Icebones

by Stephen Baxter

  Icebones let the sea water soak into the long hairs that dangled over her feet. The water itself was cold and sharp.

  She sucked up a cautious trunkful and dipped her trunk tip into her mouth. It seemed to fizz, oddly, making bubbles in her nostrils, as if air dissolved in it were struggling to escape.

  It was a bitter brine.

  And in the air that blew off the face of the ocean, soft but very cold, she could smell salt.

  Of course this tremendous world sea would be full of salt, just like the ocean that had surrounded the Island. This Ocean of the North was nothing but sour undrinkable brine, all the way to the pole of the world.

  She sensed in their hunched postures that the other mammoths knew this as well as she did. It was as she had expected, but she felt disappointed nonetheless.

  As if to put on a brave swagger, the Bull, Thunder, trumpeted and charged forward into open water. Spray danced up around his legs, quickly soaking his fur, and ice crackled against his chest. "Come on," he yelled. "At least we can get rid of this foul dust for a while!" And he plunged his trunk into the water and sprayed it high in the air.

  Shoot ran after the Bull into the deeper water, lumbering and squealing. The little Cow stumbled, immersing her head, but she came up squirting water from her trunk brightly. "It's cold! And it gets deep, just here. Watch out—"

  "Thunder. Call me Thunder!" And the Bull rapped his trunk into the water, sending spray over the Cow. Vigorously, Shoot splashed back.

  Haughty Spiral stayed close to her mother and sister Breeze, watching the antics of the others with disdain.

  Droplets of brine, caught on the wind, spattered into Icebones's face and stung her eyes.

  A flash of motion further from the shore caught her eye. It had looked, oddly, like a tusk — but it had been straight and sharp, not like a mammoth's ivory spiral. There it was again, a fine twisted cone that rolled languidly through the air. And now she saw a vast gray body sliding through a dark lead of open water, turning slowly. She heard a moan, and then a harsh screech, accompanied by a spray of water. Perhaps this was some strange whale.

  The Ragged One came to stand beside Icebones. "The water is foul," she rumbled. "I suppose you will tell us now you always knew it would be like this."

  "This is not my world," Icebones said levelly. "I know nothing of its oceans."

  The Ragged One growled.

  "This is not the time to argue," Icebones said. "We cannot stay here. That much is obvious." She turned, trunk raised, seeking Autumn.

  But there was a sharp trumpet from the water.

  ALL THE MAMMOTHS TURNED.

  Shoot was floundering, hair soaked, struggling to keep her head above the water. Icebones could see the black triangle of her small mouth beneath her raised trunk.

  But the trumpet had come not from Shoot, but from Thunder. The Bull was splashing his way out of the water as fast as he could, trunk held high, eyes ringed white with panic.

  Now there was a surge behind Shoot, like a huge wave gathering.

  Abruptly a mass burst out of the water, scattering smashed ice that tumbled back with a clatter. Icebones glimpsed a blunt head with a smooth, rounded forehead, and that strange twisted tusk thrust out through the upper lip of the opened mouth, on the left side. The tusk alone would have dwarfed Icebones. But even the head was small in comparison with a vast body: gray and marbled, marked with spots and streaks, gray as dead flesh, with small front flippers, and a crumpled ridge along its back. When the whole of that body had lifted out of the water, the flukes of its powerful tail beat the water with great slaps.

  By Kilukpuk's mercy, Icebones thought, bewildered.

  The whale fell back into the water, writhing, with a vast languid splash. Shoot was engulfed, and Icebones wondered if she had already been taken in that vast mouth.

  But when the water subsided, Icebones saw that Shoot was still alive, gamely trying to swim in the churning water. "Help me!" she called, with high, thin chirps of her trunk.

  Without thinking further, Icebones rushed into the water. She ran past Thunder, who stood shivering on the shore. But the Ragged One ran with her.

  Icebones slowed when the water reached her chest and soaked into her heavy hairs, and the sea-bottom ooze clumped around her feet. The Ragged One, taller and with longer legs, was able to make faster progress, and she reached Shoot first.

