G w thomas and david bai.., p.13
G. W. Thomas & David Bain, page 13
I nodded.
“You’ve come on your own,” it said. “No. You were with someone else, but he was killed.”
I knew the creature was reading my mind and I didn’t need to say anything, but I felt I had to. “His name was Dag.”
The creature nodded, obviously a gesture it had picked up from us. “I understand your mind,” the creature said. “I will tell you of what you are seeing only because I know you will not tell anyone else until you are dead.”
The words struck me as strangely morbid. This creature was talking about my death, even though I knew I had many orbits left in my life. At least, I hoped I did.
“Fifteen orbits before your ship crashed,” the creature began. “Our scientists realized we were nearing the Omega Point in our development.”
I stared at the creature, and it immediately understood that I didn’t understand what it was saying. “We are nearing the point where we could not know what our mental and technological development would bring us in the future. We therefore decided it was time to control our own futures. We began to hone our mental abilities. We developed this chamber, and others like it. The crystalline structure allows us to interlock with the other minds of our species. Together, we hope to evolve into a state of pure consciousness. A state where we will no longer need our technology or our bodies.”
The creature was speaking simply enough for me to understand, but the thought of what I heard still seemed difficult to comprehend. “You only do this in the winter?”
“Some of us work towards our goal throughout the entire orbit, but we all work together in the winter. Our distance from our sun in winter allows us to avoid more of the radiation and neutrino emissions that distort the natural wavelengths in which this crystal vibrates.”
“Why didn’t you want us to know?”
“Although we like your species, we don’t entirely trust you. We know that you have a very bloody history, and the truth is, we’re vulnerable at this time of year. You alone could walk into this chamber and kill more than a hundred of us before we’d become aware of your presence. Only twenty of us stay outside the crystals during winter, and we can’t be everywhere.”
“Do you really think we’d come and kill your species?”
“Probably not,” it said with several quick head bobs. “We also know what your species is capable of, even if your species doesn’t.”
I stared at it through squinted eyes. It was starting to make even less sense.
“Your species is nearing the point where these chambers could help them.”
“You mean to evolve like you’re trying to do?”
“Yes.” That seemed impossible to me. We were nothing like the Coltao. “You are like us in more ways than you know,” the creature said. “Now, Finn, it is time to return you to your home. Someday your species will embrace this idea, but I doubt that you will lie to see it. Perhaps you can be instrumental in bringing about the change that is necessary for your species.”
THAT was more than forty orbits ago. The Coltao disappeared from the planet five orbits ago. No one knows what happened to them. No one, that is, except me. Now, as I lie here dying, I know that Nerthus must know of my experiences. That is why I have set these words down. It is my hope, that as the Coltao said, I will be instrumental in brining about change. Therefore, I give you the truth about the secret of the Coltao, so that you may grow, and understand, and change. They are still with us, maybe even watching over us. I don’t know.
Now, my only wish is that I could see the change you’ll bring. I wish I could see what the human race will become, but I’m afraid my time on Nerthus has expired. So, as you each begin your new journey, I begin my own. Maybe we will meet again someday.
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THE CRY OF A CHILD By Dana L. Solomon
“LOOK into the face of a monster.” Wheeler pointed across the tiny courtroom at LeClaire’s forehead and waited while the jury followed the line of his forefinger. “The face of evil on a human body.”
He stared into LeClaire’s eyes, cold and dead in the gas lamps’ flicker. Outside the windows, the brief noonday twilight had already faded over the snow that covered Baffin Island like a still, gray ocean. The last sun had set over Rangnisting six weeks ago, after a day that lasted half an hour. It wouldn’t rise until March.
“It would be unjust to call him an animal,” Wheeler continued. “Animals kill for food, to defend themselves or their young, with no malice, out of simple instinct for survival.
“Nor is he a common murderer. Murderers kill for revenge, for gain, out of rage or hatred. This man killed purely for pleasure. And who did he choose as his victim?” Wheeler stopped again and let out a heavy breath.
“A little girl. Not a Christian, as his lawyer has pointed out, but a little girl nonetheless.” He punctuated this sentence with a contemptuous glance at the barrister on LeClaire’s right. “Her name was Naja. She was ten years old.
“All this morning, you heard the medical examiner, come all the way up from Yellowknife, just to tell you, in vivid detail, what this man did to her. For hours. For pleasure. Just to hear the cry of a child.
“The cry of a child,” Wheeler repeated. “A sound designed by God and Nature to trouble the human heart, inspiring it to assuage the suffering of the most vulnerable among us.” Again he pointed at LeClaire. “That same sound inspired in him only joy, sheer delight at her terror and her suffering.
“Now that child cries out again. Her father cries out with her.” He scanned the far rear left section of the courtroom, reserved for the Esquimaux, for Juat’s pudgy form. “For Justice.
“We may live at the furthest reaches of civilization, the northernmost boundaries of Christendom, but we are still civilized, still Christians. This child’s life was no less worthy than a Christian’s, and her murder no less terrible. And her murderer deserves no less punishment.”
