“All right, I’ve heard enough,” said Elsa, holding up her hands, wanting out of the discussion before it became even more farcical. “I’m glad you’re all excited about Marty’s discovery. I wish I could be too. But it’s time I get back to work. Marty, you can keep the skull until tomorrow. That should be long enough for you to perform whatever tests you wish—”

A deep, bovine blast of a foghorn sounded from outside.

“That must be Pip,” Marty said, glancing at his wristwatch. “The girl has impeccable timing, doesn’t she?”

Chapter 10

MARTY

Marty spent the next several hours in the dry lab on the Oannes. Amongst the other world-class diagnostic and research equipment were molecular capabilities for genetic experiments, including DNA and RNA extraction and analysis.

Legally, Marty likely needed permission from the police to extract a bone sample from the skull. If he were home in England, he would have sought such permission. But this was Sri Lanka, and he didn’t think anybody would notice or care, and if someone did, a bribe would go a long way to soothe any hurt feelings.

After he had sterilized his equipment and suited up in protective gear, he drilled into the skull’s foramen magnum, extracting a small piece of bone and crushing it into powder.

The mitochondrial DNA he was after was within the eukaryotic cells, in the fluid surrounding the nucleus. He broke open the wall of one eukaryotic cell using a special enzyme, spilling out its contents. The process was kind of like cracking open an egg into a bowl, except it occurred on the microscopic level. He isolated the mitochondria from the other organelles using centrifugation.

Then he got down to sequencing the genome.

Chapter 11

ELSA

Elsa spent the afternoon studying the whale feces and recording her findings. As was often the case, she worked into the evening and was the last one to leave the office. She locked up and was about to walk home when she changed her mind.

It was seven thirty p.m. Dr. Murdoch had had plenty of time to perform the DNA analysis of the skull, which meant he had more than likely already been confronted with the reality that it was human, after all. Elsa would not feel vindicated by this inevitable outcome. She felt sorry for Dr. Murdoch. To believe he had discovered evidence to support his life’s work, and then to discover he was wrong…that would be devastating. Of course, he would have nobody to blame for that but himself.

Scientists are wrong all the time. Indeed, science can be defined as a system of self-correction that, through trial and error, eventually yields a closer understanding of how nature works. Therefore, an essential part of science is that scientists not only try to falsify their hypotheses to prove that they are true, but that they do so with an open mind. To become emotionally attached or obsessed with a particular theory is to set oneself up for almost certain disappointment.