Catherine cursed as she stared out at the vast silent frozen wasteland surrounding her. It had been stupid to leave the dogs outside while she took a nap in her makeshift shelter. It had been even more stupid to leave them tied up. And, as usual, nature had made her pay dearly for her mistake. The predator had decimated her sled dog team, leaving her stranded alone in the frozen tundra.
The dogs gave their lives defending her. They put up a good fight, but they were no match for the predator, especially when they were tied together. Still, the noise had served its purpose. Catherine woke up, grabbed her gun and killed the vicious predator attacking them. But unfortunately it was too late. All of the dogs were dead.
Catherine looked over at her sled, damaged by the attack. The fresh carcasses of some small animals she had intended to eat, including an arctic hare, still hung from the side. Could that what the beast had been after? That was certainly why Catherine and the other researchers had ventured so far into the arctic wasteland. Many of the animals in the region faced extinction due to a combination of environmental changes and man's interference. Catherine and others had hoped to reverse the process with a little help from science.
But now as Catherine looked around the vast cold emptiness surrounding her she felt like a fool. It had been foolish to leave the camp on her own, chasing after the beast. But it had been the first reported sighting of a large animal they had received in months. If their plan was to have any chance of success it was vital that Catherine got a sample of its DNA, specifically its blood.
So Catherine had run out of the base camp on her own, without bothering to notify anyone else. Now she found herself alone, hundreds of miles from the research station, with no way to contact the others, who had no idea where she had gone. Even if the sled had not been damaged, it would have been useless without the dogs. True, she had enough food. The dead beast would feed her for months by itself. But the food would still run out long before any of her companions could locate her. And it would be impossible to make it back to camp on foot.
Unless......
Catherine quickly ran over to the satchel attached to her sled. Thankfully, none of the scientific equipment had been damaged in the scuffle. She could still use it. But as she held the injector gun in her hand, Catherine began to question whether she should do it.
Catherine and the other researchers hoped to repopulate the arctic wilderness. Using a combination of hormones, retrovirus and stem cells they had developed a method to modify any collection of cells into whatever animal they selected. The cells just needed a template to follow. And thanks to the beast, Catherine had a wide variety of templates to choose from. The sled dogs, the arctic hare, hell, even the beast itself. She had planned to use the beast's blood on a collection of cells back at the research station, but there was no reason Catherine couldn't use its blood as a template for her own body's cells.
But did she really want to do it? Catherine had no idea if it would work. Sure, the process worked flawlessly on dormant cells in the lab, under controlled conditions. But they had never attempted to change one animal into another. In theory, it should work. The cells in the petri dish were really no different than the cells in her body. Ideally she would just become an animal that could make its way back to the research station alive. But she might end up as some kind of freak, a hybrid of animal and human. Worse, it might just kill her.
Still, Catherine felt it was worth the risk. She was dead anyway if she didn't try something. She had no idea how she was going to convince the others of her identity when she got back to camp. And she had no idea how to reverse the process once she made it back to camp. But Catherine did not have time to worry about that now. Her survival depended on quick thinking and decisive action.
Catherine looked over choices, debating which animal to use as her template. Finally, she used the syringe to draw blood from the .....