Beowulf's Children Part 6

He was immediately a.s.sailed by a sweet-sour triple dose of Eau de Diaper. His sister Linda was seated at the robotics control panel. Her blond pigtails made her look even younger than her seventeen years. She leaned back into a thick leather chair, silvered goggles covering her eyes. She might have been asleep. A hand-carved cradle that could have been built in the fourteenth century, but in fact was a product of Carlos's workshop, stood next to her workstation. A three-month-old baby watched as if he knew what his mother was doing.

Joe shushed the baby unnecessarily, then tiptoed over to Linda and planted a big juicy one on her lips.

Sis leapt out of the illusion sputtering, waving her hands in alarm.

Then she pulled her goggles off, and sighed.

"Joe Sikes, I hate when you do that." She peeled off her headset, and stood to hug Justin.

"Hey, Cad," he said to the baby. The three-month-old was still fat and wrinkly, his stubby little fingers reaching out and trying to grasp a chunk of the world. His watery blue eyes struggled to focus.

Linda had discovered boys when she was fourteen, and when she was fifteen they discovered her right back. She had been extremely popular and enjoyed every minute of it, a dozen lovers in as many weeks. Then she was pregnant, and suddenly she was tired of casual s.e.x, tired of popularity, tired of the game.

And bang, she was attached to Joe Sikes, elderly, slope-shouldered, hardworking Joe Sikes. Justin remembered thinking it was pure l.u.s.t. His little sister was one of those rare women who became almost ethereally beautiful as she swelled and neared term. If so, l.u.s.t had ripened into something more stable-but a palpable erotic haze still shimmered in the air between them. His step-sister had found a husband and lover. She had also found a friend and teacher, and under Joe's instruction was rapidly developing into one of the most capable of the Second's engineers. Now she studied-Aaron had once said that while the First had ice on their minds, Linda had integral equations on hers-worked, and nursed her baby, and the only way to see her was to come to the command center.

"What we got?" Joe Sikes asked. His forefinger traced a lazy circle on the back of her neck.

"Geographic relays checked out," Linda said. "I'm certain that the, uh . . . will you stop that for a moment? Thank you. Nothing garbled in transmission. We're getting the right data, and it still looks the same, there are explosions in the mines."

"Explosions," Justin said.

"In the mines," Edgar repeated. "Ain't we got fun?"

"That sounds-" Justin stopped. "Can't be grendels."

"Unless they've learned to use grenades," Edgar said.

"Now, there's a grim thought. Something break in?"

"Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely," Joe Sikes said.

Justin nodded agreement. The mines didn't exactly have doors. "So what is it? Machinery failure?"

Linda looked worried. Her face was thinner than Jessica's but somehow softer at the same time. Little Cad had been good for her-good for the elder Weyland, as well. At least six children would eventually call Cadmann "Granddad." Colonel Weyland doted on all of them, but Cadzie, as the colonel's first namesake, would get special attention. Justin felt a pang of jealousy, followed by an answering pang of shame.

"I'll do a show-and-tell at the meeting tonight," Joe said. "We'll want to make an emergency trip up in maybe a week." He was pugnacious and happy, and Justin didn't understand that.

"You think it's that serious?"

"Kid, this isn't a conveyor belt breakdown. Here-Ca.s.sandra, show us Mine Disaster Three." A phantasm formed above a holopad. It looked like an ant farm done in neon vermilion.

Joe set his blinking cursor where several tunnels joined in an angular lump. "It looked like a momentary flare of heat-very sharp-here in the processing equipment. And the sensors actually burned out. Weird. The entire a.s.sembly is completely jammed. The repair robots can't get to them.

It's like something warped the entire unit out of alignment. Linda took a sonic profile of the entire operation. Look at the patterns of vibration leading up to the incident-"

A graph of sound patterns replaced the ant farm: the usual jagged hills and valleys produced by running machinery, punctuated by a sudden and violent pulse.

"We're going to translate that into sound. Listen-"

Chug chug chug.

Tung.

"Jesus Christ," Justin said.

