Silverhair

by Stephen Baxter

  Eggtusk turned again, and his tusks slashed at Lop-ear's foreleg, cutting through fur and flesh and drawing thick blood.

  For a heartbeat, two, Lop-ear did not move. His face was wreathed in steam, and his great form shuddered.

  But then, once again, he clambered stiffly to his feet and turned to face Eggtusk again.

  Fights between unmatched Bulls are resolved quickly, Silverhair knew. Usually it would be enough for Eggtusk to raise his great tusks for a junior like Lop-ear to back away.

  Usually. But this was not a normal fight.

  Silverhair tugged at Owlheart's trunk. "Matriarch, you have to stop this."

  Owlheart quoted the Cycle: "To fight is the way of the Bull..."

  "This isn't about dominance," Silverhair said. "Don't you see?"

  But once again Lop-ear was facing Eggtusk. The space between their staring eyes was filled with tangled hair and steaming breath.

  With blood smeared over the dome of his head, Lop-ear charged again.

  The Bulls met once more in a splintering crunch of ivory. Silverhair saw that their curving tusks were locked together. This was a risky tactic for both the combatants, for the curving tusks could become locked inextricably, taking both mammoths to their deaths.

  The Bulls wrestled. Lop-ear bellowed, resisting Eggtusk.

  But the older Bull was much stronger. With a smooth, steady, irresistible effort, Eggtusk twisted his head to one side. Lop-ear pawed at the ground, but it was slick and muddy, and the pads of his feet slipped.

  It was over in heartbeats.

  His tusks still locked to Eggtusk's, Lop-ear crashed to the ground.

  Eggtusk stood over the helpless younger Bull, his eyes hard. Silverhair saw that he might twist farther, surely snapping Lop-ear's neck — or he might withdraw his tusks and stab down sharply, driving his ivory into Lop-ear's helpless body.

  The storm cracked over their heads, and for an instant the lightning picked out the silhouette of Eggtusk's giant deformed tusk.

  Eggtusk braced himself for the final thrust.

  "NO."

  The commanding rumble made Eggtusk hesitate.

  The voice had been Wolfnose's. The old Cow, once the Matriarch, was coming forward. The rain dripped unheeded from her tangled hair, and only a smear of tears around her deep old eyes betrayed the pain of her legs.

  Eggtusk said, "Wolfnose—?"

  "Let him up, Eggtusk."

  In the silence that followed, Silverhair could see that they were all waiting for the Matriarch's response. It was wrong for a Cow to interfere in the affairs of Bulls. And it was wrong for any Cow —even a former Matriarch like Wolfnose — to usurp the authority of the Matriarch herself.

  But Owlheart was keeping her counsel.

  Eggtusk growled. Then he lowered his head, dropped his trunk, and allowed Lop-ear to clamber to his feet.

  The younger Bull stood shakily, his hair matted with mud. He was bleeding heavily from the wounds to his leg and temple.

  "This must stop," said Wolfnose.

  Eggtusk stiffened. "But the Cycle—"

  "I know the Cycle as well as any of you," said Wolfnose. Her voice was even, yet powerful enough to be heard over the bellow of the storm.

  Once, Silverhair thought, this must have been a formidable Matriarch indeed.

  "But," Wolfnose went on, "Ganesha taught us there are times when the Cycle can't help us. Look at us: lost, bedraggled, trapped... You will win your fight, Eggtusk. But what value is it? For we shall soon die, trapped here between forest and fire — all of us, even the infant. And then what?" She turned her great head and glared at them, one by one. "When was the last time you saw another Family? And you? When was the last time you heard a contact rumble, at morning or evening? What if we are alone — the last Family of all? It's possible, isn't it? I tell you, if it's true, and if we do die here, then it all dies with us — after more generations than there are stars in the winter sky."

  And Silverhair, standing in the freezing rain, saw the truth with sudden, devastating clarity. They had become a rabble, a few shivering, half-starved mammoths, a pathetic remnant of the great Clans that once had roamed here. A rabble so blinded by their own past and mythology, they could not even act.

  She stepped forward. "Tell us what to do, Wolfnose."

  The old Cow stepped forward and laid her trunk over Lop-ear's splintered tusk. "We must do what this bright young Bull says."

