Mammoth Dawn (11 page)

Later, the Evos have to dash off into the bushes, each of them afflicted with Montezuma Junior.

O O O

Cassie and Alex have set up a small expedition to the northern section of the Preserve, where they will complete a survey of the sabretooth population: marking the cats, recording their habits, and taking a census of their population. It is a vital scientific mission, but it will also be a special time for the two of them, though neither will admit it.

He and Cassie are ready to go, fully armed with high-tech equipment, GPS locators, and a fast chopter. Then Alex receives word from his lawyer Randall LeVay about the news of the retrovirus found in the dwarf mammoths. The Senate Committee has summoned him to Washington DC and speak on behalf of the Resurrection Preserve. LeVay is fighting the summons, using every legal strategy he can devise, but Alex is confident he can sway the politicians.

He will have to assign Cassie a pilot and send her north to complete her studies without him. Alex is concerned about her going alone, but she has done this half a dozen times before, especially with her Library of Earth work. Cassie is very independent and better able to handle herself than most ranch hands. The chopter and mobile labs are all packed, and she is ready to depart for the northern security zone. Alex heads to Washington, where he will face a battle as fierce as a mammoth fighting a sabretooth. He must save the Preserve.

O O O

With Alex and Cassie both gone, now Zach Browder—left in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the Preserve—goes to Gregor’s private compound.

Zach has been taking bribes from Gregor for some time now, looking the other way while some of Gregor’s people slip into the preserve to harvest the narcotic ferns, to snatch a few dire wolves or occasional exotic species. The mammoth slaughter, though, went beyond the bounds. Never before has he particularly cared what Gregor did.

Though Zach has been Alex’s close employee for many years, he is like a resentful assistant who justifies embezzling company property, convincing himself that he
deserves
a salary more in keeping with his boss’s. He still holds to his environmentalist ideals, but thinks himself more realistic now. He has been taking money under the table from Gregor, sure that he’s “just getting his due, not really hurting anybody.”

The loss of one mammoth should have been no big deal, especially not for a richer-than-God businessman like Alex. Since mammoths in the wild would be culled by predators and diseases anyway, Zach had convinced himself that a single animal would not be an unacceptable loss. Though his motives aren’t as pure as Cassie’s, Zach does care for the animals, has vague ideals for protecting endangered species. But seeing the bloody mess and cruel ineptitude of Gregor’s hunters pissed him off. “That butchery was inexcusable!” He appeals to Gregor’s hunting sensibility, which actually sinks in.

Now Gregor is all charm and charisma, apologizing for the incompetence of his underlings and says he will reprimand the man who showed such poor judgment. Perhaps he will assign the clods to work on miserable fishing boats high in the Arctic Sea.

Gregor doesn’t want to lose Zach’s cooperation, especially now that he is starting to set up a distribution system for the psychotropic Pleistocene ferns. He reassures Zach that from now on, his people will only harvest some of the rare plants growing wild in the high meadows, and slip back out again. Zach grudgingly agrees, so long as it never goes beyond that.

O O O

A group of Gregor’s henchmen (without Psyk) slips through the Preserve fences and harvest big sacks of the curling ferns, then races back toward the boundary on their snow-skimmers.

When they enter the forest near the fence, however, they are surrounded and attacked by a pack of black dire wolves. These are ferocious predators, heavily muscled, with long teeth and powerful jaws. Thought to have died out after Alex reintroduced them to the Preserve, some of the dire wolves have interbred with native wolves, resulting in a very successful hybrid.

Gregor’s drug-runners try to defend themselves, but the dire wolves are smart, and cooperate, picking them off one by one. Only after the last man is dead does the pack begin to feast.

O O O

Suffering from Montezuma Jr., Kinsman and the Evos stumble across the Preserve wilderness trying to get to their pickup point. En route, though, the ailing eco-terrorists come upon the massacre site where the dire wolves have killed Gregor’s drug runners. They encounter the wrecked snowskimmers and the torn and unrecognizable bodies.

Among the carnage, Kinsman discovers sacks of harvested psychotropic ferns and wonders what these people could have been doing … and what predator killed them. Drugs, dangerous animals … Kinsman smiles. Exactly the kind of evidence he has been looking for.

