Echo’s joyful embrace nearly knocked the tray of sterile metal tongs onto the floor.
At two point eight pounds and eighty-five inches in length, the newly evolved Azure Stream Drake was no longer a fragile pocket pet that could float inside a glass pickle jar. He was the size of a well-muscled river otter, with thick, velvety limbs, a broad, flat reptilian skull. A long, waving paddle-tail that slapped the stainless steel table with wet, rhythmic enthusiasm.
“Easy, Echo! Watch the instruments!” Arthur laughed, catching the eager drake in his arms and lifting him back onto the center of the check mat.
Echo’s skin was cool and smooth as wet polished jade, coated in a fine layer of zero-drag, cryo-heat-drawing hydro-mucus that felt like cold silk. His four-inch branching jade antler gleamed beneath the trailer’s work-lights. His six amazing cyan gill plumes fanned out around his neck like an auroral crown, fluttering with every breath. He was amphibious perfection. An organism engineered for extreme deep water pressure, capable of gliding through water with virtually zero drag.
The drake nuzzled Arthur’s neck with relentless affection, licking Arthur’s chin with a wide, soft pink tongue. His large golden-cyan eyes were wide with boundless wonder, darting around the inside of the trailer to inspect the glass beakers, the copper distillation coils, and the bright overhead lamps. Every visual detail was a brand-new discovery to a creature that had lived its entire life in total blindness.
