Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

  Jason turned. “Where exactly did you find this animal?”

  “Just north of Point Reyes.” Craig approached the cage. “One hundred and fifty feet from the waterline.”

  “One hundred and fifty feet? So . . . it washed up on the beach?”

  “We don’t think so. We checked. The tide hasn’t come that far up in six months.”

  “Then . . . it crawled?”

  Lisa shook her head. “No. We studied the sand, Jason, we studied it very closely for almost an hour. There were no marks of any kind.”

  Jason glanced at Phil, rapidly typing this into his laptop, then turned back to Lisa and Craig. “What are you saying? How did it get there?”

  It was then that he noticed a dozen thick textbooks on the counter near Phil. The one on top was titled The New Physics of Animal Flight.

  Craig looked him in the eye. “We think it flew.”

  CHAPTER 35

  JASON WAS silent. Craig Summers was serious. They were all looking at him, and they were all serious. Phil was still frantically typing, the tapping keys the only sound in the lab.

  “How could it possibly have flown onto a beach, Craig? This animal must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. The existing theories of aerodyn—”

  “The existing theories of aerodynamics don’t apply here, Jason.”

  A glance at the textbooks. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there have been some dramatic new findings about animal flight in the past five years.” Craig had minored in fluid dynamics at UCSD and was very familiar with the physicists behind these analyses, highly regarded names like Michael Fink, Gloria Rimmelstob, Karl Heinz VonKroyter, and Phillip Goldfarb. They were all brilliant, aggressive scientists who were constantly pushing the limitations of accepted theories and regarded as the Einsteins of their time.

  “What did they find exactly?”

  “Are you familiar with all those flying animals that every aerodynamic theory said couldn’t even get into the air?”

  “You mean bumblebees and all that?” According to established theories of aerodynamics, bumblebees, as well as several species of hummingbird and turkey, could not fly.

  “No. Not bumblebees, not modern animal flight. We’re talking about prehistoric animal flight, Jason. Have you heard of Quetzateryx?”

  “No.”

  “It’s some dinosaur whose fossils turned up at the very top of a mountain range in Colorado in 1981. There’s unambiguous proof it flew there. For years the experts couldn’t figure out how, but they were only working with conventional aerodynamic theory.”

  “Are you talking about that tiny flying dinosaur that evolved into a bird?”

  “No, that’s Archaeopteryx. That weighed just a pound or two. This is Quetzateryx. It weighed six thousand pounds.”

  “Six thousand? And it flew?”

  Summers nodded. “A true flying reptile.” It was a distant cousin of the much better known Quetzalcoatlus, first discovered in Texas in the 1970s.

  “But how could it have—”

  “Because it flew by an entirely different set of principles than any other animal we’ve ever known. This thing was nothing like modern birds, Jason. Different bones, musculature, wing structure—different everything. Have you heard of Gloria Rimmelstob? She’s a fluid-dynamics superstar out of Hamburg University.” Craig pointed to the pile of texts. “Three of her entire books are dedicated to something called ‘the new energy-to-lift ratios of muscles.’”

  Jason glanced at the texts. “They explain how this Quetza . . .”

  “Quetzateryx.”

  “. . . how Quetzateryx flew?”

  “In more detail than I could come close to understanding, but yes. Muscle strength is a big part of it.”

  “Muscle strength.”

  “Correct. For years, just one major theory explained animal flight, and it only covered physically light animals like birds that fly by manipulating their feathers. But these scientists collectively constructed a second theory for much heavier animals that didn’t have feathers and flew by manipulating specialized flying muscles.”

  “What are those exactly?”

  “They’re called ‘rippling muscles’ and they’re on the top and bottom of an animal’s wings. They say if they’re manipulated in just the right way, they can create lift with an efficiency nobody previously thought possible.”

  “How do these . . . rippling muscles work?”

  “According to Rimmelstob—and I guess VonKroyter and Fink did research on this too—in a way not covered by Bernoulli’s theorem.”

