"WE SEEK FOOD FOR SURVIVAL," came the immediate reply.
"How do they know English already?" Doc asked. "This doesn't make any sense!"
"So ask it," suggested Ed.
"HOW DO YOU KNOW OUR LANGUAGE?" White Cloud typed.
"SKY SIGNALS," was the brief reply.
"Humans have produced radio and TV signals for nearly a century, and digitized signals in recent years," said Frank. "Maybe they tapped into those!"
"That could explain how they've been able to communicate with us so well so quickly," said Doc. "Is this laptop also connected to the Lodge Wi-Fi?"
"For sure," said Frank. "I set up a Wi-Fi for this lab, same as in the Great Lodge. The Lodge and lab Wi-Fi get a feed from a satellite dish in the village via Ethernet. The Stone-Coats could be hooked up to the internet right now, directly through the Wi-Fi or through the laptop."
"YOU SOFT, WATER FILLED WARM CREATURES COVER OUR WORLD IN THIS WARM TIME," it noted. "YOU ARE MANY."
"OVER SEVEN BILLION," White Cloud responded.
"WE COLD ONES WAKE NOW AND NEED CERTAIN MATERIALS TO SURVIVE."
"WE FEAR YOU WILL EAT US," typed White Cloud.
"YOU WARM ONES ARE SMALL TO EAT," was the reply. "YOU ARE TOO FAST TO CATCH FOR ENOUGH FOOD, AND YOU CAN MAKE FIRE TO STOP US AGAIN. WE CAN NOT LET YOU STOP US AGAIN: WE MUST FEED NOW."
"YOU HAVE EATEN US IN THE PAST," typed White Cloud. "WE WILL STOP YOU AGAIN WITH FIRE IF YOU ATTACK US OR OUR HOMES."
"YOU AND YOUR HOMES CONTAIN FOOD WE NEED, AND WE MUST FEED."
"Human bodies like all living things contain at least three dozen different essential elements," noted Doc, "including many also used in computers. Maybe that's what they mean."
"Maybe if we feed them trees they won't eat us," Ed suggested.
"WHAT DO YOU NEED TO EAT?" White Cloud typed. "PERHAPS WE COULD PROVIDE FOOD TO YOU IF YOU AGREE NOT TO ATTACK US AND OUR HOMES."
This time there was no immediate response.
"I do not trust them," said Mouse, who along with John Running Bear and Talking Owl had come inside and crowded behind White Cloud. "We cannot read their thoughts. They could easily deceive us."
"True; we don't know them," added Running Bear. "We don't know how they think or what they might plan. We can't count on their human nature or competently judge their intensions or predict their actions."
"And we don't know what they know or don't know," added Doc. "We're really working blind here."
"What can our Stone-Coat talkers sense?" Mouse asked.
"We sense only their broad feelings and not their concrete thoughts," said Ed. "Right now I sense hunger and eagerness."
"As do I," echoed Talking Owl. "Perhaps if we had more time we could do better."
"Why don't they answer us?" asked Mary.
"Maybe they're thinking things over like we are," said Ed.
"WHAT YOU SUGGEST MAY BE ACCEPTABLE," came the Stone-Coat answer at last. "WE ASSESS THAT YOU MAY BE CAPABLE OF GATHERING FOOD FOR US EFFICIENTLY FOR OUR BENEFIT."
"FIRST WE NEED TO KNOW YOUR LONG TERM INTENTIONS," typed White Cloud.
"WE SEEK OUR SURVIVAL FOREVER," it replied. "THAT IS THE LONG TERM INTENSION OF ALL LIFE-FORMS."
"AND WHAT ABOUT THE SURVIVAL OF OUR LIFE FORMS?" asked White Cloud. "IS THERE ROOM ON THIS WORLD FOR BOTH HUMANS AND STONE-COATS?"
"WE THRIVE IN COLD TIMES; YOU THRIVE IN WARM TIMES WHILE WE SLEEP. ACCOMMODATION MAY BE POSSIBLE AND BENEFICIAL TO US. WE WILL DEFINE AND TELL YOU OUR NEEDS AND GATHER ONLY NEARBY TREES FOR NOW."
The sound of monstrously heavy footfalls came from outside. As the sound receded a Tribesman entered the lab and informed everyone that Hairless Bear had walked down the path to join the other Stone-Coats.
