The Legacy of Heorot
Chapter 5

AUTOPSY 1

What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, 
That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, 
make yourselves scabs?
SHAKESPEARE, Coriolanus

    The Skeeter autogyro hummed up from the bank of the Miskatonic, crested the gorge and pivoted slowly, hovering. Its shielded tail rotors beat a curtain of dust from the ground.
    Tau Ceti crawled towards the western mountains, a tiny glare-point momentarily eclipsed by the tarpaulined shape swinging from the belly of the gyro. Zack Moscowitz shielded his eyes against the glare with one hand, with the other held the veterinary clinic's door open. Sylvia Faulkner and Jerry Bryce emerged running. The doctor kept ahead of the dust cloud. He waved the Skeeter along the approach corridor between the animal pens and the shops.
    Jerry must have come straight from his bed. His eyes were puffy; his unruly brown hair looked like the brambles that circled the plain. Sylvia wondered if he would be able to handle tonight's work.
    "Where 'd they find Ginger?" Zack coughed dust, hawked and spat.
    Sylvia flinched. That kind of rudeness was totally out of character for Zack. "Half a kilometer upriver. Barney spotted it on his third flyby."
    The Skeeter's engine whined, laboring as it hovered. Surely an illusion: the two-man craft could handle a ton of cargo. The calf's remains shuddered on the nylon palate as it spooled down, until palate and corpse flattened against an aluminum gurney.
    Sylvia and Jerry wheeled the gurney into the clinic. The bulge beneath the tarp was not the shape of a calf. This wasn't going to be fun.
    Stamping feet thundered in the horse pens as the colts and fillies backed as far away as they could. They tossed their manes, snorting, nostrils flaring. Zack sympathized totally. "No, it doesn't smell pretty, does it?" He stood back as the cart was wheeled up the ramp into the clinic. Sylvia guided, Jerry pushed. "I still can't believe this is happening." He eased the door shut behind them.
    Jerry took the cart the rest of the way in. Sylvia watched as the Skeeter dipped toward the western wall of brambles. "We haven't found anything on the infrared?"
    "Nothing but turkeys and pterodons," Zack said quietly. "I've been checking every half hour. Nothing on visual, nothing on audio, nothing on infrared or radar. For a hundred square kilometers." He wagged his head in disgust. "I don't know what to think. If there's something out there, it means trouble. But if there isn't anything out there . . . did you say who found this?" 
    "Carr."
    "Yes, right. May I?" She handed Zack the clipboard and he jotted a note to himself. His handwriting, neurotically neat at the best of times, looked machine-printed.
    Sylvia took his arm affectionately. "Zack--don't try to be everywhere at once. We'll take care of this." He started to protest, and she turned his chin, examining his bloodshot eyes. "You get any sleep?"
    "Usually I count sheep. You wouldn't believe what was vaulting the fence last night--" 
    Jerry peeled back the outer tarp.
    "Sheez!" Sylvia moved back from the sudden stench of unrefrigerated flesh. It smelled wet and suncooked and corrupt: the kind of odor that conjures an image of hungry flies and heavy spices; the smell that permeates a back-street butcher shop on a warm summer afternoon.
    Zack was trying to back out of the room, but the sight and moist sound as the tarp was peeled away held him transfixed. As the last layer of cloth left the corpse, he grunted in disgust and turned his head.
    One of the calf's legs was gone. Another was broken, chewed almost completely through, hanging at an angle. A hideously raw wound gaped in the center of the body. Skin and muscle had been ripped away, ribs snipped cleanly or shattered, jagged edges jutting through the flesh. The bones were grooved and splintered as if something had tried to push Ginger sideways through a wheat thresher.
    Marnie hooked a gauze mask around her ears. "All right, Jerry, start the camera." Her voice had a lisp that turned "Jerry" to 'Sherry', although she pronounced each word with extreme care.
    Jerry looked up at the ceiling. "Cassandra. Program. Autopsy assistant. Run."
