Mission of Gravity (18 page)

„Shall we start right away, Captain?”

„No. We will wait here until we know that Dondragmer is back to the ship. If he runs into trouble we will have to use some other plan, which would probably require us to go back down ourselves; in that case it would be a waste of time and effort to have traveled any distance, and would cost time that might be valuable in getting back.”

Meanwhile, Dondragmer and his group reached the slope without difficulty. They stopped just long enough for the mate to make sure that all harnesses were securely fastened at regular intervals along the rope he had brought; then he attached his own at the rear, and gave the order to start down.

The rope proved a good idea; it was harder even for the many feet of the Mesklinites to keep their traction while heading downward than it had been on the way up. The wind showed no tendency to pick anyone up this time, since they had no packs on which it could get a grip, but the going was still awkward. As before, everyone lost all track of time, and all were correspondingly relieved when the way opened ahead and they were able to swing to the left out of the wind’s path. They still found themselves looking down, of course, which was extremely hard on Mesklinite nerves; but the worst of the descent was over. Only three or four days were consumed in getting down the rest of the way and aboard the still waiting Bree. The sailors with the ship had seen them coming long enough in advance to develop a number of theories, mostly tragic in tone, concerning the fate of the rest of the party. They were quickly reassured and the mate reported his arrival to the men on Toorey so that they could relay the information to Barlennan on the plateau. Then the ship was dragged back to the river — a real task, with a quarter of the crew missing and the full power of polar gravity to plaster the rafts to the beach, but it was finally accomplished. Twice the vessel hung up on small pebbles that had not quite stopped her going the other way; the differential hoist was put to effective use. With the Bree once more afloat, Dondragmer spent much of the time on the downstream trip examining the hoist. He already knew its principles of construction well enough to have made one without help; but he could not quite figure out just why it worked. Several Earthmen watched him with amusement, but none was discourteous enough to show the fact — and none dreamed of spoiling the Mesklinite’s chance of solving the problem by himself. Even Lackland, fond as he was of Barlennan, had long since come to the conclusion that the mate was considerably his captain’s superior in general intelligence, and rather expected that he would be regaling them with a sound mechanical explanation before the Bree reached her former stopping place; but he was wrong.

The position of the grounded rocket was known with great accuracy; the uncertainly was less than half a dozen miles. Its telemetering transmitters — not all the instruments had been of permanent-record type — had continued to operate for more than an Earth year after the failure to answer takeoff signals; in that time an astronomical number of fixes had been taken on the location of the transmitters. Mesklin’s atmosphere did not interfere appreciably with radio.

The Bree could also be located by radio, as could Bar-lennan’s party; it would be the job of the Earthmen to guide the two groups together and, eventually, lead them to the grounded research projectile. The diffieuly was in obtaining fixes from Toorey; all three targets were on the „edge” of the disc as seen from the moon. Still worse, the shape of the planet meant that a tiny error in the determination of signal direction could mean a discrepancy of some thousands of miles on the world’s surface; the line of the antenna just about grazed the flattest part of the planet. To remedy this, the rocket that had photographed the planet so much was launched once more, and set into a circular orbit that crossed the poles at regular intervals.

From this orbit, once it was accurately set up, fixes could be taken with sufficient precision on the tiny transmitters that the Mesklinites were carrying with them.

The problem became even simpler when Dondragmer finally brought the Bree to its former halting place and established a camp. There was now a fixed transmitter on the planet, and this made it possible to tell Barlennan how much farther he had to go within a minute or two of any time he chose to ask. The trip settled down to routine once more — from above.

For Barlennan himself it was hardly routine. The upper plateau was as it had seemed from the beginning: arid, stony, lifeless, and confusing. He did not dare go far from the edge; once among those boulders, direction would quickly vanish. There were no hills of any size to serve as land marks, or at least none which could be seen from the ground. The thickly scattered rocks hid everything more than a few yards away, towering into the line of sight in every direction except toward the edge of the cliff.

