The Last Wilderness (27 page)

He peered out from the end of the alley to check that the BlackPath was empty. Keeping to the shadows, he led the bears towards the tall building. The small flat-face dens gave way to bigger structures with blank windows or no windows at all; there was a sense of emptiness and desolation around him, and the reek of oil grew stronger still.

Lights on the outside of the buildings lit up a scatter of flat-face rubbish blowing across the BlackPath. A sheet of paper hit Toklo in the face; the wind plastered it to his head and chest.

‘That’s disgusting!’ the grizzly cub complained, halting to claw himself free of the sheet. ‘It stinks of flat-faces.’

‘I know,’ Kallik agreed sadly. ‘I hate it here.’

‘Then we’ve just got to get out of here as fast as we can,’ Ujurak tried to encourage them. His paws tingled at the thought of padding over grass again, and dipping his snout to take a drink of pure river water.
But soon there might not be pure water anywhere
.

Ujurak remembered his vision in the hospital, after he had smeared the oil Janet brought him on his fingers. He had felt it streaming out from his body, swamping it, filling his mouth and nose, and flowing onward, unstoppable, until it had engulfed the whole world.

‘It’s going to get so much worse,’ he whispered.

Gradually the tall building grew closer, until the bears stood in its shadow. It reared up into the sky, taller than the tallest tree; all its windows were dark. The BlackPath curved past it, flanked on both sides by more flat-face dens. In every direction it was the same. Wherever Ujurak looked, the world was filled with structures of stone and metal.

‘Well, what do we do now?’ Toklo growled, swinging his head round in disgust. ‘This is where the flat-face cub told us to go, but we’re nowhere nearer to finding the way out.’

‘We could be stuck here forever!’ Kallik whimpered.

‘No, we won’t be,’ Lusa said. ‘We’ve got to keep looking. It can’t be far now.’

‘Do you ever stop being cheerful?’ Toklo muttered. ‘It’s so annoying.’

‘Well, you can be pretty annoying yourself!’ Lusa retorted.

‘Don’t fight,’ Ujurak said, moving to Toklo’s side and resting a paw on his shoulder. ‘I’ll find the way out, but first we’ve got to look for somewhere you can hide.’

With the bears just behind him, Ujurak began to skirt round the tall building. Wind whistled past with a mournful sound, stirring up more dust and rubbish. Briefly Ujurak froze as he heard the throaty roar of a firebeast in the distance, but it faded without coming into sight. He thought this was the loneliest place he had ever been, worse than the remotest mountain.

At last, when they had trudged all the way round the building and were almost back to their starting point, Ujurak spotted a flat sheet of wood propped against the wall.

‘Under there,’ he said, giving Kallik a shove. ‘Stay there until I come back.’

Kallik padded off, and Lusa followed her, giving Ujurak a friendly poke with her snout as she went past. ‘Don’t be long,’ she said.

‘I won’t,’ Ujurak promised.

Toklo went last, squashing himself into the small space beside his friends. ‘I’ve never done so much hiding in my whole life,’ he grumbled.

Once they were safely under cover, Ujurak looked up at the top of the building and the stars beyond. He strained upward, feeling the wind start to lift him. His flat-face pelts fell away as his body changed. His legs shrank, his feet cramping into hooked claws. His sight sharpened; he could make out every crack and rough place on the side of the building. Feathers sprouted from his pink flat-face skin, and as he swept his arms upward they became wings, gleaming white in the moonlight. With a deep-toned cry, Ujurak swooped upward in the shape of a snowy white owl.

The cold night air flowed through his feathers as he flew far above the BlackPaths and the flat-face structures, but even here it was tainted with the reek of oil from below.

The lights in the buildings were tiny specks in the darkness; even the flames on the top of the tower were smaller than Tiinchuu’s hearth fire. Firebeasts with their glaring eyes crawled like fireflies across the devastated land.

