Sherlock in Cheyenne - The Adventure of the Tarnished Snowflakes

Yep, Mr. Holmes was on to another one. It had snowed and snowed and snowed near Scottsbluff. The stuff wouldn't melt. Then it disappeared. Mr. Holmes travelled to the region to get the lowdown. The locals whispered from concealment to tell Mr. Holmes that no melting had occurred. So much snow there had been that some people were in danger of asphyxiation. Getting about was all but impossible.

Mr. Holmes came back all fired up. The game is afoot, said he.

Quote a new raven - evermore?

Then the newspaper (and Mr. Holmes remained convinced that the same reporter had done the Babel plant reporting) carried an account of a tall snowfall in central Wyoming. Naturally, Mr. Holmes took a powder. Naturally I was at home, watching TV, playing chess with Duane (at his house, always at his house) or reading or studying or sleeping.

Mr. Holmes, upon his return, had a small tin box with him.

He said to me - I have returned (obviously), as he removed the superfluous boots, parka, and mittens. I have snowflakes for your examination.

Shouldn't we get them upstairs to the refrigerator? (He knew about them now, he had a house tour upstairs once while everyone else was out.)

No need, they can't melt.

I didn't even say Huh?, and I opened the box and found snowflakes piled on one another.

I said - These look alike. Shouldn't they be more irregular? I was comparing them.

Splendid! My dear boy, you have one key point well in hand.

And the other key?

Here, he said, and he gave me his famous magnifying glass.

I checked them out but I couldn't see anything unusual.

No dice - I said.

It is hard to observe this matter to be sure. A microscope should show it well enough.

Show?

Some of them are tarnished.

Can I touch them?

Here, he said, and brought some out of a coat pocket. He gave a clump to me with my hands cupped together.

I said- They are light in weight...They feel like... like, well, like plastic. Like Christmas tree decorations.

Ah, Prince Albert, said Mr. Holmes. But what is "plastic?"

A group of chemicals - I glanced inadvertently at the chemistry lab in the basement - in later times they get to be even more ubiquitous and even harmful to the surroundings.

Do they tarnish?

Not as I understand "tarnishment."

Have you a microscope?

No, and none magically appeared as did the typewriter.

Well, then, it is back out to get one.

Try the high schools for used ones.

Meanwhile, take care not to touch the ones in the tin.

Righto.

Soon Mr. Holmes had a microscope. It was an old immersion oil one. Another clue - such a microscope can visualize bacteria. Now Mr. Holmes cleared a space among the chemistry equipment to make room for the microscope.

He had been looking at a scraping from a "tarnished" flake only a short time when - Ah, he said, as I expected. I will need growth medium, special blends, dishes to pour molten (heated by our chemistry burners) forms into them and inoculation rings and a box with bulbs as I suppose the latter arrangement would serve as an incubator.

My turn, out I went to a biology supply store. Well equipped. Nothing like when I was here originally.

A few days later, Mr. Holmes had isolated and cultured a new strain, Plasticus zeegleritis, as I called it. Mr. Holmes was not amused. Even so, I helped pour plates and watched over the incubator.

Mr. Holmes decided that the fruit of his labors should be deposited with a Dr. Kipowitz, liaison to the Air Base, for special projects, or so Mr. Holmes knew about from his sources. (All those walks and nights out had not been for nothing.)

Mr. Holmes took care of the deposit. The Air Force flew into the clouds that They were using for fabrication of their "snow." The bacteria were liberally distributed into ''Their" clouds. Their snowflakes lost their luster pronto. Mr. Holmes had gotten hold of a very virulent strain.

Naturally enough, So They didn't like what we (really Mr. Holmes) had done. Naturally there was a frozen moment ongoing and we didn't know it. Naturally we got a visit. Naturally they didn't bother to knock. About a dozen Zeeglers came boiling through the door after the door got slammed back against the wall.

Mr. Holmes was firing away with his revolvers. Some of the Zeeglers disappeared but not enough. They grabbed Mr. Holmes and hustled him to the door. I would have been OK, I guess, but I got up off the bed to go to Mr. Holmes aid and got a bullet in the chest.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Holmes was sitting on the edge of the bed when I came to.

How are you, my boy?

Same as ever plus a sore chest.

Again, no marks, some loss of consciousness, then back to normal.

Yes, whatever is normal in this place. What did they do to you?

The frozen moment didn't last long enough, apparently. Three black motor cars were in the road in front of your house. I was placed in the back seat of one of these motor cars with a Zeegler on either side of me. Then we drove off - for two blocks. Then I was sitting in the roadway. The motor cars and the Zeeglers were gone.

I said - I'm thinking we should forestall their attack or turn the tables on them.

How do you propose to accomplish such a task?

I don't know as yet. Right now this pain in the chest reminds me of our mandatory PE "dive" from the high board at our school's pool. Everyone had to do it. Get on the high board, go from the edge of the board and down into the water. You didn't need to dive elegantly, yet feet-first was "chicken." Much more macho PE then. Do it or flunk. They graded us on PE. Imagine that! Much trauma for many of us, including me, was involved in climbing up the tall ladder, inching out on the board to the end, and then off into space, falling. I couldn't go headfirst. But I didn't know what to do otherwise. In the end, I belly-flopped and I wasn't the only one. So red was my chest and it smarted no end. So I passed "diving" in PE.

So sorry about all this - so said Mr. Holmes.

I said that the way to learn enough about the Zeeglers and Them would be to provoke a frozen moment. If, as you say, the frozen moments, which can be from split seconds to minutes, and they are adjustments to make things not get too far from expectations - whoever's or whatever's expectations that they may be - then a longer frozen moment, and one we expect, may be possible.

I respect, he said, your desire to learn more and be satisfied within this knowledge but it could be a provocation little appreciated by those or it - however we were brought here. I do not feel our work here is yet completed.

I will try to be less than provocative but this being subject to attack and hurt is a little annoying.

Most surely. I don't wish to you to suffer unnecessarily, my boy. Perhaps we can devise a warning for us of the start of a frozen moment or be preventive of them.

Huh?