"Weather's getting bad," he murmured, so low that Cadmann almost couldn't hear him.
Aaron had heard. "True enough."
"Ordinarily, the bees build nests, raze an area for maybe a decade, and then move on. robably spawn a dozen queens each, or however they work it. But in times like this... "
"What?" Cadmann asked. He was afraid he wasn't going to like the answer.
Chaka looked back at Aaron, standing only a few feet behind him, and he shrugged. "The plains will flood. A lot of the nests will drown—no, they won't. The bees will have water traps built into them, for sure. And as soon as the first water recedes, the bees will migrate. Massively. Some of them are starting to expand westward now. See? The animals up here never evolved to deal with bees this way. A few Joeys are one thing—we're talking about the eradication of square kilometers of wildlife. It's been two hours since we've seen a single living animal, gentlemen. Those rain clouds? Those are the beginning. And the bees want the high ground.
Probably this whole region belongs to them, every fifty years. Then the population pressure drives them back to the lowlands. But when the rains hit... "
Aaron's voice was very flat. "What?"
"The bees are spreading everywhere, breeding whole hordes of queens and seeding them on the wind. These are species that never evolved to deal with bees, because bees were never here. The grendels—I've figured that out. There are so many other animals breeding their hearts out that the grendels aren't eating any of their samlon, so they're all turning into grendels. Edgar's been raving about the weird weather. We've seen it. Those bees are getting ready for the winds to scatter them everywhere!"
Cadmann nodded. "Sounds right."
Little Chaka spoke very carefully. "I have to tell Father. Do you realize that we're going to have to evacuate the mainland? And I mean right now—"
Cadmann caught a motion out of the corner of his eye, and it was a fatal half a second before he realized what was happening. Aaron, incredibly, was unshouldering his rifle. Chaka's rifle was in his hands. He was raising it, even as Cadmann felt his mouth form the word: "No!"
Chaka was closest to Aaron, and Aaron shot him first. The biologist had only begun to react when the bullet snapped his head back. Chaka's entire body straightened. He tumbled back over the cliff, the entire left half of his head a wet red ruin.
Cadmann had already leveled his grendel gun as the sound of the first explosion hit his ears. Chaka had not yet fallen. As Cadmann fired, Aaron dropped to one knee. The grendel charge went over Aaron's head. Cadmann corrected his aim and fired again.
He had aimed for the center of mass, and the center of mass for Aaron Tragon was covered by the rifle. Aaron flew back, hands splaying, hair flying out with the electrical shock. His mouth spread in a wide O as the dart released its charge. Aaron landed on his butt, three feet away. He shook himself like a big, sick dog.
Cadmann thumbed another dart into the breech and realized that it would take five seconds for it to charge. Grendel guns were backup weapons, used as part of a team effort.
Five seconds would be too late.
Chaka's gun. Cadmann dove for it, but Aaron was closer. Aaron screamed, scrambled up, and dove, and both pairs of hands closed on it at the same time.
For a second they tugged at it, their faces only inches apart. Then Cadmann released it and swung his right fist, connecting with Aaron's jaw just below the ear. Aaron's head snapped back, and his grip on the gun loosened, but as he went back his right leg whipped around, and the foot connected with Cadmann's face. Cadmann lost control of the gun, and rolled back, screaming as his shoulder thumped against the ground. His bad shoulder. Shakily he got to his feet at the same time that Aaron did.
Aaron's hands were curled loosely, spread roughly shoulder distance apart. Ready to chop, or punch, or grasp. His right shoulder was leading, about thirty percent of his weight on the front foot.
Cadmann felt sad, and tired, and old. Christ. Of course. Aaron was one of Toshiro's karate students. Probably his prize student, excelling at hand-to-hand combat as he did at everything else. Aaron was probably stronger than him, faster than him, fresher than him. Aaron would be dead in about twenty seconds.
Cadmann reached to his belt sheath and drew the Gerber Australian Bowie knife. Nine and a half inches of steel. He had carried it since Africa, a present from one of the NCOs he had lost in Mozambique. It felt heavy in his hand.
"Come on, boy," Cadmann said. "Let's get it over with."
Aaron looked at the knife, looked at Cadmann's face, and back at the knife. He dropped his hands. "I... I can't fight you," he said.
"You don't have a lot of choice here," Cadmann hissed. He slid in a little closer. "Why'd you do it, Aaron?"
"They would have listened to you." He held his wrists up, hands together. This boy was surrendering! What the hell was he supposed to do?
"They would have returned to the island. Everything would have been over."
"That's no reason to kill." But in the back of his mind, a voice whispered: For Aaron Tragon, maybe it is.
"Kneel down," Cadmann said.
Aaron obeyed. His lower lip trembled. A single tear rolled down his cheek.
"Cross your ankles and sit on them." That was a satisfactory unready position. "Take off your belt."
Aaron's hands went to his belt, slid it out of its loops.
"Make a noose on the end, and put your wrists through it. Tighten it with your teeth." Aaron did, and then, unsolicited, wrapped the belt around again. Tears were streaming down his face. He looked up into Cadmann's face, and his face had softened. Damn it, he looked too much like the boy that Cadmann had taught to swim, had taken for hikes.
God. How had it all gone so wrong so fast? Cadmann switched the knife to his left hand, and reached down to pick up the rifle.
Aaron's palms flat on the ground. Aaron's body uncoiled, spun. Aaron 's legs lashed out, caught Cadmann in the side. The knife spun out of his hand. Aaron moved in, a leg whipping out. Cadmann barely got his hands up in time, caught the shock of it on his shoulder and jaw. Pain. Blackness and the taste of blood in his mouth.
Cadmann charged in like a bull. He was mindless of the whipcrack kicks, or of Aaron's bound wrists chopping at his lowered neck. He smashed Aaron back, hammering with both hands. No karate. No judo. Just short, devastating hooks to the body, trying to break him in half one-two, one-two, one-two.
Grabbed belt. Wheeled, pivoted, threw Aaron by the bound wrists. Perfect leverage and timing. Aaron wheeled though the air, hit hard, rolled over groggily, and his hands—
Found Chaka's rifle. Braced butt against chest. Fingers found trigger.
Cadmann froze in place.
Aaron's face twisted in anguish.
A single, tormented word:
"Father."
And then thunder.
Chapter 38
THE GATHERING STORM
But evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as want of heart.
THOMAS HOOD, The Lady's Dream
Edgar and Trish were alone in the communications shack. Because he had chosen this time to show her how to build weather models, they were the first to hear the choked and frantic words. "Mayday... Mayday..." Unmistakably, Aaron Tragon's voice. The voice of a man very near the edge.
Edgar was more curious than anything else. He leaned over Trish.
"Wasn't Aaron out with Cadmann and Little Chaka?"
"As far as I know," she said. She stabbed at virtual buttons with a single forefinger. "Go ahead, Aaron. We read you."
"In Skeeter Twelve. Coming over the ridge now. My God. Grendels.
Grendels everywhere."