The fall from the satellite’s orbit gave the rocket a very high velocity, but, as Rosten had said, it was not high enough. Power had to be used in addition; and although the actual pass across the pole was made some thousands of miles above the surface, it was still necessary for the photographer to work rapidly. Three runs were actually made, each taking between two and three minutes for the photography and many more for the whipping journey around the planet. They made reasonably sure that the world was presenting a different face to the sun each time, so that the height of the cliff could be checked by shadow measurements on all sides; then, with the photographs already fixed and on one of the chart tables, the rocket spent more fuel swinging its hyperbola into a wide arc that intercepted Toorey, and killing speed so that too much acceleration would not be needed when they got there. They could afford the extra time consumed by such a maneuver; the mapping could proceed during the journey.
Results, as usual with things Mesklinite, were interesting if somewhat surprising. In diis case, the surprising fact was the size of the fragment of planetary crust that seemed to have been thrust upward en bloc. It was shaped rather like Greenland, some thirty-five hundred miles in length, with the point aimed almost at the sea from which the Bree had come. The river leading to it, however, looped widely around and actually contacted its edge at almost the opposite end, in the middle of the broad end of the wedge. Its height at the edges was incredibly uniform; shadow measurements suggested that it might be a trifle higher at the point end than at the Bree’s present position, but only slightly.
Except at one point. One picture, and one only, showed a blurring of the shadow that might be a gentler slope. It was also in the broad end of the wedge, perhaps eight hundred miles from where the ship now was. Still better, it was upstream — and the river continued to hug the base of the cliff. It looped outward at the point where the shadow break existed as tiiough detouring around the rubble pile of a collapsed slope, which was very promising indeed. It meant diat Barlennan had sixteen or seventeen hundred miles to go instead of fifty, with half of it overland; but even the over-
land part should not be overwhelmingly difficult. Lackland said so, and was answered with the suggestion that he make a more careful analysis of the surface over which his small friend would have to travel. This, however, he put off until after the landing, since there were better facilities at the base.
Once there, microscopes and densitometers in the hands of professional cartographers were a little less encouraging, for the plateau itself seemed rather rough. There was no evidence of rivers or any other specific cause for the break in the wall that Lackland had detected; but the break itself was amply confirmed. The densitometer indicated that the center of the region was lower than the rim, so that it was actually a gigantic shallow bowl; but its depth could not be determined accurately, since there were no distinct shadows across the inner portion. The analysts were quite sure, however, that its deepest part was still well above the terrain beyond the cliffs.
Rosten looked over the final results of the work, and sniffed.
“I’m afraid that’s the best we can do for him,” he said at last. “Personally, I wouldn’t have that country on a bet even if I could live in it. Charlie, you may have to figure out some way to give moral support; I don’t see how anyone can give physical.”
“I’ve been doing my best all along. It’s a nuisance having this crop up when we were so close to home plate. I just hope he doesn’t give us up as a bad job this close to the end; he still doesn’t believe everything we say, you know. I wish someone could explain that high-horizon illusion to his — and my — satisfaction; that might shake him out of the notion that his world is a bowl, and our claim to come from another is at least fifty per cent superstition on our part.”
“You mean you don’t understand why it looks higher?” one of the meteorologists exclaimed in a shocked tone.
“Not in detail, though I realize the air density has something to do with it.”