The novel “Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future” by Mike Resnick was published for the first time in 1988.

Duncan Rojas is an expert on rare historical artifacts who works for a big corporation that publishes guides on the subject. His experience leads him to search for lost artifacts and authenticate the ones that are found, but even by his standards Bukoba Mandaka’s request is out of the ordinary. The man who calls himself the last of the Maasai asks him to find the tusks of the Kilimanjaro Elephant after their traces were lost millennia earlier.

To find that unique trophy, Duncan Rojas starts examining all available interplanetary archives. Gradually, he manages to reconstruct the history of the tusks and at the same time realizes how closely they were connected to the Maasai. Bukoba Mandaka promises to explain to him the reasons why he absolutely wants to get his hands on the tusks only after he finds them.