Blind
Penguins
by Robert Moriyama
The nuclear submarine
Cold Warrior slid through the frigid grey-blue waters of the Antarctic
Ocean like a cruising shark, electronic senses alert for prey. The big
display at the forward end of the bridge showed an image that combined
sonar and video inputs into a coherent view of the massive wall of ice
a thousand meters distant.Harry Simms checked the inertial guidance system
readouts on his console and reported, "We've reached our destination, Cap
-- two klicks from Cape Crozier, about one klick from the edge of the ice
shelf."
Captain Jake Tanaka grinned. "It's about time, Harry. Take us to periscope
depth and send up the Albatross."
"Periscope depth and give 'em the bird," Harry acknowledged.
The Warrior slowly rose until the top of her conning tower was only a few
meters below the wind-churned waves. A thud followed by the whine of a
winch announced the release of the half-balloon, half-kite platform that
carried the sub's surface video cameras and satellite uplink antenna.
After about thirty seconds, Harry said, "Albatross is up and stable, Cap.
Video feed looks good."
"Welcome to Operation Tuxedo Junction, Harry,"
Jake said.
"Let's see some penguins."
Harry tapped a key and the image on the big screen was replaced by a high-resolution
view of the wind-swept Ross Ice Shelf. Barely visible in the distance,
a few dozen black-and-white figures waddled slowly across the frozen landscape.
Dozens more
huddled together for warmth against the subzero chill.
"Penguins ho, Cap," Harry said. "Looks like Emperors, from the markings
and the size. But we're either too late or too early for the party -- there
don't seem to be a lot of the little guys out there."
Jake frowned as he finished his own rough count.
"You're right, Harry. Last year, that beach looked like a headwaiters'
convention -- now it's more like the morning after. Let's zoom in a bit."
Harry complied. Thirty meters above them, the camera in the kite-like ASP-20
Albatross responded to Harry's commands. The video image blurred, then
came back into focus with a view covering perhaps 10 per cent of the original
area. Jake squinted at the magnified image, noting the orange cheek
patches on the massed penguins. "This is an Emperor rookery, all right.
But damn, there should be a lot more of them."
Harry tapped a few keys and consulted the small flatscreen at his station.
"Computer grid-count on the wide view only registered about two hundred.
Last year, like you said, they estimated over two thousand at this site."
Jake triggered the satellite uplink and selected the McMurdo Base channel.
"McMurdo, this is Cold Warrior. We have started Operation Tuxedo Junction,
but there seems to be a problem."
"Warrior, this is Dr. Halvorsson at McMurdo. What kind of problem? Are
the Willies malfunctioning?"
Jake grinned; Halvorsson had designed the little robot penguins to observe
penguin behaviour in the wild, and they were still his children. Named
for the Walter Lantz cartoon character, a Chilly Willy could "swim, walk,
and squawk" like the real thing; its on-board computer used data on penguin
behaviour to perfectly mimic a living bird. Still, Halvorsson had seen
them fail in embarrassing ways in early tests; he obviously feared that
they would screw up again on their first major field test.
"Haven't even launched them yet, Dr. Halvorsson," Jake said. "The problem
is -- well, check the video feed from our airborne camera. I think you'll
see what I mean." Harry signalled him that he had already set up the video
relay.
Almost immediately, Halvorsson replied, "My God, Jake, where are the rest
of them? This was one of the largest breeding areas for Emperor penguins,
and it looks almost deserted!"
The sound of a heated argument replaced Halvorsson's voice. Jake managed
to pick out several familiar voices, including most of the armchair types
who had conceived Operation Tuxedo Junction. After several minutes, Halvorsson
spoke again.
"Ah, Jake, we think -- you are aware that the Willies can do more than
observe?"
"Yep," Jake answered. "The little guys have tranquillizer guns slaved to
their beady little camera eyes. To defend themselves from irate real penguins,
you said."
"That's right, Jake," Halvorsson agreed. "We think we need to examine a
specimen here, in the lab."
Jake exchanged looks of dismay with Harry. "Uh, okay, Dr. Halvorsson. I
guess we can get a Willy in close, and knock out one of our subjects. But
how will the Willy get the specimen back to us?"
He already knew the answer, but still hoped that the frozen think tank
at McMurdo had a better idea.
"I'm afraid you'll have to retrieve the specimen yourself," Halvorsson
said. "Even if a Willy could tow an unconscious specimen back to the boat,
the creature would surely drown or freeze -- hardly acceptable, especially
if the population has declined as disastrously as the video suggests."