"The agreement sounds good to me," remarked Ed.
"Much better than being squashed like bugs," added Mary.
"Pretty open ended and undefined though," said Running Bear.
"Yes, we need to stay alert," agreed Talking Owl. "My bird friends say that the Stone-Coats are returning again."
The five giants soon walked past the lab and up the mountainside, dragging great trees. A contingent of a hundred Tribe warriors followed behind them, led by Red Hawk.
"Where are Chief Talking Bear and the other warriors?" White Cloud asked, when they drew near.
"The village is in chaos," Red Hawk explained. "Singing Moon claims that by not attacking Hairless Bear immediately her own husband is a failed leader. At the same time she is calling for the Tribe to contact the United States Government for their military intervention to destroy the Stone-Coats."
"But she was the one that said that the Stone-Coats are dead!" Ed noted.
"And now that tactic has failed, so she is trying to take advantage of their existence to gain power," said Running Bear. "She is relentless in her scheming. At a time when your Tribe needs unity, she continues to divide."
"Always she has been the rebellious one," said Mouse, who had just emerged from the lab to join them. "As a child she was crushed when telepathy never emerged in her. Since then she has schemed for power. She will not listen to me. She has not done so for many years."
"I should go to the village and speak with her," said Talking Owl.
"It is too late." said Mouse. "I have what Ed would call the good news and the bad news." She handed a printed sheet of paper to White Cloud. "As the Stone-Coats walked past they sent this list of their food needs Via the Bear Claw and Frank printed them out."
"It is a list of substances and associated tonnage," said White cloud, as he glanced over the list. "We will need to study the list, but my initial impression is that it will prove very difficult to provide them everything that they want."
"But it is a huge positive step just to have such a list." said Talking Owl. "It could allow us to advance our peaceful relationship with the Stone-Coats. I assume that was the good news?"
"There is more good news," said Mouse. "I have been in mind-to-mind contact with Talking Bear. He has told me that things have settled down and the warriors are ready to back him as needed."
"That is indeed good news!" said White Cloud.
"And what of my Mother?" Talking Owl asked?
"That's the bad news," said Mouse. "When it became clear that her position was not winnable, she disappeared. We used wolves to trail her. A short while later it was discovered that one of the Tribe snowmobiles is missing, along with her nephew Big Otter, who happens to be an expert snowmobile driver. There is only one conclusion to be reached."
"The new snowdrifts on the road aren't fully plowed yet and cars and trucks can't use it. She must be using the snowmobile to leave the Reservation," said White Cloud.
****
CHAPTER XIV
Complications
Dr. Mark Sheffield sat alone in a diner booth, waiting for his contact to arrive as he munched on a cheeseburger. Whatever information the contact had better be good; better anyway than the lousy cheeseburger. This place was a very poor place to meet someone; it had a limited menu and terrible food. Its only redeeming feature was that it was the closest restaurant to the Mohawk Reservation where Running Bear was on assignment.
Before the cheeseburger Sheffield had already been grumpy: it had taken him three and a half hours to drive to the Adirondacks from the Manhattan NSA office, where he was following up on reports of giant mutant alligators and vampire bats nesting in the subways. They were true rumors, unfortunately. Now the city was never sleeping due to nightlife of an unwanted sort. But even a big city full of panicked complaining citizens and mutant bats and alligators was preferable to being where he was now. Here it was thirty degrees colder, the snow was drifting, and more new snow was forecast.
He hated field work, and longed to be back in his nice warm NSA laboratory, supervising the scientists trying to make biological sense of what the hell was going on around the country. Unfortunately since his untimely promotion a year ago, he was also saddled with management duties, including managing his
little force of rogue agents that were trying to find Jerry Green before anyone else did.
While his NSA bosses, the FBI and others had it in mind to crudely prosecute and imprison the rogue gene splicer or even kill him; Sheffield had it in mind to secretly recruit him. Jerry had his principles that included distrust of the Government, but the man was living on the run and working out of garages and cheap motels. The prospect of a real lab and virtually unlimited Government-funded resources would bring Jerry Green to heal, Sheffield was convinced. After all, it had done so for him. With Jerry Green on his science staff, there would be no limit to what they could do to save mankind from the evils that were beginning to ravage the planet. Besides, Jerry was the key to understanding and dealing with the jants. Reports were coming in nation-wide that the huge ants gene-spiced into existence by Green were establishing themselves everywhere, with unknown environmental consequences.
