Mammoth

Fuzzy is rather... large. Why not steal the Golden Gate Bridge while you're at it?

There were just about as many questions he could have asked:

How will you hide him?

Where are you going to take hint?

What will you do with him?

Are you crazy?

And simply, Why?

But what he said was, "Yes."

24

IT was far and away the most amazing show Matt had ever seen.

He was familiar with the magic that could be done with computer-generated imagery. But he had never been to a major theme park, or a big stage show in Las Vegas or Broadway. He was not prepared for the hyperreality that could be created by live performers, clever lighting, smoke, mirrors, and thundering sound. When the giant mammoths strode over his head on the giant screens above him, he felt like an ant. He almost dropped his popcorn.

He had what he figured was one of the best seats in the house. In a football stadium he would be sitting on about the forty-yard line, five rows up from the field. Some would say the skyboxes were better but Matt couldn't believe it. They were way up there at the top of the stadium, right above the cheapest seats. That position would distort the perspective of the overhead screens, like sitting in the front row of a movie theater, and it was as far as you could get from the action on the floor. He supposed it was a status thing, sitting on a comfortable sofa with servants catering to you, surrounded by your rich and beautiful friends, eating fancy food. But why would you come here to eat French five-star cuisine? It was the circus, for crying out loud! A digitized, computer-controlled, steroid-pumped, and amphetamine-boosted version of the circus, but a circus all the same.

This circus was everything he remembered, to the tenth power, with the sole exception of the cotton candy. They didn't sell it. Probably too hard to clean up the mess from the deeply padded, rocking seats. He crunched down on another mouthful of something called Karamel Kettle Korn that was too sweet but close enough for rock and roll, and made a mental note to speak to Susan about the criminal lack of Kotton Kandy.

Then he remembered this would be her last day here, one way or the other. And he didn't figure they'd be serving a lot of circus snacks in jail.

Now cut that out, he told himself. Think positive.

His seat was one of the perks of Susan's job. She had a block of five seats for every performance. She said the practice was called "ice," and it was a long showbiz tradition which she had known from her earlier circus days, though she had never qualified for it. The headliners all demanded a certain amount of ice, and the number of seats you got was a measure of your importance, so they fought for it fiercely, like movie stars measuring the length of each other's Wi

Susan's other four seats had gone to a young couple who obviously could hardly believe their luck, not only wi

Then came the elephants, and Big Mama. Matt noticed the huge pachyderm's front legs were chained together and she tended to just stand there until prodded by metal-tipped sticks carried by her handlers. This stick, called an ankus, was a traditional tool of mahouts in Asia. Susan said it could cause damage by an unskilled trainer, but was an absolute necessity with even the gentlest, most socialized captive elephant to remind her who was the boss. The key was to apply it sparingly, lightly, and judiciously, and never, never, never think that it would protect you if the elephant really decided to do you damage.

Dwight was beside himself with delight when Big Mama appeared, and seemed awed by the girls in their gaudy costumes. Brittney smiled and watched it all with interest, but it was clear what she was waiting for. She was wearing a Fuzzy T-shirt and a Fuzzy hat with a fuzzy trunk sticking out in front and little woolly mammoth ears flapping at the sides, and waving a Fuzzy pe

There were a dozen of them now, all full-blooded Columbians, all the product of Big Daddy's semen and the egg cells harvested from the bodies of the slaughtered herd of cows, born to Indian elephant host mothers. The oldest of them were three years old now, "toddlers" tipping the scales at twenty-five hundred pounds. These came out first, followed in order by smaller and smaller and smaller youngsters, until the final pair, year-old infant twins weighing no more than nine hundred.

"It's Me-tu and U-tu!" Dwight shouted, and Matt realized that superstar Fuzzy had at least some competition in the hearts of the world's children. He knew that many if not most of the kids here could name all twelve of these animals.

Matt found himself on the edge of his seat, almost as agog as the children all around him, as the moment arrived for Fuzzy's appearance. The music swelled and quickened and reached a volume that was almost stu

Fuzzy entered in a typical elephantine lumbering gait, not as fast as he could go but fast enough so that Susan had to trot at a pretty good pace to stay beside him. Matt remembered Susan telling him that elephants—and now mammoths—were the only mammals that could neither run nor jump. Susan's limp was barely perceptible; if you weren't looking for it you'd never notice.

Fuzzy got to the center of the arena and stopped, turning in a circle to acknowledge the thunderous applause. He seemed absolutely calm, totally unimpressed by all the lights and noise. And why shouldn't he be? He was a veteran of show business; he had been performing since his first birthday in the previous incarnation of this big, permanent home: the Ringling Brothers traveling show, booked into the biggest stadiums and indoors arenas throughout the United States.

He towered over his retinue of youngsters. Susan had told Matt that Fuzzy had recently passed the two-ton mark, and was seven feet tall.

The producers of the show had rejected the glitter and glitz of the elephant corps for Fuzzy and the baby mammoths. There were no jeweled and feathered crowns, no spangled blankets, no howdahs or ankle bracelets or painted toenails for the mammoths. This was better, Matt decided. These creatures from the distant past would have been diminished by circus trappings. The mammoths were as nature had created them... albeit a lot cleaner than they would have been in the wild. These were undoubtedly some of the most pampered animals in the world. Their coats were shampooed daily and combed out and conditioned for hours. Their diets were monitored with the care usually reserved for a rocket launch, and they got thorough veterinary exams every week. Circuses in Japan and China and Russia had standing offers of twenty million dollars for any one of them. Howard had told Susan he would have sneered at fifty million. He intended to keep a total monopoly on live mammoths for the foreseeable future.

The Columbian babies were all as cute as could be, with their short yellow-gold fur. But Fuzzy wore a coat that would have made an Italian movie starlet proud. Glossy black with copper highlights, with a gentle wave that Matt supposed was natural—he had a vision of Fuzzy being done up every night with hair curlers the size of oil drums, and had to laugh—it ranged from only four or five inches on his trunk and around his face to a full three feet long on his sides and belly. The whole glorious pelt waved as he walked, and it was hard to imagine a more appealing animal. Elephants, with their thick, wrinkled, dusky hides inspired awe but Matt had never been inspired to reach out and stroke the skin of any of Susan's elephants. Fuzzy, even at this distance, just made you ache to get close to him and run your fingers through all that fur. He was like a two-ton puppy.