"Yeah, yeah."

Justin was climbing up atop Robor, and had unhooked one of the three slave skeeters. He revved its engine, then whipped it up into the air and down toward the mining complex.

"We want to get down to Paradise," Jessica said, "get things set up.

If we're lucky, we can get a Run in tonight. You can handle things here?"

"Sure," Joe said. "Straightforward diagnostic and repair. We've got the tools, and some replacement parts. Everything we need to repair—the problem is: what the hell happened, and will it happen again?"

Chapter 9

PARADISE

I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Walden

"Fall in. Count off," Justin said.

The youngsters formed a line, oldest and largest to Justin's left, a stair step down of heads off to the right until at the end was Sharon McAndrews, not quite the youngest but certainly the shortest. Beyond Sharon, Jessica, Carey Lou, and Heather McKennie formed a small group.

"One. Two." They counted down the line to Sharon, then the older Scouts, finally Jessica.

"Remember your number," Justin said. "Now let's do it again. Count off. Okay. Remember your number, and remember who's on each side of you. Okay, go wander around."

The kids scattered. Justin waited a moment, then blew a whistle.

"Count off!"

There was a moment's hesitation, then they began, "One. Two."

"Twenty-six." Jessica finished the count.

"Right. We'll be doing that a lot," Justin said. "Now the rules-"

"We don't need no stinking rules." Carey Lou giggled. "Rules are for Earth Born."

Justin saw that Joe Sikes was recording everything. "Not quite," he said. "There are times when you need rules, and this is one of them. Now listen:

"Groups of three. Never less than three," he said. "One to break his leg, one to stay with him, and one to go for help. Groups of three or more. Okay? Good.

"The trail is marked, orange paint splotches on the rocks. If you see red splotches you're off trail to the left side as we go out. Green is off trail to the right side going out. Everyone got that?"

"Red right returning," one of the smaller ones said gravely.

"Right-uh, correct. And Jessica is Tail End Charlie. Nobody gets behind Jessica. No one. When I look back and see Jessica I want to be sure everyone is ahead of her.

"When either Jessica or I call ‘Count off' you count off, right then, and nobody ever answers for anyone else. This isn't Camelot! There are grendels out here."

Some of the Grendel Biters exchanged knowing looks.

"Okay." Justin turned to Joe Sikes. "Latest reports?"

"All clear to Paradise," Sikes said. He didn't sound happy. "You're cleared to trek. Good luck."

"Thanks. Okay, let's move out."

Chaka lifted his pack-minimal gear, plus the glass cauldron that was big enough to serve them all-and swung it into place with a grunt. He hadn't done that a moment early. Joe Sikes shook his head and turned toward the minehead.

Justin unslung his rifle and checked the loads, then led off down the side of the pass, down north and eastward toward the green valley and the grendels. There wasn't any danger up this high. Everything they knew about grendels said they couldn't go far from water. Still, he looked everywhere, ahead, to the sides. It was his fourth trip, the third as leader, and every time there was that feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The first time Justin had come down this trail his father had been leader, and Joe Sikes had been Tail End Charlie. There had been a big fight in the council, with Zack adamant that no children would go to the mainland.

"Think again, Zack," Cadmann had said. "You have to let go sometime."

"No."

"Speak for yourself, Zack. You can give orders down here, but my family hasn't been part of your jurisdiction since a year after we came here."

"That's not fair."

"Which way did you mean that?" Sylvia demanded. There'd been a buzz of conversation and whispers as everyone remembered those times. Cadmann had predicted danger. No one had believed him. No one believed there were any dangers on the island at all. They were all sure it was pranks, or something worse, an old military man's desperate efforts to be needed. Until the first grendel attack. Then Colonel Weyland had taken his share of tools and equipment and gone up to build the Stronghold, and if he hadn't done that, when the samlon changed the grendels would have killed everyone on the planet. No one liked to think about that, not then and not now. Colonel Cadmann Weyland, warrior and Cassandra. And now Zack kept seeing dangers.

The trail was dry and dusty, which made Justin feel better. Grendels didn't like dry and dusty. After fifteen minutes he stopped. The two youngsters who'd been trying to keep up with him gratefully leaned against boulders. Behind him the Grendel Biters were strung out along the steeply rising trail. No sign of Jessica, but the trail threaded among boulders. "Count off!"

"One. Two." The count moved back along the trail until he couldn't hear any longer. There was a pause, then more shouts passed back up the trail. "All present."

He took a moment to raise his binoculars. They hadn't had good binoculars the first time, just the increasingly rare and valuable war specs. Those had come all the way from Earth. Once there had been fifty pairs of the computer-enhanced optical systems. Now only eight remained.

But a year ago they'd been able to schedule the time for Cassandra to build optical grinding equipment, and now they had binoculars in a variety of strengths and fields. These were 10 X 60, really too heavy for backpacking, but he could see a long way, and they worked well into twilight.

War specs were Cassandra's eyes. The First could see through those; but they couldn't see through binoculars.

Justin scanned the area below. Far down in the valley something moved among the grass at the river's edge. Almost certainly a grendel. Not much else lived that close to a river. But sometimes-sometimes there were large things that didn't look much like grendels. They never stayed still or visible long. What were they? Another kind of grendel? They didn't know, and that ate at Justin.

This was their planet but all they really knew was that anywhere there was water there were grendels. All kinds of grendels. Some made dams, some hunted farther from the river. Some lived in shallow mud, some couldn't live without submerging themselves in river water, but if there was water, there were grendels.

The river was low. The lakes formed by grendel dams were not much more than ponds, and where there had been grassland and bushes last year there was nothing but caked mud with vast cracks. And above that were dry rock and horseman trees. Grendels couldn't live in the rocky ground above the river, but Justin scanned the rocks and sand ahead anyway. Nothing there but swirls of dust kicked up by the rising wind behind him. On Earth there would be snakes. He'd seen them in films. Avalon didn't seem to have evolved the snake, and so far they hadn't encountered anything particularly venomous, at least not to humans.

"Watch your feet," Chaka sang out. He was rolling along like a juggernaut, ignoring the way the ground rose. "Justin, Carlos will want that shell if you've got room."

Now Justin saw it too, an empty shell with a golden iridescence, curled and fluted, lying in the mud like a dinner platter lost from the Sun King's palace. Centerpiece crabs were big enough to catch Joeys, the largest thing that lived in these dusty areas. Their jaws held crud and corruption but they weren't dangerous to anyone with boots on. Carlos made wonderful things from their shells.