This is part 4 of “Natural Selection”, FtB’s Darwintine Festival story chain. If you enjoy being part of our community and appreciate the work we do here at FreethoughtBlogs, please consider making a donation to our legal defense fund.

For the next few hours, everyone scrambled about on their assigned duties, trying to get something, anything, concretely understood before the blizzard hit. For security, it was a constant struggle to keep the creature – which the security personnel had taken to referring to simply as ‘That Thing’ – contained, while the scientists took inconclusive samples and measurements and racked their brains about what to do. The cephalopod squirmed constantly and flailed its arms whenever they got loose. An observer from above would think Beagle Station was doing much the same as pressure mounted on its desperate people. [Read more…]