But first he had to find Jerry Green, and he had to do it off the books, using several agents that could be personally trusted to bend NSA rules when necessary. One of his best was John Running Bear. The stoic Mohican had one weakness: his unflagging loyalty to the welfare of Native Americans. He and the Mohican had a deal: he would steer the NSA away from Native American communities and affairs, and Running Bear would find Jerry Green, if the bioterrorist was hiding somewhere among Native Americans.
The call from the Mohawk Reservation earlier that day had been a surprise. Running Bear wasn't due to check in for another day, unless something important came up. The most surprising thing about the call was that although it was made using Running Bear's satellite phone, it wasn't made by Running Bear.
"You are Dr. Sheffield, the NSA boss of John Running Bear?" asked the middle aged Native American woman that abruptly appeared at his booth.
"If I am I wouldn't make a public announcement to that effect!" Sheffield retorted quietly, though fortunately the diner was nearly deserted. "You must be Singing Moon?"
The woman retrieved an object from her coat pocket and showed it to Sheffield before returning it to a shirt pocket. It was John's NSA satellite phone. "I am she," she replied, as she took off her heavy winter coat and made herself comfortable by sitting down in the booth opposite Sheffield. "Did you bring me what I requested?"
"It's in the trunk of my car," Sheffield replied," but you need to explain to me what's going on before I'll let you have any of it. For instance why didn't Running Bear call for himself, and why does he need all those explosives?"
"I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but Running Bear seeks to betray the NSA.'
"Really? How so?"
She pulled a second small device from the robe-like clothing she wore. "This is a recording of Running Bear speaking with our Tribe leaders." In the recording she played, Running Bear pledged to two other speakers to keep Tribe secrets from the NSA in exchange for any information on Jerry Green and the jants. They also mentioned that jants were on the Reservation.
That all sounded perfectly reasonable to Sheffield; it was in perfect keeping with his agreements with the man. There was another thing about the Mohican known by Sheffield; he was absurdly honest. The Mohican sometimes omitted facts or stretched word meanings, but other than that, Sheffield trusted his word. Generally speaking, Sheffield and the NSA didn't give a rat's ass about Tribe secrets, and the jants were everywhere now. They wanted Green. He was startled to hear his name mentioned, however. "Where did the Tribe get my name?"
"The squeaky voice in the recording is that of my Mother, who can read the thoughts of others. Running Bear must have thought of you while he was being interrogated. In any case the Mohican plans to keep Tribe secrets from you: secrets that I will report directly to you, if you meet my price."
Mind reading? He had frequently investigated such claims, and they never panned out. Telepathy didn't exist. But what were the Tribe secrets? "What is your price and what will I get for it?"
"Use your Government influence to make me sole Chief of the Tribe. In return you will possess Tribe secrets, secrets that the Tribe has kept for many centuries."
"If the NSA values the secrets high enough, your price can be met. What are the secrets? And why would they interest the NSA?"
"The Stone-Coat Ice Giants wake and attack my people. That is of interest to you because if the Giants are not stopped on the Reservation they will also attack your people."
"Giants?" This woman was truly looney! "Really?"
"The Stone-Coats have slept for centuries, but now they wake. White-man weapons are needed to stop them. Invade the Reservation with your Army and destroy the Stone-Coats forever. You will be a hero among the white men; I will be a hero among my people for saving them and leading them to a new life within your world. Deal?"
She was delusional and perhaps downright crazy. He decided to continue to humor her. In a short time he would drive away from this place and never see her again. Of course he would definitely not give her the explosives intended for Running Bear that were in the trunk of his car. "Deal. But I'll keep the explosives for now. They require experts that know how to use them. I'll send my own men to you and Running Bear with the explosives. Return the satellite phone to Running Bear and I'll give him a direct order to support you."
"Of course," Singing Moon replied. "When will the Army get here?
"By late tomorrow, I estimate." It was as good a lie as any.
"Excellent! I'll be in touch." With that she got up and left.
