The Legacy of Heorot (18 page)

The engineers were rebuilding without tearing down the original structure. At this stage it had no shape or symmetry, only a chaos of crumbled walls and hastily erected scaffolding.

The power plant was one of the first buildings on Avalon. About half a year ago, she thought idly, and nodded to herself in satisfaction because she'd thought of it as half a year, not just over one Earth Standard. Avalon was home whether they liked it or not. Better learn to think so.

The power plant had flown down on a solidly packed one-shot cargo vehicle. A small solid-fuel rocket had dropped it from orbit to glide down on triangular wings. The engine was Minerva-compatible; in fact the whole package had looked a lot like one of the shuttles, with a Minerva's wing and belly. Motor, wings, hull, all were spare parts for the shuttles. And damned near all we have, too. What's left?

A Skeeter hovered over the power plant. A thin girder dangled from its underbelly. Omar Isfahan waved a handlamp, guiding the pilot, until the girder clicked down, was fitted and epoxied into place. Omar, tallest man in camp by three inches, looked tired. His fleshy cheeks drooped, his tight khaki shirt was dappled with sweat. Elsewhere in the structure men were soldering electric cables. When the Skeeter lifted away again someone yelled "Now!" and the lights flared back to life all over the camp. The glare stole the faint stars from their twinkling positions in the morning mist, but one of the twin moons still glimmered, a tiny dim crescent above the horizon.

She felt suddenly, unaccountably lonely. She wanted to go back to her hut and curl up next to her husband. Knowing that Terry would respond, would hold her with what strength he had. Knowing that if she began to cry he would say what comforting things he could.

If only... if only his new depth of understanding weren't accompanied by a complete failure of his lower body.

But she was pregnant, and he was sick, crippled, and her need for lovemaking seemed both selfish and unworthy. It didn't help that she still thought of Cadmann—not his face, and nothing so crude as a sexual image, only a memory of the breadth of his shoulders. The curve of his upper arm, where the muscle showed most clearly, the unmistakably male smell of his body and breath...

She held herself, watching the construction on the power plant, barely noticing when Zack emerged from the shadows.

"Sylvia."

He seemed about ten years older, but there was strength in that maturity. In the faces and manners of so many of them, now. "How are you?"

"Tired, but making progress, I think."

He nodded without speaking. He was staring out toward Mucking Great

Mountain, and she didn't need to ask what he was thinking. If a camp vote had been taken the day after the disaster, Zack would have been ousted and Cadmann elected to the post in a moment. Take the vote soon enough after the disaster, and Zack himself might have led the electoral parade. Not now. Now he'd fight.

"We're surviving," he said. "We're going to keep surviving. We paid our price for this goddamned planet. It's all we're going to pay."

"I hope you're right, but how can you say that? Anyway, we all made our decision when we left Earth. We knew the risk—"

"What happened just shouldn't have happened." There was absolutely nothing of the old Zack in his tone. She wanted to back away from him. The flash of the arcs and welding lasers cast hard shadows on his face. His eyes were bright.

"We don't know if there are any more of those things on the island," she said, as gently as she could. "It's going to take time."

"We have time. Those things don't have any time." He turned the collar of his coat up. "You're going to hear talk, Sylvia. Maybe you've heard it already." His breath came in short white puffs when he spoke. "They say that I'm too soft. That this wouldn't have happened if... someone else was in charge. Had been in charge. I can't say about that. Whatever's fair is fair. I can tell you this, though. It isn't happening again. Whether I'm in charge or not."

Sylvia remembered the image of shadow whipping through the courtyard to leave unbelievable carnage and stinking blood slicks on the tarmac. The Avalonian equivalent of tiny, flying insects still hovered in the courtyard, picking sustenance out of the cracks although they hosed it clean again and again.

"Keep looking," he said. "Harry Siep's calibrating Geographic's telescope. Coordinating the satellites. All three will be monitoring the island and the strait. We're going to train a second team to do the evaluations you and Jerry have been running, so that we'll have continuous coverage until Cassandra is up to full strength again. I'm working out a new security program. Every foot of this island is going to be re-photographed—" He looked at her suddenly. "Have you seen the latest pictures?"

