“Oh. I thought maybe it was something you wanted to keep secret."
“No, I just didn't want to waste my time arguing over a bandlink when we can argue much more efficiently in person. I figured that telling you nothing would push all your curiosity buttons and get you over here double quick."
“Thanks,” I said. She still wasn't smiling. “That was really thoughtful of you."
She didn't acknowledge the sarcasm. This lady was focused. “So, what do you think?” she said.
I tried to conceal the fact that I hadn't got a clue. “It's modern?” I asked inanely.
“That's what the report says. Carbon dating puts its age at around 30 years."
“And it's definitely mammoth?"
“No question."
This was crazy. “No chance of any errors?” She shook her head. “Right. Uh—anything from the old guy's deskcomp?"
“Still trying to crack the crypto. It takes time. We'll get there.” SCITES had access to a cryptanalytic quantum computer, massively parallel and able—in theory—to beat the Turing limit. In practice, making it work was something of a black art.
I sighed. “Not a lot to go on, then. If I had to guess, I'd say someone's cloned a mammoth. Jurassic Park rides again, but this time it's Pleistocene Park."
She pursed her lips. She looked worried, as well she might. “It's as good a theory as any, Mike. Like you, we really have no idea. It's baffling. Everything we think of is wild."
“If somebody—some organization, probably a triad—has cloned a mammoth, Marcia, we've got a problem. We'll be so busy inspecting ivory that turns out to be mammoth that we won't spot elephant ivory being sneaked in as part of the same consignment. We can't test everything."
Marcia stared at me. Maybe I'd finally said something sensible by accident. “Why would anyone clone a mammoth?"
“Because ... because the sweatshops stopped using real elephant ivory for carvings a while back. It fetches a much better price from the cartels that supply traditional medicines to the hole-in-the-wall pharmacies; the price went sky-high a few years ago when someone decided that whatever a rhino horn can do, an elephant tusk can do ten times better.” I sighed. “Why do people fall for visual puns? It's like using a melon to cure a headache because it has the same shape as a skull.... Anyway, the upshot was that nowadays, the ivory-carvers can't afford elephant."
She nodded, once. “So elephant ivory is worth a fortune. Whereas fossil mammoth ivory is not believed to have any medicinal value."
“Precisely. Even though it's the same shape. Hell, it doesn't have to make sense, Marcia. If that were a criterion, there wouldn't be any traditional medicines. Fossil ivory is relatively cheap; that's why it's used extensively in tourist trinkets."
She grunted. “So why did anyone go to the trouble of bringing this tusk into existence?” She poked a finger at the pink tissue paper. “Why not clone elephants instead, and sell their ivory to the cartels?"
My mouth got ahead of my brain. “That would ... bring them into conflict with the elephant-ivory smugglers, which is the quickest way to sign your own death warrant that I can think of,” I said. “Those people outrank even the triads on the streets. So whoever it is—probably a new start-up, maybe a mainland tong trying to expand its patch—they horned in on the mammoth ivory trade instead, no pun intended, sorry. Cloning fresh mammoths is easier than digging fossil ones out of the permafrost.... They're not so easy to find any more, the Siberians are talking about an export ban—"
She laughed, without humor. “Or none of the above."
* * * *
Salima was always willing to talk about her thesis project. I listened while she told me about the Maori extinguishing eleven species of moa and the theory that widespread burning by Australian aboriginals had changed the continent's micro-climate and wiped out hundreds of indigenous species, mostly insects and birds. Then I guided the conversation towards what really interested me.
“Mammoths? There are dozens of theories, but they come in three main flavors. Climate change, disease, and hunting by humans. We know that the mesolithic inhabitants of what is now northern Asia hunted mammoths—there are even flint spearheads embedded in corpses preserved in the ice. There are massive bone deposits at the foot of cliffs, and evidence that entire herds were driven over the top. But the orthodox view is that hunting alone would not have been sufficient to make mammoths extinct. Homo sapiens didn't have that capability at that time."