  Lop-ear — breathing hard, shivering, bloody — hesitated, as if waiting to be attacked once more. Then he turned to the runoff stream. "The fallen tree trunk," he said, his voice blurred by blood and pain. "Help me." He bent to the fallen tree, dug his tusks under it, and began to push it toward the stream. But it was much too heavy for him, exhausted as he was.

  Wolfnose lumbered forward. With only a grimace to betray her pain she forced her fused knees to bend, and she put her tusks alongside Lop-ear's and pushed with him.

  The tree trunk rocked, then fell back.

  Silverhair ran forward. She squeezed between Wolfnose and Lop-ear, and rammed her head against the stubborn tree trunk. With more hesitation, Eggtusk, Owlheart, and even Snagtooth joined in. Only Foxeye stayed back, shielding the calves.

  Under the combined pressure of six adult mammoths, the tree trunk soon popped out of its muddy groove in the ground and rolled forward.

  With a crunch of branches, the tree crashed over a boulder and came to rest in the stream. The tree was so long, it straddled almost the whole width of the stream. The water, bubbling, flowed over the tree and through its smashed branches.

  The mammoths stood for a heartbeat, studying their work.

  Silverhair looked back at Wolfnose. But Wolfnose was obviously drained; she stood with her trunk dangling, eyes closed, rain sleeting off her back.

  Silverhair turned to Lop-ear. "It's your idea, Lop-ear. Tell us what to do next."

  Now that he was being taken seriously, Lop-ear looked even more nervous and agitated than before. "More trees! That's it. Pile them on this one. Any you can find. And anything else — boulders, shrubs..."

  Eggtusk growled. "By the lemmings that burrow in the stinking armpits of Kilukpuk, what madness is this?"

  Owlheart said dryly, "We may as well see it through, Eggtusk. Come on." And she lumbered farther up the stream, to a tumbled sapling.

  With the Matriarch's implicit approval, the others hurried to work.

  Silverhair helped Eggtusk haul another huge tree up the stream. But most of the fallen trees were simply too massive to move.

  Lop-ear led them to a small stand of saplings, most of them still upright, and began to barge against the smallest of them with his head. "These will do," he said. "Smash them off and take them to the stream."

  Silverhair joined in. This, at least, was familiar. Mammoths will often break and push over young trees; the apparently destructive act serves to clear the land and maintain its openness, and thus the health of the tundra.

  So the barrier grew, higgledy-piggledy, with branches and stones and even whole bushes thrown on it, their roots still dripping with dirt. Even little Croptail helped, rolling boulders into the stream where they clattered to rest against the growing pile that lay across the stream.

  As the barrier grew, the water of the runoff was evidently having trouble penetrating the thickening mass of foliage, rocks, and dirt. At last the water began to form a brimming pool behind the barrier.

  And ahead of it, the stream's volume was greatly reduced to a sluggish brook that crawled through the muddy channel. Silverhair stared in amazement, suddenly understanding what Lop-ear had intended.

  Lop-ear stood on the bank of the stream. His head was smeared with blood and mud, and his belly hairs, soaked through, were beginning to stiffen with frost. But when he looked on his work he raised his trunk and trumpeted with triumph. "That's it! We can cross now."

  "By Kilukpuk's fetid breath," growled Eggtusk. "It's muddy, and boggy — it won't be easy — but yes, we should be
able to ford there now. I never expected to say this, Lop-ear, but there may be something useful about you after all."

  "We should move fast," said Lop-ear, apparently indifferent to Eggtusk's praise. "The water is still rising. When it reaches the top of the barrier it will come rushing over, just as hard as before."

  "And besides," Silverhair pointed out, "that fire hasn't stopped burning."

  The Matriarch, who had already taken in the situation, brayed a sharp command, and the mammoths prepared for the crossing.

  THEY GOT FOXEYE and the calves across first.

  Croptail had no difficulty. He slid down a muddy bank into the water, then emerged to shake himself dry and scramble up the far side to his mother's waiting trunk. Silverhair heard him squeal in delight, as if it were all a game.

