Beowulf's Children (15 page)

Cadmann thought carefully. If sabotage, then... test explosions before the real thing? But the real thing had been something quite different. "Got any ideas, small bright one?"

"Some defect in the thermal unit at the secondary processor. Some contamination in the coal itself? There's a mushy look to one of the spikes, like... less like a single grenade than a bushel of cherry bombs."

"Coal dust?" someone said from the door.

She shook her head. "Coal dust can explode, but we thought of that in the design. If air is mixing with the dust there' d have to be something wrong in the machinery, something Cassandra doesn't see. Even something deliberate."

"Sabotage?"

She shrugged.

"Have you done a spectroscopic on the coal?"

"Yes, of course, months ago-"

"No, I mean recent."

"Joe says we can't, the instrumentation is gone. We've got to go there."

"I was thinking dynamite at the bit, but what if air was getting in?"

Cadmann was looking about him, not obviously, trying to read faces.

"Possible, but tricky. We'll look when we get there," Linda said.

"All right. Bluff Two. Good moorage for Robor, and it's the right place for the Scouts. Make it the base, and we'll check the other mine areas by skeeter."

"What about the lowlands expeditions. Dad?"

"Remember, this is a dry run. Take three days, check everything, do your overnight with the Scouts, then you can look for a good place for a base camp. Stay alert, and pull back fast if anything unexpected crops up."

"Reconnaissance in force," Linda said.

Cadmann grinned faintly. His fingers moved across the map. "Once you're through with the Scout stuff, you can do geology with one skeeter and use another for mapping. While you do that, the Grendel Scouts stay on the Mesa with somebody steady in charge. Usual rules there. Stay high, no lowlands at all. Any variation from this order will be cause for mainland privileges to be revoked. Do we understand each other?"

For a moment Justin wondered if Aaron would give an argument, or say something provocative-he had been known to do that. But he wanted this trip too badly. Justin could almost see him sitting on his emotions, holding his tongue for dear life. Instead of smart-mouthing, he nodded.

Linda sighed. "I'm sure that whatever is wrong, we can handle it. Nothing to worry about. Otherwise," she said, "I'd never take Cadzie with us. Never in a thousand years."

THE MAINLAND

Its horror and its beauty are divine.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLY, The "Medusa" of Leonardo da Vinci

"Can we talk?"

Linda looked up with faint annoyance. Linda had learned what all mothers learn. Sleep when the baby sleeps, stupid! She'd just got Cadzie down for a nap.

"Please."

Edgar looked desperate. Joe had been worried about him lately, worried that Edgar had problems he wouldn't talk about. Joe would want to know. She sighed and pointed to the sleeping baby. "In your work room, then. Cassie, Cadzie is asleep. Listen for Cadzie. We will be in Edgar's workroom. Call if he wakes up."

"Understood, Linda," Cassandra said softly.

Edgar led the way. "Coffee?"

"Sure, thanks," she said. "I like coffee and I never get a chance to go pick beans."

Edgar gave her an evil grin. "There's one way you can get all the coffee you ever want."

"I used to do that," she said.

"Hey, I didn't mean anything."

"All right." She sipped coffee. "I do like this stuff. Okay, Edgar, what's so urgent it can't wait for me to get a nap while Cadzie's asleep?"

"Why don't I get laid?"

"What?"

He couldn't meet her eyes now. "It's hard enough asking once, let alone twice. Why can't I get laid? I must be the oldest virgin on this planet."

"You're not a virgin. You're a Grendel Scout. I was there. Trish Chance, the Bottle Baby."

"Close enough," Edgar said. "There was that once on the mainland. I didn't know what to do. Trish had to show me, and she hardly speaks to me now."

"Why ask me?"

He sighed and shook his head. "There was a time when I'd have given anything I had to sleep with you. You know that."

She struggled to avoid laughing, and lost. "I'm sorry," she giggled.

"But Edgar, I never knew—"

"You knew," he said. "Come on, I don't know much about girls, but anybody could tell you were keeping score, making sure that anybody you hadn't made it with sure wanted to. You—unless I'm psychotic. Linda?"

