Read Online Across the Spectrum by Pati Nagle, editors Deborah J. Ross - Free Book Online

things,” she said, and
looked down at her hand a moment. Then, gently, more naturally than she’d have
thought possible, she offered it to him. A perm gesture. “But it gives you
this.”
    His uncertain expression made way for a smile. It cracked
the dust on his face and crinkled the corners of his reddened, irritated eyes.
He looked terrible, and he looked wonderful. “Yes,” he said, taking her hand.
Only for the briefest moment. Then he coughed and said rather brusquely, “Let’s
get you and your new friend home, then.”
    Feef’s House. Sounds like a good name for a petcare
center.

Ukaliq and the Great Hunt
David D. Levine
    An early story of mine, this is close to my heart and contains some nifty imagery.
It won the second annual Phobos Fiction Contest in 2002.
    ∞ ∞ ∞
    When Raven first led the people from the third world to
the fourth, the sky was black and empty all day long. A great chief kept the
sun and the moons and the stars hidden in a cedar box, with some icy rocks to
keep the box from burning up.
    Greedy Raven wanted these pretty baubles for himself. He
changed into a lichen flake and floated into the drinking cup of the chief’s
daughter, who drank him up. Raven grew in her belly for one-third of a year,
and then was born as a beautiful boy. The chief doted upon this grandson, and
would give him anything he wanted.
    One day Raven pointed to the box and cried and cried until
the chief gave it to him. Once he had the box in his hands, Raven returned to
his natural form and flew out the smokehole with it. But the box fell open as
he flew, scattering its contents in the sky.
    Released from the box, the sun shone hotly down on the
world. So fierce was its heat that all the water and even the air began to boil
away. Raven tried to pull the sun down from the sky, but he could not fly high
enough. He went to Black Cedar and asked the tree to lift him up, but even then
he could not reach. So he cut a hole in the tree and packed it with caribou
tallow. Then he built a fire at the base of the tree and climbed up into its branches.
The tallow inside the tree caught fire, and the tree burst into the air with
Raven clinging desperately to it.
    Raven and the tree flew through the air for many days until
they came to the sun, but it was wedged firmly in the sky and Raven couldn’t move
it. Nearby, though, he found some of the icy rocks that had been in the cedar
box. He gathered up as many as he could and brought them back to the people.
The rocks made it a little cooler and a little wetter, but everyone could see
that many, many rocks would be needed to make the world cool and wet again.
    That is why the sun and the moons and the stars shine down
from the sky, and why the world is dry, and why the people build totems of
black cedar and go to hunt the ice boulders.
    That is why we have the great hunt.
    ∞
    When I was a young man, just a few years older than you,
the elders saw the signs in the sky and declared it was time for the great
hunt. They sent all the clan’s hunters to cut a black cedar tree, while the
gatherers set up camp at the traditional carving place.
    Every step in the preparation of the great hunt totem must
be performed exactly according to the ancient ways, or the totem will lose its
way. Or even worse! In my father’s day a clan near Irkaluit was destroyed by a
great fire while carving their totem.
    Only the wisest elders and the hunters with the surest hands
do the actual carving. I was with another group of hunters, who went to the
encampment of the glass people for trading.
    No, they are not made of glass! Who told you that? Well,
your sister is wrong, and you can tell her Grandfather Ukaliq told you so. We
call them the glass people because they make so many things of glass. Even
their houses are made of glass! In my great-grandfather’s day they wore glass
hats that covered their heads completely, but they are not so vain today.
    Even the biggest glass person is no bigger than