Ember from the Sun

In the blue ice of an arctic cave, a scientist has made an extraordinary discovery: a woman's body, frozen for 25,000 years in a near-perfect state, with pliant tissues, vessels filled with blood--and an embryo waiting to be born.... They called her Ember, the child of their heart, born to surrogate parents who refused to yield her after birth. Raised among the Quanoot Indians, Ember is as modern as those around her, a young woman struggling with a loneliness and yearning she does not yet understand. Stronger than her classmates, imbued with the power to heal, Ember's soul resounds with the cries and whispers of a time she has never seen, and of a people who beckon her home. Desperate to unravel the mystery of her birth, Ember embarks on a spellbinding journey to find the people who call to her in her dreams. Guided by a shaman who has waited for her return, pursued by the man of science who brought her to life, Ember is drawn to a place where no one else can go--where her ancestors, the golden-skinned people of her dreams, wait for her to set them free....

The dogs seemed glad to be heading home and tugged eagerly at their traces, padding along at a steady trot.  They sloshed through a shallow puddle and icy water splashed Yute's bare legs.  He hardly flinched.  The telephoto lens case slid off the stack and banged his shin, and he grabbed it without looking and set it aside.

Kreeee-ah!  A long-tailed jaeger screeched overhead.  Kreeee-ah! It beat its broad gray wings to hover for an instant, then tucked and dove and snatched a lemming in front of the dogcart and flapped away with the furry rodent jerking in its talons.

The raw power of the vision snapped Yute out of his reverie.

How do I see that violence as beautiful--the feast of nature--but when a wolf kills a caribou, I almost spill my guts with fright?

A grasshopper popped onto Yute's head and he reached to flick it off, but its hind legs caught in his short, wiry hair.  He yanked it loose and tossed it, then picked out the leg it left behind.  Killing the insect somehow infuriated him.  He beat his fist against the dogcart and spat out a string of curses at the bug, the wolves, himself.  Finally, he gazed out over the arctic desert and, feeling helpless, yelled with all his might.

Then he sighed and plopped his head back onto the wooden frame and peered up into the deepening blue.  Long orange streaks smudged the western edge of the sky and the sun no longer lit the tundra flowers like tiny candles.  Yute pulled his sweater out of the fanny pack and tugged it on over his barrel chest.

"What a fool I am," he said quietly.

A breeze rose steadily, turning cooler.  The dogs did not slow their pace.  The cart rolled past a pingo, a steep hillock shaped like a miniature volcano, filled not with lava, but with ice.  It formed when permafrost squeezed in from all sides of a silted-over lake and shoved the lake ice and earth into a hundred-foot blister.

The pursuit of knowledge carried me away from here.  The pursuit of love can carry me back.

The cart rolled through a clump of cotton grass, scattering the puff balls, and Yute remembered himself as a boy dashing through the chest-tall grass and chasing the white puffs as they floated away.

I could stay for two years and study the old ways.  A field study, a research sabbatical.  I could probably get a grant for it. A smile began to form.  Father and sister need me now.  I could devise a study to show how the CANARD mine will disrupt a traditional native society.

He breathed deeply into his belly and let out a sigh.  

"The bush pilot can leave without me," he said.

A strand of firs stood out like a fleet of tall-masted ships on the rolling horizon; it marked the halfway point to the village of Swift Fork.  He was now about five miles from where he shot the wolf.  Yute spun his head around.  He wanted to tell his father and sister he was going to stay.  He wanted to know that Nika forgave him, feel her throw her arms around him.  The prodigal son was coming home.

If he jumped out here and ran back, he wondered, could he catch up with them? He glanced westward.  No way.  The sun would set in another hour.  And besides, the wolves...

He watched the trotting sled dogs.  Wolves wouldn't come near the big dogs. There was a tarp and some blankets, he could spend the night in the dogcart at the edge of the glacier.  Wait there till morning for his father and sister.

"I'm going back," Yute told himself.  Then louder, to the dogs, "We're going back."

He tugged at the leather traces of the cart, trying to steer the dogs into a wide U-turn.  The dogs pulled harder in the opposite direction, straightening out the path.  The cart rocked as it swerved back on line.

Then he grabbed the wooden cart frame and rocked it to one side to force the dogs into a gradual turn.  The dogs leaned over and jerked the cart back into a straight line.  Several boxes slid off and cartwheeled on the ground.

"Come on, dammit, we dumped some gear.  Turn around!"

