Robor was moored, and the exodus began. They handed the bodies—what was left of them—hand over hand.

And when the last of them was aboard, the rain had almost ceased. They could hear the buzz as the bees awakened.

Sylvia stood beside him, holding his arm. Her son seemed almost like a stranger, so intense was his focus.

"He's out there," Justin said.

"Who?"

"Aaron. He's out there."

"He's dead," she said.

Justin shook his head. "He's not lucky enough to be dead. Yet." He screamed out of Robor's door: "I'll be back, you bastard! I swear to God I'll be back, and I'll kill you!"

She pried him carefully away from the door, and closed it on the camp, the shattered shell of Avalon's dreams. And then they lifted away.

The rain started again, and the bees still huddled in the forest, awaiting their time. The chamels had been set free, and were returning to the plains. The horses and other livestock were all dead.

For a few moments there was no sound, no movement, and then the mud stirred.

Aaron Tragon rolled half free of the mud. His eyes were wild and staring, almost sightless. He wasn't certain where he was. The chamels had trampled him on their way out, and he was badly concussed. His eyes wouldn't focus. He had to move. Had to hide. The bees would come back.

Soon. They would.

But his eyes wouldn't focus.

He flopped over onto his stomach, and tried to crawl away. There was something coming. Death was coming. He couldn't think. He couldn't move. But it was there.

Cadmann. Jessica. Toshiro. More. More. So much death. He hadn't meant for this. Chaka. Wait, Chaka wasn't dead. Was he?

His mind wouldn't work. So much death. He stood, bent far over around broken ribs. He staggered through the streets of Shangri-La, the camp that he had schemed and stolen and killed to build. It was destroyed. Empty. Robor was retiring in the distance, grinning like some vast grendel, floating away.

He heard a noise behind him. He was too tired, too confused to turn.

It was the grendel. The grendel god. He felt a wave of fear, of freedom approaching. His judgment. His salvation. He spread his arms and exposed his throat.

And then the grendel came to him. And she said Cadmann...

And the grendel took him by the throat, and she said... Chaka.

And the grendel devoured him, saying... Jessica.

And in the grendel he saw her heart, and the heart beat, saying...

Toshiro.

And he passed into darkness and into death, and the grendel spake unto him, and she said...

Aaron.

We are one...

Chapter 41

CHOICES

But there's a tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of

Early Childhood

It was a beautiful day for a memorial, Justin thought. Tau Ceti shone down on the bluff, on the land that Cadmann Weyland had cleared, planted, tilled by hand... on the house that he had built with the sweat of his back.

And if he turned around, Justin could gaze down on the colony itself. See the crosshatch of roads that Cadmann had burned into the ground. The maze of homes he had helped erect. It was a place of love and life, crowded with babies to whom Cadmann Weyland was godfather, or guardian, or honorary uncle.

The Bluff wasn't crowded. The public funeral had been held a week before. This was just family. Just the kids, and Cadmann's wives, Katya, and Carlos.

Just the ones who loved the old man—and Jessica.

Jessica.

"We're here today..." He steadied his voice as much as he could. "... to say good-bye to two people we love." He stopped, dug his hands into his pockets. A sad, crooked smile plucked at his lips. "Isn't that just the way it is? No matter how much we say to someone while they're alive, there's always more to say. That' s the tragedy of it... but that's the joy, too."

He looked out at the mourners. They were seated in two rows of folding chairs. Carlos sat next to Sylvia, holding Cadzie, the sleeping child wrapped in a bright blue blanket. Sylvia held Mary Ann's hand. Mary Ann was pasty-faced, and so grief-stricken that she hardly seemed able to breathe.

"Dad," Justin said, "I can still talk to you, when I need to. And I will. We all will. Jessica—"

And here his words faded for a minute. There were things that he wanted to say: You made the wrong choice, Jessie. You chose the wrong side. And in the end, you didn't think fast enough. God. I'll miss your smile, your laugh. I'll never forget the one kiss we shared, not even when they put me in the ground next to you. I loved you, Jessie. Maybe it wouldn't have made a goddamned bit of difference, but I should have told you. Maybe if I had. Maybe if I'd found the right way to say it, you ‘d still be alive...

Katya was smiling at him. Katya, who loved him, and wanted to bear his children. Katya, who must never know what his heart had just revealed to him.

Justin realized he had stopped speaking. He felt as if his mouth was packed with cotton. He had to say something. Anything.

Why was life so goddamned hard?

"Jessica," he lied, his voice breaking, "you were my sister."

Sylvia found Mary Ann in the master bedroom. In Cadmann's bedroom. Mary Ann sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. Her hair looked not blond, but white.

"Mary Ann?" she said quietly. "Are you all right?"

Mary Ann looked up slowly. She smiled, a sweet smile, and patted the bed next to her. Even that motion looked tired. Sylvia thought that this was the first time that Mary Ann actually looked old.

"He... loved you more, you know," Mary Ann said.

Sylvia started to speak, to say something reflexively, but Mary Ann shushed her. "No. He was too much of a gentleman to ever break his commitment to me. But he loved you more. If honor hadn't been the core of that man, he would have left me. But he felt... obliged."

She smiled again. Her cheeks looked waxen. "I let you into my marriage, dear, for him. To hold on to him. If you were here, he wouldn't have to go to you secretly. He would have done that eventually, you know. And people would have talked. And felt sorry for me. I don't think that I could have survived that. So I let you in. And he stayed. Because he had no reason to go, don't you see?"

Sylvia reached out and took her hand. Regretfully, but firmly, Mary Ann pulled it away. "You have a wonderful heart, and you never tried to hurt me." She paused, then said matter-of-factly, "I've never liked you, you know."

Sylvia waited until the silence grew too painful, then told the truth.

"I know."

"I've thought about asking you to move out. But it wouldn't be right."

Sylvia stiffened a bit. "If you want me to go, I will."

Mary Ann smiled. "I don't like you, Sylvia. But you have been a sister to me, for years. And you never tried to hurt me. I don't like you. But I do love you."

The room was very quiet. Mary Ann leaned forward, and kissed Sylvia's cheek.

Then she lay back on the bed, in the middle of the bed that she had shared with Cadmann for so many years, in which she had borne him children, and curled up onto her side.

When she spoke, her voice was very, very soft. "I'd like to rest now, if you don't mind," she said. "I don't know why, but I get tired so easily these days."