Birth of the Dragon

The sun rises into a clear morning sky.  The city is busy with the bustle of a new year at hand, and the streets are crowded to bursting.  I stagger down the broad sidewalk toward my workshop, bumping into people left and right, and receiving both shouted insults and shoves.  One overzealous lout shoves me into the street where a truck hums bare inches above me as I lie on the hard concrete paving.

My friend Larrath pushes through the crowd to my side and helps me to my feet, crouching low beneath the speeders that apply more power to pass above us.

“You’re drunk again aren’t you ‘Gar?” my friend asks.  The tall man practically drags me from the street and on down the sidewalk.  “Your walking is worse than a teenager on drugs.” 

“You know thart I woork bettar wheen I’m drunk Larr.  So leave off tha insults an just help me to my worrk shop.”

Larrath grins one of those self-effacing grins he uses so much and just chuckles.  Larrath knows that I stumble across my most important finds when I am drunk.  So what if I am grumpy and shout at everyone all day?

My workshop is in the center of the business district, and just about everyone knows me, or at least knows OF me.  I am the one who has brought back the hawk and the eagle, the buffalo and the elephant, and my latest, the horse.  I have prevented others, like the cat and the dog, from getting there.

One of the few things I remember clearly from last night was reading a fantasy book to my granddaughter, Clarissa.  She had asked me if dragons were real, and when I answered no, she had hung her head sadly.  She had wanted me to find her a little one, one she could cuddle and talk to and play with.  Well I have a soft spot for her.  She is no longer the youngest and no longer the center of attention.  Her mother has had a second child, and this one is the boy that the no-good father wanted.  To everyone but me, she seems to no longer exist.

Well I am going to give her her little dragon.  I will figure out something sooner or later, hopefully sooner, and be able to grant her this one wish at least.  I am going to start on this new project right this instant.

Slumping into my high-backed chair, I take an arm to the projects on the desk, and swipe them to the floor.  I somehow manage to push too hard and end up on the floor myself.  Larrath helps me to my feet and leads me to the bathroom.

“Lars!  My work! I have to get started!”  My words fall on deaf ears, as the bathroom gets closer and my desk further.  Then I can hear water.  “Oh no!  I’m not letting you dunk me this time!” I fight against his hands and arms, frantically trying to pry my way free.  “Lars! I’m warning yo…!”

My last words are cut off by icy cold water.  “Lars…!” I shout as my head is pulled out and then dunked again.  No wonder it is so cold.  There is ice in the water.

As my head emerges again, thoughts spark.  “I’ve got it!”  Thanks to Larrath’s careful ministrations, I know exactly where to start.  I tear free of the grip holding me , and race back to my desk, hair dripping wet, and soaking into my shirt.

I invented a way of extracting the DNA template from the smallest sample of blood or tissue that you wouldn’t believe.  Then I invented a way of recreating the individual strands needed to birth the creature.

This time it is going to be harder.  I have no template to copy from, no DNA to work with, nothing but pictures and stories from my granddaughter’s books.  But I will do this for her.

I start up the programme on my computer, and wait as the databases and the compiling software load up.  And there it is, the future of creation cloning.  After two laborious weeks of research and development my programme finally works.

I sit down eagerly at the console and start scanning through the thousands of classified species database until I find what I am after.  The Basiliscus vittatus, or Banded Basilisk, that’s the type of lizard with which I will start.

Searching this time through the trillions of DNA strands, I find the strands that gives bats wings, and add that, the strands that give cats their intelligence, and the strands that give some of my people their telepathic abilities, and add those.  The final part of the project is to choose a skin colour, and to make the small cosmetic changes that make the creature one, rather than bits of many.

I send the DNA code to another computer to be created and watch through my microscope as the code is created before my eyes, to form the very first cell of a new species.

The process has taken two and a half months all up, but in a few days the first dragonette will hatch.  Larrath has been hassling me about living in a dream world, and told me to bring my head down out of the clouds, but now my project is almost finished, and I will be able to laugh in Larrath’s face.

There are six eggs, three male, and three female, each different yet basically the same.  The first three embryos failed and I had to make small changes each time to ensure the survival of the hatchlings.  And now there are six, one about to hatch, and the others in about another week or two.  Long enough, I feel, to ensure that they will not be dangerous, and that they can survive.

A loud crack brings me out of my reverie, the echo denying me its source.  A second crack spins my head around to the incubation chamber, and there, in the center; the egg that should not be hatching for another two or three days at least; has a small cracked hole with a little snout in it.  I am  overjoyed, overwhelmed at the unexpected event, but overjoyed most of all.

I hurriedly punch a code into the computer and the top of the chamber hisses open.  I reach down to collect the egg, cradling it in both hands as I would have a small kitten or pup, and watch in excitement as the hole grows bigger to the point where the whole top pops off.

Momma?  I am startled, and almost drop the small creature.  The telepathy sure works.

I’m Father.  Ulfgar.

Father.  The creature seems to grin, or at least in its mind it does.  You are Father Ulfgar!  I am…?  It seems sad.  It wants a name.  It wants me to name it!  Its intelligence is remarkable, and I am so proud, proud like a new father.

You want a name?  How about Rissanth?  I am Father Ulfgar.  You Are…?

Rissanth!  I am Rissanth!  Rissanth is beaming with pride at having a name, but the answer to one question leads to ten more.  Where am I?  Why am I different?  Where’s Mother? All the questions come bubbling to the surface of Rissanth’s mind, and I instinctively respond with the answers bubbling to the surface of mine.

Young Rissanth seems delighted that he is to have siblings, yet only skims over the technical answer as to why he is different, taking in information at an almost alarming rate.

He wants to know of the world, and the sky, and what it is like to fly.  I forget all else in the presence of my new little friend.

Clarissa looks down at the eight-inch square box I offer her.  She timidly takes it from my hands and begins pulling at the ribbon surrounding it.  She opens the top and there in the middle of some wadded tissue, is an egg.