John Varley - Mammoth

He had taught the People primitive agriculture because he never grew to like one of their dietary staples, ground acorns. They had found desiccated tomatoes and potatoes in the larder and nurtured them, and Howard once more enjoyed fries and ketchup. Where had they gone? No book in his library mentioned a native California species of tomato. Lost knowledge, or was he changing the future? He had thought of doing more. He knew where to find copper ore. Why not make metals?

But... why? He had revolutionized his old world, and it brought him very little real satisfaction. He spent his billions on toys, or on dominating others, or in meaningless games with money. The People didn't even have money, didn't need it. He had revolutionized their lives, too... and his satisfaction was enormous. He had real respect among the people, instead of ass-kissing, fear, or envy. Sure, being a white god didn't hurt when it came to gaining respect, but as the years went by, as his family became their family, he one day came to the realization that he had one thing he had never had before in his entire life. He had friends.

Would he jeopardize that by inventing copper or bronze tools? What if he changed history and it turned out that he never came back here, never had his children, his family, his People? It was a thought too awful to contemplate.

And he didn't think it would work that way, that it could not work that way. Andrea had learned medicine, surgery, had saved the life of many a child who would have died without her help. The first time she did it he worried, they discussed it... and decided that anyone who could stand by and watch a child die simply because saving his life might alter the future, or destroy the universe... was not somebody either of them wanted to know.

The conviction grew in him that it would all work itself out in the way it had to be. The tomato and potato plants would die out. His technological innovation would either be forgotten, or the People would be conquered by a more aggressive tribe and some of their skills lost. The mammoths would still go extinct, and he didn't need to concern himself about whether it was his fault; the future would be as he remembered it.

But if that was so, he had some obligations.

AS the snow continued to fall, Howard dug the time machine out from where he had wedged it near his legs. How many hours had he wasted staring at the thing, trying to make it work? It was one of his few regrets, that wasted time. He rubbed his thumb over the hole he had patched with tar, the hole punched when Fuzzy had almost killed him. Then he fumbled a flint arrowhead from a pocket with a hand grown numb from the cold. His left hand, because his right was trapped beneath his beloved Andrea. He smiled again. Of course, being right-handed there was no possibility in the world that, one day, he would recognize his own handwriting. He began to scratch a message on the bottom of the battered aluminum case.

HE started his mission by domesticating mammoths.

He had a head start by his spying on Susan, preparing for his great coup of finally displacing Susan in Fuzzy's affections. He learned how they did it in Sri Lanka and Burma. He got the People to build the necessary surrounds and pens, to hobble the mammoths and break them to the ankus. He and his family and friends learned to ride them. And they set off across the southwest: his family, some of the best and brightest among the People, and six docile mammoths.

Oh, my, the saga he could have written about that mighty journey. Across country that would one day be home to Apache, Navajo, Zuni, Anasazi, much more hospitable now than it would be then but still harsh, still daunting. The tribes they met stood in awe of the People Who Rode Mammoths. There was never any question of fighting.

He had noticed that here on the plains there was the occasional hybrid mammoth, part woolly and part Columbian. He assumed they were mules. He captured and domesticated an old one and called him Fuzzy-Tu. Then he sat back and waited, knowing he would understand when the proper time came.

It was a long time. He had many grandchildren when Andrea came to him and said she was certain she had cancer. She had drugs that could help with the pain, but nothing that would cure it. He asked her if she wished she could be back in the twenty-first century, where therapy might cure her. She said the thought never entered her mind.

They were somewhere in the Dakotas at the time, he thought. They said their farewells to their family and to the tribe, and set off northward on the back of Fuzzy-Tu.

Winter closed in. Andrea got weaker. At last she asked him to give her the final gift, and he held her as she died. He continued north until Fuzzy-Tu was near collapse, then he sorrowfully killed the great beast.

He sat down to wait.

HE didn't try to remember the words. He let his awkward left hand do the writing, etching each line over and over until it was clear:

HAD A GOOD LIFE

NO REGRE

He stopped. He remembered it clearly now. He and Matt had assumed the time traveler had died before he could complete his message, unable to finish the vertical line of the T. But Howard was alive still, and though very weak, he knew he could go on. He could finish the message this way:

NO HARD FEELINGS MATT

How would Matthew Wright read that? Maybe, "No hard feelings, Matt." Maybe "No hard feelings, signed, Matt." Either way, it would surely change his reaction, and thus change history.

For a fractional moment, the old Howard Christian seized his hand. Write it, the old Howard said. Get the bastard. Just finish the T and add the S. NO REGRETS.

But he knew to the depths of his soul that if he tried to write one more stroke... a polar bear would bite his head off. A meteorite would come crashing from the heavens and kill him instantly. An earthquake would open a crack in the soil and swallow him up.

He had been thrown involuntarily onto this infernal, inevitable roller coaster, and it had turned into a merry-go-round. He had enjoyed the ride.

HAD A GOOD LIFE.

With the last of his strength, he hurled the flint away into the snow.

He closed his eyes.

Soon, a pair of white foxes approached the mound in the snow and started digging.

FROM "LITTLE FUZZY, A CHILD OF THE ICE AGE"

Well, maybe you can imagine the fuss when they opened the back of the trailer and found Fuzzy inside! And nobody even knew he was missing!

What happened next was confusing, and messy, and not very much fun. Matt and Susan were put in jail for a little while, but were quickly bailed out.

At the same time, Howard Christian, the mean rich man, and Andrea de la Terre, the glamorous movie star, vanished in a big boat that must have sunk somewhere, but nobody ever found it.

And then the lawyers went to work. When a lot of lawyers who are making a lot of money start to fight over something in court... oh, my! Things can take just forever to get worked out. Howard being missing didn't make any difference to the rest of the people who owned the circus where Fuzzy had been kept prisoner for so long. Oh, no! They fought and fought and fought to get Fuzzy sent back to the United States.

They have been fighting for almost five years now, and Fuzzy is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The lawyers tried to keep Susan away from him, but poor Fuzzy was so unhappy he wouldn't eat, so they had to let her stay. Now Fuzzy lives in a big preserve in the province of Alberta while the courts keep hearing his case. He will never have his family back, he will never enjoy the company of other mammoths... but he lives with some elephants and seems to enjoy being with them. He is out in the woods and valleys, under the bright blue sky and the lovely sunshine, and people can come and stand on a high observing platform and look at him. Some days they have to use telescopes, since his preserve is really big and he likes to wander around. You can see him on one of twenty Fuzzycams right now if you click right here.