"The slick holds down the waves," Barnes guessed. "It works best in deep water, I believe. The ancients knew it. Oil on the waters." He considered. "Working hard to prevent vibrations! Are they really so dangerous, sir?"
Bordman nodded inland. A quarter mile from the edge of the cliff there was a peculiar, broken, riven rampart of soil. It might have been forty feet high, once. Now it was shattered and cracked. It had the look of having been pulled away from where it was withdrawn. There were vertical breaks in its edges and broken-off masses left behind. At one place, a clump of perhaps a quarter-acre had not followed the rest, and trees leaned drunkenly from its top, and at the edge had fallen outward. All along the top of the stone cliff as far as the eye could see there was this singular retreat of soil and vegetation from the cliff's edge.
Bordman stooped and picked up a bit of the mud underfoot. He rubbed it between his fingers. It yielded like modelling clay. He dipped a finger into a gray, greasy-seeming puddle. He looked at the thick liquid on his finger and then rubbed it against his other palm. Young Barnes duplicated this last action.
"It feels soapy, sir!" he said blankly. "Like wet soap!"
"Yes," said Bordman. "That's the first problem here."
He turned to a ground-service Survey private, and jerked his head along the coast-line.
"How much have other places slipped?"
"Anywhere from this much, sir," said the private, "to two miles and upward. There's one place where it's moving at a regular rate. Four inches an hour, sir. It was three-and-a-half yesterday."
Bordman nodded.
"Hm. We'll go back to Headquarters. Nasty business!"