Title: Trail
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: PG-13 for moderate (mostly creature) violence, sexual dialogue
Summary: Grad students Don and Barbara embark on another adventure in evolutionary genetics, linking them once again to Starlight and the beasts of his world.
Notes: The sequel to Sequence. Contains spoilers for Sequence, obviously. Approximately 13,000 words. Eight chapters.



Chapter 1

PhD candidate Don Gregory stuck a green pin in western South Dakota on the large map of North America hanging on his office wall. He had just confirmed the presence of the Song sequence in another volunteer, an elderly gentleman from the Rapid City area. That made fourteen positive identifications, including himself, each represented by a pin. His research was proceeding fantastically.

Nearly a year ago, Don had discovered an unusual and apparently unnatural sequence of DNA in his own genome. Through a series of improbable occurrences, including visiting a cave that had played an essential role in the sequence's history, being kidnapped, and becoming a tabloid sensation, Don had discovered that the sequence was a portion of virus DNA that had been deliberately inserted into his own genealogical line. His prehistoric ancestor had infected himself with several strains of the virus in a precise order that mimicked the melodic progression of a family song. As it happened, the Song had also been passed down from parent to child through the ages, and Don had learned if from his now-deceased mother. Don was fascinated, and as a biology graduate student he had dedicated his dissertation to this remarkable story.

After the news of his discovery spread around the world, it had been easy for Don to obtain a federal research fellowship to search for the Song sequence in other people. Hundreds of volunteers had sent him tissue samples to analyze. Some of them reported that the Song was also traditional in their own families, although there was no way to confirm this. So far, everyone with a positive genetic ID lived in North America and either had known Native American ancestry or else did not have a good record of their family history.

"Mmm, I bet it feels so good to stick your pin in," exclaimed Barbara, watching Don add the latest datapoint as she entered the room. "And right in Mount Rushmore, too. Yeah, take it, George, you know you like it!"

"You're back!" cried Don, rushing to embrace her. "How was Africa?"

"Super sweet! I saw lots of kitties. Rar!" She snarled and scratched the air with her hand. Barbara, another grad student in Don's lab, had decided to study the genetics of disease resistance in lions, and had just returned from a month of field work. "But they're sick, a lot of them are dying of distemper. They spread it around easily because they're so social, more than any other cat. But that's what makes them so cool, that they can form relationships and look out for the other members of the pride, just like people do."

"You definitely picked an awesome study species, Barbara. I know it's clichéd to call them the king of beasts, but there really are, or were before we came along. Other than humans, they used to be the most widespread large land animal in the world - dominating ecosystems from Europe to South America."

"I know, I love them. Anyway, speaking of America, it looks like you've been busy," she said, pointing at the map. "Four new pins since I left."

"Yeah, I'm starting to get enough data to do some actual statistics. It seems to be clearly North American in origin. I can start to look at the frequency of new mutations to estimate how long ago it entered the human lineage, and possibly get a more specific location. That might tell me something more about when and where the Song originated."

"Do you think you'll be able to learn more about what the Song means?"

"I guess it's possible. Some oral folklore seem to refer to something that really happened in ancient times. The Klamath people of Oregon have a traditional story telling how Crater Lake formed from a volcanic eruption - and that happened almost eight thousand years ago. Of course, there's usually no way to prove that a myth is based on the real world… but this time genetics might be able to help me out."

"Have you looked in anything besides humans?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we sequenced the virus from those ground sloth remains. Maybe the virus was widespread enough that you can find it in, I don't know, some other fossilized DNA. That would give you an idea about where it occurred. It could be interesting."

"Sounds like a shot in the dark."

"Well, at least keep BLASTing for it every so often. Something could turn up on GenBank."

"Thanks. You look great, by the way. The tropical sun does a body good."

"Thanks," she beamed. "You too, champ. Although your AP photo makes you look like a mad scientist. Do you know they've even heard of you in Nairobi?" Barbara and Don were not really a couple, but they had a close emotional bond that was often indistinguishable from a poorly disguised mutual crush. At Don's suggestion, they had agreed to postpone any romantic involvement, to avoid the awkwardness of dating an academic sibling. Don had dark hair and the fashion sense of a typical science nerd. Barbara was short and attractively curvy and often wore her hair in braided pigtails.

Later that day, Don sat at his computer contemplating Barbara's advice. When he had first sequenced the virus, there had been no match to it on GenBank, save for the parts of its genome it had stolen from Ice Age megafauna. But months had gone by since he last searched, and new data were uploaded all the time. Any match could be a big clue into the virus' history. He ran a BLAST search.

The search returned five significant hits. All were from soil samples. A team of Canadian biologists had sequenced every gene from every microbe in portions of dirt from dozens of locations around the continent. Don opened a new box of pins, white this time, and stuck one in each field site where the virus had been sequenced. One was in Saskatchewan, two in Alberta, and two in the Yukon. As Don stared at the map, he couldn't help but notice that the pins were in nearly a straight line, from southeast to northwest. A trail.


10,338 years earlier

"Come here, Lump, that's not for you!" called Starlight to his pet. Lump, an adult male American lion, reluctantly turned away from the fresh horse kill that several hunters were carrying into the camp. He yawned, stretched, and bounded over to his owner. Lump did not have the extended canines of a sabertooth but he was just as massive. He was larger than a mountain lion, larger even than his tawny African cousins which he otherwise resembled. He weighed four times as much as Starlight and, from nose to tail tip, was twice as long. He was also more intelligent than other big cats.

Although Starlight had been badly behaved as a child, he was now an accepted adult member of his tribe. Everyone treated him with the respect than social norms required, but he was still rumored to be a bit unpredictable, even compared to other unmated young men, and a dangerous free thinker. There were several reasons for this, the most obvious of which was the feline predator Starlight kept in the camp. Starlight had had found Lump as an orphan cub. Lump's mother and siblings had died of a disease that had been killing most of the lions in the region for some time. He had appeared to Starlight as a tiny lump of living flesh, and thus had earned his name. The tribe was communal with dogs, but raising any other species, let alone a potential human-eater, was unheard of. Nevertheless, Starlight had taken pity on this infant of an increasingly rare species. Many creatures were becoming rarer, and it worried Starlight: horses, camels, mastodons, mammoths, sloths, and others. But not bison. Bison were everywhere.

Starlight distracted Lump from the butchers, and wondered how many living horses were still out there. Where were all the animals going? Was the tribe doing something wrong? He had come of age by inventing a ritual through which he had redeemed himself of his own past wrongs, and now he pondered whether a new ritual was needed.



Chapter 2

As Don contemplated his wall map, there was a knock at the office door. He turned and stared at an unfamiliar, extremely attractive woman. She was tall, thin yet muscular, and of East Asian descent. Her long black hair matched her leather jacket and boots.

"Are you Dr. Don Gregory?" she asked alluringly.

"Yes. Well, no," Don stammered. "I mean, I'm not a Dontor, I'm just Doc. I mean, the other way around. And I will be, in the future, but not a real one, well, yes a real one, but not, you know…" He stopped trying to speak, flustered.

She smiled. "Well future Dr. Gregory, I'm Frances. Frances Yu."

"How are you? I mean, I'm pleased to meet… I'm not trying to make fun you your name. But obviously you wouldn't be offended every time someone said…" Don stopped again and blushed. Although Don was shy, he was usually more articulate than this. It's the boots, he thought. And the hair. And the, well, the body.

"I hear you're looking for volunteers to give you DNA samples, so you can find who caries this mysterious Song gene," Frances said.

