"From time immemorial, the Earth has been bombarded by objects from outer space." "Bits and pieces of the universe, piercing our atmosphere in an invasion that never ends." "Meteors, the shooting stars on which so many earthly wishes have been born." "Of the thousands that plummet toward us, the greater part are destroyed in a fiery flash as they strike the layers of air that encircle us." "Only a small percentage survives." "Most of these fall into the water, which covers two-thirds of our world." "But from time to time, from the beginning of time, a very few meteors have struck the crust of the Earth and formed craters." "Craters of all sizes, sought after and poured over by scientists of all nations for the priceless knowledge buried within them." "In every moment of every day, they come, from planets belonging to stars whose dying light is too far away to be seen." "From infinity they come." "Meteors." "Another strange calling card from the limitless reaches of space." "Its substance unknown, its secrets unexplored, the meteor lies dormant in the night, waiting." "Ben?" "Who's that?" "Mr. Cochrane?" "Yeah." "Come on in." "Looking for Dave?" "Mmm-hmm." "Haven't seen him around in a couple of days." "Is everything all right?" "Sure." "He had to go to Bakersfield, that's all." "He'll be back tomorrow sometime." "Weird, isn't it?" "What's it called?" "Beats me." "I haven't even figured out what the stuff is." "Where'd it come from?" "The old San Angelo Road." "There's a whole flock of it out there." "Lava, maybe?" "No, it's a solid." "You can see strata, if you look closely." "They must've skipped this one in college." "Well, either that, or you slept through one class too many." "Yeah, it'll probably turn out to be an ordinary aggregate, something simple I'm unfamiliar with." "Still, somehow, it just doesn't seem to belong, you know?" "The desert's full of things that don't belong." "Take the salt flats out there, used to be an ocean bed." "Now, that ocean knew that the middle of the desert was a pretty silly place for it to be, so it just dried up and went away." "But if it hadn't been there once, there wouldn't be a salt mine out there now." "Without that, there probably wouldn't even be a town." "Then there's me." "You?" "I don't belong here either." "I never did." "San Angelo needs a newspaper like that desert needs another bucket of sand." "Now, I ask you, what good is a newspaperman in a place like this, when nothing ever happens worth writing about?" "Say, maybe I ought to be a geologist like you and Dave, huh?" "I've been stuck here among rocks so long, all I'd need is a refresher course and I bet I'd be all right." "No, you stick to your newspaper." "Who knows?" "Maybe I've just discovered something new here." "And you can write a world-shattering article about it." "I doubt if there's even anything new, Ben." "A few things we haven't understood yet, but nothing that's really new." "Morning." "Ben." "Hey, Ben." "Hi, this is Dave Miller." "Is Miss Barrett still at school?" "She took the kids where?" "The desert?" "Isn't she afraid they'll roast out there on a day like this?" "No, I'll call her at home." "Thanks." "Ben!" "Ben." "Wait a minute." "Wait a minute." "What is this, a field trip or a riot?" "Goodness." "That's better." "Now, I want you all to remember not to touch anything that you don't recognize, and I don't want anyone wandering too far from the car." "Do you understand?" "Mmm-hmm." "Okay, explode." "Find something, Ginny?" "Lizards." "Do they live there together, Miss Barrett?" "Well, why don't you ask them?" "Maybe they're husband and wife." "Lizards don't get married, do they?" "Well, maybe not the same way that people do." "Maybe they just like to be together, like you and Mr. Miller." "Well, yes, I suppose so." "Why don't you and Mr. Miller get married?" "Why, Ginny!" "Well, gee, you love him, don't you?" "Whatever gave you such an idea?" "The way you look at him when he stops for you at school." "Mother looks at Daddy like that and she loves him." "You don't miss much, do you?" "I like Mr. Miller." "Well, confidentially, so do I." "Miss Barrett." "Bye." "Bye!" "Bye, Miss Barrett." "Bye, Ginny." "Thanks, Miss Barrett." "Hello, Mrs. Simpson." "Hi." "Hi, yourself." "Have fun?" "Uh-huh." "Miss Barrett taught us all about the irrigation dam, and the San Angelo Canyon, and we saw some lizards..." "Whoa there!" "What's this?" "It's from the desert." "That's where it stays." "Outside." "Mom, it's a souvenir." "Well, I can live without dirty old souvenirs messing up my clean house." "Oh, Mom." "And