"No. You've found something!"

"Not what you're thinking, not more of the damn monsters. We found Cadmann."

A great sigh ran through her, as if she had been waiting to hear that for a week, unable to admit how important it was. "Thank God. Where?"

"Halfway up MGM mesa. Campfire traces three days running. He won't answer any radio signals, but it's him all right."

She paused, waiting for him to go on. When he didn't, she said it.

"Are we going after him?"

"Why? He obviously doesn't want anything to do with us. He didn't take anything that wasn't his—regardless of what a couple of assholes said."

There was real confusion in Zack's voice. Muddied, mixed emotions. Sure. He knows what he owes Cad. He also knows that right now Cadmann could snatch the Colony from him.

"What do you want to do?"

Zack thrust his hands deeply into his pockets. "I don't feel that an official delegation would be welcome. A few of his friends, on the other hand—people who cared about him and just wanted to make sure that he was all right—that might be appropriate. Can you think of anyone who might fit that description?"

She nodded silently.

"Good. I was hoping. Well. I've got things to do. Good night, Sylvia."

Zack walked off the way she had come, toward the rebuilt veterinary clinic.

There aren't any heroes here, she reminded herself. Just survivors.

The heroes died two weeks ago. Or were crippled. Or broken.

Except for one man who we've shamed and betrayed. We owe him something.

Terry was awake when she came to bed. What medical skill could do had been done. There was no need for him to be in the infirmary—the hut was like a personal hospital room, and since the accident, he seemed to need her more than ever before.

If only...

"Sylvia," he said sleepily, throwing a warm arm over her as she slipped between the covers.

She helped him roll over: he hadn't quite gotten the knack of doing it with just his arms. He was working out in the communal gym to improve the strength of his upper body. Already she could feel the renewed tautness in his shoulders. In short months he might double his strength. From the waist up, he would be more muscular than he had ever been in his life. A fine figure of a man, those rippling corded arms pushing his balloon-tired wheelchair around the camp.

She squeezed her eyes tightly, trying not to cry. He would taste the tears.

He pulled her close to him, and as he did now, kissed her closed eyes, his slender fingers kneading her back. "How did work go?"

"We've actually classified four different life forms on the main continent. Two are just huge, the size of brontosaurs. The others travel in packs. Fast. In sprints. Our monster might have been a stray from a pack like that."

"What about the expedition?"

"No word. You might still lead it, you know."

Except that we don't have any sophisticated prosthetics. So you could stay in the Minerva we send over, and watch while other men and women do the exploring. Maybe Cadmann would like to lead it now? How would you like that, Terry? Maybe we'll wait until I've had the baby, and I have my figure back. Then Cadmann and I can go over there together. What would you think of that, Terry?

Not too fucking much.

"Just problems. Manpower. We only have one totally free Minerva. If we need both Minervas somewhere else, the camp is without power. There just isn't going to be any exploration if the satellites and the telescope aboard Geographic can do the job," Sylvia continued.

"I suppose that makes sense."

Sylvia tried to identify her husband's voice in that comment. Like everything else in the camp, he had changed.

For a time she just listened to his breathing in the dark. Then she leaned forward to kiss her husband, kiss the father of her unborn child. His mouth tasted of sleep, but not unpleasantly. He pulled away from her embrace a few inches. "Sylvia—what news is there of Cadmann?"

"Mucking Great Mountain, halfway up."

She felt him nod in the dark. "Go up there," he said finally. "Talk to him. He's got to come back."

He strained with his arms to bring his hips closer to her, and even in the darkness she could see that tears glistened on his cheeks.

"Terry... why?"

He ran his hands down her body to the gentle swell of her stomach.

"Because of this. We're going to have a child soon, and this planet will be hers."

"Hers," Sylvia whispered.

"I can't protect her. Cadmann can help make this island safe. I helped drive him away. I think you can bring him back."

