Mammoth Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

woolly mammoth.
    O O O
    The smoke of green branches and dry wood wafted up from the campfire, crackling with a pungent, sweet bitterness. Alex breathed deeply, smelling the heady primal scent. Hidden in the gathering darkness, insects and night birds set up a simmering background music that seemed to come from a different time altogether.
    Below them in the valley, under the light of the waxing moon and a billion stars in transparent Montana air, the herd of elephant-mammoth hybrids settled down for the night. Many of the big dark shapes still moved about restlessly. While some slept like mounds of dirt near the watering hole, others paced around, munching on sedge grass. Eerily, some of the mammoths on the fringe looked as if they were keeping watch.
    Cassie busied herself, happy to be out camping, much more comfortable here within sight of her mammoths than up around the administration buildings. She never tried to understand the protesters, preferring to ignore them by staying far from the gate. “People always find something to complain about, especially when somebody else is successful,” she had said once.
    The young woman had outdone herself with the fire, the bedrolls, the childishly simple dinner of hot dogs roasted on twigs over the flames, a speckled blue-enamel coffee pot hung over the coals. All they needed was marshmallows (and Alex wouldn’t have been surprised if Cassie had them stashed in her saddlebags). A perfect evening, in every detail.
    Helyx could have provided the most sophisticated camp equipment, thermal chargers for foodpacks, heated sleeping bags and damp-resistant tents. Alex could have assigned workers to set up comfort-weave tents, groom the clearing, erect tables, string lanterns, even prepare a gourmet meal.
    But this was better, much better.
    “When do we start singing ‘Kum-bay-ya’?” Alex said with a grin to his wife.
    “I have a strummerpack,” she answered, calling his bluff.
    Alex’s implanted pager tingled, and he recognized the source. He reached up, touching a contact point. “What’s the trouble, Ralph?”
    Helen frowned at him, mouthed the words, I thought you turned that off?
    “Can’t figure, Boss.” His usually casual voice now sounded pinched with concern. “We’re getting pinged by microwaves. Somebody’s interrogating a passive receiver. Must be located somewhere around the ranch buildings.”
    “Not one of ours?”
    “No chance. Just a simple incoming pulse from some airplane, flying pretty high. Don’t think anybody could get much from that, maybe just a location marker. The pulse could be hitting some tiny receiver that shoots it back with a li’l information attached, I’d guess. Not powerful enough for us to track down where it is, though.”
    “Probably some new gear brought in by the demonstrators at the gate,” Alex suggested. He didn’t need a new technical puzzle to ruin his jealously planned evening.
    “Could be, Boss. Those Evo types have plenty to spend on new toys.”
    “Keep on it.” He disengaged the pagerlink, saw both Cassie and Helen staring at him with concern. He made a placating gesture but didn’t volunteer any details. The ranch hand would assume it was yet another corporate emergency such as had canceled their first three outings; Helen, though, could read his expression much better. Her molasses-brown eyes trapped him again, looking like bottomless wells in the smoky campfire shadows.
    He leaned against Helen as they both stared into the throbbing orange and yellow embers. Their clothes smelled of sweat mixed with the musk of mammoths. Alex preferred this sharp but resonant aroma to the infrequent, expensive perfumes his wife felt obligated to wear at ecological fundraisers—like the recent one she’d skipped in Miami.
    Under the stars, Alex helped with the bedding down chores, glad for the chance to get his hands dirty rather than just pound on a computer keyboard all day. It felt good, and safe, to be out here,