Joe's lips twisted in a bitter smile. "The Merry Pranksters."

For a moment, n.o.body said anything. Then Justin cleared his throat.

"That's a pretty nasty accusation. They've never done anything like this."

"First time for everything."

"You're just unhappy about getting wet."

"Nah, that was fun." He looked at Edgar and got an answering nod.

"This is something else."

"So how could they have done it?" Justin demanded. "The only way to get all the way to the mining site is with Robor. Or one of the Minervas. G.o.d knows they're under control. How could they get in?"

"And that would be the point, now, wouldn't it?" Joe's usually even tones went flat and nasty. "It was impossible to carve fifty-foot b.u.t.tocks on Isenstine Glacier, wasn't it? And wasn't it impossible to use seismic charges to send Morse code limericks to the geological station?"

Justin restrained a chuckle, and raised a hand in protest. "That may be true-but they've never done anything destructive, and you know it. What would be the point? This isn't their style, Joe."

Joe's head c.o.c.ked, and he waited.

"This isn't funny! It's just vandalism."

Joe patted Linda's shoulder possessively. "It was just a matter of time before they crossed the line," he said. "The point was always to get our attention, wasn't it? I know that there are certain residents of Surf's Up-"

Justin started to protest, but Joe waved him off. "You may know who they are, and you may not. That doesn't concern me at the moment. What does concern me is that this has gone far enough."

"Something goes wrong, and the first thing you do is blame it on us Star Born. We're not the only ones on this planet, Joe. If this was caused by a human being-"

"What else would you suggest?"

"Don't know. Some kind of natural phenomenon."

"Underground explosions aren't very natural," Joe said. "Edgar has been saying the same thing. Got an answer?"

Edgar shook his head. "Not me. Time to go relieve Toshiro." He strode off quickly.

"Right. Edgar can't explain it and neither can you."

Justin spread his hands helplessly. "All right, I don't think of anything, but-Suppose it was caused by a human being, why think it was one of us? You Firsts have a lot higher wacko factor."

"I remember. 'Ice On My Mind.' Someone spelled that out in alfalfa, two years ago. HI drops functional IQ. It doesn't cause emotional damage."

"Carolyn McAndrews," Justin said. And Mom's been getting harder to live with . . .

"All right, I'll give you that one," Joe said. "But I don't believe it was a First, and neither do you."

Justin felt his fingers knot into fists. "Double-talk. All of you came to this planet coasting on your freezing intellectual egos. Thought you were the smartest things in the known universe. Then most of you lost a few points-some more than that. Add the Grendel Wars. Pretty high fear factor there, you know? Hey, sis-does Joe still wake up screaming? Still scaring Cadzie at two in the morning . . . ?"

"Stop it," Linda said. Her voice was coldly serious, "And stop it now."

"You're crossing the line, Justin," Joe said.

"You too," Linda said, but it didn't sound the same.

She's made her choice, Justin thought. And it's not any of the Second. To h.e.l.l with that. "Just remember that. There is a line-"

"Justin-"

"No, Sis, let me finish. There is a line, and we'd better both remember it. You can say Surf's Up did this as a prank-but it's your side doesn't want anyone going to the mainland. We all want to go."

"So do I," Joe reminded him. "No quarrel there. Now let me give you something to think about. How do you suppose we were chosen to come on this expedition?"

"I've read all about it," Justin said. "Ca.s.sandra has the records."

"Like h.e.l.l she does," Sikes said. "Ca.s.sandra has the official records, but they're dry as dust. Laddie, some of us worked to get here. Did you ever think who chose the colonists?"

"Well, it was a board appointed by the directors of the Geographic Society," Justin said. "So?"

"A board of shrinks," Sikes said. "Psychiatrists and social workers. Ruth Moskowitz was one of them. And they picked just the kind of people you'd expect them to."

