Grendel (Niven)

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"Grendel" is an English language science fiction short story written in 1968 by Larry Niven. It is the fourth in the series of Known Space stories featuring crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer. The short story was originally published in Neutron Star, Larry Niven, New York: Ballantine, 1968, pp. 51-72 (ISBN 0-345-29665-6), and reprinted in Crashlander, Larry Niven, New York: Ballantine, 1994, pp. 57-101 (ISBN 0-345-38168-8).

[edit] Synopsis

Beowulf Shaeffer, ex-chief pilot for the now-defunct Nakamura Lines on a two-year sabbatical from Earth and on a flight between Down and Gummidgy, befriends both fellow passenger Emil Horne, a top-flight computer programmer, and the captain of the Argos, Margo Tellefsen. Shaeffer and Tellefsen "talk shop" about space travel, and she and Shaeffer spend much of her free time together, but when Emil asks how he’s doing with her, Shaeffer tells him he’s not really trying. Shaeffer’s and Emil mostly interact over cards and drinking; when Margo tells Bey she’s dropping out of hyperdrive outside the Gummidgy system to show the passengers a starseed setting sail, Shaeffer invites Emil to join him and they get front row seats for the event.

One of the ET passengers, a Kdatlyno touch sculptor named Lloobee, a sightless ten-foot humanoid with clawed hands, knees and elbows, sits next to Shaeffer during the event and Shaeffer suddenly realizes the Kdatlyno can see nothing of the starseed setting sail outside the ship through the window; he uses a sonar-type sense to perceive his surroundings, not vision. Lloobee is looking at Shaeffer, memorizing his face. After the show Captain Tellefsen informs the passengers they’ll be landing on Gummidgy in sixteen hours, but Shaeffer suddenly finds himself waking up. Everyone on board had been knocked out, probably by gas introduced into the lifesystem.

Hurrying to the control room, Bey finds the door breached, a smooth nine-inch hole where the handle should have been, evidence of a Slaver disintegrator. Inside, Margo was slumped in her chair. Waking her up, Shaeffer and Margo discover that the ship’s hyperwave had been removed with the disintegrator as well. She remembers that there had been a ship near her when she was preparing to go to hyperdrive; it was inside the mass limit, preventing her from turning it on. Shaeffer gets a horrible suspicion about what they might have taken. Checking, they find that only one thing is missing: Lloobee the Kdatlyno touch sculptor. The Argos proceeds on toward Gummidgy after Margo alerts the planet authorities with a comm laser.

Shaeffer is almost amused at the incident, although he has some ideas about what happened, but Emil is incensed. The kidnappers have made their demands: ten million stars for Lloobee’s return and a contract granting the kidnappers immunity from prosecution and requiring silence from everyone on Gummidgy. Emil complains that the Kdatlyno will be unhappy that Earth doesn’t take revenge against the kidnappers, and the Kzinti will take note of it as well. Emil thinks that the base MPs will be useless since they don’t have ships to pursue the kidnappers. Shaeffer shows off his knowledge of Kdatlyno a bit, pointing out that Lloobee had to be on the planet; Kdatlyno can’t spend extended time in any spaceship smaller than a liner, and they learn that Margo said the vessel that had evidently boarded them was the size of a large yacht. When they check the spaceport records of ship landings (Emil plowing ahead determinedly, Shaeffer tagging along reluctantly) they find that only one ship of the 19 that had landed quickly enough after the kidnapping to keep Lloobee from going insane was Drunkard’s Walk, a ship owned by an acquaintance of Shaeffer’s through Elephant (Gregory Pelton), Larchmont Bellamy.

Emil is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery but Shaeffer tries to forestall him to keep the Jinxian charging headlong into danger. This frustrates Emil, who tells Shaeffer he’s a hell of a man to wear a hero’s name: Beowulf is the classic epic hero of early English literature. He leaves to find Bellamy. Shaeffer, shamed over Emil’s words, finally chases after him and catches up just in time to accompany Emil in a car to Bellamy’s campside a third of the way around the planet. As they arrive Emil and Bey notice that Bellamy’s ship, Drunkard’s Walk, is much smaller than the ship Margo described. Annoyed at being wrong, Emil is ready to turn back but Bey convinces him to stay and meet Bellamy.

At the camp, Bellamy welcomes Shaeffer and his friend and invites them in for drinks. He asks about Sharrol, to which Shaeffer responds that though she has always wanted children, Earth's Fertility Board has countless excuses to deny parenthood so as to keep the population down – among them albinism. Shaeffer is a crashlander, and albinism is a common trait on a world where everyone must spend half the year underground. And Sharrol is a "flat phobe"; she is psychologically incapable of living on a planet noticeably different from Earth – she cannot go elsewhere to start a family with Shaeffer. Thus, they turn to one of Sharrol's friends, Carlos Wu: a physically impressive polymath with a number of impressive scientific discoveries to his name, thus compelling the Fertility Board to reward him a rare unlimited reproductive license. He has agreed to help Sharrol make use of two birthrights the Fertility Board permits a common citizen such as herself by entering a two-year marriage contract with her, during which he will impregnate her with two children for her and Shaeffer to raise. Feeling compelled by Bellamy’s questioning eyes, Shaeffer admits he had to leave Earth, he couldn’t take being around them, grateful as he was for Carlos's help. He also tells Bellamy that he is doing some research on alien taxidermy and wanted some information from Bellamy. Bellamy demurs, saying that he and his hunting friends just use anesthetic rifles and take pictures of the animals they shoot. He also demurs on bringing Shaeffer along on a hunt.