“I bet it was hunting,” I said. “How much of that belief is based on evidence, and how much is political correctness, Salima?"
She chuckled. I like it when she does that. “Bit of both. There's a romantic tendency to assume primitive peoples lived in harmony with nature, taking only what they needed, respecting their environment—"
“Speaking of romantic tendencies,” I broke in, “how about we—"
“Don't interrupt. Ask me later. Uh—where was I? Oh, yes. Sometimes they did—respect their environment, that is. There are island populations with limited resources, continuing almost unchanged for thousands of years. But when resources are abundant—when hunting is easy—humans take everything they can get, whether they need it or not. They'll butcher a moa to get the best meat, throw away the rest."
“How can you tell what bits they ate?"
“Cut marks on the bones—rather, their absence."
“So it could have been hunting that killed off the mammoths?” I persisted.
“It's possible. But the profile doesn't seem to fit. Killing technology was pretty primitive in paleolithic times—it must have been around for so long that over-hunting should have finished off the mammoths around 50,000 BC. But they were still present, in quantity, until about 10,000 years ago. Ergo, it wasn't over-hunting."
“It's all a bit circumstantial, Salima."
She gave a wry smile, nodded. “Tell me about it."
“If it wasn't hunting, what was it?"
“Could be disease, but it would be almost impossible to find evidence for that. Could be climate change, that's very plausible. Mammoths flourished during interglacials, and some managed to adapt when the ice came down from the north—hairy coats, that kind of thing. But a lot didn't, in my opinion. There was some migration, but the vegetation wouldn't have been so suitable elsewhere.... The population must have crashed as the feeding grounds became buried in thick layers of snow, then ice ... we do have some evidence from fossils. As the habitat contracted, so did the population.” She didn't look convinced.
“Maybe it was both,” I suggested. “The cold climate reduced the population below some critical level, and then, over a couple of millennia, hunting finished them off."
“Could be. It's a standard idea; most extinctions are multicausal. Maybe the mesolithic technology improved, too. The end is really rather abrupt. The new graveyard seems to be the result of a mass die-off in very short period of time, paleontologically speaking. Before that discovery we only knew of about fifty frozen corpses, scattered all over the place. Now we've got over a hundred in one spot. Which reminds me, Zhao has arranged to be sent samples from all the specimens. He wants me to do some comparative DNA analysis, see if I can figure out the diversity of the gene pool, estimate the population size. If it works, he'll apply for a grant to do a much larger study."
“I don't suppose any of your samples still have tusks?"
Salima shook her head. “There are no tusks anywhere in the deposits. They seem to have been hacked off. More evidence of butchery. Presumably the ancient hunters used the ivory for carvings, or traded them with people who did."
She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “There is one odd feature, though.” Whatever it was, she looked unhappy about it. “The grapevine says that aside from the missing tusks, no one's found any other signs of butchery in the graveyard deposits. Those hunters didn't kill for meat.” Her face brightened. “Which, now that I think of it, suggests that the motivation for mass hunting changed around that pe
riod. Which could be very significant for my thesis."
* * * *
I'd expected Marcia to look a little more relaxed, under the circumstances. Cracking Tsong's crypto ought to have been a big step forward. But she was distinctly edgy.
Together, we stared at the image projected on the screen. It showed a jumbled mass of text, in Chinese characters.
“Notebook file?"
“Diary,” she said. “It gives a fragmentary but quite comprehensive account of a mammoth-hunting expedition."
“Aha! So someone has been cloning mammoths!"
She shook her head. “That's not clear. In fact, what's in his diary is so unbelievable that absolutely nothing is clear.” She turned her chair to face me. “And even if it were clear, there's no way we'd ever get a conviction out of it."
“Why ever not?"
She swiveled back to face the screen. “Let me show you."
