Beowulf's Children

infobox Book |
name = Beowulf's Children
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author = Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes
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language = English
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genre = Science Fiction & Fantasy
publisher = Tor Science Fiction
release_date = November 15, 1996
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media_type = Print ()
pages = 512
isbn = ISBN 978-0812524963
preceded_by = The Legacy of Heorot
followed_by = Destiny's Road

"Beowulf's Children" is a science fiction novel written by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes. It is the sequel to "The Legacy of Heorot", and concerns the actions and fate of the second generation of colonists on the planet Avalon.

Plot summary

As the story opens, the second generation of Avalon's colonists are coming of age - and the potential for teenage rebellion has never been so potentially vicious.

The original colonists, or "Earth Born", though selected for optimal physical and mental attributes, suffered varying levels of traumatic brain injury due to unforeseeable effects of long periods of chemically- and temperature-induced hibernation, necessary to survive the long journey to the planet. Their children, the "Star Born", have no such disability — they are geniuses with "feeble-minded" parents. On top of that, the Grendel Wars are still fresh in the minds of the Earth Born, in which their short-sightedness nearly led to their extermination. The battle-proven yet less-intelligent elders now practice a dogma of zealous caution that would have once tried their own patience, and which the brilliant and overwhelmingly arrogant Star Born find nothing short of cowardice and tyranny.

Adding to the strain are those who made the journey to Avalon as cargo, the "Bottle Babies" — preserved embryos grown in artificial wombs. Not only are they not subject to the mental disabilities of the Earth Born, they grew up as orphans, lacking even the familial ties of their fellow Star Born — and feel even less obliged to obey. Aaron Tragon, perhaps the smartest of them, is more than just rebellious - he may be insane.

As conflict brews between the generations on the island of Camelot, on the mainland a dangerous question has just been answered. The Grendels nearly drove the colony into extinction. But what preys upon the Grendels is even worse.

Two of the colony's best and brightest die in a horrifying and inexplicable fashion - a storm of yellow sand that has left nothing but naked bones soaked with Grendel supercharger - and a baby wrapped in a blanket. The Earth Born ban further trips to the mainland, but the Star Born make an attempt to return on a quest for answers - and vengeance. Cadmann Wayland, the colony's hero from the Grendel War, stows away on the return trip, and kills one of the Star Born during an altercation.

The colony holds a tribunal, which eventually finds Cadmann "not guilty". This has the effect of raising tensions between the two generations of colonists. Aaron Tragon takes advantage of this tension to further his own goals. Instead of challenging the decision, he shows the tribunal unshakable evidence of an approaching danger. Tau Ceti's sunspot cycle is fifty years, not several hundred like Earth's. And because of it, Avalon is entering a period of agitated weather - and all of Avalon's lifeforms will react to it in ways the colony has never before seen. If the colony is to survive, trips to the mainland to study all of Avalon's life are essential - trips such as the one an Earth Born killed a Star Born to prevent.

Over the objections of the senior colonists, missions to the mainland resume. Tragon has both humiliated the Earth Born and established himself as leader of the Star Born.

Months later, the yellow storm has not been seen again, and the Grendels, though more numerous and of much greater variation, are only a dangerous predator, not a demonic horde. There is much to learn, and danger seems controllable. Until a rainstorm permits six Grendels to reach a snowy mountaintop where a study is taking place. The snow permits them to supercharge without dying, and they will not stop to eat their dead - these Grendels "cooperate". Though the team is able to drive them off with but a single casualty, they are shaken - the Grendels, though dangerous, had alway been predictable. Now they are changing.

Aaron Tragon behaves more and more erratically, convinced that the source of his capabilities is his origin as a Bottle Baby. He dreams of using the artificial wombs to sire hundreds of children, of breeding them like horses. He also begins worshipping the Grendels.

Meanwhile on Camelot, Cadmann is disturbed and withdrawn, reflecting on events on the mainland. A small group of Star Born, trapped in a snowstorm, killed five Grendels with only one casualty. The Grendels had shown the intellignence to take advantage of the snowstorm to overcome the damaging heat normally generated during supercharging, and had cooperated to hunt the Star Born. In contrast, when the Earth Born first encountered the Grendels, the entire colony lost ten colonists while driving off one gravely wounded monster. What was to the Earth Born mortal danger is to the Star Born just a momentary threat. This event reveals a further dichotomy between the Earth Born and the Star Born: to the Earth Born, the mainland is a no-man's land, whereas to the Star Born, it is merely a challenge.

The killing of a Star Born by Cadman Wayland had the effect of destroying any remaining trust the Star Born had for the Earth Born. The Star Born now see a parallel between the Earth Born and the Grendels: both seem willing to kill their own offspring for their own benefit. This further cements Aaron Tragon's role as leader of the Star Born; to Cadmann, this appears deliberate.