After dinner Emil and Shaeffer say their goodbyes and leave. However, after flying over the horizon Bey drops the ship almost to ground level and subsonic speed, turning back to the camp. He tells Emil he’s decided to be an epic hero, whatever that is, and explains that he’s pretty sure that Bellamy and crew are the kidnappers, and that they had help boarding the Argos – help from Margo, the captain of the ship. Emil is surprised but he takes it in stride. He helps Bey locate the cave where Lloobee is being held and they proceed on foot to be sure that someone is actually guarding it. For Bey, this would be proof enough of Bellamy’s involvement and they could get the Gummidgy MPs involved. But Emil, with characteristic Jinxian impulsiveness and courage, produces a pair of Jinxian dueling pistols, giving Bey one, then charges into the cave. Bey sees him falling as he steps into the shadows. A few minutes later, as he dithers over what to do, Bey is stunned unconscious as well.

Shaeffer regains consciousness shortly after he’s dragged into the cave. He had been shot with Emil’s stun pistol, which the kidnappers have mistaken for a full-power police stunner. Emil’s stunners only render a person unconscious for ten minutes, while a police stunner knocked a person out for 12 hours. There is also a police stunner booby trapping the entrance to the cave; Emil was stunned by that when he entered the cave. A string attached to the trigger allows them to turn it off as they exit the cave; a person in the cave pulls the string to turn it on again.

Thinking him still unconscious, Bellamy and his co-kidnappers, Tanya Wilson, a hunter named Warren, and another man named Piet Lindstrom, who is guarding Lloobee, discuss what to do about Shaeffer and his friend. They plan on faking their death by a carnivore who would be found near the half-eaten bodies, poisoned by human flesh. Shaeffer is trying to decide what he can do when Lloobee suddenly leaps at Lindstrom, who manages to stun him but in the confusion, Shaeffer jumps up and races out of the cave, remembering to pull the string to the booby trap. The men give chase, but Shaeffer manages to elude them until he realizes that once they get to the car he’s trapped with no way to alert the authorities. He makes his way to the car where he finds Bellamy waiting for him to appear. Circling until the sun CY Aquarii, on the horizon by this time, is at his back, so that the goggles worn by everyone against the blindlingly bright sun will form a black protective dot, covering his approach, Shaeffer charges the car and knocks the stunner Bellamy is carrying out of his hand. Neither of them can find the gun and Bellamy decides to fight Shaeffer hand-to-hand. Surely a crashlander, a weakling from We Made It, is no match for a human male in top condition like Bellamy.

But Shaeffer has put on extra muscle from four years spent on Earth, muscle that isn’t apparent on his long arms and frame. His reach exceeds Bellamy’s and his legs give him more speed than the flatlander’s. Bellamy, finally enraged at Shaeffer’s fighting skill, charges him, only to have Shaeffer turn tail and run, having led Bellamy in a half circle until Shaeffer was closer to the car. He jumps in the car, locks the doors and windows, and takes off, headed for the base to inform the authorities about Bellamy and his friends.

In the car, Bey pours himself a drink and relaxes, hoping Bellamy won't think of the only thing he can do to catch Shaeffer now. Bellamy, however, hasn’t given up. He comes after Shaeffer in Drunkard’s Walk, attempting to force Shaeffer to land by repeatedly slamming the car with sonic booms. Finally, half loaded and feeling frustrated and desperate, Shaeffer flies his car into the flank of the larger ship. It knocks him unconscious and out of the sky. He wakes up just before he hits. Only the crash web saves him from being flattened into hamburger. As it is his hands are badly damaged.

Bellamy lands the Drunkard’s Walk and pulls Shaeffer out of the car’s wreckage. He is still planning on feeding Shaeffer and Emil to some carinvore when they both spot the anomaly that Shaeffer’s impact on Drunkard’s Walk has had: the third landing leg of the craft did not deploy, leaving it balanced on its two rear legs, held up only by the gyroscopes spinning inside the craft. Bellamy attempts to board the craft again to set it down, but the gyros give out before he can make it into the ship. Drunkard’s Walk spins end-for-end and bounces off into the distance, throwing Bellamy high into the air and to his death. Shaeffer makes his way to the wreckage of Bellamy’s yacht and turns on the damaged communications equipment, hoping that the base will notice someone trying to communicate with broken equipment and come to find him. They do.

Later, with Margo, she and Shaeffer discuss the return of Lloobee and Emil, and the reduced terms of the contract; the kidnappers wouldn’t be getting any money, only amnesty and no publicity. Shaeffer reveals to Margo that he knows of her involvement, and the shift in her personality and movements gives him enough clues to deduce that she is much older than she appears. He guesses that she was in love with Bellamy, but she tells him she was his mother. Shaeffer can’t understand why she doesn’t hate him for being partially responsible for his death. She understands what Bellamy was doing: he was dying, and trying to find things to do to feel still alive, until one of them killed him, as the Lloobee incident finally did. Also, Margo is aware of Sharrol and Shaeffer’s arrangement with her, and she wants Bey to stay with her until the two years of Sharrol's contract with Carlos are up. Bey agrees.

Two years later, Shaeffer is on Jinx when he finds Lloobee’s latest sculpture in the Institute of Knowledge. It was a recreation of the kidnapping incident complete with figures recognizable to humans as well as by touch. Lloobee had not been included in the contract with the kidnappers and his sculpture was his way of exposing them.