  The whale made another run. Water surged. A school of silver fish came flying from the water before splashing back, dead or stunned. Fulmars and kittiwakes fell on this unexpected bounty, screeching.

  The Ragged One had wrapped her trunk around Shoot's, and was hauling her toward the shore. Icebones hurried to the Cow's rear, half-swimming in the rapidly deepening water, and rammed at Shoot's rump with her forehead.

  The whale lunged out of the water, and that huge twisted tusk was held high above the mammoths, ugly and sharp.

  For a heartbeat Icebones found herself peering into the whale's ugly purple mouth. Its lips barely covered its rows of cone-shaped teeth. Its eyes were set at the corners of the mouth — and, though a dark intelligence glimmered there, Icebones saw that the eyes could not move in their sockets.

  In its way it was beautiful, Icebones couldn't help thinking: a solitary killer, stripped of the social complexity of a mammoth's life, its whole being intent only on killing — beautiful, and terrible.

  The whale fell back.

  As they struggled on toward the shore, with her head immersed in the murky, icy brine, Icebones rammed at Shoot's backside with increased urgency.

  But the snap of jaws around her did not come. At last the mammoths found themselves in shallower water, beyond the reach of those immense teeth.

  SHOOT'S SISTERS HURRIED to her and ran their trunks over her head and into her mouth, cherishing her survival. Shoot, shaking herself free of water, showed no signs of injury from her ordeal, though the whale's teeth must have missed her by no more than a hair's-breadth.

  The Ragged One stood with Icebones by the edge of the suddenly treacherous sea. The whale's tusk broke the surface and cruised to and fro, as if seeking to lure an unwary mammoth back into the water, and where it passed, sheets of ice were cracked and lifted and brushed aside.

  "If the Lost created this ocean," Icebones said, "why would they put in it such a monster as that?"

  "Perhaps they didn't," The Ragged One said. "Perhaps it has cruised the waters of this world ocean, eating all the smaller creatures, devouring its rivals, growing larger and larger as it feeds — devouring until nothing was left to challenge it... A monster to suit a giant ocean. If the Lost were here they would surely destroy it."

  "But they are not here."

  "No."

  "You did well," Icebones said.

  The Ragged One slapped the water with her trunk, irritably. Evidently she did not welcome Icebones's praise. "This is not your world," the Ragged One growled. "Just as you said."

  Thunder was strutting to and fro, raising and lowering his tusks, his posture an odd mixture of aggression and submission.

  Icebones approached him cautiously. "Thunder?"

  "Don't call me that!" He scuffed the dusty beach angrily. "Shoot was threatened, and I ran from danger. I am not Thunder. I am not even a Bull. I am nothing."

  "I know that the heart of a great Bull beats inside you. And you are part of this Family, just as much as the others."

  "I have no Family. I was taken from my mother when I was a calf."

  "Taken? Why?"

  "That is what the Lost do. What does it matter?"

  "It matters a great deal. A calf should be with his mother."

  "I have no Family" he repeated. "You despise me."

  "You followed your instinct," she said harshly. "The mammoth dies, but mammoths live on. That's what the Cycle says. There are times when it is right to sacrifice another's life to save your own."

  The Bull growled bitterly, "Even if that's true, you saved Shoot, where I failed."

 
She reached out to him, but he flinched, muttering and rumbling, and stalked away.

  She sought out Autumn. The tall, clear-eyed Cow was standing alone.

  "The Bull-calf blames himself," Autumn said. "But I led us here, to this vile and useless sea."

  "How could you have known? You have lived all your life on your Mountain. It was a worthwhile gamble—"

  "Because I led us here my daughter was nearly killed, and we will all starve or die of thirst. If some new monster does not burst out of the ground to devour us first."

  Icebones grabbed her trunk. "You must lead us."

  Autumn probed at Icebones's face. "Don't you understand? I was the Matriarch, for a few brief days, and I have killed us all." And she stumbled away.

  The Ragged One, standing alone by the shore, was remote, withdrawn as ever, still mourning her failure to find the Lost on the mountain summit. Thunder and Autumn were both immersed in their private worlds of self-loathing and anger. Breeze was standing at the water's edge, lost in herself, her swollen belly brushing the languid waves. Shoot was pursuing her sister, regaling her with lurid tales of her encounter with the monster from the sea, while Spiral trotted haughtily away.