    A glowing crystal at the end of a gooseneck extension snaked down from the ceiling. The video camera paused patiently as Jerry adjusted a collar at the top of its neck. Its red eye winked on. "Okay. Program is running. Recorders on. Go, Marnie."
    Marnie wheeled over the tray of instruments and pulled on rubber gloves. The stomach wound swallowed her arms to the elbow.
    "I note puncture marks around the throat without further damage inflicted there. Buttocks and abdominal muscle removed. I suggest that death was caused by severing of the jugular and carotids, but that the attacker dragged his prey to safety, and there consumed the, ah, missing tissue and internal organs." Her delivery was precise enough to compensate for much of the mushiness of her lisp. Years from now this would be seen all over the Earth.
    "The bones are neatly sheared--almost too neatly, I would think. Jerry, take a look at this."
    Her husband came to her side and pulled on a pair of plastic gloves. "Sylvia," he said quickly. "Get on the console and follow us with the camera." The glowing crystal wound its way to Marnie's shoulder and perched there, peering. "What have you got?"
    "Just a moment." Sylvia fiddled with the controls: suddenly the abdominal wound was floating in front of her, in living color. Her own stomach rolled, and she leached some of the color from the video stage. Little of this would be seen by Earth's billions. Too much blood. Maybe there was an underground market?
    Jerry's hand walked into the image, pointing at a rib that hadn't been ripped away. His scarecrow body moved smoothly now, in familiar habit patterns. "We have bite marks here--" His fingers traced several notches. "I want a projection based on bite radius, jaw pressure and overall strength. Whatever killed Ginger had power. It had to move her fast." 
    "I'm not doing anything useful," Zack said. "I'm going over to Control to check the infrared returns." No one answered. "I just hope to hell something has come up." 
    As soon as he was out of the room, Marnie looked up. "Nothing yet? Not a flicker?"
    Sylvia shook her head. "Nothing. Not one of the Skeeters has picked up anything larger than a turkey." 
    "And Cadmann's still out there looking?"
    "First out, last back. You know Madman Weyland." The torn flesh disappeared from the video stage, replaced by a two-dimensional column of numbers. Sylvia turned to the computer monitor. "Cassandra. Imaging." As she talked her words and numbers were transformed into lines of color. She manipulated them with an optical pencil until they became teeth and a crude mandible.
    Marnie exchanged terse words with her husband. They looked at the wounds and the luminous outline hovering in the air in front of the pregnant biologist, and tried to shut down their imaginations. They were not entirely successful.

    Ginger had yielded up the last of her secrets, and lay quiet now, refolded within her shroud of waterproofed canvas.
    The operating room reeked of disinfectant and strong coffee. They sipped coffee while they examined the video image. A disembodied brace of teeth without muscle or flesh floated in the air, grinning, mocking their confusion.
    "I come up with something like a hyena's jaw, more teeth, broader bones." Sylvia's finger traced the jawline.
    "Not strong enough," Jerry sighed. "Remember the way the ribs were sheared. Cleanly. I can't think of anything strong enough--"
    "--to cut those bones?" Marnie shook her head. "We're not talking strength here. There are plenty of animals who have the strength. It's the pressure I can't believe." The camera hummed. "So much force concentrated in such a small area. You're talking about a carnivore built like a stegosaurus--leviathan body, peanut head." She drained her cup, clattering it down on the counter. "And I don't believe that, either." 
    "Don't believe what?" Sylvia was staring at those jaws. The teeth would be like shears, and unbelievably powerful. She shuddered.
    "I don't believe a carnivore the size of a rhino with the speed of a leopard." Marnie threw her hands into the air. "I'm sorry! There's just nothing that size on the island." 
    "Maybe it swam over," Sylvia said in a small voice. 
    "But there's nothing here now." 
    "Maybe it swam back."
    Jerry stared at the image for a long moment, then shook his head uneasily. "We'd better hope to hell that that's just exactly what it did."

