Aaron caught the implication. "We've been dumping speed in this lake once a week for the past six months. It doesn't drain, Cadmann. There aren't any grendels here. I was hoping we'd find you our bear, though."

"You mentioned that at breakfast."

"There was something like a bear here two years ago, when we did the preliminary. Three hundred kilos, it looked like. Possibly an overgrown Joey. We can't find hide nor hair of it now."

"Maybe it hibernates?"

"It isn't winter."

"Estivates, then."

Sylvia stopped to adjust her boot. Her eyes met Cadmann's briefly. He smiled and walked on ahead, leaving her with Aaron. A dozen times, in two dozen different ways, Sylvia almost asked Aaron the crucial question. Do you know that you are my son? Do you care? Would it be good for him to know? Did it matter?

And because there was no answer to any of her questions, she wanted to engage his interest, his mind. She wanted to know who the young man was behind the perfect physique, the handsome face, the piercing eyes.

"What was it like for you?" he finally said, breaking the silence. "In the very early days?" He stopped, and then smiled almost shyly. "No. That's not really the question I wanted to ask."

"What is?"

"The question I really wanted to ask was why did you really come to another star?"

"I don't understand."

"I know the official answers: exploration, adventure... but why you? Why this particular adventure? All of you. All of the Earth Born have a conservative streak which would seem to be completely different from the heigh-ho adventurers that came out here originally. So... what's the real truth?"

She was a little startled by the question, but caught the meaning behind it almost immediately.

They told themselves that they came to capture and tame a new world. Settlers had always dealt with such emotions—and dealt with losses such as the Earth Born had sustained.

They told themselves that they grew more conservative, more fearful because they didn't know if anyone would ever come to join them from Earth. Or, indeed, if something had happened on Earth, something terrible, which precluded anyone else from following them to the stars.

But maybe...

"You're quiet," he said.

"I was just thinking. That was a good question. I guess if I was to answer for myself—and I certainly can't answer for anyone else—I'd have to say that I had my husband, and he had a dream. I shared the dream. Maybe not as much as he did."

"What did you lose coming out?" he asked.

"I had family. Friends."

"And career?"

"No! Avalon fits my career fine. But I think on some deep level I got pulled out of my academics by my husband."

"And then you met Cadmann?" Aaron smiled.

"Aboard ship. You know a lot about those early days," she said.

"There are a lot of diaries and journals on public record. Interesting blank spots in them, too. A lot of public video. It was easy to see that your attraction to Cadmann began while you were still married."

She sighed. "He was dashing. And I think that I'd never met anyone quite like him. And I... guess that it was a little overwhelming. A new world, with new sights and smells. I think that there is a part of a woman that wants to line up behind or beside the strongest, wildest male she can find, and have his children."

"But you didn't do anything about that?"

"Not until after Terry died, no."

"But you thought about it."

She had to grin. "Yes, I thought about it. Now that's enough questions, darn it." Stop prying into Mother's business...

His smile was secretive but warm, and he broke the trail ahead of them step by step, her son making the way for the mother he didn't know.

It was what mountaineers called a "hanging lake" tucked onto a ledge. The ground sloped up steeply on the south and west sides, so that long shadows fell on that side of the water well before it would be dusk anywhere else. Now those long shadows stretched across the lake, creating a false evening. Cadmann believed that he could hear the hum of nearby bees, but could no longer see them.

His war specs were on thermal mode.

The shadows went orange. The trees surrounding the lake floated in a ghostly haze. There was little there that could have been seen in broad daylight. The entire mood was quiet, calm.

A sudden movement behind the stand of trees captured his attention instantly. What the hell... ?

A small, bustling shape emerged from the brush. A snouter, one of the pig-like things common in the lowlands and reasonably plentiful on the high plateaus. It saw Cadmann twenty meters away, squeaked, and started to turn.

In a sudden blur of motion something tore out of the woods and slammed into the snouter so fast that he didn't have time to think. He watched, fascinated, as the monster that had suddenly emerged raised its head, blew flames into the night air.

The back of Cadmann's neck went cold and clammy.

A grendel.

God. What was it doing here?

Well, in one way it was a stupid question. At the moment, it was feasting. Cadmann shouldered his rifle, and prepared to fire. The grendel stopped.

And looked up.

Directly at him. Cadmann's finger was on the trigger. He felt the tension of it, felt the trigger's breaking point, knew that another gram of pressure would send the bolt of electric death on its way.

The grendel's eyes. They saw him. And for the first, the very first time ever he didn't feel emptiness there. It wasn't death and destruction.

It was... something else. Something even more disturbing.

He waited for the grendel to attack. Why? Was he giving it a chance? Was that like some bullshit Western gunfighter credo, some small-town marshall in a bad B movie? It's your move, Ringo...

He didn't know why, but he just couldn't bring himself to pull that damned trigger. There he stood, facing this thing with its teeth slimed with blood, its muzzle befouled with black, and the snouter's carcass still twitching in front of it. Cadmann just couldn't bring himself to move.

Cadmann heard motion behind him. Sylvia and Aaron. Aaron's rifle was off his back and into firing position—

Cadmann waved violently. NO! Aaron paused.

The grendel lashed its tail around and into the corpse. It dragged the body into the brush, and was gone.

Cadmann lowered the rifle.

"That was a grendel!" Sylvia said.

Cadmann nodded.

Sylvia looked at him strangely. "You didn't shoot. You didn't let Aaron shoot."

"We were in no danger," Cadmann said. "It wasn't going to attack us.

It was just hungry."

"Yes, but—a grendel?" Sylvia said wonderingly. She turned on Aaron, blazing. "You said this lake was safe!"

"It was," Aaron said. "We were sure it was. There's no way a grendel could have got in here—"

"Except that one did," Cadmann said. "And I think that's enough excitement for the day. Let's call in the skeeters for a ride back."

Aaron nodded. "Right. And I want to ask Chaka a few questions..."

Old Grendel ran.

In an instant she was out of sight of the weirds. She didn't slow. She was into the blowholes before they could have seen where she disappeared. She was underwater and swimming hard before the speed could leave her blood. If the Strongest One changed her mind, brought other weirds to kill her, they would not find Old Grendel.

Her life had hung by a ragged toenail. But she had learned! That one had not killed her. That other was about to kill her, and that one had waved her back. That one was the Strongest One, and she was willing to deal with Old Grendel!

They would meet again. But not here. She began to prepare for the long swim back to the river.