How does he steer this?  Yute stood in the rolling cart, straddled the top of the handlebar, and swung his leg over, stepping down onto the runners on the back side.  Then he hopped off at a jogger's pace to keep up.  He grasped the handlebar and twisted the rear of the cart to the left and held that position, to force a right turn.  The dogs tugged hard to the left, nearly yanking the handlebar out of his grip; the cart whipped back to the right; careened up on two wheels, and rolled over, slinging Yute to the ground.  The leader trace twisted off its mooring and the sudden give tripped the dogs, but when they jumped up, they were free of the cart.  Yute scrambled to his feet and rushed to grab the loose end of the leather strap, but the dogs turned and growled, baring their fangs, and he backed away, with his hands held high. Then the lead dog took off, and all six malamutes, still linked together, raced for home.

Yute spit out a mouthful of grit and kicked at a clod of moss with his boot. Mud caked his nostrils.  With handfuls of cold water he rinsed his nose, and a trickle of blood started down.

"I'm staying, do you hear?" he yelled, and spun in a half circle, facing the big orange sun.  "I'll learn the skills.  My father and sister will teach me."

He righted the cart and gathered up the camera cases and the tools that were strewn across the grass, restacking them on the cart.  Then he folded a small canvas tarp and two woolen blankets, draped them across a broad shoulder, and rested a spade and an ice ax on top.

He wiped his bloody nose on a wet wool sleeve.  He knew he had to make it back to the glacier before nightfall so he could see to build a shelter.

He broke into a jog and soon perspired in spite of the dropping temperature. Even if he missed them, he figured, he could make it back to Swift Fork blindfolded.  That was no problem.  Surviving the night without freezing was a minor problem.  Tundra is like the desert, the wind chill makes all the difference.  The temperature probably wouldn't drop much lower than it was now. But with the wind picking up, the wind chill could kill him.

He planned to dig an ice cave when he got to the glacier, just large enough to squeeze into.  He'd be out of the wind, and his body heat would do the rest.  I may not be toasty, but I'll certainly live if I hurry up and get there in time to dig while I can see what I'm doing.  No moon tonight.  It was going to be as dark as the inside of a tomb.

The sky had faded to dusk behind the foothills, and Venus twinkled above the glacier, when he arrived.  Yute chose a lip of ice that met the ground at the base of a foothill; by digging straight back he could carve out an ice cave with an earthen floor.  In the deepening gloom he chipped and shoveled until he could barely make out the deeper blackness of the cave opening.  The wind, now gusting, whistled across the cave mouth.  Yute crawled in, spreading out the tarpaulin before him on the hard, cold soil.  He wrapped both blankets around himself like a cocoon, trying to avoid the icy walls.  A piece of debris prodded at his back, but he was much too exhausted to care.  In the next minute he was asleep.


At dawn Yute squirmed half awake, shivering.

"Something powerful will happen," he muttered between chattering teeth.  He had hoped that meant something more intellectually stimulating than a battle with pneumonia.

He rose on one arm and twisted around.  Where's that damn root that's been jabbing me all night?  He groped under the tarp and his hand touched something instantly recognizable.

A human hand.

His breath caught and he drew back his hand and stared at his own fingers, as if they had gone mad, independent of the rest of him.  Slowly, he felt again for the object.  A soft hand with icy fingers seemed to reach out for his.

He yelped and jerked away, banging his head on the ceiling.  Then he laughed at his involuntary recoil.  His eyes grew wide in the dim light and he began to tremble inside.

"Something powerful," he whispered, and flung the tarp aside.

A slender hand poked through the frozen dirt.

For a long moment Yute only stared, panting softly while his heart drummed in his chest.  Then he shot backward, feet first out of the cave, and grabbed the ice ax.

He bent over close to the earth, pecking gently with the ax, chipping away flakes of permafrost.  In a moment he saw a scalp, with lots of hair.  Last night's blind shoveling had uncovered and broken open the edge of a lid made of thatched willow sticks.  Beneath the lid he could make out the rim of a rock-lined circular pit.  The hand protruded from the space; the flesh was intact and did not even appear to be shriveled or mummified.

Yute sweated in the chilly air.  Goose bumps stood out on his neck and arms as he reached gingerly to touch the hand again.  The flesh felt ice cold, but pliant, not stiff.  The fingers flexed easily.

"How can this be?"  His face wore a grimace of disbelief.  Somehow the tissues were not frozen rock hard.  The vessels of the hand were filled with cold blood, thick as sludge--but liquid, not frozen.  In the dark the spade had nicked the edge of the palm and a thin smear of dried blood covered the wound.

But how could anything be in those veins but dust and frost?

Yute gulped and the feeling of awe swelled in him like a wave.  He backed out and grabbed the spade.  Puffs of vapor shot from his mouth as he stabbed the spade into the ice to enlarge the cave.  The sun climbed higher and the day turned bright.  Yute worked carefully, but with high energy, and in just under an hour the cave was roomier, with a taller ceiling, wider sides, and twice the depth.  Near the rear wall the burial pit was now completely exposed.

