Beginning of the End- Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Near Belfast, Ireland



Eoin bent over to throw another small piece of wood into the blazing hearth. This was his favorite time of the evening. He’d just finished a small dinner of fresh halibut washed down by a superb Chardonnay. He was relaxing comfortably in his leather recliner with a small snifter of Cognac, reading a great article in Nature, a highly respected British Scientific Journal.

Eoin Gallagher was in his mid sixties and recently retired from teaching at the University of Ulster. He was average in just about every way, although his daughter often told him that he resembled the old actor James Mason, at which he would beam with pride. He was a widower, his wife Shannon having died recently from breast cancer, and his only child, Aisling Kayleigh Gallager, was a University graduate and a respected detective lieutenant in Belfast.

Unlike many modern day Irish families, Eoin and his wife loved and cherished their Irish ancestry, thus the Irish spelling of his name and that of their daughter and granddaughter. They purchased a small cottage in White Abbey, just off the A2 or Shore Road when Eoin received his tenure, and now it was long paid for and a very comfortable and cozy place to live. He still enjoyed keeping up with the latest scientific information and his inquisitive mind continued to explore areas of knowledge he had never had time for while teaching.

It was still early evening and he was expecting his daughter Kayleigh, Kayle she called herself, and his nine-year-old granddaughter, Caitlin Allsun Gallagher. They were driving up to spend a quiet weekend with him. He was looking forward to the visit. It wasn’t often that Kayle could get away from the demands of her job in Belfast and he missed Caitlin something fierce. She was the joy of his life. An annoying buzzing from his cell phone interrupted his pleasant reverie.

“Doctor Gallagher, Ryan Byrne. The Federal Express Company left two large packages here at the University for you. They’re refrigerated crates and I placed them in cold storage.”

Eoin was instantly curious. He was expecting nothing and most packages were now being redirected to his home. “Thank you Ryan. Was there a name or point of origin on the shipping documents?”

“Says here they’re from a Doctor Yoshida and they were shipped from Antarctica. Guess this is the first time we’ve received anything from Antarctica.” Byrne sounded pleased with himself. He had worked at the University shipping and receiving for many years and could list from memory all the countries from whence the University had received mail or packages.

“I’ll come in tomorrow and check them out,” Eoin replied. “Good evening to you Mister Byrne.”

Eoin folded the cell phone with a smile. He had warm memories of Doctor Yoshida. He was not only a scientific colleague; he was a very close friend. At a personal invitation from Dr. Yoshida, Eoin had spent a considerable amount of time in Japan and fell in love with Japanese culture. They communicated often and sought each other out when attending scientific conferences or when presenting lectures themselves. If Yoshida sent something to him, it had to be important. He’d make it a point to drive over to the University early tomorrow, he was certain Kayle wouldn’t mind.

He had just resumed his comfortable position in his recliner when he heard a vehicle pull into his driveway.

That will be Kayle, he thought, and Caitlin. He quickly polished off the snifter of Cognac and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. I’m still a commoner at heart, he smiled.

Eoin opened the door and watched as they ambled up the driveway. Kayle was in her early thirties, thirty-two, he believed. She was short, around five feet four, and possessed an abundance of lustrous auburn hair. He thought that her shining hair was her best feature, but her mom, rest her soul, was adamant about her eyes. Kayle’s eyes were almond shaped and slanted, almost like an oriental, though not quite, but they were an enchanting emerald green, like Ireland. And she was one tough cookie, as the Yanks were wont to say. Kayle had been known to take down huge men while on duty and she was near fanatical when it came to martial arts training.

Caitlin, on the other hand, was a different story. She was nine going on nineteen and so sure of herself that few of her peers dared challenge her. Although small for her age, she was a little package of dynamite and absolutely fearless. Caitlin had a sharp mind and even sharper temper. She possessed her mother’s features, especially the gorgeous eyes, but her hair was more red than brown. Her father, a member of the Belfast Police Force, was killed in the line of duty when she was only five. He was a good man, devoted father, and possessed a thick patch of fiery red hair and a dimpled chin. Although Kayle loved him dearly, she could not abide with the name Murphy, so she had changed both her name and Caitlin’s back to Gallagher.