    The pterodon beat its leathery brown wings in slow motion, craning its claw-hammer head to skaw displeasure at the humming, hovering intruder in its domain. Frightened at first, it had lost some of its natural caution, spiraling closer and closer to the thing, trying to decide if it posed a threat. Suddenly the bulbous head of the intruder erupted in light, turning dusk into midday burning brighter than Tau Ceti at its height. Blinded, the pterodon cawed and reversed its arc, heading for the safety of its nest, high in the crags of Mucking Great Mountain.
    Cadmann chuckled and wiggled the searchlight toggle, playing the Skeeter's beams around the pond at the base of the mountain. It scanned clear, except for a few samlon near the surface. Nothing large had been near it recently: the infrared would pick up a man-sized heat trace half an hour old.
    Fed by trickles of snow melt and a tributary from the southern highlands, the pond was the largest body of still water for fifty square kilometers. If there was a large carnivore in the vicinity, surely it knew of this watering hole. Perhaps it even fished for samlon here . . .
    The pond stared up at him, a blind eye around the edges, dead black in the center. The water shivered as he brought the Skeeter down for a closer look. "How deep are you, fella--?" 
    Before the thought could congeal, his earphones buzzed. Cadmann cleared his throat into the microphone. "Weyland here. Found anything?" 
    It was Zack on the other end. "Not a thing, Cad. You?" 
    "Not yet, but--" 
    "We need to have Town meeting tonight. Head on in." 
    "I've still got a quadrant to sweep."
    Cadmann could almost hear Zack counting under his breath. "Cadmann--you've already swept your entire area twice. Everyone else is in. We've been at this all day. We need to talk, and nobody wants to wait any longer." 
    "But--"
    "I'm too tired to play martinet, Cad. Do me a favor and just come back in."
    The pond stared at him. Something about it made his stomach itch with tension. He wheeled the Skeeter around for a long look at the plateau. The brambles were struggling for a foothold on the square kilometer of naked rock, and Cadmann saw that yes, a trap could . . .
    Suddenly he was smiling as he climbed, spun the Skeeter around and dived toward the lights of the Colony.

    There were no colorful newsreels or densely worded technical briefs displayed on the walls of the communal meal hall. There were no sharp, tangy vegetable smells, and no warm buzz of camaraderie.
    A low mutter of disgust tinged with fear wound its way through the group as they faced the floating image of the dead calf, its wounds marked with flashing green labels.
    Mary Ann gripped Cadmann's hand; her nails bit into his palm every time the camera zoomed in on a wound, until he carefully disengaged her hand and put it firmly in her lap.
    At the head table, Zack paused in his comments to take a drink. It seemed to brace him. Cadmann wondered what exactly was in that pitcher.
    "This is our best reconstruction," he concluded, rather apologetically. "Sylvia extrapolated this from the spread and depth of the bite marks. We have an eighteen-centimeter jaw base, and a roughly wedge-shaped head. It looks like something sired upon a rattlesnake by a bear." Nobody laughed. "Um . . . massively strong jawbones and corresponding muscles.
    "We can't be sure how much such an animal would weigh. Certainly enough to destroy any credibility the tracks by the chicken cages might have had." He peered out into the audience. "I'm afraid that that incident was a particularly unfunny prank."
    Gregory Clifton handed a drowsy April to his wife, Alicia, and stood. "Zack, let's cut the crap. I worked on the computer map. Half the Colony saw the information as it was coming in. There isn't an adult here who can't interpret the technical data for himself. How about opening up the floor?" 
    The applause shook the room.
    Zack shrugged, spreading his hands. "All right, Gregory--what's your idea?"
    "We know about the pterodons. None of them get too large. But maybe there's another species of flying carnivore. Something the size of--oh, crap, let's say a California condor . . ."
    There was a quick spate of derisive laughter. Jon Van Don yelled, "What the hell, why not a roc, Greg?"
    Barney Carr-brayed with laughter. "Watch out for flying elephants!"
    "Wing span-to-weight ratio, Greg," Stu called. "It would have to be huge to lift a calf. Much larger than a ground carnivore capable of bringing down the same size prey. And how would it evade the Skeeters?"