"Yes." replied Don, regaining confidence know that the conversation was solidly about science. "Yes. Do you know if you have any Native American ancestry? Because so far that seems to be where it comes from."

"No, future doctor. All four of my grandparents were born in the same village in northeastern China. My family history is quite clearly one hundred percent Asian. But here's the thing: it also includes your Song."

"What do you mean?"

"Your Song. We sing it in my family, too. I learned it as a child, just as you did."

"Mmm," Don replied, trying to hide his skepticism. "See, I've looked for the gene in Asians, but I've never seen it. My results indicate that North America…" he gestured at his map.

"The pins show where you've found the gene?" asked Frances. "What do the different colors mean?"

Don hesitated. In the past, he had gotten in trouble by sharing his research results with random strangers. However, his cerebrum was not really the organ in charge at the moment. "The white pins are the virus, the virus that I think the gene originally came from. It's been sequenced in some soil samples. They kind of make a straight line across Canada, don't they," he chuckled nervously.

Frances, with a look of awe, reached up and slowly ran her index finger along the map. Don felt a tingle in his spine every time her finger brushed a pin. "It leads to the Yukon," Frances intoned, almost as if Don were no longer in the room. Then she regained composure and turned back to Don. "In my family, there is a legend associated with the Song. It can help us trace the path back to the place where the Song originated. It's not clear why we're supposed to do this, but in my family we've always speculated there is something valuable hidden somewhere, like buried treasure, and the Song is like a secret treasure map that we guard closely. So, naturally, I got very excited when I heard about your research, and a little concerned. Now that you've made the Song widely known, it's time to figure out where it leads before someone else does."

Don tried to look like he believed her. The Song was world news now, and it would be easy to make up a story like this, although Don didn't know what the motivation for doing so would be. "That's very interesting. But I really don't know any more than you do. I'm trying to find out more, of course, but your family legend is unfortunately too vague to help us find anything new. I'd be happy to take a DNA sample, though."

"You can help. These virus remains lead somewhere. How would you like to go to these field sites and sample them more extensively?"

"That would be terrific, of course. But it wouldn't be easy. Some of them are pretty remote. I don't really have enough funding to justify…"

"I would pay for it, future doctor. What do you say?"

"Are you sure? I don't think you can even drive to some of these places. You need a float plane or something."

"I will charter a plane and fly it myself," she replied.

"You know how to fly a float plane?" Don asked, impressed.

"I do. And I will take you to these sites. Just you and me, solving the mystery together. Here's my card. Why don't you think about it and give me a call." She looked straight into his eyes. "I can't wait to hear from you." She winked, then immediately turned and left.


When Don told Barbara later, she was not impressed.

"Totally sketchy," she announced. "You can't just travel to another country with a complete stranger. Especially not one who's obviously lying."

"I don't know, Barbara, I mean her story is a little fishy, but this is a chance to collect in depth from the regions where the virus was found, and maybe get a more complete picture of where it has naturally occurred. For free, even. Who cares if she's full of it?"

"This woman was hot, wasn't she?"

"No! Well, she wasn't ugly, but that's hardly the same as saying…"

"You totally think she's hot! That's what this is all about."

"Geez, jealous at all?"

"I'm not jealous of some manipulative, shifty… Look, I lived with lions! I could take her on any day."

"I don't know, Barbara, she's a bush pilot. That's pretty hard core."

"I bet you'd like to be her bush pilot. I rescued you, remember? You think she would ever save your life?"

"Just calm down, okay, this isn't about you. Funding is funding, that's how science works, and if she wants to pay for my research, I'm going to let her."

"Well, I'm going with you," she said defiantly. "As your field assistant. If you won't turn down free funding, you can't turn down free labor, either."

"Fine, you can come too," he said flatly. "Happy to have you along."


10,338 years earlier

One day, a visitor arrived at the camp of Starlight's tribe. A woman, about Starlight's age. The Elders called for an immediate gathering of the whole tribe to hear the news from afar that she brought.

"My name is Stone," said the woman. "I come from the south. Where my people live, much of the game has disappeared. The great beasts we have always hunted are becoming harder and harder to find. We are not staving yet, but I fear that if the trend continues, we soon will be."

"The same thing is happening here," interjected Starlight. "Stone, my name is Starlight. Our animals are leaving us, too."

"It is even worse for my people" she replied. "For example, I have never even seen a lion." She gestured at the great carnivore snoozing near Starlight.

"They are disappearing on our lands, too. Lump here is the last one."

"I am traveling to seek a solution to this crisis. Perhaps there is a tribe that knows how to keep their game from dying. I see you are wise, Starlight, for recognizing the problem sooner than we did. What do you advise?"

Several members of the tribe grumbled and shifted their weight at the suggestion that Starlight was wise. Starlight's toddler cousin, sitting on her mother's lap, began to fuss at the unrest, and Starlight's aunt began to hum the Song to calm her.

"I observe that your tribe also sings the Song," observed Stone. "Among my people, there is a story about it. Long ago, a migrating tribe was having a heated argument. Half of the tribe wanted to travel and settle in one direction, toward a known productive hunting ground, and the other half wanted to forge a path into new lands and seek their fortune there. There was no way to maintain unity; the tribe would have to split in two. An Elder composed a Song that she taught to the two halves, and told them to teach it to their children. That way, if their descendants met in the future, they would know that they are of the same greater tribe and would not go to war. The Elder also created two identical bone flutes shaped like human figures. Each tribe would carry a flute, and this would also be a sign of their kinship."

There was a murmur in the crowd. Starlight blushed. Elder Unity spoke. "We have inherited such a flute. It is our most ancient heirloom. Sadly, it has been badly damaged. Nevertheless, we keep what is left of it as a bridge to our past." She reached into a pouch tied around her waist and retrieved the fragments of the flute Starlight had shattered years before.

Something clicked in Starlight's head. Everything was connected somehow. Stone's story could teach them about their past, which could help them understand their current ecological crisis. It was time to create another ritual.

"Stone, do you know how to find this place, this place where the Song was composed, this place where the tribe split?" he asked.

"It is said to be to the far north. No one I know has ever been there. It is quite far, I believe."

"I will travel north until I find it. I will bring the remains of the flute and reconnect with our tribe's history. I will find a way to set things right and stop our game from dying."

Once again the crowd murmured. Starlight and his bizarre rituals, they whispered. No one understood why he thought this journey would solve their problems, but several secretly believed that getting rid of him for a while couldn't hurt.

"I shall go with you," announced Stone. "You share my concerns, and my vision. We shall seek together this place of our heritage."



Chapter 3

Frances landed the Cessna float plane smoothly on a lake, where it rested on its two parallel pontoons. "Welcome to Canada," she said, as the propeller slowed to a halt.

"It's so pretty," observed Barbara, peering out from the left back seat at the surrounding rolling hills covered in the wildflowers of early summer. "Where do we collect?"

"Just in that meadow by the edge of the lake, where the purple flowers are," said Don, retrieving a vial of ethanol labeled Cypress Hills from the travel bag that slumped next to Barbara in the one unoccupied seat. "I think that's where the original sample was collected. But I'd like to collect more systematically around the area, too, to get a better picture of where the virus does or does not occur."

"We can help," offered Frances.

"I think you'd better leave the science to the actual scientists," said Barbara quite boastfully, given that there was nothing to do but put mud into plastic tubes. "I'll go collect at the north end of the lake, okay, Don? You stay in the plane," she commanded Frances.

"I'll help Don, so he can show me what to do," insisted Frances.