  Eggtusk was the key to getting Sunfire across. The great Bull plunged willingly into the river, sinking into freezing mud and water that lapped over his belly. The calf slithered down into the ditch and clambered across Eggtusk's broad, patient back.

  Then, with Sunfire safely across, Lop-ear reached down and thrust forward a foot for Eggtusk to grasp with his trunk. Eggtusk pulled himself out, huffing mightily, with Lop-ear scrambling to hold his position, and Owlheart and Silverhair threw bark and twigs beneath Eggtusk's feet to help him climb.

  Wolfnose was more difficult.

  Owlheart tugged gently at her mother's trunk. "Come now."

  Wolfnose opened her eyes within their nests of wrinkles, regarded her daughter, and with a sigh lifted her feet from the clinging, icy mud. The others gathered around her, Eggtusk behind her. But when she came to the slippery bank of the stream, Wolfnose stopped.

  "I am weary," said Wolfnose slowly. "Leave me. I will sleep first."

  Owlheart stood before her, helpless; and Silverhair felt her heart sink.

  But Eggtusk growled, and he began to butt Wolfnose's backside, quite disrespectfully. "I — have — had — enough — of — this!"

  Almost against her will, Wolfnose was soon hobbling down the slippery bank. Silverhair and the others quickly gathered around her, helping her to stay on her feet. Wolfnose splashed, hard, into the cold, turbulent stream that emerged from beneath Lop-ear's impromptu dam. Once there, breathing heavily, she found it hard to scramble out of the clinging mud. But Eggtusk plunged belly-deep into the mud and shoved gamely at the old Cow's rear.

  At last, with much scrambling, pushing, and pulling, they had Wolfnose safely lodged on the far bank.

  Not long after they had crossed, the water came brimming over the barrier, like a trunk emptying into a great mouth. The barrier fell apart, the trees scattering down the renewed stream like twigs, and it was as if the place they had forded had never been.

  THE STORM BLEW ITSELF OUT.

  Silverhair watched as the fire came billowing across the tundra, at last reaching the bank they had left behind. But as the rain grew more liquid — and as the dry grass was consumed, with rain hissing over the scorched ground — the fire died.

  Silverhair and Lop-ear emerged from the forest and stood on the rocky ground overlooking the stream. On the far side of the stream the ground was blackened and steaming, with here and there the burned-out stump of a sapling spruce protruding from the ground.

  A spectacular sheet of golden light, from broken clouds at the horizon, shimmered beneath the remaining gray clouds above.

  "We'll have to move on soon," said Lop-ear. "There isn't anything for us to eat on this stony ground..."

  "The fire would have killed us," said Silverhair. She was certain she was right. Without Lop-ear's strange ingenuity, they would have perished. She looked down at the tree trunks scattered along the length of the runoff stream. "I don't know how you got the idea. But you saved us."

  "Yes," Lop-ear said gloomily. "But maybe Owlheart was right."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I defied the Cycle. I defied Owlheart. I don't want that, Silverhair. I don't want to be different."

  "Lop-ear—"

  "Maybe there is something of the Lost about me. Something dark."

  With that, his eyes deep and troubled, he turned away.

  No, thought Silverhair. No, you're wrong. Wolfnose, old and weary as she is, was able to see the value of new thinking — as was Ganesha the Wise before her.

  The Cycle might not be able to guide them through the troubled times to come. It would require minds like Lop-ear's — new thinking, new solutions — if they were to survive.

  She thought of the creature she had seen on the ice floe. One of the Lost, Eggtusk had said.

  Her brain seethed with speculation over dangers and opportunities. Somehow, she knew, her destiny was bound up with the ugly, predatory monster she had encountered on that ice floe.

  Destiny — or opportunity?

  Silverhair surveyed the wreckage of the barrier a little longer. She tried to remember how it had been, what they had done to defeat the river. But already, she could not picture how it had been.

  And the runoff stream was dwindling. The glacier ice had been melted by the heat absorbed by the rock faces during the day. But as the sun sank, the rock cooled and the runoff slowed, reducing the torrents and gushes to mere trickles— which would, Silverhair realized ruefully, have been easy to cross.

  She turned away and rejoined the others.

