Icebones tm-3

by Stephen Baxter

  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.

  Spiral grumbled, "If this is what it means to be in a Family, I would rather the Lost returned." But she backed away, deferring to Icebones’s tentative authority.

  Beyond the flooded crater, the ground began to drop in altitude. Though it was still broken and often difficult to negotiate, the soil was richer here, and steppe plants flourished. There were even stretches of forest, conifer trees so tall they seemed to stretch up to the pale pink sky. And there was plenty to eat now: grass, coltsfoot, mountain sorrel, lousewort, sedge, dwarf birch.

  Covering ground that was rich in loam and easy under their feet, their stomachs filling up, the mammoths’ spirits seemed to lift, and they walked on more vigorously.

  Icebones noticed that as they got used to the fodder of the steppe the mammoths’ tastes were starting to diverge: Thunder sought out a type of willow with small diamond leaves, while Spiral preferred the sedge. They were starting to forget the rich food the Lost had provided for them, she realized with some relief.

  But now Icebones became aware of a dark smudge, like a low cloud, on the horizon directly ahead of her, to the east. And she smelled smoke.

  Fire ahead. The mammoths drew closer, trunks raised.

  Fire was a natural thing, of course — it could be caused by flowing lava, or lightning strikes — but in mammoths’ minds fire was primarily a thing of the Lost. Where there is smoke, there are the Lost — so went the wisdom of the Cycle.

  They walked on, into the thickening smoke.

  They came to a shallow crater rim. The smoke was pouring sluggishly into the air from the crater’s belly.

  It was an easy climb up the crater wall to its narrow crest. But now the smoke was thick, making their eyes stream and filling their nostrils with its stink. The mammoths were agitated, for the scent of fire sparked deep instincts of fear and flight in them all.

  The crater was a big one, surrounded by a ring of eroded hillocks that stretched to the horizon. A bank of smoke hung thick and dense over the crater basin.

  And the basin was full of trees: fallen, burning trees, with flames licking ponderously. There were so many that they lapped up against the crater walls, and trunks lay thick on the ground like shed pine needles. But each of these "needles" was the trunk of a great conifer, stripped of its branches.

  Autumn growled, "We can’t walk through that. We would suffocate in the smoke, or get trapped beneath the burning trunks, or—"

  "You’re right." Icebones raised her trunk, trying to sense the lay of the land despite the distraction of the smoke, and the steady rumble of collapsing, burned-out logs. "The wind comes this way." She took a step toward the southern crater rim. "We will walk around these circular walls. The smoke will blow away from us, not over us."

  "It is out of our way," the Ragged One pointed out sourly.

  Icebones snapped, "We have no choice. Be careful where you step. Help each other. Let’s go, let’s go." And without further discussion she set off, following the narrow ridge that ran around the crater rim.

  She didn’t look back, but she could tell from their footfalls and rumbles that the mammoths were following her.

  The going wasn’t difficult, though in places the rim wall broke up into separate eroded hillocks, and they had to climb through narrow gulches or over crumbled rock. But there was no water to be had on this bare rock wall. Soon the air, hot and dry and laden with the stink of wood smoke, burned in Icebones’s nostrils and throat.

  The wind veered and a gust of smoke washed over her, blinding her eyes and flooding her sensitive nostrils, so that she had to work her way over the lumpy ground by touch alone.

  When the smoke cleared she saw something moving, dimly visible through the thinning gray veils of smoke.

  She stopped dead, trunk raised. She sensed the other mammoths gathering around her, curious, nervous. She could see something shining, like ice, a vast bulk moving. And she could feel how its weight made the ground shudder.

  Now it emerged from the smoke.

  A vast boxy shape was crawling laboriously up the side of the crater. It was more like a great slab of rock than any living thing. On its back was a kind of shell, like an insect’s carapace, but the shell was flat and a pale silvery-gray, and it was liberally covered with caked-on dust and dried mud. It would have been big enough for all seven of the mammoths to stand side by side on its back. The beast moved forward, not on legs, but on its underbelly, leaving tracks cut deep in the rock of the crater rim. But those tracks were well worn, Icebones saw. Wherever this strange creature was heading, it had made this journey many times.