The put on waders, exited the plane, and sloshed over to the thick mud on the shoreline. Barbara did not head north but stayed with the other two, glowering at Frances. Don added a smear to his vial.

"So the alcohol preserves the DNA, future doctor?" asked Frances.

"Yes, obviously," interrupted Barbara. "And don't call him that. You know, I'm getting my PhD too, but…" she paused. "That bush just moved. There's something in that bush." Barbara started walking toward the movement she had seen. "It could be something dangerous. I have experience working with predators, so you just stand back." She crept closer. "Hey!" she yelled, banging a rock on her metal canteen. "Hey! Get out of there!"

The bush moved again, and a man stood up behind it, wearing a camouflage hunting jacket and gripping a camera with a telephoto lens. The three investigators stared at him. He paused, then turned and ran up the shore of the lake and around a bend. Barbara started to run after him but she was slow and clumsy in her waders. Moments later, they heard the roar of an engine. From an obscured corner of the lake, a second float plane appeared, accelerated, and took off, the camouflage jacket of the pilot clearly visible.

"He was spying on us!" announced Barbara. "No one knew we were here, specifically. Unless you told someone," she accused Frances.

Frances watched the plane disappear into the sky. She was silent for a few moments. "There's no way… well…" She looked at the ground. "I did tell my mother. I was so excited about the possibility of learning more about our family legend, and I knew she'd be, too. The problem is, she's kind of a gossip."

"Are you insane in the membrane?" asked Barbara.

"She probably told the rest of my family," continued Frances, "and word spread from there. There are a lot of would-be treasure hunters in my grandparents' village who know of the legend, and someone apparently decided to try to beat us to the treasure, so they sent a spy."

They looked at each other silently for a moment.

"Well, who cares what that guy was doing?" asked Don, finally. "It's not like I need to keep this secret. I want to sample soil from every lake in a hundred kilometer radius, as planned. Then we'll fly on to the next site."

"No," said Frances. "He could sabotage the other sites. We have to get there first."

"First of all, how does he even know where we're going? Did you leak all of the specific coordinates?" Don noted the sheepish look on Frances' face, but didn't pause. "Second of all, what's he going to do, remove all the dirt? You're worried about this supposed treasure. This is science, not Robert Louis Stevenson."

"I'm just trying to help," said Frances. "But I paid for this plane, and I'm flying on to the next site. Here's an idea. You can get to most of the lakes around here by road. Barbara, why don't we rent you a truck so you can tackle the southern sites, while Don and I head north in the plane?"

Barbara glared at Don, defying him to answer.

"No, no." said Don finally. "We all need to stick together. Okay, look, we'll stay here tonight, then fly north and hit the four remaining original sites before doing anything else. Maybe that will give us a sense of the kind of place where the virus occurs, so we can narrow down our subsequent sampling."

"Wonderful." said Frances. "I'll get us three motel rooms."

"I'm sure we can all share one," said Barbara.

"Oh, no, I insist. No reason not to have some privacy."

"How are you paying for all of this, anyway?" asked Barbara.

"Well, for one thing, my parents are both successful business leaders. But it's not as if I…"

"Then why are you so interested in buried treasure if you're already rich?" she interrupted.

"Geez, Barbara, it's rude to ask people about money," said Don. "Just leave her alone. Three hotel rooms will be fine." Without further discussion, they returned to the plane to go find fuel, room, and board.


After supper, Don was reading in his room when Barbara knocked on his door. He let her in.

"Here alone, I see," she said.

"Surprised? Do you think you need to keep an eye on us twenty-four-seven, or we'll…"

"I think she's untrustworthy."

"Last I checked, you're not my girlfriend. You aren't supposed to be ‘trusting' her to behave any particular way toward me."

"I'm not talking about sex, I'm talking about everything. You have no idea what her motivations are."

"Well I think you've been a real jerk to her today. You haven't even given her a chance. She's just trying to be helpful. Look at all she's done for me."

"I came along on this trip because I care about you, Don. And I'm not your girlfriend because that's the way you wanted it!" She stormed out of the room.

A few minutes later, Frances knocked at Don's door. "Are you all tucked in?" she crooned.

"Just reading" mumbled Don.

"My shower doesn't have any hot water. Would it be alright if I used your shower?"

Don hesitated. "Um, I think that's something they should be able to fix pretty easily. Did you try asking at the front desk?"

Frances turned away. "No, you're right, they probably can just turn a knob or something. I'll go ask."

Don lay awake in his bed for a long time, alone and feeling like a tool.


10,338 years earlier

Starlight, Stone, and Lump began the journey north. They had no specific idea about where to go, but they followed the sun and stars and trusted the ancestors to guide them. In practice, most directions were blocked due to mountains, glaciers, or lakes, and they often had little choice about which way to travel. Instead of walking straight north, they skirted the impassable lands and walked up river valleys and gorges, across mountain passes, and along the paths made by wildlife. They carried spears, atlatls, knives, bolas, dried meats and vegetables, warm wraps, and the remains of the bone flute. They made a camp each night with a fire for warmth and protection. They hunted and gathered for food as they moved, Starlight favoring the spear and atlatl and Stone favoring the bolas. Lump also loved to hunt and usually caught more than he could eat. Starlight would often wake to see the bloody carcass of a deer or antelope slouching near his head, with Lump sitting behind it proudly.

Stone impressed Starlight more each day. She was not like any of the women from his tribe. She was curious and questioning, willing to consider new ideas, and passionate about solving her people's problems and making the world a better place. She was strong and athletic; although Starlight could carry more weight, he was often surprised by how much she could pack, and she always was willing to walk as far as he was each day without complaint. Lump did not frighten her, and she frequently played roughly with him, tussling his fur and grabbing loose handfuls of lion skin from behind his neck, which Lump enjoyed. Starlight had never felt this way toward a woman before.

Stone was also growing quite fond of Starlight. He was kind and gentle, and clearly very bright. He had an intense spiritual side which she didn't always understand, but she found his thoughts on rituals and meaningful actions to be fascinating. Although they had started out sleeping on opposite sides of the fire, each night they subtly moved slightly closer, until one night Stone was able to reach out and rest her hand on Starlight's shoulder. She was a little afraid, not knowing how he would respond. He reached across his chest and held her hand softly, then rolled over to her. She closed her eyes as he leaned in toward her and she received a rough, sloppy lick across the face. Lump was standing over them.

"Shoo, Lump," said Starlight, tossing a buffalo chip into the underbrush, where it rustled the grass. Hearing the sound, Lump crouched down, wiggled his enormous posterior, and pouched after it. Satisfied that the lion was distracted, Starlight turned back to Stone.

From that night onward, they kept each other warm while they slept.



Chapter 4

The next morning they flew north. Towns and roads grew scarcer, replaced by evergreen forests dotted with clear lakes and meadows of blue flowers. No one felt like talking much during the flight. They could only fly for a few hours at a time before the plane needed fuel and the passengers needed bathrooms, but a single leg was enough to reach the next site, which was also on the shore of a lake. They exited the plane to collect as before.

"These places are all so gorgeous," remarked Barbara, gazing at another profusion of purple lupines.

"Yeah," muttered Don. "Gorgeous. Too gorgeous. It's weird, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" asked Frances.

"This isn't some dry fossil bed, it's a healthy, growing ecosystem. Decomposers should have broken down any ancient DNA long ago. The sequence must be actively making new copies of itself to this day."

"Well, we know the virus was able to insert itself into the genomes of a variety of mammals," mused Barbara. "Maybe it's in some muskrat or something that lives around here."

