Danforth was not at his room. His roommate, an engineer named Juarez, said that he had gone off to the bowling alley with some other biologists a while ago. They had just finished identifying a resident orca pod in Antarctican waters, and were celebrating.
“That would be something to celebrate,” Maxwell yelled over the roar of the motor.
“I beg your pardon?” Dr. Claireborne asked.
“I said, that would be something to celebrate,” Maxwell repeated. “Resident orcas are known only from the Northwest Coast of North America. Finding one here could shake up the cetacean community.”
“So someone does care about scientific progress,” the doctor said as he brought the machine to a stop in front of the bowling alley.
“When you’re with the Cetus Initiative, you tend to follow all whale related things very closely.”
Dr. Claireborne only nodded and got off of the snowmobile. Maxwell followed after him.
“Now, you don’t need to say anything to Danforth,” the doctor told the activist. “He dislikes the Cetus Initiative. It’s bad enough you’re wearing their jacket.”
“Why doesn’t he like the Initiative?” Maxwell asked. “We’re on his side.”
“He complains about the ‘reactionaries’ and the ‘inflamers’ making his scientific work seem patronizing,” Dr. Claireborne said.
“How do we do that?”
Dr. Claireborne shrugged. “I do not know. Don’t ask him, though. He may decide not to agree to a condition of silence otherwise. This won’t work unless he agrees to stay quiet.”
“All right,” Maxwell said. He pulled on the part of his parka where the Cetus Initiative logo was emblazoned. “If he asks, I got this on discount cause it’s warm.”
Dr. Claireborne smirked. “You do that.” He turned and opened the door for Maxwell. The younger man went through and the doctor followed him, shutting the door behind them both.
Inside there was an atmosphere of boisterous excitement. Four tables were filled with happy and slightly inebriated scientists, faces filled with red-tinted smiles. Dr. Claireborne stepped past Maxwell and made his way over to one of the tables. He tapped a middle aged man with balding blond hair on the shoulder. The man stood up to greet him.
“Hi, Linus,” he said in a slight Australian accent as he took the doctor by the shoulder. “Can I get you something? You’ve caught me in the middle of a celebration, I’m afraid. But don’t worry, plenty to go around!”
Dr. Claireborne shook his head. “I’ve got something I need you to take a look at.”
“Oh, what could it be? What could the doctor want me to see?”
Dr. Claireborne helped Danforth to his feet and made a shushing noise. A bemused look crossed the face of the marine mammalogist. He followed the doctor and Maxwell to the door, quiet and without commotion.
“All right, Linus, what’s up?” he asked again once the three of them were outside. The sun was beginning to head back up again. Morning, or the closest McMurdo got to a true morning, was here.
“A patient you may show great interest in,” Dr. Claireborne said. “But other than that, I can’t tell you. Not yet. You won’t believe me.”
“Linus, I can’t go running off for just anything. Tell me what it is.”
“You just identified a resident orca pod here in Antarctic waters, am I correct?” Maxwell asked, cutting in.
Danforth paused, then nodded. “We did. Obviously, we’re rather excited about it.”
“What Dr. Claireborne has to show you is ten times more revolutionary than that,” Maxwell said. “It won’t just change your field. It will change the way people will look at the world itself. Forever.”
Danforth stopped. His face was blank as he ran over in his mind what Maxwell had just said. At last, he turned and looked at the doctor.
“Is that a legitimate claim?”
Dr. Claireborne nodded, though he also shot a sideways glance at Maxwell. Why the young man was suddenly considering revealing his friend’s horrific change to the world at large he did not know. But it was his duty as a doctor to protect the privacy of his patients, and he would continue to do so, even when faced with any adversity.
“All right, Linus,” Danforth said at last. “Let’s go see this great sight of yours.”
So the three men got on the snowmobile and drove back to the medical center. A slight wind had begun to pick up when they got there. It blew tiny bursts of snow dust about like dust devils in some drier, warmer place in the world.
“Will it storm?” Maxwell asked.
“No,” Danforth said. “It’ll probably be very windy, no doubt to that. But I think that will be all. Just enough to stir things around. For the most part, things ought to be normal.”
They walked into the medical center. Dr. Wallert was waiting there, his arms crossed and a slight frown on his face.
“Linus, did you give Ms. Hallie permission to lock herself in the room with Ms. Patterson?”
“Indeed I did, Albert. The patient requested that she have someone in her room at all times, but that entrance be limited. I am doing my best to accommodate her.
Dr. Wallert looked Dr. Claireborne over. “You’re not usually this permissive about patients’ desires.”
“Denise can be very persuasive in the negative fashion,” Maxwell cut in. “Believe me, Ms. Hallie is effectively being punished every moment the two are together. Dr. Claireborne just wanted to get her to cooperate.”
Dr. Claireborne gave a slightly exaggerated nod. “I do apologize, but it is true.”