    Greg held up his hand. "Hear me out. It wouldn't need to fly away with the calf. It could fly in, and then drag a heavy victim to a safe place. And maybe it nests up in Mucking Great Mountain--"
    There was a shout from the back of the auditorium, and Andy Washington, the big black man from the engineering crew, stood. He was fighting a losing battle with an evil grin. "I say our mistake is thinking it had to be big. Maybe it's not an it. Maybe it's a them, like a herd of Marabunta army mice--"
    "Something like a glassfish," Jean Patterson added. "A super-chameleon--" 
    "It has to be coldblooded, to evade the infrared--" 
    "The hell it does! There're hot springs everywhere you look!" The opinions were flying too thick to stop now, and Zack sat back, pleased and relieved by the healthly creative energy being released.
    La Donna Stewart stood, tiny fists poised lightly on her hips. "Has anybody considered a borer?"
    "I think we're listening to one--Ow!" There was the sound of an affectionately brisk slap as she whacked her fiance, Elliot, and the room quieted for a moment.
    "I mean like a mole, or like ants or termites. This entire area could be riddled with tunnels and we'd never know it. It could operate like a trapdoor spider. Engineering should put together a seismic detector, Zack . . ."
    Andy whipped out a pad of paper and started making notes to himself.
    Zack Moscowitz took the opportunity to grasp control again. "A good suggestion. La Donna. All good suggestions . . ." He glared at the engineer. "Except maybe the Marabunta mice, Andy."
    He touched a switch, and the grotesque skull disappeared from the wall. He chuckled darkly. "I know that some of you don't even believe in this thing. There is . . . one possibility that Rachel suggested to me. As camp psychologist she felt it was time we discussed it openly."
    He took another sip from the thermos, then plunged ahead, dead serious now. "We all know about Hibernation Instability. It's no joke to any of us. Personally, I've noticed that I don't parse as well as I once did. That I need a calculator for operations that I used to do in my head. And I wonder: is that just age? Or could it be those little ice crystals that weren't supposed to form?
    "We've had major memory losses, impairment of motor skills, mood swings and clinical personality disorders--all of which we've been able to handle by juggling work duty and schedules. A few cases have required chemical stabilization." 
    The muttering in the room had quieted. They were ahead of him, and heads nodded in anticipatory agreement.
    "Maybe things have been too placid here. The crops are thriving, we've had no deaths--hell, no real injuries--" 
    Cadmann looked around him in the dark. A little white lie there, Zack. Ernst walked right of the cliff and broke his ankle his first week down.
    "Just maybe there are those among us who feel that it's been too easy, and perhaps for our own good want to--" His fingers fluttered as he fought for the right words--"want to keep our guard up, our spines stiff, by creating a bogeyman. A harmless joke, perhaps, except that the loss of the dog, the chickens and now the calves suggests a rather disturbing trend.
    "I won't suggest that this is what has happened. But I would be remiss to exclude the possibility from this discussion. So . . . if anyone has anything to talk about, please..."
    He looked out over the audience, which was dead silent. Zack gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles pale. He moistened his lips nervously. Alicia's baby started to cry, and she blithely offered it a nipple.
    Zack cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No one has anything to say? Carlos?"
    Their carpenter/historian shook his head. He peered at his fingernails, inspecting them in the dark. "Not me, amigo. I uh . . . I heard that the tracks by the chicken cage might have been a prank. We all heard Cadmann say that, and I guess that's possible."
    There was silence for another long moment, then Cadmann stood. His big hands were splayed out on the table in front of him, and his face was grim--not a shred of regret or admission or apology there. "I know what I think. I think that we're wasting our time here, talking about Hibernation Instability. That's bullshit. I have a good idea of what we're up against here: something that is fast and strong and smarter than a wolf. Smart enough to use the rivers and streams to foil other predators, maybe. At any rate, that's how it dumps the heat, and why we don't pick it up on the scans."
    There was a murmur of approval, and Cadmann continued. "This thing is checking out our territory one bite at a time. I'm not trying to alarm anyone, but it's pretty obvious that our present defensive plans are insufficient."
