"I had guessed by now that when I enlisted they looked up my record and passed the word along to Commander Dunnam to sell me on the idea of a career as a spaceman.
"At any rate, I was in an ideal position to see all that went on first hand. We were within three hundred thousand miles of Metapor when we got the first indication of the change in metaphysics. I discovered it myself. I was helping the astrogator get the constants for the planet ..."
"Take a look at the gravy board, Ren," Ford Gratrick, the astrogator said. "What's she say?"
Ren looked at the fine black pointer on the gravity potentiometer. It pointed to a spot just two marks above the number ten on the dial.
"Ten and two tenths," Ren read.
"That can't be right," Ford frowned. "At this distance that would make this baby a super."
He came over and looked himself. While he was looking the pointer moved up to twenty and then down to six tenths.
"Must be out of order," Ford muttered. "Well, this'll give you experience with emergency equipment. Break out the manual gravy dish, Ren."
It was a fine coil spring in a glass tube. Other glass tubes fastened on, to make the length almost ten feet. At one g the spring with its weight would stretch out to the bottom. From there to a ten thousandth of a g the spring rose up to a point half-way.