My Library

and other nourishment for the younger, oncoming units. A secondary purpose was to provide occasional extra amounts of Loosh created by such harvesting. To reap such harvest, the Collectors generated storms of turbulence and turmoil in both the gaseous envelope and the more solid chemical formations that were the base of the Garden itself. Such upheavals had the effect of terminating life spans of multitudes of the Fourth Crop as they were crushed under the rolling base formation or smothered under waves from the agitated liquid area of the Garden. (By peculiarity of design, Fourth Crop units could not maintain their carbon-oxygen cycle surrounded by the liquid medium.) The Garden pattern of “Life” might have gone on thus throughout eternity had it not been for the perception and inquisitiveness of Someone. On occasion, he would study samples of Loosh from his Garden. There was no motive in doing so, other than the fact that Someone may have held a remote continuing interest in his project. On a particular analysis of a Loosh sample, Someone had casually examined the emanations and was about to return it to the Reservoir —when he became aware of a Difference. It was very slight, but there it was. His interest centered immediately, he looked again. Woven delicately in with the more common Loosh emanations was a slender fragment of purified and distilled Loosh. This was an impossibility. Purified and distilled Loosh resulted only after the “wild state” Loosh had been processed many times. The Loosh from the Garden of Someone required the same treatment before it could be used. Yet here it was—so finely graded in its refined radiations that it could or would not return into compound with the raw substance. Someone reaffirmed his tests, and the result still was positive. There was a factor in his Garden of which he was unaware. Quickly, Someone left Somewhere and returned to his Garden. Outwardly, all seemed the same. The solid-base gaseous areas of the Garden were an endless carpet of green reflection from the thriving Second Crop. The Modified First Crop in the liquid area was in perfect accord with the Action-Reaction Law (a Division of Cause and Effect).