Mission of Gravity

„We have things out from underneath, Charles; you can let go your end of the rope and toss the mast over whenever you want.” The fine cord slithered instantly out of sight, and the ten-inch twig that was one of the Bree’s main booms followed. Seeing things fall free in triple gravity, Lackland found, was even worse than thinking about it. Maybe it would be better at the poles — then you couldn’t see them at all. Not where an object falls some two miles in the first second! But perhaps the abrupt vanishing would be just as hard on the nerves. Lackland shrugged off these thoughts and turned back to the tank.

For the couple of hours the process took he watched the Bretfs reassembly through the vision sets. With just the traces of a wish that he might go along, he saw the cluster of rafts pushed out into the broad stream, and listened to the farewells of Barle

For long minutes he sat silently; then roused himself to call the Toorey base.

„You may as well come and pick me up. I’ve done all I can on the surface.”

X: HOLLOW BOATS

The river, once away from the vicinity of the great fall, was broad and slow. At first the air trapped by the descending „water” furnished a breeze toward the sea, and Barle

The banks on either side began to draw more and more attention as they proceeded. During their overland journey they had become accustomed to the sight of an occasional upright growth of the sort that the Flyer had called a „tree,” usually seeing one every few days. They had been fascinating objects at first, and had, indeed, proved a source of one of the foods they pla

For a long time, fully fifty miles, no intelligent Me was sighted, though animals in fair numbers were seen along the banks. The river itself teemed with fish, though none appeared large enough to constitute a danger to the Bree. Eventually the river on either side became lined with trees, which extended no one could tell how far inland; and Barle

It was fairly bright even in the depths of the wood, since the trees did not spread out at the top nearly as much as is common on Earth, but it was strange enough. Drifting along almost in the shadow of the weird plants, many of the crew felt a resurgence of their old terror of having solid objects overhead; and there was a general feeling of relief when the captain silently gestured the helmsman to steer away from the bank once more.

If anyone lived there they were welcome to it. Dondragmer expressed this opinion aloud, and was answered by a general mutter of approval. Unfortunately, his words were either not heard or not understood by listeners on the bank. Perhaps they were not actually afraid that the Bree’s crew meant to take their forest away JrOm them, but they decided to take no chances; and once more the visitors from high-weight suffered an experience with projectile weapons.

The armory this time consisted entirely of spears. Six of them flew silently from the top of the bank and stuck quivering in the Bree’s deck; two more glanced from the protective shells of sailors and clattered about on the rafts before coming to rest. The sailors who had been hit leaped convulsively from pure reflex, and both landed yards away in the river. They swam back and clambered aboard without assistance, for all eyes were directed toward the source of the mysterious attack. Without orders the helmsman angled more sharply toward the center of the river.

„I wonder who sent those — and if they used a machine like the Flyer’s. There wasn’t the same noise.” Barle

For fully a hundred miles the forest continued while the river widened gradually. The Bree kept out in midstream for a time after her single encounter with the forest dwellers, but even that did not keep her completely out of trouble. Only a few days after the arrival of the spears, a small clearing was sighted on the left bank. His viewpoint only a few inches off the surface prevented Barle

It was quite a while, however, before anyone on the Bree realized that the „logs” were canoes or the other mysterious objects dwellings. For a,time, in fact, Lackland feared that they would drift on downstream without ever finding out; their recent experience had made Barle