Heavy Planet

by Hal Clement

  9: OVER THE EDGE

  For long moments nothing was said. Both Lackland and Barlennan, who had worked so carefully over the photographs from which the map of their journey had been prepared, were far too astonished to speak. The crew, though by no means devoid of initiative, decided collectively and at the first glance to leave this problem to their captain and his alien friend. “How could it have been there?” Barlennan was first to speak. “I can see it’s not high, compared to the vessel from which your pictures were taken, but should it not have cast a shadow far across the country below, in the minutes before sunset?”

  “It should, Barl, and I can think of only one reason it escaped us. Each picture, you recall, covered many square miles; one alone would include all the land we can see from here, and much more. The picture that does cover this area must have been made between sunrise and noon, when there would have been no shadow.”

  “Then this cliff does not extend past the boundary of that one picture?”

  “Possibly; or, just as possibly, it chanced that two or three adjacent shots were all made in the morning — I don’t know just what course the photo rocket flew. If, as I should imagine, it went east and west, it wouldn’t be too great a coincidence for it to pass the cliff several times running at about the same time of day. “Still, there’s little point in going through that question. The real problem, since the cliff obviously does exist, is how to continue our journey.” That question produced another silence, which lasted for some time. It was broken, to the surprise of at least two people, by the first mate. “Would it not be advisable to have the Flyer’s friends far above learn for us just how far this cliff extends to either side? It may be possible to descend an easier slope without too great a detour. It should not be hard for them to make new maps, if this cliff was missed on the first.” Barlennan translated this remark, which was made in the mate’s own language. Lackland raised his eyebrows. “Your friend may as well speak English himself, Barl — he appears to know enough to understand our last conversation. Or do you have some means of communicating it to him that I don’t know about?” Barlennan whirled on his mate, startled and, after a moment, confused. He had not reported the conversation to Dondragmer; evidently the Flyer was right — his mate had learned some English. Unfortunately, however, the second guess had also some truth; Barlennan had long been sure that many of the sounds his vocal apparatus could produce were not audible to the Earthman, though he could not guess at the reason. For several seconds he was confused, trying to decide whether it would be better to reveal Dondragmer’s ability, the secret of their communication, both together, or, if he could talk fast enough, neither. Barlennan did the best he could. “Apparently Dondragmer is sharper than I realized. Is it true that you have learned some of the Flyer’s language, Don?” This he asked in English, and in a pitch that Lackland could hear. In the shriller tones that his own language employed so much he added, “Tell the truth — I want to cover up as long as possible the fact that we can talk without his hearing. Answer in his own language, if you can.” The mate obeyed, though not even his captain could have guessed at his thoughts. “I have learned much of your language, Charles Lackland. I did not realize you would object.”

  “I don’t mind at all, Don; I am very pleased and, I admit, surprised. I would gladly have taught you as well as Barl if you had come to my station. Since you have learned on your own — I suppose from comparing our conversations and your captain’s resultant activities — please enter our discussion. The suggestion you made a moment ago was sound; I will call the Toorey station at once.” The operator on the moon answered immediately, since a constant guard was now being maintained on the tank’s main transmitter frequency through several relay stations drifting in Mesklin’s outer ring. He indicated understanding of the problem, and promised that a survey would be made as quickly as possible. “As quickly as possible,” however, meant quite a number of Mesklin’s days; and while waiting the trio endeavored to formulate other plans in case the cliff could not be rounded within a reasonable distance. One or two of the sailors expressed a willingness to jump down the cliff, to Barlennan’s anxiety — he felt that the natural fear of height should not be replaced with complete contempt, even though the entire crew now shared his willingness to climb and jump. Lackland was called upon to help dissuade these foolhardy individuals, which he managed to do by computing that the sixtyfoot drop of the cliff was about equal to a one-foot fall at the latitude of their home country. This revived enough memory of childhood experience to put a stop to the idea. The captain, thinking over this event afterward, realized that by his own lifelong standards he had a crew composed entirely of lunatics, with himself well to the front in degree of aberration; but he was fairly sure that this particular form of insanity was going to be useful. Ideas more practical than these were not forthcoming for some time; and Lackland took the opportunity to catch up on his sleep, which he badly needed. He had had two long sessions in his bunk, interrupted by a hearty meal, when the report of the surveying rocket came in. It was brief and discouraging. The cliff ran into the sea some six hundred miles northeast of their present location, almost exactly on the equator. In the opposite direction it ran for some twelve hundred miles, growing very gradually lower, and disappearing completely at about the five-gravity latitude. It was not perfectly straight, showing a deep bend away from the ocean at one point; the tank had struck it at this point. Two rivers fell over its edge within the limits of the bay, and the tank was neatly caught between them, since in the interests of common sanity the Bree could never be towed across either without first going many miles upstream from the tremendous cataracts. One of the falls was about thirty miles away, almost due south; the other approximately a hundred miles distant to the north and east around the curve of the cliff. The rocket had not, of course, been able to examine the entire stretch of escarpment in complete detail from the altitude it had had to maintain, but the interpreter was very doubtful that the tank could scale it at any point. The best bet, however, would be near one of the falls, where erosion was visible and might conceivably have created negotiable paths. “How in blazes can a cliff like this form?” Lackland asked resentfully when he had heard all this. “Eighteen hundred miles of ridge just high enough to be a nuisance, and we have to run right into it. I bet it’s the only thing of its kind on the planet.”

