I waded to my bed, got out my laptop, and made my way to the writing desk, swiping the papers off the chair and sitting down, setting the laptop on the paper covering the second one.
I opened the laptop and reopened the 3-D imaging program, which still had the tree shrew fossil on it. I clicked the empty title box and labelled it "Tree Shrew Fossil. Found near the peak of Mount Osseuse, alt. 3,503 m."
I zoomed in to the fossil, making it fill the screen. I rotated it and added a text box pointing to the ribcage, saying "Signs of damage, lined with Hapkeite (Fe2Si) deposits."
I zoomed in on the damaged area and set a filter to turn the rock transparent so I could see the bones alone.
I studied the damaged area, rotating and zooming as needed, as well as setting a color filter so that the hapkeite showed up as bright yellow over the brown bones.
I continued studying it, jotting down notes in boxes pointing to sections.
"Hmm...Let's see…" There's only one mark, so whatever caused the injury didn't go all the way through, but it still caused fatal damage. The hapkeite covered the bone in such a way that it must have been some kind of projectile, but there were three problems with that. First, the only time hapkeite has ever been found before now was in a meteorite in Oman, making it impossible for a chunk to fly this far with such momentum. Second, that meteorite was several million years older than this fossil, which, as my scanner had already indicated, died 10,000 years ago. The third was that the projectile wasn't lodged in the fossil.
I frowned and rotated the image some more. "Come on. Tell me your secret."
The image, obviously, didn't reply.
Several maddening hours later, I was still rotating the image, now only really half-paying attention. I checked the clock quickly. 2 superrevs and 6,132,336 revs.
I yawned. It was getting late. I blinked slowly a few times and lowered my head.
I woke with a start when my computer's alarm set off, followed by me sitting straight up, and then my chair falling backwards. I cursed in surprise, stood up, quickly turned off the alarm, and held my left ear, which had been right next to the audio port. I couldn't hear anything out of it, and when I pulled my hand back, it came back with red dots of blood. I sat down on my bed, snapping my fingers near the ear every few seconds.
After some time, my left ear went from completely deaf to hearing a loud, buzzing ring. I shook my head a few times, but the ring didn't go away. I sighed. Oh, well. A ringing noise was better than deafness.
I yawned again and left the room. The window was illuminated by the energy field, the blizzard beyond just as strong as before.
I glanced at the wall clock. 9 superrevs and 1,423,578 revs. About time to start work again.
I smirked and shook my head. It may be time to work, but there was something stopping me. There was a giant energy field and an even more enormous blizzard in the way.
I looked back at my room. Sure, the fossil wasn't technically part of my work, and sure it was the most frustrating thing I've ever found, but I had to figure it out. That hapkeite residue intrigued me. I had to figure out its secret.
I walked into the room, set the chair in the correct position, and sat down.
I decided to take a different approach.
I got back up, went to my dresser, carefully took the fossil out, closed the dresser, and sat back down, putting the fossil on the desk next to the laptop and opening a different program, which would scan the fossil and the criteria I enter and return different possibilities for what could have happened.
I went back to the old one and moved my cursor to the Exit button. I was about to click it when something in the image caught my eye.
I looked at it, searching for what I had seen. I didn't zoom in or rotate at all, afraid that I would lose whatever it was.
I realized what I had seen. The bright yellow was grouped together in a strange way.
I slowly rotated the image, carefully watching the yellow and how it was shaped.
I stopped when the yellow lined up as well as I could get it. It formed a wavy curve through the shrew's torso that tapered to a point near the base of its tail.
I frowned. A curvature like that with such a defined end couldn't have been made, even if you took into account the natural stretching of a fossil, by any kind of projectile.
It crossed my mind that this had been giving me this much trouble because the image still showed the fossil in its crushed and warped form. I stretched and tweaked the fossil so that it looked like it had in life and rotated it again.
I gasped. The hapkeite deposits lined up to form a curve that tapered to a very defined point.
It hadn't been killed by a flying chunk of meteorite. It had been killed by a talon.
I looked at the real fossil, sitting on the desk. "What are you?"
I filled the image with a representation of plaster, stopping when the entire talon wound had been filled. I digitally pulled the mold out and sent the data to my 3-D printer, which beeped and made the talon with plaster that I had put in it several days ago.
I picked up the printed talon, got out a chisel and brush, and began clearing the extra plaster from it.
When I had smoothed it out, I rotated it in my hands, studying the shape and size. It was about 5 inches long, and very smooth, tapering to a point that drew blood when I tapped it.