Wheeler stepped back to his desk and sat down, looking impassively at the floor while the judge charged the jury. The usher escorted them out the back door of the courtroom to the small Inn that served as the deliberation chamber. Two Mounties fastened irons around LeClaire’s wrists and started leading him out to the jail.
“You wrong about one t’ing, boss,” said a voice behind him. Wheeler turned and looked up into Juat’s flat face.
“What’s that?”
“De polar bear. Especially de old one. He like to give pain, give fear. Sometimes more den to eat.” Juat sat down next to him.
“I once seen de polar bear find a caribou. He could kill it, one wap of his paw. Instead, he just break de back leg. But he no kill it. He make it run. I seen him chase dat poor caribou five miles, on de cripple leg, bleeding all across de snow. Once, twice he hang back, he hide, make de caribou t’ink it finally get away, then he come hit it again. After dat, he keep hit it, give it more pain, every time it slow up, but he no kill it. When it finally fall down and die, he almost look sad, you know?”
“I didn’t know that. I thought we were the only animals that tortured.”
“Nah. You get a polar bear on you tail, you in for a world of pain.”
“Fortunately, I never had the pleasure. Have you?”
“Once. Wid de qamutik, de dog sled, all the way nort’, to Nanisivik. He track me for miles. De dogs, dey don’t outrun him, he go easy faster than dey go hard. I no got de rifle, I lose my spear and all I had were de skinning knife.”
“How did you get away?”
“I leave him de offering.”
“Offering?”
Juat nodded. “I stop de qamutik and take one of de dogs—de oldest. I hate like anyt’ing to do it, he been wid me for years. I take him a few feet away where de oder dogs don’ see, and I cut him throat. I leave him as de offering and de bear he eat de dead dog and stop chasing me and de rest.”
“Helluva story.” Wheeler shuddered. “Good thing I never go outside without my hunting rifle.”
“De rifle, dat’s best. You got de rifle when you meet de polar bear, you get de good skin and a lot of meat to bring to de family. De knife, it don’t help.”
“What if that’s all you have?”
“Dat’s when you die. Slow and painful. Better you cut you own t’roat and save you de misery.”
Both waited in silence, staring out the window at the blackness of the day. “Since my wife die, my daughter been de most precious t’ing in my life, Juat said at last. “Dey no convict him, no?”
“They might.” Wheeler tried to make his voice sound reassuring.
Juat shook his head. “De French trappers, dey no convict another French trapper, not for killing de Inuk kid.”
“We’ll just have to hope they’re people, not polar bears.”
LECLAIRE rubbed his wrists where the shackles had chafed him and glared back at the courthouse. The whole business had been a lot of trouble. He’d lost at least a hundred pounds sterling worth of skins from spending six weeks in jail instead of tending his traps, and he’d had to pay the barrister another fifty.
No matter. They’d given everything back, his knife, his keys, his hunting rifle. He could make up most of his losses in one good fur season. He just had to wait, a good long while before the next kid. Either that or move again. Folk’d told of good trapping over at Igloolik, across the Foxe Basin. He’d moved so many times in the past ten years, he’d lost track.
He turned his snow shoes in a careful maneuver and stomped along the roadway, barely visible beneath five feet of snow, toward his shack on the outskirts of town.
Was it worth it? He shrugged. It had certainly been a delicious night. Wheeler, that bastard who tried to get him hung, was right. There was something he loved about that sound, the cry of a child. The pain and fear on the little ‘nuk brat’s face had made it even sweeter. He’d certainly felt enough pain and fear, enough times in his life, starting when he was no older than she was. Now it was over, and he was still free. Maybe there was a greater justice at work.
A dozen dogs yelped behind him and a sled whooshed past. It slowed for a moment and the ‘nuk on the back turned and stared at him. LeClaire flipped his rifle into his hands, and the sled sped up and disappeared over the next rise. He slung his rifle back over his shoulder. Maybe it was the father, maybe a friend of his, but who cared. And who could tell them apart, even in sunlight?
The moonrise eased the darkness of the day, a bright sickle riding low on the horizon, and by its light, he made his way over the snow fields. Wherever he’d lived, starting in the old days on the St. Lawrence River, just north of Quebec, he always had his place far outside the city, the town, the settlement, far away from the nearest neighbor, white, redskin or ‘nuk. He liked privacy. And those few special times, he’d been lucky there was no one around to hear the screams.
He reached the upper door to his shack, since the lower had been buried since November, unlocked it and stepped inside, steering by memory rather than sight toward the oil lamp on the back table. The matches were still dry, and he struck one and lit the lamp.
The snow had blown in past the threshold, leaving a powdery layer across the floor, like frozen dust, and even with sealskins over the clapboards to break the wind it felt colder inside than out.
He shut the door, slipped off his snowshoes and lay down on his cot. One more fur season, then it was definitely time to move again.
