Only Birds And Seals

Part 3

The green light on the computer flickered on as it hummed back to life.

As the screens came back to life a diagnostic program was beginning to run. Soon the program booted up and all systems were a go.

“At a boy,”, the man said as the lights came on and the heaters ignited, “We have power!”

Cheers came from the two other men, and three women. They were looking around the Antarctic expedition's base camp to retrieve environmental samples from the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. They had found a meteor from the fossil record that seemed to have a living sample inside of it. The team hadn't been heard from in two weeks. So far it has seemed like the whole place was locked down for winter, and the team just up and left with no traces. The original crew of 3 along with hope that the radio just failed was now gone. Now it was time to find out what happened before winter closes this part of the continent for 6 months.

“It looks like they just up and left.”, the physicist mentioned.

“Yeah, this is crazy. The computers were shut down on purpose. I'll see if I can figure out what happened from here. We need to break into groups. You two look for a map.”, he pointed toward the geologist and physicist, “We were told to find the meteor site. We need to get out of here though because the weather is already starting to look rough. They were supposed to return next week anyway due the coming of winter, but since we hadn't heard from them, we need to find out where the team went. We also need to find any tissue samples of the life-form. I'll download most of the data collected from here. You three search the station, and since you all need to see the site....”

He was interrupted by the male geologist, “I know we have to go back into that cold. We'll collect the rest of the meteor samples and maybe a warm drink before we head out again, though.”

“That's fine, just see if you can find footprints in the snow before you leave the site and take a weapon. We don't know if someone took them, or if this was a false alarm due to an ice quake. Be on alert for anything.”

“Do I have to salute you like they do too, sir!”, the geologist saluted ironically.

“Look, I'm the security chief for a reason. Hopefully it's not necessary but be on the lookout for anything that can help us figure out what happened here."

The team broke into teams of two, and began searching for their colleagues, clues to their where a bouts, and to find their objectives.

“So, what's his deal?”, the biologist asked as they left the room.

“Yeah, he seems more invested in this.”. The geologist said.

“He was good friends with the woman that was here. If they left, we really need to find out why, and how? It's not like there's anywhere for thousands of kilometers from here to go. Aren't you worried about your colleague?”, said the physicist.

“Not really. I'd prefer to just find the mess.”

As they searched the tent-like structures, they came across the mess first. As the geologist flicked the lights on the smell of hot coffee was already in the air.

“Eureka, brown gold, that's really odd. But thank the Gods for whoever left it.”

“Well, here's the map of the meteor site.”

“Three Kilometers out there?”

“Hopefully they didn't take the buggy. I didn't see it outside of here, but we'll figure that out when we're ready to leave.”, the geologist said to the physicist.

“Is it heated?”

“I hope so, if it's still here?”

The biologist was looking at a small hand drawn map of the site, hung in a frame on the metal frame of the structures. Three personnel quarters, a biology lab; to collect and sample new life, a chemical lab; to study core samples, the computer lab the security chief was in near the entrance; which was a room in itself where cold wet clothes were removed and hung, a geology lab; to cut into unusual rock samples to determine mineral content for commercial uses, a personal telescope, which bulges out of the top of the large plastic structure that covers the steal tent like structures, and is accessible from this room, and a garage full of spare parts for the buggy, and should store two emergency skiffs in case the glacier calves completely into the sea. This was also where most of the wires spread over the glacier converged which gave them data on the glaciers movements and was showed as a spider web on the doodle of a map.

“Well, you might find the buggy in the garage. There should be two skiffs in case the glacier we're standing on calved into the sea all at once, as they've been known to do north of here. But these are the first scientists to spend a full six months this close to the South Pole. This was the most thorough southernmost scientific expedition into the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. We're basically able to study anything you want if you count the telescope.”, the biologist said.

“Oh good, another map. Looks like we have to go there too. I'm taking a break, you all should too, to keep your mind sharp. We have time. Our helicopter comes back in twenty-four hours.”, the geologist offered as he added sugar to his coffee and sat at the table.

“No, I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible and we can radio in for pick up early if we find nothing. Too much can go wrong at the bottom of the Earth.”, the biologist stormed off toward the labs.

The two women, that were waiting their turn to examine their location, checked the map themselves. They were security guards and were each armed with Combat Knives, M-16's, and Colt Pythons, similar to their boss. They had been rather quiet on the helicopter ride in and took direct orders from the man back at the computer. Since the last communication had been disrupted, they knew hostiles could still be around. One followed the biologist, and the other stayed behind to watch the geologist, and physicist drink warm beverages.

