Atomic - Chapter 3: Living Lake

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three of Atomic by Henry Kutner. This librivo's recording
is in the public domain. Chapter three, Living Lake. Thirty
minutes after we hit the base. The girl was in
a jury rigged hydrating tank, wrapped in wet sheets, with
a slow trickle of fresh warm water soaking them. Even
her face was loosely covered, and I was glad of

(00:21):
that it was an old woman's face, by now drawn
tight and furrowed over her skull. Only an arm was bare,
shriveled flesh beneath which the tendons stood sharply etched. The
arm was bare for the needle that fed sodium pentethal
into a vein slowly under the watchful eyes of Sails,
one of our best base medics. We knew that presently,

(00:43):
when the drug began to cloud her mind, Sail's skillful
questions would start drawing out the memories of what had
happened to her, reconstructing the basic scenes which had led
to this, or we hoped they would. It looks like Aphasia.
Sails murmured, no injury so far as we know yet,
But chief it was Davidson touching my arm. We all

(01:05):
turned in the half darkness that was part of this
narcosynthesis treatment. Chief, the mobile staff's on its way down here,
they vised, after you left? What for? I asked, sharply,
a nervous dread, nodding my stomach. I don't know. They
wouldn't say you're the boss, after all, but I wasn't
the boss of mobile staff. They were bigger than I,

(01:26):
the Bureau of Specialists that controlled the administration of all
the rings. They were the bosses. And if they came
here now, I caught Davidson's eye in the gloom, very slightly.
He shook his head. The secret of Williams's death was
still safe then, but not for long. And if the
staff talked to Fitzgerald about the lake, I made an

(01:48):
enormous effort and fought down the rising panic. Information first,
then action. I had to keep that order. Sales grunted,
and I looked back, forcing my attention to the business
at hand. She must have the tolerance of an elephant,
Sayles said, eyeing the tube through which sodium pentathal still
fed into the girl's arm, Or else there's some chemical metamorphosis.

(02:10):
I don't know. I've given her enough to put a
dozen men to sleep, But look at her. I didn't
like to look at her. It was obvious to me
that she was dying. Yet, when Sales pushed the wet
sheets back from her face, the impersonal disinterest attention still
dwelt upon the ceiling, fully awake, uncaring, hearing nothing we said,
feeling nothing we did. Fitzgerald said, how could she have

(02:34):
breathed under water? She couldn't. Sails scowled at him. There's
no physiological change at all, Her respiratory systems normal. She
must have, Fitzgerald said, stubbornly, I know what we saw.
Anything's possible in a ring. Sayles admitted voicing an aphorism,
but I don't see how it could have worked. He

(02:55):
looked up at me. How important is this chief? I
told him give me an hour, Sales said briefly, when
I had finished. I'm going to try something else, several
other things. Maybe one of em will work. One of
EM's got to I told him, getting up. In that hour,
a lot happened. Sales found what he wanted for one thing,

(03:17):
for another, though mobile staff arrived, Williams's body was found,
And as for me, it was the hour that marked
the turning point in my life, Williams's death was reported
on my private visor. As soon as I got back
to my office. I could feel Davidson's silence like a
tangible thing as he listened to the exclamations and incredulity

(03:38):
of the others. All I could do was order that
the usual investigations got under way immediately. At that moment,
I decided not to speak of my own presence when
he died. I couldn't let myself be diverted by useless
questions on a subject only distantly related to my own
terrible problem. Worse than ever, that deathly fear was stirring
restlessly behind the closed doors of my own conscience. I

(04:01):
knew the doors would swing open soon. Little by little
they had let facts escape the barrier, and the barrier
itself would be ready to fall soon, I thought soon.
Looking back now, I lose my time sence about that
eventful hour. I think we were still lost in dismayed
wonder over Williams's when the visor flickered and then framed

(04:23):
the grim, creased face of Mobile staff's chief Lewis. There
was a hunted, night mere quality about this piling of
crisis upon crisis, I thought, as I went down to
the reception hall to welcome my superiors. If only I
could find five minutes of peace to try again those
slowly opening doors. Mobile staff wears black uniforms. If all

