Beowulf's Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

still set up for dolphin transport?"
    "Sure—we flew Quanda and Hipshot up yesterday."
    "Great. Somebody was playing with a Ouija board."
    The eel struggled up and up, blindly urgent, making surprisingly good time. Justin had kept up with it, although many of the children had dropped back by now. She patched herself through to Justin's comm link.
    "Jessie here. What does it look like to you?"
    "Ugly thing. Ignoring us, though. What's the word?"
    "Kill it."
    "What do you think?"
    "Let's take it alive."
    "I like the way you think. Zack's got ice on his mind."
    There was a crackle of static and another voice came online. It was Zack Moskowitz, governor of Avalon. "I find that tasteless, young man. You listen to me, both of you—your father has standing orders—"
    "Our father isn't here, Zack."
    "I want you to kill that thing. We don't know—"
    "That's right, we don't. I'll kill it when I'm ready."
    "Dammit, Jessica!"
    She thumped her headset. "Brzztfplt. Gee, Zack, you're breaking up! Over." And switched her comm link off as Evan was bringing the skeeter around for a landing next to a large pond.
    The skeeter thumped down on rocks. Jessica snatched up the rifle, and hopped off.
    The eel humped itself over a rock break, looked at her without seeing her, and wiggled into the center of the pond.
    Coleen moved a little closer, her holocamera recording the entire event. Every time the eel moved, a staccato series of computer-enhanced afterimages, flashed before Jessica's left eye. Cassandra's exobiology study program was having a field day.
    "Get in closer, Coleen," she said.
    The eel swished back and forth through the pond's crystal-clear water.
    Jessica clambered up a rock to get a better view.
    Beside her, Coleen whispered, "Cassandra: M-D Coleen EELTALK," opening a personal file, and began to speak.
    "Eel-like. Probably carnivore. Five meters long. Estimate top speed of twenty knots. This is no infant. Cross-hatching indicates healed scars. Minimum of a year old, probably more like ten years, possibly a lot more than that. This is a mature animal seeking a spawning ground."
    Justin was the second up over the rocks. The children and others of the teens were behind him. It had been an uphill jog, and despite his superb physical condition he was blowing hard.
    Coleen nodded acknowledgment, and kept talking. "We can bet that it didn't spawn here. We haven't seen anything like this. Probably genetic memory. Likes the taste of the water."
    "That water's glacial. It won't have much taste," Justin said.
    "This is great," Evan said. "The first. The first returning land animal—oceanic?"
    "Aside from a couple of the bird-thingies," Coleen said, "you're right."
    The eel began to move in diminishing circles, as if claiming the pond for its own. Then it was still. The children gathered around the edge. An expectant hush settled over them.
    Jessica anticipated Justin's first request, and handed her comm card to him before the words left his mouth. He sighed with pleasure.
    This was something new, something that would occupy conversation for weeks—no mean contribution to their lives. For this alone, she owed the eel a chance to live.
    The First would have to allow more frequent visits to the mainland.
    Have to!
    After all—the local ecology was returning. Evidence of it was everywhere. There were three times the flora to be categorized now. The wind carried puffballs and tiny fairy-brollies and fertilized seeds, and the Earth-native crops of Avalon were experiencing their first real competition. Weeds were a universal fact of life.
    Two dozen children ringed the pool. The eel was still, then rippled, then was still again. Justin adjusted his face gear, zooming in on the minor miracle.
    Something was happening, but Jessica had to get down on her knees and elbows to see it. A jellied mass began to emerge from a gland two-thirds of the way back along the eel's dorsal surface. It squirted out like whipped cream, milky with reddish dots