Travel itself was not too difficult. The ground was level, except for the stones; these merely had to be avoided. Eight hundred miles is a long walk for a man, and a longer one for a creature only fifteen inches long who has to „walk” by rippling forward caterpillar style; and the endless detours made the actual distance covered much more than eight hundred miles. True, Barlennan’s people could travel with considerable speed, all things considered; but much had to be considered.

The captain actually began to worry somewhat about the food supply before the trip was over. He had felt that he was allowing a generous safety margin when he first conceived the project; this idea had to be sharply modified. Time and again he anxiously asked the human beings far above how much farther he had to go; sometimes he received an answer — always discouraging — and sometimes the rocket was on the other side of the planet and his answer came from

Toorey, telling him to wait a short time for a fix. The relay stations were still functioning, but they could not be used to take a directional reading on his radio.

It did not occur „to him until the long walk was nearly over that he could have cut across among the stones after all. The sun by itself, of course, could not have served him as a directional guide; it circled the horizon completely in less than eighteen minutes, and a very accurate clock would be necessary to calculate the actual desired course from its apparent direction. However, the observers in the rocket could have told him at any time whether the sun was in front of him, behind him, or to a particular side with respect to his desired direction of travel. By the time this occurred to anyone, the remaining distance could be covered about as easily by keeping the edge in sight; the cliff was nearly straight between where Barlennanvthen was and the rendezvous point.

There was still a little food, but not too much, when they finally reached a position where the Earthmen could find no significant difference in the positions of the radios. Theoretically, the first ‘thing to do should have been to proceed with the next phase of Barlennan’s plan in order to replenish the supply of eatables; but actually there was a serious step to be taken first. Barlennan had mentioned it before the march began, but no one had really considered the matter with any care. Now it stared them in the eye.

The Earthmen had said they were about as close to the Bree as they could get. There should be, then, food only a hundred yards below them; but before they could take any steps toward getting it, someone — and probably several people — must look over the edge. They must see just where they were in relation to the ship; they must rig up lifting tackle to bring the food up; in short, they must look fully three hundred feet straight down — and they had excellent depth perception.

Still, it had to be done; and eventually it was done. Barlennan, as befitted his position, set the example.

He went — not too rapidly, it must be admitted — to the three-foot limit and fixed his eyes on the low hills and other terrain features visible between him and the distant horizon. Slowly he let his gaze wander downward to closer and closer objects, until it was blocked by the lip of rock directly ahead of him. Without haste, he looked back and forth, getting used to seeing things that he could tell already were below him. Then, almost imperceptibly, he inched forward to take in more and more of the landscape near the foot of the cliff. For a long time it looked generally the same, but he managed to keep his attention principally on the new details he could see rather than on the fearful thing he was doing. At last, however, the river became visible, and he moved forward almost rapidly. The far bank was there, the spot where most of the hunting parties had landed after swimming across; from above, ever* the branching and rebranching trails they had left — he had never- realized that such things showed so plainly from overhead.

Now the near bank could be seen, and the mark where the Bree had been drawn up before; a little farther — and the Bree herself was there, not a bit changed, sailors sprawled on her rafts or moving slowly about the bank in the neighborhood. For just an instant Barlennan forgot all about height and moved forward another body loop to call out to them. That loop put his head over the edge.

And he looked straight down the cliff.

He had thought that being lifted to the roof of the tank was the most hideous experience — at first — that he had ever undergone. He was never sure, after this, whether or not the cliff was worse. Barlennan did not know just how he got back from the cliff face, and he never asked his men whether he had needed help. When he fully realized his surroundings once more he was a good, safe two yards from the edge, still shaking and uncertain of himself. It took days for his normal personality and thinking ability to resume course.