He takes numerous images of the bloody scene, the mangled faces, the gutted bodies. Then he uploads them to a satellite receiver, knowing that these pictures will strike a more significant blow to Helyx Corp than the destruction of the Montana ranch.

O O O

Flying with one of the competent Helyx pilots Cassie goes into the northern wilderness of the Resurrection Preserve. She spends the day flying around at work, doing her species tally. Landing frequently, she walks among the muskox and caribou, counting mammoths, studying evidence of sabretooths (footprints, droppings), taking samples.

However, when the pilot tries to use the radio to transmit a report to Zach Browder, the radio won’t work. “We’re being jammed. What the hell?” With a whine and a pop, the chopter engine dies as if it has just been switched off. Even the static from the radio falls silent, all electronic systems gone dead. The chopter has been whomped by a powerful microwave pulse.

Out of control, the pilot wrestles with the chopter, which is falling like a rock out of the sky. At the pilot’s urging, Cassie bails out into thick snow. Then the chopter crashes into thick trees, killing the pilot and destroying the aircraft, the radio, their supplies.

Cassie picks herself up, shaken. Without a vehicle, without her sonic fence, without even a radio or a weapon, she is stranded and completely cut off—alone in a predator-filled wilderness.…

O O O

Proud and confident, Gregor Galaev hosts a grand hunt at his estate. This is what he’s been wanting all along—to start taking advantage of the Pleistocene treasure trove from the Preserve. He invites only his most special clients, including Hector Chu and Uruk Bey (the Samarkand clan leader who purchased his own breeding pair of dire wolves). Gregor shows them a cage containing a ravenous and ferocious sabretooth tiger, stolen from the Resurrection Preserve.

Zach Browder is there, making sure everything is done properly. All the high-end hunters are armed and equipped. This will be the first-ever hunt of modern man against a sabretooth, a history-making event. The sabretooth is turned loose, bounding out into the confines of the large compound. The dogs are sent after it. Eager hunters set out on the chase.

O O O

In the closed-door session in Washington, Alex defends himself. He admits there is some possibility that woolly mammoths originally went extinct because of a disease … mammoth AIDS? He dismisses rumors about the unusual Pleistocene allergies some workers have experienced on his preserve.

LeVay does a good job keeping the inquiries on track, sticking to the legalities. Both men know that pressure is mounting, and that powerful forces are trying to shut down the Resurrection Preserve. The Committee Senators ask Alex many rapid-fire antagonistic questions. “What sort of Frankenstein horrors are you creating with your genetic research up there?” “Why do you arrogantly refuse to allow inspectors?” Some Senators are more concerned that Alex is not paying his “proper share” of taxes, since he has poured all his income into “donations” to ecological organizations.

Then scowling Senator Fitch springs on him the shocking images of the murdered henchmen found on his preserve—Kinsman’s photos. “These were transmitted directly to the Committee.”

Alex is flabbergasted, knowing nothing about this. Remembering Zach Browder’s report of the mangled Kodiak bear, Alex cannot deny the clear evidence that dangerous animals must be loose on the Preserve. Now that dead bodies have been found, there must be an immediate investigation. LeVay tries stalling the Committee, but Alex cuts him off. “Murders were committed. We can’t deny the investigators.” Sylvia will put together an inspection team from her committee and they will be at the Resurrection Preserve within two days.

Alex departs immediately.

O O O

Cut off from outside contact, Cassie spends the night beside a blazing campfire. She has scavenged a few items from the chopter wreckage, buried the dead pilot, even nursed a burning branch from the crash so that she could keep a fire going. Always intrigued by the sabretooth tigers, she now feels a primal fear rush through her as the massive feline predators roar in the night, just outside the range of her firelight. She sleeps huddled inside the dubious shelter of the burned shell of the chopter.

A powerful tawny shape emerges from the darkness and slams into the vehicle, rocking it and leaving a large dent. With a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard, the big sabretooth rakes claws across the fuselage. But he can’t get inside. The sabretooth disappears back into the night shadows and waits.…

Cassie knows she won’t last another night like this. The chopter is mangled, and the big cats could probably break in if they tried again. The next morning, she scribbles a note and leaves it in the cockpit wreckage.