"Okay, we'll call that the muskrat hypothesis," said Don.

"Is there another option?" asked Frances.

"It could still be an active infectious virus," said Don. "Spreading around like any other contagious disease."

"Contagious?" asked Frances, recoiling a little.

"I doubt it's anything dangerous," said Don. "It's not like we're the first people to come here. If it were easy to spread among people, it would have already done so. At least, I think so. Just wash your hands before eating anything."

"I brought a microscope and some stains," said Barbara. "Let me take a look at the soil."

A few minutes later, Barbara was peering through the ocular lens of the instrument. "I see some bacteria. Well, just one kind, really. This microbial community isn't very diverse at all. The only species I see looks like a typical gut bacterium, Enterococcus maybe. Hi little guys! What are you doing here? Did somebody poop you out?"

"Weird," said Don, although it wasn't clear if he was taking about the bacteria per se or Barbara's conversation with them. "Take some notes. We'll camp here tonight and continue on to the next site tomorrow."

They set up three single-person tents. After the mosquitoes came out at dusk, everyone hurried to get inside.


Later that night, Don was woken by a loud snuffling sound. He stuck his head out of his tent and looked into the eyes of a black bear, who seemed very interested in Don. With horror, Don recalled the candy bar he had accidentally brought into his tent with him. The bear straddled the tent and tried to bury its head in the same opening Don was sticking out of, searching for the source of the chocolaty scent. Don thrashed about, he face pressed up against the thick fur of the bear's neck, trying to escape from under the brute, but he only succeeded in tangling himself up in his sleeping bag. Freeing an arm, Don reached out of the tent and grabbed the only object he could find. It turned out to be a long thin rock, almost a truncheon of limestone. Perfect. He bopped the bear on the nose with it. The bear stopped moving, pulled its snout away from Don's torso, and looked at Don, who whapped it again. The bear backed off a little, clearly still craving the chocolate, but wary now. Don waved the rock baton menacingly and yelled. A few moments later, Barbara emerged from her tent with a can of pepper spray. She spritzed the bear, which was more than it wanted to endure for a little candy, and it galumphed off into the woods.

"Thanks," said Don.

"No problem," she replied. "Looks like that bear gave you the shaft," she said, nodding to the stone in Don's hand.

"Yeah, good thing this was here," he replied, ignoring the pun. "How often do you see a cylindrical rock like that?"

"I know you want to impress me with your long rock-hard rod, but it's the middle of the night and I'm going back to sleep. Anyway, don't keep food in your tent. But if something else happens, I've got your back." She returned to her tent. Don, feeling oddly secure despite the recent ursine encounter, drifted off the sleep.


The remaining three sites were less eventful but otherwise similar in setting to the first two: peaceful remote lakes surrounded by blooming meadows. It took a day to fly to each lake and collect samples. They soared over jagged mountains, thick green forests, uncountable sparkling lakes, and open prairies of azure flowers. Refueling was a lengthy process that sometimes involved borrowing a vehicle and shuttling fuel from a filling station to a lake where the plane rested. After sampling each site, they camped nearby and flew northward the following morning. The days grew longer as their latitude increased.

While they set up their tents after the fifth and final collection, there was an uneasy tension in the air. Frances had rushed them through the sites, but there was no treasure at the end, of course, and now it seemed like there was nothing to do but backtrack and collect more thoroughly around each site. Don and Barbara didn't know if Frances would accommodate such a plan, or if she had other ideas.

Finally Frances spoke up. "So, have we learned anything yet?"

"Not yet," scolded Barbara, while reapplying a coat of insect repellent. "This isn't like the movies. There's a lot of lab work we have to do before we can really know what we've collected."

"I think I have figured something out," said Don, twiddling a purple lupine in his hand.

"What's that?" asked Barbara.

"These purple lupines have been at every site. But they don't seem to be too common in general. I mean, we haven't seen them from the air very much. But a big patch like this would totally be visible from a plane. I think these flowers are associated with the virus somehow. If we can find other patches of them, I'd like to take some samples there as well."

"Oh, future doctor, you are so smart!" gushed Frances. Don grinned back at her, bowed overdramatically, and handed her the flower.

Barbara rolled her eyes. "Great. So now the three of us can spend lots more time together as the future doctor leads us around Canada picking bouquets for his lovely benefactor. I can't wait. You know, I don't think you really need me around while you plan all that out. I'm going for a walk." She got up and tromped off into the woods.

"She's really touchy, isn't she?" said Frances.

"She just feels very strongly about things," said Don. "There's nothing wrong with that. We'll just give her some space."

"Well, let's not worry about her. I think it's time to celebrate. I have a bottle of wine in the plane, did you know?"

A half–hour later, Don and Frances were sitting around a fire under the boreal evening sun, passing the bottle back and forth. Frances was letting Don drink most of it.

"If we find the treasure," said Frances, "will you want to put it in a museum, or do you want to keep it a secret, just for the two of us?"

"The two of us? What about Barbara?"

"She obviously doesn't want to be part of this. We can drop her off in Whitehorse tomorrow and she can fly back home."

"What? She is part of this. Do you know where we'd be if it hadn't been for her? I'd probably be inside a bear. I'm not keeping any secrets from Barbara."

"I think you might," crooned Frances, looking into his eyes, "if it were the right kind of secret." She grabbed the front of his fleece and pulled him close to her. "I want you," she whispered, and kissed him passionately.

Just then, Barbara stepped out of the shadows. Wordlessly, she made an exasperated gesture and crawled into her tent.

"Wait, Barbara…" started Don. "You know what?" he said to Frances. "I'm going to bed, too. Goodnight."

Frances, sitting by the fire alone, quietly finished the wine.


10,338 years earlier

As Stone and Starlight made camp one evening, they saw a dark shape moving on a hillside not far away. A short-faced bear, the largest land carnivore on the planet. Even on all fours, it was as tall as Starlight. Stone and Starlight had both seen bears before, but never this rare and gigantic species. It did not seem to notice them as it rooted in a thicket after some half-decayed carcass. Stone was frightened by the monster and suggested they make camp elsewhere. Starlight was not as worried.

"Lump will protect us," he said. They both looked over at the feline, who was pouncing on his own tail and doing half-somersaults in the process. Lump noticed the humans watching him and, embarrassed, he began to lick his back paw in a very serious manner.

Stone did not look convinced. Starlight conceded that the bear probably weighed four times as much as Lump, and such an uneven match would be daunting even for a fierce and stealthy predator like his pet. Unfortunately, moving their campsite would not help matters; Starlight suspected they would not be able to travel beyond the bear's presumably extensive territory that night.

To calm his partner, Starlight found a large chunk of limestone and began to chip pieces off of it with a quartzite hammer. Soon he had produced a club of stone that could easily be held in the hand. It was too heavy to carry with them, but for this night they could keep it next to themselves while they slept, so as to defend themselves at a moment's notice if the bear should saunter up to their campsite. A knife or spear would draw blood and dangerously enrage the bear, but a reprimand on the nose with a limestone bat would only cause mild discomfort and might discourage the bear from bothering them. As it turned out, they never saw the bear again, and the next morning they left the makeshift weapon behind.



Chapter 5

Don awoke in a daze and groggily stumbled out of his tent. Barbara was standing outside, looking furious.

"Barbara, listen, it isn't what you think…"

"She's gone, Don."

"What do you mean? She went for walk, or something?"

"No, the plane is gone. She's gone. She's abandoned us here in the wilderness."

"Maybe she woke up early and wanted to go refuel. I'm sure she left a note or something."