Jake sighed. The nice thing about submarines was that you rarely had to
get wet and cold. Of course, if you had to get out of the submarine, you
would quickly be both -- especially in the middle of an Antarctic winter.
Harry pantomimed shivering and fainting. Jake pointed one finger at his
own head and pulled an imaginary trigger.
"Jake, are you there? Did you hear me?"
Shaking his head, Jake said, "Yes, Dr. Halvorsson. We'll start the capture
operation right away."
Jake closed the satellite channel and groaned. "We couldn't be chasing
dolphins in Tahiti. It had to be penguins. It had to be Antarctica." He
raked his fingers through his thinning black hair.
"Well, we might as well get the Willies in the water," he said. "Maybe
we'll get lucky and they'll sink."
Harry laughed. "Maybe the little tranquillizer guns will freeze up."
But Jake said, "You realize, of course, that if either of those things
happen . . ."
"They'll make us go out and chase down a penguin ourselves, instead of
just retrieving a doped-up, conveniently stationary one," Harry finished.
Five minutes later, they launched Willies One through Five from what had
been torpedo tubes before the Warrior had retired from its military career.
The bullet-shaped black-and-white shapes cut through the frigid grey water
almost as swiftly as the weapons they had replaced, computer-controlled
servo-motors flexing articulated alloy skeletons in patterns copied from
living penguins.
Harry steered the entire group toward the edge of the ice shelf. When they
reached the shallows, the little robots shot out of the water in graceful
arcs, landing on their feet like short, stubby gymnasts, then dropping
to their bellies. The Willies then used their powerful flippers to scoot
over the ice like small black bobsleds, covering the distance to the edge
of the penguin nesting area in minutes.
When they reached the nesting area, the Willies rolled to their feet and
began to walk toward the distinctly undersized group of real penguins.
Harry switched the main screen to display the video feed from Willy One.
Even with image stabilization, the rolling gait of the animatronic bird
made it look like the icy landscape was experiencing a major earthquake.
"Aim for that big one on the left," Jake said. "I think a bruiser like
that has a better chance of survival than some of these guys."
"You got it," Harry said. "I think we're in range now, but I want to get
closer -- the wind's pretty strong, and we only have a couple darts in
each Willy."
Jake frowned. "Be careful," he warned. "Remember, in some of the tests,
real penguins seemed to figure out that Willies were fakes when they got
too close. Besides which, a penguin with an egg can be downright hostile
to even another real penguin."
"Not these guys. I mean, they go into a huddle to keep warm," Harry reminded
him. He brought Willy One to a halt less than two meters from the penguin
Jake had selected, waiting to see if the target would respond. But the
big male seemed oblivious to the Willy's proximity, even though it could
hardly miss seeing the black-and-white intruder at that distance.
Harry tapped a function key, and luminous cross-hairs appeared on the image
of their target. He jiggled a joystick until the cross-hairs were at the
centre of the penguin's chest, then struck a second key to fire a dart.
The penguin squawked in surprise, flailing its fin-like wings and stabbing
at the air with its beak in a belated attempt to defend itself. After about
a minute, it seemed to grow tired; its wings sagged and its head slumped
forward.
"We have about an hour before he wakes up," Harry said. "We'd better get
out there."
Jake grimaced and said, "This sort of thing makes me wish the Warrior still
had a crew of thirty-something. Then I could order somebody else to go
out there, and keep my buns warm and dry."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course, you'd send me to supervise!"
In the time it took Jake to squeeze himself into his survival suit, Harry
had donned his own suit, brought the Warrior to the surface, and prepared
the two-man hovercraft for launch. Fifteen years conning submarines didn't
do much for the waistline, Jake reflected ruefully.
The trip across the kilometre of choppy grey water was even less pleasant
than Jake had feared; their heated suits and the hovercraft's water-tight
canopy kept them alive, but Jake still felt like someone had emptied a
bag of crushed ice in his shorts. About the best he could say about the
climb onto the ice shelf and the trek to the penguin colony was that it
was drier than the boat trip, and less likely to cause motion sickness.
Finally, Jake and Harry reached the unconscious bird. They wrapped their
victim and the egg it guarded in an insulated blanket, strapped the bundle
to a collapsible sled, and dragged it to the waiting craft. Another fun-filled
ride across the water (or more accurately, slush) brought them home again.
Back inside the Warrior, they locked their feathered prisoner into a refrigerated
holding pen. Then they struggled out of their survival suits and climbed
gratefully into hot showers. Thawed, but still disgruntled, Jake
contacted McMurdo Base.
