Jerry and Mary Ann passed among the same men now. They were harvesting, digging, driving tractors loaded with now useless machinery, machinery that could not become weapons. Their mood was greatly changed.
When the main camp was overwhelmed, Cadmann's Bluff would remain the most defensible area on the island.
The Bluff's cultivated rows of corn and hybrid melon cactus would never survive the onslaught. What was ready to be harvested was being gathered for storage. Perhaps when this was all over, they could begin again.
The Joes were restless in the cages. Twenty of them squealed and chattered, pressing their noses against the wire. They exuded sour, pungent fear musk. Something was coming from the south, a horror that had sent their ancestors fleeing into the mountains... but the Joes didn't know. It was the massive influx of strangers that had upset them.
Mary Ann took folded papers from her pocket. Cadmann's broad, strong handwriting and diagrams filled them.
She examined his drawings, matched them to the plateau that was now below them. The ground was turned and broken into dark moist chunks, save for a pathway ten feet across. That path zigzagged through the field. "Mines—all through this crescent." She pointed. "Except for the path marked with stakes. The mines are live now."
Jerry took the sketches. "Too bad we don't have the fuel for a moat. That might have worked. These asterisks... right, that's the last line of defense, what Cadmann called ‘an array.' Said that it worked at Rorke's Drift, wherever that was."
"Africa," Mary Ann said. "A handful of British soldiers stood against the entire Zulu nation."
"Then it should work here," Jerry said. There was more hope than certainty in his voice. "The Zulus could think. Grendels react in fixed-circuits. Their attack patterns are genetically predetermined."
"Or mostly are." Mary Ann frowned. What were the words? "Dis... dis something." She stopped, embarrassed.
"Dispersion," Jerry said gently. "Random action. Evolution works better if there's random elements. Most of the grendels will be wired up to do what's been successful in the past. Not all. We'll have to be careful of that." He continued studying the sketches. "Mine field blows them apart. Smell of blood gets them into that feeding-frenzy state. They'll attack each other as quickly as us. Only—"
"What, Jerry?"
"They're not supposed to reach the mines. They'd be ten kilometers uphill from their water source. The internal heat should kill them if they go on speed."
"They fooled us before."
"Yeah. Yeah. If they get here at all, they've fooled us again. Then what'll they do? Sniff out the mines? Learn to fly?" His bemused eyes suddenly focused on hers. "Oh, Mary Ann, pay no attention to this. It's just my way of keeping my brain working. I shouldn't do it out loud."
Mary Ann nodded jerkily, not believing him.
She flinched as Minerva One plunged from the sky to rock the valley with its scream. She turned and watched as the shuttle dipped beneath the lip of the plateau and disappeared. "How long?"
"For which? For the Colony? Maybe eight hours until the first fence goes. Then Cadmann will turn on the minefield, and the fireworks begin. We'll hear that, if we don't see it. The second fence may never go at all."
"Pray to God. But it will, won't it?"
"I don't know. Honestly! We'll know if it does, because they won't need Minerva Two any more, and we'll see it take off."
She nodded.
"Mary Ann?"
"Yes?"
"Just in case... I just wanted you to know that Cadmann couldn't have made a better choice. Not in a hundred years."
Liar. She smiled. "Come on, flatterbox. There's work to do, and not much time to do it in."
Together, they headed up the zigzag path to the stronghold, the last hope of human life on Avalon.
They moved north along the streams. Where they clustered too closely, there were fights. The weaker or warier among the grendels stayed far from water, diving downslope where they saw no others of their kind, to immerse themselves and retreat uphill before they could be seen. A few had already discovered that if they moved slowly, calmly, they could reach the heights where flyers laid their eggs.
The largest of the grendels grew larger yet, up to a meter and a half long, and still they grew, for they were better fed. There was attrition among these. They had to stay closer to water. Some of their smaller siblings had learned to attack where they saw others attack. Larger grendels were torn to ribbons by grendels who attacked in concert, snatched mouthfuls of meat and vanished underwater before their chancy allies could choose another target.
They looked nothing at all like an army. They were refugees. Famine and war and overpopulation moved them anywhere their tiny minds might seek food or safety. But they moved north along the rivers, following the vacuum of the fished-out Miskatonic, until wind and water brought them a wild variety of scents from what had been pastureland.
Then each savagely independent grendel turned in the same direction.
What reached the farmlands was more enraged and starving carnivores than had ever been alive in Avalon's history, and they moved very much like an army.
The river and its shores swarmed with dark shapes moving upstream. Carlos made a final inspection of the door gun. "Okay. I'm starting now," he said into the intercom. He fired carefully, in short bursts, aiming at widely separated groups.
The water below exploded into frenzied life. Grendel shapes leaped from the water. Others pursued them. Frothy red tinged with orange spread across the water.
"It's working," Carlos said. "Die!" He fired again. One of his tracers speared into a larger grendel's back, with spectacular results. The speed sacs made a terrific oxidizer. The grendel streaked for the river with its back burning like thermite, and burned even after it was in the water. Carlos whooped.
Greg wheeled the Skeeter back around for another pass. "By God, it is working! Drive them crazy! Use that damned supercharger against them! Bless Sylvia's knotty little head, she said it would work."
The Skeeter dove down between the trees. "Die, defenseless, primitive natives!" Short bursts, he told himself. Short and careful. Conserve ammunition, we will need it. The river churned with blood, foamed with the dead and dying.
But all we're really doing is feeding the others. Carlos admitted to himself; and pushed the thought away in savage enjoyment of the opportunity to kill before dying.
"Running low on power," Greg said. "I can get us back to camp. By now they must be hooking up Minerva Two. We can recharge."
"Do it."
Carlos got on the radio. "I am returning to camp—"
He couldn't tell who answered: a masculine voice edged with panic. "Pick up Jill Ralston on the way. She's hurt. She's on a ridge, eight kilometers west and a little north of the northwest corner of the outer fence."
They should have had an hour of daylight still; but the western range cut the day short, and clouds were banking in from the sea. It was already dark enough that Carlos could see the dying fire spilling downslope from the ridge. He pointed, and Stu took the Skeeter down.
She lay at the high point of the ridge. A meter below her was a grendel. It didn't move when they came close, but Carlos fired a short burst into it anyway.
Jill was lying on her side a short distance from the fire. She watched them land but didn't wave. As Carlos ran from the Skeeter she was trying to stand up.