The Blue World

Eleven generations ago, a ship carrying convicts to a prison planet crashed on a nameless ocean world. Survivors built an egalitarian culture on the pads of giant water plants, winning food, shelter, and the necessities of life from vegetation growing on the pads, and from the sea. But in the water swam the kragens, armored sea-beasts who raided the gardens at will. Early settlers fed one of the largest kragens deliberately, hoping it would chase the other beasts away. Over generations, the...