Mammoth

"We're not very good at this, are we," Susan said as she watched Matt blow on the twigs and leaves to get the fire going.

"We'll get better. We have to."

They huddled together again, too tired and frightened to make love again, and eventually they fell asleep in each other's arms.

4

"MATT, something's coming!"

He sat up quickly. There was a red glow far away through the trees. He heard the sound of breaking branches and what might have been a trumpeting elephant. Had Susan's herd returned? "What is it?"

They were both standing now, looking in the direction he knew was west because he had seen the sun set over there. A wind had come up, blowing from that direction, and it brought with it the smell of smoke.

"A brush fire," Susan said.

"Los Angeles," Matt groaned. "Always either burning down or shaking apart."

Then the wind brought a sound different from the mammoth's trumpeting. The sound was answered, again and again.

"Tell me that wasn't a human voice," Matt said.

"I think it was. It sure sounded like a war cry."

"Or a hunting cry." He paused. "I think it's coming this way."

They both stared into the west. Part of the land was indeed burning, but there were also isolated points of firelight on the top of the next ridge, moving quickly down. They looked like torches.

"Somebody's herding the mammoths," Susan said in an awed whisper.

It was hard to see. It must be something like being in the heat of battle, Matt thought. He had read that confusion was the norm, that one seldom had a clear idea of what was happening, there was not a godlike perspective like you had in the movies. Night made it worse, and so did unfamiliar terrain.

Everything seemed to be happening at a distance of about a mile. What little they could see of it was on the top of a small rise, and it seemed to be moving down into the draw, getting swallowed up in the vegetation. Beyond that... was that a moving shape in the darkness? Was that another? It was hard to see them, though from the trumpeting they knew they must be out there.

"I think we ought to get out of here," Susan said.

"Me, too. Just take the guns, we may not have much time."

He didn't like leaving their gear, but the sounds of the mammoth hunt were getting closer pretty fast. He picked up the tranquilizer gun from the ground, wishing he had more confidence that he could hit anything with it if he needed to, or that it would bring down a mammoth faster than ten or fifteen minutes. But it was better than chucking rocks, he supposed. With the gun in one hand and the time machine in the other, he fled into the night.

Like a nightmare, he didn't know where he was, he didn't know where he was going. He wasn't sure what was behind him. About all that was missing was the sense of ru

"I know where we are," he shouted to Susan.

She was already some distance ahead of him, but she reluctantly hurried back.

"What's that on your shoe?"

"Tar. We're where the intersection of Wilshire and La Brea will be. We're in the tar pits." At that moment a bull mammoth crashed through the trees and faced them across a mirror-smooth pond.

He was enormous. He had to be fifteen feet high at the head, with a big hump behind that. He was covered with short fur, and his tusks extended so far from his face that he could not have pointed his head straight down without poking them into the ground. They flared out, then curved back and almost crossed each other in front of him. He was no more than fifty feet away from them, and there was nothing between them but the pond, which did not look deep.

His surprisingly small ears flared out and he lifted his trunk and bellowed. He turned in a half circle, every massive muscle in his body flexing, knocking over a tree and tearing up the ground. He trumpeted again, and charged at them. Within four steps he was up to his knees, unable to move, and rapidly sinking deeper into the tar that lay just beneath the surface of the pool.

Matt and Susan stood, frozen in place, and watched as the creature's struggles mired him ever deeper in the tar. He bellowed, he raged, he thrashed about, and nothing did any good. Soon his legs were completely below the surface.

"They're driving the mammoths into the tar pits," Matt said, in awe. The hunters could end this bull's struggles with arrows, or spears, or whatever weapons they had, or wait until it died, and carefully climb onto its back and cut away the parts they could use. An animal like this could feed a tribe for a year, if they dried the meat.

He was going to tell Susan this when he happened to glance down at the time machine. The red light was on.

"Susan..."

"Matt! Look!"

He looked up, and a herd of mammoths appeared on the other side of the pond. They milled around in agitation, turning back and forth between the fire and the water where the big bull was trapped. One took a tentative step into the water, sank down to her massive ankle, and pulled back out.

Matt thought her because, though they were gigantic, none were as big as the doomed bull. Say, ten feet high, tops. One big cow made her decision, and was heading around the water. The others hesitated, not seeming to want to leave the bull, terrified of the fire, pulled to follow what seemed to be the herd leader. But they soon fell into line behind her. In a few moments they would be right on top of Matt and Susan.

"Susan, there's..." He looked again at the time machine. The green light was on.

"What? What? We've got to get moving, Matt!"

"It's on," he said, simply.

Susan frowned at him, licked her lips, and raised the elephant gun to her shoulder.

"Do what you can," she said.

Matt squatted down and opened the box.

The seven by seven by seven array of clear marbles was glowing with a pearly internal light. It was hypnotic, and strangely soothing. He could almost forget where he was, what was going on....

He touched the cube with his finger. It was warm, and hummed with energy. He felt his eyes going out of focus, felt the rippling patterns of light playing with his mind. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling... but he knew time was ru

He thought he was begi

"Matt, they're heading this way."

"Quiet. I've got to think."

"Quiet? Damn it, Matt..." But she shut up, and aimed the gun toward the approaching mammoths. He looked up in time to see her elevate the barrel and fire over their heads. The report was deafening, and the mammoths stopped in their tracks. But, possibly more important, it broke Matt's concentration.

I'm going crazy, he thought. I'm twelve thousand years from home, kneeling on the edge of a deadly tar pit, a dozen seven-ton behemoths bearing down on us while the land burns and unseen savage hunters lurk somewhere out there ready to kill us and cook us if the mammoths somehow miss... and I'm worried about a little box of marbles.

But he knew he was right. It was the little box of marbles that had got them here, somehow, and somehow it would get them out. So he concentrated.

Soon he was back into whatever zone he had started to enter. He didn't know how to describe it, but it was a place he had learned to access when he was about six. At first it was arithmetic. He could stare at a page full of numbers and see relationships among them. Adding them up or finding percentages was just the start; the longer he stared, the more he saw. He felt the numbers were speaking to him.