  "It is like a beetle," Breeze said. "With a shell of ice. An ice beetle."

  The ice beetle trailed huge long limbs — far longer but less mobile than a mammoth’s trunk. And in a set of shining fingers it grasped a tree trunk. The tree had been dragged over the dusty plain from a stand of conifer forest. In that forest stood a number of stumps, where trunks had been neatly cut away from their roots.

  Icebones could smell, under the dominant stink of the fire, the sap of the tree trunk and the iron tang of the red dust. But she could smell nothing of the beetle, nothing at all.

  As the mammoths watched, the ice beetle, in dour silence, hauled the tree trunk up the side of the steep crater wall. Dust rose up in clouds. Then the beetle spun slowly around and let the tree trunk fall into the crater, where the flames would soon reach it.

  The beetle, its trunk arms empty, seemed to rest, as if exhausted. Then it roused itself. It swiveled and began to edge its way back down the crater rim wall.

  Autumn growled, "Once mammoths did this. Hauling trees from forests to pits in the ground, where they would be burned and buried. Now, it seems, the Lost have stronger servants even than us."

  "Perhaps it is like mammoth dung," Icebones mused. "Where mammoths pass, new life sprouts, for our dung enriches the ground. Maybe the Lost — or at least their servants — are working to build the world, to build life. But why does it continue, now that the Lost have vanished?"

  "Because it doesn’t know what else to do," the Ragged One said. "Because nobody told it to stop. Because it is mad, or stupid."

  "Everything about the Lost is a mystery to us," said Autumn grimly. Spiral made to protest, but Autumn insisted. "We lived with them, and accepted their gifts of food and water. But we never understood them. It is the truth, daughter."

  As the beetle passed, Shoot reached out tentatively with her trunk tip and brushed the sharp edge of its carapace. "It is cold. But it is not wet like ice. And it smells of nothing." She sneezed sharply, sending the dust flying. "It is covered in dust." She began to blow at the carapace, ridding a corner of dust, and exposing a clean, shining surface.

  Spiral stepped forward and joined her. So did Icebones, without being sure why. They blew away the dust, or, where mud was caked, they picked at it with their trunk fingers and brushed it off.

  Icebones noticed that Breeze hung back, distracted, evidently uncomfortable from the weight of her calf.

  The ice beetle continued to work its way down the hillside, its great body tipping up clumsily. It did not react to the mammoths’ attention.

  When it reached the level ground outside the crater the beetle began to trundle away, back toward the forest.
But now its exposed carapace gleamed silver, free of dust and mud save for a few streaks.

  "Do you think it’s moving a little faster?" Autumn asked. "Maybe it needs the sunlight, like a flower."

  "I never saw a flower like that," Icebones said skeptically.

  "True, true."

  There was nothing for the mammoths here, nothing but this insane abandoned creature and its endless, meaningless task. Icebones said, "Let’s go." She took a step forward, meaning to climb down from the crater rim.

  But, behind her, Breeze gasped. She had fallen to her knees, her stubby trunk lying pooled and limp on the ground. "Help me."

  Autumn growled, "It is the calf. It is time."

  Spiral turned to Icebones. "What must we do? Oh, what must we do?"

  Icebones felt her stomach turn as cold as a lump of ice. "I suppose the Lost helped you even with this."

  Spiral fell back, growling dismally, and Icebones felt a stab of shame.

  Autumn said, "The Lost were with us always… But there are no Lost here."

  Close at Icebones’s side like a guilty conscience, the Ragged One said softly, "If not you, who else?"

  Icebones gathered her courage and stepped forward. Breeze, still slumped to her knees, was straining, her belly distended. "You must stand," Icebones said.

  "I can’t."