"There's no note, Don, and she took everything that wasn't in our tents. It's time to snap out of your delusion. She was out to get us from the start, she was just waiting for you to solve the riddle for her, and now that you've tipped her off to the purple lupine clue, she's off to find the treasure on her own. She doesn't care about you, Don."

"There's no way we could have predicted…"

"I said so from the start. We can't trust her."

"Okay, okay, I was wrong. So now what? How far away is the nearest town?"

"Miles, and we have no idea how to get there."

"Do we have cell phone reception?"

"No, I've tried."

"It's because we're down in the valley. Maybe if we climb up the mountain?"

"I doubt it, but, sure, what else is there to do? At least that way we can look around and decide which direction to walk."

They packed up their gear and began to hike up the slope. They had camped at the very edge of the treeline, and as they hiked they broke out of the forest and looked across a vast mountainous landscape of alpine tundra, glaciers, and lakes. "Maybe we'll be rescued by a Mountie," speculated Don.

"You're the only mountee I need," she replied, for once pronouncing the innuendo subtly enough that her meaning was almost ambiguous. "Maybe we'll be stranded out here and have to live off the land. That could be kind of fun, actually."

"Catching fish, picking berries… I bet it gets really cold here in the winter, though."

"We could build a shelter. A home. If we work together, we can do anything. And we'd keep each other warm."

Don raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. "You know, that was really funny when you said she was insane in the membrane. I didn't get it at first, but then later I remembered where we were."

"I don't think she got it."

"Well, she's not as smart as we are. Cypress Hill..." He shook his head, then turned to her. "Barbara, I am so glad you came along. Really. I don't think I've said that yet non-sarcastically, but I want you to know that I don't know where I'd be without you. And also… I have no interest in Frances. I knew that last night; really I've known that all along, deep inside. I just wanted you to know that, too."

"Thanks, champ. I thought so, but it's really nice to hear you say it."

They reach the ridge and paused to marvel at the rugged landscape spread out beneath them. Amid the glaciated mountains, they saw two narrow valleys, one leading north and one leading west. Both valleys supported purple flowers, amid other flowers of red and blue.

"Look, Barbara, more purple flowers. I bet Frances flew up one of those valleys."

"Should we try to chase after her? I really don't ever want to see her again, but that might be our only way out of here."

"She probably went up the north valley. That looks about half purple. The other one is more like forty percent purple." The rest of the northern valley was equally blue and red, while the flowers of the western valley that weren't purple were almost entirely red.

"I think you're right. She probably went north. Too bad the treasure is west."

"What?"

"All those red and blue and purple lupines are the same species. Remember, we've been seeing them from the air. The blue ones are everywhere."

"So?"

"So, it's not purple that matters, it's red. Wherever the virus sequence is, it selects for the red allele. Purple flowers just have a copy of the red and the blue allele. But most places are constantly swamped with pollen from the surrounding blue flowers, so the pure red ones never become common. That western valley has the highest concentration of red alleles we've seen yet, by far. That's our treasure chest. I think it's sheltered enough that it doesn't get a lot of pollen from the surrounding areas."

"That's a nice hypothesis and all, but how do you know?"

"Hardy-Weinberg, Don. Look. Do the math."

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was a simple mathematical description of how genetic variants should be distributed if nothing but the laws of probability were influencing them. Don did the math in his head. Forty percent purple flowers in the western valley meant that at least twenty percent of the alleles were blue, since each flower had two alleles, one of which was blue in each purple lupine. That meant that at least twenty percent times twenty percent, or four percent of the time, you should get two blue alleles together in the same plant, resulting in blue flowers. But not even four percent of the western flowers were blue, not even one percent were. Something was killing most of the blue flowers that sprouted in the western valley. Don thought back to their previous field sites. Although the surrounding hills had been blue, at the actual collection sites more than half of the flowers had been purple, by far, which was also a violation of Hardy-Weinberg; the most you could ever have should be fifty percent. Again, the percentage was skewed because the blue flowers weren't growing. In contrast, the northern valley was about a fourth blue, a fourth red, and half purple, perfectly in line with Hardy-Weinberg.

"Then why are there red flowers in the northern valley?" he asked.

"Pollen spreads around, I guess. The red flowers can survive without the virus sequence, they just don't have any selective advantage in those places. And that western valley is the biggest source of red pollen we've seen yet."

"But how do you know the trait is Mendelian? It could be quantitative, or maybe it's not even genetic."

"It's just a guess, okay? But we're on a mountain in the middle of nowhere and what else are we going to do but go check out the red flowers?"

"Barbara, you're a genius. Let's go. We'll beat her to the treasure. If we find something she thinks she wants, we can force her to take us out of here."

"Go west, young man!" she replied. He hugged her and they raced down the other side of the slope, toward the western valley.


10,337 years earlier

The journey took nearly a year. As Stone, Starlight, and Lump continued north, they were gradually funneled into a strip of land between the icy mountains to the west and the water and snow of a vast melting glacier covering the lowlands to the east. The climate was warming, and the forests and parklands through which they passed had only recently reclaimed the terrain from the ice sheets. They encountered enough game to stay fed, including caribou, saiga, horses, sheep, moose, and musk oxen, but not nearly as many as one might expect. Apparently, the animals were disappearing from the northern lands as well. Only the bison could truly be called common. They had occasional encounters with predators such as wolves or sabertooths, but Lump generally kept them at bay. Once in a while they met other humans. Many were understanding and accommodating when they learned the mission of their pilgrimage; some even admitted to knowing the Song. Others were hostile at first but backed down when they saw Lump. Most had never seen a live lion before.

Lump was a unique mutant with an unlikely immunity. The virus which had given Starlight a mild cold and infected his gonads several years before happened to be violently pathogenic in lions. Over the past few generations, it had spread across the continent, killing all the rest of these felines. Lump's immune system, however, was able to force the virus to insert itself into the genomes of the bacteria in his gut, instead of infecting his own cells. The transgenic bacteria now produced a compound that was toxic to various other organisms, but fortunately not to mammals. Whenever Lump defecated, the bacteria made their way to the soil, where they poisoned the other microorganisms and the plant life. Only particular plants, which had evolved a defensive red pigment, could withstand the bacterial toxin. Unable to spread effectively, but incapable of being invaded by other bacteria species, the colonies of Lump strains remained in place for millennia, gradually evolving into industrious decomposers. Sadly, the American lion had evolved resistance just barely too late. Lump was the last of his kind and he would never meet a female of his species with whom to mate.



Chapter 6

Don and Barbara made their way through the red meadow, flanked by icy bluffs. At the head of the valley was a meltwater lake and, beyond that, the glacier feeding it. They skirted the water and arrived at the snow.

"Now what?" asked Barbara.

"Want to walk out on the glacier?" He shrugged at her as if to say that they had no better plan.

Don climbed up on the ice and leaned back to help Barbara up. She grabbed his hand and joined him. It was sunny, so the air was relatively warm and the ice crystals glistened brightly in the light. They walked a few hundred yards out onto the snowfield. They hadn't bothered to let go of each others' hands. Don raised his arm and twirled Barbara under it as they gazed around at the stunning white mountainous scenery. She let go and flopped onto the snow, then grabbed a handful of it and flung it at Don's chest. He roared in mock anger and dove onto the frozen substrate next to her, pelting her gently with soft chunks of snow.

"We're surrounded by mountains," said Don. Laying on their backs, they could see a ring of sixteen peaks completely encircling the glacier.

"It's beautiful," said Barbara.

"Not as beautiful as you," he replied, and leaned over to kiss her.

