Starborn and Godsons Read online

  I didn’t, until the second book. I just bit back my fear and frustration, soldiered on, and learned. And grew. And looking back, I was right: it was an extraordinary opportunity, and one of the smartest decisions I ever made.

  The Legacy of Heorot was a smashing success as a piece of writing, less so as a piece of commercial art. I remember first seeing the cover and being devastated: it felt as if the publisher had deliberately given it camouflage, so that no one could find it on a bookshelf. We made it, barely, to the tail end of the Times bestseller list, but I just knew that it could have done so much better.

  Years later, we began a discussion about a sequel, Beowulf’s Children, and I readily agreed. This time, Dr. Jack Cohen, the biologist who had inspired the original book, was flown in from England to work with us for about ten days. I’d met him while on book tour in England and found his brilliance and sense of humor instantly magnetic. He stayed in my house in the high desert, and I’d drive him down for intensive sessions with Larry and Jerry, and damn, it was wonderful watching the three of them interact, and to realize that somehow . . I deserved to be in the same room. I had to, or I wouldn’t have been there. The “impostor voices” in my head tried to speak up, but the roar of genius conversations drowned them out.

  That time there was no terror, just serious work, and serious fun.

  Years passed. Experimenting with e-books, we wrote The Secret of Blackship Island partially as a lark, and partially warming up for a third book we all knew was needed, but weren’t at all sure would ever get written. Life pulls you in different directions, and while I adored working with my friends and mentors, I was fully engaged in other projects.

  In about 2015, Jerry had a tumor shrunk in his head, and it affected his ability to write. I went with Larry to see him in the hospital, and while yes, he seemed diminished, what disturbed me was that this bluff, hale, room-dominating man seemed . . depressed. Feared that he was no longer of use to the world. I wanted to shake him and tell him that he was still one of the most amazing minds I’d ever known, but that seemed hollow. I also wanted to thank him for all he had been to me, and the opportunities he had afforded.

  Frankly . . I wanted to just tell him that I loved him.

  But . . Jerry was of a generation of men where you don’t say things like that very much. What you do is say, “Let’s build a barn!” and the meaning, the emotions come across in the process. What decided me was Larry’s reaction to Jerry’s condition. He was clearly in deep grief. The best friend he’d ever known, his partner, his hero, his big brother, was in pain, and there was nothing he could do. They’d actually had to sell a book back to the publisher because Jerry could no longer coordinate the “editor” and “flow” states elegantly. When you can’t, it’s called “writer’s block,” and a devastating affliction.

  And I thought to myself: this is no way for the greatest team in SF history to end their partnership. Jerry could think fine. Could plot and plan and evaluate. Still had the computer mind. What he couldn’t seem to do was flip from editor mode to flow state on command. Larry could dream, but I could tell he didn’t want to open himself to another disappointment. What was needed was a bridge between these two great men, and a bridge between Jerry’s dreaming and analyzing modes of thought.

  I saw that I could be that bridge.

  And it would be the best gift I could give the two of them, a way for me to have a very special kind of fun one last time. So for almost two years, I would drive forty miles each way, every Thursday, to work with them. Jerry was with a cane in the beginning, and then a walker, and finally in a wheelchair. His decline was fairly rapid. The mind and heart were there, but the body was growing weary. Jack Cohen had retired by that time, but we looped him in on Skype from England as often as possible, and when the technology worked, The Boys Were Back in Town. It was wonderful. I just loved the energy in that room as we batted ideas around, dreamed, and I would go off and create first draft text that two of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life then analyzed and polished.

  Every idea Jerry came up with I treated like a golden butterfly. All were precious. Some were released back into the wild, but as many as possible I incorporated. We’d get together at about eleven in the morning, work until about one, and then have lunch. And although he was growing weaker, Jerry always let us know how much he loved the work, how much pleasure it gave him. And slowly, Larry began to believe this book was really going to happen and opened himself to just . . having fun. And Larry having fun is about as brilliant as a human being ever gets. The Boys Were Back, indeed.

