Holiday Interlude
But first,
the Seven settled in
to watch and experience one of the American Terrans'
famous holiday revelries,
one
they had previously experienced only virtually
Misty fog mingled with lingering smoke
from fireworks shot off the night of their arrival
People beat the sunrise to save places on the beach
for picnicking,
for swimming,
for volleyball,
for tossing plastic discs and other objects
mostly spheroid,
and,
what the Seven
had determined was the most popular activity
to be engaged in,
for
the ritual murder of brain cells
Bi-planes flew by toting advertising signs
Deer,
raccoon,
groundhogs,
squirrels,
and
even a lone coyote were
the latest roadside casualties of the car,
reflecting
the uneasy co-existence between the humans
and many of their fellow creatures
Because
a crowd had assembled
a souvenir shop had sprung up
(definition of souvenir
-a doodad you don't really need
to serve as a reminder
of an outing or a trip
you wouldn't otherwise remember)
Gradually
over the course of the day,
the Seven's
other senses were engaged:
the smell of charcoal for cookouts,
the smells of the foods being cooked,
the smells of the seasonings sprinkled on the foods,
the tastes of the foods when they were eaten,
the sounds of the different musics
both recorded and live,
and
the feel of the lake's water on their skin
At night neon lights lit up the sky,
and
people gathered to watch more fireworks,
most,
though not all,
of today's displays
authorized by the local civilian authorities
And
everyone applauded the shows and themselves
Happily exhausted,
the Seven rested up,
for
tomorrow the real work of the mission
would begin
The Blob from Area 1
It was a man-made creature,
made from
material dredged from the Cuyahoga River
to facilitate the river's shipping traffic,
then
dumped untreated and uncontained into the lake
during a time when such dumping was routine
Age: at least forty-five to fifty years old
Size: two square miles
Weight: unknown
Composition: known only in part,
but
containing dangerous concentrations
of at least two pollutants
from the toxic alphabet soup:
PCBs
(polychlorinated biphenyls),
and PAHs
(polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons)
And
these and the other materials were heavier than water
because the creature was crawling on the lake bottom
Earth bureaucrats had designated
the affected area as Area 1
(no explanation of how they came to name it
as such,
or whether
there are other affected areas),
and
one of the crats had written to another,
in a letter recently revealed,
"Sampling date in and around Area 1
clearly shows the ability
of the sediments to migrate"
(carefully
avoiding calling it a creature)
"and further shows the sediment
migrating in the direction of the water intake"
noting that
the migrations was
"toward the raw water intake
for our Nottingham Treatment Plant"
also noting
"Area 1 is within approximately five miles"
of said intake,
though
given the mania for secrecy
prevalent at that time and later,
they did not disclose the intake's
exact location
Though
they couldn't yet tell how fast the creature
was migrating toward the water intake,
now
that its existence was public knowledge
on this planet,
they assured the public
they were carefully monitoring the situation,
and
that they had a plan of action
should conditions warrant it
