Out of the Ice by Ann Turner Page A

maybe it really was just me they didn’t like – and I decided to wait ten minutes before I walked through. In that time all was normal with Kate and the rookery.
    I switched off my camera, not wanting to do anything that might scare the penguins. The stench was overwhelming as I headed in. Penguins were hunched on their nests. They looked up and didn’t seem at all concerned by my presence. I kept going, wary from the recent attack. The birds went about their business, ignoring me as I headed for Kate. She turned happily and started to walk towards me. A few birds stopped and stared, and the rookery grew unnaturally quiet. And then the penguins rushed at us, pecking and squawking, chasing us away. Careful not to tread on nests, we retreated as fast as we could as the Adélies came forward fiercely, pecking at my gloved hands, attacking Kate’s legs.
    We grabbed our skis, getting swarmed, and ran. As we reached the beach, the penguins crowded around us, attacking from all sides.
    On the icy sand I slipped and twisted an ankle. Ignoring the pain, I raced towards the village. Kate was close behind. We ran up a street and the penguins stopped following, staying on the beach, where they marched up and down like sentries, crying loudly to each other, severely agitated.
    ‘What the hell was that?’ said Kate, wheezing, pulling off her ripped gloves. ‘I’m bleeding. They went right through.’ She lifted up her trouser leg, which was torn from the beaks, but Kate had been prepared with thick wads of clothing, and the penguins hadn’t been able to get through the padded material.
    I inspected my hands and limbs, which were okay. I’d been prepared today too, and worn my thickest gloves and clothes. I put weight on my ankle, and it was fine. ‘Here, I’ve got disinfectant.’
    I treated the wounds on Kate’s hands; a few were deep. I wrapped a bandage around.
    ‘Someone’s made the Adélies that way,’ said Kate, furious.
    ‘The weird thing is they weren’t perturbed on the ice. They were completely normal and uninhibited there,’ I pointed out.
    ‘People have been in that rookery and done something awful. There’s no other explanation. And probably more than once. Those birds were defending their nests. Did you get any of that on film?’
    ‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘I didn’t want to disturb them. I’m sorry.’
    ‘I don’t want to go back and cause them more anguish. But tomorrow we’ll have to. It should be recorded.’ Kate’s eyes were dark with anger. ‘Whoever’s done this will pay.’
    ‘Travis and his mates came here to dive.’ I paused. ‘So perhaps we should too – see how that affects the Adélies.’
    Kate exhaled with a puff of her cheeks. The sweat on her face was starting to freeze into solid lumps of droplets. She picked them off. ‘Do we have scuba gear?’
    ‘We’ll borrow Travis’s,’ I said. ‘I’ll get Georgia to approve the dive but we won’t tell Connaught. I don’t want that bastard knowing anything. That is, until he gets his marching orders. With what’s gone on here, he can’t be allowed to stay.’ I stopped. I’d had the same feeling when I’d discovered what the senior professors in my department had been doing. Fixing results of an experiment to match the data they needed to get a larger, more lucrative research grant. I’d stumbled across the doctored inputs accidentally when I’d stayed late one night finishing work on one of my own lab experiments. I’d gone home furious, and discussed everything with David, who’d been adamant that I not be a whistle-blower. In his line of work, detectives stuck together, and when you found out someone was doing the wrong thing you talked to them, or subtly dropped in a reference so they stopped of their own accord. To his mind, you never reported your colleagues.
    I’d thought it over for a few days, nervous the professors might destroy evidence. What they were doing went against every ethical procedure. I