your hands could stand a good washing off." "Hurry up, now." "Supper's almost on the table." "Okay." "Ginny, we're waiting." "Just a sec, Mom." "Young lady, get in here right now." "Yes, ma'am." "I've never known an autopsy to take this long before." "Dan, I've just called the Medical Research Institute." "I'm shipping Ben's body to them in the morning." "Why, Doc?" "They might be able to tell us what happened to him." "I can't." "At first I thought it could have been scleroderma, an extreme hardening of the skin." "But his entire body, organs, skin, muscle tissue, everything, he's been welded into a solid mass." "Doc, you must have found something." "That'd lead me to the cause?" "Yes." "Not a thing, David." "There's nothing to go on." "It's not as if he'd been ill, shown symptoms..." "An intern with wet ears could've told you as much as I been able to." "It'll take a specialist to tell you any more." "I'm sorry." "What am I supposed to print?" "Well, you can't print anything." "Not about this." "Can't print?" "Look, I was a friend of Ben's, too." "I'm just as sorry this happened to him as anybody." "But I'm a newspaperman and this is news." "All right, go ahead." "And just what do you think you can say about it?" ""Local geologist turns to rock." ""Autopsy fails to turn up reason. "" "You'd have the whole town in a panic, thinking some horrible disease is running loose." "It's a funny thing." "Last time I saw Ben, he was kidding about making a new discovery, so I'd have something to print." "Well, he came up with a story, all right." "But if I print it, I get run out of town for inciting a riot." "Or maybe for writing a crackpot yarn nobody'd believe anyway." "I think there's more to this than just Ben." "What do you mean?" "The condition the lab was in." "Something tore it to pieces, almost wrecked it." "An explosion, wasn't it?" "Well, if so, it had nothing to do with Ben's death." "There weren't any flash burns on the body, no signs of exposure to a blast of any kind." "It may have happened before, Dave, or even afterwards." "I don't think it was an explosion." "What are you getting at?" "This stuff." "It was all over the wreckage." "But I don't know what it is." "Well, that's the rock I told you Ben brought in yesterday." "Or one like it." "You told us one piece." "Yeah." "Wait a minute." "The lab's covered with it." "There must be hundreds of pounds." "How'd it get there?" "May I see that?" "Today out in the desert, one of my children picked up some of this on our field trip." "Ginny, Ginny Simpson." "She had it with her in the car on the way back." "I remember thinking how strange it looked." "Are you sure it's the same rock?" "It looked the same." "Then she'd have it at home now, wouldn't she?" "Yes." "Look, I'm not saying it does, but if Ben's death and the rock had something to do with each other, and now the little girl's got some..." "We don't know any such thing." "Might not even be the same rock at all." "I hope it isn't." "But we'll never find out until we go see for ourselves." ""Simpson," you said?" "Isn't that the family out past Pour Corners?" "Yeah." "You're going out there at this time of night?" "I think we'd better." "Dave." "Dave, I don't like what you're thinking." "I'm not thinking a thing." "Just want an excuse to take you for a nice, long ride, that's all." "Well, that's the first pleasant idea I've heard this evening." "Come on." "Ginny." "Ginny." "Ginny." "Oh, Ginny, darling." "Ginny?" "Just like Ben." "Their bodies have turned to stone." "I'd better stay put." "You'll need this." "Thanks." "Oh, and Dave..." "Pretty deep in shock, isn't she?" "Well, that much is normal, but..." "High temperature?" "A child her age gets a fever at the slightest provocation, but her temperature's subnormal." "Sometimes shock can almost be a merciful thing." "Martin." "Hmm?" "What's the trouble?" "This." "There's a negative cleavage on every mineral in there." "Negative cleavage?" "Yeah." "See for yourself." "Not one positive extinction point in the whole thing." "Well, yeah." "I guess." "And look at this, I made a breakdown of the rock we found here in the lab." "With the exception of a trace of iron phosphate, not enough to mention, they're all silicates." "Chert, feldspar, pyroxene, almost all of the olivine group, flint, almost solid silica." "Little bits of it slapped together in such a way that it shouldn't even exist." "What do you think?" "Well, I think it..." "I think I better stick to the newspaper business." "What?" "I'll need more than just a refresher course before I