He tapped and the view jumped. "That was a chain of grendel lakes, dammed lakes, when we planted the camera." The lakes were a wide muddy river now. Edgar's cursor indicated a distant dust devil dancing through stripped trees. "Bees," he said. "There aren't any more grendels here. Some samlon, maybe, but as soon as they come on land, sszzz. Even the beaver grendels must be eating their young now. It's the only way a grendel can stay alive while these death winds are blowing. And that is how Avalon evolution set you up, Zack."
He tapped again. Now the view looked across sparse, tall grass, with water gleaming in the distance. "Any idea where you are?"
"The Scribeveldt," Zack said.
"Yup. On the back of a Scribe. Katya set a skeeter down on Asia's back and left a camera."
"Huh," said Zack. He watched for few seconds. "Is that a pterodon nest?"
"More like six, but I haven't seen a pterodon since I started monitoring this. Then again, Asia has been easing her way toward the river. As long as the Scribes don't all go down to the river at once, the pterodons can commute. Asia will get her pterodons back when she leaves."
"Edgar, is that guesswork?"
"Pretty much."
Trish asked, "How close do the Scribes get to water? You still get pictures from orbit—"
"The paths still avoid each other. I think they don't want to mate.
There are bees everywhere. They don't bother the Scribes much—"
"You can't go back to Shangri-La," Zack said. "Tell you what, Edgar. Work up a scenario. Your next colony on the mainland is in the Scribeveldt."
Edgar turned to see if his lover's father was serious. From many objections he picked one at random. "It's out of Robor's range. We'd have to set up staging points—"
"Fine. In a couple of years your first staging point can be the minehead, or Shangri-La. You left supplies in both places, and—"
Trish burst out laughing. Her hand closed hard on Edgar's shoulder and shook gently. "Soft One, how can you not love it? We'll put little tent-towns on the knolls. They're not big, but the Scribes go around them and the grendels can't reach them—"
Edgar was studying Zack. He'd never seen the old man smiling like that. A mad smile. "Zack, didn't you use to be way conservative?"
"Sure. A little stodgy, maybe? Just do the best plan you can, Edgar.
If it looks crazy we won't do it."
Ice on his mind. But—Rachael and Ruth changed glances, a secret look Edgar knew he'd better learn to interpret.
Rachael Moskowitz didn't have ice on her mind. And she'd supported Zack in power since before Edgar Sikes was born. But Zack kept making mistakes... well, one mistake, one backbreaker of a mistake, and ever since then—
Ever since then, every time he was challenged, Zack backed down. That was the problem, that was why his brain seemed riddled with ice crystals. He'd withdrawn his objections to the mainland colony. Was he regretting that now?
"Hell, we can live on the Scribes' backs!" Trish crowed. Zack nodded, just listening as she babbled. Trish loved the Scribeveldt colony. When Trish fell in love with an idea, she fell hard. She'd do most of Edgar's work for him. But had he, had they all totally misunderstood the First?
Edgar burst out, "Zack! What was it with those freezing blankets?"
They all looked at him as if he were crazy. Zack told him, "We kind of don't like that word."
"I kind of don't like f-f-soggy mysteries. Zack, you, the First were always so sure it was Cadzie blue that saved the baby. Why? I mean it's a neat answer, it turns out to be the color-coding for poison—"
"Elegant," Zack said. "You learned that word from the math classes, didn't you? Any solution that elegant has to be right. Except when it isn't." The old man laughed.
"Zack, Cadzie blue is darker than the color coding for poison."
"Is it really?"
"You saw it. Everyone on Camelot got videotapes of Asia through the war specs. We sent you photos. Aaron cut a great swath of Asia's lip and laid it across all those blankets. It's too pale." And why was he devilling an old man with ice on his mind? Edgar saw Ruth and Rachael listening and was embarrassed.
But Zack said, "Ah."
"What?"
"Edgar, when you get old enough, you get a feel for patterns. Being smart doesn't do it. Only experience works. That pattern-sense was all we had. What you just said, nobody had said that before, just that way, to me.
"Stretch a piece of Scribe's lip in sunlight, it's too pale. Take pictures with a flash camera, it's too pale. Watch a Scribe through war specs, and by the time Cassandra gets through with the pictures—"
"It's too pale. Ice me down now, Lord."
"See, Edgar, the Scribe's lip is always underneath that overhang of shell, always in shadow. The bees see it as darker. Aaron took it into daylight—"
"And the flash on the camera lights it up, and Cassandra thoughtfully corrected the color for us, but I can check that part right now, Zack. Cassandra!"
The reconquest of the mainland was two years in the planning.
The Scribeveldt had been too wet for going on two years. Vast patches of grass had died. The Scribes were fewer, perhaps because they had stopped breeding; but some of those camouflaged trapezoids didn't move. The camera on Asia's back had rolled past one huge empty shell.
Now the Veldt was drying off, grass was spreading again, and the paths Cassandra could see from orbit were forming knots.
"Everything is breeding like mad," Edgar told the colonists in the assembly hall, and the greater number who were only in virtual attendance. "I can't see any reason not to begin the conquest of the mainland with the Scribeveldt. And I see no reason not to go now."
And the questions began.
"We'll establish dumps at Shangri-La and Eden both. They're close together, they can serve as alternate routes. We don't want any cities there the next time Tau Ceti goes into maximum, but they're safe now."
And continued.
"Sure, grendels. We'll want to stay clear of the river, but we can run pipes...
"There's no trace of bees, anywhere we've got cameras. Nobody thinks they're extinct, but they must have died back...
"Before we build anything permanent in the Scribeveldt, we've prepared some hardened cameras. I want to know what lives under the Scribes...
"Aaron? Well, something raided the stores at Shangri-La until they were almost gone. That was a year ago. Your guess...
"The blankets? Yeah, Uncle Zack figured that out two years ago, and he was right. Zack, you want to explain that? Remember to talk slow for these people."
EPILOGUE
THE SHAMAH
TWO YEARS LATER
Chaka scanned the bluff, finding no evidence of a grendel presence.
"We're clear," he said. With Trish and Carey Lou watching shotgun, he rappelled down the side of the cliff into the water. The samlon were young. There would only be one grendel in this area, and that one was.... well, curious.
They searched much of the day, and it was Chaka who found it, and called Justin.
A human skull, cracked and chewed, but human.
Justin took it from Chaka gently. He folded it to his chest and sank to his knees in the water, eyes half-closing. No one spoke. After almost a minute he slipped it lovingly into a plastic bag. Before Tau Ceti slipped below the horizon, they found part of a pelvis, and a few more bones, and that was all. Justin looked around the river, and then said, "All right. Let's go."
Chaka nodded, and they rode the winch up the cliff face, and didn't say anything more until they reached the skeeter.