He kneeled in front and hesitated, then delicately removed the thatched cover.

Slanted sunlight fell upon a young woman's face, angled slightly upward, gazing directly at her discoverer.  The light illuminated her dark green eyes.

Yute sucked in his breath.  He didn't move or think until he remembered to breathe.

"Behold, woman," he said.  "The light of the next world."

The body, dressed in a shaggy sheephide tunic, sat in a knees-to-chest position; its right elbow was braced on its right knee so that the hand was upraised in a gesture of eternal farewell, or, perhaps, greeting.  Thick dark hair, woven into many fine braids, spilled over her shoulders and snaked across her bosom.  Her facial features were robust: big eyes, broad cheeks, a large nose and full mouth, and a heavy jaw.  From these and more subtle clues he knew she was a Neanderthal.

Yute's eyes brimmed with tears.  No scientist had laid eyes upon a Neanderthal in the flesh before this crystalline moment.

"You're absolutely beautiful," he said.  "Most of my life I've been waiting for this...for you."

He glanced up to the horizon.  No one to be seen for miles.  The sun glinted off the glacial ice.  How long ago did she live and roam this Arctic plain here with her tribe?

"Excuse me, sirs"--Yute's voice took on a formal tone--"Dr. Fischer, Dr. Whitcombe, other learned fellows of the academy; I recall that you gentlemen insisted Neanderthals died out in Eurasia and the Middle East and never crossed Beringia into the New World.  Well, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to a Neanderthal woman who is truly a First American."

He looked at her staring green eyes and gave her a name.  "Tundra Woman," he said, "you are going to crown my career."

Okay, first things first.  I've got to recruit some field consultants so I don't miss a jot of data from this site.  A surveyor, a geologist, photographer, preparator, a pollen whiz...let's see--Lynn Dreyfus on the pollen studies; need a soil expert, probably Kelly...get a crew of grad students on site to sift the earth...

He smiled hugely.  This was perfect.  He wouldn't be able to stay in Swift Fork, he'd need to work mostly from his lab near Seattle, but he could visit the project site regularly, see Nika and his father, and maybe still help out against CANARD.

In a moment his smile faded.  "Get real," he told himself.  He wouldn't have time for anything else for years to come. This Neanderthal was going to be his life's work, through to the end.

He gently touched her cheek with his fingertips.  The cold, soft skin was covered with fine blond peach-fuzz.  He shook his head slowly, feeling and odd familiarity, a sense of recognition, like deja vu.  He searched his memory. Had he seen an artist's rendering of a Neanderthal in some textbook or diorama that matched her features?  No chance of that. Such conceptions fell far short of the look of high intelligence that was plain even in the woman's vacant gaze.  It was as he argued in his papers--evolutionists had grossly underrated her race.  But none of the old-school paleoanthropologists agreed with him, he was not one of their club.

His mouth tightened and a decision came to him all at once.  He would not call a team of consultants.  He would handle the initial research himself, back in Seattle.  Later, the consultants could come and do the fine sifting and add a few pebbles to the mountain of knowledge that he would obtain.  But that mountain was his to build, even if it took years. Then he would stand atop it and from on high he would call the world of anthropology to order and make his announcements about Tundra Woman.

He made a low whistle.  "What an impact you're going to make!"

* * * * *

Yute crouched near the cave door and swung upward again and again with the ax, chopping deep seams into the ice of the ceiling, until it weakened and sagged. Then he walloped the ceiling with the broadside of the ax head, once, twice, and it cracked with a loud boom and collapsed.  He dove out the door as it thudded behind him.  The burial pit was sealed under a half ton of white.

With the Neanderthal woman packed in shovelfuls of crushed ice and wrapped in the wool blankets, he dragged the body along the ground, sliding on the tarp. He strode as fast as he could, never slowing.  He planned to push the dogcart to the village and catch the bush plane to Fairbanks, then hire another private plane to Seattle.  In an hour and a half he reached the cart.  He unzipped the body bag and felt that it was still frigid inside from the dry ice in its lining.  He carefully slid the body into the white vinyl bag and zipped it shut.

Then Yute sagged onto the damp moss, breathing hard, his back against the cart, his sweaty head drooped between upright knees.  And, to his surprise, he began to cry softly, without tears.  Choosing to stay with Nika and his father had been a happy moment.  But in all his career he never dreamed he would find a Neanderthal in the flesh.

He strained his eyes in the direction of Denali...

---

Excerpted from Ember from the Sun by Mark Canter
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.