Icebones

Prologue

There is a flat, sharp, close horizon, a plain of dust and rocks. The rocks are carved by the wind. Everything is stained rust brown, like dried blood, the shadows long and sharp.

This is not Earth.

Though the sun is rising, the sky above is still speckled with stars. And in the east there is a morning star: steady, brilliant, its delicate blue-white distinct against the violet wash of the dawn. Sharp-eyed creatures might see that this is a double star; a faint silver-gray companion circles close to its blue master.

The sun continues to strengthen. Now it is an elliptical patch of yellow light, suspended in a brown sky. But the sun looks small, feeble; this seems a cold, remote place. As the dawn progresses the dust suspended in the air scatters the light and suffuses everything with a pale, salmon hue.

At last the gathering light masks the moons. Two of them.

On this world, a single large ocean spans much of the northern hemisphere. There are smaller lakes and seas: many of them circular, confined within craters, linked by rivers and canals. Much of the land is covered by dark green forest and by broad, sweeping grasslands and steppe.

But ice is gathering at the poles. The oceans and lakes are crawling back into ancient underground aquifers.

The grip of ice persisted for billions of years. Now it comes again.

Soon the air itself will start to snow out.

This is the Sky Steppe.

This is Mars.

The time is three thousand years after the birth of Christ.

The rocky land rings to the calls of the mammoths. But there is no human to hear them.