  “Which is . . .”

  “Lift is created when a fixed wing, any wing—a plane’s, bird’s, whatever—passes through the air. Wings are shaped with a curved top but a flat bottom. So when air passes around them, the air that goes over the top has to move faster than the air that passes under the bottom so both airstreams reach the other side at the same time. The increase in air velocity on the top creates a decrease in pressure, which creates lift, which in turn makes the wing rise. That’s how most things fly. Fair enough?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now, rippling muscles work by a very different concept. When rippling muscles tense, or fire, they almost undulate, sort of like a dolphin’s body undulates when it swims. So when the muscles at the top of a wing undulate in the same direction as the air, they increase the air’s velocity, and that creates greater lift.”

  “OK.”

  “And when a separate set of rippling muscles at the bottom of the wing undulate in the opposite direction, they decrease the air’s velocity there. So this creates an even greater difference between the two airspeeds. One moving much faster than normal on the top, the other moving much slower than normal on the bottom. Collectively, that creates significantly greater lift. Fink conducted some lab tests in wind tunnels in Geneva last year that concluded the difference is exponential.”

  “Holy cow.”

  “You have no idea. It can increase lift by a factor of five hundred times, maybe more. Rippling muscles are how Quetzateryx flew, Jason.” He pointed to what was in the cage. “And they’re how this animal flew, too.”

  Jason eyed the creature behind the bars, scanning its back, wondering if he could actually . . . Jesus, I see them. There they are. They were clearly visible beneath the leathery black skin: a million different little muscles, each an inch or so wide, stretching from the head down to the tapered backside. He actually saw them rippling ever so slightly when the animal breathed. He’d never seen muscles move like that in his life.

  Craig shrugged. “But obviously, the reality’s different from the theory.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean rippling muscles may work well in theory, but the reality—for this animal at least—is that they didn’t work well enough.”

  Jason noticed the animal was staring at his feet now, and was clearly in very bad shape, sickly, and breathing heavily. He tapped his hand against the bar, trying to get its attention, but it didn’t move. “Has its condition worsened?”

  Lisa looked down at it. “We just hoped it would stay alive until you came back.”

  “Should we try putting it in the water?”

  “We already did.” With the help of a boat crane, they’d lowered the entire cage into the sea. “It almost drowned.”

  “It did?”

  “You know how quickly gills dry up.”

  “Right.” Gills become unusable in a day. “What about food? Have you tried feeding it?”

  Lisa shook her head. “Everything. It won’t eat. It won’t eat a damn thing.”

  Jason began pacing. “Well . . . we’re going to test it anyway. . . . Vision. Hearing. Smell. Radar. Sonar. Magnetic abilities . . . I want to test this animal for everything.”

  Not hearing him, Lisa suddenly crouched next to the cage.

  “And these rippling muscles. We’ve got to find out how they fire, determine their strength. And its breathing, and . . .”


  “We’re not testing for anything, Jason.”

  He turned to Lisa. “What? Why not?”

  “Because I think it just died.”

  “No . . .” He crouched down. Behind the bars, the animal’s eyes were closed, and its body wasn’t rising and falling anymore. “Son of a bitch,” he said quietly. “Son of a bitch.” No one else spoke. The only sound was from Phil Martino’s rapidly tapping keys.

  Then Jason cleared his throat. “Let’s start the autopsy. Right away.”

  CHAPTER 36

  FOR THE next few moments, no one said a word. They simply stared at the dead creature in the cage. As Monique studied it through the bars, she reconsidered the events of the past twenty-four hours. This animal is going to be huge, she thought. Much bigger than a new species. A species, the most basic of animal classifications, was defined as a group of physically and genetically similar animals. Related species composed a genus, related genera made up a family, and related families constituted an order. She eyed the dead predator. The key to animal classifications was that they were somehow related. But was anything—anything at all—truly “related” to this animal? Mantas were, of course, but that was a distant link from the days of Pangaea. In their current form, mantas were entirely different from this animal and lacked everything that made it so fantastic—the large predatory brain and the ability to think, breathe air, possibly fly. Was there anything else, any order of animal ever, now or in the past, that could be classified with it? She couldn’t think of one.

