Beowulf's Children
Chapter 12 

PARADISE LOST

Nature is usually wrong.
-JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER, Ten O'clock

    Jessica snuggled next to Aaron in their sleeping bag. She was only half awake until the whitter of skeeter blades roused her from her reverie.
    She had barely wedged her eyes open in time to see it thump to ground, landing too damn fast. Justin leapt out, and ran toward them. "Emergency, dammit!" he screamed. He was bare-chested, wearing only briefs. A surge of adrenaline whiplashed her into wakefulness. Aaron was already scrambling to his feet.
    All right, so Camelot had gotten nervous. This wasn't the first time the Star Born had taken themselves off line. She knew that they'd catch hell for that one day, and just maybe that day had come . . .
    She struggled her clothes on, and hopped out toward the skeeter. Sprawled around the dead fire, the other Pranksters were hauling themselves toward consciousness. 
    "What's the problem?"
    Justin looked pale. "Edgar rang through. He was on-line with Linda and Joe. They got cut off. Move it!" 
    The piled into the skeeter. Aaron had time to yell "Trouble at Deadwood!" to Toshiro, who was up and pulling on a knit shirt. "We're going up. Get back to camp and watch the Scouts. Set a defensive perimeter. Keep them back in the cave. Interlocking fields of fire and no mistakes."
    "Got it."
    Jessica buckled in. "Any sounds, messages, images at all?" she asked.
    "Screams," Justin said tightly. "Just screams." 
    "Anything on the motion sensors? The thermals?" 
    Unbidden, Edgar's voice came over the radio. "Nothing. We've got Sat Twelve locked on, and I don't see anything. I think they're dead."
    They rose up out of the glade, in toward Heorot. There they dropped down for a moment. Jessica and Aaron took the other skeeter, and she had them airborne in fifteen seconds. Their ascending spiral twisted the glade, the valley, and the surrounding mountains into a dizzying whirl.
    No one spoke as the skeeters leveled out and dove, crossing the two kilometers to the camp in about ninety seconds. Robor's Chinese-dragon shape leered up at them, its red fringes rippling slowly in the wind. 
    There was nothing. Nothing . . . 
    And then Jessica whispered, "Oh dear God." Bones. Human bones. Animal bones. Aaron said, "I see three skeletons. Two human. One canine." His voice still held a machine precision. He was speaking for Cassandra, for Edgar back at Camelot. For whoever might have tapped into the line, and was now sick with concern.
    Her mind reeled. Grief and fear and raw hatred boiled within her like lava. Her vision clouded. She gripped the handbar in front of her as if a moment's loss of concentration would tumble her off the edge of the world.
    Justin's voice was arctic. "What do you see on the movement sensors? Any thermal flares?" 
    "Nothing." 
    "Nothing," Aaron agreed.
    Justin's voice was labored. He sounded like some kind of animal straining in a trap. "I don't see any sign of the baby. Of Cadzie."
    A trapdoor opened in the back of her mind. She felt herself slide a little ways down, then clawed her way back up. What waited at the bottom of that pit bore fangs and claws, and was ravenously hungry.
    "No sign. Not yet." And what she didn't say, what she couldn't say, was Cadzie is barely a mouthful for a grendel.
    They hovered almost directly over the glade. Skeletons. The mining dome. A dozen yards distant, the refinery shack. The dirigible. And that was all.
    Aaron snapped out the trance first. "Cassandra, replay Sat Twelve, during or just prior to the incident." 
    Jessica slipped on a pair of goggles, and watched while the images played. Running, struggling. A dusty windstorm. Death.
    Bones.
    "Oh, sweet Jesus," Jessica muttered. "That was no grendel."
    "It wasn't anything." Aaron was shaken. "It was invisible."

