The two friends watched the craft climb. It had vanished into the mist before the sound changed from one kind of thunder to another as the nuclear ramjet lit.
"I don't think I want to be behind a Minerva when it takes off," Carlos said.
"Nor I. How can we entice grendels to cluster there?"
"That's what I was thinking—"
"When you think of a way, be sure it's safe. Without the Minervas we're dead."
They circled the camp. Its fortifications lay spread out below like a tabletop model.
The electric fence had a new, larger twin within the moat of mines.
The outer fields had been harvested, the grain shipped up to the Bluff. Tractors under remote control chugged slowly in the barren fields. Cadmann could distinguish the flamethrower nozzles welded to the fronts of the cultivators and irrigators.
The welding lasers, the torches, the plasma drills were all arrayed as weapons now. Virtually every tool from engineering had been modified to the defense of the Colony.
He could see the gunmen too, but he knew where they were beforehand: stationed at the corners of the fence, ready to fire along its length. Skeeters moved about, swooping to fire at grendels. There were not so many grendels yet, but they all had to be stopped before they reached the fences.
"I still say it's chancy," Cadmann murmured.
"Eh?"
"Both Minervas in flight. No power for the fences while they're both up. Lose both and we're dead."
"So why did you let them both go up?"
"Schedule. Sometimes you just have to take chances. It doesn't mean I like it."
They circled over stacks of thornwood faggots stacked at intervals, wired for ignition at command. "I hope it works," Cadmann said.
Carlos shrugged. "Jerry and Marnie swore by this. Do you trust them?"
"I trust the logic. Add heat to an already overheated grendel and watch it cook. I trust them. I'm just not sure I believe it."
The cattle and horse pens were empty. Cadmann could see the occupants moving uphill, horsemen and horsewomen on the outskirts of the herds: old movies played through his mind. We've got rustlers like you never dreamed of, Duke.
Cadmann settled the Skeeter lightly to the pad. As he unbuckled his safety belt, Zack opened the door.
"I thought you'd be aboard Geographic by now." Cadmann pulled the tape cartridge from the camera.
Zack said, "Nope. Not yet. I don't really want to go, you know."
"Yeah, and I don't really want to stay. People like you and me don't get a whole lot of choice in life. How is everything going?"
"Rachel says that the work shifts were implemented just fast enough. Everyone's so tired that the shock hasn't had a chance to sink in yet. When it does..."
"By the time that it does, this will be over, one way or the other."
A loud, miserable bray from the center of camp caught Cadmann's attention. "Damn!"
"Huh?"
"The horses. Let them go. The grendels aren't fully mature. The horses may be able to outrun them. A few may survive."
"Bloody unlikely."
"Yeah, but as the man said—the grendels are running for their lunch—"
"The horses are running for their lives. Got it. Besides," Carlos said soberly, "I'm sure they would rather die on the run than trapped in a pen." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "They would have a better chance if someone went with them. To guide them. Take them as high as possible."
Cadmann said, "Too right. But who? Someone not much use in a fight—Carolyn. She rides. Let her take the horses."
"She tends to panic," Zack said. "Oh—"
"Exactly. No room for her in Geographic! She's not a lot of use in a fight. But she can run. Send her."
"I will tell her," Carlos said.
"Why you? Oh. Well, okay. How's the big surprise coming, Zack?"
"We have a thousand liters of liquid hydrogen in each of the four storage tanks. It isn't enough, but it's all we can spare. We'll have to wait and see."
"What's the situation on the grendels?"
"Up to ten an hour. Best guess is that will double every couple of hours until the wave hits. When Minerva Two comes down, she stays down. We should power the fences soon. The main wave hasn't found us yet, but one grendel got through the north fence half an hour ago."
"Being fixed?"
"Already done. Now, you hook up Minerva Two for power, but you load the cargo too. Those fences can't hold up forever—"
"Soon as the fences go, the Minerva goes too. We've been through this. You'd better get over to the dam." Cadmann shook Zack's hand hard, then glanced up as a hypersonic shriek split the sky: Minerva One, returning for another load.
Zack sighed. "You know, Cadmann, there's just been no time. No time at all. I... you could have taken the Colony away from me, and we both know it."
"That's bullshit."
Zack seemed to be searching for something else to say. He gave up and turned, leaving Cadmann and Carlos.
"Virtues of the warrior," Carlos murmured.
"What are you babbling about?"
"The virtues of the warrior, since ancient times: Protection of the Innocent, Courage in Battle. The greatest of them was Loyalty to the King."
"The king." Zack's dejected figure reached the dining hall and disappeared inside. "I guess he's the only king we have, at that." Cadmann laughed. "Come on. We've got a lot more to do, before we're through today."
The communications shack was busy. Marnie and Jerry were monitoring communications, coordinating thermal graphs from Geographic. Wedges of color showed the forward progress of the grendels.
There was no "wave." There was a growing density of heat sources along all the streams on Avalon, ruby red along the Miskatonic, with a gap around the Colony. The gap was filling in as grendels moved into open territory.
"How long now?" Carlos asked soberly.
Marnie switched her throat mike off to answer. "Twenty hours tops."
Jerry nodded optimistically. "It's going to get right down to the wire, but I think we can hold that long."
Gunfire sounded: several guns at once. Carlos watched one of the video screens. Baby grendels danced in the corn stubble—three, four.
We won't have bullets forever.
Carlos looked sour. "They're getting larger."
"They would be," Jerry said. "Ye gods, the growth rate—I worked it out myself and didn't believe it."
"They've got a hell of an incentive to grow."
Cadmann broke in on the chatter. "Get the Bluff for me, would you?"
"No problem." The holo stage cleared, and Jerry answered the line.
Cadmann clicked on his throat mike. "Is Mary Ann there?"
"One minute."
The stage was blank for about thirty seconds, and then Mary Ann was on. "Cadmann." She looked tired, but not depressed, not frightened.
"Mary Ann. This may be the last opportunity. Tell me again you won't go back to Geographic?"
"No one knows the Bluff like I do. I'll have to show everybody where things are. If Sylvia takes care of Jessica, I'll be happy."
"Yeah." He paused. "I'd feel better if you got out of there."
"No. No. They need me here to show them where things are. If the grendels kill everybody here, there won't be anything to come back to. I'd rather be here."
"All right. I just had to ask."
"I just had to answer." She chuckled. Cadmann clicked the line off.
Outside the communication shack, the smell of fear and smoke and baby grendels roasted by flamethrowers mingled. The stench hung in the air like a shroud.