DRAGONS

 Dear Sister, 
      Amazing, isn’t it, that here we are, conversing in real time, though our planets are thousands of light-years apart, due to a quantum tunneling effect I confess I will never understand. How lucky we are!
     Your litanies on the problems you face on Earth put me in mind that you are several centuries behind us, here on Tilsen. Such a long, hard road ahead. I sympathize, but humans being what they are, there are no short cuts. It seems that suffering is necessarily part of the game, else there is no basis for learning. The most important lessons are conservation and unity of purpose. We now waste nothing. Our massive landfills from previous times are all being mined.  Except for the Wedgies, who  still have much to learn, we are far along in both areas.
Of course there are problems here on Tilsen. It is not Paradise. Far from it. But who doesn’t have problems? Every day brings new surprises.
    I thought to tell you of my recent adventure. In retrospect it is somewhat amusing but at the time I was vexed, no end. In the last month I lost three guard peacocks, one after the other, overnight. A scattering of sparkling feathers like new blooms in the dawn light. That’s all. Normally they raise a real ruckus at the slightest sign of an intrusion.
     I decided I had to speak with my mentor. His name is Jack Hooper. He lives just over fifty kilometers east of here, a few minutes by hopjet Yes, everyone has a mentor here. It’s the law. You get assigned one in a drawing, and it was just my luck to get a contractor. Every time he comes by he circles this old place, looks up and down and into crawl spaces. You know what’s coming by the sight of a sliver of his tongue showing between his lips. “You got some repair jobs coming up, Jessica” I will try to imitate his speaking style - hardly follows the rules, but effective, nevertheless.
I know he is half joking, but he does keep this ancient building in remarkably good repair. It’s quite evident after all these years that Jack is soft on me, and I do enjoy his company - an informal relationship, never meant to go anywhere. But I’m getting off the subject.
    Well you have mentors too, don’t you? You have your priests, coaches, scoutmasters. psychiatrists, counselors.  The difference, I suppose, is that ours are one on one. With our mentors there is no remuneration involved. It’s somewhat like a marriage, but then again not like a marriage at all.
    Oh dear, I fear I’m not making any sense.
     So with the last dead peacock, or naked peacock running around somewhere, I asked Jack to swing by, leaving everything untouched.
     Jack showed up within an hour in his hopjet. I should have told him to land in the front courtyard. As it happened he landed in the back yard and the jets blew the peacock feathers all over the place. So much for leaving the evidence untouched.  He got out of the craft, looked about and seemed unfazed. It didn’t seem to bother him that the actual site of the deed was now obscure.
      After a while he neared the back fence where the ground is bare. He knelt down and peered closely at what appeared to be fresh animal tracks, He looked up at me.
     “Dragon tracks. You got dragons, Jessica.”

     “Me? I have dragons? You must be crazy.”

Jack said nothing, rose and walked to the fence. “See these slime lines? Them’s dragon spoor. Let’s go around, we’ll see where they lead..Most likely directly to the lake, I’d say. Not usual for these critters to come on land. They like the deep water.”
      Jack followed me to the house. He scraped his booted feet unnecessarily on the door mat and followed me across my study, down a long corridor to a side door that opened to an overhead trellised, bricked pathway adjoining the rear fence.
      To the rear of the house lies a  field of meer grass, something like your timothy, that slopes gradually down for a distance of a couple hundred meters to the lake shore. Lake Elena is big - about twenty kilometers long and two across. And deep. We walked toward the water, pausing to watch a diving bird pierce its surface.
We waited for it to emerge with its prize, but it did not reappear.
     Jack smiled. “They never learn. Dragons have to eat, too.”
     We followed a zig-zag line where the grass appeared to be trodden down. Then all became clear as we approached the muddy shore. Dragon tracks running in all directions..
      As we strolled back toward the house I asked, “What should I do, Jack?”  
    Jack stopped, drew a long flowering stalk of grass from its clump and nibbled at its tender end. “You can’t use peacocks no more. They freeze at the sight of a dragon. Can’t even make a sound. Can’t run away even. It’s like they’re paralyzed. You got to get yourself a couple of Con dogs. They’re not afraid of dragons. They won’t come around no more.”
      So to sum it up, my dear Sister, I am now in possession of two beautiful, big, intelligent, smooth Con dogs - a black and  white male and a white female. The female has taken a liking to me and is constantly at my feet. She will be my personal protector. The male, however, is content to patrol the property. Con dogs are so much friendlier than peacocks. Not as messy, either. As far as I can tell, there are no more dragons. There was a commotion one night, soon after I obtained the Con dogs, but there was no sign of a dragon having climbed the fence.
      A thought comes to me. I’ve not named them as yet. Would you like to name them?  I know you love dogs, and keep several, including three terriers. From your description, I fear that dragons would make short work of them You must have a long list of unused names. The images I send you may help in making your choices.
       Bravo and Brava? How clever you are! Bravo and Brava it will be.
      Do not get me wrong. my Sister. I want to hear about your problems. I just want you to know that we have problems too.
  I am waiting for more news from the Resurrection. It is on the return leg of its wanderings. It will be good to see my daughter, Gabrielle, again. As you know, her husband, Jonathan, is a junker, and makes periodic journeys to the region where planet Eden blew up. The space transfers are long and boring. But that does not ease my worries. The trips are also hazardous.
      Then again, as you say, “No news is good news.” I do hope that is true.