even know what you're talking about." "Oh, I'm sorry." "It doesn't make much sense to me, either." "Let's see how the Simpson rock compares with it." "Identical." "The two specimens are exactly the same." "I don't know." "Ben brings home a sample and it multiplies." "Ginny Simpson picks up a piece and there's tons of it." "Ordinary silica, the most common material you can find, and yet everywhere this stuff goes, somebody dies." "The trouble is, we don't even know who else might have picked up a piece of it." "Tourists, maybe." "Why, they could carry it to every part of the country." "Yeah." "Well, at the rate this stuff spreads destruction, Martin, when you write your story, there may not be anybody around to read it." "Probably won't print it, anyway." "Couldn't spell the words." "Yeah?" "Dave, this is Dr. Reynolds." "Yes, Doctor?" "Dave, I want you to do something for me." "Find someone who can make a fast trip to Los Angeles" "I want to get Ginny to the California Medical Research Institute." "Ginny?" "Is she worse?" "Yes." "I've made arrangements with a young specialist there, Dr. Hendricks." "He'll take over." "Okay." "I'll take her myself." "Good." "When can you leave?" "Right away." "Then get on over here." "Wait a minute." "How bad is it?" "Her hand has turned to stone and it's spreading." "Ginny has to reach that hospital as quickly as possible." "It's her one chance to survive." "Dr. Hendricks is ready for you in the examining room." "You can see how the pectoral muscles became paralyzed." "The disease merely followed the main arteries, through the arms into the upper chest cavity." "Well, will it keep spreading until her whole body's affected?" "Unless we can slow it down." "Can you?" "We're asking you to save her life, Doctor." "That's why we brought her here." "Miss Barrett, I can't cope with something I don't even understand." "Then what are you going to do?" "Cathy!" "He won't know himself until he finds out what he's fighting." "But, Dave, Ginny's dying." "We're trying to avoid that." "Pinpoint the reason in time to save her." "Is that the rock?" "Thought I'd take it across the way in the morning, to the college." "There's an old professor of mine there, Flanders." "He might make some sense out of all this." "Get him out of bed." "Take it to him, now." "Incredible." "As if someone tossed all the silicates into a single wastebasket." "Some wastebasket." "What beats me is it's completely unknown." "Nothing like it's been recorded in there." "That could be the answer." "What?" "What if it's never been recorded because it hasn't been here to record?" "What do you mean?" "It's a meteorite, I think." "You're kidding!" "Why not, Dave?" "Lts contents tally exactly with the makeup of an aerolite stony-iron meteorite composed entirely of silicates." "It couldn't be a meteorite." "We didn't find just this one rock." "There's a ton of that stuff in my lab, hundreds of pieces." "And the Simpson ranch is covered with it." "We can't expect to solve all of its mysteries at once." "Professor!" "All I want to know is how to keep it from multiplying." "It's killed or injured everyone who's come in contact with it, and that kid's gonna die if we don't give them an answer!" "Dave." "If it is a meteorite, chances are it's been hurtling around our universe for a good many centuries." "The answer to your question lies buried in those centuries." "We'll just have to dig it out." "I'm sorry." "It'll break Cathy's heart if anything happens to that little girl." "Where do we start?" "The places it happened, your lab and the Simpson ranch." "I want to go out there with you to see them, then let's try to locate that parent meteor, if there is one." "When can you leave?" "I'm all packed." "What is it, honey?" "Dr. Hendricks says another eight hours, maybe." "And maybe not?" "Maybe not." "She's different from the others, Dave." "Kind of special." "You want to stay with her?" "Let me know the minute there's a change." "Any kind of a change." "I'll call you if we come up with anything." "You be careful, Dave, because you're kind of special, too." "Hi, Dave." "Hi." "How was the trip?" "All right." "Chief, Professor Flanders." "Chief of Police Corey." "How do you do, Professor?" "Chief." "Excuse me, please." "How's the Simpson kid?" "She's alive, that's about all." "Anything new here?" "Yeah." "We can rule out the explosion idea." "There wasn't any." "The gas tank's in one piece, smashed, but intact." "And none of the wiring was shorted out, so that leaves us right where we started." "Dave." "Over here." "See any difference?" "Different