  Part 2: Lost

  The Story of the Calves of Kilukpuk

  NOW (Silverhair said to Icebones), every mammoth has heard of the mother of us all: Kilukpuk, the Matriarch of Matriarchs, who grew up in a burrow in the time of the Reptiles. The tale I am going to tell you is of the end of Kilukpuk's life, two thousand Great-Years ago, when the Reptiles were long gone, and the world was young and warm and empty.

  Now by this time Kilukpuk had been alive for a very long time.

  Though she was the mother of us all, Kilukpuk was not like us. By now she more resembled the seals of the coast, with stubby legs and a nub of trunk. She had become so huge, in fact, that her body had sunk into the ground, turning it into a Swamp within which she dwelled.

  But she had a womb as fertile as the sea.

  One year she bore three Calves.

  The first was called Probos; the second was called Siros; the third was called Hyros.

  There was no eldest or youngest, for they had all been born at the same mighty instant. They all looked exactly the same. They played together happily, without envy or malice.

  They were all equal.

  Yet they were not.

  Only one of them could be Matriarch when Kilukpuk died.

  As time wore on, the Calves ceased to play with one another. They took to watching each other with suspicion and hostility, hoping to find some flaw or small crime they could report to their mother. At least, that was how Hyros and Siros behaved. For her part, Probos bore no ill will to her sisters.

  Kilukpuk floated in her Swamp, and showed no favor to any of her daughters.

  Now, Kilukpuk did not intend that her daughters should stay forever in the Swamp, as she did. So from the beginning she had pushed her three daughters onto the land.

  They had mewled and complained, wishing only to return to the comforting mud of the Swamp, and to snuggle once more against Kilukpuk's mighty dugs — which as you know were as big as the Mountains at the End of the World. But gradually the Calves learned to browse at the grasses and nibble at the leaves of the trees, and ceased to miss the warm bath of the Swamp.

  Now, Hyros became very fond of the foliage of the lush trees of those days, and she became jealous if her sisters tried to share that particular bounty. It got to the point where Hyros started climbing the trees to ensure she reached the juiciest leaves before her sisters, and she would leap from branch to branch and even between the trees to keep her sisters away, and she made a great crashing noise when she did so.

  And Siros likewise became very fond of the fruits of the seas and rivers, and she became jealous if her sisters tried to share that particular bounty. It got to
the point where Siros started swimming in the rivers and sea to ensure she reached the thickest reeds before her sisters, and she made a great galumphing splashing noise while she did so.

  Now, none of this troubled Probos. She knew that the grasses and sedges and herbs and bushes of the world were more than enough to feed her for the rest of her long life, and as many calves as she could imagine bearing. She tried to tell her sisters this: that they had nothing to fear from her or each other, for the world was rich enough to support all of them.

  This enraged her sisters, for they thought Probos must be trying to trick them. And so, silently, separately, they hatched their plans against her.

  One day, when Probos was browsing calmly on a lush patch of grass, she heard Hyros calling from a treetop. "Oh, Probos!" She was so high up, her voice sounded like a bird's cry. "I want to show you how fond I am of you, sister. Here — I want you to have the very best and sweetest and fattest leaves I can find." And Hyros began to hurl down great mouthfuls of bark and leaves and twigs from the very tops of the trees.

  Now, Probos was a little bewildered. For the truth was, she had grown to relish the thin, aromatic flavor of the herbs and grasses. She found tree leaves thick and cloying and damp in her mouth, and the bark and twigs scratched at her lips and tongue. But she did not wish to offend her sister, so she patiently began to eat the tree stuff.

  For a day and a night Hyros fed her sister like this, unrelenting, and soon Probos's dung grew slippery with undigested masses of leaf. But still she would not offend her sister, and she patiently worked her way through the great piles on the ground.

  Suddenly Hyros stopped throwing down the leaves. She thrust her small, mean face out of the foliage, and glared down at Probos, laughing. "Look at you now! You will never be able to climb up here and steal my leaves!"

  And when Probos looked down at herself, she found she had eaten so much she had grown huge — much bigger than her sisters, though not so big as Kilukpuk — so big that she could, surely, never again climb a tree. She looked up at Hyros sadly. "Why have you tricked me, sister? I had no wish to share your leaves."