The spirit was infectious, and when they trudged back to their temporary camp at the end of the fourth day, no one wanted to be skeetered back to main base.

The temporary camp was a fifty-meter stretch of cleared brush, burned out and then chopped and plowed. Supplies were flown in from the Colony. The entire perimeter of the camp was mined, and a Skeeter flew in irregular patterns, scanning with infrared.

At first Carlos disliked the endless hum of the Skeeters overhead. Now, the cessation of the sound, or the occasional sound of two overhead rotors as Skeeters changed shifts, would awaken him instantly, sending a hand reaching out for the spear gun.

He was tired but happy. The muscles in his calves had seized up, and the tendons ached. He massaged them for a half hour before they stopped screaming.

Cadmann's tent was near the southern periphery of camp, and Carlos rapped on the foil, saying, "Knock knock."

Cadmann laughed. "Come on in."

The big man was sitting cross-legged on the ground. A light was suspended from the tent pole, shining onto a map.

"What do we have here, compadre?"

"Well, a peek at tomorrow's kill. We've identified the monster here—smaller than the others. It's the southernmost beast.

"Dumping blood, sheep intestines and chunks of monster into the other two water holes hasn't gotten us anything, but here we have one." He grinned, and turned to Carlos, teeth gloaming. "Do you know what that means?"

"It means that we're almost finished."

"By God, yes!" Cadmann slammed his fist down. "Cigar?"

Carlos shook his head at first, and then nodded. "I didn't even know you smoked."

"Only on verra special occasions, my man." He conjured two thin cheroots from a plastic pouch and clipped the tip off both. They lit and inhaled smoothly, enjoying the thick, sweet aroma. "About six months ago, I can remember being upset that we hadn't brought along a Kodiak bear or a mountain lion."

"Well, your wish sure came true."

"Yeah—in spades. No offense, heh heh..." Cadmann leaned back against his bedroll and exhaled a long, fragrant stream. "No. I wondered if I was a little off my nut about that. Look around us. Know what I see?"

"What?"

"Survivors. We came, most of us, because life was too easy on Earth, but it was still a guided vacation. There were the colonists, and the crew. And me, Great White Hunter, professional killer. My God, most of them felt safe. That attitude would have been passed on to the children, and their children. And if something like this had happened in two generations instead of right now, our grandchildren might not have been able to handle it at all. So we've lost a few people, and they weren't dead weight, don't get me wrong—but the ones who are left are true pioneers, not tourists. Fighting for their wives and husbands and children, and their future."

Carlos nodded soberly. "I can see what you mean."

"I figured you would. And I couldn't sit here and tell you that I'm sorry it happened."

"Even with the death... ?"

"Everybody dies. The obstetrician slaps you on the ass with one hand and hands you a postdated death certificate with the other. What's important is that our children have a better chance. It's always been about the children. Always. Women have never loved being kept from education and treated as second-class citizens. Men have never enjoyed having their balls shot off in wars. Men and women didn't fall into their roles accidentally, and each side doesn't hate the other. It happened because for a thousand generations, that was the best way we knew to build a civilization, to build a better future for our children. The industrial revolution doomed slavery—racial, sexual, social. Civilization is worth fighting for."

Cadmann seemed more at peace than Carlos had ever seen him. And why not? Vindicated, loved, appreciated. Involved in the work he was born for. Regardless of what happened from this point forward, the work that Cadmann had done would earn him respect and honor for the rest of his life.

Cadmann was the Colony's only real warrior, but with luck, he could teach the rest of them to be soldiers.

"Here." Cadmann opened a flask and handed it to Carlos. It was strong, unwatered whiskey. Carlos sputtered, but didn't lose a drop. "You'd better not. Probably the most valuable thing in the known universe. Two-hundred-year-old Scotch."

"Salud. " Carlos felt the sweet liquid fire flowing down his throat.

"Jesus, that's good."

"Unfortunately, that's all there is."

"Yeah. Things could be a lot better." Sadness clouded his face as he drew deeply on his cigar, but he relaxed as he exhaled a misty wreath around the lamp. "But do you know something?"

"What?"

"Compadre, they have been a hell of a lot worse."

THE LAST GRENDEL

The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause.

WILLIAM JAMES

Number six was the last. All the other bolt-holes had been all the other underground rivers mapped. If there was another grendel left on Avalon, it had no interest in blood, no fear of hydrostatic shock. It never turned on its supercharger at night, when Geographic's thermal scan dissected every square meter of the island.

No, this one was the last, and here in the highlands, the farthest south on the island that any human had been, Cadmann felt a minute sense of loss.

He listened to the live tone in his ear from the radio link, and to his own breathing. He plucked a sprig of avalonia grass, chewed on it absently and spit out the faintly sweet fibers.

He was propped on his elbows at the edge of a bluff overlooking a marshy stream, just upriver from one of the largest hot springs. The thermal gradient had thrown the scans off for a little while, giving this last monster a temporary reprieve.

Skeeter Two had lured it out with grendel blood and fresh meat. The monster had come sniffing out, growled weakly up at the Skeeter before it snatched the joint of raw beef. It looked and acted starved: much thinner than the others, and only two thirds the length.

The Skeeter's tape had been played back at the Colony. Cadmann vividly remembered the image of a gaunt, hollow-chested reptile tearing at the meat as if it hadn't eaten in a week.

Jerry had taken the podium and fought for the creature's life.

"We don't know we can find more of them on the mainland. Think about it—an animal which can produce a high-grade organic oxidizer. Imagine a herd of them. Hobble the legs or even amputate them. Breed them to get that oxygen-bonding stuff, that super hemoglobin, like cows give milk!"

Grendels, serving man? It might be. They would try it... once.

But Cadmann wondered to himself, wondered about the sadness that he felt. What if this was the last grendel in the universe? After all, there were earthly species restricted to just one subcontinent or group of islands.

On the mainland there were monsters. Big things, as large as anything that ever walked the Earth; creatures reminiscent of Tyrannosaurus rex, things that man would hunt only with robots and advanced weapons. They glowed in infrared. Easy to guess, now, that there were small, fast things too. Grendels or worse, blazing in infrared, then subsiding before a telescope could find the sources; mistaken for giants until now.

Cadmann tried to imagine Jerry's pet scenario: a single freshwater grendel, pregnant, clinging to a piece of driftwood after some natural disaster swept her out to sea, a clutch of eggs protected within her body or in an external case, to be deposited in safe territory.

These had to be freshwater creatures, didn't they? Nothing that could effectively compete with the grendels had been found in the oceans, and the oceans held plenty of food. The eggs, hatched downstream, would produce a brood of insanely competitive monsters who fought each other for the prime hunting grounds, driving their weaker siblings farther and farther south.