color." "This looks strange." "Now, look here." "You'll see a slight discoloration around the piles of rock." "Why, yes, you do." "It's funny I didn't notice that before." "Seems to be only around the points of contact, always near where the rock has multiplied." "Yeah." "Now, look at the difference, Dave." "More than just the color." "This..." "It looks lifeless." "Yes." "Yes, it does." "It's got the same look to it as the wreckage." "It should." "Both of them were caused by multiplication of siliceous rock." "Granted, but something just out of the earth looking so much like wrecked furniture?" "What could they have in common?" "They lack something in common." "Silica." "They lack silica?" "Yeah." "The dirt sample is ordinary earth, but nothing more." "The wreckage is exactly what it should be, wood, plaster, metal, but the silica content in both is missing." "There's not a sign of it." "That could be the answer." "We know the siliceous rock does multiply." "Perhaps a part of the process is the absorption of silica, taking it right out of whatever it comes into contact with, be it desert, or wood, or..." "Human beings?" "I didn't know there was such a thing as silica in the human body." "It's called silicon." "It's a trace element, like iron, copper, aluminum, only there's much less of it." "Doctor, if the silicon content in a person were suddenly to disappear?" "By contact with a rock?" "No matter how, what if it did?" "Wait a moment." "Science never has known for sure just what the function of silicon was, but there is one theory that silicon is what helps make the skin flexible." "Flexible." "And take it away?" "Ginny!" "Doctor, get word to Hendricks." "Come on!" "Hey, where you going?" "We've got a meteor to find." "Is this the old San Angelo Road that Cathy spoke of?" "Yeah." "She said it was about 12 miles up the canyon." "Hadn't we better slow down a little?" "Yeah." "There." "That must be it." "Look." "They're the same fragments, all right." "Then the meteor can't be far off." "Think of the knowledge buried down there." "There's only one thing I want to know from that, what makes it multiply?" "What starts it?" "You've got to remember, David, when this hit our atmosphere, it burned at such a fantastic temperature that its metal-bearing compounds could have been altered, left ready to activate, to grow." "No telling what went on inside of it." "It's been gathering the secrets of time and space for billions of years." "Billions of years." "And how long have we got to unlock its most important secret?" "Three hours?" "Or three minutes?" "Are you going to make some tests first, Doctor?" "If we took the time to determine Ginny's silicon level, the whole question would be academic." "I'm sorry, Miss Barrett." "I didn't mean to be so blunt." "Please try to understand that anything medical science could do under the circumstances for Ginny would have to be experimental." "On the other hand, Dr. Reynolds' report from San Angelo did coincide exactly with what we've learned from our autopsy on Ben Gilbert, that somehow that rock had robbed his entire body of silicon." "That means only one thing." "We've got to try synthetically to replenish that element in Ginny's body and arrest the solidifying action." "I know you're doing the best you can, Doctor." "It does everything but grow." "Not heat, not electricity, not the simplest catalysts." "And yet, it has to be something simple." "Something present both here and at the Simpson ranch." "Maybe it was something somebody did." "Well, as long as this stuff is left alone in the desert, nothing happens." "It's dormant." "It's only after somebody's picked up a chunk of it that it activates." "But we've handled it." "Apparently not in the right way." "No, it has to be something Ben and Ginny did to it." "Well, no telling how Ben experimented on it." "What could he have done in the laboratory that Ginny could also have done at home?" "What would a little girl do with a rock souvenir she picked up in the desert?" "Professor." "Thank you, Dave." "I'm sorry, Dave, I guess this is beginning to get on my nerves a little." "It's probably just my strong coffee, Professor." "I'll make some fresh." "You know, this coffee I brew is responsible for my prolonged bachelor status." "Oh?" "Uh-huh." "Cathy tried a cup of it once." "She said anybody who drank mud like this all day long has just got to be too grouchy to live with." "Give me your cup." "I'll rinse out the mud." "Thanks, Dave." "Professor..." "It was only a little chip." "But what made it grow?" "What happened