Sylvia said, "We're out to kill them. You're starting to admire them."
"Know your enemy."
Once the technique was devised, the killings themselves became almost routine. The adrenaline was there, the sense of satisfaction, but experience had dampened the true danger, replacing it with caution and structure.
Because, after all was said and done, the grendels were mortal. Heirs to the same failings as any other creature of protoplasm. Vulnerable to the same techniques of killing that had worked on Earth, evolved through countless big-game hunts and wars since the beginning of recorded time.
Flush the beast.
Channel its retreat.
Bottleneck, and the killing ground.
The second killing team utilized an additional refinement. There was a chance, no matter how small, that a grendel might be hiding, outside the water hole, or might find an auxiliary exit and attack them from the rear. Transverse observers were posted, one for every two hunters facing the killing ground. Two hovering Skeeters watched from above, scanning for grendels.
There were only twelve sites on the entire island with a probability above 30 percent.
Twelve holes. One a day, with the Colony kept under full battle alarm the entire time.
They would not lose another human being.
It was good to have a system: Skeeter above, and a first pinning team moved into place while the engineering corps designed the mine field, worked with Cadmann to determine the field of fire that would best funnel the creature to its death.
Where natural walls of rock were insufficient, walls of flame were utilized, flame throwers backed by men and women with rifles and spear guns.
And always, always, a conspicuous bolt-hole. Someplace where a pain-maddened creature could run to safety, to freedom...
To certain death.
So died the fourth grendel, blown in half and then roasted by jellied flame, dead even as it crawled for the depths of the Miskatonic, pitifully torn claws outstretched, eyes open and fixed. Yearning, perhaps, for one last taste of the samlon flashing within.
And the fifth, dead before it ever reached the minefield, Carlos's explosive spear in its brain. He took limited pride: he had been aiming at the heart.
And always, always, there was Cadmann, driving them on and on, past exhaustion with his boundlessly murderous energy.
The spirit was infectious, and when they trudged back to their temporary camp at the end of the fourth day, no one wanted to be skeetered back to main base.
The temporary camp was a fifty-meter stretch of cleared brush, burned out and then chopped and plowed. Supplies were flown in from the Colony. The entire perimeter of the camp was mined, and a Skeeter flew in irregular patterns, scanning with infrared.
At first Carlos disliked the endless hum of the Skeeters overhead. Now, the cessation of the sound, or the occasional sound of two overhead rotors as Skeeters changed shifts, would awaken him instantly, sending a hand reaching out for the spear gun.
He was tired but happy. The muscles in his calves had seized up, and the tendons ached. He massaged them for a half hour before they stopped screaming.
Cadmann's tent was near the southern periphery of camp, and Carlos rapped on the foil, saying, "Knock knock."
Cadmann laughed. "Come on in."
The big man was sitting cross-legged on the ground. A light was suspended from the tent pole, shining onto a map.
"What do we have here, compadre?"
"Well, a peek at tomorrow's kill. We've identified the monster here—smaller than the others. It's the southernmost beast.
"Dumping blood, sheep intestines and chunks of monster into the other two water holes hasn't gotten us anything, but here we have one." He grinned, and turned to Carlos, teeth gloaming. "Do you know what that means?"
"It means that we're almost finished."
"By God, yes!" Cadmann slammed his fist down. "Cigar?"
Carlos shook his head at first, and then nodded. "I didn't even know you smoked."
"Only on verra special occasions, my man." He conjured two thin cheroots from a plastic pouch and clipped the tip off both. They lit and inhaled smoothly, enjoying the thick, sweet aroma. "About six months ago, I can remember being upset that we hadn't brought along a Kodiak bear or a mountain lion."
"Well, your wish sure came true."
"Yeah—in spades. No offense, heh heh..." Cadmann leaned back against his bedroll and exhaled a long, fragrant stream. "No. I wondered if I was a little off my nut about that. Look around us. Know what I see?"
"What?"
"Survivors. We came, most of us, because life was too easy on Earth, but it was still a guided vacation. There were the colonists, and the crew. And me, Great White Hunter, professional killer. My God, most of them felt safe. That attitude would have been passed on to the children, and their children. And if something like this had happened in two generations instead of right now, our grandchildren might not have been able to handle it at all. So we've lost a few people, and they weren't dead weight, don't get me wrong—but the ones who are left are true pioneers, not tourists. Fighting for their wives and husbands and children, and their future."
Carlos nodded soberly. "I can see what you mean."
"I figured you would. And I couldn't sit here and tell you that I'm sorry it happened."
"Even with the death... ?"
"Everybody dies. The obstetrician slaps you on the ass with one hand and hands you a postdated death certificate with the other. What's important is that our children have a better chance. It's always been about the children. Always. Women have never loved being kept from education and treated as second-class citizens. Men have never enjoyed having their balls shot off in wars. Men and women didn't fall into their roles accidentally, and each side doesn't hate the other. It happened because for a thousand generations, that was the best way we knew to build a civilization, to build a better future for our children. The industrial revolution doomed slavery—racial, sexual, social. Civilization is worth fighting for."
Cadmann seemed more at peace than Carlos had ever seen him. And why not? Vindicated, loved, appreciated. Involved in the work he was born for. Regardless of what happened from this point forward, the work that Cadmann had done would earn him respect and honor for the rest of his life.
Cadmann was the Colony's only real warrior, but with luck, he could teach the rest of them to be soldiers.
"Here." Cadmann opened a flask and handed it to Carlos. It was strong, unwatered whiskey. Carlos sputtered, but didn't lose a drop. "You'd better not. Probably the most valuable thing in the known universe. Two-hundred-year-old Scotch."
"Salud. " Carlos felt the sweet liquid fire flowing down his throat.
"Jesus, that's good."
"Unfortunately, that's all there is."
"Yeah. Things could be a lot better." Sadness clouded his face as he drew deeply on his cigar, but he relaxed as he exhaled a misty wreath around the lamp. "But do you know something?"
"What?"
"Compadre, they have been a hell of a lot worse."
Chapter 22
THE LAST GRENDEL
The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause.
WILLIAM JAMES
Number six was the last. All the other bolt-holes had been all the other underground rivers mapped. If there was another grendel left on Avalon, it had no interest in blood, no fear of hydrostatic shock. It never turned on its supercharger at night, when Geographic's thermal scan dissected every square meter of the island.