Beowulf's Children (4 page)

Evan tapped his ear. "Roger."

"What's the word?" Coleen shouted.

"Kill it. Standing Municipal Order One-four-two. On file. Kill it first, decide whether it's harmful later."

"It's got no legs," Jessica said. "It can barely function on the land.

Cassandra says it doesn't use speed. Let's wait."

"Got my orders," Evan said ruefully.

"Is Skeeter Six 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 within.

Egg sac. Thousands upon thousands of little eels. Jessica's earphone was sizzling. Zack. "Jessica? Why haven't you killed it yet?"

"Sacrilege," she said distantly. "The miracle of childbirth. It's an ovary thing—you wouldn't understand."

"You don't know what the hell that creature is."

"Oh, and you do, right, Zack?"

The squirting seemed to have stopped. Once again, the pool was still.

Jessica selected a load for the shock rifle. "Thirty kilos, close enough," she said softly, and turned the dial on the capacitor dart. A green light blinked on the rifle dart; the batteries in the stock held sufficient charge. Reluctantly she thumbed the arming switch.

Justin's long face was peaceful. "Now?"

"Not yet. Let's see if it's supposed to die here."

He nodded. The eel was almost, motionless, merely shuddering. The rippling became regular, as if it were straining at some mighty task. Its black wet muscularity swelled and released.

Then, about one-quarter up from the tail, a puff of black appeared.

"Semen?" Jessica whispered. "Bifertile hermaphroditic?"

"Why extrasomatic?" Evan asked.

"Think about it," Justin said quietly. "In the old days, this pool might have just boiled with eels. They release their egg sacs. Then they release their semen. The semen spreads through the pond, perhaps preferentially fertilizing other egg clusters. Instant exogenesis."

Coleen whistled. "Wrong. I think it's blood."

"Blood?"

The eel had begun to shed its tail. A chunk of meat was separated from the main mass of the body, and blood was more plentiful now.

"All that blood in the water," Justin said. "Best evidence I've seen that grendels weren't native to this island."

Coleen ran to the skeeter, unloaded a roll of absorbent rubber sheeting, and lugged it back to the pond. She took off her shoes and socks and rolled up her pants. "I'd bet minerals in the blood are a clue to Mommy's home territory, her mating ground."

"Mating ground?" Justin asked.

"I say she's not hermaphroditic. Mated before she came up here. Stored up the semen, dumped it here."

"Bet."

The tail had worked its way almost completely loose now, clouding the water with blood. Only a few scraps of tissue held the tail on. They watched as those fibers tore away.

The eel swam in a lazy circle, shedding its former torpor.

"Doesn't look moribund to me," Justin said.

It seemed to notice them for the first time. It dove, wiggling fiercely beneath the surface of the water, and left the pond.

"Time," Jessica whispered, and put a capacitor dart just behind its head. It spasmed once, and then again, and sank.

"Move it!" Justin was already clambering into the water. "We don't want this thing to drown!"

Coleen McAndrews was right after him. "It humped its way over rocks—we saw it out of the water for more than thirty seconds. I think we can make it." The tarp was around the eel in a moment. The children started to plunge in with them. Jessica waved them back. "Watch out for the egg sac!" she yelled. "Stay ashore."

They rolled it out of the pond. Its skin was surprisingly spongy, and oozed water. It was the work of a moment to attach the eel and its roll of protective sheeting to one of the dolphin slings beneath Skeeter VI. Jessica clambered aboard.

"We'll get another skeeter up here," she yelled above the growing whine of the turbines. "Get us an egg sample and meet me at Aquatics."

"There in ten minutes," Justin promised. She whooped and raised her hand, and he slapped it hard. Their eyes shone.

"Got one, dammit," Jessica said.

Ten seconds later Skeeter VI was up in the air, and plunging toward Avalon Town.

MOTHER EEL

How cheerfully he seems to grin

How neatly spreads his claws

And welcomes little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!

LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland

The skeeter soared. Evan's sure hands took it up so rapidly it seemed the world deflated beneath them. The acceleration was a little much for Jessica, but then, that was Evan. Damned if she'd let him know he'd upset her. She grabbed the horizontal hand bar set above the instrument panel, and hoped he wouldn't notice her white knuckles.

She patched through to Biomed, down at Avalon town. "Chaka. Got something for you. Get Hipshot and Quanda out of pen number three soonest."

"Is that the eel that everyone's talking about?"

"Betcha."

