Barlennan had been told at various
times during his formative years that he was someday pretty sure to
talk himself into more trouble than he could talk himself out of.
At various later times during his career this prediction had come
alarmingly close to fulfillment, and each time he had resolved to
be more careful in the future with his tongue. He felt the same way
now, together with an injured feeling arising from the fact that he
did not yet know just what he had said that had betrayed his
mendacity to the islander. He did not have time to theorize over
it, either; something in the line of action was called for, the
quicker the better. Reejaaren had already howled orders to the
glider crews to pin the Bree to the bottom
if she made a move toward the open sea, and the catapults on shore
were launching more of the machines to reinforce those already
aloft. The wind was coming from the sea at a sufficient angle to be
lifted as it struck the far wall of the fiord, so the flyers could
remain aloft as long as necessary. Barlennan had learned from the
Earthmen that they probably could not climb very high—high enough
for effective missile dropping—under the thrust of the updrafts
from ocean waves; but he was a long way from the open sea where
they would have to depend on such currents. He had already had a
chance to observe their accuracy, and dismissed at once any idea of
trusting to his dodging ability to save his ship.
As so frequently happened, the action
was performed by a crew member while he was debating the best
course. Dondragmer snatched up the crossbow that had been given
them by Reejaaren, nocked a bolt, and cocked the weapon with a
speed that showed he could not have been completely absorbed in his
hoist project at all times. Swinging the weapon shoreward, he
rested it on its single support leg and covered the interpreter
with the point.
“Hold on, Reejaaren; you’re moving in
the wrong direction.” The islander stopped on his way out of the
bay, liquid dripping from his long body, and doubled his front half
back toward the ship to see what the mate meant. He saw clearly
enough, but seemed for a moment undecided about the proper course
of action.
“If you want to assume I’ll probably
miss because I’ve never handled one of these things, go right
ahead. I’d like to find out myself. If you don’t start coming this
way in an awfully short time, though, it will be just as though you
had tried to escape. Move!” The last word was issued in a barking
roar that removed much of the interpreter’s indecision. He
apparently was not quite sure of the mate’s incompetence; he
continued the doubling movement, re-entered the bay, and swam out
to the Bree. If he thought of concealing
himself by submerging during the process, he evidently lacked the
courage to try it. As he well knew, the methane was only a few
inches deep even at the ship’s location, and would hardly protect
him from a bolt hurled with force enough to penetrate three inches
of wood after a forty-yard trajectory under seven gravities. He did
not think of it in those terms, of course, but he knew very well
what those projectiles could do.
He clambered aboard, shaking with rage
and fear together.
“Do you think this will save you?” he
asked. “You have simply made things worse for yourselves. The
gliders will drop in any event if you try to move, whether I am
aboard or not.”
“You will order them not
to.”
“They will obey no order I give while I
am obviously in your power; you should know that if you have any
sort of fighting force.”
“I’ve never had much to do with
soldiers,” Barlennan replied. He had recovered the initiative, as
he usually did once things had started in a definite direction.
“However, I’ll believe you for the time being. We’ll just have to
hold you here until some understanding is reached concerning this
nonsense about our going ashore—unless we can take care of those
gliders of yours in the meantime. It’s a pity we didn’t bring some
more modern armament into this backward area.”
“You can stop that nonsense now,”
returned the captive. “You have nothing more than the rest of the
savages of the south. I’ll admit you fooled us for a time, but you
betrayed yourself a moment ago.”
“And what did I say that made you think
I’d been lying?”
“I see no reason to tell you. The fact
that you don’t yet know just proves my point. It would have been
better for you if you hadn’t fooled us so completely; then we’d
have been more careful with secret information, and you wouldn’t
have learned enough to make your disposal necessary.”
“And if you hadn’t made that last
remark, you might have talked us into surrendering,” cut in
Dondragmer, “though I admit it’s not likely. Captain, I’ll bet that
what you slipped up on was what I’ve been telling you all along.
It’s too late to do anything about that now, though. The question
is how to get rid of these pesky gliders; I don’t see any surface
craft to worry about, and the folks on shore have only the
crossbows from the gliders that were on the ground. I imagine
they’ll leave things to the aircraft for the time being.” He
shifted to English. “Do you remember anything we heard from the
Flyers that would help
us get rid of these pesky machines?” Barlennan mentioned their
probable altitude limitations over open sea, but neither could see
how that helped at the moment.
“We might use the crossbow on them.”
Barlennan made the suggestion in his own language, and Reejaaren
sneered openly. Krendoranic, the munitions officer of the
Bree, who like the rest of the crew had been
listening eagerly, was less contemptuous.
“Let’s do that,” he cut in sharply.
