The satchel team stood by. Three men: on signal they would run forward to throw eight kilograms of explosives into the hole, then run away as the charge sank until either the depth fuse or the timer detonated it. The hydrostatic shock would either kill or drive it out of the hole. Hendrick Sills, their chief engineer, had verified that there was no other exit.
And then? Well, Cadmann had worked that out well, using terms like "field of fire," "optimal egress" and "killing ground." Carlos had never heard the terms, but they resonated, sounded totally right, calmed him more than any prayer. Cadmann knows these things.
"Can you believe this?" Hendrick demanded. "Ten light-years from home. When my grandparents took the solar system we didn't have anything like this to fight. Just physics, just our own ignorance. Another goddam star and we're standing here like a Stone Age tribe facing a tiger."
"They are strong, these grendels," Carlos agreed. "But—" Hendrick grinned like a wolf. "But. Damn straight, ‘but.' No brains." Carlos felt unreasonable resentment. "They have brains. They—" "Hey," Hendrick said. "It's okay. I'm on your side, remember?"
Carlos grinned "I remember. My apologies. More, you are correct. The grendels must use instincts. What they know is in their genes. Not so with humans. Once we had conquered all the animals on Earth we began on each other. We have ten thousand years of war experience."
"And well enough," Hendrick said.
"And well enough. The objective is to kill them. And that we will do."
His comcard spoke. "Carlos, this is Cadmann. You ready?"
"As I'll ever be, amigo."
"Let's do it, then. All units, general alert. Stand by."
The semicircle of armed men and women looked to their weapons, then waited.
"Alpha team, go!"
Three men ran forward, one of them George Merriot, still limping from his burn wounds. Ten feet from the sinkhole they paused. One stood with flame-thrower ready as the other two swung the heavy satchel they held between them. "One, two, three, go!" The dark brown box arced out toward the swampy hole. "That's it!" the team leader called. "Run away!" They were laughing as they rejoined their comrades in the line facing the hole.
The bomb splashed into the dark water and vanished.
One. Two... Carlos counted half consciously... ten, eleven...
WHAM!
It came as a surprise, as it always did, no matter how hard Carlos tried to be ready for it. Water shot skyward, water and samlon and tiny crustaceans and mud.
Now wait...
For about four seconds.
The water exploded a second time as a quarter ton of scale and muscle burst from the surface of the water. The grendel came at an impossible speed over the lip of the sinkhole. It dashed over the flopping samlon that lay at the water's edge. Once it had a firm footing it paused, black bullet body glistening in the afternoon light. Its enormous saucer eyes glared at them—
Then fixed on Carlos. Directly upon him, and he froze in fear and impotent horror. We can't do it. We can't kill this thing...
"Shoot!" Cadmann ordered.
Someone fired automatically. Then someone else.
Carlos screamed wordlessly. He forced himself to center the grendel in the sights of his weapon.
It was out of the hole, out and charging, moving at speeds that no animal could possibly reach, moving so fast that although time had slowed for Carlos, the creature had become faster, so fast that everything happened at once—and he squeezed the trigger.
Carlos's bolt exploded in the bushes behind the creature. Three other hits. The grendel screamed, then screamed again as it tried to come forward but tripped over its own severed foreleg.
Even then it did not die. It pulled itself up onto the rocks and took off like a good racing car, away from the pain, away from the foaming, smoking water and lancing spears, running east through the shallow stream, toward the safety of the Miskatonic—
As Cadmann had said it would.
"Down!" Cadmann's voice was calm and reassuring in the earphones, and
Carlos was down. One second later there was an awesome roar, and after that he was showered by dirt and falling rock. Two big mud drops struck his cheek.
"All clear." Cadmann sounded cheerful. "Chalk up one more."
One more.
"Like I said, no brains," Hendrick said. "They'll always go for the river. Plant some mines and wait—"
"Would you have thought of that?"
"Aw, I don't know."
"Nor would I," Carlos said. "Or, let us say it another way. You or I, perhaps we would have thought of the mines, and perhaps we might have thought of whatever it is that we will need when those no longer work. Would you be willing to bet that either of us will think of that before Cadmann does? Or know that it is right?"
Hendrick stood and shook off the dirt from his coveralls. "Lighten up.
Let's go see what we got."
"Yes." Carlos stood. "Let us look at our grendel." His forefinger picked a speck of wet red flesh from his cheek. Not a raindrop.
There wasn't much. Craters in the dirt, splashes of bright crimson, torn alien flesh and bone, a flailing severed tail, ropy red strands splashed against the rocks. Carlos felt a grin pulling his face toward his ears.
Twenty hunters stood up from their positions around the clearing.
All twenty of them. They hadn't lost a single man, and the grendel was as dead as anything had ever been.
"Let's be sure," Cadmann ordered. "All units, stand by. Alpha team, move out."
Once again three men moved forward. One stood with flame-thrower ready as the others tossed the satchel charge into the pothole.
WHAM!
Mud, water and samlon showered the area. Carlos stood tensely—
And nothing happened.
"All clear," Cadmann said at last. He left his command post and came over to Carlos. "And that's what I call ballin' the jack."
"Damn straight, amigo." Carlos raised his weapon. "Damn straight!" The victory cry built deep inside him, rolling slowly up through his chest and out of his throat like the cry of a more primitive, more basic animal. The others joined in. Twenty hunters, screaming to the cloud-muddied sky, the glory and perfection of the moment connecting them with a simpler time.
They were alive, and the enemy was dead, its limbs and guts spread before them. Still the timeless scene seemed somehow incomplete. This was the time when the shamans, the ancient men and women of the village, should scramble out from behind the rocks, should examine lengths of twisted gut, stare into the scarred and lifeless eyes of a foe and speak of the signs within. Eat handfuls of jellied brain and sing of dark portents and bloody dreams.
Then again, he realized that he didn't need diviners to tell him the future.
Here, on Avalon, mankind was the future.
The howls from twenty throats rose to the sky...
Jerry sighed in disappointment as he examined the gutted corpse.
There was samlon meat in its belly. Jerry identified parts of three samlon, two nearly dissolved, one nearly fresh.
"Now we know. Nothing protects samlon," Jerry said. "No great secrets here at all."
"So why are they still around?" Sylvia wondered.
"They probably breed faster than hell, and there aren't enough grendels to wipe them out. That's good news. I guess. There is a limited number." Something attracted Jerry's attention, above the creature's staring eyes. He moved his tweezers under something, and lifted.
Half a meter of limp tubing rose from a cleft in the forehead.
"I'll be damned. Will you look at that? It's got a snorkel for breathing underwater. Here, you can see where the blood vessels fill to lift it. Just like a penis. Sorry."