* * * *
18 September 2021. The winds howl stronger than in Gyangxe Valley, but the air is thick. There are mountains, in the distance, but they are not the mountains of Qomolangma. This place is not my homeland. Yet it is no more than half an hour's drive from my home in Rongpu Si. The windows of the truck were blacked out, so I could not see where we drove. I am frightened. This place should not exist.
I must ignore my fear. Tenzin and the children are close to starvation. I need money. So I sit in the cold and oil the Kalashnikov they have given me.
21 September. The guests have been practicing. They must be wealthy men. Mahmud says they have paid fortunes to join the hunt. Firing a rifle from a moving truck, on rough ground, is easy, and so is hitting a target, even a moving one, if the gun is set to rapid fire. But I wonder what it will be like when the target has a will of its own and is capable of charging the truck. Will thirty rounds be enough to stop a stampede?
That is why bodyguards are needed, and one of the reasons why I am here.
23 September. Last night, when I prayed to the Buddha, I asked for the hunt to be successful, as well as praying for the health of my family. If the hunt fails, I will not get paid and my family will die.
Today the helicopter spotted a huge herd, more than a hundred animals strong. It tried to drive them in our direction, but the beasts fled to the east when they panicked.
I hope my prayers are soon answered more fully.
27 September. May Buddha forgive me. I have waded in blood until my clothes stink of it. I lost count of the number of times I had to clean the blood off my chainsaw. The hacked-out tusks are piled high beside the tents.
The guests were supposed to shoot only the bulls, but when the herd stampeded, fear took over our minds and we slaughtered them all—bulls, cows, even calves. I alone killed five bulls and a like number of cows, though I believe that through fortune I spared the little ones. I could claim to have been protecting the rich men, but the truth is, I was protecting myself.
I should be triumphant, for now my family will have food to last the coming winter.
I am not. I am ashamed. Yet, even in my shame, I check my gun for the morrow, making sure that its magazine is full. We shall hunt again.
5 October. Even though the trucks are half-empty, we are burying the tusks in pits. I know not why when everywhere we leave heaps of flesh and bone to paint the snowfields red.
Mahmud is busy with some instrument that I do not recognize. He tells me he is making a map.
At least the killing has stopped ... but the reason is shameful. There are no longer any living mammoths within fifty miles of our camp.
Tomorrow, Mahmud says, we will go home. Our guests will take only memories, but we will take something more tangible. Though not in our trucks. Something to do with the natural ageing process—often I do not understand what Mahmud tells me.
I know I am not permitted to take any of the ivory, but I am unable to resist temptation. I have stolen a tusk, a small one, and hidden it beneath the baggage in one of the trucks. I have bribed the driver to look the other way when I recover it.
I have no fear that he will betray me. Like me, he needs the money.
* * * *
My mind was in turmoil. It really was turning out to be the damnedest case. “Virtual reality?” I hazarded.
“It's a possibility,” said Marcia. “But it's difficult to see what motive there would be for such a deception. Someone needed Tsong to act as a bodyguard, not just think he was one. So the hunt must have been real."
“Which means that the mammoths must have been real, too,” I said.
“Yes."
Why did I always say the obvious when talking to Marcia? It made me look like an idiot. “Why did Tsong steal the tusk?” I said. “He must have known it would be dangerous."
“I imagine he was going to sell it, to help feed his family."
“But he kept it! Under the bed, wrapped in pink paper!"
“I don't think he planned to. According to some fragmentary records in Lasa, his family died while he was away, in the famine of ‘21. We don't have any dates for the deaths of his children—record keeping was a bit primitive then. But we know his wife, Tenzin, was the last to go, and she died on the 4th of October. Those facts are on the database."
One day before he came home. “So—he decided to keep it. As a souvenir? Something he could always sell if he was short of cash?"
“As a reminder of his shame, I think."