“There’s been something I’ve wanted to try ever since we were at
that river village.”
“What?”
“I don’t think you’d want me to talk
about it with our friend listening. We’ll show him instead, if you
are willing.” Barlennan hesitated a moment, then gave
consent.
Barlennan looked a trifle worried as
Krendoranic opened one of the flame lockers, but the officer knew
what he was doing. He removed a small bundle already wrapped in
lightproof material, thus giving evidence of at least some of his
occupation during the nights since they had left the village of the
river-dwellers.
The bundle was roughly spherical, and
evidently designed to be thrown by arm-power; like everyone else,
Krendoranic had been greatly impressed by the possibilities of this
new art of throwing. Now he was extending his idea even further,
however.
He took the bundle and lashed it firmly
to one of the crossbow bolts, wrapping a layer of fabric around
bundle and shaft and tying it at either end as securely as
possible. Then he placed the bolt in the weapon. He had, as a
matter of duty, familiarized himself with the device during the
brief trip downstream and the reassembly of the Bree, and had no doubt about his ability to hit a
sitting target at a reasonable distance; he was somewhat less sure
about moving objects, but at least the gliders could only turn
rapidly if they banked sharply, and that would give him
warning.
At his order, one of the sailors who
formed part of his flamethrower crew moved up beside him with the
igniting device, and waited. Then to the intense annoyance of the
watching Earthmen, he crawled to the nearest of the radios and set
the leg of the bow on top of it to steady himself and the weapon in
an upward position. This effectively prevented the human beings
from seeing what went on, since the radios were set to look outward
from a central point and neither of the others commanded a view of
the first.
As it happened, the gliders were still
making relatively low passes, some fifty feet above the bay, and
coming directly over the Bree on what could
on an instant’s notice become bomb runs; so a much less experienced
marksman than the munitions officer could hardly have missed. He
barked a command to his assistant as one of the machines
approached, and began to lead it carefully. The moment he was sure
of his aim, he gave a command of execution and the
assistant touched the igniter to the bundle on the slowly rising
arrow point. As it caught, Krendoranic’s pincer tightened on the
trigger and a line of smoke marked the trail of the missile from
the bow.
Krendoranic and his assistant ducked
wildly back to deck level and rolled upwind to get away from the
smoke released at the start; sailors to leeward of the release
point leaped to the other side. By the time they felt safe, the air
action was almost over.
The bolt had come as close as possible
to missing entirely; the marksman had underestimated his target’s
speed. It had struck about as far aft on the main fuselage as it
could, and the bundle of chlorine powder was blazing furiously. The
cloud of flame was spreading to the rear of the glider and leaving
a trail of smoke that the following machines made no effort to
avoid. The crew of the target ship escaped the effects of the
vapor, but in a matter of seconds their tail controls burned away.
The glider’s nose dropped and it fluttered down to the beach, pilot
and crew leaping free just before it touched. The two aircraft
which had flown into the smoke also went out of control as the
hydrogen chloride fumes incapacitated their personnel, and both
settled into the bay. All in all, it was one of the great
anti-aircraft shots in history.
Barlennan did not wait for the last of
the victims to crash, but ordered the sails set. The wind was very
much against him, but there was depth enough for the centerboards,
and he began to tack out of the fiord. For a moment it looked as
though the shore personnel were about to turn their own crossbows
on the ship, but Krendoranic had loaded another of his frightful
missiles and aimed it toward the beach, and the mere threat sent
them scampering for safety—upwind; they were sensible beings for
the most part.
Reejaaren had watched in silence, while
his bodily attitude betrayed blank dismay. Gliders were still in
the air, and some were climbing as though they might attempt runs
from a higher altitude; but he knew perfectly well that the
Bree was relatively safe from any such
attempt, excellent though his aimers were. One of the gliders did
make a run at about three hundred feet, but another trail of smoke
whizzing past spoiled his aim badly and no further attempts were
made. The machines drifted in wide circles well out of range while
the Bree slipped on down the fiord to the
sea.
“What in blazes has been happening,
Barl?” Lackland, unable to restrain himself longer, decided it was
safe to speak as the crowd on shore dwindled with distance. “I
haven’t been butting in for fear the radios might spoil some of
your plans, but please let us know what you’ve been
doing.”
Barlennan gave a brief résumé of the
events of the last few hundred days, filling in for the most part
the conversations his watchers had been unable to follow. The
account lasted through the minutes of darkness, and sunrise found
the ship almost at the mouth of the fiord. The interpreter had
listened with shocked dismay to the conversation between captain
and radio; he assumed, with much justice, that the former was
reporting the results of his spying to
his superiors, though he could not imagine how it was being done.