  “Come on!” Jason pulled hard on the cage door, straining to get it open.

  Darryl looked down to him. “Want a hand with that?”

  “I can get it.” He yanked even harder, giving it everything he had.

  “See, Darryl.” Lisa patted Jason’s back playfully. “He can’t even rely on someone to open a cage.”

  Darryl watched Lisa’s hand closely. She wasn’t patting Jason’s back the way he would have. It was much more gentle, intimate even. Then Lisa saw him looking and removed her hand. Is something brewing between them? Darryl wondered.

  The door popped open, and Jason looked up at her. “See?” He opened it fully. Then he just stood there. He didn’t enter the cage, didn’t even move. He just looked at the animal. There were no bars between them now and he wondered if it was really dead. He ducked his head slightly, stepping onto the metal.

  “Be careful.” Lisa suddenly felt very nervous.

  He took another step and entered the cage fully. The predator was just a few feet away now. He leaned down to touch it. His hand moved closer. Then closer still. Then suddenly jolted back.

  “Oh my God!” Lisa stammered.

  Jason exhaled. The creature hadn’t moved. “Sorry—nerves.” He touched the skin. The animal didn’t budge. It was dead. “Phil, Darryl, Craig—can you give me a hand with this?”

  THE RAY was belly-up on a pair of pushed-together operating tables. Its wings drooped lifelessly over the tables’ sides, its middle so thick it almost looked like an inverted sea turtle.

  As Phil jumped to and fro snapping pictures, Lisa touched the white skin. It was thick and leathery. Fantastically so, perhaps tougher than rhino skin.

  Sweating from having just helped to lift it, Craig crouched beneath the tables and looked up at the horned head. Jesus, that’s a big mouth. Wide enough to swallow a physics text whole. He put his hands on the jaws and tried to pull it open. It didn’t budge. He pulled as hard as he could. Nothing. He pulled again, really straining. Not a damn thing. Annoyed, he looked up at Darryl. “Gimme a hand?”

  Darryl joined him, and together they yanked.

  It still didn’t budge, and Darryl paused. “Back away a sec. Let the Big Dog try solo.”

  “Be my guest.” Craig got up, and Darryl carefully positioned his hands. Lisa watched as he pulled as hard as he could, forearms straining mightily. The mouth slowly opened. Holy cow. Propped open, it reminded Lisa of those shark jaws from museums, except considerably more frightening. Look at those teeth.

  The fat S-shapes were as wide as shot glasses at their base, with dagger-sharp tips, and too numerous to count. They were the teeth of a child’s nightmare.

  Summers eyed some pus oozing out of a closed eyelid. “This animal died of GDV-4.”

  Phil paused from his pictures. “You sure?”

  Craig almost laughed. “Yeah, Phil. I’m sure.”

  Phil got back to snapping. “Don’t forget the recorder, Jason.”

  Jason turned it on, snapped on some surgical gloves, then turned to Lisa. “Want to assist?”

  “Oh, sure. Uh . . .” She quickly rooted around a cabinet for a lab coat. Putting it on, she didn’t notice Jason’s disappointment when her hips disappeared behind the white fabric.

  Then Jason forgot about her hips. He grabbed a small cutting knife. Then he began to cut.

  “ONE LUNG.”

  Four separate flaps of white leathery skin were peeled back; in the middle of them, a very large lung, pink and healthy.

  “Just like the lungfish,” Monique said in quiet amazement.

  Jason turned to Lisa. “Now check the stomach?”

  “Definitely.”

  He started the next incision.

  IT HOVERED just below the surface, a three-hundred-pound juvenile.

