"Otillfredsställande lösning" (1941)
Denna historia beskriver utvecklingen och användningen av ett giftigt radioaktivt damm.
I tried to snap my fingers, which was impossible because of the lead mittens. "That accounts for it, Colonel!"
"Accounts for what?"
"Accounts for those accusing notes we've been getting from the Bureau of Fisheries. This poisonous dust is being carried out into Chesapeake Bay and is killing the fish."
Manning turned to Karst. "Do you think that possible, Doctor?"
Dammet släpps på Berlin och verkar som att linga en stund, inklusive i luften:
But, so far as I am concerned, I left what soul I had in that projection room and I have not had one since. The two pilots who made the pictures eventually died—systemic, cumulative infection, dust in the air over Berlin. With precautions it need not have happened, but the English did not believe, as yet, that our extreme precautions were necessary.
Indeed:
Once an area was dusted there was nothing that could be done about it until the radioactivity had fallen off to the point where it was no longer harmful. The dust could not be cleaned out; it was everywhere. There was no possible way to counteract it—burn it, combine it chemically; the radioactive isotope was still there, still radioactive, still deadly. Once used on a stretch of land, for a predetermined length of time that piece of earth would not tolerate life.
Det låter visserligen skrämmande.