He finally decided what could — and must — be done. He had been all right merely looking at the ship; the trouble had occurred when his eyes actually had a line to follow between his own position and that remote lower level. The Earthmen suggested this point, and after thought Barlennan agreed. That meant it was possible to do all that was necessary; they could signal the sailors below, and do any rope-pulling needed, as long as they did not actually look down the cliff face itself. Keeping heads a safe couple of inches back from the rim was — the key to sanity — and life.

Dondragmer had not seen his captain’s head on its brief appearance, but he knew that the other party had arrived at the cliff top. He, too, had been kept informed of its progress by the Flyers. Now he and his crew began examining the edge of the rock wall above them with extreme care while those above pushed a pack to the extreme verge and moved it back and forth. It was finally seen from below, almost exactly above the ship; Barlennan had noticed before giddiness overwhelmed him that they were not exactly in the right spot, and the error had been corrected in showing the signal.

„All right, we have you.” Dondragmer made the call in English, and it was relayed by one of the men in the rocket.

The sailor above thankfully stopped waving the empty pack, set it down projecting slightly over the edge so it could still be seen, and moved back to a safe distance from the verge. Meanwhile the rope that had been brought along was broken out. One end was bent firmly around a small boulder, Barlennan taking extreme pains with this operation; if the rope were lost, everyone on the plateau would almost certainly starve to death.

Satisfied at last on this matter, he had the rest of the cable carried close to the edge; and two sailors began carefully paying it over. Dondragmer was informed of their state of progress, but did not station anyone underneath to take the end as it came down. If anyone slipped above and the whole coil went over, the point immediately below could be rather uncomfortable, light as the cable was. He waited until Barlennan reported the line as completely paid out; then he and the rest of the crew went over to the foot of the cliff to find it.

The extra rope had fallen into a tight bundle on the hard ground. Dondragmer’s first act was to cut off the excess, straighten it out, and measure it. He had a very accurate idea now of the height of the cliff, for during the long wait he had had time to do much careful checking of shadow lengths.

The excess rope proved to be insufficiently long to reach again the full height of the cliff; so the mate obtained another length from the Bree, made sure it was long enough, attached it to the section hanging from the cliff top, and informed the Earthmen that Barlennan could start pulling up.

It was a hard job, but not too hard for the powerful beings at the upper end; and in a relatively short time the second rope was at the top of the cliff and the worst fears of the captain were eased. Now if a cable were dropped they at least had a spare.

The second load was very different from the first, as far as ease of hoisting went. It was a pack loaded with food, weighing about as much as one of the sailors. Normally a single Mesklinite could not lift such a weight anywhere near this part of the planet, and the relatively small crew with Barlennan had their work cut out for them. Only by snagging the rope around a convenient boulder and taking frequent rests did they finally manage to get the load up to and over the edge, and when it was done the rope showed distinct signs of wear all along its length from contact with the boulder as well as the cliff edge itself. Something obviously had to be done, and while he and his group were celebrating the end of the strict food rationing Barlennan decided what it would

have to be. He gave the appropriate orders to the mate after the feast.

The next several loads, in accordance with Barlennan’s instructions, consisted of several masts and spars, more rope, and a number of pulleys of the sort they had used previously in lowering the Bree over the cliff at the distant equator. These were used to construct a tripod and hoist arrangement similar to what they had used before — very gingerly, since the pieces had to be lifted into position for lashing and the old prejudice against having solid objects overhead was present in full force. Since the Mesklinites could not reach far from the ground now anyway, most of the lashing was done with the pieces involved lying flat; the assembly was then pried up into position with other spars as levers and boulders which had been laboriously rolled to convenient locations as fulcrums. A similar team of men, working under their natural conditions, could have done a corresponding job in an hour; it took the Mesklinites many times as long — and none of the watching Earthmen could blame them.

The tripod was assembled and erected well back from the edge, then inched laboriously into position as close to that point as could be managed and its legs propped in place with small boulders which the watching men classed mentally as pebbles. The heaviest of the pulleys was attached to the end of a mast as firmly as possible, the rope threaded through it, and the mast levered into position so that about a quarter of its length projected over the abyss past the supporting tripod. Its inner end was also weighted in place with the small stones. Much time was consumed in this work, but it proved worth while. Only a single pulley was used at first, so the hoisting crew still had their load’s full weight to handle; but the friction was largely eliminated, and a cleat attached to the inner end of the mast simplified the holding problem while the crew rested.