With the coming of sunrise he asked to be put ashore in a tone
completely different from any he had used before; and Barlennan,
taking pity on a creature who had probably never asked for a favor
in his life from a member of another nation, let him go overboard
from the moving vessel fifty yards from the beach. Lackland saw the
islander dive into the sea with some relief; he knew Barlennan
quite well, but had not been sure just what course of action he
would consider proper under the circumstances.
“Barl,” he said after a few moments’
silence, “do you suppose you could keep out of trouble for a few
weeks, until we get our nerves and digestions back up here? Every
time the Bree is held up, everyone on this
moon ages about ten years.”
“Just who got me into this trouble?”
retorted the Mesklinite. “If I hadn’t been advised to seek shelter
from a certain storm—which it turned out I could have weathered
better on the open sea—I’d certainly never have met these glider
makers. I can’t say that I’m very sorry I did, myself; I learned a
lot, and I know at least some of your friends wouldn’t have missed
the show for anything. From my point of view this trip has been
rather dull so far; the few encounters we have had have all
terminated very tamely, and with a surprising amount of
profit.”
“Just which do you like best, anyway:
adventure or cash?”
“Well—I’m not sure. Every now and then
I let myself in for something just because it looks interesting;
but I’m much happier in the end if I make something out of
it.”
“Then please concentrate on what you’re
making out of this trip. If it will help you any to do that, we’ll
collect a hundred or a thousand shiploads of those spices you just
got rid of and store them for you where the Bree wintered; it would still pay us, if you’ll get that
information we need.”
“Thanks, I expect to make profit
enough. You’d take all the fun out of life.”
“I was afraid you’d feel that way. All
right, I can’t order you around, but please remember what this
means to us.”
Barlennan agreed, more or less
sincerely, and swung his ship once more southward. For some days
the island they had left was visible behind them, and often they
had to change course to avoid others. Several times they saw
gliders skimming the waves on the way from one island to another,
but these always gave the ship a wide berth. Evidently news spread
rapidly among these people. Eventually the last visible bit of land
slipped below the horizon, and the human beings said that there was
no more ahead—good fixes could once more be obtained with the
weather in its present clear state.
At about forty-gravity latitude they
directed the ship on a more Southeasterly course to avoid the land
mass which, as Reejaaren had said, swung far to the east ahead of
her. Actually the ship was following a relatively narrow
passage between two major seas, but the strait was far too wide
for that fact to be noticeable from shipboard.
One minor accident occurred some
distance into the new sea. At around sixty gravities the canoe,
still following faithfully at the end of its towrope, began to
settle visibly in the sea. While Dondragmer put on his best “I told
you so” expression and remained silent, the little vessel was
pulled up to the ship’s stern and examined. There was quite a bit
of methane in the bottom, but when she was unloaded and pulled
aboard for examination no leak was visible. Barlennan concluded
that spray was responsible, though the liquid was much clearer than
the ocean itself. He put the canoe back in the sea and replaced its
load, but detailed a sailor to inspect every few days and bail when
necessary. This proved adequate for many days; the canoe floated as
high as ever when freshly emptied, but the rate of leakage grew
constantly greater. Twice more she was pulled aboard for inspection
without result; Lackland, consulted by radio, could offer no
explanation. He suggested that the wood might be porous, but in
that case the leaking should have been present from the
beginning.
The situation reached a climax at about
two hundred gravities, with more than a third of the sea journey
behind them. The minutes of daylight were longer now as spring
progressed and the Bree moved ever farther from her sun, and the
sailors were relaxing accordingly. The individual who had the
bailing job was not, therefore, very attentive as he pulled the
canoe up the stern rafts and climbed over its gunwale. He was
aroused immediately thereafter. The canoe, of course, settled a
trifle as he entered; and as it did so, the springy wood of the
sides gave a little. As the sides collapsed, it sank a little
farther—and the sides yielded more—and it sank yet
farther—
Like any feedback reaction, this one
went to completion in a remarkably short time. The sailor barely
had time to feel the side of the canoe pressing inward when the
whole vessel went under and the outside pressure was relieved.
Enough of the cargo was denser than methane to keep the canoe
sinking, and the sailor found himself swimming where he had
expected to be riding. The canoe itself settled to the end of its
towrope, slowing the Bree with a jerk that
brought the entire crew to full alertness.
The sailor climbed back into the
Bree, explaining what had happened as he did
so. All the crew whose duties did not keep them elsewhere rushed to
the stern, and presently the rope was hauled in with the swamped
canoe at the end of it. With some effort, the canoe and such of its
load as had been adequately lashed down were hauled aboard, and one
of the sets turned to view it. The object was not very informative;
the tremendous resilience of the wood had resulted in its
recovering completely even from this flattening, and the canoe had
resumed its original shape, still without leaks. This last fact was
established after it had once more been unloaded. Lackland, looking
it over, shook his head and offered no explanation. “Tell me just
what happened—what everyone who saw anything at all did
see.”
