by Hal Clement
“I wonder what the existence of such a force—if it does exist—will do to the Pentong project,” remarked the newcomer, recalling his news suddenly.
“What is that? Another defense plan?”
“Not exactly.” The scientist described Pentong’s discovery of the Antarctic Continent, and his account of its covering of solid ocean. “His plan to melt this substance, and thus protect more of the world’s rock from the oxygen of the Void, has been favorably received by more than half the City Leaders of the continent, and parties are already under way to examine the Southern Continent more completely,” he concluded. A student cut in instantly.
“But if this force exists, and ocean is subject to it as magma is, won’t the freshly melted ocean simply spread flat over what is already there, and perhaps hardly protect any more land at all?”
“That seems probable,” replied Derrell. “Since such a project will involve a vast expenditure of effort, and very possibly interfere with defense on the frontiers, it now becomes imperative that we check the nature and existence of this force as quickly as possible.”
“However, if the available ocean surface is not too large,” put in another, “even spreading the new ocean over all of it might permit a considerable increase in the protected areas.”
“It might; but unless and until we have some idea of the size of the World inside the Void, and how much of the World is covered by ocean, we cannot afford to take a chance on that possibility. We must search for more bubbles; and this carbonate stratum is in contact with igneous rock over many thousands of square miles, it would seem. Break up into parties of three and start exploring; if you encounter savages, call—there are military personnel not too far behind us. This is important.” He turned back to the assistant who had brought the news. “I suppose they plan to do the melting by coaxing magma pools toward the Void boundary, and letting them flow out into contact with this solid ocean.”
“That is the general idea. However, they plan to do it not only on the Southern Continent. It was felt that there might be much of this solid ocean on our own continent, which we had never discovered because we cannot venture near enough to the Void boundary; so every pool we can reach is to be brought into use. The places where light rocks project into the Void probably cannot be reached, but it seems to the planners who investigated the data that all the other regions—more than three quarters of the continent—can easily be coated with melted rock, if it clings to the surface reasonably well.”
Derrell glanced back at the bubble. “It should do that, all right,” he said, “if our force applies out in the Void as well as in the rock next to it. But that means an even more vast expenditure of effort than I had supposed; they’ll be pulling the defenders away from the frontiers until the savages from Asia are fighting the ones from Europe—around our dead bodies. Let’s find those bubbles.” He joined one of the search teams, worried more about the possible waste of work on an inefficient and probably unproductive effort than about the results of covering most of the American continents with lava. After all, he had never heard of the human race, and probably never would.
There was probably not another spot on the North American continent where his team could have found what they sought so quickly; if other regions existed where a lava flow had extended into a shallow sea, hardened, been buried with such speed under calcareous detritus, and then carried down rapidly enough and steadily enough to develop a thick limestone cap over the hardened lava, they had either been lifted back to the surface where they were unapproachable to Derrell’s kind or carried so far down as to be altered completely beyond recognition. Here, however, there were cavities; many of them filled by the limy material that had settled into them and hardened into rock and many just too deep in impenetrable regions of the lava to be attained although they were easily visible, but a fair number both empty and attainable. The water that had once filled them had long since gone into hydrates in the overlying rock, and been replaced by gases from the lava—usually oxides of carbon and sometimes even sulfur. These did not bother the investigators, and it was not long before one of the search teams reported an ideal site for investigation. The group congregated at the spot as quickly as possible, and plans were rapidly made.
There was no magma pool near enough to be “tickled” into action this time; but that did not bother Derrell. He had already seen what molten rock would do in this situation. He rapidly gave orders, and the group of liquid bodies gathered in the limestone just above the bubble and began to—eat. The eating was done in a very careful manner; and gradually a large fragment of limestone was separated from the rest of the formation. It was located directly above the bubble, and when freed from its original matrix rested on the thin silicate layer that formed the roof of the cavity. That layer was seamed with cracks, microscopic in size, but adequate to the needs of the scientists; their fluid bodies worked inside those cracks, loosening particle after particle, gradually weakening the flimsy roof. The actual force that any one of the beings could exert was minute, lifting a grain of sand would have been impossible for one of the big, but fluid, bodies; but bit by bit the lava moved, as it was dissolved along the tiny zones of weakness the brief exposure to the sea had left.
Toward the end the workers very carefully stayed away from the thin layer, extending only narrow pseudopods to do the remainder of the job. Most of them, in fact, withdrew even farther in order to observe, and two of the assistants completed the final task. Derrell was ready when the lava roof suddenly collapsed, permitting the great block of limestone they had previously freed to drop into the cavern.
No one was very surprised. It behaved, within its limitations, as the magma had done, hurtling against the wall farthest from the Void, and sending a few fragments of its’ mass flying off at angles. The fragments also returned to that part of the vast cavity farthest from the broken roof. The force evidently existed; and it appeared to work on solids as well as liquids. Bits of the lava roof had also obeyed the invisible urge; and as far as any one could tell, not a single fragment that was free to move away from the Void had failed to do so.
