Part 12 (2/2)

Kevin was holding his breath, and Tess could feel his sense of excitement. 'Go on,' he said.

'Well, what about when there really was an ice age? There were animals that lived in those times, weren't there?'

'What, like dinosaurs?'

'Yes. Except that the dinosaurs didn't make it. They didn't adapt. But some other creatures did.'

Kevin let out his breath with a gasp. 'Mammoths!' he said.

'Exactly! I saw them, Kevin, just now in a sort of dream. Walking through the snow. And why shouldn't we? I'm sure we could. We know what they looked like. I'm positive we could get a feel for them.'

'Of course we could. It'd be a lot easier than a whale.'

There was no more to be said, and they fell silent, their minds full of new hope. After a while, Tess said: 'Kevin?'

'Yes?'

'We ought to be bears again. Until the morning. It's too cold in here. It's dangerous.'

'Yes, you're right,' he said, but he didn't Switch, and Tess had a feeling that he was waiting for something. 'Don't go to sleep again,' she said.

'No. I'm not. I was just thinking.'

'What?'

'Well, if I got stuck as a mammoth. If my birthday came.'

Tess said nothing, thinking about it, and he went on: 'I know there's nothing you could do about it. I wouldn't ask you to stay with me or anything. But maybe you could ... I don't know, just keep an eye on me somehow. So I wouldn't be completely alone.'

'Of course I would, Kevin. I'd do anything. I'd go to the ends of the earth if I had to.'

'I know you would,' he said, and then he laughed. 'You already have, in a way, haven't you?'

Tess's pride reared up. 'I didn't come here just because of you, you know,' she said.

'I know that,' said Kevin. 'But you're still the only friend I ever had.'

Before she could answer, he was a bear again and, with a sigh, she joined him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE TWO MAMMOTHS MOVED slowly but solidly across the snowfields. Their long, woolly coats provided perfect insulation against the blizzards, and their s.h.a.ggy eyebrows and whiskery nostrils protected them from the effects of the freezing air. So little heat escaped through all that insulation that snow landing on their backs didn't melt, and even provided a further layer of protection.

It also provided a partial s.h.i.+eld against the sensitive infra-red scanners in the planes that pa.s.sed from time to time above their heads.

'Anything new, Jake?'

'Naa.'

They were flying low this time, through the white heart of the blizzard. There was little or no danger of encountering anything in the air. The high points in the pack ice were well charted, and their radar screens would give warning well in advance of anything that might be in their path, but even so, Scud found it nerve-wracking to be flying so totally blind.

'That freighter out of the way?'

'What freighter?'

'You said there was a freighter.'

'h.e.l.l,' said Jake, 'that was an hour ago. He'll be over Stockholm by now.'

'Nothing else?'

'No. Wait a minute, though.'

'What?'

Even Hadders put down his book for a moment.

'Nothing. Infra-red's just picking up a couple of animals down below. Small ones. I don't know how they can survive down there.'

'Poor suckers,' said Hadders.

'Poor suckers?' said Scud. 'They're poor suckers? What about us?'

The only danger that the mammoths were aware of was hunger. There was no source of food for miles around, not even the rough Arctic vegetation on which they had learned to survive in the past. Their reserves of fat would keep them going for a while, but for how long they didn't know. It took a lot of energy to keep those ma.s.sive bodies warm, and a lot more to keep them moving.

But keep moving they did. Tess and Kevin had pa.s.sed another test. Kevin's faith had held, even if Tess's hadn't, and circ.u.mstances had proved him right. The mammoths were slow but they were comfortable, and they were making steady progress towards the north.

The hours pa.s.sed. The human parts of their minds chafed at the tedium of the changeless landscape, but the mammoths had learnt patience over the generations, and plodded along tirelessly.

The krool sensed them coming long before they were able to see it, and its small, uncomplicated brain went into a momentary seizure. For although it was a poor thinker, its memory was as long and as ancient as its life, and it was well acquainted with mammoths. The prospect of encountering these two was not a pleasant one.

A dead mammoth is an agreeable snack for a krool, but a live one is a different proposition entirely. This particular krool had once had the experience of swallowing a whale which had been trapped beneath the ice, unable to breathe and dying. Its phenomenal internal temperature had crippled the krool, and it had never forgotten the agonizing days that followed as it battled with the heat the way a person battles with infection. Even two live mammoths would not be as bad as that, but they would nevertheless create a considerable disturbance in its system, and it would have to lie up for a while until they were digested.

In the normal course of events, a krool would not even consider eating a mammoth, which was one of the reasons why the mammoths had come to survive their last colonisation of the earth. A krool encountering a mammoth in the usual course of events would flatten the leading edge of its mantle so that the mammoth wouldn't know it was there and would merely continue on its way, traversing the krool's back until, after a few hours, it reached the other side. If this particular krool had not been so hungry, it would have left the two mammoths to go along their way. But it could not allow any source of food to escape, even if it caused a belly-ache. It lay still and waited.

Some miles away, Scud Morgan's bomber had completed an in-flight refuelling operation and started its return journey. In a few more hours it would make a radio-controlled landing on the salted runway of an air base in central England and its crew would get out of their air-bound prison.

Jake was dozing. Hadders was reading. Scud was flying as low as he dared, for the sake of producing adrenalin.

Tess and Kevin blundered straight into the waiting krool. One moment there was nothing ahead of them except untrodden snow and the next, a whole section of it lifted and towered above them, and they were gazing with horror at the black underbelly of the krool. For an instant, Tess thought that the world had collapsed and she was staring into nothingness, a gaping abyss. Then she saw the eye. A single, huge, unblinking eye, gelid and green, looking straight at her.

If Lizzie had been wrong, it would have been the end, not only of the two mammoths, but of Tess and Kevin as well. For the mantle was above them now and the huge, cavernous maw was opening as the krool pushed forward to swallow its prey. But if Lizzie had been wrong she would not have sent the two young Switchers out to test their strength against the krools. Lizzie knew, and quicker than thought, Tess knew too, that they did indeed have powers beyond their wildest dreams. Kevin had been right. If they hadn't been faced with the ultimate test of their skills, they might never have learned them. Because, if there had been time for thought, Tess would never have believed that what happened next was possible. The krool's mantle was dropping like a monstrous fly swatter. Not even a bird would have had the speed to dodge out from under it. But Tess Switched, quicker than she had ever Switched before, and suddenly the krool was rearing away again and backing off.

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