  None of them will lead, Icebones realized, dismayed. They will stay here on this desolate beach, sulking or fretting or boasting, as the sun rises and falls, and we grow still more thirsty and hungry.

  No, Icebones thought. I am not prepared to die. Not yet.

  She drew herself up to her full height, and emitted a commanding rumble, as loudly as she could.

  The other mammoths turned toward her.

  Silverhair, be with me now, she prayed.

  "You will pay attention to me," she said.

  A flock of ivory gulls, startled by her call, lifted into the air on vast translucent wings.

  SHE KEPT HER VOICE as deep and loud as she could — although, before these towering mammoths, she felt small and inferior, a squat, noisy calf.

  "You were right in your first guesses, when I emerged from my cave of Sleep. I am indeed a Matriarch. On the Old Steppe, where I lived, I was Matriarch of a Family of many mammoths, despite my youth. I led them well, and I was loved and respected."

  The Ragged One said slyly, "If this is so, why didn't you say so before?"

  "I wanted to see if you were fit to join my new Family." She raised her trunk, as if sniffing them all. "And I have decided that you are strong mammoths with good hearts. I am your Matriarch. I will listen to you, but you will do as I say."

  Autumn had turned away, and Thunder looked merely confused.

  Breeze asked, "What should we do?"

  "We cannot stay here. There is no food, and the water is foul. The world is growing cold, day by day. But the air, like the water, flows to the deep places. There is a place, far from here, which is deeper than anywhere in the world."

  The Ragged One rumbled suspiciously, "Where is this place?"

  And Icebones described the great pit on the other side of the world — a hole gouged by a giant impact, a blow so powerful it had made the rocks rise up here, on the planet's opposite side. "It is called the Footfall of Kilukpuk," she said, thinking fast. "And that is where we will go. There will be pasture for you and your calves. There will even be Bulls for you to run with, Thunder, and for you others to mate with."

  The Ragged One brayed. "And this wonderful place is on the other side of the world? So you have never seen or smelled it?"

  It was as if she was articulating Icebones's own doubts.

  But Icebones said firmly, "I will lead you there." She raised her trunk, sniffing the air. "We must walk away from the setting sun. We will keep walking east, and in the end we will reach the Footfall. Let's go," she said, as she had heard her mother say many times to her own Family. "Let's go, let's go."

  But the mammoths simply watched her, baffled.

  So she raised her trunk and trumpeted, and began to walk east, following the line of the old coast, toward a sky that was already turning a deepening purple.

  After a few paces she paused and turned. The three sisters, huddled together, were walking after her slowly, tracking her moist footsteps in the dusty sand. A little behind them came Autumn and Thunder, each still distracted, but submissively following the lead Icebones had given.

  But now the Ragged One lumbered up to her. "You cannot make this rabble into a Family just by saying it. And you cannot make yourself a Matriarch."

  "If you wish to stay here," Icebones said, her voice a deep, coarse rumble, "I will not oppose you."

  The Ragged One growled, "If you fail — when you fail — I will be there to remind you of this day."

  I know you will, Icebones thought.

  The wind was rising now. She saw that it was swirling over the pack ice, lifting spray and bits of loose ice and snow into a great gray spiral, angry and intimidating. The scavenging petrels left their bloody meals and rose into the sky, cawing angrily, their feathers stained red.

  6

  The Ice Beetle

  HEADING TOWARD THE LIGHT of the rising sun, they skirted the shore of the giant ocean. There was better forage to be had a little way to the south, away from the barren coast itself, where soil and water had gathered in hollows.

  But the landscape, distorted by the volcanic uplift that lay beneath the Fire Mountain, was flawed and difficult. Deep, sharp-walled valleys cut across their path. Conversely, sometimes the mammoths found themselves laboring over networks of ridges that rose one after the other, like wrinkles in aged flesh.