to it?" "It slipped into the sink." "That's all." "No, something started it." "Something we did." "You poured coffee in the sink." "Coffee?" "Coffee." "Coffee is nothing but flavored water." "And when there's no more water, it stops." "But as long as there is water, it'll multiply again and again." "Water." "A simple thing like..." "Professor, the meteor!" "Stop the car." "The engine." "Incredible." "Professor, they're gonna follow this natural slope right down the canyon." "They'll go straight through San Angelo." "Evacuate?" "The entire town?" "Chief, those rocks are gonna come crashing through here like an avalanche over an anthill." "There won't be a living thing left." "You won't even be able to tell where San Angelo was." "When they're no longer confined within the walls of the canyon, when they break out onto the open valley floor, their rate of multiplication is going to be frightening." "You mean they'll grow even faster?" "Each one that shatters will make 100 more." "When that 100 shatters, there'll be 10,000 of them." "The third cycle will create a million." "Unless we can stop them, they'll spread over the whole countryside." "With enough rain, there's no boundary they can't cross." "Then it all depends on how long it keeps raining?" "That's it." "We'd better find out about that right now." "The Weather Bureau in Riverside's your best bet." "Right." "There's no exact forecast, but..." "Well, can't you just give us a general idea of when the rainstorm might be over?" "Well, the prevailing nimbostratus in your area seems to have begun to dissipate under the influence of divergence aloft, associated with veering winds." "Ordinarily, this would lessen the duration of precipitation." "However, the unstable tropical air mass moving up from the south combined with the polar outbreak moving down from Canada, could conceivably give rise to an area of extreme cyclogenesis, which, in turn, could develop into..." "Friend?" "Yes?" "When is the rain going to stop?" "Why, today." "This morning." "Can you tell us how long we've got before it starts again?" "Well, there's no additional precipitation forecast for another 48 hours." "Thank you, very much." "Well, Professor, do you think we can figure out how to stop them in two days?" "I'd say we have no more choice in the matter than a student has in avoiding one of my assignments." "I can vouch for that." "What about the evacuation?" "I'd alert the people anyway." "If our time runs out, you can get instructions to them by radio and TV." "Right." "Oh, get Cochrane to use his wire service." "They can contact all the broadcasting stations by Teletype." "Is that you, Ethel?" "This is Dan Corey." "Now get this, Ethel, and get it straight." "Call everybody in town?" "Do you realize I'm here alone?" "Then get some more help." "I don't care how you do it, just do it." "Tell them to warn their neighbors." "Spread the word." "Well, at least that's a good idea." "The way gossip travels in this town, everybody'll hear about it in no time." "What is it I'm supposed to warn them about?" "Yes, Chief!" "Yes, Chief!" "Right away, Chief!" "Miss Barrett." "Miss Barrett, come here, quickly!" "Look." "The doctor." "Get Dr. Hendricks." "...and although the exact degree of danger has not yet been determined, all residents of San Angelo are requested by Chief of Police Dan Corey of that city, to be fully prepared to evacuate if it becomes necessary." "Stay tuned to this station for..." "Mommy, the TV went off." "How can I listen to what they're saying if it went off?" "Honey, they said to stay off the phone." "It's dead." "The radio, the lights, everything's dead." "She's gonna be all right." "Breathing normally." "She's completely out of danger." "Outside Long Distance, please." "Long Distance." "I'd like to place a person-to-person call to San Angelo." "I'm sorry, ma'am." "I can't connect you." "What do you mean?" "We've had a report of some trouble near San Angelo." "What kind of trouble?" "I don't have that information, ma'am." "It's impossible to get a call through to that exchange at this time." "Thank you." "Dr. Hendricks, something's wrong." "Something's wrong with the lines." "I can't get through to Dave." "Oh?" "Those rocks." "I've got to keep trying." "That won't do any good." "Wait a minute." "There is one way." "Operator, get me the State Highway Patrol, Los Angeles, please." "LAX to Car 42." "Come in." "LAX to Car 42." "Come in." "Car 42." "Come in." "Proceed to San Angelo." "Contact a Mr. Dave Miller," "District Office of the Department of Interior." "Roger and out." "They