Dr. Chen had been in the Arctic for six weeks when she saw the bear.
A mother, thin and cautious, picking her way across ice that should have been thicker for the time of year. And beside her, barely keeping up — a cub.
Dr. Chen watched through her binoculars from the research station window.
The mother stopped. She tested the ice with her weight, then waited for the cub to cross. She watched every step.
That evening, Dr. Chen sat with her data. Temperature records going back forty years. Ice cover measurements. Population trends. The numbers were not good.
She had come here to study. To observe. To write reports that would be read by people who would write more reports.
She looked at the numbers. She looked at her notes from the day. Mother, thin. Cub, small. Ice, thin.
She picked up her phone and called her sister, who ran an environmental advocacy organisation.
"What do you need?" Dr. Chen asked.
"Data," said her sister. "The kind that's impossible to argue with."
"I have six weeks of it," said Dr. Chen. "And more to come."
She went back to the window. The bear and her cub were gone.
But she kept watching anyway, because that was what they needed from her.