"Bueno. Send them my very best regards."
Cadmann touched his throat mike. "Jerry. Is everyone accounted for?"
"The whole camp. We haven't lost anyone. Just get out of there, will you?"
We made it! No one dead. Christians 2,000; Lions zip. "Marty."
"Yo."
"We're getting out of here. Give us five minutes and the Minerva's all yours. Five minutes, and you're gone when you want to be."
"Whoopee! Cad—look, I didn't mean to be a drag—" "Fine. Out." He took one last look around. "All right, Carlos. Up!
Wh--?"
Two shadows moved at surreal speed. The first grendel, the prey, hit the inner fence and died in a blue flare. The second smacked into the first in the same instant. The fence tore. The second, living grendel rolled, found its footing, swiveled its head. Its legs blurred and it.... expanded...
It was coming straight at him. Cadmann tried to bring up his rifle.
Twenty meters away, the grendel jarred to a stop. It screamed at him: a challenge.
In that moment Greg fired from the side.
The grendel was outraged. It whipped around and. was gone, charging into a second stream of bullets. It hit Greg and knocked him flying, turned, and was coming back at Cadmann when three streams of bullets chewed it to rags.
Rick sprinted toward the spot where Greg had fallen. Cadmann called, "Rick. Back. Now."
Rick stopped, looked, and found two grendels investigating the break in the inner fence. He ran.
Cadmann was set to lift the barrel. Rick, puffing, took the other side. They climbed into the cargo hoist and braced the barrel between them.
Cadmann's stomach lurched as the Skeeter swung up, lifting above the deserted camp. The lights were dimmed now, save for the beam from the belly of the Skeeter. The Colony looked asleep, almost peaceful.
"Any final words?" Rick asked bitterly.
The Skeeter flew over the fence. Its light revealed a dozen grendels burrowing their way into a heap of the dead. Three were at Greg, pulling him apart like a chicken.
"Yeah," Cadmann said flatly. "My challenge. Dump it!" They tipped the barrel over, and the gallons of bloody fluid rained down.
Suddenly there was a storm of activity. Speed-drunken grendels streaked from every direction, congregating beneath them in a hissing mass. He could hear their screams even above the whip of the rotors.
"Bastards."
Rick's eyes gleamed.
Cadmann hawked and spit down into the whirlpool of motion. "Carlos. Get me out of here. I have work to do."
Carlos spun them around and headed toward the swollen silhouette of Mucking Great Mountain.
Chapter 31
GRENDELS IN THE MIST
When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.
LUKE 11:21-22
Mary Ann watched the sun rise behind a roiling mountain of storm. The dark had shown her nothing of what was happening down there. Neither did the light.
She heard slow thumping behind her.
Hendrick was on crutches. One leg was encased in a balloon cast while the ruined calf muscle regenerated. He was awkward on the crutches, and tired too. "I thought we sent you to bed," he said.
Mary Ann shook her head. "You sent me to rest."
"You resting?"
"Yes. How's Terry?"
"In place. We perched him on that big rock you call Snail Head. You can see him from here."
She looked. Yes, a shadow-man sat on a big white boulder, rifle in his lap, legs in a wide V. She turned back to the clouds.
The covered veranda had become the fire-control area. It had a wonderful field of view, but hers from below the veranda was almost as good. She could see along the winding silver ribbon of Amazon Creek as far as the edge of the bluff, and beyond to the sea of storm.
Half a dozen colonists were digging up mines, altering them and burying them again. The mines had been set to be harmless to a dog, death to an adult grendel. Now they must be reset, and the dogs penned up, kept out of the field.
The dogs didn't like that at all. She could hear their protests from inside the house. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were teaching their litter brothers and companions how to howl.
Another Skeeter was landing above the house. "I'll take it," Hendrick said. She heard him thumping away.
"I'll show them," she said, but he was already going, and she didn't insist. It was her house. Her house, but she was tired. She should be in bed.
Hendrick and Jerry and others were running the defenses, enlarging the privy, caring for the livestock. Other voices maintained communications with Geographic, the Minervas, the Skeeters. But when a Skeeter load came in, room had to be found for the refugees.
The living-room floor, with the small stream running right down the middle, was the men's bedroom. No other room was that size, so women were bunking in smaller clumps. Newcomers had to be shown everything. "We have to ration. Talk to Cadmann if that's a problem for you. You don't raid the kitchen. Sorry. The privy is down through the minefield. Follow the marks. We made maps and copied them and they're on every wall. Wash up in the big tubs outside. The water comes in from upstream above the house. It's cold but it's safe.
"The only hot water is in the kitchen and the main bathroom, and there really isn't much of it because the heaters were designed for just two people. Sorry. We don't have energy to spare. Not for heat, not for lights. Sorry. There's soap, but there isn't much, and we're saving some for the medical people. Sorry."
Sorry. She was getting very tired of using that word.
It seemed that nobody but Mary Ann could find anything. Hendrick had found her in the kitchen finding utensils for the cooks. They had ordered her to bed, and seen her to her door before Terry went on duty.
Her bed was big. They'd moved it into a storage room; the bed nearly filled it. At least she was alone. Few of her guests could say as much. She had the bed to herself because Cadmann was down there in the mist surrounded by grendels, with the outer fence ruined and rain about to short out the inner. And she stood below the veranda, watching the clouds.
Damn you, Cadmann. You didn't have to be there.
Maybe he did. Maybe we had to try to defend the Colony, and if we lost the Colony, and he wasn't there, he'd blame himself forever. But damn him, he didn't have to be the last man out. Let someone else be a hero. For once.
The diverted stream ran into and through the house, across the veranda, down a series of small falls, and rejoined the Amazon lower down. It was no more than knee-deep anywhere. The Amazon might have been armpit deep in spots. Running a stream through the house sounded so good, she'd clapped her hands when Cadmann suggested it. He'd half remembered something, an American architect, and she'd told him! Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was called "Falling Water" and was his best work, and she'd remembered it, and Cadmann built it for her. They'd even planned to stock it with samlon.
The Minerva roared out of the clouds at a forty-five-degree angle. Mary Ann held her breath as she watched the craft accelerate. She'd heard the panic in Marty's voice. And Cadmann had seemed desperate when Marty wanted to take off during the long night. The Minerva rose higher, if you crash, it serves you right. There was a puff of fog as it went supersonic... a change in the wake as the nuclear scramjet came on... a belated roar.
No explosion. No grendels in the intakes after all. And the Minerva was gone.
No power now, no fences. He had to come out now. Should have left when the Minerva did. Before the Minerva. He should be here now. Where are you, big guy--?