Mythical
By: William Petersen
Edited by: Piers Anthony
Copyright 2011 William Petersen
Chapter 1
Tim opened the door to a smack of negative twenty-five degree wind right in the face, with a glaringly bright light in every direction, as an added bonus. Just another day in paradise... he thought sarcastically.
Stepping out the door, he carried his 'shoe-shine' box: a collection of water-sampling and testing tools, used for obtaining the day's samples. As he looked down at them he thought: Who in the hell needs samples everyday? But he knew already.
As a training climatologist and meteorologist, Tim knew all too well that these samples were essential and they would help prove, in real time, what global warming was doing to marine life, particularly marine mammals. This spot had become a little-known home to several pods of whales, narwhals to be exact, that were keeping a breathing hole and a path to it, cleared and open all year long. This provided a great base for water, weather and animal studies in a single location and one that was extremely sensitive to environmental changes, recording those changes effectively in climate records.
The small community college at which Tim was studying received a sizable grant and paid research opportunity for direct studies into the growing crisis of global warming. While very uncommon, it was the break Tim needed to finish school and have a nice cushion of money, while earning valuable field time and first-hand experience.
This sent him to one of the northernmost locations on the North American continent, just about halfway between the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and Point Barrow, the official and literal top of the United States. As he walked along, the wind howled and blasted him from the side, as if to remind him of where he was. “Just think warm thoughts,” he said out loud, sarcastically repeating the advice that Maddie, another researcher at the station, offered him at every opportunity.
At the top of the world, hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle, in some of Alaska's harshest conditions, a small research station had been assembled from the remnants of long-abandoned oil exploration facilities. Privately funded and well beyond the bureaucratic tangle of the lower forty-eight, the place was doing real research as they saw fit, breaking new ground and getting paid very, very well in the process. He was astounded at the offer presented to him.
“Tim, this is full payment of the rest of your studies through post-graduate and beyond, if you want. You also get a monthly paycheck that is nearly four times what you're making now filing weather reports for websites and news stations. This is too good to pass up,” the grantor's representative had told him.
Tim normally took his backpack, binoculars, a .357 revolver for bears, snacks and a warm drink on his twice-daily outings. However, today it was miserable, and it would be a fast one, if he had any say about it. Nearly running his first few steps, he immediately remembered that sweat killed in these extreme climates and slowed his pace.
Heading down a gradual snowy decline from the research station, he followed the familiar entrenched path to the spot which a particular pod of narwhals had been using for some time. The whales conveniently kept a large hole, thirty feet or more in diameter, open year-round. The whales accomplished this by swimming back and forth constantly and through their surface breathing; the action kept water flowing and prevented a total freeze.
The landscape off of the coast also contributed, providing shallow currents close to the shore that naturally kept pathways open under the ice. The whales capitalized on this for a reliable path to and from their communal breathing hole, safe from most predators.
All of this went through Tim's mind as he walked to take his daily samples, thinking of all the things that had to have happened just right, however unlikely they were, to bring him to this point. It helped break up the monotony of the nearly half-mile hike through pathways cut into the snow and ice.
Sometimes the paths were as deep as ten or twelve feet, making for a cavernous trek that was eerie at times, yet seemingly benevolent at others, especially when it offered protection from gusting Arctic winds. As Tim rounded the last turn of the snow and ice trench, the land opened up into unimaginable whiteness as far as his eyes could see. Even when the wind wasn't blowing snow everywhere, the view took his breath away with its expansive barrenness.
He could just barely see a distant, rocky shoreline emerging to the west, but it quickly faded into the blur of white. To the north and east, nothing but white... an endless spell of unimpeded white. It played tricks on his eyes; he squinted, then slowly took in more and more light as his eyes adjusted, until he was eventually able to make out contours and ice floes in the distance.
Tim walked to the edge of the hole and bent over to set his box of tools down, when a narwhal unexpectedly, and rather rudely, broke the surface and sprayed seawater all over him. He was used to it, it actually happened quite often. The animal researchers suspected the whales were territorial, though not much was actually known about them, another lure to his scientific interest.
“Not cool man...” Tim told the whale as it dove back beneath the water. He moved around the hole and away from the frisky whale, taking note that there were now several more poking their mottled gray and black heads up and out the water. Their eight and ten foot long spiral horns cast long reflections on the glassy surface in front of them. All at once, they began expelling air and water very hard, almost in unison.
That's pretty cool, synchronized spitting, Tim thought, and made a mental note to tell Maddie about the number of whales and their excessive exhaling. Maddie was the lead whale researcher and much like himself. She was from the Midwest, lower middle class and working hard to pay for school. She was attractive, smart and nice, but not all there sometimes; a sort of childish naivety permeated her personality, which Tim found more endearing than the others.
Tim took the first vial out of his 'shoe-shine' box, removed the lid and swished some water around inside, then dumped it to remove any contaminants, making a point to hurry. The whales were moving over toward him to spray some more. After the next scoop of water, he held the plastic container up to what light was available, looking for anything that looked to be lint or dirt, when his view abruptly shifted. It was almost as if the ice on which he was standing had broken loose and was tilting over.
Something caught his peripheral vision, and something sprayed over the water in front of him and to his left, making loud slapping noises on the water. However, he couldn't look to see it directly, he seemed to be paralyzed and though he was trying hard to move his body, it was going nowhere. The effort was actually hurting his head, badly. The landscape was rising up to him at an odd angle.
I must be tilting fast, he thought, as his face hit the ice... hard.
Tim could only see out of his right eye now, which was looking straight down into the water. He realized that he was slumped over the edge of the breathing hole. There was the movement of the water and sound, and while a black fuzz was encroaching on his vision, he could just make out the red, oily stain moving out across the water away from him. The stain was growing larger with each passing second, and it was steaming. The black fuzz was closing in fast, squeezing out the light in an oval pattern.
Just like looking down a tunnel, he thought comically, Tunnel vision... the thought faded as the blackness took over.