  Perfectly still, its eyes shifted, watching as a seagull plunged into the water ten feet away.

  The bird knifed in, grabbed a minnow, and returned to the surface. It quickly gobbled its food, then just floated there.

  THOUSANDS OF other rays also watched the bird. None moved.

  This one was the closest. Very, very slowly, it swam toward it.

  JASON STUCK a gloved hand into the cut-open underbelly. “Why would they fly?”

  Lisa turned. “Why?”

  “Yeah, why? What’s the reason?”

  THE JUVENILE swam closer, propelling itself ever so gently.

  BOBBING, THE seagull glanced up at the gray sky. Then back to the sea. But there were no fish there, just empty, dark waters.

  MONIQUE TURNED. “They’d fly for the same reason they left the depths. To find food.”

  Jason reached into the belly up to his forearm and rooted around. “What food is in the air?”

  Monique didn’t answer. She just watched as a strange look formed on his face. “What do you have there?”

  “I don’t know.” But it didn’t feel like a fish.

  THE GULL turned back to the water again. All it saw was its own rippling reflection, but still no fish. It looked up, noticing a dozen other gulls gliding nearby. It turned back to the water. Now, just beneath its reflection, were two large black eyes, staring at it coldly.

  The gull flew away as fast as it could.

  Then there was a frantic splashing behind it . . . and the sound of wings beating. The bird didn’t look back.

  “It’s a seagull.”

  Jason washed it off in the sink and held it up for all to see: a dripping-wet, crushed, feathered body. No one said anything. They just stared at the bird.

  As Phil snapped a picture, Jason put it on the counter. Then he reached into the stomach again.

  THE CREATURE thundered out of the sea, flapping violently, water shooting everywhere. It rose fast on the diagonal, its eyes locked on the prey ahead.

  The gull flew very fast . . . but not fast enough.

  The predator picked up speed, the mouth opening, the fat S-shapes zooming in.

  The bird crowed loudly, desperately. Then it went silent.

  “ANOTHER ONE.” Jason rinsed off a second gull, then reached back into the stomach. He removed a third one. Then a fourth and fifth.

  “Jesus,” Craig said quietly.

  Jason began removing crushed birds by the handful. When he finished there were fifty-six in total.

  Darryl just stared at them, in five neat rows on the counter. “They’re feeding on them. My God, they’re flying to eat.”

  Craig paused. “We don’t know that.�
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  “We found this animal a hundred and fifty feet from the shoreline, and now its stomach is filled with seagulls. Do the math, Craig.”

  Summers stayed calm, analytical. “This ray could have caught every one of those birds when they bobbed on the ocean. We don’t know it flew, Hoss.”

  Lisa’s cell phone rang. She checked the ID and picked up. “Lisa Barton . . . Is that right? Hold on.” She glanced up. “Is there a fax here?”

  Monique pointed. “The other room.”

  Lisa walked off, and Jason turned back to the cut-open ray. “These animals are certainly trying to fly—right?”

  “The juveniles are,” Monique said. “The juveniles alone.”

  “But not the adults?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Think about what you saw on your deep dive, Jason.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “More than a thousand skeletons, and every single one of them was an adult. It’s plain as day. The adults aren’t adapting. GDV-4 wiped out their old food source, they can’t find a new one, and now they’re dying because of it. But the juveniles . . . they’re swimming into higher waters, hunting new prey, maybe even flying. They are doing absolutely everything they can to eat. They are adapting. Or at least trying to.”

  Darryl shook his head. “So . . . why wouldn’t the adults do the same thing?”

  “Maybe they can’t. The adults have spent their entire lives, their entire evolutionary history, in one place, learning one way to feed, one way to live. Suddenly their food disappears and they just have too much . . . inertia holding them back to do anything different.”

  “But the juveniles don’t have that problem?”

  “No. At least not to the same degree. They’re brand new to the world. They have much less holding them back.”