Michael Swanwick
Bones of the Earth
This book is dedicated to all good teachers everywhere, most particularly those of the William Levering School and Central High School in Philadelphia, to whom more is owed than can ever be repaid.
Special thanks are due to Ralph Chapman, Linda Deck, Tom Holtz, Pete Tillman, and Bob Walters for giving generously of their time and knowledge. They are, of course, not responsible for any errors I may have made, just as I am not responsible for anything rendered invalid by discoveries they or their colleagues may make after this book reaches print. I am also grateful to Harry Turtledove for help with Greek nomenclature, to Suzette Haden Elgin for management strategies of the Lakota Sioux, to Charles Sheffield for the future history of the Earth, to William Gibson for the Rolex Milgauss (nice watch, Bill!), and to my favorite goddaughter in the known universe, Alicia Ma, for naming Lai-tsz. I am most indebted, as always, to the M.C. Porter Endowment for the Arts, most particularly for help writing the abstract for the infrasound paper.
1. Predation Event
Washington, D.C.: Cenozoic era. Quaternary period. Holocene epoch. Modern age. 2010 C.E.
If the whole tangled affair could be said to have a beginning at all, it began on that cold, blustery afternoon in late October when the man with the Igloo cooler walked into Richard Leyster’s office. His handshake was firm, and he set the cooler casually down on a tabletop between a lime-green inflatable tyrannosaur and a tray of unsorted hadrosaur teeth without asking permission first. His smile was utterly without warmth. He said his name was Griffin and that he had come to offer Leyster a new position.
Leyster laughed and, sitting back on the edge of his desk, put down the man’s card without looking at it. “You could hardly have chosen a worse time to make the offer.”