teeth and his hands lost their grip on the port access ladder. His body arced backwards and he fell screaming and twisting, to the sea far below him.

"Toshiro!" Aaron screamed.

Cadmann, cursing, checked Carlos. He was fine. d.a.m.n d.a.m.n d.a.m.n! The children had dialed their grendel guns down to stun. He had been too d.a.m.ned tired, too trigger-happy.

And Toshiro Tanaka would plunge two thousand feet to the water below.

And from that height, the water might as well have been concrete.

"One dead, Aaron," Cadmann said. And he could barely speak. His teeth were chattering, and not just from the cold. "One dead. Let's end this."

"You killed him, Cadmann," Aaron said. "He's dead, and you killed him. Why don't you tell your people about how you did this to save lives. All right. We're turning around." Aaron climbed back down. Cadmann collapsed against the wet cold plate of the deck and closed his eyes, feeling the rain pelt against his skin.

PART II.

GRENDELS.

Which way I fly is h.e.l.l; myself am h.e.l.l; And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the h.e.l.l I suffer seems a heaven.

JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost

Chapter 19.

VICTORY.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The whole colony was a.s.sembled in the meeting hall. In a few places entire families, First and Second, sat at one table, but most of the Second sat together and away from the First. By accident or design they had chosen tables on the highest tiers on the speaker's left.

There was no entertainment tonight. The circles of conversation went abruptly quiet when Zack Moskowitz came in from the adjacent council room. He was followed by six others: five of the First and Katya Martinez. Zack went to the podium. Katya came down from the stage, looked up at the other members of the Second, and went to sit at the table with Cadmann and her father.

Justin barely saw her. Carlos smiled at her, then looked up at the Second. "Montagnards," he said.

Sylvia looked the question at him.

"From the French Revolution," Carlos said. "The Jacobins sat in the highest seats in the meeting hall. They called that the 'Mountain.' Katya, are your friends contemplating b.l.o.o.d.y rebellion? Guillotine the ancient regime?"

"Not that they told me," Katya sat between Carlos and Justin, across from Cadmann. Cadmann was flanked by Sylvia on one side, Mary Ann with the baby on the other. Cadzie was wrapped in a dark blue blanket.

Cadzie blue, they were calling that color. The blanket was an exact copy of the one wrapped around Cadzie at Deadwood Pa.s.s. There were hundreds already, and more being claimed as fast as they could be manufactured. Mary Anne had wanted to keep the original, but that was being a.n.a.lyzed as no bit of synthetic wool had ever been a.n.a.lyzed in human history, and she had to settle for a duplicate.

Invisible death had stripped every living thing at the minehead, Avalon crawling and flying crabs, Avalon Joeys, the scrubby bushes, Earthly mammals, Linda's straw hat, leather belts and cotton cloth; everything but one baby. Was it the blanket? The color, the scent, the texture, the inorganic origin? The coc.o.o.n geometry of a blanket encircling a baby?

Dark blue flashed here and there in the meeting hall. Nearly every nursing mother had an Orion blanket in Cadzie blue.

Katya took Justin's hand for a moment, and looked up toward Jessica. Jessica conspicuously was not with her family, but with the Second, at Aaron's table on the Mountain. It was a large table, with room for Edgar, Trish, and Chaka, and, surprisingly, Ruth Moskowitz. Katya thought it over. She could ask Justin later.

"What did you decide?" her father asked her.

Katya shook her head. "Zack wants to make the announcement." She looked from Carlos to Cadmann, then at Justin. "It's all right."

Zack Moskowitz was at the podium. "This is an official meeting of the members of the Avalon Colony to hear the decision of the special commission investigating the death of Toshiro Tanaka, a member of this colony," he said. "I call this meeting to order."

There was a hushed and expectant silence.

"The commission has unanimously reached the verdict of death by misadventure," Zack said. "For those without a legal background, this means that it was an accident. A majority of the commission has also determined that no further action is required, and the case is therefore closed."

There was another moment of silence. Then Carolyn McAndrews stood up "Missster Chairman! This wasn't a misadventure! The boy was killed as a consequence of his own criminal actions! He had accomplices. They should be punished! All of them!"

There were a few scattered murmurs of approval, and a couple of shouts of "Sit down, Carolyn!" One of the Second said, loudly enough to be heard all over the room, "Ice on her mind."

"The commission considered that, Carolyn," Zack said evenly. "The suggestion was rejected."

She looked around for support and found none. Her children were looking at her strangely. Sharon McAndrews had been at a second-tier table with other Grendel Scouts. Now she came down to Carolyn's table and put her arm around her mother.

"You'll be sorry," Carolyn announced, and sat down with infinite weariness. Sharon hesitated for a second, then sat next to her.

There was a stirring at the tables of the Second. Trish was standing.

Posing, Katya thought. "There should be a trial, all right," she shouted. "But not of us! Mr. Chairman, I charge Cadmann Weyland with murder! You Firsts have been telling us what to do, treating us like children or slaves all our lives! Now you've killed Toshiro Tanaka, and you think you're being generous when you don't charge the rest of us with murder?"

"You're out of order," Zack said.

"Is she?" Carey Lou Davidson demanded. The others at his table, all recently graduated Grendel Scouts, applauded. "I know we won't win a vote, but we would if there was any justice!"

Trish had been sitting next to Jessica. Jessica Weyland's head was bent, face half-hidden. Trying to make herself invisible, Katya thought. What kind of grief was that girl buying? Justin looked as embarra.s.sed as Jessica did. Katya ma.s.saged his neck one-handed, but he didn't look up.

Twice now, Jessica had entered her father's home to commit sabotage or theft. Now she sat with her father's accusers. She hadn't yet alienated all of her family, Katya thought, but she seemed to be working on it- Katya saw Aaron reach around Jessica to take Trish Chance by the wrist. He whispered in her ear. Trish nodded and settled back in her chair.

"Vote!" Carey Lou shouted.

Aaron Tragon stood. "Mr. Chairman, may I be recognized?"

Zack hesitated, then nodded. "The chair recognizes Aaron Tragon."

"Mr. Chairman, with your permission-" He turned to Carey Lou. "Sit down, please."

"I still say-"

"No, you don't say," Aaron said. "Sit." There was ice in his voice.

Carey Lou sat.

"Thank you. Mr. Chairman-Uncle Zack-everyone here regrets what happened, and it is utterly pointless to portion out blame. Yes, we tried to mount an expedition to the mainland. We made a lot of mistakes, but we didn't kill anyone-"

"You just shut up!" Mary Ann shouted.

Cadmann shook his head. "Let him finish," he said softly.

"But-"

Cadmann took her hand. "He can't hurt us. Let him talk."

"We didn't kill anyone, but Toshiro wouldn't have died if we hadn't acted as we did," Aaron was saying. "I think the commission has acted very wisely. 'Death by misadventure,' they said, and death by misadventure it was. The important thing is there shouldn't be any more misadventures!