A small, bustling shape emerged from the brush. A snouter, one of the pig-like things common in the lowlands and reasonably plentiful on the high plateaus. It saw Cadmann twenty meters away, squeaked, and started to turn.
In a sudden blur of motion something tore out of the woods and slammed into the snouter so fast that he didn't have time to think. He watched, fascinated, as the monster that had suddenly emerged raised its head, blew flames into the night air.
The back of Cadmann's neck went cold and clammy.
A grendel.
God. What was it doing here?
Well, in one way it was a stupid question. At the moment, it was feasting. Cadmann shouldered his rifle, and prepared to fire. The grendel stopped.
And looked up.
Directly at him. Cadmann's finger was on the trigger. He felt the tension of it, felt the trigger's breaking point, knew that another gram of pressure would send the bolt of electric death on its way.
The grendel's eyes. They saw him. And for the first, the very first time ever he didn't feel emptiness there. It wasn't death and destruction.
It was... something else. Something even more disturbing.
He waited for the grendel to attack. Why? Was he giving it a chance? Was that like some bullshit Western gunfighter credo, some small-town marshall in a bad B movie? It's your move, Ringo...
He didn't know why, but he just couldn't bring himself to pull that damned trigger. There he stood, facing this thing with its teeth slimed with blood, its muzzle befouled with black, and the snouter's carcass still twitching in front of it. Cadmann just couldn't bring himself to move.
Cadmann heard motion behind him. Sylvia and Aaron. Aaron's rifle was off his back and into firing position—
Cadmann waved violently. NO! Aaron paused.
The grendel lashed its tail around and into the corpse. It dragged the body into the brush, and was gone.
Cadmann lowered the rifle.
"That was a grendel!" Sylvia said.
Cadmann nodded.
Sylvia looked at him strangely. "You didn't shoot. You didn't let Aaron shoot."
"We were in no danger," Cadmann said. "It wasn't going to attack us.
It was just hungry."
"Yes, but—a grendel?" Sylvia said wonderingly. She turned on Aaron, blazing. "You said this lake was safe!"
"It was," Aaron said. "We were sure it was. There's no way a grendel could have got in here—"
"Except that one did," Cadmann said. "And I think that's enough excitement for the day. Let's call in the skeeters for a ride back."
Aaron nodded. "Right. And I want to ask Chaka a few questions..."
Old Grendel ran.
In an instant she was out of sight of the weirds. She didn't slow. She was into the blowholes before they could have seen where she disappeared. She was underwater and swimming hard before the speed could leave her blood. If the Strongest One changed her mind, brought other weirds to kill her, they would not find Old Grendel.
Her life had hung by a ragged toenail. But she had learned! That one had not killed her. That other was about to kill her, and that one had waved her back. That one was the Strongest One, and she was willing to deal with Old Grendel!
They would meet again. But not here. She began to prepare for the long swim back to the river.
Chapter 34
THE DEVILS SING
As lines so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel
Though infinite, can never meet.
ANDREW MARVELL, The Definition of Love
Carlos paused on the far side of a glen. The bees had disappeared into the trees, and there was nothing to do until he spotted another one.
Katya offered him a drink from her canteen. They leaned against the tree together. "Let's rest here for a minute. We'll catch the next bee that comes along."
"You know," Carlos said carefully, "I really wasn't surprised that you wanted to come over here. Considering that Mr. Justin was here."
She laughed.
"Yes. That's what I thought." He paused for a moment, and Katya leapt into the breach.
"You know," she said, "Justin's great, but there's something missing."
"And what is that?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure. But sometimes I think that all of the freedom we have has made us too blase. I... " She shook her head. "I don't want to sound too retro."
Carlos's brown eyes softened. "You know, sometimes I forget that you are a woman."
"Well, thanks a lot."
"No. I mean that I forget that you're grown. It is impossible to ever forget that you are female."
She brushed a hand through her hair, shaking out a magnificently leonine mane. "Really?" She seemed cautiously pleased.
"Do you realize that this is the longest period of time that we've ever been apart?
She nodded. "Have I changed much?"
"No. Not really. But when I think of you, I envision a little girl chasing after me, trying to get my attention. If I see you every day, it doesn't really hit me how wrong that image is. But after months... well, the contrast jars a little."
"I hope you like it."
"I love it. Love you. You're everything that I might have hoped for in a daughter."
She took his hand. "Is something bothering you?"
He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I grow more conservative with age. I was always the camp rake. I had my pick of the women here—whether they were married or not."
"I'm shocked."
"Naturally. It's just one of those things that is true—women have never been difficult for me. Sex has always been natural and comfortable.
There was never a lot of moral or spiritual baggage attached to it"
"Just a natural human function? That's what you always taught me."
"But understand—we came from a culture in which human beings have been limited in their sexual expression for thousands of years. The aftermath of a terrible sexual plague left earth even more conservative.
And when we finally came out of that time, there was a general celebration, a rejection of much of what had gone before "
"Sounds a lot like Avalon."
"No. It wasn't. Because remember that European culture's underpinnings were a guilt-ridden vision of sexuality. Perhaps the twenty-second century's hedonism was a healthy reaction to that conservatism—but the truth lies somewhere between the extremes."
"Meaning?"
"It may be something is lost when all of the restraints are thrown away."
"Are we moralizing here?" she teased. "Carlos? The great seducer himself?"
"I'm not talking about right and wrong. I'm asking what works best? People are lonely, sweetheart. And afraid. And will do anything to fill that loneliness—for a minute, an hour, a lifetime. Sex is probably the very best way to feel... how would you say... not alone."
"Sometimes," she admitted. "There are other times when it can make things worse."
He nodded his head. "I've had a long time to think about this. I think that each stage in a relationship has a different level of communication. In the beginning, both lovers are cautious, and learn about each other gradually. They share memories, take each other to favorite places, and slowly begin to touch. As they get more intimate, they communicate faster and more intensely."
"Sex is probably the ultimate," Katya said. "All the senses are engaged at the same time—"
"If you do it right."
"I'm your daughter. You expect something less?"
"Touche. What I'm saying is that two people eating dinner together can exchange virtually no information, and feel that their interaction was complete. Narrow-bandwidth communication. But sex is so intense that it seems that it just has to mean something. It feels as if you just learned profound and complex things about your lover."