Justin frowned. "I don't see what you're getting at."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Sikes said. "Let me put it this way. d.a.m.n near all the colonists were exactly the sort of people the shrinks wanted them to be. Colonel Weyland was an exception, a military man picked for his profession. Then there was Carlos. He qualified on brains, but the shrinks would never have picked him, so his father bribed the selection board. He wanted Carlos as far from the family as possible. As for the rest-" Joe shrugged. "Some were people the shrinks approved of, and some, a few, maybe more than a few, wanted to go so bad they worked at it, found out what the shrinks were looking for, and played head games."

"And you were one of those?"

"Maybe it's time-" Whatever Linda had been about to say was drowned out by the sudden wails of the baby. Linda glared at both of them. She swept her child into her, arms, holding him close. "There . . . there." She kissed his wrinkly forehead. "Just stop it, both of you. I don't know who the Merry Pranksters are, but I can't believe that anyone, First or Second, would do something like this deliberately. It's not funny, it's dangerous."

"So what is it?" Joe demanded.

"I don't know. I think it's the planet surprising us again. And that d.a.m.ned eel has got everyone upset."

Justin searched his heart, searching for the voice that would say that she was right, or wrong. She was right.

"All right," he said finally.

Linda grinned. "Now, I can't have two of my four favorite men mad at each other . . . "

"Four?" Joe forced his mouth into a neutral position.

"Sure, now that Cadzie is here . . ."

"And your brother, I guess . . . and Cadmann?"

"Sure."

And whoever was the father of the baby would make five, Justin thought. He could see that Joe Sikes was thinking the same thing. There was a long and awkward pause. "Linda, isn't there some way to find Dad?"

She shrugged. "Edgar might be able to. He's smarter than I am."

Justin kissed Cadzie good-bye, and went back out to the main room. Edgar had taken Toshiro's place at the main console and was splitting his attention, watching some kind of holoplay through his goggles. Toshiro had another set. Whatever they were doing it was together, and not visible to anyone not wearing the head-mounted displays. Justin thumped him on the back of the head. "Edgar?"

"Yeah?"

"About that favor you owe me. I know that my dad doesn't have his tracer turned on, but can you locate him?"

Edgar flipped the lid of his lenses up. He stood up to stretch, elaborately, fingers linked over his head. His pudgy body was an upright spear, its tip twisting in a slow circle. Edgar had hurt his back, long ago, and it had never quite healed.

"Go straight into Sun Salutation," Toshiro said. "Head loose as you come down. Hands farther back, take your weight with just your arms as you jump straight back . . . hold it . . . elbows back, down slowly. Now inhale, chest forward-"

Edgar was puffing a little as his head and shoulders came up, but he was way improved since the-last time Justin had seen him. Toshiro's training was having its effect. Short of breath, but he wasn't complaining. Edgar finished the sequence, grinned at Justin while he emptied and refilled his lungs, and said, "Cadmann's not wearing a personal tracer. He disabled the tracer on the skeeter."

"Dad likes his privacy."

"You bet. I don't know exactly where his lodge is."

"n.o.body does, except it's south of Isenstine Glacier."

Edgar grinned at him wickedly. "Well . . . what's in it for me?"

"First pick, next catch."

"Even stringfish?"

"No problem."

"Well, okay. Take over the watch, Toshiro-san?"

"Certainly. I relieve you, Edgar-san."

"Thanks. Okay, Justin, let's see what I've got." Edgar led him over to another console away from where Toshiro sat. "Geographic has images of the fuel dumps he uses. Here-" Edgar's fingers tapped silently at a virtual keyboard display. The wall in front of them turned into a vast field of ice and rock: the wasted expanse of Isenstine Glacier that fed both the Amazon and Miskatonic. Three tiny dots glowed redly. "There. About eight hundred miles apart."

"Spare fuel cells. Each cell takes him about five hundred miles. So he carries two backups, and has emergency dumps as well. That's Dad."

"Not that they're roughly in a straight line-"

"And the last one ends about three hundred miles north of the end of the glacier. Dad and Moms are collecting plants. The nearest cacti are probably six hundred miles from the south tip of the glacier."

"So the lodge is probably in this area somewhere-"

"a.s.suming that the straight line holds true," Justin said.