"All right, I suppose I did," Linda said. "And then one morning I woke up tired of the games."

Edgar nodded, relaxing a little. "You slept with damn near everybody! Everybody but me. I figured what the hell, eventually you'd get to me just for the record. But you never did. I guess you got pregnant first."

"Pregnant and tired," Linda said.

"So I'd wait till you had the baby, and then I'd have a chance, but that didn't work because now you're my stepmother! Near enough, anyway."

Tired, and pregnant, and lonely, which didn't make sense because I could have awakened with anyone I wanted, but—"Let's just say I had a lot of friends."

If he'd been a dog, Edgar's tail would have wagged. "I've read a bunch of different names that people used to use. Hooker. Town pump. Round heels."

"Round heels?"

He laughed. "Falls over easily on her back. And hooker, I read about that one. There was a Union general. Fighting Joe Hooker, who had so many shady ladies following him that people called them Hooker's battalion—"

"Thank you for the lecture, but that's quite enough." She stopped, and thought for a moment. "But come to think of it, Joe knows those words, too. He'd never use them, but he knows them."

"Yeah, Wow, I never would have thought of that. Has he--?"

"Never."

"Anyway, it never happened with us. Or anyone. It's that way with all the girls. Some of them are friends, but none of them want to sleep with me, and it's driving me nuts. Why?"

"You're too eager, for starts," Linda said. "And you have a talent for lecturing on the wrong subjects."

"I tried being hard to get. That doesn't work either."

"No, of course not. I mean—"

He looked down at himself with a sour expression. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

"Then why ask?"

Edgar looked at himself. "I'm fat. I've been taking lessons from

Toshiro—"

"It shows," Linda said. "More muscle tone. Better posture. Lose some weight and you'll look good. Edgar, I'd sleep with you now. I mean, I won't, but I would if I were doing that sort of thing now."

"You mean that?"

"... Yes."

"You sound surprised."

She smiled. "Tell the truth, I am surprised. I hadn't thought about it until you asked me."

"So why now, and not back when you could? You're just saying it?"

"No, I'm not just saying it. Edgar, you really are attractive, but it takes work to see that." She frowned. "You make us work at it. I guess I mean, there's something about you that drives girls, maybe not just girls, everyone away, until they get to know you, so there has to be a reason to get to know you. I had one, I'm in love with your father and he loves you, so I worked at it, but after a while it wasn't work."

Edgar shook his head. It was hard to read his expression in the dim light from the viewscreens. Edgar usually kept the lights low in the rooms he worked in. "My old man doesn't love me. And I don't know what you mean—"

"He does too. Edgar, you're always testing people. Him most of all. You want to see just how much we'll put up with. Most of us won't put up with much. Why should we? But Joe does, and I had to, and you know, after a while you stopped doing it so much to me, and then I really got to know you, and you're really a pretty neat guy, somewhere down in there. Keep it up with Toshiro, and pay some attention to yourself in the mirror, and you'll look like one, too. And then you'll get all the girls you want."

"Maybe," he said, but he sounded happy.

And how much of that did I mean? But if he believes it, it might even happen that way. She was trying to think what else she could tell him—

"Linda," Edgar said. "About your kid's father."

"It's not your problem," she said automatically.

"No, but it's yours, isn't it?"

"I—what do you mean?"

"You don't know who the father is, and you're afraid to find out, because you think it's somebody you don't like."

"Edgar, that's a horrid thing to say. Maybe I don't like you after all."

"Linda, do you want to know who the father is?"

"You mean you know?"

He shook his head. "No, but I could find out."

"How?"

"Cassie knows the blood types of everyone in this colony, including the babies. She has to. Someone might need a transfusion."

"But Cadzie is 0 positive," Linda said. "So am I. That rules out some boys, but it leaves at least a dozen—" She saw his grin. "Yeah, I wondered. A weak moment."

"Linda, you didn't look at the minor factors. There's a lot more to blood types than the majors—"

"I know about MN factors," Linda said. "And that still leaves a dozen."

