Analog SFF, May 2008 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 2010-12-15T07:08:05.875000+00:00

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Short Story: STILL-HUNTING

by Sarah K. Castle

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Illustration by Broeck Steadman

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Faced with big changes, anyone who can must do whatever it takes to adapt...

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Somewhere north of Noatak, Rariil caught a whiff of a woman. The smell, dilute in the breeze off the Chukchi Sea, was familiar. He licked the air, tasting for details. It was Graashah. She'd been here recently, and without cubs. Rariil grinned. As tradition demanded, she'd come home from Dheznaya to find a mate. She couldn't have walked. The ice across the Bering Strait had thawed early. She must have taken a ship. They now allowed bears on ships, polars and Kodiaks alike, with a special class of ticket. His lips curled back over his canines. He wondered what the terms of those tickets were.

Graashah had been Rariil's first mate, back when the ice pack lasted through the mating season. He'd been a smaller bear then, but well fed and determined enough to impress her. Rariil was now the biggest polar bear around. He'd secretly perfected a method for still-hunting seals in open water, so he was fat on seal blubber despite the warm winter. Graashah would surely choose him, if he could get to her first. A fishing boat was moored a couple of hundred yards offshore. If Graashah could take a boat, so could he. A polar bear could set his own terms on a boat that size.

He swam out and climbed on board. The boatmen weren't too happy about it. Those on deck ran to the bow and fired first a flare gun and then a shotgun. They shot up in the air and into the sea, anywhere except toward Rariil. They all knew shooting a polar bear was prohibited by law.

“Wevok.” Rariil growled the name of his communal meeting ground. “Wevok, now!”

The men lowered their guns and looked at each other.

“Aw, shit,” one said.

“No! Point Hope! We're going to Point Hope,” another man yelled at Rariil.

“Wevok,” Rariil said and sat down heavily. The whole boat rocked. Rariil would talk to men when it was necessary, but there was rarely a reason to listen to them.

Finally, they motored up the coast with Rariil grooming himself calmly on the rear deck. His thoughts returned to Graashah and whom he'd have to fight to win her love. He believed he could beat any polar bear who'd spent the season trying to hunt on ice, but the damn Kodiaks could be a problem. Every year they came farther north. Dirty polar sows, who didn't mind fishy breath, would mate with them. The brown buggers could fight and match a polar bear off the ice. Rariil chuffed. Graashah wasn't that kind of bear. She wouldn't come all the way back here to take up with a Kodiak. Rariil licked the rough, translucent fur on his forearms until its brilliant white compared favorably to the clean paint on the boat.

When he dove off at Wevok the boat bobbed like a cork, throwing a man into the water with him.

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