“Poppers!” Caitlin yelled, rushing up and jumping into his waiting arms. He detested the name Poppers, but Kayle had used it as a teen to keep him off balance, and Caitlin must have picked it up from her and now used it with undisguised gusto.

“Had I known you were going to be here this early, I would have waited on dinner,” he stated, glancing at Kayle with a questioning raise of his eyebrow.

“I got off work a bit early and beat the rush hour traffic.” Kayle handed him a package. “I figured you were low on Cognac so I picked some up at the corner market. Only my Popper would drink nasty French booze instead of good Irish whiskey.”

“A matter of taste my dear, and might I also add, refinement. Can’t have a Professor Emeritus imbibing the local swill.”

They discussed the events of the past several months over hot chocolate, wine, and Cognac. Kayle advised him that she had a mandatory holiday coming up in about six weeks and there was no way she could get out of it. Her division commander noted that she had taken no significant time off in several years, and demanded that she either take one or resign.

“Can’t ave me detectives going wonkers on me,” Kaylie spat, mimicking her commander’s words.

“All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl,” Eoin grinned. “You need a bit of a holiday to get away from it all. Spend some time with Caitlin and me, read a few books, maybe even go out on a date or two.” Eoin was aware that Kayle was still trying to get over the unexpected death of her husband, but that had been four years ago and it was time for her to get involved again.

“My name is not Jane… what an awful name, and I have enough trouble keeping Caitlin and myself on top of everything, so I do not need, nor do I want, another addition to this scene. If I did we would get a dog, an Irish Sitter!” Kayle raised her glass in a sign of victory.

“Touché,” Eoin smiled.

“It wouldn’t hurt if you got out and about more,” Kayle shot back. “You’re only in your mid sixties and still have your hair and teeth. You’d be a nice catch for some lonesome beastie.”

Eoin rolled his eyes. “Now that you mentioned it, we do need to drop by the University in the morning if you don’t mind. Doctor Yoshida sent me a package from Antarctica and I’m dying to see what’s in it.”

“Isoroku is still doing field work? He must be ancient by now, at least eighty.” Kayle used the name that Doctor Yoshida insisted she call him. No Doctor and no Yoshida, simply Isoroku,” she remembered. As a young girl about Caitlin’s age, she fell in love with the old man and his strange customs. She’d called him Issy-ro-coo.

“He’s Eighty two,” Eoin commented. “And, I am not interested in finding some beastie.” Eoin shook his shoulders like a dog trying to shake a wet coat of hair.

The short drive to the University the next morning was refreshing. Although April was still rather cold in Northern Ireland, it turned out to be a sunny day. It was a Saturday, so traffic was light, especially on the campus grounds.

Eoin’s old office and laboratory was in the basement of the Science building. As a retired member of the faculty he still possessed a pass and key. As the only Paleobiologist at the University, Eoin often found he had to fight for space. He also had a Doctorate in two other related fields so he used his tenure and academic muscle to maintain this little space.

“Welcome to the dungeon of Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde,” Eoin stated in a creepy voice to Caitlin. “Be careful the monsters and beasties don’t get you.”

“Jekyl and Hyde was in London,” Caitlin smugly answered. “And they/he was make-believe. There are no monsters down here.”

“Perhaps a cute beastie,” Kayle chuckled. “Last time I was down here, Poppers was hanging out with a cute professor. Martha or Mary Poppins I think her name was.”

“Professor Martha Pippins, and we were merely colleagues, nothing else.” Eoin flicked the lights on and headed straight for the cold storage area just down the hall from his lab. He spotted the two crates as soon as he opened the freezer door. They were about four feet long and perhaps fifteen inches high and wide. He lifted one of the boxes and realized it weighed at least fifty pounds or more.

“Let me help you.” Kayle reached over and grabbed one end of the box and between them they carried it down the hall and back into his lab. Eoin checked the packing label to make sure he had the correct box and not someone else’s cold storage. It was from Antarctica.

