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From the top of the knoll she had climbed, Karla could see that Ivory Island was not the arctic desert she had first assumed it to be The tundra was treeless, but it was thick with low-lying, dwarf shrubs, grasses, es that formed a muted carpet Dandelions, buttercups and fireweed created vibrant splashes of color The littered on distant lakes and rivers Noisy seabirds wheeled overhead

In her rassland, the steppes tee with vast herds of woolly iant ground sloths, all stalked by predators like the scimitar or saber-toothed cats She could alround shake froe animals

Soic wand, the mammoths and the other creatures had becaued her as far back as she could remember Like reat mammals that succeeded them as the earth's masters

Her grandfather was the only scientist she knew, so of course she went to hinificent creatures to die She had listened wide-eyed as he explained how the world had shifted, and asked hiain He had said yes, and she had been unable to sleep Seeing her fear, a few nights later he had taught her a nursery rhyain She was trying to dig the rhyme from her memory when she heard someone shout

"Karla!"

Maria Arbatov aving her arain Karla started walking back to rejoin the others It was time to return to the task at hand She kneould not be easy The discovery of the babystroke of luck But Ivory Island was a rich trove of the ancient past If she couldn't find what she wanted here, she should forsake field trips forever and stick to cataloging museum specimens

Fortified by a hearty breakfast, the expedition got off to an early start thatIto and Sato were ready before anyone else They were dressed identically in eather clothes, frorumpier than usual, and even Maria's lovely snored him

They had shouldered

their packs and headed into the interior of the island, using the river as a guide They , when they had taken their first break, near Karla's knoll, they had trudged several miles

As she hoisted her pack to resu How did you transport the specih hundreds of pounds"

Ito s "Inflatable rafts We got the specimen to the river and floated all the way back to camp"

Ito sratulated theenuity

Sergei took up the lead, followed by the to up the rear They struck off inland, away froed fro hills and valleys, and eventually they were on the edge of the rolling foothills that ringed the base of the volcano As they drew closer to it, the black, truncated an to loom above their head like an altar to Vulcan, the lord of the underworld

They hiked along the shores of several srass thatbirds The te off the Arctic Ocean created a windchill factor that halved that, and Karla was glad that she earing her down parka