Page 4 of Ruining His Smirk

The technician eased the probe farther back, widening the view.

“No,” I whispered.

Keith looked at me. “What?”

“It can’t be.”

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head slowly. “Nothing’s wrong. That’s the problem.”

The lights traveled along the pale curve of the spine. The vertebrae continued in an unbroken line, with the ribs still fanned out on either side instead of scattered across the seabed.

“It’s articulated,” I said. “The bones are still lying in anatomical position.”

Keith frowned. “You don’t normally find them like that?”

“Almost never this complete.” I stepped closer to the screens. “Once a whale reaches the seafloor, an entire ecosystem goes to work on it. Scavengers strip the tissue. Smaller organisms colonize the bones. Currents and sediment shift things over time. The skeleton gets disturbed, buried, pulled apart.”

“But this one didn’t.”

“No. Look at the spine. The ribs. If the skull is still attached…”

The technician moved the probe a little farther, and the lights found the great sweep of the jaw.

The captain came up to stand next to me. “Museums have whole whale skeletons, though. Don’t they?”

“Yes, but that isn’t what this is.” I pointed at the screen. “Those are prepared specimens. Bones collected, cleaned, reconstructed, and mounted. This animal is still lying where it came to rest. The sediment around it is part of the discovery. The position of every bone is part of it.” I swallowed. “We may be looking at an entire whale fall that has remained intact.”

“So how rare are we talking? How many have been found?”

“Complete, articulated humpbacks in their original Antarctic seabed context?” I shook my head. “Not many. Possibly none quite like this.”

The captain whistled as he rocked back on his heels.

Then the technician asked the obvious question. “Can we bring it up?”

My excitement evaporated. I looked at the skeleton again, lying peacefully beneath untold years of undisturbed Antarctic water. It had probably been exposed only because of the recent melting along the belly of the iceberg.

“…No.” The word tasted bitter. “Our probe can document it. Photograph it.” I shook my head. “But that skeleton weighsseveral tons. We don’t have anything aboard capable of lifting something that size without destroying it.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Keith squeezed my shoulder. “That’s a hell of a discovery.”

It was. We’d just found the discovery of a lifetime.

And it was going to stay exactly where it was.

2

Garrett

Waypoint Research Station

Antarctica Peninsula

Dec 10th

I ran the machine through one final cycle. The ram descended with a low mechanical groan, paused, then rose smoothly without so much as a shudder.