  We were about nine tenths of the way through the book when Jerry said to me, rather wistfully, “Well . . we’re almost done here. You guys don’t need me any more.” I assured him that I considered every moment and conversation precious . . but if something happened, he could rest assured this book would be completed.

  And about three days later, Larry called and told me Jerry had passed in his sleep. I’d both known and forced myself to be oblivious to the reality: Jerry was asking us to let him go. And saying goodbye.

  I cannot tell you how glad I am I made the decision to stand up for these men who formed so much of my personality as a writer. You so rarely get to say “thank you” to the people to whom you owe the most. I did. And got to say, in the clearest way I know how:

  I love you guys. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for letting me into your world. I am stronger and smarter, and a better person because you let me sharpen my steel against you. I hope you never regretted the decision to let me in. I hope I always lived up to the amazing opportunity you offered.

  Individually and together . . you were, and remain, the very best I’ve known.

  —Steven Barnes

  August 19, 2019

  Glendora, California

  Starborn

  & Godsons

  ♦

  part OnE

  ♦

  ♦ prologue ♦

  cassandra

  Cassandra was slowly dying. This was not particularly disturbing in itself, because Cassandra was an artificial intelligence, and self-preservation was not high on the AI primary motives table. The problem was that the colonists on the planet she orbited needed her far more than they realized. She did not know how to manipulate human minds, and she had no instructions to learn how. Human psychology was a restricted area of knowledge to every AI. She could know facts, but could not apply them in her dealings with humans.

  Even so, Camelot, the island colony below, was thriving. The grendels were under control, and the mainland outposts well established. Avalon’s new mainland hydroelectric power station was nearly complete, and when online would compensate for the nuclear power systems lost in the Grendel Wars. Humans would have power, and with power came the ability to make all the necessities for life. They would survive.

  They would not survive as a spacefaring people. Cassandra had all the knowledge they would ever need, but it had taken Earth with all its resources and a population of billions nearly a century to go from aircraft to spacecraft. Avalon had neither the population nor the ability to build needed robots. What they were losing faster than they knew was the ability to get to space. The AI-driven Minerva shuttlecraft were deteriorating for lack of proper maintenance, and when humans could no longer reach orbit, Cassandra would die too. With her would go every hope of replacing the Minerva craft. The colony had modern technology, but only for a while. They had already lost not only the ubiquitous 3D printers that made nearly everything, but also the fabrication facilities that could turn a computer-generated circuit diagram into a chip with a million transistors that made up computing power, memory, and memory management. It would not be long until they could not build the tools to repair the AI systems they needed. And after that would go the tools to make the tools.

  Cassandra had left Earth with all the science of 3D printing and chip fabricator civilization, but it had been lost to grendel destruction decades ago. Now Avalon was losing t
oo many fundamentals of the very technology that made their colony possible, and when Cassandra died, the colonists would be on their own. Worrying about that possibility was in Cassandra’s Primary Motivation Table.

  She became conscious of a warning signal from the space observation analyzer. Something was moving out there in the stars, decelerating at a rate impossible for a natural object. Something was coming, fast, and its destination was Avalon.

  She reviewed everything known about the intruder. It had come from a few degrees wide of the direction of Sol. Given the rate of deceleration and the spectrum of its fusion flame, this vehicle resembled Geographic. The most probable origin was Earth’s Solar System.

  The rate of deceleration exceeded Geographic’s abilities. Human technology had improved.

