NUMA 4 - White Death

26

THE NEXT MORNING, Austin stopped at the Museum of Natural History on the way to NUMA headquarters. Gleason was in the exhibition hall when Austin arrived, and he didn't look happy. The guests, music and food of the reception had disappeared, but that wasn't the main cause of his concern. The display cases were empty. Not even a placard remained.

Gleason was beside himself. “This is terrible, absolutely terrible,” he was saying.

“Looks like you had a fire sale,” Austin said.

“Worse. This is a total disaster. The sponsors have pulled the ex- hibition.”

“Can they do that?” Austin realized it was a dumb question, even as the words left his mouth.

Gleason waved his arms. “Yes, according to the small print in the contract they insisted we sign. They are allowed to break up the ex- hibition any time they want to and give us a small monetary com- pensation instead.”

“Why did they close the show?”

“Damned if I know. The PR firm that set the whole thing up said they're just following orders.”

“What about Dr. Barker?”

“I tried to get in touch with him, but he's vanished into thin air.”

“You've been closer to Oceanus than most people,” Austin said getting to his real reason for stopping by the museum. “What do you know about Dr. Barker?”

“Not much, I'm afraid. I know more about his ancestor.”

“The whaling captain he mentioned?”

“Yes, Frederick Barker, Sr. One of the Kiolya knives you saw on display originally belonged to him. It was more than a hundred years old. Dreadful thing, and razor-sharp. Gave me a stomachache just looking at it.”

“Where would I look for information on Captain Barker?”

“You can start in my office.” Gleason cast a woeful glance at the empty display cases. “C'mon. Not much for me to do here.”

The office was in the administrative wing. Gleason gestured for Austin to take a seat, then plucked an old volume from the shelf. The title was Whaling Captains of New Bedford. He opened the book to a page and plopped it in front of Austin.

“I dug this out of our library when the exhibition first came through. That's Captain Barker. The New England whaling skippers were a tough lot. Many became captains in their twenties. Mutinies, destructive storms, hostile natives-all in a day's work to them. The adversity made some men ogres, others humanitarians.”

Austin examined the grainy black-and-white photograph in the book. Barker was dressed in native garb, and it was hard to make out his features. A fur parka framed his face, and bone goggles with hor- izontal slits in them covered his eyes. White stubble adorned his chin.