It took several minutes of fiddling with the flare gun for Catherine to get it to actually go off. It wasn't just the difficulty of working the stupid thing with her paws - more than once, she came dangerously close to firing it directly into her own snout and had to frantically reposition her clumsy workings. That would have been an ignominious end after everything she had been through in the past few days. When it did finally shoot off, it was at an odd angle that went more outward than upward, but the pyrotechnic display it gave off sent an unmistakable signal to anybody within earshot that help was needed. (Speaking of earshot, the explosion rudely reminded Catherine how much more sensitive her hearing was now - she could easily understand now why dogs seemed to hate the Fourth of July so much.)
Thankfully, Catherine clearly wasn't the only one who was startled by the noise. On the horizon, she could just barely see specks of movement that had to be people leaving the base and preparing for a search-and-rescue mission. She had chosen to stop out here, rather than try to run right up to the building, because it would give her some more time to figure out how she was going to do this. She tried to get up onto her hind legs and stand straight up, both to be more visible to the rescuers and to make it clear she wasn't just a wild animal, but she just wasn't able to balance like that anymore. She settled for wrapping herself a little tighter in the baggy snowsuit that once fit her body perfectly as she waited.
Soon enough, she heard voices carrying across the ice - indistinct at first, but as they got louder she was relieved to see that she hadn't lost the ability to understand them. "It's got to be her. No one else would be out here, right?" "She's been out of radio contact for nearly a week now. That would give her enough time to travel back here, if she was moving at a good clip." "Look over there! That's one of our suits - it must be her, down on her hands and knees. The dogs are gone, though - did she really make it this far on her own?"
A moment later, Catherine felt hands on her back, trying to lift up what they assumed was an incapacitated human. Removing her hood, the rescue team found themselves face-to-face with a wolf. This is the moment of truth, Catherine thought as she watched their confused expressions. She knew what happened when dangerous predators got too close. Will they figure out what happened, or will they try to kill her?
"Wait," one of the rescuers finally said. "Catherine? Is that you?" The idea would have seemed utterly ludicrous anywhere else, but at a research facility for experimental, top-secret, DNA-altering substances, it wasn't so far-fetched. Overwhelmed with relief, Catherine almost tried to respond verbally, but quickly thought better of it, knowing it would only come out as a rough growl. Instead, though, she found that her tail involuntarily started to wag behind her, freeing itself from underneath the fabric of her snow suit as it flourished from side to side. It was a distinctly un-wolf-like response, and even better than that, a completely non-threatening one. Body language would have to do for now.
The rescuers started to lead Catherine back to the base. They seemed to recognize immediately that she wouldn't be able to answer any of the endless questions they obviously had, and didn't try to ask. She noticed that they were treating her more or less as they would one of the dogs - not ideal, of course, but far better than being treated like a wolf.
With her immediate fears resolved, though, new ones just as quickly started to set in. The issue of survival had been replaced by questions about her future and the rest of her life. How long would it take before they could inject her with human DNA? Would it work?
But while Catherine couldn't answer anyone else's questions right now, she couldn't pose her own questions, either. Nor did anybody seem particularly concerned with explaining what they were going to do with her. As soon as they walked her into the building, she was unceremoniously led to one of the cages that were normally used for holding test subjects - and it still was, except now she was the test subject. She was too tired to protest, and tried to remind herself that this wasn't demeaning treatment - realistically, there was nowhere else to put her, especially when there was a risk that she could be contagious somehow.
But with her locked away in a cage, it was like they could no longer see her as a member of the research team anymore, just another lab animal. She could tell that every conversation in the building was about her right now, but they were all kept in hushed tones. That was more frustrating than anything else. She couldn't say or do anything at the moment, but she could still very much listen, and they were depriving her even of that. Even if it was bad news, even if it was something along the lines of "we have no goddamned idea how to turn her back", she desperately wanted to know.
Several hours of boredom passed her by, and then the lights went out. It may be the land of the midnight sun out there, but inside this windowless building, there was a strict separation between daytime and darkness. As she laid down for what would surely be a long and restless night, Catherine sighed. A part of her was actually starting to regret her decision - not to use the wolf DNA on herself, but to return back to the base. If she was going to be an animal, better to run free than to live in a cage. If they couldn't turn her back soon, she knew she was only going to get more and more sure that she made the wrong choice.