out to feed, so nobody seems to be worried about bears anymore.”
“What about the lass?”
“Her boyfriend called in, said their cave had been ransacked too; but he didn’t sound too concerned,” Lanyard replied, his eyes focused on the laptop computer screen.
“I wouldn’t be concerned about a wandering bear, either, if I was tucked into a cozy little cave with that young lady and an M14,” Gavin commented. “Not sure I’d even be getting around to the hunting part until tomorrow; and maybe not even then.”
“That’s the trouble with you hunter/killer types, mate,” Lanyard commented. “Just can’t get yourselves worked up to hunt things that don’t shoot back; especially when there’s a lively lass to be had.”
Wallis blinked, cocked his head and stared at Lanyard for a long moment. “Speaking of shooting,” he finally said, “what’s the status of the one-oh-seven’s auto-tracking system?”
“Back up and running,” Lanyard said, looking up from the laptop. “I replaced both feed cables, and now everything seems to be working fine. But I wasn’t too thrilled about that glitch you and Jack ran into, so I did what you suggested and re-programmed the auto-target-and-shoot mode with a safety feature so that the computer can’t trigger a round any closer than four feet to the original signal source, even if the source moves. My fault; I should have thought of that earlier.”
“That’s why we always want to conduct field exercises, to work the bugs out of the systems first,” Wallis said, sounding distracted. “Probably asking a bit much to have something this complicated working correctly right out of the box.”
“I think we’re going to be okay,” Lanyard said. “I put an option to disable the safety feature in the main menu; but I wouldn’t recommend doing that until we know more about that glitch. If you want, I can erase the entire auto-target-and-shoot mode from the drive until I have a chance to de-bug the program.”
“No.” Wallis shook his head. “What I want you to do now is get back into that computer and tell me everything you can about this Gunny Sergeant Bulattus.”
Outside Cave 2
“What’s the matter, don’t you want to eat my dinner and enjoy the warmth of our cave for a while?” Achara asked as she stood outside the cave and watched Bulatt lash the cross-tied branch barrier back into place.
“I very much want to eat your dinner, and I can’t think of anything much more enticing than that cave right now,” Bulatt said. “But if I stay in there and eat and enjoy, instead of taking you to see this, you’ll be mad at me for a very long time.”
He refused to tell her why, only that it was very important that she turn the stove off, get back into her cammo-white outer-shell tunic and pants, pick up the bow and quiver of arrows, and follow him.
“And you don’t want me to take the spears?”
“There’s no need,” Bulatt said as he slung the M14 rifle over his shoulder, and then took the unstrung bow from Achara’s hand and slid it over her shoulder into the quiver. “We’re not really hunting anything, and I can protect us with the rifle or the pistol if it becomes necessary; but, more importantly, I don’t want you to scare them.”
“Them?”
“Yes, them.”
It was dark enough now that both of them were wearing the night vision goggles, turning the surrounding rocks and trees into darker green shapes against the pale green of the snow that covered everything and still continued to fall; the big fluffy swirling clumps reflecting brightly in the beams of their IR-filtered flashlights.
On the climb back up the slope, Bulatt placed himself on Achara’s right, and kept his flashlight beam centered on the trail of mostly-filled boot prints — his from his recent trip to the outcropping — so that the expanse of rocks and clearings off to their right remained in darkness. At the top of the hill, he stopped.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes, of course I’m ready,” Achara said impatiently. “But I don’t see why — ”
In answer, Bulatt slowly swung the beam of his flashlight to the right until it centered on the two creatures that were standing still, staring back at the two figures in the darkness they could hear and smell, but only intermittently see.
“Oh my god, it’s true,” Achara whispered, her voice hoarse with disbelief as she centered the beam of her flashlight on the smaller creature standing calmly next to its mother.
“Apparently,” Bulatt said.
“I understand the science,” she said in a hushed voice, “but I still didn’t believe it could really be possible.”
“And now that you’ve seen it with your own eyes?”
“I… I want to see it closer,” Achara said. “Do you think we can?”
“They certainly know we’re here, and they don’t seem concerned,” Bulatt said. “I suppose it won’t hurt to get a little closer, so that they can see us.”
Slowly, cautiously, they approached the bait pile, expecting at any moment for the two creatures to suddenly spook or retreat back into the safety of the nearby trees.
But they didn’t.
Instead, the mother elephant and the smaller mammoth simply stood motionless and watched the two white-tunic-clad figures approach.
Twenty feet away, Achara stopped, knelt down, picked up a pair of apples with her gloved hands — the apples seemingly coated with some kind of sticky substance and oatmeal — stood back up, and then began walking again, even slower now, toward the waiting creatures.
She was less than ten feet away from the mother elephant, Bulatt maintaining a watchful but relaxed presence at her side, when the mother suddenly took three steps forward and extended her trunk out.
Achara stopped, hesitated, then took two steps forward of her own, and extended the apple out with her left hand.
Casually and gently, as if she’d done it hundreds of times before, the mother elephant swept the end of her trunk around the apple in Achara’s hand, and smoothly slipped it into her mouth.
The crunching sound of apple giving way under the grinding pressure of an elephant’s molars echoed in the crisp night air.
Achara was still watching the mother elephant, barely breathing in her excitement, and thus never saw the young mammoth come forward; until it suddenly yanked the other apple out of her hand with an impatient sweep of its smaller trunk, slipped it into its mouth, and began to crunch down loudly on the savory bit of fruit.
Then, as Achara stood frozen in amazement, the young mammoth began to probe her tunic pockets — presumably looking for another apple — while its mother watched with what Bulatt interpreted as calm parental oversight.
Seemingly frustrated by its failure to find more apples, the mammoth began probing higher up Achara’s tunic, and Bulatt suddenly remembered.
“The saliva,” he said softly. “Remember what Juliana said about the probes in the salivary glands of those Clouded Leopards. It could still be dangerous.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Achara said as she reluctantly stepped back away from the curious and playful mammal. “The probes should all have been excreted or destroyed by their immune systems by now, but it makes sense to be cautious.”
She watched, visibly saddened now, as the two creatures — apparently satisfied that they’d gotten all that was to be had from the two humans — walked back over to the bait pile and began feeding again.
High above Bait Pile 2
Standing silently on a granite outcropping that overlooked the bait pile where the two human figures continued to stand and observe mother and offspring select choice morsels, two similar — but at the same time, vastly different — creatures watched with narrowed eyes and tensed muscles.
Like the mother elephant and her mammoth-like youngster — but unlike Bulatt and Achara, who were hindered by the color background of their night vision goggles — these two genetically-altered mammals were able to make use of the intermittent green flashes of light that marked the bait pile to carefully monitor the actions of