Without a word, Derrell flowed through the limestone to a point just above the opening. Here he pulled himself into the smallest possible volume, and deliberately began to dissolve the rock about him. He had tried to get to the portion of the bubble where the rocks had come to rest, and found it impossible; the tiny cracks that would have furnished access extended only a foot or two from the surface of the lava. Now he was going to get there—and incidentally, see what effect the new force had on living matter. He learned!
The rock in which he lay broke free as its predecessor had done; and Derrell became the first member of his race to experience the acceleration of gravity. He also was the first to discover that the most noticeable thing about a fall is the sudden stop. The shock did not hurt him—after all, he was accustomed to traveling in regions of seismic strain, and seeing by the resultant shock waves—but the whole thing was slightly surprising. For one thing, the rock had turned over as it fell, and no member of his race had ever had a sudden change of orientation with respect to his surroundings. It took several seconds for him to realize that it was he who had moved, not the surrounding universe.
Once convinced of that, he started to emerge from the rock which he had ridden; and in doing so he learned the most painful lesson of all about gravity.
Derrell’s body was liquid. It was less dense than water, being composed mainly of hydrocarbons; it had no more rigidity than water. All its support was normally furnished by the rock in which it happened to be “soaked” at the moment; he moved by controlling the liquid’s surface tension, as an amoeba moves—or, for that matter, as a man moves a muscle. Outside the supporting rock, however, he was just a puddle of oil—and once he started out, he was completely unable to stop. The block of limestone he had ridden was not quite at the bottom of the huge cavity; as a portion of his mass emerged, it tended to flow downhill toward the lowest avail
able point; he had the choice of following it or being torn apart, and he liked the latter alternative no better than a more solid organism would. He followed. Five seconds later he was a completely helpless pool of living liquid, in the bottom of a bowl of glassy, impenetrable lava. He could not even raise a ripple on his own surface.
He could still communicate—that lava carried sound perfectly. However, he did not do so intelligently; all his students heard was a series of endlessly repeated warnings to keep clear of empty spaces—to avoid all dealings with the Force—to leave this neighborhood and to let him die, but be sure to carry the warning to the rest of the world—in short, little but hysteria. Had Derrell not been so upset, he would have seen the way out in a moment; but he can hardly be blamed for being perturbed. A man suddenly finding himself imbedded completely in a block of concrete, yet somehow still living and breathing and able to speak, might have had some inkling of the scientist’s emotions; but at least a man could vaguely imagine such a situation in advance. No member of Derrell’s race could have foreseen any detail of what had happened to him.
Fortunately, the students for the most part remained calm; and it was one of these who saw the solution. Derrell was restored to something like a state of reason when tiny pebbles of limestone began to fall near, and sometimes into his body. It was a long, long, job; but at last the dwellers of the rock completed the task which the ocean had failed to perform a hundred million years before, and the cavern was full of limestone. Even now travel was not easy—the space between particles was too large, and Derrell had acquired a strong antipathy to open spaces; but travel was at least possible, and at long last he found himself once more in habitable, negotiable, comfortable rock outside that terrible cavern. For a long time he rested; and when finally he spoke, it was with conviction.
“Whatever we may learn of that force in the future, certainly no one can ever doubt its reality. I hope none of you ever feel it. Those of you who were over that cave releasing rocks that enabled me to escape were taking a chance worse than that ever faced by soldier or explorer; believe me when I say I am grateful.
“One point we have learned, besides the mere existence of the force: it is not always perpendicular to the Void boundary.” A faint flicker of surprise manifested itself among the listeners, but stilled at once as they perceived that the scientist was right—the boundary was extremely irregular where it passed nearest this region; projections of rock reached out into the Void at frequent intervals sometimes for more than a mile. There was no single direction that could be said to be perpendicular to it.
“That leaves two principal possibilities. One is that the force is directed at least somewhat at random, and the ocean has collected in specific localities because of that fact. If that is so, then the Pentong project is useless; the new ocean will simply add to the old, and cover no more Earth. The other main possibility would seem to be that the force does not extend into the Void at all; and in that case we have no idea at all what will happen, except that the magma we bring up will probably spread over the boundary as it always has. We cannot even guess what the melted ocean will do.
“It seems to me a very ill-advised plan, to divert as much effort as this project would demand from our defense, when we cannot even be moderately sure of success. I think I will go to the nearest city to express my opinion—there is still too much risk from the tribes of Asia to take any chances. Has anyone a different opinion, or a better plan?”
“One thing might be done first.” It was Taless, one of most self-confident of the group. “It seems almost as bad to halt the project for ignorance as to waste effort from the same cause. I would strongly recommend that we learn something about the force beyond the boundary before we express opinions to any City Leaders. At the most, let us advise delaying, not canceling, the project until some data on that matter can be obtained.”