I have to find out what’s going on
, Ujurak told himself,
letting his owl-sight roam from the sea to the mountains.
I have to know. Everything I can see is important
.

The map the nurse had made for him with sheets and blankets unfolded beneath him, from the ocean to the mountains, with the black fungus of the Propkin oil field blighting the land between them.

Wherever he looked, he could see buildings and BlackPaths, the silver pipes threading their way across the land. And as he went on looking, something seemed to happen; movement seethed on the ground beneath, as if a bear had stirred an ants’ nest with his paw.

The towers and pipes and BlackPaths were crawling outward, swallowing up the land that until then had been free of them. They crept along the coast and into the hills, flowing like a tide over the forests and the dens of Arctic Village, far into the distance, covering everything until the Last Great Wilderness had vanished.

Circling on snow-white wings, Ujurak let out a cry of despair. In his nightmare vision there were no more bears, no more caribou or geese or foxes, just pipes and noise and stinking air as far as he could
see. The taint had even spread out to sea; black walls reared up out of the ice, spilling rubbish into the waves. There was no escape.

With a gasp, Ujurak snapped back to reality, blinking to chase away the horrible vision. His senses seemed sharper than ever. He could hear the engines pumping underground, sucking the oil from deep down, and then the oil gurgling through the pipes that carried it into the mountains.

Ice-cold terror washed over him; he could barely make his wings hold him up in the air. At last he knew the reason for his journey: the Last Great Wilderness needed his help.

Save the wild
. . . he thought of Lusa’s dream. He remembered his own uneasiness along the journey, the fear of the creatures whose shape he had taken, that their world was being spoiled and poisoned, stolen from them by the flat-faces.

I’m here to fight
, he vowed.
Somehow I’ll find out what I have to do
.

A flash of moonlight blinded him; the stars whirled around him and he realised he was falling. His wings and tail-feathers shrank away, replaced by fins, while silver scales flowed over his body. A spasm passed
through him as he realised that he couldn’t breathe. Choking, he twisted in the air. The river loomed up beneath him; he hit the water and slid into it in the shape of a fish.

No
. . . Ujurak thought, fighting back panic.
This isn’t right! I’ve got to get back to Toklo and the others
.

The fish-shape was threatening to overwhelm him, a fierce hunger driving out the memory of his friends. His mouth gaped to draw in the nourishing food that he knew the river should have offered. But there was nothing . . . nothing but tainted water and emptiness where he longed to swim upstream in the company of his kin.

I’ve got to . . . change . . .
With the last scraps of his consciousness, Ujurak tried to force himself back into the shape of the owl, to soar over the oil field and locate the tall building beneath which his friends were hiding.

Flicking his tail, Ujurak swam for the riverbank. He felt himself grow bigger; legs burst from his body, and now there were four of them, ending in neat hooves. He could feel antlers sprouting from his head, and he looked down at himself to see the grey-brown pelt of a caribou.

Scrambling up from the river’s edge, Ujurak stood at the top of the bank and looked out across the oil field. He realised that he was a pregnant female, feeling the weight of her calf heavy in her belly. He began to trudge forward, head down, instinct leading him towards the ancient calving grounds of his kin. But instead of the windswept marshes and forested hills, all he could see were BlackPaths, long silver tubes running alongside them, and the tall structures that the flat-faces had built. He lifted his head and gave a long, lamenting cry, letting out the grief of a mother with nowhere to raise her young.

No . . . no . . .
With the last of his strength Ujurak fought against the transformation.

Owl . . . owl so that I can go back to my friends and lead them out of this place. Wings . . . white feathers . . . beak and claws . . .

To Ujurak’s relief he felt himself shrinking again, as at last he managed to control the change and return into the body of the snowy white owl. He soared upward on silent wings, though his muscles were shrieking with exhaustion and his tiny bird heart fluttered like a leaf in a gale.

Blinking, he focused his owl-sight on the place
below until he spotted the tall building where he had first transformed. He could even make out the sheet of wood beneath which his friends crouched in hiding.