He started at a sudden crash, an ice chunk smashing through his one window. He snatched up his rifle and threw the door open, but all he could see was the moon’s reflection on the snow. He fired a round into the cold air, and over the echo, a dozen dogs yelped in answer.
Before he could reload, a bola whizzed through the night and smashed the rifle from his hands. Short, squat shadows appeared as if rising from the snow. Another whizz and the three bones of a second bola wrapped around his wrists. One of the shadows closed in from his right side and he turned in time to see a club lower onto his head. His eyes closed and the moonlight and shadows faded.
LECLAIRE woke up flat on his back in the snow. He sat up and looked around in a panic. A cloud bank had passed overhead, and he could see only an endless darkness. It was two months until next sunrise. He could be minutes or miles away from town, and with nothing to guide him, he might wander in the wrong direction, toward the uninhabited heart of Baffin Island or off an ice sheet into the freezing waters of the Cumberland Sound.
Then the clouds parted and the sickle moon shone down on a familiar landscape, the hills overlooking the Pangnirtung Fjord. The lazy little bastards had only taken him a few miles South along its banks. He felt around him. He had on his heavy coat, hat and gloves, all caribou skin lined with thick fur, and his scarf was tied around his nose and mouth. His mucklucks were laced above his knees, his hunting knife hung from his belt, and his snowshoes lay underneath him, keeping him from sinking down into the five foot drifts.
Alone this far from Rangnisting, a prissy Brit like Wheeler would be frozen dead by morning, even with a crate of gear and supplies. To an old trapper like him, the nuks’ idea of revenge was no more than a school-boy’s prank. With a steady pace, the North Star ahead of him, and enough moon and starlight, he could make it back to town before the darkness of the next day. He’d lay low for a few months, then get a dozen trappers into a little posse, and what he did to the ‘nuk girl’d be nothing compared to he’d do to papa. Then he smelled the blood.
His coat, gloves and mucklucks were covered in frozen blood, and a light stench hovered around him like a salty soup, faint to his senses, but a dinner bell to every polar bear within twenty miles.
He dived into a snowbank and rolled in it until his hands and feet felt numb. He pulled himself upright, and in the dim light he could see dark stains on the white powder, and the scent was almost gone. The air was still, and if he made it down to the fjord, fifty feet below the surrounding snow fields, the scent would stay low, and he might get back to town before a bear got wind of him. He slipped his feet into the snowshoes and headed west.
Another cloud bank moved overhead, dimming the moonlight. He shrugged off a flash of fear. As long as he kept moving, he wouldn’t freeze, and as long as he stayed straight, he’d hit the fjord sooner or later. Then a sharp right, and an easy walk to town across the ice.
The clouds thickened and the white panorama darkened to gray. A light snowfall danced around him. He looked back over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t turned off course. A year after he first came to Rangnisting, a French trapper named Chapelin had gotten lost in the same terrain. When they’d found his body, his tracks showed he’d been about to close a circle five miles wide. He was kneeling in the snow and his hands were frozen together in prayer.
LeClaire started forward again, squinting against the sting of the snowflakes. The phantom image of a silent bear danced in front of him. It charged, then disappeared just before it struck.
LeClaire kept walking. By the angle of his showshoes and the outline of the hills rising ahead he could tell he was moving downwards, and he remembered the shallow valley just before the last bluff overlooking the fjord.
Another image, a shadow the same gray as the snow, flashed in the corner of his eye, this time leaving the sound of a low rumble as it vanished.
He pulled out his knife, no weapon against a polar bear, but better than nothing. He tried to walk faster, but the clumsy snowshoes kept him at a slow waddle. The growl sounded closer, louder, first behind him, then right, then left. He brandished his knife and slashed at the whirling snow. Suddenly, it was quiet. The terrain turned upward again, the falling snow tapered off and his steady footfalls brought him within a few yards of the rise.
In a thin sliver of a second, before he could breathe to scream, the shadow flashed again. A paw whipped out and slashed through his breeches above his left muckluck, into the flesh of his thigh.
A new sound echoed across the wasteland, ringing for a full five seconds before he realized it was his own voice, howling in agony. He lashed out with the knife, but the shadow slipped away. Twin coals glowed in the distance, the ghosts of two black eyes, and the growl sounded like laughter.
LeClaire bit off his glove and reached his hand down to the wound. It came back up cold, red and sticky with slushy, freezing blood. The bear charged again, a big boar male, lashing out at the same leg and this strike cut clear through to the bone.
Almost blind with agony, LeClaire tried to stab back, but bear pulled away as easily as a child playing tag and the knife glance off its shoulder. With a predator’s easy calm, it cut an arc at a lazy trot, then turned to face LeClaire, a flash of moonlight glinting off its white teeth. Panic overpowering pain, LeClaire pulled himself to the top of the rise. The bear padded behind him at an easy pace like a giant, faithful dog, not charging, not falling back, pausing only to lap up the droplets of blood that spattered on the snow.
