Beyond Eden by David Duncan

Author:David Duncan [Duncan, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1955-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The report had been prepared by men more accustomed to dealing with crops than with people, but with our own laboratory proof of the water’s peculiarity, I was forced to accept their general conclusions. Among these was one that was embodied in the statistics themselves, although neither Sampson nor the authors of the survey had noticed it. I saw it because I was hunting for it.

The frequency of the reported attacks increased and decreased at regular intervals. The dates when symptoms were first experienced were missing in about half the cases, but from the dates available I was able to construct a curve that came out in the form of a wave, with peaks approximately every two weeks. It confirmed what we knew from our own investigation—that the mysterious force wasn’t always present in the water. The appearance of that waveshaped line gave me a sense of reassurance. It was definite; it spoke of control by natural forces; it was a clue.

I immediately followed the clue one step further by getting from Madeline the dates upon which she’d first noted the phenomenon of accelerated growth among her plants in the biology nursery. There was no guesswork here, because her notes were complete for each of the occasions when she’d discovered an acceleration of growth. I compared these dates with those for the peaks of my curve. Although the intervals between them were the same, the dates failed to coincide, and this puzzled me until I remembered that it took water from the precipitation plant about two days to reach the Imperial Valley. After making allowance for this correction, the dates did coincide.

This gave me an additional piece of information. It showed that whatever the influence was, it was formed in the precipitation chambers and belonged to a specific portion of the water. The portion of water then carried the property along with it as it flowed, and possibly lost it only through its assimilation by plant or animal life.

At least this was the theory suggested by what information I had, and it was such a consoling theory that I longed to believe it. If it could be trusted, we needn’t expect a reappearance of the water in the tanks for several days. Not until after the evaporator was at work distilling the living essence from the water. But my facts were too scanty to rely on, and the fourteen-week period during which the water had been flowing to the valley was insufficient to

prove the absolute regularity of the time factor. I had more material for thought, that was all. As I left my office and walked down the long corridor to the laboratory, I seemed to be crushed by the weight of the intangibles with which we were dealing. I craved something definitive and absolute.

It wasn’t to be found in the laboratory, however. The place was unusually quiet. Frances and Laura had gone home for the night, and Gayley was with Kennedy collecting more water samples in the tank chambers.

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