Before their lips met, Don paused. "Just a second." He sat up and looked around. There were sixteen peaks, and from their vantage point, they appeared at three distinct heights. There were four tall peaks, six medium peaks, and six short peaks. Don pointed at each one in turn as he slowly rotated clockwise. "Tall, middle, short, middle, short, tall, short, middle, tall, middle, short, middle, short, middle, tall, short." He looked at her and could tell she understood. It was the pattern of the Song.

"We've arrived, Barbara. This is where the trail leads." He stood up and drew a large X in the snow with his foot.

She jumped up, grabbed him, and, without letting him think about anything else, planted a kiss on his lips. They held each other for a long time, releasing all of their tension, exploring the subtle tastes, textures, and warmth of their mouths, and knowing that they never wanted things to be any other way.

The whir of the propeller startled them as Frances' float plane buzzed overhead. There was nowhere to hide, and no real reason to, so they stayed put as the plane landed on the meltwater lake and Frances marched toward them.

"You found it!" yelled Frances, while Barbara simultaneously shouted, "You abandoned us!"

"I had to reach it first," said Frances. "Michael is coming."

"Who's Michael?" asked Don.

"The spy, of course. I didn't tell my family, I only told Michael. He's my teacher; he taught me how to fly. I wanted him to head up here to the end of the trail while I looked for clues with you. If he found it first, there would be no need to share it with you, or the whole scientific community, or whatever you would have wanted to do. But when I saw he was spying on us, I knew he couldn't be trusted."

"Huh," said Don, "I wonder what that feels like. Betrayal."

"Don't you start," said Frances. "You know something I don't. Why else would you be out here on a snowfield with an X on the ground? This is the place, isn't it? Right here!" She stamped the center of the X firmly with her boot.

The ground shook. Frances slipped and was swallowed by the snow as a crevasse opened where she had planted her foot. Don and Barbara lost their balances and tumbled into the crack after her, sliding down the slick sides to the icy floor below. They stood up, all unhurt, and stared back up at the light shining down on them from the opening.

"Everyone okay?" asked Don. "This isn't so bad. I think we can easily climb out." He lifted his foot onto a round brown stone that was sticking out of the ice.

"Wait, what is that?" asked Barbara, tapping the stone. "It's not stone. It's… I think it's ivory. And it's carved."

Don dismounted from the step and peered at it. It was marked with forty-eight scratches in a line, some large, some small, and some medium-sized. A scrimshaw version of the Song.

The snow was mostly loose, and they were able to dig the ivory chest out of it. It was about the size of a shoebox, but cylindrical in shape, with a hinged lid. Don held the box in awe.

"Holy crap, it's real," said Barbara.

"Give it to me!" shouted Frances. She pulled it away from Don and forced open the lid. All three of them looked in.

The box contained a solid block of ice. There appeared to be objects in the ice, but their identities were a mystery, at least to Don. The only object that was somewhat visible was near the top: an irregular white chunk of what appeared to be bone, possibly with some holes drilled in it. Don didn't know what to make of it. Frances, though, was clearly moved. The color drained from her face. She slowly squatted down and set the box at her feet.

"I just can't believe I'm finally here," she said. "And the flute. There's the flute. Now I know."

"A flute?" asked Don.

"My maternal grandfather used to tell a different version of the legend, different from the one most of the people in his village preferred. There was no hidden treasure. There was a brotherhood between two peoples. An ancient nomadic tribe divided in two and each subset went their separate ways to found new nations. One went back the way they had come, and one pushed forward to new lands. Before they split, they created identical bone flutes that they would carry, and they wrote the Song which they would remember. These things would remind them of their shared ancestry if their descendants met again in the future. Years later, a deluge blocked the passageway between the two peoples, and they were unable to reunite, even if they had wanted to. And here it is. Here it really is. The flute."

"Back across Alaska, and the Bering Land Bridge, and Siberia? All the way to China?" asked Barbara.

"Why not?" asked Don. "The descendants of the other half made it all the way to Patagonia."

Frances reached into her bag and retrieved an object wrapped in cloth. Slowly she removed the covering. It was a scarred, chipped, yellowed bone flute, carved in a roughly humanoid form, clearly the sibling of the fragment in the box. "This heirloom has been in my family as long as we can remember. And now I know his story is true. All this time…" Frances paused, overcome with emotion. "I was wrong. This box is not for me. This box is for us, for the world. A symbol of our shared humanity, even across continents. Here," she handed the box to Don. "You're the scientist. You be the ambassador. Take this discovery out into the sunlight and share it."

Don took the box and started to climb out of the ice cave. The two women followed after him. Don arrived at the top first. He reached up and set the box on the snowfield before pulling himself up and out of the crevasse.

Don looked up and saw Michael holding the box. Startled, Don might have fallen back into the crack if Michael hadn't grabbed his wrist.

"I'll take this," said Michael. "I'll take you, too. You're going to show me what this is and where I can find more. You're not going to hide any treasure from me."


10,337 years earlier

Stone and Starlight made their way into a snowy valley ringed by mountains. It was a long winter night, and the northern lights danced above their heads in greens and blues. In the light of the aurora, Starlight could see the mountain peaks clearly. He turned slowly in a circle and compared their sizes. They matched the pattern of the Song exactly. This was it! They had arrived at the site where their ancestor had composed the Song, taking inspiration from these mountains. It was clear to both of them. This was the place where the ancient tribe had split.

"Ancestors!" cried Starlight. "We have returned to this sacred place. We seek guidance. We seek a way to reestablish the balance between our people and the other inhabitants of our landscape."

They stood in silence under the northern lights. The wind picked up. They waited patiently for revelation, or inspiration, to come.

They were startled by a great bellow. A huge woolly mammoth, shaggier than any Starlight had ever seen, was charging toward them. They gasped and clutched each other instinctively, then reached for their weapons. Starlight had hunted mammoths before, including once by himself, and Stone was formidable with bolas. This time, however, neither time nor ground was to their advantage. Caught by surprise, they had no choice but to instantly launch their weapons at the stampeding behemoth. Stone's bolas wrapped around the front left leg, and Starlight's spear embedded itself in a thick mat of hair on the beast's forehead, but they did not slow its approach. Thrashing its head from side to side, it threatened to impale or bludgeon them with its mighty tusks.

Just before they were trampled, Lump leaped from the shadows onto the beast's back and bit down hard on its neck. A single lion could not hope to bring down a fully grown mammoth, but his attack was enough to distract it. The pachyderm lashed its head back and forth, dislodging Starlight's spear and eventually sending Lump flying off into the night. Lump bounded back, roaring loudly, and launched himself straight at the mammoth's face. The mammoth's right tusk caught him in midair and he was gored in the belly. Nevertheless, Lump was able to scratch a deep gash in the mammoth's trunk before falling to the ground. Meanwhile, Starlight had managed to retrieve his spear. While the mammoth focused on the lion, Starlight jabbed his spear straight into the thick vein in the mammoth's neck. The mammoth groaned and collapsed on its side. Starlight unwrapped the bolas and tossed Stone her weapon. She ran around to the top of the mammoth's head and whipped it repeatedly with the bolas, eventually crushing its skull.



Chapter 7

By the time Barbara and Frances climbed out of the crevasse, Michael had dragged Don to his float plane, which was resting on the meltwater lake alongside Frances'. The two women exchanged looks that suggested a strange mix of mutual hatred and hope.

"So are we going to rescue him or what?" asked Frances.

"I'm in," said Barbara. "Let's rock."