Albert laughed. “I see. Patient got the better of you, huh? Eh, I gotta go out and tell someone about this. ‘Dr. Claireborne, finally bested by bespoken brat.’ Haha, what a headline.”
The elder doctor walked off. Dr. Claireborne turned to look at Maxwell. “How are you able to do that consistently?”
“Being in the Initiative has its advantages,” Maxwell said.
Danforth grabbed Maxwell and spun him around. He glowered when he saw the activist’s jacket. “So, one of you Initiative fellows, huh? What do you want this time? Roped the good doctor here into your schemes? Using him to get me to agree with you?”
“Danforth, please,” Dr. Claireborne said. “Mr. Valentine is only here because my case concerns a colleague of his.”
“And how would your case concern me?” Danforth asked.
“It does,” Claireborne said. “We can’t say anymore. Not here where people could hear.”
There was a look of contempt across Danforth’s face. “I never would have thought you would stoop this low, doctor.”
“I wouldn’t. This is serious.”
“Tell me what this is, or I’m not coming.”
“My colleague Denise Patterson is exhibiting a sudden transmutation into a form resembling that of a humanoid Orcinus orca,” Maxwell cut in.
This made the marine mammalogist pause. His brow furrowed, he turned to Dr. Claireborne. “Is that true?”
The doctor nodded. “It is.”
More silence. The cold halls waited for the scientist to say something. Footfalls fell and echoed off down the corridor.
“All right, doctor. Show me this.”
So the three walked through the halls of the medical center. Some of the staff were wandering around, but at the approach of Dr. Claireborne they quickly appeared as though they were doing something. He paid them no mind, however. They could have been draining the blood of patients at that moment, and he would have just shrugged his shoulders and moved on. He was focused on his patient.
They arrived at the door where Ms. Hallie was with the patient. Dr. Claireborne knocked on the door. The lock rattled, then it opened an inch or so. The doctor peered through the crack and saw Ms. Hallie’s face.
“You can open the door, Ms. Hallie,” he said. “I’ve got Mr. Valentine and Mr. Danforth with me. He’s here to see Ms. Patterson.”
“All right, doctor,” the assistant said. She opened the door wide enough for the three men to enter in a single file line. She shut the door behind Danforth and quickly locked it.
Dr. Claireborne looked over his patient. She had not changed in the time that he had been gone. Her appearance was still very much that of a humanoid orca. However, she was appearing a bit more unrestful. The sedatives were likely wearing off.
Danforth walked forward slowly, his gaze captured by the sight of what Ms. Patterson had become. Maxwell and Ms. Hallie watched him with apprehension, as though he had a scalpel in his hand. His hand reached out and touched Ms Patterson’s, and quickly pulled back, rubbing his fingers together.
“Remarkable. Not a suit. Remarkable.”
“What do you make of it?” Dr. Claireborne asked.
“Let me look a bit more,” Danforth said. He walked around Ms. Patterson, examining her carefully. He examined her hands and feet, now webbed and wide to the point of almost being useless. He opened her mouth to see the peg teeth there. His hands felt the top of her head, where her hair had once been and where now a blowhole was. At last, he sighed and looked up at the others.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” he said. “I’m no biologist, but I don’t think there’s any process that allows for such a radical transformation.”
“We had deduced that already,” Dr. Claireborne said. There was low moaning from the patient. Danforth stepped back as Ms. Patterson put a hand to her head.
“Oooh,” she groaned, though it came out strained with whistles. She seemed to notice this, for she paused and felt her head for a moment.
“Denise?” Maxwell asked, stepping forward with some caution. “Are you all right?”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. Dr. Claireborne saw her eyes, no longer human, the large black orbs of an orca. They were alien and made him uneasy.
“Max,” she said slowly, “Tell me this is a dream. Please. Tell me I’m having a dream.”
The activist swallowed, trying to collect his thoughts. “Denise, I know this has to be hard for you.”
“Max,” she said again, this time firmer. “Am I dreaming?”
“No, Ms. Patterson,” Dr. Claireborne said, speaking up. “You are not dreaming. You are quite awake.”
One of her webbed hands formed into a fist. “What happened to me?”
“You have been transmutated into a physical form resembling that of a humanoid orca,” the doctor said. “It happened sometime last night.”
Danforth watched Ms. Patterson with an intent stare. “Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable.”
“Who are you?” she asked him.
“Colton Danforth, cetacean behavior expert, ma’am,” he said, slightly perturbed by her speaking to him.
“And you?” Ms. Patterson asked, looking at the doctor.
“I am your doctor, Linus Claireborne,” he replied. “Your Initiative flew you to my center in McMurdo after your little swimming adventure. I was treating you for hypothermia, when this transmutation occurred.”
The patient took a few tense breaths. “So I’m in McMurdo?”
“Yes you are, Ms. Patterson,” Dr. Claireborne said.
“You’re sure?”
“Denise, we’re in McMurdo,” Maxwell said. “Trust me, you’re safe.”
