Mission of Gravity

„The Bree is about forty feet long and fifteen across; I suppose it draws five or „six inches. It’s made of a lot of rafts about three feet long and half as wide, roped together so they can move fairly freely-I can guess why, on this world.” „Hmph. So can I. If- a ship that long had its two ends supported by waves while the middle hung free, up near the pole, it would be in pieces before long whether it started that way or not. How is it driven?”

„Sails; there are masts on twenty or thirty of the rafts. I suspect there may be centerboards on some of them too, retractable so the ship can be beached; but I never asked Barle

„Seems reasonable. Well, we’ll build something out of light metal here on the moon, and cart it down to you when we finish.”

„You’d better not bring it down until winter’s over. If you leave it inland it’ll get lost under the snow, and if you drop it at the seashore someone may have to dive for it, if the water line goes up the way Barle

„If it’s going to, why is it waiting so long? The winter is more than half over, and there’s been a fantastic amount of precipitation in the parts of the southern hemisphere that we can see.”

„Why ask me things like that? There are meteorologists on the staff, I believe, unless they’ve gone crazy trying to study this planet. I have my own worries. When do I get another tank?”

„When you can use it; after winter is over, as I said. And if you blow that one up it’ll be no use howling for another, because there isn’t one closer than Earth.”

Barle

„We will go as soon as the storms break,” he said to Lackland. „There will still be much snow on the ground; that

will help where the course lies over land different from the loose sand of the beach.”

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

„It will to us,” pointed out Barle

„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.” Barle

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 Terbla

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 Barle

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.