They raced to Frances' Cessna, jumped in, and took off. Michael's plane was now well in the air and halfway down the valley.

"This model is a little faster," said Frances. "We should be able to catch up. I'll try to get above him and force him to land."

Michael was flying recklessly fast, maneuvering sharply around the rocky bluffs. Barbara hung on tightly as Frances zipped and dodged after him.

"Unfortunately, he can make tighter turns than we can," said Frances. "He's trying to throw us off."

Michael turned into the northern valley, the one with the flowers in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Frances pulled back and turned around, heading toward the western side of the mountain that guarded the valley's entrance. "I was up that way this morning, following the purple flowers. I know the terrain. You can get there more quickly if you go around this peak first." They climbed, circled the peak clockwise, and found themselves looking down at the head of the northern valley. Michael's plane was directly below them.

"Ha!" chortled Frances. "Now to drop on him!"

Michael was too quick. He accelerated up and over a saddle on the eastern side of the valley and dropped down into the next valley over. Frances followed.

"He's wasting too much time going up and down," she said. "If we head straight over there, we should… ha! He's below us again."

This valley was filled with a large lake. Frances spiraled around as tightly as she could over Michael's plane, forcing him lower and lower. Every time he tried to dart away, she tracked him. Finally, he touched down on the water and slowed to a stop. Frances paced back and forth overhead, preventing him from taking off again.

"Now what?" asked Barbara.

"Well, how close to the water would I have to get for you to be willing to jump out?"

"What? Oh, I guess, thirty feet?"

"I'll try to make it twenty for you. Take off your shoes, and probably your jacket and pants, if you can handle it. The water's going to be cold, but you need to be able to move. Get over to that plane and get in. Incapacitate it if you can."

"Roger that."

Barbara stripped to her underwear and strapped a large knife to her leg. She opened the door and Frances buzzed low above the lake. Barbara leaped from the plane. The water was freezing. Fortunately, she was only about thirty yards from Michael's plane, and she easily swam to it and climbed onto the pontoon on the passenger's side.

Don noticed Barbara, and despite being tied into his seat, was able to reach over and open the door. Michael, from the pilot's seat, lunged over and grabbed Don's hand away from the door. Barbara reached into the plane and started to pull herself in, but Michael accelerated. Don reached out again and grabbed Barbara's hand as her body was flung backward from the plane's forward motion and she slipped off the pontoon. Barbara dangled, holding on to Don with one hand and trying to pull herself in. The plane sped faster and faster across the lake. From above, Frances tried to stay over it. With reckless audacity, Michael lifted the plane from the water and charged straight toward Frances' plane. Frances, losing the game of chicken, was forced to dodge out of the way to avoid a collision. Barbara still hung halfway out of the plane. Don shifted his weight to his left as hard as he could, and yanked her completely inside.

The box was on Michael's lap. He was having difficulty maintaining control of both the plane and its passengers simultaneously. He unbuckled his seat belt and whipped around, swinging a fist toward Barbara, but she had her knife ready and he flinched away. With a couple of smooth swipes, Barbara freed Don from the ropes that bound him. Don lunged for the box. Michael grabbed it away, and the plane lurched to the right. Don and Michael fought a tug-of-war over the box. In the tilted plane, gravity was on Don's side, and the box slipped from Michael's hand, only to fall to the passenger's side of the plane and wedge itself between the seat and the still-open passenger-side door. Abandoning his pilot seat entirely, Michael dove after the box. The jerking movement of the floundering plane dislodged the box and it fell out of the open door. Michael lunged after it and managed to grab it, but he lost his balance. Michael and the box tumbled out of the plane, which was now hundreds of feet in the air.

In a landscape of snow and deep water, there are many relatively safe places to fall from a great height. Michael did not land on one. He smashed against a bare rock face and died instantly. The box he had been clutching rested on top of him, unharmed.

Don grabbed the yoke and Barbara pored over the control panel, trying to figure out how to fly the plane to safety. The plane dipped and bobbed as they tried to steady it. They were heading straight for the side of a ridge. Pulling too hard, Don sent the plane rocketing skyward at a steep angle, then, having just barely cleared the ridge, he overcompensated and the plane nose-dove back toward the earth. Don pulled up too sharply again.

Frances watched the reeling plane above her, and the corpse clutching the treasure chest below her. She broke out of her holding pattern and sped toward her goal.

Barbara shouted instructions to Don, and he yelled back at her. They were over a thousand feet in the air and terribly scared and confused.

"Pull up gently! Just a little bit," she suggested.

"I'm trying, but I can't get it steady." The plane tilted to the left, and Don, overcompensating again, jerked the plane sharply to the right. Too sharply. The wings were now nearly vertical, at too steep an angle to fly, and the plane began to spiral downward.

"Do something!" yelled Barbara.

There was a loud thump from the left side of the plane, and it was pulled back down into a horizontal position. Frances had leaped out of her Cessna above them and fallen on top of them. With nearly miraculous strength and agility, she had grabbed the left pontoon with both arms and caught herself, re-righting the plane. She now clung to the pontoon outside. Her empty Cessna continued forward, slowly losing altitude, until it crashed into a mountain and exploded.

Don opened the pilot's side door and hauled Frances in. She pushed him out of the pilot's seat and took over the controls. The plane was wobbling badly, but in her steady hands it quickly settled into a smooth, straight flight path.

"Are you both alright?" asked Frances.

"Yes, I think so," said Don. "Barbara?"

"I'm wet and cold and half naked, but that's nothing I can't fix." She grabbed a wool blanket from the back of the plane and wrapped herself in it, then snuggled up next to Don for good measure. "Too bad all of our stuff just blew up."

"I jettisoned our packs onto a snowfield before I bailed out," said Frances. "Most of our gear should be okay. What do you say we double back and go get that box?"

They touched down on the water, climbed out, and clambered over to Michael's body. Barbara picked up the box and opened it. The contents of the box had begun to thaw. The tops of two fist-sized fleshy organs, wrapped in vegetation, poked out of the ice. Barbara eyed them, then sniffed deeply.

"I know that smell. It smells like… like lion. These are… these are a lion's balls, you guys."

"Lions in Canada?" asked Frances.

"American lions used to live on this continent," said Don. "They were the same species as the lions we have today, just a little bigger. Especially their brains. And, apparently, especially their… um… I mean, look at those things! And here I thought getting rescued by two ladies was a slight against my masculinity."

"This isn't about your masculinity, Don," said Barbara. "These have been frozen this whole time… You guys, these could have viable sperm! Do you know what that could mean? We need to freeze this box back up again and get it to civilization as soon as possible."


10,337 years earlier

The mammoth was dead, and Lump was badly injured. He limped around the valley, moaning and spilling blood, including virus particles primed to infect bacteria, everywhere. Stone pulled out her knife. "His flesh has been badly torn," she said. "If we can make a clean cut and wrap it, the wound might heal."

Starlight called Lump, who was reluctant to approach but eventually slunk to his master. A huge gash stretched from the lion's navel to his anus. His scrotum had been severed, and his testicles now hung by a mere flap of skin. "Well, you old Lump, it looks like we're going to have to castrate you," said Starlight. "The mammoth already did most of the work. Don't worry, I'll always know you're a male, and I'll tell everyone of your courage."

Stone performed the first aid as best she could. They skinned the mammoth and cut out a large woolly diaper for Lump to wear to protect his wound.

Starlight watched his recovering pet. "Our question has been answered," he said. "This mammoth came to teach us. We must thank the ancestors and leave an appropriate sacrifice, to show we understand."

