You are listening to a Clarks World magazine podcast with your host and narrator Kate Baker. Welcome

to the second story of the month for January 2025, issue 220. This one's titled Child of the Mountain,

and is by Gunner de Winter. And you know how these stories are brought to you? Well, let's buy your support.

Or dragging a friend along to see if they'll support us too.

So please go to patreon.com forward slash Clarksworld or Clarksworthsitizens.com

to see how you can be a part of this magazine each and every month.

And if you already are, or you've purchased a subscription, or you've told a friend,

if funds aren't flowing for you that month, thank you.

Every bit of support helps.

Now, Gunnar Ja Winter is a Belgian biologist-turned-science writer who has studied bacteria wars,

hustling hermit crabs,

social spiders, running lizards, and human-slash-robot behavior. His stories have appeared in,

among others, heartlines, spec, the deadlands, and future SF Digest. He's also done some

nonfiction here at Clark's World. So if you like that kind of stuff, which again, your subscriptions

and your Patreon support also brings you each and every month, please go and read a genetic

recipe for future baby making and dream hacking, a guided tour through the science and fiction

of Dreamland. So my dear listener, I hope you can sit back.

Relax.

And let me tell you a story.

Chima waits until the vultures have picked the cold flesh from the bones.

When she hears the bald birds snap at each other, she turns around and walks toward the stone altar, whirling her wooden rattle against a backdrop of snow-covered mountain peaks.

Tack.

...