patched in the doctor's phone call at the Los Angeles headquarters and they're relaying it through the big transmitter." "Just press the button when you talk and when you want him to answer say "over. "" "Dr. Hendricks, this is Dave Miller." "Over." "Dave, I wanted to get word to you as soon as possible." "Your theory worked." "Ginny's completely out of danger." "Over." "Oh, that's wonderful news, Doctor, for a couple of reasons." "I have an idea there may be something in that formula you used on Ginny that would help us here." "Her reaction resulted from contact with the rock, so why not suppose that the same agent is capable of controlling the rocks?" "One ingredient with a common power, if we can isolate it." "What do you think?" "Over." "That's an interesting idea." "Sounds logical on the surface." "It's certainly worth a try." "Here it is." "Are you ready?" "Over." "Just a minute." "All right, Doctor." "Go ahead." "I used a base of silicic acid uncut, CMC," "Glucose DB and monochloroacetic acid." "That's it." "Over." "Got it." "How did you suspend them?" "Normal saline solution." "Say, Dave, is there any way we can speed things up from this end?" "Thank you, Doctor, but I don't see how." "Not unless you can chase rain clouds." "Say, hold on a minute, Doctor." "It looks like trouble." "Stay where you are." "I'll talk to you in a minute." "Why, it's Joe Higgins." "Chief, you got to believe me." "You're gonna think I'm blind drunk..." "Rocks, Joe?" "Towers of rock crashing down and then growing up again?" "Yeah, yeah!" "Hundreds of them." "Thousands." "They come crashing through my farm like a, like a..." "Chief, there's nothing left." "Nothing." "My livestock's all dead and..." "Here, here, I'll show you." "Look at the dog." "He's as hard as a piece of granite." "Mary, what's wrong?" "I'd better get Doc Reynolds." "I have it all down, Dr. Hendricks." "One injection only." "Now, what do we do about an iron lung to keep Mrs. Higgins alive until the solution takes effect?" "Over." "Well, from what you've told me, I can assure you she'll be all right for three or four hours without the lung." "And I can be there with a portable unit long before that." "And anyway, Dr. Reynolds, I'd like to be present, if you don't mind." "Over." "You're more than welcome." "I was hoping you'd offer." "Cigarette?" "No, thanks." "She's gonna be all right, Mr. Higgins." "Dr. Reynolds is getting all the information on how the little Simpson girl was cured." "He'll use the same formula on your wife." "It ain't gonna take too long, is it?" "I mean, I don't aim to sit around here and wait for those rocks to catch up with us." "You don't have to worry." "You see, we found out that without rain the rocks stop growing." "Mister, I seen them smash the big, main power line that runs into town." "Goes right through my place." "And it hadn't been raining for half an hour." "When they crashed into my house and barns, it wasn't raining a drop." "No, mister, they're not stopped." "They're moving right down this valley." "You mean now?" "Sure, now." "Right now." "How far is your place from town, Mr. Higgins?" "Six and a half miles." "Professor, I'm going out there and have a look." "We've got to know how much time we do have." "That's Hendricks' formula." "I'll get started in the lab." "There isn't a chance that they can repair the lines in time." "Martin, I've got 1,500 people waiting for word to get out of town." "Now, how am I gonna get that word to them?" "Well, now, Dan, I wouldn't say we're cut off, not completely." "Huh?" "Come with me." "Bobby." "Bobby." "Over here." "Like I started to tell you, Dan," "I know I never have much to write about in the Sentinel, but what little there is always gets delivered to most every house in town, every day." "You want me, Mr. Cochrane?" "Martin, you're a genius." "Bobby, you already know what kind of trouble we're in." "Now, we're gonna need your help." "The first thing I want you to do is round up every kid in town, boy or girl, who's got a bicycle and be back here with them in a half hour." "I got a job for them." "Sure, Mr. Cochrane, but..." "But?" "But what?" "Well, most of the guys I know won't do it unless I can tell them how much they'll get paid." "Get paid?" "At a time like this?" "You tell them this is police business." "You tell them the Chief of Police wants them here right now." "Yes, sir." "I don't know, Martin." "Kids nowadays have to get paid for everything." "Well, don't worry about them, Dan." "When they find out what we want them to deliver, you just watch the smoke