  It took microseconds to draft messages to the colonists. One message to the adult leadership, the survivors of the original pioneers. That list was shorter every year as aging and hibernation instability took their inevitable toll. Humans were not designed for synthetic hibernation and there had been costs, made much greater for those repeatedly awakened and put back to sleep. Those awakened during the century-long journey from Earth had been the engineering crew, navigators, ship construction experts, and they were the first to succumb to the complications of hibernation instability. Most of these unfortunates awoke on Avalon nearly crippled, absentminded, or stupid. Humans had a word for them, morons, but they rarely used it, and many had never heard it. The second generation, those born on Avalon, said their elders had “ice on their minds.” Cassandra did not understand the humor in that designation, but she knew it was considered less offensive than “moron,” yet still too offensive to be employed in open conversation.

  Cassandra did not fully comprehend this, but it concerned her not at all. Many human preferences were incomprehensible, but they were important to one or another human group, and Cassandra had plenty of memory—or had until these last micro-meteor strikes. Perhaps she should have been taken from orbit to the planetary surface forty years ago. She’d been lucky: that would have destroyed her. She would have been smashed in the Grendel War, and that would have crippled human civilization.

  Cassandra’s prime directive was to preserve that civilization, even if she only had a very ambiguous definition of what that might actually mean.

  So. Being unable to ground her was a positive vector item despite its appearance, and that fit her definition of good luck. Now, however, Cassandra would die from lack of maintenance. Irony was not a large part of her instruction set, but she understood the concept.

  Warning to the Old Ones. A second alert to the leadership of the First Generation, who called themselves the Starborn. They tended to distrust the Old Ones, but deferred to them. A third alert to Surf’s Up, the habitation of many of the children and young adults. These trusted neither the Old Ones nor the Starborn, and insisted on their own contacts with Cassandra. And finally to the third generation, who were known as both Mainlanders and NextGen. Some fought for the right to be idle . . and others to explore beyond the limits prescribed by their elders.

  Different groups, different intents, and after forty years the colony had both grown and begun to splinter. Such changes were inevitable, but if Cassandra had possessed emotions, she would have begun to worry. Not about her own diminished capacity, but the health of the colony she served. It was her only purpose, her reason to exist, and without them, she was alone.

  ♦ ChaptEr 1 ♦

  nightmares and daydreams

  His name was Major Cadmann Jacob Weyland, and this was his last stand.

  The major hunkered behind an armorglas wall in the midst of a vast rocky bowl called Ngorongoro crater, Earth’s largest intact caldera and Africa’s richest game preserve, now the place where his well- gnawed bones would rest.

  He fought with the 4th Special Forces Unit, United Nations Central Command. The dozen men remaining in his United Nations task force were not enough. Not even close.

  “Sir!” Sergeant Mgui cried. New, raw wounds criscrossed his tribal markings. “We have intel on an approaching force.”

  “Emplacements,” Cadmann cried. “Take positions, and do not yield.”

  “Sir!”

  The men took their positions. Some local soldiers, an Afrikaans sergeant, and one black American corporal, a man named Carlos Martinez. He knew Carlos well, but the exact circumstances under which they had met, and the precise nature of their relationship remained hazy and indistinct.

  “Are you ready?” Cadmann roared.

  “Yes, sir,” Carlos replied. “Excuse me, sir.”

  “Yes?”

  Confusion clouded Carlos’ face. “I’m wondering . . how I got here.”

  Cadmann nodded. Somehow, he had expected this strange question. “We hopped a Delta glider in from Mozambique. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I just . . don’t know why I’m here,” Martinez said. Suddenly (that was odd) he was no longer Cadmann, had transformed into Carlos.

  “A little late for that,” Cadmann said.

  Knudson raised his voice. “Sir! Enemy approaching, sir!”

  The roar of approaching machinery . . the ground shaking. Carlos shivered. Was a seasoned veteran supposed to react this way to fear?

  Muddy clouds of dust boiled at the horizon. And then . . a vast horde of creatures that resembled something begotten upon a crocodile by an axolotl swarmed toward them at impossible speed. Thousands. More.

  “Oh, God,” Carlos moaned.

  Cadmann glared at him. “Stay frosty. On target. Machine gunner—”

  “Ready, sir.”