I found it necessary to break the silence. I was close to tears. I tried to focus. “So ... somebody is cloning mammoths, maybe hidden away in the wilds of one of the minor republics. They drug Tsong and the other hunters so that they think the drive lasts only half an hour, but in reality it may have been days.... They bury the tusks for later reclamation—"
Marcia had raised one eyebrow.
“You're right,” I said. “It makes no sense. Why not take the tusks with them in the trucks? And if there was some reason not to, why bother to bury the remaining tusks, when they'd left mammoth corpses piled in heaps? There'd be no point in concealing them, and in the freezing conditions the evidence would hang around for months, maybe years. Anyone finding the bones would soon spot the pits."
“That's one argument against the cloning theory,” said Marcia. “There are about fifteen others."
I stared at her. “So—what do you think happened?"
“Officially, I have no idea."
“And unofficially?"
“Someone set up an expedition to hunt real mammoths, some place on Earth. They sold places in the hunt to rich men looking for kicks, with a profitable sideline for themselves in ivory. They killed hundreds, buried the ivory. For later collection, obviously. They probably came back for it without their guests, but if so, Tsong's diary doesn't mention it."
“The mammoths have to be clones,” I said. “The carbon-dating says the tusks are modern."
“Not exactly,” she said. “The carbon dating shows that very little time has passed since the mammoths that owned the tusks were killed."
I tossed this thought to and fro in my mind, puzzled.
“It's the same thing,” I said. “Isn't it?"
“Take a look at this."
* * * *
I was just leaving to meet with Salima when a package arrived. Although it was small, I opened it carefully—SCITES investigators, even ones that thought they were operating undercover, have been sent bombs before.
It wasn't a bomb. It was entirely harmless.
It scared the hell out of me.
Salima was waiting at her apartment. We both started to speak at the same moment. We each had something to tell the other, something we were excited about, something that couldn't be discussed in public.
We tossed a coin, and I went first.
I told her about Tsong's diary. Then I told her what Marcia had said, just before kicking me out of her office.
“They'd worked out where the hunt was, you see,” I said. “There were mountains in the background of one of the photos, and although
everything was covered in snow, the outlines were clear enough to pin the location down to within a few miles."
“So? Where?"
“Siberia,” I said. “Some foothills to the northeast of the Khrebet Cherskogo."
“Okay, so there's a mammoth clone farm in Siberia."
I laughed, without humor. “Wrong on all counts, except mammoths and Siberia."
“Huh?"
“They're not clones. It's not a farm. And the present is the wrong tense."
I could see the penny drop. “You mean—"
“There was a glacier visible in one of the photos,” I said. “Today, all that remains is a glacial valley. The terminal moraine is still there, and the time when the glacier reached that position can be dated from the rocks."
“And?"
“The photo was taken 11,000 years ago,” I said. This was going to be difficult. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I had very little, and all of it circumstantial.
I could see the scepticism on her face. “But that—"
“Means someone had a time machine,” I finished for her. “Or a time-warp, a time-gate. Some way to access the past."
“Oh, come on, Mike! That's pretty far-fetched!” She gave me a hopeful look. “You are joking, aren't you?"
“Unfortunately not,” I said miserably. “Look, it was Marcia's idea, not mine! Yes, it's crazy, but—it's the only thing that fits. I looked up time travel on the Net, and apparently it's possible in principle. But all known methods are hopelessly impractical."
“I'll bet. But you think—"
“I think some bright person found a practical one. Then I think one of the triads got wind of it, stole the gadget or put pressure on its inventor. Being of limited imagination, they decided to use the time machine to advance their latest scam."
“But you said Tsong's tusk dates as modern—oh."
“Precisely. That fits too. He brought it back with him through the time-gate. So its carbon-14 atoms only had a few years to decay. In its own time-frame, it is modern."
“Whereas by burying the main bulk of the tusks, in a known location—"
“They could leave them to age convincingly, and dig them up in the present day,” I said. “No point in burying the rest, it would just need a bigger hole."
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