Hannah Ross - The Last Outpost - An Antarctic Dystopia

Scott looked at Tahan, astonished. “This can’t be true, can it?”

“Why do you think so?” she sounded surprised. “There are places where one can see the bones of these terrifying beasts, great bones, much bigger than mulluvik. I see them once, up a path leading some way from the bay. It’s a hard climb, but I can take you there when the sun rises again. Not good to go there in the dark. And some elders claim,” she lowered her voice, “that they had seen not bones, but such a monster itself, whole and entire, frozen into a wall of ice, its great eyes open in a warning to the trespassers. That was many years ago, though. My grandfather told this to me when I was little.”

Scott was flabbergasted. He knew there had been dinosaurs in Antarctica, but there couldn’t have possibly been living specimens as recently as eight thousand years ago… could there? Yet the paintings upon the wall were surprisingly life-like, and the writings, too — it was a fact, actually, that the dinosaurs were cold-blooded and had lain eggs. The Anai tale corroborated this, in what was too much to be a mere coincidence. Theoretically, it was possible that some dinosaur species had survived in the unique sheltered conditions of the Geyser Valley. And the bones Tahan mentioned — their age could be analyzed, and if they were as fresh as she claimed, it would be one of the most amazing discoveries in the history of modern science!

“What are you thinking?” Tahan asked, seeing him stand for a long time before the wall paintings and the written symbols.

“I’m thinking how brave your ancestors were,” Scott said. “If they fought such enormous beasts and lived to tell the tale…”

“They had no choice,” Tahan said. “It was either fight the monsters, or be driven back to the Frozen Land and face certain death. So they fought, and they won. Men can do a lot of things when they know they have to.”

“That’s true,” Scott admitted. “Should we get going? I don’t want to be late for the feast.”

“Yes,” she said, glimpsing out of the cave. “The sun sets soon, and in the village they are spreading the feast. Come, Scott, let’s walk quickly.”

When they came back, they found Omrek ready and impatient to go. He was wearing a new and handsome tunic and breeches, the tunic fringed with fur and embroidered with seal-bone beads. “Hurry up,” he told his sister and Scott. “We don’t want to miss the dancing.”

“You mean to say, you don’t want to miss the dancing,” Tahan corrected him with a smile, “and we all know who you want to dance with.” She laughed with delight at her brother’s blush. “We’ll be ready soon, Omrek. Wait for us, and you can carry this big basket. It has the mulluvik. I will take the seasoning with me, and do it above the fire. Egan! Come here.”

The little boy came forward, and his mother regaled him with the clothes she had made for him in the weeks before — the soft tunic and breeches and new parka made out of the seal pup skin, and a new pair of little moccasins, quite similar to his uncle’s. Egan stomped around in delight.

“Thank you, Mother,” he said. “I made something for you, too.” He reached under the bedcovers and pulled out a small whistle made of seal-bone. Tahan blew it, and it emitted a gentle, fluttering sound.

“Oh, Egan, this is beautiful. Did you make it all yourself?” she said delightedly, kissing the top of his head.

“Uncle helped me,” Egan confessed, and Omrek grinned.

“Change your clothes, Scott,” Tahan said. “Here…” she pulled a very handsome man’s outfit from her storage basket. The tunic had the richest embroidery Scott had ever seen — triangles and diamonds and circles all made of tiny sinew filaments colored yellow and red and green, and a fringe made entirely of whale ivory beads that made a gentle clanking sound against each other. It had been the work of months, not weeks, and he knew each bead was made by Tahan’s hands with love and care.

“This is a very handsome tunic,” he said, straightening the bead fringe. “It must have been Daygan’s.”

“Yes, but here is something that did not belong to Daygan, something I made just for you.”

She pulled back her bedcovers and took out something soft and shiny and sleek, all bundled up, and placed it in Scott’s hands. He shook it out. It was a sealskin parka, long, handsome, and waterproof, with a deep hood to shelter the head and face. It had no embroidery or bead decorations, but the ivory buttons at the throat and chest were polished until they felt like silk, and the natural pattern of the fur was beautifully brought out. There was rich trimming around the hood and along the hem, made of, Scott was surprised to see, the same silvery seal pup fur that made up Egan’s outfit.

He put it on, as if in a dream. The parka fell down in soft folds, and he noticed it fit him exactly at the shoulders. Tahan smiled with delight.

“I got your shoulder width just right,” she said. “It looks good on you.”

“Very nice parka,” Omrek approved as well. “You should have one of your own, for Frozen Land winter.”

Scott swallowed a lump that for some reason came up and clogged his throat. “It’s… it’s beautiful,” he managed to squeeze out. “I have never had anything like this to wear, for my own, in my life. Thank you, Tahan. It must have been a lot of work.”

“Not too much,” she said. “I had the tanned sealskin from last year, and the buttons were ready too, I just hadn’t gotten around to making anything with them. And the trimmings were easy, I had the fur left over from Egan’s clothes.”

“Come, Tahan,” Omrek hurried her. “Put on your parka and let’s go.”

She looked at him reproachfully. “Like this? You should know better, Omrek. I must change my clothes. You go ahead — take the basket, and you, Scott, take this one. Egan, you can carry this bundle, it isn’t heavy. Go on, I will follow you as soon as I’m ready.”

Omrek rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You are joking. If we leave you here alone to dress, you won’t be ready until the sun comes down and up again after the dark season. No, we’ll wait for you, Tahan. Just hurry up.”

Tahan ushered them all behind the partition, where they sat on Omrek’s bed and patiently waited. Scott heard the rustle of clothes and the lids of storage baskets being opened and closed. Finally, she called out, “I’m ready!” and they came out. Scott had to fight down a small gasp.

She looked quite different from what he had gotten used to see her, in her customary sealskin tunics and breeches. She wore a saffron-colored dress made of grass fabric, one he had briefly seen before and admired, which was just a little less lavish than her wedding gown. A sash of ivory beads accentuated her waist, and the full skirts of the dress reached almost as far as the ground, with intricate embroidery along the hem. The sleeves were wide and embroidered as well. Tahan’s hair was twisted up and held in place by a long ivory pin. Egan let out a whoop of admiration and came forward to touch his mother’s skirt, and she smiled at the sight of the men’s expressions.

“Well, I’m ready now,” she said, “let us go.”

Feeling a little like a pack mule, Scott carried a leather sack of cooking utensils, in addition to the bag of food. They progressed carefully towards the village center, while the sun was low in the sky. The cooking fires and oil lamps were already lit, and a crowd of Anai, all festively dressed, was milling about. Some were already turning haunches of meat on sticks above the cooking fires, or placing closed clay pots in the hot surroundings of the flames. Once they approached, people came forward to formally greet Tahan, while she, in turn, came over to greet the elders. Scott felt a little self-conscious, and blended into the background, fumbling with the leather straps of the sack.