    Camelot was awake, and gathering in the main hall.
    Carlos tore at a scrap of ragged flesh at the corner of his thumb. The satellite feed kept playing it over and over again, enhanced with thermals, to full magnification, giving the illusion that the couple was no more than a hundred meters away.
    Impossibly far away. A world away.
    Justin's voice came over the speaker. "This is Skeeter Two. We are holding at seventy feet. We see skeletons. There's nothing alive down there that we can see. Nothing we can do to help them. Need instructions."
    Zack touched his collar. "Moskowitz. Did you say skeletons?"
    "Yes, sir. Two human skeletons. One canine," Aaron said.
    Zack was unnaturally calm. "We copy that. Skeletons. Satellite inspection detects nothing."
    "Motion sensors detect nothing," Aaron said. "And we see nothing--wait one. There is a small skeleton in the rocks about twenty meters above the camp." 
    "Human?"
    "No, sir, too small. Now I see another. There are two small skeletons. I would say Joeys from the size."
    "You say there's nothing to be done for Joe and Linda?" 
    "That's my best judgment," Aaron said. "And there's no sign of the baby. "
    Zack looked around. "Where's Colonel Weyland?" 
    "On the way." 
    "Hold off on landing for a minute, please." 
    There was no answer. "Please continue reports," Zack said. More colonists streamed into the hall, their voices a roiling cacophony. 
    "Wha--" 
    "The hell--" 
    "Will somebody tell me--" 
    "Who's up there--"
    Still no answer. Zack lowered his voice. "I know that you can hear me. Hold off on landing until we have an assessment--" Carlos tried to imagine what Justin was feeling now. In one sense, he couldn't possibly know. In another, he understood precisely. The entire colony was family, their lives linked as closely as the fingers of a hand. But Linda was Justin's kid sister.
    All of their lives, the Second had heard horrific stories. But a thousand stories pale in comparison to a single scream of agony.
    The crowd behind them parted as Cadmann Weyland stormed in. He was red-faced, unshaven, and flinty-eyed. His beige coveralls were wrinkled and stained, as if he had thrown on yesterday's clothes.
    He glared at the screen, his face as solid and square as stone. "What happened?"
    "Something attacked the minehead," Zack said. "No one knows what."
    The second image was a skeeter-eye view of the same scene. Skeeter ID number and pilot registration were etched at the bottom of the screen.
    "Justin," Cadmann barked. "Who's up there with you?" 
    A long pause.
    "Justin! Answer me, dammit." They didn't hear a sound at first, and then Justin's voice rang down to them. 
    "Jessica. And Aaron." Thank God, Cadmann thought. Jessica and Justin could handle their own, but Aaron Tragon was one of the best shots he had ever seen.
    "We're going down. Dad." 
    "Hold off on that. We're still sweeping the area." 
    "We don't see anything. The motion sensors don't pick anything up--"
    "They didn't pick anything up twenty minutes ago, either!"
    Mary Ann had made her way to Cadmann's side. Her face looked as if emotion had been pressed from it like oil from an olive. "Linda? Is Linda all right--"
    Cadmann squeezed her hand. "I don't think so. Justin, you're there. Do you see the baby?" 
    "Baby!" Mary Ann shouted. "Justin, go find him!" 
    "Cadmann." It was Aaron's voice this time. "You're wrong. The sensors did pick up motion before. Wind. Dust storm. Probably some kind of mineral powder, something that confused the sensors. We have to go down." 
    "Roger. Be careful. Secure Robor first." 
    "We will." 
    "Is that safe?" Zack demanded.
    "They're on the spot," Cadmann said. "And without Robor they can't get the Scouts off the mainland." 
    "Oh--"
    "Cadmann, what's happened to Linda?" Mary Ann wailed. "Justin, where's the baby!"
    "Father," Jessica said. He almost didn't recognize the voice. He had never heard his daughter sound like that before. "I don't see Cadzie." Her voice was beyond ice, somewhere out in deepest space. The clearing juddered on the wall. "Father, that's Linda down there. And Joe. They're dead. But one dog is missing, and I don't see Cadzie. "
    He was searching for something to say. What hope was there for his grandson's survival? Almost none. And yet, if there was any chance at all . . . 
    "All right," he whispered. "We'll keep watch from here." Then he turned, and held Mary Ann. When it came right down to it, there was really nothing else to do.

    Justin watched Jessica touch down without a bump, taking that last couple of inches as carefully as a man stepping onto thin ice.
    Aaron dismounted, carrying a grendel gun. Jessica bore a regular hunting rifle, its safety off.
    Justin hovered overhead, watching. He wiped his moist hands nervously on his pants. He strove to starve his imagination, to keep focused on each individual moment. Now and Now and Now, and after that, the Now to come.

