“I’m glad to see that this work wasn’t wasted time,” he said.
“What?” asked the captain. “I knew you were at some stunt of your own for the last forty or fifty days, but was too busy to find out what it was. We were able to handle the trading without you. What have you been doing?”
“It was an idea that struck me just after we were first caught here; something you said to the Flyers about a machine to pull out the stakes gave it to me. I asked them later if there was such a machine that was not too complicated for us to understand, and after some thinking one of them said there was. He told me how to make it, and that’s what I’ve been doing. If we rig a tripod by one of the stakes, I’ll see how it works.”
“But what is the machine? I thought all the Flyer’s machines were made of metal, which we couldn’t fashion because the kinds that are hard enough need too much heat.”
“This.” The mate displayed two objects on which he had been working. One was supply a pulley of the most elementary design, quite broad, with a hook attached. The other was rather similar but double, with peglike teeth projecting from the circumference of both wheels. The wheels themselves were carved from a solid block of hardwood, and turned together. Like the first pulley, this was equipped with a hook; in addition there was a strap of leather threaded through the guards of both wheels, with holes punched in it to match the peg teeth, and the ends buckled together so that it formed a continuous double loop. The whole arrangement seemed pointless to the Mesklinites — including Don-dragmer, who did not yet understand why the device worked, or even whether it actually would. He took it over in front of one of the radios and spread it out on the deck.
“Is this now assembled correctly?” he asked.
“Yes, it should work if your strap is strong enough,” came the answer. “You must attach the hook of the single pulley to the stake you want to extract; I am sure you have methods of doing that with rope. The other pulley must be fastened to the top of the tripod. I’ve told you what to do from then on.”
“Yes, I know. It occurred to me that instead of taking much time to reverse the machine after it was wound up tightly, however, I could unfasten the buckle and rethread it.”
“That would work, provided you were not lifting a load that had to be supported in the meantime,” replied the Earthman. “Good for you, Don.”
The crew immediately headed for the original group of Stakes, but Barlennan called to them to wait.