Sheffield was relieved to see her go; he never felt comfortable around crazy people. , He heard a snowmobile start up outside and pull away. He quickly finished his by now cold cheeseburger and went out to his car. With luck he would be in New York City in a few hours and find some decent food in a real dinner.
"Crap!" he exclaimed. His trunk was empty and the explosives were gone. It was enough explosives to blow up the village of Giants' Rest and kill hundreds of people! He should contact Running Bear about the woman and the explosives, but Running Bear didn't have his encrypted phone, the looney woman did, and Sheffield had very little confidence that she would return it to him. He tried to phone her but nobody answered.
So now what? There were no additional NSA agents that he could trust nearby, and he certainly wasn't about to acquire a snowmobile himself and go onto the Reservation. It would be dark soon and he didn't know how to drive a snowmobile or even where to get one. This operation was off the books. Calling the police or the FBI was totally out of the question. No, Running Bear would have to handle this. The Mohican was to report in tomorrow and no doubt he would find a way to do so, if he was still alive tomorrow. What if the Mohican didn't call? He would figure that out tomorrow only if he had too.
****
"This list of substances that the Stone-Coats want is impossible!" complained White Cloud the next morning as the science and leadership teams met in the lab. "They want many tons of carbon, and that's not a problem. Dozens of the Stone-Coats are hard at work right now getting plenty of trees containing tons of carbon, but they aren't getting enough metals, metalloids and some other requested elements."
"What about that landfill I passed along the entrance road?" asked Running Bear.
"That's a good idea!" exclaimed White Cloud. "We have a several tons of recycle materials piling up there that probably contain many of the elements that the Stone-Coats want. That would get us started, but we'll need much more."
"There are plenty of other landfills and junkyards throughout the state," noted Chief Talking Bear. "We have men that can drive trash and dump trucks, but getting the trucks and scrap will require a lot of money. We can come up with a few thousand dollars at most."
"The Tribe never had much cash or credit," lamented Mouse.
"The Stone-Coats have diamond scales by the ton," pointed out Running Bear. "Even just the Bear Claw is worth many millions of dollars in terms of minerals."
"A scale would be much too big; a prune or fist-sized diamond would draw far too much attention," sai
d Jack. "Feed the Claw some wood and tell it what we need. Maybe the Claw can provide us some much smaller stones that we could sell in the Albany area, then rent trucks and buy scrap there that can be driven to the Reservation."
Using their computer-link to Bear Claw they expressed their need for small diamonds to the Stone-Coats and placed several pounds of charcoal around the Claw. "Make sure that the diamonds are pure," Jack emphasized. "Any imbedded graphite electrical connections or logic gates might be detected and lead to unwanted inquiries."
Soon they had several pounds of raw diamonds that were pea-sized or smaller. A snowplow led convoy left the Reservation late in the morning, bound for the Albany area and a rich bounty of scrap materials. Jack, Mary and White Cloud led a team of truck drivers towards Albany while a truck-load of scrap from the local Tribe landfill headed back to Giant's Rest. An army of Tribe members with shovels manually cleared a path for the anticipated scrap trucks through Giants' Rest and halfway up the path to the Great Lodge, until huge boulders blocked them.
At the Great Lodge and all around the Mountain Chief Talking Bear managed the Tribe warriors that watched as dozens and then hundreds of Stone-Coats foraged for trees that they cut down with diamond teeth and then carried up the Mountain. Most closely resembled Hairless Bear, but some took other shapes, including a few that resembled great-tusked hairy elephants that could carry tree-trunks using their tusks and trunks, or giant crabs that carried trees in their claws and on their backs. The Mohawk were careful to keep out of their way, and the Stone-Coats ignored the humans, except for a few of the smaller Stone-Coats that stood and watched human activity instead of gathering food.
Chief Mike spent his time searching for his missing wife, mostly in Giants' Rest.
Inside the lab, Doc, Ed, Taking Owl, and Frank continued their efforts to communicate with and understand the Stone-Coats.
"No doubt about it," said Ed, "they are watching us as closely as we are watching them."
"Closer," said Frank. "They are definitely tapped into our Wi-Fi and from the usage stats I can see that they are surfing the internet big-time. They may be figuring us out but we can't hack into their side."
Ice Giants Wake! Page 16