I got out a piece of paper and placed the claw on it, tracing it onto the paper and keeping the base undrawn to show that what was beyond was missing.
I took the talon off the paper and set it above it, then began to fill in the trace. I had a little trouble getting the center edge correct, because it was oriented outward instead of having the "valley" that most predators have.
After I finished, I held up the paper and scrutinized it, checking for errors. When I was satisfied that it looked like the plaster one, I smiled and went to work labelling it.
REPRESENTATION OF THE TALON THAT KILLED UNKNOW TREE SHREW FOSSIL
TALON SPECIES OF ORIGIN: CURRENTLY UNKNOWN REPTILIAN SPECIES
LENGTH OF INNER CURVE: 5 INCHES
LENGTH OF OUTER CURVE: 8 INCHES
ESTIMATED SIZE OF ANIMAL: 4'6" AT SHOULDER, 7'3" FEET IF STOOD ON TWO LEGS
TALON CHEMICAL MAKEUP: HAP
I stopped before I finished the "K" in "HAPKEITE". Hapkeite was a weak rock, with a hardness of only 4 or so, and deadly poisonous in quantities as large as this claw. However, a hapkeite shell would be stronger than corundum, and would not have the dangerous qualities that large quantities contain. I continued writing, changing my intended wording a little.
TALON CHEMICAL MAKEUP: HAPKEITE OUTER ENAMEL, UNKNOWN CORE COMPOUND
I was about to write more when the complex began vibrating again, signalling the end of the blizzard and subsequent lowering of the energy field.
I sighed and put away the fossil. I went back into the living room, bringing the drawing with me.
I squinted as the bright daylight hit my eyes. I checked the clock. 9 superrevs and 197,110,800 revs. I had worked for over an entire cycle.
I stretched. I wasn't at all tired, so I figured I would be fine for the day. Just in case, though, I added my thermal sleeping bag to my other various items in my pack. I rolled the paper up, deciding not to fold it, and stuck it in my pocket. It probably would make me look like an idiot to the other scientists, but I wasn't exactly the most popular person here anyway, so no harm done.
I also put the plaster claw in the same pocket, though why, I don't know.
I banged the right wall, heard movement inside, and said I was going out. I heard grumbling as a reply, and went out the door. Ian had been up for 4 days during his shift, monitoring neutronium reactions, among others, in the NR. He'll probably be asleep until his next shift in 192 superrevs.
I walked down the walkways to the mountain I had crossed to get here, went in, and exited on the first floor. As usual, scientists were busy running or walking, and as usual, the Triplet Colliders looked just as deceptively fragile as always.
I walked to the bridge I had used earlier and made my way back to Mount Osseuse. I cleared the snow and hailstones and sat down, removing the tarp from my excavation site from last time I was here.
It walked around the 10-foot wide alcove in the rock. It shed the lining of one of its talons and kicked it aside, not needing it anymore since it had already grown a new lining.
It noticed a piece of green, slightly shiny fabric near where it had kicked the shedding to.
It looked at the tarp, curious. It had never seen something like it, or like the shiny grey things holding it to the rock. It was about to tap it when it heard a noise from behind.
It whirled around and leapt, landing on a rock ten feet above. It sat perfectly still and watched the area below.
I was about to look inside (who knew, maybe there was another clue to the puzzle?) when something caught my eye.
I looked next to the hole I had dug out. What was that buried under the snow?
I carefully removed the snow that covered the thing. I gasped when it had been completely revealed. I quickly took the plaster talon from my pocket and picked the thing up.
It sucked in air, stunned that the person it had seen a few days earlier had what looked like a talon in its hand. It wondered what it was planning on doing with the shed lining.
I held the thing, which felt like fingernails and was flexible enough to bend where I squeezed it.
I held the plaster talon up next to it, then slowly pushed it into the thing. It fit perfectly. I had guessed correctly.
This thing was a talon, or at least, its lining.
I held my breath, shocked. Yes, I had harbored some belief that I might find more evidence of talons, but not like this. This specimen must have been petrified in ice even before the animal died, to have survived in such perfect condition for so long.
I took out my scanner and scanned the lining, returning the plastic talon to my pocket.
The scanner read as follows:
62% Ferrous Silicide, Fe2Si
25% Dihydrogen Monoxide, H2O
10% Glucose, C6H12O6
2.999% Hemoglobin, C2952H4664O832N812S8Fe4
0.001% Deoxyribonucleic Acid
Approximate Age: 4,383 Superrevs
Approximate Age Post-Molted: 98,555,400 Revs
I reeled back when I saw the age. This was no fossil. This must have been shed right before I got here.