  As leader, Icebones was able to impose a rhythm appropriate for a Family on the move. She had the mammoths walk slowly but steadily, all day and most of each night, probing at the ground with their trunks, foraging for grass and herbs and water. At first the others complained, for this was an alien way of life for creatures used to being fed as they needed it. But Icebones knew that this steady progress was better suited to a mammoth's internal constitution. And when after a few days the others got used to the steady, satisfying rhythm, and food passed pleasingly through their systems, the level of complaints dwindled.

  But they were not yet a Family.

  A Family was supposed to walk in coordination, led by its Matriarch and the senior Cows, all of them watching out for each other, in case of predators or natural traps like mud holes. This untidy rabble rambled over the broken ground as if they were rogue Bulls, as if the others did not exist, or matter.

  Icebones knew it would take a long time to teach them habits that should have been ingrained since birth, and it seemed presumptuous even to imagine that she, young and inexperienced, was the one to do it. But, she reminded herself, there was nobody else.

  So she persisted.

  Sometimes Spiral would walk alongside Icebones, with Shoot prancing in her wake. The tall, elegant Cow would regale Icebones with unwelcome tales of her time with the Lost, when they had tied shining ribbons to her hair, or rode on her back, or had encouraged her to do tricks, picking up fruit and walking backward and bowing at their behest.

  This irritated Icebones immensely. "You are mammoth," she said sternly. "You are not a creature of the Lost. You should not boast of your foolish dancing. And you should not ignore your sister. You should watch out for her, as she watches out for you. That is what it is to be Family."

  "Ah, the Family," Spiral said. "But what is there for me in your Family, Icebones? I am beautiful and clever and I smell fine, while you are small and squat. Will a Family stop you being ugly?"

  Icebones reached up and tugged at Spiral's pretty tusks. "It does not matter what I look like — or what you look or smell like. You will not always be healthy and pretty, Spiral. And someday you will have a calf of your own — perhaps many calves — just as your sister is carrying now. And then you too will have to rely on others."

  For a brief moment Spiral seemed to be listening hard, and her trunk tip shyly probed at Icebones's mouth. But then she pulled away, trumpeting brightly, and lumbered off, Shoot as ever trailing h
er eagerly.

  THEY CAME TO A PLACE

  where enormous valleys cut across their path. The mammoths climbed down shallow banks and worked their way across rubble-strewn floors.

  These tremendous channels were littered with huge eroded boulders, pitted and scoured by water and wind, around which the mammoths had to pick their way. Perhaps water had once flowed from the high southern lands into the basin of the north, cutting these channels and depositing this debris. But those vanished rivers must have been mighty indeed. And these huge channels were clearly very ancient, for many of them were pitted by craters, or even cut through by younger channels.

  The great age of the land was obvious, the complexity of its formation recalled in the folded rock around them.

  They found a flooded crater, a shallow circular lake in a pit smashed into a channel bottom. The mammoths welcomed this easily accessible pool, though they had to break through layers of ice to reach the dark, cold water beneath.

  At the water's circular edge, Icebones found clumps of grass. She would twist her trunk around a clump of stems and kick at its base to dislodge it. After beating the grass against her knees to knock off the dirt, she pushed it into her mouth, and her trunk explored for new clumps as she chewed.

  She inspected the ice on the crater pond. Much of it was hard and blue. Mammoths learned about ice. Icebones knew that fresh ice first appeared as a film of oily crystals, almost as dark as the water itself. When it thickened it would turn gray and opaque, and thicken slowly. If it lasted to a second winter it would harden and turn a cold white-blue.

  So the ice covering this pool was persisting through the long summer of this strange world. It was another sign that the world was cooling, and the tide of warmth and water and life was withdrawing, step by step.

  Spiral lumbered up to her, complaining. "Icebones, that's not fair. You are taking the best grass!"

  Icebones slapped Spiral's cheek with her trunk tip — not hard, but enough to sting, and to make the others turn to listen. "I am the Matriarch," she growled." I take the first, and the best. Your mother is next. And then the rest of you. It is the way." The pecking-order she was striving to teach Spiral was part of every Family's internal structure — although no mature Family would stick to it rigidly, with food being apportioned according to need.