"We have your specimen," Jake reported. "Big, skinny male, about one-point-three
meters tall, but only fifty kilograms. Egg seems okay, according to the
ultrasound scan. What bothers me is that he didn't seem to notice the Willy
that shot him, even when it was almost stepping on his toes."
"That is odd," Halvorsson agreed. "Our feathered friends here don't see
too well out of the water, but he should have responded to the proximity
of a stranger."
Jake added, "The rest of the flock didn't react much to our presence when
we picked him up, either. I mean, I think we were downwind of them, but
those survival suits are fluorescent orange. They'd have to be blind not
to see us --"
Halvorsson gasped. "Jake, is the specimen awake yet?"
Jake glanced at the holding pen. "Nope. The little guy's still snoring
-- or would be, if penguins could snore."
"Look at his eyes, Jake," Halvorsson said urgently. "Look at his eyes."
Jake looked at Harry for clues as to what the Norwegian scientist wanted.
Harry shrugged; he had no idea either.
Jake donned padded gauntlets and goggles, just in case their guest woke
up when Jake started pawing at his face. He opened the door of the holding
pen, leaned in, and peered closely at the bird's blankly-staring eyes.
"I'm no expert," he said slowly, "but I have seen quite a few of these
guys up close. This one -- his eyes look cloudy, somehow."
"Cataracts," Halvorsson said. "This penguin has cataracts -- it is probably
almost blind, as you said."
Jake grunted in surprise as he closed the holding pen. "Cataracts? I've
heard of cats and dogs having them, and people, of course, but penguins?"
"The Antarctic ozone hole, Jake. It has been growing for many years, yes?"
"Yes," Jake agreed. "Last satellite view I saw showed it covering the whole
damn continent."
"So for a
number of years, the coastal areas have been subjected to greatly increased
ultraviolet radiation," Halvorsson explained. "That can lead to damage
to the cornea and lens of the eye."
Jake shook
his head in disgust as Halvorsson continued.
"Emperor penguins stand out on the ice for months at a time, during the
winter and early spring when the ozone hole is biggest. Even with minimal
sunlight at these latitudes, they must get a huge dose."
"Can blind penguins see well enough to gather food?" Halvorsson asked.
"Can they avoid predators? Can they even find their way back to the nesting
grounds?"
"Apparently not very well," Jake said grimly. "The population has dropped
by ninety per cent, if this colony's any indication. At this rate, they
could be extinct in a few years."
"So what can we do?" Harry asked. "How do you cure a couple hundred blind
penguins?"
"You don't," Jake said. "All you can do is capture as many as you can,
and take them somewhere where they can survive and breed. Cataracts aren't
hereditary -- the next generation won't be born blind, and they won't go
blind, if they're somewhere where their eyes don't get fried."
"We agree with your plan, Jake," Halvorsson said. "Please initiate a capture
program at your end. We will arrange for additional men and boats to assist
and to provide transportation to a safe holding area pending establishment
of a sanctuary -- somewhere, I don't know where. Please, I must go and
begin working on this problem."
Jake sighed. He hadn't been aware that he was stating a plan, and certainly
not one that involved dragging himself back onto the ice shelf. But there
wasn't any alternative. "Okay, Professor. We'll get started here."
"We're going out again?" Harry asked.
Jake nodded. "These black-tie midgets won't survive another season if we
don't." He glanced back at the holding pen; the penguin was finally showing
signs of recovering from the effects of the tranquillizer. It cocked its
head at an odd angle, as if listening for and not finding the sounds of
the wind and water.
On the first of many trips back to the ice shelf, Jake wondered how many
other ecological time bombs were ticking away in the far corners of the
world. Pesticides had been found in seal and whale blubber in the high
Arctic; amphibian populations were disappearing as their swampy homes were
drained and developed, leaving ecological niches empty. Everywhere, conditions
that had developed over millions of years were changing drastically in
mere decades, too fast for any natural species to adapt. Even if the human
race became extinct overnight, the changes would continue for decades --
and more species would perish.
Jake advanced the throttle to the red line, racing against time and tide.
And in their icy nesting grounds, the penguins turned blind eyes toward
the sound of their approaching saviours.
The End
Copyright 1998
Robert
Moriyama
About the Author
I am a 40-something
Systems Analyst working for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (well,
actually on strike at the moment). One of the first paperbacks I remember
reading when I was but a lad was (I think) Eric Frank Russell's Sentinels
from Space, in an old Ace Double edition. Between that and comic books,
I have been doodling and writing fantasy and science fiction ever since.
Blind Penguins was written a few years ago for a short story contest sponsored
by the local newspaper (The Toronto Star), but alas, was not selected for
publication. Comments or suggestions are more than welcome!