“Hey Darling, we don't need a babysitter, if you want to take a hike too.”, the geologist said as he unveiled a sawed-off shotgun holstered in his belt under his lab-coat. “And before you get all bent out of shape, my militia allows these for sport shooting at watermelons.”, with that he showed a card from his top shirt pocket showing this waiver for a banned weapon.

“Are you armed?”, security asked the young physicist.

“I'm a pacifist. I'm hoping we find these people alive.”, they said naively.

“Just stay with him.”, she commanded the physicist.

“I will.”

As the security guard left the room the geologist said, “No worries, I think an ice quake might have scared them or they're just out collecting samples. I hope we don't experience an ice quake though. That'd be bad. We should hope the skiffs are intact in case we end up in the ocean.”

The physicist's eyes grew wide imagining that disaster.

The other security guard caught up to the biologist just as the lights to this second biology lab flickered on to show the tools of a geology lab. They could see that they took tools from the biology lab to create a makeshift lab near where the meteorite was first studied. It looked like, on a table with two trays that several things had been dissected. Whatever it had been, was no longer on the trays, and looked almost scorched into the trays, like burnt cheese. They also saw a spectroscopic camcorder aimed at the table, so luckily there may be a film of the dissections in every spectrum of light. They also saw the large miter saw used to slice through the meteor with several blades. The original survey was to see if Plate Tectonics started along this fault or challenge the reining theory that Iceland was formed by an impactor left over from the formation of the moon. The impact caused the Russian Traps to rise and cause the Atlantic Ocean, and Caribbean crater basin. They never expected to find a large spherical meteorite with a live being trapped inside of it. They expected to collect cores, bores, spores, and a lot more data about the sky and Antarctica's past.

The biologist went straight to the camera to view any video, and the security guard said, “If that's the video we saw, you don't want to watch it.”

“Why not?”

“It wasn't pretty.”, as she examined the room her face grew quizzical discernment at the cleanliness of the room.

“I need to see where they went. Maybe there's a clue about what we're looking for and where they went?”

“Go ahead, but don't say I didn't warn you.”

As the biologist looked into the screen of the camera, the security guard scouted the rest of the room. She saw the dust samples the geologist would need in a labeled bag near the saw. After a quick patrol to clear any blind spots the security guard came over to watch the scientist dissecting a worm or other soft bodied animal.

The videos showed dissection, and watched as four creatures became eight, after dissection.

“This is incredible!”, a female voice on the camera rallied.

“Here, we'll do it again!”

A hand comes into view holding a scalpel and cuts the eight beings in half again and all sixteen squirm away from each other.

“Here be careful, drop one in some of this?”, said a man as a glove holding a container of bubbling liquid helium, they had on hand for weather balloons, appeared on the screen.

As one was dropped into the helium it squirmed and slowed down to a stop. Using tongs, they pulled it out and slowly it came back to life. After that they used fire to dispose of them all. The ash was collected, and the bag was open in the lab.

“Well, that's no good. There may not be any biological material left.”, the biologist said.

“Just ask if you'd like spoilers. Keep watching.”

As the video clicked off, it started right up again.

“Somehow one survived, we think it was the one we froze. Somehow it metabolizes faster in colder temperatures.”, said a female scientist into the camera. “We found our geochemist dead. Only his blood bleached bones remained. It ate his clothing, skin and muscle. On top of that our paleoclimatologist has been acting suspicious, and I haven't seen him in a day or two. I think he went out in the snow without his suit. I don't know what to do. Our radio is out too. I'm thinking of using the skiff to get closer to open waters and use the short-wave radio to get help. But I don't think it's right to leave him here if he's sick.”

The camera went black again this time it started again with the woman, “OK,....”, she was interrupted by a whooping noise, “Hold on, he's back.”, she stopped the film.

“Now's a good time to stop the film.”

“I didn't ask for a spoiler.”

“OK, consider yourself warned.”

As the scene went blank and came back on again, a man with only boxer shorts was jumping up and down around the body of the woman. She was hanging upside down and the man was babbling, “...Clothes....No Clothes....,” it threw her lab coat to the ground with bite marks on it. “Food, need food to replenish....Food...”