Aaron's quest for power causes Cadmann to begin investigating Aaron's background and psychology. He discovers that most "Bottle Babies" have a strong drive for purpose, and tend to bond all the more strongly to their families because of it. Aaron did not bond with his family, and seems instead to have bonded to the idea of colonization, to the exclusion of all other ties. Aaron appears to be exhibiting the beginnings of megalomania.

On the mainland, the Grendels are evolving. Some develop the ability to resist their instincts to hunt and kill mindlessly. One in particular is refusing to kill her own offspring, instead building a kind of family in a place with unmistakable but unknown effects on Grendel development.

The Earth Born visit the Star Born town, Shangri-La. And now that the two groups are interacting as equals, discoveries are made. One is potentially disturbing--another lifeform--a pollinater similar to an Earth bee that uses Grendel supercharger. But there is also a potentially glorious one - for the first time, a human and a Grendel meet, and neither tries to kill the other.

It is plain that Camelot's Grendels are an anomaly. On the mainland, some Grendels cooperate with each other, and with similar species. Without the cannibalistic cycle that existed on Camelot, they have far more evolved traits. They hunt in packs. They build bridges like beavers - complete with "salmon ladders" to permit use by both stages of the species. One chose to leave rather than confront an armed human. With mainland Grendels the possibility exists for coexistence.

The difference between the two types is physical as well, if somewhat amazing. Mainland Grendels are prone to infestation by a certain form of brain parasite. Though it can be lethal, reproducing out of control inside the Grendel's brain until the skull break open, it can also be symbiotic, enhancing the Grendels' intelligence in exchange for nutrition. It depends on when the infection occurs - during development, the symbiote and host are able to adapt to each other and produce heightened intelligence. Infestation at any point after development is fatal. And the parasite is completely absent from the island.

The first discovery is also understood - the "bees" are the yellow storm. They are normally scavengers with a taste for Grendels - and when they eat them, they collect the supercharger the way Earth bees collect honey. This is so that when they are desperate, they can use it themselves and "hunt" instead of scavenge - and they can strip entire areas bare. This is what happened to start the entire conflict - a windstorm pulled the sturdy insects (which are actually more like crustaceans) across a desert. When the storm hit the camp, they were starving - and used their stores of supercharger to eat whatever was available. The blanket the baby was wrapped in was a shade of blue afterwards called "Cadzie" blue (named for the baby it apparently protected) - Nature's color-coding for poison on Avalon. The bees naturally avoided that. This discovery eventually leads the colonists to an ability to deal with the "bees", at least on a small scale.

This discovery helps the Earth Born realize some of the drawbacks to their perspective on danger, and the value of investigating rather than always avoiding it.

The threat to the colony is not eliminated, however. Further study of the bees shows that their nests are in areas that will soon be flooded by the sea as the planet heats up. That is why so many bees were in that storm - their hives had been flooded. Soon that will happen to large populations of bees. At least until the storms are over, the mainland will have to be evacuated.

Tragon will not hear of it. He attacks Cadmann and another Star Born to prevent this knowledge from spreading - to protect Shangri-La, to protect his dream. The Star Born survives, and the family-building Grendel finds him, spares his life and takes him to safety.

Tragon returns to Shangri-La with a story of Cadmann and his fellow Star Born being eaten by Grendels, but the bees are still coming. When they arrive, it is devastating. Not only do they eat everything, the supercharger they carry is still explosive, capable of knocking aircraft out of the sky.

As Tragon rallies his people, the unthinkable occurs. The old Grendel drags the barely-alive lost Star Born into Shangri-La, where his father welcomes both, putting the Grendel under his protection. The boy has enough strength to make the truth known: "Aaron shot us," before the bees hit Shangri-La.

The Grendel hides in the town's cistern. Tragon survives by burying himself in a stockyard's manure pile. The rest of the town is nowhere near as lucky. The only things that stop the bees are solid walls or fire, which ignites hundreds of them at once, like hundreds of cherry bombs - setting much of the town ablaze. In the end, only sixty-three colonists return to the island - out of almost three hundred.

Aaron Tragon is not one of them. After Shangri-La is evacuated, he is left stumbling through the ruins of his kingdom, covered in animal waste. The crops are gone, eaten by the bees. Even the cooperative beaver Grendels must eat the samlon (Grendel "larvae") to survive. Aaron, still driven by his ambition, wanders away from the town.

Two years later, the colonists return to the ruins of Shangri-La. Tragon is there - or what's left of him. Mentally, it seems that Aaron Tragon is dead. What remains is even more amazing than Tragon was. He has made peace with the intelligent Grendels. He will be a bridge between the humans and the Grendels. And together they will reshape Avalon into its namesake.