Placing the crate on a stainless steel table, he rummaged through a drawer until he found a box cutter. It only took a few moments to cut the box open. Inside was a plastic container sealed with duct tape, Doctor Yoshida’s favorite material. His friend would never leave on an expedition without rolls and rolls of the magic tape. After removing the semi frozen tape, he popped open the lid.

Within the box were four round objects about the size of elongated soccer balls. They were pure white and undeniably eggs of some kind.

Eoin searched through the packing material until he found a plastic bag with a computer disc inside. He took the disc over to his work station, booted up his computer, and inserted the disc. The disc contained photographs of a deep depression in the Antarctic ice along with a similar pile of eggs. Doctor Yoshida and several unidentified people were standing around the egg mound. There was a single small note on a word file.

The note read: Discovered these eggs at the bottom of a borehole. Estimate age of ice at this depth to be 34 million years old. Unable to identify. Thought of you. Signed Yoshida.

“Thirty four million years old! Wow! That’s old,” Caitlin blurted.

“Even older than Popper,” Kayle added with a grin.

“They have to be dinosaur eggs,” Caitlin continued. “Maybe we could grow our own dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park, Poppers?”

Eoin smiled down at her eagerness.

“I know,” she shrugged. “That was just a make-believe movie.”

Eoin walked back over to the box containing the eggs. He reached in and hefted one up. The egg was so white it almost shined like a light bulb. He held it up but could see nothing inside.

“We’ll leave one out in a tray to thaw,” he stated. “The rest we’ll put back into cold storage. I’ll come back later today and conduct a preliminary examination if you two don’t mind.”

“You bet.” Kayle glanced at Caitlin. “We’re just as curious as you are to see what kind of dinosaur comes from that egg. I still can’t figure out how it got under all that ice millions of years ago.”

“Antarctica was warm with a sub-tropical climate back in that era,’ Eoin stated. “In fact, it probably just broke away from Australia about that time and started moving south. Australia has animal life that exists no where else on earth, so one could surmise that Antarctica may have once had a considerable number of animal species that would be alien to us today.”

They spent the day shopping, one of Caitlin’s favorite pastimes. She learned at an early age how to be a selective shopper. Despite five hours and scores of shops, she selected only a few items that interested her. To Eoin’s delight, two of those items were books, one on dinosaurs and another on art illustration. Kayle, on the other hand, racked up an impressive number of purchases. It was almost as if she never had the chance to shop and was making up for lost time.

Now back at the lab, Eoin transferred the thawed egg to his lab table. Both of the ladies watched him with anticipation as he began the dissection. As Eoin sliced into the outer shell, that had the consistency of hard rubber, gray watery fluid poured out. When the shell was open far enough, a blob of mixed red, brown, and yellow consistency spilled out into the dissection tray.

“The yolk,” Eoin muttered, transferring some of the material to a glass slide so he could view it under his microscope. Several minutes later he shook his head as if he could not believe the results. He ran the sample several more times before giving up in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Kayle noted the consternation on his face.

“It’s an insect egg,” Eoin replied. “No matter how many times I verify it, the results come back the same, insect.”

“One heck of a big insect.” Kayle held her hands up to demonstrate the size of the egg.. “What kind is it?”

“That I can’t tell you. My field is paleobiology. I’ll have to send the samples to a friend who specializes in entomology. You remember Doctor Schmitt, the American scientist who was here several years ago don’t you?”

“The one with the short skirt and roaming eyes?” Kayle smiled. “She certainly had the hots for you.”

“Doctor Tapitha Schmitt is a married woman,” Eoin blushed. “At least she is to the best of my knowledge. She is also an eminent entomologist and Myrmecologists. If anyone can tell us what kind of bug this is, she can.”

“Entomology deals with insects,” Caitlin interrupted, holding up her dinosaur book. “Doctor Schmitt is a bug scientist, right?” She looked proud of her ability to understand big words.

“Right!” Eoin gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Now, help me repack the open crate and I’ll leave a note for Mr. Byrne to ship them both as soon as possible.”