She didn't say anything, just kissed him again, remembering a line from somewhere. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Who had said that? Kipling? Nietzsche? She decided Kipling and resolved to look it up in the morning.

"One thing, Sylvia." His voice took on a wholly different quality. "I've talked to Jerry. There are going to be... things that I'll never be able to do again. You... you might not have any more children by me unless we AI."

She cradled his head, afraid that she already knew what he was about to say. "Shhh."

"No," he whispered. "Let me finish. I don't want you creeping out behind my back, feeling guilty. Sooner or later you're going to do it. The instincts run too damned strong here. We came to make the children that will rule this world." There was a definite catch in his voice. "All right. Do what you have to. And know that I understand. Just—not with Cadmann, please. I know that it's ridiculous. I just ask you that much. Please."

She held him tightly, as if afraid that with those words he might have said all that he needed to say, done all that he needed to do, and that life might slip away from him there in the darkness.

And as they held each other, for the first time since they had landed she realized how very much she loved him, and how much he loved her.

Sylvia's stomach jolted as the Skeeter hit an air pocket. She lurched to the side—the seat belt she shared with Mary Ann squashed them together. The Skeeters were built for two, but would seat three if the three were friendly enough.

Mary Ann stared straight ahead, as if a studied stare would part the clouds that shrouded the plateau. The tension between them was so thick you could cut shingles out of it, and on a very deep level Sylvia wished that she or Mary Ann had stayed behind.

But it was inarguable that Mary Ann and pilot Carlos were two of the closest friends that Cadmann had. Carlos was also a fine pilot, if a little nervous on landings. Lord knows Bobbi Kanagawa had spent enough time coaching him. At least Sylvia assumed that was what they were doing together...

Carlos brought the Skeeter around in a circle, following the satellite-relayed coordinates. A pterodon cruised by, not so scared by the Skeeters as the beasts had been a year ago.

You get used to anything, Sylvia thought. Carlos's brow was creased with concentration. He grinned crookedly. "Well, senoritas, el muchacho was not looking for a meal, eh?"

The creature fluttered around them again, peering, poking, but staying carefully clear of the rotors.

"Eh!" Carlos yelled, dark face angry. "Apartese un poco, queso de bola!"

Sylvia grinned at him. "You must have practiced that. That's the most Spanish I've ever heard out of you at one gulp."

"One gasp. Gulps go in. Gasps come out. When a gulp comes out, it's time for the mop. What I said in my musical native tongue was an important, sensitive, poetic statement."

Mary Ann spoke for the first time since the Skeeter had taken off. "I don't speak much Spanish," she said meekly. "But didn't you say something about moving a fat behind?"

"Ah, senorita—it is not what you say, it's how you say it."

"There it is," Mary Ann said suddenly.

The fog had thinned, and they were coming in on a mesa about half a mile across. There was tough avalonia grass up here, and Sylvia was surprised at the thickness of the underbrush. Thorn plants, of course, but other varieties too. Shrubs and flowering plants abounded. A squarish tent had been erected, and next to it a husky German shepherd leaped and barked.

Cadmann emerged from the tent. He was still a tiny, indistinct figure, but even from this distance Sylvia could see that he was walking unsteadily.

Carlos brought the Skeeter down.

They were forty meters from Cadmann's camp, and Sylvia had to admire his choice of locales. The mist was thinner up here, and there was much more vegetation than on the lowlands. Nearby was a tumbling stream of snow melt. It was clear that Cadmann was well provided for.

He could build here. Happily. There's water and food, and there may be game too. He wouldn't overlook that. If there's game anywhere, Cadmann would find it.

"Well," Carlos said, breathing a sigh of relief. "At least he left his rifle in the tent."

"Note the puppy, please."

Mary Ann didn't say anything. Her breathing had turned ragged.

"This is Carlos to Civic Center. We've reached the encampment. Cadmann appears unhurt, and any further reports will follow shortly." Carlos grinned at them. "Let's go." He unbuckled and hopped out.