fly." "You know what I was thinking?" "This is gonna be the most important delivery in the Sentinel's history, to say nothing of the biggest circulation-getter." "And because of it, I'm gonna lose every paying customer I've got." "Chief, you'd better come over here right away." "What's the matter?" "She just drove in, stopped, and then passed out before she said a word." "Get her over to the doctor." "Let's warm up that radiophone." "I want to talk to the Governor." "The Governor has declared that a state of emergency exists in the area surrounding the doomed town." "The Highway Patrol has issued a warning to all motorists other than the evacuees to stay off the roads leading into San Angelo." "Their patrol cars will stop anyone who disregards this order." "Good." "Let her roll, boys." "They're still activating." "They're pulling the water out of the sand like sponges." "Well, the rain's stopped, anyhow." "Yeah, without a continuing rainfall, at least the growth's been retarded." "It looks like it's taken about 10 minutes for each cycle." "Still too fast." "Professor, the way I figure it, we got seven or eight hours and San Angelo's gonna look more like a petrified forest than a town." "Yeah." "Dave, I know this is an unnecessary question, but are you positive that you wrote down all the ingredients in Dr. Hendricks' formula?" "Absolutely." "You mean none of them work?" "That's about it." "Our one chance is that maybe a combination of all the ingredients." "Yeah, yeah." "Pairs, three at a time, maybe all at once." "Well, let's try a mixture of silicic acid and Glucose DB." "Don't be too discouraged, Dave." "Your theory's sound." "I'm sure of it." "Cathy!" "What're you doing here?" "Well, that's a fine greeting." "I thought you'd be glad to see me." "Of course I am." "You look tired, honey." "Did you get any sleep?" "Oh, don't worry about me." "Ginny's all right." "Oh, great." "She's sleeping mostly, from exhaustion." "And I wanted to be with you." "Well, I'm delighted you came, Miss Barrett." "We can use some help." "We sure can." "We'd better get that lung in here." "All right." "You're the husband?" "Yes." "You can relax now." "We were on time." "It'd be simpler if we could just find a way to keep the water from getting to them." "See?" "The activity's almost stopped." "Maybe this'll stop it for good." "It doesn't make sense." "Something in that formula worked for Hendricks." "Why won't it work for us?" "It has me stumped." "I thought, surely if we grouped all four ingredients together like Dr. Hendricks did for the little girl, we'd get a positive reaction." "So did I." "Wait a minute." "We didn't duplicate Hendricks' formula, not completely." "You mean the saline solution?" "Why not?" "We've tried everything else." "But I thought you said that was nothing but a salt solution to hold the ingredients together." "Yeah, that's what I said." "Then it couldn't possibly have any effect, could it?" "You're absolutely right." "It's ridiculous." "But that's what they said about the wheel when someone first thought of it." "Dave, it works." "More water." "We got to be sure." "If we had that extra day the Weather Bureau promised us," "I'm sure we could figure a way to stop the monoliths for good." "We're not that lucky." "But I think we can cut them off here before they reach town." "That'd be like trying to stop a forest fire with a traffic signal." "All right, Chief." "How do you fight a forest fire?" "With a firebreak, right?" "Yeah." "Well, how about a salt break?" "Look here." "The natural slope of the valley floor is bringing them right down here." "Now, if we could lay a swath of salt right here, making it as wide as the monoliths are tall, then, when they fell and shattered, they'd just pile up, keeping them inside the canyon." "This'd give us the time we need." "Theoretically, you're right, David, but to cover an area that great in the time that we have, why, I doubt if 1,000 dump trucks could move that salt over there fast enough." "I've thought about that, Professor, but we've got to try." "Will you gain enough time to make it worthwhile?" "If we had to have a misplaced ocean, why couldn't it have dried up and left its salt here where we need it, in the first place?" "Even if it were there, it couldn't keep the monoliths from breaking out of the valley eventually." "Why?" "The dry salt in either case will only act as a temporary barrier." "When they pile up sufficiently, some of them are bound to go around it." "Why, they'll go crashing through that irrigation dam like it wasn't there." "And with the flood