Mammoth Dawn by Kevin J. Anderson, Gregory Benford

closes his eyes—but not to relax. He is preparing himself to “hold court.” He has not hurried himself with Sylvia, but he knows other people are waiting for him, important men who are owed favors … or who owe him favors.
    The first man to come in looks rail-thin and weak, gray-skinned, on death’s doorway. Gregor is shocked to see how much the man has changed. This is Commissar Stepan Orkov, Gregor’s former Soviet boss, who has fallen into political obscurity and become the mayor of a polluted Siberian town. The Commissar is riddled with cancer. Gregor makes no comment on the man’s appearance, pours them both a snifter of expensive Georgian brandy (though Orkov only looks longingly at his and does not take a drink).
    He explains to Gregor about his hellish, ineffective cancer treatments. He is dying. He begs Gregor for help. This is a telling scene, demonstrating that Gregor Galaev is so powerful in his own microcosm that people believe he has the power of life and death.
    Gregor (which is not his real name) came across to the US from Siberia as a “worker” in the usual crime industries—trading everything from assault carbines, drugs and medicines, machine guns, and the ever-popular Kalashnikov, on up to helicopters, anti-aircraft missiles, submarines, enriched uranium, and plutonium.
    More intelligent and more ambitious than his comrades, he understood the demands of the trade. He once forced a woman to eat gravel, to show respect, after she had stolen tip money from the strippers in a club. He learned how to stash gold and diamonds in bootheels or in hollows specially worked into pianos and chairs. Slowly and quietly, “Gregor Galaev” made a name for himself.
    Now, he explains that he can do nothing to cure the old commissar’s cancer, but Orkov only asks if he can ease his pain, make his miserable life tolerable. He has tried the regular painkillers, even illegal drugs, but they are either too weak or make him feel even sicker.
    Gracious and smiling, Gregor brings out a container of moist chopped plant material, dense and aromatic, like a kind of hashish. “Let me give you something very rare, old friend. Potent and remarkable. It will let you go calmly to the end.” It is a legendary shamanistic drug made from a nearly extinct fern that still grows around isolated high Siberian villages. These ferns are greatly sought after by native Yakuts for hallucinogenic cultural ceremonies.
    Thanks to the Resurrection Preserve, these ancient bog ferns are now thriving, due in part to a symbiosis with mammoth dung, an ingredient that has been missing from the landscape for nearly ten thousand years. Gregor hopes there will soon be a burgeoning supply for the black market. While Alex Pierce dabbles with his high-minded ideals, Gregor intends to make a lot of money from the Preserve.
    Grateful, the old Soviet boss departs with the narcotic fern. Gregor has just enough time to compose himself again and sip his expensive brandy before a smartly dressed Chinese businessman—Hector Chu—is ushered into the fire lit trophy room. From his expression and demeanor, Gregor can tell immediately that the businessman is going to request something very difficult.
    But Gregor will manage it, as always.
    O O O
    Returning from Washington, DC, Alex has a regular business meeting with his investor and partner, Gregor Galaev. Both men are powerful and rich, but come from utterly different cultures. Instead of sitting in a boardroom and talking like businessmen, they ride horses to one of the lakes in the great preserve. Alex raises an automated bridge that makes a path across the water, and they cross to the island habitat where the dodos and moas live.
    Theirs is a complex relationship, based at first on a simple trade of favors. Each holds a different type of power, and a hidden admiration for the other’s kind. Alex knows that Gregor works both sides of the law and both sides of the Bering Straits, but since Alex has had his