"I expected something like this. We're draining the salt water out of the tank, and flooding it with the Miskatonic. "

"I want to have your child. Can we have full diagnostics in five minutes?"

"We aim to please."

The skeeter dove, nearing free fall as it plunged toward the camp. The arc of Avalon Town, twice its original size, spread out below them. All of its corrals and lodgings, shops and quilted fields screamed up at them at gut-wrenching speed.

And there, near the Biomed dome, were the three saltwater tanks. Luckily, there were no sick animals at the moment, but Dr. Mubutu had flown Quanda and Hipshot in from the Surf's Up lagoon, giving them some privacy in hopes that they might breed. Someone tall and black—it had to be Little Chaka—was below them at the pens, but she didn't really have time to think. Evan was whooping as he dove in, thoroughly enjoying her no doubt pasty-faced reaction to his aerobatics.

Just wait, Evan, she swore silently. I'll get you for this.

The saltwater tanks were raised five feet above the ground and sunk six feet beneath it. The pen was drained, and the Miskatonic was pumping in at the rate of three hundred liters a minute. Skeeter VI came to a hovering halt, its tail rotors foaming the water.

Little Chaka waited on the white-tiled lip of the tanks. Jessica untied the cargo line. The roll of foaming sheeting loosened, and twelve feet of eel splashed into the shallow water. She jumped down to stand beside Chaka and waved the skeeter away.

The eel lay at the bottom of the tank, barely covered as the water level slowly climbed. "I think it's just stunned," Little Chaka yelled. He knelt next to the pen to examine the dark eel. "Looks to be moving water through the gills. Let's add a little oxygen." He whispered to his comm card. There were more bubbles from the air inputs at the bottom of the tank. "That ought to take care of her."

Little Chaka Mubutu was almost six and a half feet tall, dark-skinned but with the narrow features more often found in whites. He looked quite unlike his adopted father. Dr. Mubutu—Big Chaka. Together they were the colony's premier biologists. Dr. Mubutu was still at home, at the marine research facility west of Surf's Up.

"Nothing else to do," he said. "We don't know enough to help."

"I hope she lives," Jessica said.

"So do I. She looks tough. Leave it to Mother Nature. I'm going in.

Coming?"

"Let me get my kit." Skeeter VI buzzed down to a hexagonal concrete landing pad next to Biomed. Jessica grabbed her belt pouch as it shut down. The still turning rotors fluttered her hair in all directions, but she didn't notice. She hurried into the building.

Little Chaka had the holos up and running by the time she entered Aquatics. The station's west wall disappeared as the cameras and tank sensors displayed data from the churning, foaming tank. Chaka sat in an oversized swivel chair, the keyboard on his lap. He waved toward a more normal sized chair. "What do we have here?" Chaka asked.

"You should know better than me."

"File name?"

"Mother Eel."

"Cassandra?" Chaka said softly. "Let's see what we know about Mother Eel."

"Integrating files. Done. Records now available," the computer's cool, familiar voice answered. Chaka's version of Cassandra's neutral voice had been given a lyrical New Guinea lilt.

The holo divided into two images. One remained with the eel, and the other replayed the skeeter's-eye view of its heroic spawning odyssey.

"What do we have... ?" Chaka whispered. He watched the tail drop off, and chuckled.

"What happened there?" Jessica asked.

"The Amazon is glacier water, poor in minerals. Mama Eel is making sure her babies have food."

"Cannibals?"

"No, this is a salmon trick, Jessica. The salmon of Earth swam upstream and died. Mama here only leaves her tail, but it's the same trick. Tail will rot. Parasites in the tail will multiply drastically as tissue decomposes. Insects come to dine. Water boils with insects and worms and such. Hatchlings have their dinner, won't they, Mama?"

Outside, the clouded sky cleared for a moment, and Tau Ceti glared through the Aquatics building's domed ceiling, dimming the holos. The ceiling polarized, and the holos brightened.

Slowly, the eel began to twitch again.

"Let's get a closer look," Little Chaka murmured.

The eel ballooned up before them. Its skin disappeared as Cassandra obligingly bounced ultrasound through the water, and then adjusted the scans. "Ah ha—"

The door burst open, and Zack Moskowitz stormed in.

Avalon's chairman was about fifty-five Earth years old, thirty-eight Avalon, and a slightly heavier gravity hadn't been kind to him. His shoulders stooped, and his face was deeply lined. The mustache and eyebrows that gave him an unfortunate resemblance to Groucho Marx were thinner now, speckled with white. Care and woe, stress and responsibility had bent him as if physical burdens.