From his vantage point, Ujurak could see that the building was close to the edge of the flat-face structures, just as Maria had said.
If we follow that BlackPath . . . then that one . . . we can leave this place behind
.

His heart heavy, Ujurak let himself drift downward and landed on the ground a couple of bearlengths away from the sheet of wood. With a sigh of relief, he let his feathers melt away; brown fur flowed over his limbs as his wings changed into forelegs and his claws sprouted; his beak became a snout and he dropped to all fours in the shape of a brown bear cub.

For a moment he couldn’t move; he just crouched, trembling, on the dusty ground. His limbs ached and he felt so tired he didn’t think he would be able to move his paws. But the sound of a firebeast reminded him that flat-faces were still searching for him and his friends. There was no time to rest.

Stifling a groan, Ujurak forced himself to his paws. ‘I’m back!’ he called. ‘I know what we have to do now.’

K
allik emerged from her hiding place behind the wood and stretched her legs one by one. Ujurak was standing a couple of bearlengths away; he was a brown bear again, but his pelt was bedraggled and filthy and his eyes were dark with exhaustion.

‘Ujurak, what happened to you?’ she whimpered.

‘I’m fine,’ Ujurak replied, his voice hoarse. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

Kallik wasn’t reassured, but whatever the trouble was, Ujurak obviously didn’t want to talk about it. She padded up to him and buried her snout in his shoulder. ‘It’s good to see you back in your proper bear shape,’ she said. ‘I hope you stay that way.’

‘I hope so too,’ Ujurak said heavily.

‘And I hope you know the way out of here,’ Toklo
growled as he came out of hiding with Lusa just behind him. ‘I want to shake this place off my paws for good. And I’m hungry!’

‘We’ll hunt as soon as we can,’ Ujurak promised. ‘It won’t be long now.’

He turned and led the way along one of the BlackPaths he had seen from the sky; after a while he seemed to shake off some of his weariness, and his pawsteps grew swift and confident. Kallik followed eagerly. As they turned on to another BlackPath the wind in her face smelled cleaner. Sooner than she had hoped, the buildings fell away behind them. Her paws left the hard surface and landed on grass, interrupted here and there by rocks and clumps of low-growing foliage. She could hear the gentle sound of waves washing on the shore, and at last, beneath the ever-present taint of oil, she picked up the tang of salt-water. Starlight glittered on the rippling surface and glimmered on the line of the ice.

It’s coming closer!
she thought joyfully, drawing in the familiar cold scent.

She longed to swim out across the narrow stretch of open water, on to the frozen sea. She longed to lose herself in the endless whiteness. But she knew
that she couldn’t leave her companions.
Not now, when we’ve just discovered what is happening to the wilderness
.

A few bearlengths further on, they came to the bank of the river. Glancing upstream, Kallik spotted the bridge she had crossed with Lusa and Toklo on their way into the denning place. Lights were flashing there, like a colony of fireflies, and she could hear the sound of no-claws shouting.

‘They’re still looking for us,’ Toklo observed.

‘Yes, it’s lucky we didn’t try to cross there,’ Lusa agreed.

Ujurak was gazing across the river; Kallik padded up to join him. Moonlight glimmered on the rippling water, dividing into tiny streams as it neared the sea. Sandbanks and little islands looked black against the silvery surface.

‘I think we can wade across here,’ Ujurak said, venturing a few pawsteps into the current. The water barely covered his paws.

With a last glance at the lights on the bridge, Kallik followed him, splashing through the river, enjoying the cold feel of it against her fur. Toklo plodded along steadily, his gaze fixed on the water as if he was hoping to spot a fish. Lusa bounded along, letting out
a squeal of surprise when her paws slipped and she fell on her side, sending up an enormous splash.

‘Thanks for soaking my fur,’ Toklo muttered as he gave her a nudge to help her back on her paws.