  "Help her," Icebones ordered.

  Briskly Spiral and Shoot stepped forward. They dug their trunks and foreheads under their sister’s belly, while Icebones pushed at her rump.

  In a few heartbeats Breeze had staggered to her feet, but her legs were shuddering. The two sisters stood close to Breeze, keeping her upright with nudges of their bodies. Even Thunder gently pushed Breeze’s rump, rumbling encouragement.

  Breeze, panting hard, leaned forward so her back legs were stretched out behind her. Icebones thought she could see the calf moving within its cave of flesh.

  Breeze raised her trunk and trumpeted, straining. There was a sudden eruption of blood and water, a stink of urine and milk.

  "I can see it!" Shoot called suddenly. "Look! The calf is coming!"

  And Icebones saw it too: in a gush of water and blood, two legs had pushed from Breeze’s vagina. Now a small head and the bulk of a little body was squeezed out, wrapped in a clear, shimmering sheet. For a moment it dangled by its hind legs. Then Breeze gave a final heave.

  The calf shot out and plopped to the ground.

  Shoot and Spiral, suddenly aunts, hurried forward to the baby, which lay wrapped in its blood-streaked sac on the ground.

  Icebones stayed with Breeze, who staggered forward. "You must stay on your feet."

  "It hurts, Icebones," Breeze said.

  "It’s all right. Just a little longer. Push hard, Breeze. Push—"

  Now the afterbirth emerged, a sodden bloody lump that fell limp to the ground.

  Breeze sighed, eyes closing, and she fell to her knees. Thunder curled his trunk over her protectively.

  "The calf’s not moving," Shoot wailed. "Is it dead?"

  Icebones pushed past Shoot and Spiral. The calf still lay where it had fallen. "We have to get it out of the birth sac." She leaned and tried to catch the membrane with her tusk tips, ripping and pulling it. "Help me — but do not hurt the calf."

  It seemed to take long heartbeats, but at last they had the amniotic sac free. Shoot hurled the bloody sheet away with an impulsive shake of her head.

  Icebones leaned forward to the calf, inspecting it — him! — with her trunk tip. He was a bundle of pale orange fur that was soaked and flattened by amniotic fluid. His legs were spindly stalks, his trunk was a mere thread, and his head was smooth and round, as if not yet formed. He was breathing shallowly, his little chest rising and falling rapidly, and his breath steamed around his face.

  Icebones wrapped her trunk underneath the calf, and encouraged Shoot and Spiral to help her. Soon they had him set upright on his skinny, trembling legs. His little eyes opened with a moist pop, and Icebones saw they were bright red. But now he threw back his tiny trunk so it lay on his forehead, and opened his mouth.

  "Hungry," he said, his voice a thin, choked mewl. "Cold. Hungry. Oh, let me back…!"

  7

  The Cracked Land

  The calf made the suckling cry, over and over, as if he had been taught it by Kilukpuk herself.

  "He needs milk," Icebones said. She hurried to Breeze, who still lay on the ground.

  Breeze’s eyes were closed, and she was breathing hard, obviously exhausted. "Woodsmoke," she murmured.

  "What?"

  "That is what he will be called. For when he was born my head was full of smoke…"

  "You must come," Icebones said gently.

  "Let me sleep, Icebones…"

  The calf opened his mouth and wailed, his voice thin and high. "Cold, cold!"

  And now, at last, Icebones was at a loss. "Without milk he will die," she said. "I don’t know what to do."

  Autumn came forward, her gait stiff. "Let me." And she gathered the little creature in her trunk and guided him forward, pulling him beneath her legs. Blindly, he snuggled at her belly fur until he found the dugs that dangled between her forelegs. Driven by instinct he clamped his mouth to a nipple and began to suckle greedily.

  Icebones, astonished, saw thin, pale milk dribble down his cheek. "Autumn — you have milk. But you are not with calf."