It no longer looked human as it tore meat from the carcass. This made the biologist throw up. “Are you OK?”, the security guard asked as it laughed and hooted more before the screen turned black again. “Where are you?”, he came on one last time. “I need to find out where I am. These maps make no sense.” As the man vanished from the screen the biologist also noticed the cleanliness of the environment being impeccable.

“What was that thing?”

“The first report is that exposure to that animal, they dissected, causes this condition. It's similar to worms that can infect the body but has the taxonomy of a modern slug or snail. The fact that it can divide asexually similar to worms make it one of the most dangerous beings of all time.”, the security guard reported.

“I've never seen anything like this before. It's like it has no shape. I have to find a sample.”, the biologist said.

“Why not destroy it?”

“If it can survive all of that including existing in the human body, imagine what we could learn from it.”

“Scientists see the promise, but never the misgivings.”, the security guard said.

Just then the geologist walked in to collect the samples, “We'll stage the samples by the entrance for extraction.”, the security guard explained.

“Sounds good to me. There's another pot of Joe brewing if you want some. So, what'd we miss, a movie?”, he asked.

“The samples were destroyed. If you find any type of life, try to retain it and let us know with a flare if you find anything out there.”, said the biologist dismayed.

“Keep an eye out for the other group's leader too. He's gone insane.”, the security guard warned.

“Ei, Ei, Ma'am!”, he said as he saluted again.

“Do you want back up? I think you might need some?”

“No missy, I don't think we do. There ain't nothin' out there but birds and seals.”, he reminded her securely.

“We have reason to believe there may be trouble out there.”

“I can handle it.”, he hands the physicist a gun.

“I'm not taking a gun. You said 'to relax we'd be fine'”

“It's just the flare gun. Calm down.”

“Oh.” the physicist said embarrassingly.

“I'll escort you back to the chief if you're done here sir?” The man had gathered the hard data drives from the recorder and what was left of the samples including the burnt sterile pans the life-forms were once on, since perhaps DNA could be salvaged from them.

“We've got an issue!”, the other security guard called from the direction of the garage.

“What's that!?”, they all exclaimed at once.

The security guard ran toward the other guard with the geologist. The biologist wished the physicist “Good luck! I'm not running toward danger. Let them know I'm going back to drop this stuff off at the entrance. I can take that for you, and I hope you find the exact trajectory and age of the impact. It could tell us a lot about the history of the Earth and end a lot of debates.”

“You think just because I'm like them that I want to run toward danger? I got recruited from college and sent on this journey against my will, and now we're looking for some psycho, and a life-form from a meteor. I don't really want to go out in the cold, be here in the little warmer, or dead like the other two crew members, but I was never given a choice.”, the physicist said.

“Trust me, it's for the good of all, and never watch those films.”

“Too late now, that was my mother.”, she said as she walked off in silence, debating her non-violent stance after showing up to viewing the video too soon.

In the bay of the garage one of the skiffs was missing.

“We have a skiff missing, hopefully due to emergency.”, the lone security guard said as the other two approached her.

“I'll say there's an emergency. There is a cannibal on the loose. He probably took the other skiff.”

Snow had built up from the garage door being open and one inter-tube boat with a fan instead of an engine was sitting there with the large snow buggy. You could see the Aurora Australis flaring green and giving everything a green hue inside of the garage as the lights hadn't been turned on due to the low hanging sun and lights in the sky.

“We should go follow the tracks of the other skiff.”

“Hopefully after two weeks we can do the same.”, the geologist said.

“Come on girly, we got to get goin'. The faster we get back the faster we leave this frozen hell.”

“Sounds good to me. The biologist went back to the entrance.", she told the security guards.

“Good we don't need to babysit him too.”, the lead security guard said. “Look, I hope you figure out where it came from.”

“Thanks, I hope you kill that psycho.”

“We'll do our best.”, they said as they took off to follow the tracks of one skiff in the other, in pursuit of a man whose clothes were found in the snow outside lying in the tracks of the skiff.

“Oh, good it's got heat!”, the geologist said, “And keys. Let's get out there and back. “, he said as it started, and he hit the lights.

As both the other teams chased their final missions, the biologist returned to the entrance to drop off all of the samples. As the biologist went to meet up with the security officer, he heard footsteps behind him. As he spun around, he saw no one. On the ground though there was now an egg with a yellow being beckoning to him from the ground.

“Here we go. A perfect sample.”, he closed it up in the sample bag with the ashes from the lab.

“Now maybe we can learn how you survive and why you drove that man insane.”, he said then met back up with the leader of their group.