(04:45):
Bio employees are carefully tested, then Mobile manner screened with
such stringent care that there is reason to marvel how
anyone ever passes their tests. All of these men, in
their severe black looked taut, nervous, keen, with an edge
almost ruthless in its steely temper. What about this lake
development in Ring seventy twelve, was the first thing Lewis

(05:06):
said to me as we walked back toward my office.
It couldn't have been worse, I told myself, If they
had timed themselves deliberately, they couldn't have chosen a worse time.
Three of us have seen it closely, was all I answered.
You'll want to discuss it with us in detail. I
suppose Louis nodded crisply. We didn't speak again until we
were settled in my office, Davidson and Fitzgerald ready for

(05:29):
questions beside me. We told what overtly we knew. It
was Louis, of course, who spoke with decision. I think
we'd better destroy the thing, prompto frankly, Sir, this was Davidson. Frankly,
I'd think that over first. The thing's isolated, whatever it is,
we'd run the risk of scattering it abroad. I inclined

(05:51):
that way myself, I said, quickly, isolation, ring it off,
re route air traffic, leave it alone and study it.
Study it. I suspected that was wrong. A warning bell
had climbed in my brain. Louis sat there, silently, shifting
his keen glance from face to face. Just as he
drew his breath to speak, my desk visor buzzed, report

(06:13):
ready on Williams's death. Sir, an impersonal voice said, all right,
hold it awhile I began, But Louis bent forward and
gave the face and the visor a narrowed glance. No,
let's have it right now, he said, despairingly. I wondered
how much he knew, and how much that abnormally keen
brain had guessed already of the undercurrents running swiftly beneath
the surface of events here. The face and the visor

(06:36):
glanced at me. I shrugged. Louis was bossed. As long
as mobile staff remained here, 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

(06:58):
an immediate close study of the lake. At the very
best and at the worst, it's 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 to report from Ringstation twenty seven and ordered a
copter for immediate departure. He then took off for the visor.

(07:21):
A buzz suddenly, and the monotoned report blanked out. Who
was an emergency interruption? Very briefly, Doctor Sales's 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
scent relief. I glanced at Louis for permission. His gaze

(07:42):
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 in
a pause at the door after I had closed it.
I was not really surprised to hear Louis's harsh voice.
See that, Chief Owen doesn't leave the building before I
talked to him again, that's urgent, give it priority, I shrugged.

(08:03):
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.

(08:26):
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

(08:48):
can hypnotize the subject, touch his arm with ice and
tell him its red hot metal. Typical burn wheels will appear.
Most physical symptoms can be induced by suggestion. That girl
died of dehydration and asphixty. 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,

(09:10):
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 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

(09:32):
my head water water? Of course, it wasn'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 underwater. 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

(09:53):
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,

(10:15):
but now it's mixed with other compounds. The stuff seems
half alive, not protoplasm, but close to it. I can
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 leucocyte. You see

(10:36):
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.

(10:56):
I shook my head. A deep uneasiness was mounted 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,

(11:18):
was the presence of considerable boron in 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.

(11:41):
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 One reason might be that

(12:02):
mutated jeans divide more slowly than others and tend to
lose out and 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.

(12:25):
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, which would burst the barrier at any moment.
Forget all that for a while, Sayles said, with a
sudden change of expression. I talked to the girl before

(12:45):
she died. I taking cross bearings on my conclusion. Chief
one line I've already indicated. The second is what the
girl said. They check who looked at me thoughtfully. I
had to blank her mind clear down to the lowest
articulate levels, he said, before I could cut back under
whatever compulsion it was that killed her. She didn't know
she was talking. I hadn't much time. She was dying

(13:07):
as she spoke, But from what she said I pieced
a theory together. He paused, Tell me, did you see
anything at all during your experiences of the lake to
make you suspect it might be alive. End of chapter three,
read by Elsie Selwyn