He removed a tusk from the carcass and cut a piece as long as his forearm off of the thickest part at the base. From this chunk of ivory he carved a hinged box, decorated with symbols representing the Song. He dug through the snow all the way to the dead grass below, a hole deeper than he was tall. He carefully wrapped Lump's testicles in grass and placed them in the box along with the shards of the flute. He left the box at the bottom of the hole and filled it again with snow.



Chapter 8

A year later, Don and Barbara walked hand-in-hand into a backstage room at a television studio. The discovery of the treasure box had recently been published, and Don and Barbara had been enjoying a lot of publicity. A talk show had wanted to interview the discoverers, including Frances. The two grad students had not seen Frances since their rather uncomfortable goodbye upon returning to the United States from their Canadian adventure.

Frances was already backstage, lounging in a chair. "Future doctor and future doctor," she greeted, nodding at both of them. "That is, unless you've finished by now."

"No," replied Don. "Almost. It takes a long time. I'm still writing up the chapter on the gene's distribution. Still no evidence for it in Asia, not even in your sample."

"Oh, he could defend if he wanted to," said Barbara. "He's published in both Nature and Science now. He's dragging his feet until I'm done."

Don grinned and squeezed her hand. "Hey, you're an author on both of those papers, too," he pointed out. "In addition to all of your lion breeding work."

"Oh?" questioned Frances.

"I was able to fertilize a female African lion with ancient freeze-dried sperm from the artifact we found," said Barbara, "And we're now raising a litter of three hybrid cubs. They appear to be naturally resistant to viral infection, which is good, since many wild lions are dying of disease. We don't dare expose the cubs intentionally to the dangerous pathogens like distemper or feline immunodeficiency virus, but they'll probably be inadvertently exposed in time and then we'll know."

"So you'll be able to release immune lions into the wild and they can spread their genes around?" asked Frances.

"Well, that's the idea eventually, but there's a lot of work to do first," Barbara replied. "We want to prevent any unintentional consequences. For one thing, their scat is chemically and microbiologically different from other lions'."

"It turns out the virus sequences they found at our collection sites are actually in the bacteria," interrupted Don. "Not muskrats but microbes. And it looks like something similar might be going on with the bacterial flora in Barbara's lions – they're picking up DNA from viruses."

"And you're worried about turning all the flowers in Africa purple," inferred Frances, one step ahead of them.

"Well, that's unlikely," said Don. "I think we saw a freak occurrence which happened to work with the Song virus, but other viruses will be different. I doubt they'll have any functional effect on the bacteria."

"But we need to monitor them for a while to make sure," said Barbara.

"Yep," said Don, killing the conversation. There was an awkward silence.

"So," said Frances eventually, "I want to apologize for trying to use you to get to the treasure. And lying to you about it. And abandoning you. And, Barbara, for constantly trying to get rid of you. I just couldn't focus on anything else but the treasure. It was the only thing I thought about. And it wasn't about getting rich. My parents are so wealthy, it's not like I'm hurting for money. It was about finding my own identity, my own history, even the meaning of my life. Since I was a child I've been plagued by dueling versions of the legend. According to the version my parents believed, about the treasure, your goal in life is to keep your knowledge a secret and use it for material gain. According to my grandfather's version, the treasure wasn't gold, but our kinship with each other, even those we would call foreigners, and cultural knowledge is something to be shared. I just needed to know which story was true."

Don and Barbara were silent for several moments. "Hey, that's okay," said Don. "You saved our lives, after all. I think your seriously awesome badassery makes up for a lot of past wrongs."

"I'm not the only badass," said Frances. "Barbara should share the glory."

"Oh, I've let Barbara know many a time how grateful I am for her," said Don, "But that's no reason not to do it again. Thank you, to both of you."

"Thanks, Frances," said Barbara. "We made quite a rescue team."

"We were all a team, a team of explorers" said Don.

"We wouldn't be in this studio otherwise," said Frances. "I'm just glad I got to be part of it. And you do have to admit I was right about the treasure."

"Not necessarily," said Don. "The bone dates older than the ivory and lion tissue. The box was buried long after the flutes were made, long after your ancestors had returned to Asia. The treasure story was just made up later. Unless the real treasure is still out there."

"No," said Frances, "we have the real treasure."

Someone came backstage and told them it was almost time. A few seconds later, the three of them were ushered onstage.

"Mr. Gregory," asked the host, "you have made some nearly unbelievable discoveries about our past. How have these experiences made you feel?"

Don reflected for a moment. "Humbled and amazed, mostly. Humbled and amazed because I am reminded of the connection I share with something so much larger and older than I am. Everything around us, from the land we walk on to the DNA in our very cells, has such an ancient history on a timescale we can scarcely comprehend. Things that happened so long ago continue to influence us today, in ways we are just beginning to understand. Sure, we found some cool stuff, but cool stuff is everywhere. Go pick up a rock in your backyard. A mastodon stepped on that rock, or a dinosaur, or it formed from the body of a trilobite, or it blasted out of a volcano or rode on a glacier or fell from space. The world is imbued with rich and fascinating stories. You just need to learn how to see them."


10,337 years earlier

A year after the battle with the mammoth, Starlight and Stone returned to Starlight's tribe. An infant girl was strapped to Stone's back. Lump was still with them, completely healed but not as nimble as he used to be. Everyone was very surprised and delighted to see them. The grudges they had born against Starlight had long been forgotten, and now they gazed in awe at the two hero pilgrims.

Starlight gathered the tribe and told the story of their journey and what he had learned.

"When we reached our destination that cold night, I knew we would soon receive a sign that would answer our questions. And what did we see? A lion leaping upon a mammoth to protect us. But there weren't enough lions to take down the mammoth, so we had to take action ourselves. In that struggle, I saw a reflection of the struggle we face as a people.

"The lions used to hunt the bison in great numbers, so the bison never became too numerous. But a disease took the lions from us. I do not know where this disease originated, or why. But we cannot blame only the disease. If we had not decimated the prides with our spears, there may have been more healthy lions like Lump surviving, lions that would not suffer from the disease, and they would continue to hunt. Instead, the bison population has mushroomed. The bison eat all the grass, drink all of the water, and fill the protected valleys with their herds so no other beasts can find shelter there. They are crowding out the horses, camels, mammoths, sloths, and mastodons. They are driving them away.

"I fear Lump is the last of his kind, and after he leaves us the lions will never return. It is thus up to us. We must hunt the bison as ferociously as the lions once did. It may be too late for some of the beasts. In our travels we saw a bear, larger than any bear that inhabits our tribal lands. I wonder if this bear used to be common here, but is now gone forever. Perhaps some of our game animals will leave us forever, like this bear. But unless we want to lose all of them, down to every last elk and pronghorn, we must fight to restore the balance. For our lifestyle would be impoverished indeed if we had nothing but bison to sustain us. And even the ubiquitous bison themselves may leave us if we let them eat all of the grass.

"After we killed the mammoth, I knew we needed to leave a sacrifice to show we understood the lesson. The lion's organs contain his life force that he bestows upon his offspring. It is for want of sufficient lion life force that we risk starvation. My gift to that place where we originated as a people will ensure that we, as a people, will have the lion's power to maintain harmony among the beasts of our lands."

The child on Stone's back began to fuss, and Stone started to hum the Song softly to it. Starlight paused his speech and began to sing along. Soon the whole tribe was chanting the melody, feeling it connect them with their past and future, letting it inspire them to find a stable and sustainable way of life in their rapidly changing world. Lump, comforted by the rhythmic human ritual, yawned, stretched, and curled up to take a nap.