"You sure got around."

"I used to be proud of it," Linda said.

"Sure put one in the colonel's eye."

"I guess there was some of that in it," Linda said, "And showing him there was something I could do really well—"

"Why'd you stop?" He looked around, then back at her. "Yeah, yeah. Dad knows the ancient magical words that turn a lady into a wench. It's still a good question."

"I stopped because I didn't like myself anymore," she said. "And now it really is none of your business, and before you ask, no. I'm not going to sleep with you."

"I don't want you to. I mean—" He froze up for a moment, then forced words out. "Dad would—He wouldn't kill us, but he'd think he should. Am I right? Anyway, let's just keep it simple, because I really do like you, and I guess I like my old man, and he's so much more, since you, him and you—" Edgar stopped and took a deep breath. "Linda. If you want to know who the father is, I can find out. Cassie has more than blood samples to work with. She already knows, you know."

"She does not. I asked her."

"You didn't ask in the right way," Edgar said.

"What is the right way?"

He shook his head. "I too know the ancient magical words. I can find out. I can keep anyone else from finding out, too. Anyone but the colonel, or Zack; they can override anything I put in if they know my block's there."

"Joe thought you could do something like that. You locked him out of some of your files, didn't you?"

Edgar didn't answer at first. "Privacy is a right—"

"When you were eleven years old?"

"Well, yes, dammit! What's age got to do with it?"

She smiled. "Not a lot."

"So do you want to know? I can stop anywhere," he said. "File accesses are easy to track, anyone can do it, and you spent a lot of time looking into blood typing and paternity and estral cycles just after Cadzie was born."

"Oh. Edgar, sometimes you scare me."

"Just sometimes?"

"Yes, just sometimes. Let me think about this, okay?"

"Are you worried about who it is? Look, would you like me to cover your tracks so no one else can find out you were interested?"

"Oh my God, I never thought—Edgar, if someone else was—tracking my file accesses—would you know?"

"Yes. Especially if he asked me to do it for him."

"Did—who asked you?"

"Aaron. Hey, it's all right, I didn't tell him anything!" He studied her. "You think it was Aaron, don't you? You were together a lot last year. Like him and your sister now."

She didn't say anything.

"Why don't you like him?" Edgar demanded.

"Why do you hate him?"

"I don't hate him. I'm scared of him," Edgar said.

"So am I. So. Why?"

Edgar bent over as if to touch his toes. "Pretty good," he said.

"Toshiro's a miracle worker. You know what Aaron did to my back."

"Edgar, Joe says you fell out of a horsemane!"

"I did," Edgar said. "It was a long time ago, when we were eleven, Aaron was living here then. Dad thought the Bottle Babies ought to have some family stability. He was even thinking of adopting Aaron."

"You must have liked that!"

"Actually I didn't hate it as much as you'd think. Not at first. Dad was pretty rough on Aaron. Said he had to teach him some manners, just like I had to learn. It was sort of fun watching Aaron have to go through that..." He glanced down at the computer consoles. "Cadzie's sleeping fine," he said.

She waited.

"So one day we went for a hike, just Aaron and me. You know Strumbleberry? High and dry, with horsemane trees on top. We camped up there overnight. Next morning we saw a pterodon dive into the topknot and come out. Aaron climbed up to see what was up there. He came down. Panting. Said he could beat me to the top.

"Aaron was ten and I was eleven, but he could generally beat me at anything. But he'd just tired himself out. So I said ‘You're on!' and slapped his ass and swarmed up that tree. Near the top I looked and he was right below me, but I knew I could beat him.

"I pulled myself into that mass at the top and something snapped at my eyes, a claw big enough to take my head off. I reared back and half a dozen claws like big scissors were trying to take my face off, and then there wasn't anything under me. Next thing I knew I was falling. And I remember the look on Aaron's face as I dropped past him.

"I landed flat on my back. I couldn't move anything below my arms. It hurt like I was dying. It felt like I was killing myself to fish out my comm-link card. I was sure it would be broken, but it wasn't—"