“Body of J. L. Williams, assistant to chief, was found in a locker in his own office forty minutes ago,” the report began. “The shot was fired from. …” The voice went off into medical and ballistic details I ceased to hear. I was turning over in my mind crazy questions about how I could prevent an immediate close study of the lake at the very best, and at the worst its destruction.
“… revolver of this caliber possessed only by Chief Owen himself,” the visor declared. I woke with a start. “Last men seen with the deceased were Robert Davidson and Chief Owen. Chief Owen subsequently suppressed a report from Ring Station 27 and ordered a copter for immediate departure. He then took off for—”
The visor buzzed suddenly and the monotoned report blanked out. It was an emergency interruption. Very briefly Dr. Sales’ face flashed upon the screen.
“This is urgent, Chief,” he said, looking into my eyes significantly. “Could you spare me five minutes in my lab right now?”
It seemed like a heaven-sent relief. I glanced at Lewis for permission. His gaze was cold and suspicious but he nodded after a moment and I got up with a single look at Davidson’s deliberately blank face and went out.
Something prompted me to pause at the door after I had closed it. I was not really surprised to hear Lewis’ harsh voice.
“See that Chief Owen doesn’t leave the building before I’ve talked to him again. That’s an urgent. Give it priority.”
I shrugged. Things were beyond my control now. All I could do was ride along and trust to instinct.
Although Sales had asked for only five minutes of my time, he seemed oddly reluctant to begin. I sat down across the desk from him and watched him fidget with his desk blotter. Finally he looked up and spoke abruptly.
“You know the girl died, of course.”
“I expected it. When?”
“Half an hour ago. I’ve been doing some quick thinking since then. And a lot of quick analyses. There hasn’t been time yet to check, but I think she died of psychosomatic causes, chief.”
“That’s hard to credit,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
“She was a perfectly normal specimen by all quantitative and qualitative tests. I think suggestion killed her.”
“But how?”
“You know you can hypnotize a subject, touch his arm with ice and tell him it’s red-hot metal. Typical burn weals will appear. Most physical symptoms can be induced by suggestion. That girl died of dehydration and asphyxia as far as I can tell.”
“We gave her moisture and oxygen.”
“She didn’t know it was oxygen. She didn’t think she was breathing at all. So her motor reflexes were paralyzed and—she died. As for the hydrating apparatus …” Sales shook his head in a bewildered way. “This sounds crazy but I think our mistake there was in giving her water as a hydrating factor. Chief, how closely did you see that lake? Do you know that it’s water?”
Again that bell seemed to ring in my head. Water? Water? Of course it isn’t water, not as we’ve known water up to now.
“Until I thought of that,” Sales went on, “I couldn’t understand her apparent breathing under water. Now I think I’m beginning to understand. A liquid can’t be breathed by human beings, but there could be—well, artificial isotopes that would do the trick. Also, something drove that girl insane.
“I think she was insane. You might call it a variant of schizophrenia. Or possession if you prefer. Her mind was completely blanketed and subjugated by—something else.” He drummed on the desk. Then, looking up sharply, he said, “I got samples of the lake’s—water. From her body. It’s not water.
“Maybe it once was but now it’s mixed with other compounds. The stuff seems half alive. Not protoplasm but close to it. I can’t evaporate or break it down with any chemical I’ve yet tried.
“There are traces of hemoglobin. In fact, the stuff has many of the attributes of blood. But—and this is important, Chief—I couldn’t find traces of a single leukocyte. You see what that means?”
I shook my head.
“One of the primary results of exposing an organism to radioactivity is a reduction of the number of white cells, making it subject to infection. The proportion of polymorphonuclear white cells goes down relatively. That’s axiomatic. But surely you see what it suggests!”
Again I shook my head. A deep uneasiness was mounting in me but I had to hear him out before I acted. I knew I’d have to act. I think I knew already what I would have to do before I left this room. But I wanted to hear the rest of his story first. I signaled him to go on.
“Another thing I observed about the—call it water,” he said carefully, “was the presence of considerable boron and some lithium. Of course the whole Ring area is subject to constant radiations of all kinds, but the important ones just now are the hard electromagnetic and the nuclear radiations that produce biological reactions.
“I suppose you remember that boron and lithium both tend to concentrate the effects of a bombardment of slow neutrons, so an organism like the lake would get a very heavy dose of the radiations that have the greatest effect on it.”
“The lake—an organism?” I echoed.
“I think it is. Up to now we’ve come into conflict only with evolved and mutated creatures that were recognizable as animals even before genetic changes took place. One reason might be that mutated genes divide more slowly than others and tend to lose out in the race for supremacy.
“A complete mutation like—this lake—is something nobody really expected. The odds are too heavy against it. But we’ve known it could happen. And I think this time we’re up against something dangerous. Big and dangerous and impossible to understand.”
I leaned forward. I knew what I had to do. Now? No, not quite yet. Inside my mind the closed doors were moving slowly, swinging wider and wider, while behind them pressed the crowding memories of danger