    Terry stood up, brows furrowed petulantly. "We're using standard procedures, Weyland. In fact, our patrols are heavier than the situation really warrants. We're taking people away from other projects."
    "I agree, Terry. So let's not take them away for an indefinite period. I say an aggressive defense could handle this situation in a week."
    "Aggressive defense?" Terry asked, arched eyebrow and tightly pressed lips punctuating the words with sarcasm.
    "We don't wait around for this thing to find a hole in our defenses. We set traps. We hunt it down. This is our world. We're masters of this island, damn it, and I for one don't have much stomach for just hiding behind a fence."
    "And we can guess who'd like to play Great White Hunter." Terry turned to look at Zack, but he was still talking to Cadmann. His voice was calm and measured, as if speaking to a child. "There's no call to jump the gun. We need to evaluate the situation carefully. See how it responds to standard procedures. Then, if necessary, we can make a coordinated sweep of the island. There's no need to turn this into a safari. Especially since, as Rachel has suggested--there may not be an exterior threat to this colony."
    He turned back to Cadmann. "Before you get your back up, no. I'm not accusing you or your friends." He flickered an eye at Ernst. "But it wouldn't shock me if you wish I had. There are some people who need a fight to feel alive. Who feel old and useless without one."
    He sat down, leaving Cadmann the only man standing in the room. There was a disgusted ripple of whispers, and Carlos's barely audible voice stage-whispering, "What a crock."
    Cadmann closed his eyes and told his bunched stomach muscles to relax. "Listen to us. The only thing we can agree on is that something is happening here. I say that until proven otherwise, we make the simplest assumption--that there is an unknown life form, and that we have invaded its territory. Now if you put me in charge of a small group of hunters, I can--"
    Zack shook his head. "This has all happened too quickly, Cadmann. Until we evaluate the information further, we simply can't judge the relative merits of our defensive options." 
    "Spoken like an accountant," Carolyn McAndrews said stridently.
    Cadmann glared at her. "This is between me and Zack, lady. Button it."
    Zack blew air. "This is uncalled for. Both of you, cool down. For the time being, I think we should sit tight, on our home ground. After all--" Zack smiled--"this camp is our territory. Let's make it come to us, all right?"
    "Damn it!" Cadmann was yelling now, and frustrated with himself for doing it. "I demand the establishment of a militia, and I'm going to organize it. I'm better suited than anyone else here for that position--" 
    "Cadmann, I think we should wait--"
    "Wait? All right. You hurry up and wait. None of you understand--" Cadmann bit his lip, sealing off the torrent of words. He turned and stalked out of the hall.
    Behind him, Ernst stood. Silent, impassive as a golem carved from ice. He studied their faces as if memorizing, judging, weighing options somewhere in the crannies of his damaged mind. Then he said, "You shouldn't treat Cadmann like that. He knows. He's smart. You should listen to Cadmann." He followed Cadmann out.
    When the doors had swung shut behind them. Terry said softly, "I think maybe someone should keep an eye on him. On both of them."
    Mary Ann stood, shaking the hair out of her face. Her face was filled with anger, but her voice was little-girl vulnerable. "He just wants to help. " Her voice broke on the last word and she averted her eyes, then ran from the room.

    Cadmann wasn't answering his door.
    She was no stranger here. She had actually left some toiletries on his dresser, and a few items of clothing in his closet. Still she waited for permission before intruding.
    "Cadmann?" She hugged her arms to her sides. "It's cold out here. Can't I come in?"
    His words were leaden with disgust. "Mary Ann, what do you want?"
    That was probably as much of an invitation as she was going to get. She opened the door.
    The only light was a pale halo surrounding a holographic Earth globe, a half-meter sphere of sparkling blue ocean and drifting clouds that revolved above Cadmann's bed. He was lying on his side, fingers playing with the video control box, bringing silvery dawn or cloaking darkness to the continents. Cadmann stared at the globe moodily. A flicker of his thumb and the western coast of Europe was alight. Another and the globe misted, cleared on a satellite panorama of the United Kingdom. The island swelled to fill the video field. A hooked nugget of land near the foot of the island flashed green, and again the globe misted, and the mountains of Wales floated in the air. As if he had done it a thousand times, Cadmann guided the camera in on a southeastern corner, to a valley rampant with golden-green trees and rolling hills, a vast quilt of farmland stretching away into the distance.