Load after load of supplies came up, while the crew below hunted and fished endlessly to keep the stream flowing. The area around the hoisting tackle began to take on a settled appearance; indeed, most of the sailors found time between spells at the rope to erect inch-high walls of pebbles around selected areas of their own so that the neighborhood came gradually to resemble more than slightly one of the cities of their own land. No fabric was available for roofs — or rather, Barlennan wasted no effort bringing any up from below — but in other respects the enclosures were almost homelike.

The supplies on hand were already more than one person could conveniently carry; Barlennan planned to establish caches along the route to the rocket. The journey was not expected to be as long as from the cleft they had climbed, but their stay at the site of the crippled machine would be long, and every provision to make it safe was to be taken. Actually, Barlennan would have liked a few more men on the plateau, so that he could leave some at the hoist and take others with him; but there were certain practical difficulties connected with that. For another group to travel up to the cleft, climb it, and come back to their present station seemed too lengthy a job; nobody liked to think of the alternative. Barlennan, of course, did; but an experiment on the part of one of the crew made it a difficult subject to broach.

That individual, after getting his captain’s approval — Barlennan regretted giving it later — and having the crewmen below warned away, had rolled a bullet-sized pebble to the edge of the cliff and given it a final shove. The results had been interesting, to both Mesklinites and Earthmen. The latter could see nothing, since the only view set at the foot of the cliff was still aboard the Bree and too distant from the point of impact to get a distinct view; but they heard as well as the natives. As a matter of fact, they saw almost as well; for even to Mesklinite vision the pebble simply vanished. There was a short note like a breaking violin string as it clove the air, followed a split second later by a sharp report as it struck the ground below.

Fortunately it landed on hard, slightly moist ground rather than on another stone; in the latter case, there would have been a distinct chance of someone’s being killed by flying splinters. The impact, at a speed of approximately a mile a second, sent the ground splashing outward in a wave too fast for any eye to see while it was in motion, but which froze after a fraction of a second, leaving a rimmed crater surrounding the deeper hole the missile had drilled in the soil. Slowly the sailors gathered around, eying the gently steaming ground; then with one accord they moved a few yards away from the foot of the cliff. It took some time to shake off the mood that experiment engendered.

Nevertheless, Barlennan wanted more men at the top; and he was not the individual to give up a project for fear it might not work. He came out with the proposal of an elevator one day, met the expected flat silence, but continued to revert to the subject at regular intervals as the work went on. As Lackland had long since noted, the captain was a persuasive individual. It was a pity that the present job of persuasion was done in.the native language, for the men would greatly have enjoyed hearing Barlennan’s remarkably varied and original approaches and seeing his listeners go from utter refusal to consideration, through unsympathetic listening, to grudging consent. They never became enthusiastic partisans of the idea, but Barlennan did not expect miracles anyway. Actually, it is very likely that his success was not entirely due to his own efforts. Dondragmer badly wanted to be among those present when the rocket was reached; he had been extremely unhappy at being ordered back down with the group that returned to the ship, though his ingrained dislike of people who argued against orders had prevented his allowing his feelings to show. Now that there seemed to be a chance to get back to the active group, as he looked on it, he found it much easier than might otherwise have been the case to persuade himself that being pulled up a cliff on the end of a rope really wasn’t so bad. In any case, he reflected, if the rope broke he’d never know it. He therefore became a disciple of the captain’s views among the sailors at the bottom of the cliff; and as they realized that their senior officer intended to go first, and actually seemed to want to go, much of their natural sales resistance disappeared. The automatic relays had now been completed, and Barlennan could talk directly to the other group, so his full strength of personality could also come into play.