Then, armed only with a scavenged pistol, a compass, and a topo map, she begins her long walk across the Resurrection Preserve, stalked by sabretooths.

O O O

With plenty of tense action, Gregor’s hand-picked big-game hunters track the frenzied cat. The sabretooth kills one of the hunters, using its long fangs to rip open his throat and leaves him to bleed on the hunting grounds, which shakes up the remaining hunters. Gregor is not bothered—this is, after all, survival of the fittest.

While pursued, the big cat doubles back and surprisingly returns to the well-lit estate house, where Gregor’s daughter Raisa has been told to remain inside, guarded by Psyk’s son Nikolai. Gregor’s henchman Yuri (the loose-cannon who botched the mammoth-tusk hunt) has remained in the house, too, and makes a foolish mistake (leaves a door or window open), and the sabretooth gets inside the house and almost kills Raisa.

Trained as a hunter by his father, Nikolai defends Raisa with his own knife, bravely fighting the monstrous prehistoric cat. He kills it, but is himself mortally wounded. He dies even as Psyk and the hunters rush in. Psyk wails in grief.

Part III—Survival of the Fittest

When Alex returns from his grilling in Washington, he makes preparations for the arrival of Senator Chesney’s investigative team. Randall LeVay comes along to brief the ranch personnel and to look over their operations from a legal perspective.

Those concerns vanish in an instant, though, when Alex learns that Cassie hasn’t checked in. Zach has just returned from Gregor’s disastrous sabretooth hunt and is surprised that Alex is back already. He has just noticed that Cassie and the pilot did not check in as expected. Now, when Zach tries to contact her, he gets no response.

Normally, Alex would be confident that she can take care of herself, but now he has a strong, uneasy feeling. In no uncertain terms, Alex orders Zach to take him in another chopter. He leaves LeVay at the Preserve headquarters to take care of matters. “Senator Chesney be damned. I’m going to find Cassie and make sure she’s all right.”

O O O

During daylight, Cassie trudges along, leaving clear trail markings in case anyone comes to follow her. She has never been one to sit around and wait for help, though she hopes in her heart that Alex will come to rescue her.

In a clearing, she comes upon a herd of magnificent woolly mammoths. Filled with wonder, she watches them. One of the big bulls uses his long, curved tusks like a shovel to clear away snow and expose vegetation underneath.
(This is a controversial theory about mammoth behavior, based on the most current research.)

Cassie then watches the grazing mammoths as they seek out the weird psychotropic ferns—but when they eat the ferns, the beasts get frisky, then seem to go completely loco. Bull mammoths charge each other in a titanic battle, smashing thick skulls, clashing tusks like knights in a jousting tournament.

Cassie slips away from the primal duel, frightened by the ferocity she has witnessed, and wonders what could possibly be in those ferns.…

O O O

After the horrible death of Nikolai, Gregor sends Raisa back to her mother in far-off Moscow. Though distraught over the loss of her friend, she wants to stay in Alaska, but Gregor insists. Psyk stands beside them, stiff as a statue.

Gregor has just received a call from Senator Chesney, knows that she and her team are on their way to investigate the Resurrection Preserve. Raisa wants to see her buddy Sylvia, but Gregor puts her on the airplane. He must keep his daughter safe, and he knows that now things will get very ugly, very soon, and he does not want his daughter around. This is what he has been waiting for, and he knows that Alex will soon be out of the picture entirely.

O O O

Taking their chopter, Zach and Alex discover Cassie’s crash site far in the northern wilderness. They find her message and the buried pilot, so they know she is still alive. “We’re going to have to track her.” The two men set out to follow Cassie’s trail, noting the blaze marks on trees, footprints in the snow.

On her survival trek, Cassie shoots at the stalking sabretooths, reluctant to kill the animals she has worked so hard to nurture and breed, but finally she has no choice but to take one down as it charges her. The others don’t slow down at all. She scrambles up a tree, trying to get high enough that the cats will leave her alone, but they begin climbing after her. Things look very bad for Cassie.

Then Alex and Zach arrive, yelling and shooting to scare the big cats away. Cassie finally takes a shot at the closest big male on the branches climbing toward her. She barely nicks it with her bullet, but the noise startles it enough that the cat tumbles off the branch. The sabretooth limps away, snarling.