"Jerry Oltion - A New Generation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oltion Jerry)

A NEW GENERATION
by JERRY OLTION



Illustration by Vincent Di Fate

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Beings who rely primarily on intelligence tend to disdain “mere instinct” as
an inferior substitute. But is it really?

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She was the first to hatch from the egg. The moment she broke free
of its leathery skin, instinct sent her scuttling up the sandy slope into the
bushes overhanging the beach, where she waited, alert for danger in the
suddenly larger world.

The rhythmic swishing sound that she had heard all her life was much
louder now. It came from the edge of the ripply blue vastness that lapped at
the other side of the wide strip of sand she had just crossed.
Understanding rushed into her mind as she examined each concept.
Waves. Ocean. Beach. Instinct told her the ocean would come closer
before it receded, rising much higher than where she now stood. She would
have to climb all the way up the cliffs behind her before the day was out,
clear into the bright blue sky with its puffy clouds and the long streak of
almost-cloud that stretched downward toward the silver oddity that rested
on the beach only a few tree lengths away.

Something was strange about the silver thing. Her mind held
ready-made knowledge of everything else she saw and smelled—the rocks
and the cliffs and the clouds and the birds and the bushes and the ocean
and even the multitude of creatures in the ocean, but it held nothing for the
silver thing. The mystery object was round on top like an egg, and it had a
hole in the side like the one she had made in her own egg, but it wasn’t an
egg. It glistened like a life-giving puddle in the dry interior of the continent,
but it wasn’t a puddle. She had no instinctive knowledge of it at all.

She should probably run. The silver thing was big enough to be
dangerous. Besides, the tide was coming in. She needed to get to higher
ground or become just another link in the food chain.

It would be a long climb, and her belly already hurt. She knew what
that meant. The orange berries on the bushes’ outer branches drew her up
onto her hind legs, balancing on her long tail so she could reach out with
one taloned paw and snag them by their pulpy skins. The berries burst in
her mouth and the juice ran sticky and sweet down her throat, but it wasn’t
enough. A whole bush full wasn’t enough. Nor was another one. Now she
understood the urge to be first out of the egg; there weren’t enough berries