“What about these whales?”
“They’re far from home, too. I can’t say exactly, but generally the right whales of the North Atlantic should be up around the mouth of the St. Lawrence this time of year.”
“What are they doing here?”
“They could have been sick and the sickness disoriented them.”
“What about the hurricane?”
“I don’t know. I guess it could have killed them.” Sandy scraped more gunk into a separate container.
“What’re you doing there?” Weiss asked.
“Different species of whales eat different types of food,” said Sandy. “Grays prefer small, schooling fish. Blues prefer small crustaceans. Right whales and bowheads feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton. They siphon water through their mouths and their baleen plates catch the plankton. This green stuff looks like seaweed. They can’t eat that.”
“Why are you interested?”
“It’s Professor Adamski’s orders.”
“Why is he interested?”
“Could have something to do with the autopsies of the San Diego whales.”
“The autopsies.” Weiss drew out the words in a knowing tone. “What were the results again?”
“I’m not exactly sure of the technical conclusion,” said Sandy. “But everyone around here is pretty sure those whales starved to death.”
“In the ocean?” Weiss couldn’t contain his surprise. “Those whales starved to death in the Pacific Ocean?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“And Adamski wants to see if these did, too,” said Weiss.
“I guess so,” Sandy said.
Weiss looked down at his feet. Wavelets lapped against his jeans. A single minnow darted around his shoes. Something big was happening. Something bigger than politics, bigger than war, bigger than any scandal he ever had uncovered. He thanked Sandy for her help and rushed around the carcasses until he found Tucker.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing the cameraman by the collar.
“I’m not finished.”
“Fuck ’em. We’ve learned all we can from here for now.” He started back toward the Rover.
“Where’re we going?” asked Zeke. He had to run to keep up.
“Remember a few years ago,” said Weiss, ignoring the question because he had no real answer, “NASA had all those wigged-out ideas for manufacturing oxygen for long duration space flights. Remember what they were going to use?”
“Plants.”
“Not exactly plants. Plankton. Phytoplankton. Microscopic bugs that’re the most efficient oxygen-producing organisms on the planet. Better than trees.”
“So?”
“These whales eat plankton. They also look like they died of starvation, along with the ones in San Diego.”
“What’s that add up to?”
“Damned if I know,” Weiss said, puffing now, sweating as he scurried across the hot sand toward the waiting Rover. “But it’s something big. I can feel it in my bones.”
Tucker made no reply. He knew that an Aaron Weiss hunch meant there was a story waiting to be uncovered. Besides, Zeke had that same quivering feeling along his spine.
17 AUGUST 1998
SPACE SHUTTLE CONSTELLATION
It is important to realize that space workers are not astronauts in the original sense of the term. Their function is not to pilot spacecraft or explore other bodies of the solar system. They are not trained pilots or former military officers.
Space workers live and work in orbiting facilities such as the Trikon Station for extended periods of time, much as oil-rig workers go to remote sites such as the Alaskan North Slope or platforms far out in the North Sea. They perform construction and maintenance tasks or conduct scientific research under conditions that cannot be duplicated on Earth. They live in isolation and with the constant knowledge that there is less than half a centimeter of aluminum separating them from the extremely hostile environment of space.
There is no predicting how a particular person will react to life in an orbiting facility. Test pilots seemingly immune to motion sickness have been stricken by severe nausea during the early portions of their time in space. Calm, seemingly well-adjusted scientists and technicians have developed whole constellations of personality dysfunction symptoms that the psychologists have dubbed Orbital Dementia.
Apparently, Orbital Dementia is similar to the psychological malady found among certain members of Antarctic “winterover” teams, but is overlaid with the physical stresses unique to the microgravity environment of outer space. Studies have revealed three general phases. In the first, the person will be cranky and/or angry. In the second, the person will become reclusive. In the third, the person will become violently aggressive, even murderous or suicidal. Transdermal motion-sickness pads have been developed to counteract nausea until the person adjusts to weightlessness. But so far, no such “quick-fix” remedy has been developed for Orbital Dementia. Psychologists and psychiatrists have studied the experiences of the Skylab, Salyut, and Mir missions, as well as Antarctic “winterover” teams, but have failed to devise a test that will accurately predict a person’s behavior in space. One psychologist likened the task to predicting the weather. I think it more akin to trying to predict an earthquake.