    He laughed flatly, self-consciously. "A sovereign remedy for homesickness, they say."
    She sat next to him and reached for his hand. He lay back, kicking his feet up onto the blankets, not bothering to take off his shoes. His shirt was open halfway down the great corded barrel of his chest; wisps of silver hair reflected the spreading light. Her urge was to bury herself against him.
    There was a movement in the corner of the room, and she saw Ernst's enormous bulk perched on an incongruously tiny stool. He watched her expressionlessly, and seemed to her like an engine idling in neutral, waiting for Cadmann to throw him into gear. A less flattering metaphor, one having to do with tame dogs, came to mind. She repressed it and smiled at him, still unnerved by his lack of response.
    "My grandfather came from Wye Valley," Cadmann said quietly. "It doesn't look like this anymore." There was resignation in his voice, and he hit a button on his control. Once again the Earth globe spun slowly above his bed, segueing from day to night to day in steady rhythm.
    "Well," Cadmann said finally. "Nobody can say I didn't try it their way."
    Mary Ann reached out to touch him again, gratified when he took her hand. His fingers were cool and stiff, and she had the distinct impression that the contact was more for her benefit than his.
    "What do you mean by that?"
    The barest trace of a smile flickered on Cadmann's lips and then died. "Just . . . what I said. That's all. Really." 
    "Cadmann--we've scanned the island from one side to the other."
    A line of shadow fell on Cadmann's face as the holo globe revolved, and night fell on the Americas. 
    "Cadmann?" There was no answer.
    She rose from the bed unsteadily and crossed to Ernst. He looked at her incuriously. The angle of his head only changed as she knelt beside him and took one of his huge callused hands in hers.
    "Ernst," she whispered to him. "Please--leave us alone for a while?"
    "Oh . . ." He grinned childishly. "You want make rub with Cadmann? That fun." His ice-blue eyes clouded for a moment as if searching lost memories. "You make rub with Ernst once. I remember! On ship. Maybe sometime--"
    He blinked, as if something sad had suddenly occurred to him, some flash of understanding that was intensely, profoundly depressing, and the great craggy expanse of his face went slack. "No. I forget sometime. Good-night, Cadmann." He resurrected a smile for Mary Ann. "Goodnight, May-ree." 
    Mary Ann followed him to the door, and latched it behind him. She turned quietly, watching Cadmann's motionless figure on the waterbed. She sat on the bed and took off his shoes.
    Dawn broke over a miniature Asia: the Himalayas glittered, flamed white. The China Sea was a riot of warm blue diamonds.

    She was riding his hips. She saw the sudden delighted surprise in his face, and he said, "Earth mother."
    She didn't know what he meant, or care. Only afterward did she guess how she must have looked, her face and shoulders glowing within the globe of the Earth.
    Like all of the times and all of the ways that she had made love to Cadmann, this time was utterly precious to her. If there was a barrier between them, it wasn't the disdain that she felt from Marty, who laughed to his friends as he knocked on her door. Or Joe Sikes. Good old available Joe, who knew her weaknesses so well. Who rapped on her window when his pregnant wife was asleep.
    It was different because she knew there would come a moment when he would smile as she kissed him, and then they would laugh together. The barrier would crumble for a while, a fragile crystalline moment, and Cadmann would really be with her, caring for her and letting her fill his needs. And when that time came she turned her face away, unwilling for him to see the dampness on her cheeks.
    Later, long enough later for any tears to have dried and any tremors to have ceased, he held her softly, as if afraid that she might shatter. Gazing at her, he ran his thick blunt fingers over and around the curves and shadows, touching, soothing. Finally he sighed, laid his head gently between her breasts and fell into a deep, soundless sleep.