She glanced around the room a little longer. Ms. Hallie fell under her gaze for a moment or so, but she soon ignored her. At last, her paranoia seemed sated, and she breathed a little easier.
“All right, Max,” she said. “I believe you.”
He smiled and held out his hand. She took it and, though she was physically unable to smile, Dr. Claireborne thought that she might be. A little feeling in his stomach turned over and he spoke up.
“Ms. Patterson, I need to ask you if you were engaged in any activities that may have remotely been connected to this sudden change in your physical makeup.”
She paused. “I was just out on the skiff, like I had been the past few days. The only different thing was...falling in the water.” The strain in her voice was evident. It was hard to hear anything she said through her whistles.
“Ms. Patterson, can you talk any clearer?” Dr. Claireborne asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s uncomfortable to even talk like this.”
“Are you in any kind of pain?”
“No, it’s not that it hurts. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“What ‘feels right’?” Danforth asked.
Denise closed her eyes. All at once the room was filled with a veritable chorus of squeaks, whistles, grunts, and clicks that sounded more like some alien biomechanical computer than any living organism. The sounds seemed to grate on Dr. Claireborne’s ears, though he noticed that both Danforth and Maxwell listened with a sort of elation. Ms. Hallie simply sat on a chair near the medical cabinet, wide-eyed and stunned.
The sounds stopped and Denise opened her eyes. There was a moment or so of silence in the room. “Ms. Patterson, what was that?” Danforth asked at last.
“How...how I should be speaking,” she said, hesitant and unsure. “Though, it’s not speaking, communing would be the better term. And yet, it still doesn’t feel right. Like, I don’t know half the things I’m...there’s no words for it. Nothing in my vocabulary.”
“Do you have a hint of what you were saying, for lack of a better word?” Maxwell asked.
“She was talking to me,” Ms. Hallie said, standing up and walking forward.
“No I wasn’t,” Denise said. “You can’t call it talking.”
The nurse nodded. “That’s true. But, there’s nothing else to call it. Nothing that I know of, anyways.”
“But what exactly was communicated?” Danforth pressed.
“She...she told me thank you,” Ms. Hallie said. “She thanked me for staying up with her and for sedating her when she got out of control. Though, it was something more than that. It was something more than all I just said. How I put it, it’s so simple in comparison.”
Dr. Claireborne sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”
“We don’t have a lot to go on in the first place,” Danforth said. “Whatever Ms. Patterson has for us in the way of clues is all we’ve got to work with. Do you have paper and pen here?”
“Yes.” Ms. Hallie went over to the cabinet and pulled out a few sheets of medical forms. “The backs are bare,” she said, handing them and a pen from her pocket to the mammal expert.
“Thank you,” Danforth said as he took a metal tray to write on. He positioned his chair beside Denise’s bed. “Now, Ms. Patterson, I want you to tell me anything particularly unusual that you feel about this happening. Anything at all. I want to see just how much of you has been compromised into a cetacean...”
There was a hard knocking at the door. “Linus! Linus, get out here!” Dr. Wallert demanded from outside. “There’s an emergency! Get the team!”
Dr. Claireborne rushed to the door. His key slipped in the lock and he cracked the door open an inch. “My patient is in a compromising position, Albert.”
“She better get out of it,” Dr. Wallert said. Something about his mannerisms was off. He wasn’t relaxed like he was supposed to be. The jittering hands, the near stutter in his voice, something of great importance had happened.
“What’s happened?” Dr. Claireborne asked, his own voice pausing a little.
“An aircraft has crashed into Erebus. Not just any aircraft. A big one, a jet airliner from what I’m told. Get your team, we’re heading out to help any survivors.”
The gravity of the situation immediately hit Dr. Claireborne. “Go on. I’ll be right there.”
Dr. Wallert nodded and rushed off. Dr. Claireborne turned back to the occupants of the room. “You,” he said, pointing at Maxwell. “You’re coming with me. Ms. Hallie, stay behind and assist Mr. Danforth.”
“I should stay behind,” Maxwell said. “I don’t know anything about medical procedure.”
“This isn’t surgery, Mr. Valentine, nor is this the proper time for any discussion. I trust Ms. Hallie here better than you. You’re emotionally compromised.”
Maxwell looked rather flustered at this comment. He was about to argue the point with the doctor when Denise reached out and touched his hand. A short burst of whistles and squeaks echoed through the room again. For a moment the activist was wide-eyed. Then he relaxed and stood up.
“All right, I’ll go,” he said, and strode forward to Dr. Claireborne. Ms. Hallie followed after him, the key in her hand, ready to shut the door.
“The same conditions as before apply,” the doctor told her. “Only myself and Mr. Valentine are allowed in here.”
“Yes sir,” she said.
Dr. Claireborne put a hand on her shoulder. “I trust you,” he said. Then he opened the door and slipped out into the hall, Maxwell close behind him. It shut after them, the clicking of the lock lost in the footfalls of the two men as they rushed away.
