Mounted on a linen-covered table was a sculpture of woven, wired and glued bones. Hundreds of samlon and pterodon bones, sliver thin, formed and painted into a golden bull. As a sumi painting suggests flight or motion with the barest strokes, somehow the bull was challenging and frightened, bursting with animal power and aching vulnerability. The artist's signature was simply "Sylvia."
Cadmann glanced over his shoulder, suddenly wondering if anyone was watching him study the incredible piece, then forced himself to move on.
Next to it was a cameo of native obsidian, and several of Carlos's scandalous thornwood carvings. They would have been right at home on the wall of a Nepalese temple, and Cadmann was suddenly glad that none of the children were old enough to point and ask embarrassing questions.
The crowd was flowing into the meeting hall. Food must be ready to serve. Cadmann followed the flow. He claimed two empty seats next to Terry's wheelchair.
Mary Ann brought two plates piled with Bobbi's samlon sushi, with a dab of the precious powdered wasabi horseradish shipped from Earth; fresh spinach pasta, fresh tomato marinara, whole-grain wheat bread. Most of the food was from the fields and the nets. Avalon was yielding up her harvest, making what reparations she could for the damage done to her newest, strangest children.
Terry ate quietly, slowly chewing each mouthful into liquid. Always thin, he seemed to have gained a few pounds since his injury, and it made his face less pinched and severe. "I approve," he said neutrally.
It took a beat for Cadmann to realize Terry was talking to him.
"Food's pretty good," he agreed.
"No. You and Mary Ann. Good match." Terry took another careful mouthful. Cadmann noticed the streaks of gray hair coursing through the curly brown. "How are things up there on the mesa?"
"Nice. Quiet." Cadmann glanced at Mary Ann. "Wait until Sylvia has the baby. Come on up for dinner."
"I'd like that, if we can get this damned chair into a Skeeter."
"Sure, we can do that. Or have Carlos make you a folding model."
The projection equipment was wheeled out to the center of the floor.
An enlarged holo field shimmered like a heat mirage: the faces and figures against the far wall were pale, wavering ghosts.
The lights dimmed. The holo image hardened, and the speakers piped in sound.
A motorboat was being lowered down the ravine and into the river below the dam. The boat was a ten-foot black oval, tough synthetic elasticized skin stretched over a metal frame, two low seats and crescent steering wheel mounted in the front. The Skeeter-type engine aft looked too big for the boat. The plastic-sealed knob of a holotape recorder showed above the central mast.
It had reached the water. A second, identical boat dropped to join it.
Sylvia came to sit between Cadmann and Terry, and she smiled shyly as she lowered herself uncomfortably to her seat.
"You look ready," Mary Ann said.
"You know it. Now Marnie's saying next week! Cadmann, don't ever get pregnant." Her complexion was a little blotchy. She wheezed with relief as she settled herself, balancing a plate heaped with food in her hands.
"I'll remember that," he said. "Last time Mary Ann gets on top."
"Hush."
Someone yelled, "Ta-ta-ta-daah!" as Elliot Falkland and his fiancee.
La Donna, dashed to the center of the floor amid a rowdy chorus of cheers. "Chunky!" Falkland was all grin and jug ears and peeling tan, with a body almost twice the size, of La Donna's. But the little woman was known as an indefatigable construction worker. Behind Cadmann, Andy guffawed something about La Donna "sweating that blubber off Elliot before they reach the ocean."
Cadmann raised a cheer as Carlos and Bobbi joined the first couple. Carlos swept off a broad-brimmed hat in a low, gallant bow. Somehow, even dressed in denims, Bobbi managed a shy curtsey.
Carlos rushed over to Cadmann and Mary Ann. He wore a yellow safety vest, and skintight rubber pants. He carried a bedroll in his left hand. He and Bobbi would take the boat all the way to the ocean, camping along the way. Three days later they would be picked up by Skeeter, officially married.
Cadmann chortled to himself, guessing that Carlos would triple-check that the recording equipment was off before turning in for the evenings...
"Wish me luck, amigo. Falkland has more water experience than we do."
"More than anyone but the samlon. He's got flippers for feet." Elliot
Falkland and Jerry minded the catfish ponds downriver. Falkland also coordinated the underwater repair operations and had overseen the construction of the dam. That was where he had come to know La Donna. "Anyway, it's not when you get there, it's how."
"Loser paints the winner's house."
"I see your point. Kill him."
"Senor Falkland sleeps with the fishes."
"Good luck," Terry and Sylvia chimed.
Carlos shook hands with the men, kissed the women, then hustled out to supervise the lowering of his boat.
Sudden envy stirred in Cadmann. A three-day trip down the river would be a nice honeymoon. But we had ours while we built the camp, and it was fine!
The holo field flickered to a different vantage point. An aerial view of the Skeeter pad swiftly expanded to take in the entire camp. Cadmann's stomach lurched—the reaction he always had when in the air under another's control.
The Skeeter zoomed and veered explosively, rose straight up, then dive-bombed Civic Center. There was clapping, cheering and groaning. The holo field was expanded to fill the room, the magnification bleaching a little of the color from the image.
The three-dimensional aerial panorama was stunning, especially when it veered east, across the Miskatonic. There, Camelot, their new community, was already blocked out.
Camelot wasn't the cramped curlicue of the first year's temporary dwellings. It would be Avalon's first permanent city, and was designed as such. Now that the crops were established, there was time to work on a more leisurely layout. Camelot covered a square kilometer of homes, boulevards, parks and meditation groves, recreation centers...
Each plot of land was huge, larger than any of them could have afforded on Earth. Unbelievable wealth by any standard that they had left behind. And room for almost infinite expansion, as their worms and insects and terraforming lichens churned Avalon's soil into something that the less hardy plants and animals could use. Mineral supplementation and acid balancing created an ideal medium for their crops. Huge homes, ranch houses. Mansions that would one day overlook gracious estates.
Room for a man to grow!
The boat engines were no longer ear-jarring burrs, and the Skeeter zipped off to follow the race. The camp cheered, bets flying and changing: Who would be the first through the rapids? They were twenty kilometers from the northern mountains, and it would be a while before the real action began, a few minutes before the boats worked their way through the dam locks.
In the meantime, the band had apparently rested long enough. Zack mopped his forehead with a bandanna and yelled, "All right—we've got enough time for a couple more turns around the floor. Let's get it moving!"
He shouldered his fiddle. His fingers danced across the strings, producing sounds of surprising sweetness.
Hey there ladies, grab your man
Hold that lad as tight as you can—
Sylvia's hand sneaked around behind Cadmann and tapped Mary Ann twice, sharply, and they exchanged a silent message.
It's a conspiracy. I'm doomed...
Mary Ann stood, politely but firmly pulled his plate from his hand.
Setting her heels into the composition floor, she dragged him to his feet.
Sylvia and Terry and the surrounding crowd howled at his obvious discomfort, and Cadmann let that bolster him.