The Mesklinites complied, Barlennan
translating the stories of the crewman who had been involved and
the few others who had seen the event in any detail. It was the
first, of course, that provided the important bit of
information.
“Good Earth!” Lackland muttered, half
aloud. “What’s the use of a high school education if you can’t
recall it when needed later on? Pressure in a liquid corresponds to
the weight of liquid above the point in question—and even methane
under a couple of hundred gravities weighs a good deal per vertical
inch. That wood’s not much thicker than paper, either; a wonder it
held so long.” Barlennan interrupted this rather uninformative
monologue with a request for information.
“I gather you now know what happened,”
he said. “Could you please make it clear to us?”
Lackland made an honest effort, but was
only partly successful. The concept of pressure, in a quantitative
sense, defeats a certain number of students in every high school
class.
Barlennan did get the idea that the
deeper one went into the sea the greater was the crushing force,
and that the rate of increase with depth went up along with
gravity; but he did not connect this force with others such as
wind, or even the distress he himself had experienced when he
submerged too rapidly in swimming.
The main point, of course, was that any
floating object had to have some part of itself under the surface,
and that sooner or later that part was going to be crushed if it
was hollow. He avoided Dondragmer’s eye as this conclusion was
reached in his conversation with Lackland, and was not comforted
when the mate pointed out that this was undoubtedly where he had
betrayed his falsehood when talking to Reejaaren. Hollow ships used
by his own people, indeed! The islanders must have learned the
futility of that in the far south long since.
The gear that had been in the canoe was
stowed on deck, and the voyage continued. Barlennan could not bring
himself to part with the now useless little vessel, though it took
up a good deal of space. He disguised its uselessness thinly by
packing it with food supplies which could not have been heaped so
high without the sides of the canoe to retain them. Dondragmer
pointed out that it was reducing the ship’s flexibility by
extending the length of two rafts, but the captain did not let this
fact worry him.
Time passed as it had before, first
hundreds and then thousands of days. To the Mesklinites, long-lived
by nature, its passage meant little; to the Earthmen the voyage
gradually became a thing of boredom, part of the regular routine of
life. They watched and talked to the captain as the line on the
globe slowly lengthened; measured and computed to determine his
position and best course when he asked them to; taught English to
or tried to learn a Mesklinite language from sailors who sometimes
also grew bored; in short, waited, worked where possible, and
killed time as four Earthly months—nine thousand four
hundred and some odd Mesklinite days—passed. Gravity increased
from the hundred and ninety or so at the latitude where the canoe
had sunk to four hundred, and then to six, and then further, as
indicated by the wooden spring balance that was the Bree’s latitude gauge. The days grew longer and the
nights shorter until at last the sun rode completely around the sky
without touching the horizon, though it dipped toward it in the
south. The sun itself seemed shrunken to the men who had grown used
to it during the brief time of Mesklin’s perihelion passage. The
horizon, seen from the Brre’s deck through
the vision sets, was above the ship all
around, as Barlennan had so patiently explained to Lackland months
before; and he listened tolerantly when the men assured him it was
an optical illusion. The land that finally appeared ahead was
obviously above them too; how could an illusion turn out to be
correct? The land was really there. This was proved when they
reached it; for reach it they did, at the mouth of a vast bay that
stretched on to the south for some two thousand miles, half the
remaining distance to the grounded rocket. Up the bay they sailed,
more slowly as it finally narrowed to the dimensions of a regular
estuary and they had to tack instead of seeking favorable winds
with the Flyers’ help, and finally to the river at its head. Up
this they went too, no longer sailing except at rare, favorable
intervals; for the current against the blunt faces of the rafts was
more than the sails could usually overcome, broad as the river
still was. They towed instead, a watch at a time going ashore with
ropes and pulling; for in this gravity even a single Mesklinite had
a respectable amount of traction. More weeks, while the Earthmen
lost their boredom and tension mounted in the Toorey station. The
goal was almost in sight, and hopes ran high.
And they were dashed, as they had been
for a moment months before when Lackland’s tank reached the end of
its journey. The reason was much the same; but this time the
Bree and its crew were at the bottom of a
cliff, not the top. The cliff itself was three hundred feet high,
not sixty; and in nearly seven hundred gravities climbing, jumping
and other rapid means of travel which had been so freely indulged
at the distant Rim were utter impossibilities for the powerful
little monsters who manned the ship.
The rocket was fifty miles away in
horizontal distance; in vertical, it was the equivalent, for a
human being, of a climb of nearly thirty-five—up a sheer rock
wall.