Grendel is dead!
Grim humor that; grim but oddly appropriate even so minutely removed from the horror of Year Day. In death the creature ceased to menace their future, and thus assumed an oddly mythic quality. Grendel is dead.
It was funny. Even now, so soon after Bobbi's death, she knew it was funny. God, she wished she could laugh.
Carlos sat slumped in the corner, trying desperately to get drunk enough to cry.
"Grendel is dead," Sylvia said dully. "In the old legend they nailed Grendel's arm above the entrance to Heorot." She swept her hand to indicate the quarter ton of quiescent monster flesh. "We mutilate corpses too—"
Jerry paused in the act of pulling on surgeon's gloves. "For answers, I hope."
"Damn right you'll get answers," Cadmann muttered.
There are so many questions.
Life?
Death?
Is the nightmare over? Or just beginning?
"Please," Jerry said. "I need room to work. Cadmann, Carlos, Zack—I'd appreciate it if you remained. Everyone else, please."
The doorway cleared and the sheet-metal door closed. But Sylvia knew that their audience had not retreated far: their impatiently shuffling feet and choppy breathing hovered just beyond the threshold of perception.
Jerry inhaled deeply. The light from above shimmered around his stick-figure body like an aura. "Cassandra Program." The jury-rigged computer hummed. Gears chugged and ground. Everyone watched. Then slowly, in jerks, the camera moved to position itself above the table. Jerry nodded thanks toward Carlos. The cameras, like everything else, had been severely damaged during the initial assault. Everything had been designed for durability, but that was on Earth, in a design laboratory, damage simulated by computer, not inflicted by monsters. Now—with Omar Isfahan's help Jerry was redesigning the system, restoring lost capabilities. This was the first practical test of Cassandra's restoration. The computer hesitated another second, and then the gooseneck camera snaked down.
Carlos tore open a pouch of vodka, staring unblinkingly at the corpse. He guzzled half the pouch and coughed as it burned its way down. He handed the rest to Cadmann. There were no words.
All of Carlos's struggle had been for nothing. Bobbi had never come out of shock. Her heart had simply given up. Carlos had not cried; he had simply smashed his fist into the wall, damaging both plaster and knuckles. Without a word, he had gone to the camp liquor supply. No one had tried to refuse him.
Now he sat with Cadmann—camp comedian and the tall, hard warrior.
Both seemed cut from the same dark, dangerous cloth.
Jerry moved the scalpel carefully along the creature's head, slitting and then peeling away the skin, exposing the skull's smooth, barely convex arch. "I don't see any fissures at all," he remarked for the record.
He switched to the band drill. It whined, etching its way through the tough layer of tissue. The stench of burning bone tickled Sylvia's nostrils through her gauze face mask.
"Thickheaded tart," Jerry muttered. "This one is definitely older and uglier than the first. Might even be its mama."
"Grendel and Grendel's mother," Sylvia said. "It fits," She winked at Cadmann. He pretended to ignore her. You're the one who sent that message, she thought.
Jerry lifted a section of skull to expose a pale layer of membrane protecting the brain. Slitting it exposed darkly pinkish jellied pulp.
"Cassandra. Watch this."
The camera moved in closer. Jerry dictated in a carefully controlled voice.
"This has to be olfactory brain tissue. It's well defined and coterminous with nasal passages. Well penetrated with air passages. This critter had one hell of a sense of smell.
"Behind and above that is more tissue that has some similarities, but it's also well defined, and doesn't appear to be part of the olfactory area. If there's any parallel with human evolution, this is the equivalent of cortex, although it sure doesn't look much like what we use for cortex. Lots of convolutions, though. Maybe that's a universal?
"From the size and shape, if I'm right about what this area is and does, the critter is at least as intelligent as a gorilla. Maybe more so. Better sense of smell than a dog or a cat."
The saw whirred again.
"Moving back, there's a whole series of enlarged ganglia complexes.
Subsidiary brains, maybe? I know there are at least three more of these down in the lower spinal area. My guess is they really are subsidiary brains that control reflexes and locomotion. That's one reason the critter can move so fast. The central brain gives orders, but they get carried out by a whole batch of brains distributed along the systems."
Computer networks operate that way. Sylvia looked away from the monster and back to Cadmann. He was leaning forward, his teeth just showing.
Jerry continued to work. His hands moved deftly, guiding the instruments in precise motions, exposing without damaging. From time to time he called up ultrasound and X-ray images on the computer screen, consulted them, then went back to his grisly task. An hour passed.
Presently Jerry removed some tissue samples. "All right. Sylvia, we'll want microscopic examinations of this. Freeze and section and—"
"And the rest. Sure," she said. She kept her voice pleasant.
"Sorry—"
" ‘S all right." Sylvia moved closer. "That oversized jaw. The first one was that way, too."
"Right. Species characteristic, I'd say."
"Yes. Jaw. Oversized feet. Webbed, but with claws, designed for fighting, but also for traction. No hands, though. It was never designed as a tool user."
"Right on that."
Carlos took another stiff drink, then slammed the canteen down. He stood, stepping out of the shadow and closer to the table.
"Traction? Want to see traction? Look at Cadmann's ribs. Damned scars haven't healed yet." She could see his eyes now. They were red-rimmed, bright with tears and loathing. "That bitch ran right up the cliff. It didn't climb, it sprinted. It just smashed into the boat, chewed it up like a grape skin. Bobbi never had a goddamned chance."
He was shaking, and seemed to calm only when Cadmann clasped his shoulder from behind. The tension drained out of Carlos and he retreated to the shadows.
"I saw that too," Cadmann said. "These things have two distinct gears, fast and superfast. I want some answers."
"You and everyone else, Cadzie. You've both done your parts. Leave the rest of it to us."
She felt a kick, a sensation of pulling, of her pelvic girdle stretching, accompanied by momentary faintness. She caught her balance and shut her mind to the fatigue.
"Sylvie? Are you all right?" Cadmann asked from the shadows.
He sees everything. "Fine."
"No, you're not—"
"Good enough. Look, I promise. As soon as we're finished with the preliminaries, I'll take a nap. I just can't miss being in on this one."
Saw and drills continued to sing and strip away the skin and the flesh from the thing that had haunted their nightmares, while ultrasound recorders watched and remembered. The dissection would later be computer-corrected to form an in-depth holographic template. Then the analysis could begin.
Zack spoke for the first time in hours. "I can almost feel sorry for it." He indicated Cassandra and the other complex instruments in the room. "It couldn't have known what it was up against."
Carlos growled deep in his throat and stood. Before he could move he was halted by Sylvia's laugh. She looked to Cadmann and grinned. "No. It couldn't."