He and Carlos walked over to the fence above the Miskatonic. Carlos pointed at a black form wiggling up from the water below them.
It twisted its head slowly, questing, as if it could smell them. It tried to climb the rise, but slid back down into the rushing waters.
Over to the south, fire lashed from a Skeeter. A meteor raced at ground level toward the river, lost direction and finally stopped.
"Cadmann? Carlos?"
Sylvia. The wind stirred her hair ever so gently, and it ruffled in a halo around her face. She seemed so incredibly young, so beautiful. She turned, exposing the papooseka backpack that held Jessica.
Terry glided along beside her, carrying Justin in his lap.
She stepped back, framing the four of them with her hands as if taking a holo.
Cadmann closed his eyes and felt the old hunger race through him. The very real possibility that he might never see her again made it almost unbearably intense.
She hugged Cadmann, then reached up and kissed him gently. "For luck," she whispered.
Carlos stood quietly, his hands at his sides. Sylvia had to take his arms and put them around her. She whispered something to him that Cadmann couldn't hear, and then kissed him hard.
Cadmann turned away, embarrassed. Terry studiedly held Justin. Their eyes locked, and Terry raised his eyebrows.
When she had finished, she took Justin from Terry and stepped back again. "My three favorite men in all the world," she said soberly. "God bless and keep you. Keep each other."
She knelt by Terry and kissed him. At first it was a peck, then it became desperately hungry. Justin began to cry.
Sylvia pressed the child to her chest. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks. Without another word, she turned and ran to the Skeeter pad.
Cadmann hesitated, then said, "I'd like to ferry her over myself. Do you mind?"
"Not at all." Terry's voice shook. He stared at the ground and wiped at his face with an unsteady hand.
Stu was running the Skeeter shuttle. Cadmann grabbed his arm and swung him to the side. "Stu—why don't you do us both a favor and grab a cup of coffee?"
"S'all right, Cad. I can keep going for a while—" He glanced at Sylvia, and then back again. "Oh. Right."
Cadmann held the door for her, then hurried around to the pilot's side. He performed all the checks and instrument adjustments automatically. She made no sound until they lifted off, then sighed audibly.
"I might have known that it would be Carlos," he said.
"You understand, don't you?"
"How could I not? I just wish..."
"Don't say it, Cad. We've been through all of it already."
They could see Camelot clearly from their perspective. The angles and swirls, the rectangles of the home lots, the rolling parks. The schematics of their dream. A dream that had become a nightmare.
"Cadmann. Are we going to make it? I mean, any of us?"
"The answer is yes. We've made mistakes, bad ones. Not surprising—no one has ever dealt with an alien ecology before."
"But Cad—"
"No buts this time." He set the Skeeter down on the asphalt surrounding the dam. Minerva One waited there for them, her sides scarred with exhaust heat, the water still steaming around her. Cadmann twisted in his seat. "I swear to you—Justin and Jessica are going to live. They're going to have a place to grow up. They will inherit this planet. My solemn oath."
Sylvia melted against his chest, her face only inches from his. He bent to kiss her, felt his senses swim with her taste and touch and smell.
"You're our only hope, Cadmann. Please."
He bussed Jessica and then Justin, as if both were his own children.
And if there were any justice in the world, they would be.
Sylvia climbed down out of the Skeeter, and closed the door behind her.
He watched, motionless, as she climbed onto the Minerva. With a final wave, she disappeared into the airlock.
That was that. It was almost all done. There was nothing left but to face the grendels.
Chapter 29
HOLDING
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves!
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, "Intimations of Immortality"
Geographic hadn't changed. Sylvia had seen it like this through a tiny window when the next-to-last shuttle brought her to board humankind's first interstellar spacecraft. Minervas had ridden the hull like limpets; they were gone now. The hull was scarred by decades of cosmic rays and micrometeorites. Skin tension had pulled the empty fuel tank to half its size. Yet this was still Geographic.
What was missing was inside. Electronics. Hydroponics, life support, computers, everything that could be used below had been sent down to Avalon. Geographic was no longer an interstellar spacecraft.
The air processors can't support more than thirty people for even seventy-two hours. We'll be breathing soup after fifty. "She's dead," Sylvia said.
"Not dead. Sleeping," Rachel said.
"Bloody right." Zack was grim. "We'll all live to take her to the planets—"
"Yeah, sure—"
"You are damned right, ‘Yeah, sure!'" Rachel said. "What is this?
Giving up already?"
"No," Sylvia said. "Little tired."
"We're still Homo interstellar. The one and only, now. If we fail here, what lesson will we teach in Sol system? There won't be another ship for a thousand years. Maybe never. We came as conquerors. Some of us died as prey, but we ate the samlon too. When we get through this, we'll eat every samlon in the Avalon rivers while our crops are growing. Jesus, I wish I'd recorded that!"
Zack crowed, "Me, too! Rachel, with a speech like that I could get elected to anything!"
Stu fired the retros, and the Minerva began to pivot. The restful azure curve of Avalon passed the window. Tau Ceti crested the horizon, rose like a flaming gemstone. Talons of searing white light raked at the shadows.
Avalon was neutral. The children of Earth might die, they might thrive. Avalon would embrace their bones or their progeny with equal warmth.
Mist swirled below. Rain coming? Mary Ann stood at the edge of Cadmann's Bluff and strained to see through the swirl. The Colony was a geometric blur. After a while the breeze came up again, and the mists parted for a moment.
Tweedledum's cold nose thrust into her hand. "Good dog," she said absently.
The mist began to close again. For the moment everything was tranquil. The rapidly flowing Miskatonic, the neat lines of the Colony, the rows of unharvested crops. Off to the left, a Skeeter moved in curves. There was no trace of grendels. A picture-postcard day, for Avalon.
The wind rose again, a clean, brisk east wind. She treasured the feel of it, the way it wound around her, through her, dried and cooled the perspiration on her skin.
"Cadmann—" she whispered.
But he was down below her, with his own concerns. For now she was on her own.
Suddenly large hands were on her shoulders, massaging deeply. Waves of heat flooded away the fatigue and her knees sagged. She looked up over her shoulder.
"That's wonderful, Jerry. I'm yours."
"Dump Weyland and it's you and me, babe. Are you all right?"
"My body wants Jessica." She touched her breasts, the moist patches where she had leaked through the bra shields. "I think that she's crying for me. But we have six women up there who can make milk for her. She'll be all right."
"How about you?"
She grinned, nodded assurance, and they linked arms. Together they headed back toward the house.
Even from below, the changes were apparent. The house had expanded. Thirteen of Hendrick's crew had deepened and widened the foundations and reinforced the roof and walls with quarter-inch metal sheeting. That had been a cheerful time, when they reshaped Cadmann's Bluff just to keep Madman Weyland happy.