Stephen Baxter - Icebones

Autumn came to stand behind Icebones.

Breeze joined her.

And even the calf faced the crowd of mammoths, his tiny tusks upraised as if he was ready to take them all on.

"We are your Family, Icebones," Autumn said. "On that long journey, I became We. And now we stand with you."

"And me," growled Boaster, adding his massive presence. Icebones touched his trunk with affection and gratitude.

Chaser-Of-Frogs came waddling up, scattering drying mud. "None of you is as handsome as me. But Bones-Of-Ice taught me we are all Cousins, and she spoke the truth — and that truth saved me. I am proud to be your Family, Bones-Of-Ice. I become We."

Autumn trumpeted, "Spiral. Join us."

But Spiral, standing close to the Ice Mammoths, postured and pranced, as if for an invisible audience of Lost.

But now Thunder emerged from the crowd. He approached Spiral. Another young Bull followed him, unknown to Icebones.

Thunder called, "I recall how it was for you on that distant Mountain, Spiral. The Lost pampered you and praised you — but they took away your calves."

"It is true," Autumn said. "Daughter, you recall the Lost with affection. But in truth they hurt you as no mother should be hurt."

Spiral trumpeted, "Leave me alone — oh, leave me alone!"

The other Bull stepped forward. His tusks, though still immature, were long and smooth — and they made neat curls that were, Icebones saw, an exact match of Spiral’s own. He walked awkwardly up to Spiral. He reached out with his trunk, and probed her mouth and trunk tip and breasts. "But I cannot leave you alone," he said thickly. "Have you forgotten me, mother?"

Spiral stood stiff and silent, eyes wide. Then she cried out, pain mixed with joy, and wrapped her trunk around her son’s face.

Icebones pealed, "This is how it is to be mammoth: mother with calf, Families together, herds of Bulls strong and proud. We have no need of the Lost. All we need is each other. Join me now. Join my Clan."

And, like an ice floe slowly melting, the group beyond the Ragged One lost its cohesion. One by one mammoths broke away from the disciplined mass, to join Icebones and her Family.

Spiral came lumbering stiffly to her mother, her trunk still wrapped tightly around the head of the calf that had been taken from her long ago. Autumn embraced her daughter gruffly.

A massive tusker came up, dribbling stinking musth. He tried to get closer to Breeze, whose oestrus smell was still powerful. Curtly Autumn shielded her daughter from his attention.

A part of Icebones was amused that even now the deeper story of life went on.

Thunder joined Icebones. She nuzzled his mouth affectionately. "Well done," she said. "You have made the difference, I think…"

"I thought it would work," Thunder said softly.

"What do you mean?"

"I thought Spiral might have run off to join that ranting fool. I found the calf two days ago. I thought he might come in useful. So I kept him distracted until now."

Icebones was astonished. "How can you think in such a devious way?"

"Just be glad I am on your side," Thunder said modestly.

Cold-As-Sky snorted. "But what of us, Icebones?" The Ice Mammoths were breathing fast, their blue tongues lolling. To them, Icebones recalled, the thin, clean air of the Footfall was dense and clammy and much, much too hot. Cold-As-Sky said, "If I join you, I die. If the Tree makes your world, it destroys ours."

Autumn turned on the Ragged One. "You see why they followed you? Even these strange creatures cared nothing for the Lost, for your dreams. All they wanted was to smash the Tree, for they understood its importance, as Icebones did. You are a fool — you let them use you—"

Icebones touched Autumn’s trunk to still her.

Thunder said unexpectedly, "But you need not die, Cold-As-Sky."

The Ice Mammoths inspected him suspiciously.

In brief phrases — illustrated with much stamping and growling — he told them of the Fire Mountain, where he had been born. "It is high," he said. "Higher than your High Plains, the highest place in all the world. No matter how hard this Tree breathes, that Mountain’s summit will still be a place of cold and thinness and ice."

Cold-As-Sky said to Icebones, "Is this true?"

Icebones glanced at the Ragged One. "She knows it to be true. We walked to the summit, and saw breathing trees… Yes, you could live there, Cold-As-Sky."

"But it is half a world away."

Now Breeze’s calf stepped forward. "I will lead you," said Woodsmoke brightly. "I have walked half the world. I will show you how."

Breeze cuffed him affectionately but proudly, for he stood tall and determined.

Cold-As-Sky rumbled, and her Ice Mammoths clustered around her.

Then, hesitantly, Cold-As-Sky stepped forward and stood behind Icebones. Her Family followed.

The Ice Mammoths smelled of ice and iron.

At last the Ragged One was left isolated.

It is done, Icebones thought. Her sense of relief was overwhelming, leaving her weak.

"You have defeated me," said the Ragged One bleakly.

"No. We are not Bulls battling over a Cow. There is no defeat, no victory. Be with our Family."

"You don’t understand," said the Ragged One. "You have never understood. I cannot become part of your We."

"That isn’t true—"

"But it is, in a way," said Chaser-Of-Frogs.

"This muddy thing is right, Icebones," said Cold-As-Sky, ignoring Chaser-Of-Frogs’s bristling. "She is mammoth, yet she is not — just as we are.

"I told you we have our own legend, our own memories. We know we were set down on a world where nothing could live — nothing but ourselves, and the blood weed and other plants which feed us. And we recall the first of us all — for those first had no mothers."

Chaser-Of-Frogs said grimly, "I hate to ally myself with one so ugly as this, but our memory is the same. In the beginning there were no mothers. There was no Cow, no oestrus, no consort dance, no mating…"

"Then how did you come to be?"

"The Lost made us," Cold-As-Sky said simply. "They took the bones of mammoths who died long ago, and ground them in the blood of others — remote Cousins called elephants who lived in the warm places. And, out of the mixing, came—"

"Us," said Chaser-Of-Frogs sourly.

"It was not enough for the Lost that they brought mammoths to this place," said Cold-As-Sky bitterly. "They had to make us into things of their own."

Icebones asked, "But why? Why would they do this?"

Autumn growled, "Perhaps they were in musth, and sought to impress their females."

"No," said the Ragged One. "They loved us. They loved the idea of us. This is what I believe. They wanted to remake us, to bring us back from the extinction to which they almost drove us, to give us this new world where there would be room for us to browse."

Autumn walked up to the Ragged One and ruffled her sparse, untidy hair. "If it was love, they loved us too much," she said gruffly.

"And that is why you sought to wreck the world," Icebones said, understanding at last. "That is why you wanted the Lost back so badly. Because they made you."

"Enough," said Autumn. "Give this up. Join us now."

The Ragged One hesitated, agitated, distressed. She reached out to Autumn, raising her trunk — and, briefly, Icebones believed it might be possible.

But then the Ragged One trumpeted wildly. She pushed past the Ice Mammoths and lumbered away.

Icebones made to go after her, but Autumn held her back with her long, strong trunk. In a moment the Ragged One was lost among the mammoths — and Icebones sensed that she would never see her again.