‘In the absence of any other explanation, I conclude,’ she wrote, ‘that human intervention is a significant—and perhaps the only—factor in the failure of the delta to expand during the survey period.’
I hadn’t remembered that from the other version, that was for sure. Human intervention. I read on. Millicent thought someone was dredging up the sediment as soon as it was deposited—filtering it, looking for something, then dumping it far out into Purple Bay so that they wouldn’t keep looking through the same particulates over and over. The furrow in the mud, she thought, might be from dragging replacement equipment toward a waiting rowboat.
Why did the activity stop in August? Humans took vacations in August, at least in Krasnia. Universities were on break; even summer session was over by