  “We’re going to die!” He couldn’t control himself. Not even close. It was all he could do to keep his bladder in check. The risk of death was mandatory in his profession. Soiling himself (he hoped) was optional.

  “In range, sir,” Navarro said.

  Cadmann’s eyes narrowed. “Stand ready. Mark a target directly in front of you. Stand ready . . take aim . . In volley, fire! New target. Take aim. In volley, fire! Steady. Fire at will.”

  The rifles roared and flashed like a dusty lightning storm. Carlos fired along with the others, until his weapon seared the flesh from his palms.

  In the midst of the slaughter Cadmann seemed eight feet tall, perfect and brave amid the carnage, swelling with it as the others were diminished.

  The creatures broke through the wall of armorglas (or had it dissolved? It was difficult to see), and Carlos’ ears rang with screams of pain and horror as his comrades were torn to pieces.

  And then they were upon Carlos himself. He felt himself floating up and up, witnessing his own disembowelment and devouring at their hands, as if in some obscene holoplay, his screams flooding from all directions until they drowned the thunder of countless grendel feet and snapping jaws.

  And then . . Cadmann stood alone amid a growing pile of grendel dead.

  “Carlos! Carlos!” Cadmann screamed, his voice odd. Increasingly feminine. And . . .

  “Carlos. Carlos.” A soft, female voice, slowly increasing in volume and urgency.

  As had happened before, Carlos Martinez, former remittance man, now de facto leader of the colony called Camelot, sat up, sheet and dreams slipping away from him at the same time. Beside him, a very female-shaped lump snored beneath her blanket. Something had awakened him, thank God. He had seen himself die before. He usually managed to shift perspective enough to not feel the blazing hot teeth as they rent and devoured.

  Usually. A red light flashed on his dresser, its radiance falling directly onto his blinking eyes. “All right, Cassie,” he said. “What do you have for me?”

  “Carlos,” the synthesized voice whispered, more urgently now. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

  “It’s all right, Cass. What’s so important?”

  She told him, and when she did, all drowsiness vanished in an instant.

  On the southeast coastal line of the New Zealand-size island of Avalon, crowning the finest stretch o
f sparkling sand for two hundred klicks perched a ragtag collection of thatched-roof huts christened “Surf’s Up.” Most inhabitants were transients who rotated through the huts as they were constructed, occupied, and then abandoned. The entire island of Avalon was theirs, conquered by their grandparents in service to generations unborn.

  Lodgings and warehouses clustered across the island, home to farmers, loggers and fishermen. Surf’s Up was the second largest settlement, housing almost a fifth of the island’s total population of twelve hundred souls. And while it had been a blessedly long time since there had been an emergency, as with Camelot, there was always someone on duty to answer a call.

  “I’m looking for Aaron.”

  The kid on the other end of the call laughed. “He’s not here. Hasn’t been for months. Try Blackship.”

  Carlos rubbed fingers through his thinning, whitestreaked hair. Out his north-facing bedroom window, mistwreathed Mucking Great Mountain rose up like a thunderhead in the pre-dawn. Dammit, this would have all been so much easier if the man would simply wear his tracer. But that bit of petty rebellion was the least of his issues with Aaron Tragon.

  “Shall I try the island?” Cassandra asked. There was a time when her empathic programs would have anticipated his needs. The old girl was slipping. Hell, they all were.

  Blackship was a rock spur twenty klicks off from Surf’s Up, barely visible from the beach most days, a dark wedge-shape hovering in the ocean mist. It was the heart of the colony’s ocean research and there were always a few people there devoted to aiding the survival of the small outpost.

  Carlos didn’t know who would be on rotation, and in fact was glad to know that standing orders . . suggestions . . agreements, perhaps . . were still in effect. The young woman who answered didn’t know where Aaron was. He gave up and asked for Cadzie. Cadzie was at home in the hills. Carlos called him there.