    One careful step at time, Jessica and Aaron Tragon crossed the twenty feet between the autogyro and the skeletons. After each single footstep, she stopped to sense her surroundings. There was no sound except the steady shoop shoop of Justin's skeeter blades above them.
    Aaron's gaze locked with hers for a cold moment, and then slid past. Neither of them was willing or able to speak. Her heart thundered loudly in her ears.
    Three skeletons--two human and one canine--lay in a rough circle of flattened grass, as if they had thrashed around crazily, fighting, maybe. Fighting what? Where were their clothes? Could they have come running out naked? Naked but with sandals on . . . and Joe's hat, but not Linda's woven straw bonnet.
    Aaron kicked over a small rock that lay beneath the smaller skeleton: Linda's, the one with no hat. There was a tiny bloodstain under the rock.
    "No blood," Aaron said. "Little spots like this, but no blood! How long since--the attack started?"
    "Twenty-eight minutes since we heard the skeeter alarm," Justin said.
    Aaron looked around warily, rifle at the ready, but there was nothing to shoot at. "And it was all over before we got here."
    Jessica couldn't move her eyes away from the three skeletons. The bones were stripped bare of clothing and of meat, but all were in place, as when an archeologist opens a grave. Nothing had broken or scattered the bones. She picked up Joe's hat and rubbed it in her fingers. Inside the brim it looked etched, or chewed.
    Bones stripped of cloth, of meat, of sinew, ready to be mounted for biology class. Eyeless sockets glared up at her. Something gleamed. "Linda's chain," Jessica said. She pointed. A chain of tiny gold links encircled the neck of one of the skeletons. The next thing she knew she was bent over, stomach contracting violently. She felt it squeeze and pump, heard her own gagging sounds as from a distance, as if that other part of her were above the glade, watching as the tall blond woman tried to turn herself inside out. Aaron laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. She very nearly hit him. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. No time for emotions, you sniveling bitch. 
    "Cadzie," she whispered. 
    "What?"
    "He's got to be here somewhere. Whatever did this was in a feeding frenzy. It wouldn't have taken him somewhere else." 
    Stripped clean. Plucked bare. 
    "Where's the other dog?"
    "Hope to God it ran away. Ran far enough." They headed toward the mining shack.
    Her collar buzzed. It was Justin. "What do you see?" 
    "It's Linda and Joe and one dog."
    Aaron's voice was flat. "We're going over to the processing plant. The . . . door's open. Still no sign of the baby. Continue to record." 
    "Be careful," Justin said. 
    "Right."
    Jessica was ahead of him, rifle at the ready. The ground was bare, not even dust. Jessica stopped short and pointed.
    "Another small skeleton," Aaron said carefully. "Probably an immature Joey."
    Jessica reached the processing plant. The door was open. There was an aroma of burnt plastic within, and an ancient, oily musk. The door creaked on its hinges as she pushed it back.
    The interior was deeply shadowed. Slivers of light slanted through holes in the roof. Her breath sounded like slow thunder.
    "Nothing," she reported. "There isn't any sign of . . ." She spun at a sudden clatter behind her. Wind against the corrugated steel door. There was nothing, nothing here at all. She heard Aaron's voice from outside. "You had better come here."
    Her heart was a stone in her chest. She went outside, dreading what she was about to find.
    Aaron closed the door. Behind it was the skeleton of the missing dog. Next to it was a bundle in a blue blanket. It made a coughing sound, and began to cry.
    Jessica watched motionless as a tiny pink fist thrust out of the blanket and waved, more fiercely now, crying, calling for a mother who would never come. "He's alive!" she shouted. She touched the collar button, then changed her mind. Instead she ran to pick up the baby.
    Cadzie clutched at her. She dropped his deep blue blanket in the dust and held him at arm's length. Cadzie was furious. Cadzie was--
    She hugged him with her left arm so she could touch her collar button. "Cadzie is alive! Dad, you hear? He isn't even marked!"
    "We have found the baby," Aaron said. "He is apparently unharmed."
    "Tragon, this is Weyland." Her father's voice, flat and unemotional, came from her collar tab. "Would you repeat that?"
    "Yes, sir. We have found the baby. Jessica is holding him. He appears to be alive and unharmed." ' 
    "Thank you. Advice." 
    "Yes, sir."
    "Jessica, get the baby into the skeeter and stand by. Aaron, we've got good photographs. Grab anything you think might help us understand this and get out of there." 
    "Sounds good to me." Aaron nudged Jessica. "Go to the skeeter. I'll cover you," he said. "Get inside and close the doors."
    She nodded vigorously. She wanted to run, but she was afraid she would drop Cadzie. It felt good to be in the familiar skeeter seat.
    "Justin, do you see anything?" Aaron asked. 
    "Nothing on either side of the pass."
    "Then I'll chance gathering the bodies," Aaron said. "But I don't get it. Something hit this camp. Fast and hard. Killed everything. Except a baby. It couldn't find a child wrapped in a blanket." 
    "Maybe it wasn't hungry by the time it got to Cadzie." 
    "No, that's not it," Aaron said. "It stripped a dog next to him, right down to the bones."
    "Aaron, this is Zack. We think you should get out of there. You can gather evidence later."
    "Agreed." Aaron ran across the dry ground to the skeeter and leaned in. "Give me five minutes, Jessica. Freeze Zack---I've got something important to do."