“And how would you secure this data?”
“I do not know; but we have a team of presumably competent researchers here. I certainly would not regard such investigation as hopeless, without at least some effort being made.”
“The data would have to be extremely precise, and sufficient in amount to be completely convincing; the matter is vitally important for the future of our people everywhere.”
“I realize that. What is new about requiring precision in measurement?”
Derrell pondered briefly. “You are right, of course,” he finally said. “We will advise postponing the Pentong project. Two of you can carry that message to the city. The rest of us will start devising ways to learn whether or not melted ocean will spread over the surface of Earth. If we find that it does, we coat the American continents with lava; if not, the magma pockets can stay where they are. Suggestions for experimental techniques are now in order.”
MISSION OF GRAVITY
First of Four Parts. A novel of a sea captain who sailed seas of liquid methane—under the ferocious grip of a gravity jive hundred times Earth’s!
I.
The wind came across the bay like something living. It tore the already wildly turbulent surface so thoroughly to shreds that it was hard to tell where liquid ended and atmosphere began; it tried to raise waves that would have swamped the Bree like a chip, and blew them into impalpable spray before they had risen a foot.
The spray alone reached Barlennan, crouched high on the Bree’s poop raft.
His ship had long since been hauled safely ashore. That had been done the moment he had been sure that he would stay here for the winter; but he could not help feeling a little uneasy even so. Those waves were monsters. They were many times as high as any he had faced at sea, and somehow it was not completely reassuring to reflect that the lack of weight which permitted them to rise so high would also prevent their doing real damage if they did roll this far up the beach.
Barlennan was not particularly superstitious, but this close to the Rim of the World there was really no telling what could and could not happen. Even his crew, an unimaginative lot by any reckoning, showed occasional signs of uneasiness. There was bad luck here, they muttered—whatever dwelt beyond the Rim and sent the fearful, snow-laden winter gales blasting thousands of miles into the World might resent being disturbed. At every accident the muttering broke out anew, and accidents were becoming frequent. The fact that anyone is apt to make a misstep when he weighs about two and a quarter pounds instead of the five hundred and fifty or so to which he has been used all his life seemed obvious to the commander; but apparently an education, or at least the habit of logical thought, was needed to appreciate that.
Even Dondragmer who should have known better—Barlennan’s long body tensed and he almost roared an order before he really took in what was going on two rafts away. The mate had picked this moment, apparently, to check the stays of one of the masts, and had taken advantage of nearweightlessness to rear almost his full length upward from the deck. It was still a fantastic sight to see him towering, balanced precariously on his six rearmost legs, though most of the Bree’s crew had become fairly used to such tricks; but that was not what impressed Barlennan. At two pounds’ weight, one held on to something or else was blown away by the first breeze; and no one could hold onto anything with six walking legs. When that gale struck—but already no order could be heard, even if the commander were to shriek his loudest. He had actually started to creep across the first buffer space separating him from the scene of action when he saw that the mate had fastened a set of lines to his harness and to the deck, and was almost as securely tied down as the mast he was working on.
Barlennan relaxed once more. He knew why Don had done it—it was a simple, material act of defiance to anything malignant that might be driving this particular storm, and he was deliberately impressing his attitude on the crew. Good fellow, thought Barlennan, and turned his attention once more to the bay, that should have been a quarter of a mile from his stern rafts.
At present it was at nothing like that distance, though no witness could have told p
recisely where the shore line now lay. A blinding whirl of white spray and nearly-white sand hid everything more than a hundred yards from the Bree in every direction; and now even the ship was growing difficult to see as hard-driven droplets of methane-ammonia mixture struck bulletlike and smeared themselves over his eye shells. At least the deck under his many feet was still rock-steady; light as it now was, the vessel did not seem prepared to blow away. It shouldn’t, the commander thought grimly, as he recalled the scores of cables now holding to deep-struck anchors and to the low trees that dotted the beach. It shouldn’t—but his would not be the first ship to disappear while venturing this near the Rim. Maybe his crew’s suspicion of the Flyer had some justice. After all, that strange being had persuaded him to remain for the winter, and had somehow done it without promising any protection to the Bree or her crew. Still, if the Flyer wanted to destroy them, he—or it—could certainly do so more easily and certainly than by arguing them into this trick. If that huge structure he rode should get above the Bree even here where weight meant so little, there would be no more to be said. Barlennan turned his mind to other matters; he had in full measure the normal Mesklinite horror of letting himself get even temporarily under anything really solid.
The crew had long since taken shelter under the deck flaps—even the mate ceased work as the storm actually struck. They were all present; Barlennan had counted the humps under the protecting fabric while he could still see the whole ship. There were no hunters out, for no sailor had needed the Flyer’s warning that a storm was approaching. None of them had been more than five miles from the security of the ship for the last ten days, and five miles was no distance to travel in this weight.
