Mission of Gravity

by Clement Hal

“I don’t think it will make much difference to the tank,” replied Lackland.

“It will to us,” pointed out Barlennan. “I admit it would not be dangerous to be shaken off the deck, but it would be annoying in the middle of a meal. Have you decided what would be the best course to follow across the land?”

“I’ve been working on it.” The man brought out the map that was the result of his efforts. “The shortest route, that we discovered together, has the disadvantage of requiring that I tow you over a mountain range. It might be possible, but I don’t like to think of the effects on your crew. I don’t know how high those mountains are, but any altitude is too much on this world.

“I’ve worked out this route, which I’ve shown by a red line. It follows up the river that empties into the big bay on this side of the point, for about twelve hundred miles — not counting the small curves in the river, which we probably won’t have to follow. Then it goes straight across country for another four hundred or so, and reaches the head of another river. You could probably sail down that if you wanted, or have me keep.-on towing — whichever would be faster or more comfortable for you. Its worst feature is that so much of it runs three or four hundred miles south of the equator — another half gravity or more for me to take. I can handle it, though.”

“If you are sure of that, I would say that this is indeed the best way.” Barlennan gave his statement after careful study of the map. “Your towing will probably be faster than sailing, at least in the river where there will probably be no room to tack.” He had to use his own language for the last word; Lackland received the explanation of its meaning with satisfaction. He had guessed correctly about the extent of nautical progress among Barlennan’s people, it seemed.

With the route agreed on, there was little more for Lackland to do while Mesklin drifted along its orbit toward the next equinox. That would not be too long, of course; with the southern hemisphere’s midwinter occurring almost exactly at the time the giant world was closest to its sun, orbital motion during fall and winter was extremely rapid. Each of those seasons was a shade over two Earthly months in length-spring and summer, on the other hand, each occupied some eight hundred and thirty Earth days, roughly twenty-six months. There should be plenty of time for the voyage itself.

Lackland’s enforced idleness was not shared aboard the Bree. Preparations for the overland journey were numerous and complicated by the fact that no member of the crew knew exactly what the ship would have to face. They might have to make the entire journey on stored food; there might be animal life along the way sufficient not only to feed them but to provide trading material if its skins and bones were of the right sort. The trip might be. as safe as the sailors avowedly believed all land journeys to be, or they might face dangers from both the terrain, — and the creatures inhabiting it. About the first they could do little; that was the Flyer’s responsibility. Concerning the second, weapons were brought to a high degree of readiness. Bigger clubs than even Hars or Terblannen could swing up in the higher latitudes were manufactured; some of the plants which stored crystals of chlorine in their stems were found, and the flame tanks replenished from them. There were, of course, no projectile weapons; the idea had never developed on a world where none of the inhabitants had ever seen a solid, unsupported object because it fell too fast to be visible. A.50-caliber bullet fired horizontally at Mesklin’s pole would drop over one hundred feet in its first hundred yards of travel. Barlennan, since meeting Lackland, had come to have some idea of the “throw” concept and had even considered asking the Flyer about the possibility of weapons based on the principle; but he had decided to stick to more familiar arms. Lackland, on his part, had done a little wondering about the possible results of meeting a race, on their trip across the isthmus, which had developed the bow and arrow. He did a little more than Barlennan with the thought; he outlined the situation to Rosten and asked that the towing tank be equipped with a 40-millimeter gun with thermite and explosive shells. After the usual grumbling Rosten had acquiesced.

The sled was finished easily and quickly; large amounts of sheet metal were available, and the structure was certainly not complicated. Following Lackland’s advice, it was not brought to the surface of Mesklin immediately, since the storms were still depositing their loads of ammonia-tainted methane snow. The ocean level had still not risen appreciably near the equator, and the meteorologists had been making unkind remarks at first about Barlennan’s truthfulness and linguistic ability; but as sunlight reached farther and farther into the southern hemisphere with the approach of spring, and new photographs were secured and compared with those of the preceding fall, the weather men grew silent and were observed wandering around the station muttering distractedly to themselves. The sea level in the higher latitudes had already risen several hundreds of feet, as the native had predicted, and was still rising visibly as the days went by.

The phenomenon of widely differing sea levels at the same time on the same planet was a little outside the experience of Earth-trained meteorologists, and none of the non-human scientists with the expedition could throw any light on the matter, either. The weather men were still racking their brains when the sun’s diurnal arc eased southward past the equator and spring officially began in Mesklin’s southern hemisphere.

The storms had decreased tremendously both in frequency and intensity long before this time, partly because the planet’s extreme flattening had cut down the radiation on the north polar cap very rapidly after midwinter and partly because Mesklin’s distance from the sun had increased more than fifty per cent during the same time; Barlennan, when consulted on the matter, proved perfectly willing to start the journey with the astronomical advent of spring, and showed no apparent anxiety about equinoctial gales.