The Legacy of Heorot Read Free Page B

here and there glinting on the shelves and boxes that held the last remnants of another life. Everything he had been was in this room. The hundred and sixty people who made up the crew and passengers of the Geographic were his only family and friends.
    It wasn't much, but it was enough. Enough, because the behaviorists and sociologists and colony planners said it was enough. Because they, in their infinite wisdom, had calculated exactly how many pressed flower petals and class-album videodisks were required to stave off depression: just enough to stimulate the fond memories, not enough to create an incurable homesickness.
    His world. The silver-gilt college trophies, reminders of victories in Debate and Track and Wrestling, were holograms. Hologram images of smiling women whose warm lips and smooth bodies left frustratingly little impression on his memory. How long had they been dead? Thirty years? Forty?
    They'd been planning another colony even before Geographic launched. A statuesque New Yorker named Heidi had talked about riding the next starship to build a colony at Epsilon Eridani. Maybe she had. It would have launched twenty years after Geographic. She might even now be wondering which of her old beaus was still alive.
    There were disks of favorite movies—his personal collection, though in principle they were part of the camp library. There, a shifting hologram of his command post in Central Africa. A peacekeeping force, nothing more, until the revolutions. "Sergeant Major Mvubi! We're moving out!"
    "Sir!"
    We were needed. Then.
    His clothing was all nonsynthetics that might take a generation to replace. How long would it be until they thawed out the silkworms and the mulberry bushes for them to feed on? Not exactly a high priority item...
    He didn't remember closing his eyes, but when he opened them he was lying down, and the sun had set. Cadman grabbed his toolbox and a folding stool and hustled from the room. Getting old is one thing, dammit! Senility will just have to wait.

Chapter 2
    ON THE BEACH
     
    Glory to Man in the Highest! For Man is the master of things.
    ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, "Hymn to Man"
     
    A jeep roared by, full of colonists who were full of beer. "Grab some wheels and we'll race you to the beach!" Cadmann waved and pointed to his toolbox. They razzed him and careened out of the compound, singing.
    Electric lights were wavering to life around the camp as workers changed shifts. The party atmosphere was infectious. Avalon's inadequate twin moons would smile on a beachful of frolicking spacefarers.
    The folding stool's seat was several centimeters too small, but as he bent to the task of repairing and refastening the wire, he forgot the discomfort.
    Avalon's moons cast double, divergent shadows with their bluish glow, and the stars were brilliantly sharp and clear. No crickets. And along about evening the nightbirds aren't beginning to call because the things they use for birds here don't sing. And maybe we'll fix that, with bluebirds and mockingbirds if the goddam ecology people want them. I wonder if they brought crickets?
    Cadmann unwound two meters of wire and scraped at the clotted dust surrounding the loose connection, then clipped the old wire free and attached the new. He fired the soldering torch.
    Do they still stand retreat at the Academy? Cadets in archaic uniforms standing in rigid rows, plebes telling jokes in hopes of making upperclassmen laugh and be seen by the officers... sunset guns, bands, the Anthem, the flag lowered slowly to the beat of drums... He attached the leads from the voltmeter. The needle jumped into the red. Done.
    Mist had rolled in from the sea. The stars were gone; the moons were wavery blobs. Cadmann felt pinpricks of moisture on his face.
    A calf on the far side of the wire grunted longingly and shuffled over, looking at him with huge, liquid eyes. Cadmann reached through and petted it, and it licked his hand.
    "No mother, eh, girl? Must be tough not to