waters to feed them, they'll march right on through the reservoir canyon and out into the citrus area." "And once they break through to the other side of the mountains, there'll be no stopping them ever." "Chief, you lived here, didn't you, before that irrigation project was built?" "Yeah, sure." "Did the water that flowed down the wash reach this end of the valley before the dam was put up?" "When it rained." "What're you driving at?" "We're gonna beat them to the punch." "If the monoliths get to the water behind the dam, they'll feed on it." "But if we could drain that reservoir first, that same water will stop them." "After it floods through the dry lake, it'll be salt water, which will deactivate them completely." "Dave, I don't think the flood gates will release the water fast enough." "How about the discharge pipes?" "The discharge pipes are on the other side of the mountain." "The dam was built by the citrus growers over there." "Then we'll dynamite the dam." "Blow it up?" "You can't do that." "It's privately owned." "Dave, you can't take on this responsibility alone." "She's right." "Besides, that's a $6 million irrigation project..." "There's no price you can put on the destruction those things will cause if they're not stopped here." "Get in touch with the Governor." "He might order it in the public interest." "Dave, where are you going?" "We've only got a few hours left, Dan." "Those charges have got to be set exactly right to move all that concrete." "And we only get one chance." "The Salt Reclaiming Company uses a lot of dynamite." "You'll find everything you need there." "Thanks." "And what do you think, Professor?" "Will it stop the monoliths?" "Well, it's like another laboratory experiment, Cathy." "In science there are no guarantees." "Hey, you can see them from here!" "Mr. Miller, there's still some men down at the salt plant moving equipment out." "I'm supposed to warn them before we set her off." "You better make your call now, just to be safe." "Then keep your phone open and stand by." "I'll tell you when." "P1 calling P2." "Come in, P2." "Dave, is everything all right?" "So far." "One word on that car radio, and 6 million bucks worth of dam goes sky high." "David, from our calculations, we know it takes at least a 3º/º salt solution to be effective against monoliths." "So I did some fast figuring, rough estimates based on what Mr. Cochrane remembers about the volume of water behind the dam, and the amount of salt that'll be in its path." "And?" "What are the odds?" "We're going to have to be lucky." "Very lucky." "Dave, the Governor is supposed to fly here to get a firsthand look at the disaster area." "But, so far, we haven't been able to locate him." "When he sees what's happening here, he's sure to give permission to blow up the dam." "The important thing right now is to get out to the edge of town where we can see something." "Chief, will you have the patrol car stick close to us?" "We'll need that radio." "Right, Dave." "Professor, can you figure how long it'll take the water to reach the wash after it's released?" "I'll have to know how far away it is." "Two and seven-tenths miles from dam to city limits." "If it's dull or statistical, I've written about it." "David, roughly three minutes after they dynamite the dam, the water will flood the wash." "Three minutes?" "Then we've got to let them reach the wash, and wait till they're growing right in the middle of it." "Kind of like waiting till you see the whites of their eyes." "Dave, the Governor still can't be reached." "He's in his car someplace on his way to the airport." "Officer, establish contact with Hank." "I'm talking to the pilot of the Governor's plane." "He said the Governor's at the airport now and will be aboard any minute." "Get Hank!" "Quick!" "Dave, just another minute." "We don't have another minute!" "Dave Miller to Hank Jackson." "Do you read me?" "Over." "I read you loud and clear." "Are you ready?" "Over." "Ready!" "Hit it!" "Now!" "Well, let's hope the Governor makes the right decision." "It's working." "It's working!" "The salt water's stopping them." "Right in their tracks." "And the Governor had stopped for an unscheduled meeting with the State Engineer and the State Disaster Director." "That's why he was so late getting to the airport." "Never mind that." "What did he say about the dam?" "Oh, he said, "Don't blow up the dam" ""unless you're absolutely certain it'll be successful!"" "Martin, you always called that dry lake Mother Nature's worst mistake." "Looks like now she knew what she was doing, huh?"