  "It began when I saw how weak Breeze was becoming. I don’t know why." She eyed Icebones. "You may be Matriarch," she rumbled softly. "But you don’t know everything, it seems."

  "I know that you are a good mother," said Icebones. "For you were there when your daughter, and her calf, needed you most."

  The calf — Woodsmoke — squeaked his contentment, and Autumn rumbled softly.

  It was strange, Icebones thought: just heartbeats old, and yet the calf had already achieved something immensely important, by redeeming Autumn, his grandmother… Perhaps it was an omen of his life to come.

  Spiral and Shoot gathered around their mother protectively, rumbling reassurance. Further away, Thunder stayed with Breeze, stroking her hair with gentle motions of his trunk.

  It was a moment of tenderness, of contentment, of togetherness.

  But Icebones could not help but look east, trunk raised, toward the difficult country that lay ahead — a country through which she would now have to bring a calf, and a weakened mother.

  A wind rose, droning through the clefts in the crater wall, drowning out the reassuring rumbles of the Cows.

  Further east, the ground rose steadily. The steppe vegetation grew thinner, and any water was frozen over.

  Icebones’s chest began to ache as she took each breath, as it had not since she was high on the Fire Mountain.

  They came to a land covered by vast pits.

  The pits were shallow and rounded, and dust pooled deep in them. They were like footprints around a dried mud hole — but these "footprints" were huge, taking many paces to cross. In some places the pits were overwhelmed by frozen rock flows, as if the pitted landscape had been formed long ago, and then this younger rock poured over it to harden in place.

  It was difficult country. But Icebones feared that the terrain further east of here might be more difficult still. Looking that way from the higher ridges, she could see deep shadows and broken walls, hear complex, booming echoes.

  And at night she thought she heard the low rumble of some vast animal, echoing from tortuous cliffs.

  Difficult, yes. And now they had the calf to consider.

  Woodsmoke trotted beside his mother or his grandmother, stumbling frequently. He was still coated with the short underfur from his birth, topped now by a thin layer of pink-red overfur. His back was round, lacking the slope and distinctive shoulder hump he would develop later in life. Though he had been born with the ancient language of all Kilukpuk’s children, there were many things he had to learn. He couldn’t yet use his trunk to gather food, or even to drink. For now he was completely de
pendent on milk, which he drew from his mother’s nipple with his mouth — the only time in his life when he would use his mouth directly to feed.

  The calf slowed them down; there was no doubt about that. They had had to wait several days at the birthing place while mother and calf recovered, and even now the group could walk no faster than the calf could manage.

  But Icebones would not have done without him. Woodsmoke was quickly becoming the focus of the group, this nascent Family. He would run from one to the other, ignorant and uncaring of their obscure adult disputes. Only the Ragged One refused to respond to his unformed charms.

  His favorite was his aunt, Spiral.

  She would lower her trunk and let him clamber on it or pull it. Or she would lie on the ground and let him climb up over her belly, digging his tiny feet into her guard hairs, determined and dogged, as if she was some great warm rock. In her turn, Spiral would forgive Woodsmoke anything — even when he dribbled urine into her fine coat, of which she was so proud.

  Icebones was surprised by this; it showed a side of Spiral she hadn’t suspected. Finally, she thought she understood. She sought an opportunity to speak to the Cow.

  "Spiral — you’ve had a calf of your own. That’s why you’re so close to Woodsmoke, isn’t it?"

  At first Spiral would not reply. She walked along with something of her old haughtiness, head held high, her handsome tusks bright in the cold sunlight. But at length she said, "Yes. If you must know. I have given birth to two calves. Both Bulls. I watched the calves learn to walk, and I suckled them. But soon, when they were no older than Woodsmoke is now, they were taken away." She said this flatly, without emotion.

  "They were taken by the Lost? What cruelty."

  "They were not — cruel. They were taking the calves to a place that would be better for them." She shook her head, and her delicate trunk rippled. "And when my calves were gone, each time, I was stroked and praised by the Lost, and given treats, and—"