  “Don’t bet too much,” the surveyor retorted. “The physiography boys just nodded in pleasure when I told them about it. One of them said he was surprised you hadn’t hit one earlier; then another piped up and said actually you’d expect most of them farther from the equator, so it wasn’t surprising at all. They were still at it when I left them. I guess you’re lucky that your small friend is going to do most of the traveling for you.”

  “That’s a thought.” Lackland paused as another idea struck him. “If these faults are so common, you might tell me whether there are any more between here and the sea. Will you have to run another survey?”

  “No. I saw the geologists before I started on this one, and looked. If you can get down this step, you’re all right — in fact, you could launch your friend’s ship in the river at the foot and he could make it alone. Your only remaining problem is to get that sailboat hoisted over the edge.”

  “To get — hmm. I know you meant that figuratively, Hank, but you may have something there. Thanks for everything; I may want to talk to you later.” Lackland turned away from the set and lay back on his bunk, thinking furiously. He had never seen the Bree afloat; she had been beached before he encountered Barlennan, and on the recent occasions when he had towed her across rivers he had himself been below the surface most of the time in the tank. Therefore he did not know how high the vessel floated. Still, to float at all on an ocean of liquid methane she must be extremely light, since methane is less than half as dense as water. Also she was not hollow — did not float, that is, by virtue of a large central air space which lowered her average density, as does a steel ship on Eart
h. The “wood” of which the Bree was made was light enough to float on methane and support the ship’s crew and a substantial cargo as well. An individual raft, therefore, could not weigh more than a few ounces — perhaps a couple of pounds, on this world at this point. At that rate, Lackland himself could stand on the edge of the cliff and let down several rafts at a time; any two sailors could probably lift the ship bodily, if they could be persuaded to get under it. Lackland himself had no rope or cable other than what he was using to tow the sled; but that was one commodity of which the Bree herself had an ample supply. The sailors should certainly he able to rig hoisting gear that would take care of the situation — or could they? On Earth it would be elementary seamanship; on Mesklin, with these startling but understandable prejudices against lifting and jumping and throwing and everything else involving any height, the situation might be different. Well, Barlennan’s sailors could at least tie knots, and the idea of towing should not be too strange to them now; so undoubtedly the matter could be straightened out. The real, final problem was whether or not the sailors would object to being lowered over the cliff along with their ship. Some men might have laid that question aside as strictly a problem for the ship’s captain, but Lackland more than suspected that he would have to contribute to its solution. Barlennan’s opinion, however, was certainly needed at this point; and reaching out a heavy arm, Lackland energized his smaller transmitter and called his tiny friend. “Barl, I’ve been wondering. Why couldn’t your people lower the ship over the cliff on cables, one raft at a time, and reassemble it at the bottom?”

  “How would you get down?”

  “I wouldn’t. There is a large river about thirty miles south of here that should be navigable all the way to the sea, if Hank Stearman’s report is accurate. What I’m suggesting is that I tow you over to the fall, help you any way I can in getting the Bree over the edge, watch you launch her in the river, and wish you the best of luck — all we can do for you from then on is give weather and navigation information, as we agreed. You have ropes, do you not, which will hold the weight of a raft?”

  “Of course; ordinary cordage would take the weight of the entire ship in this neighborhood. We’d have to snub the lines against trees or your tank or something like that; the whole crew together couldn’t furnish traction enough for the job. Still, that’s no problem. I’d say you had the answer, Charles.”

  “How about the personnel? Will they like the idea of being lowered down that way?” Barlennan thought for a moment. “I think it will be all right. I’ll send them down on the rafts, with a job to do like fending off from the cliff. That will keep them from looking straight down, and sufficiently occupied so they shouldn’t be thinking of the height. Anyway, with this light feeling everyone has”—Lackland groaned silently—“no one’s much afraid of a fall anyway; not even as much as they should be. We’ll make that part, all right. Had we better start for that cataract right away?”

  “All right.” Lackland hauled himself to his controls, suddenly very weary. His part of the job was nearly over, sooner than he had expected, and his body shrieked for relief from the endless weight it had dragged around for the last seven months. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stayed through the winter, but tired as he was, he could not regret it. The tank swung to the right and started moving once more, parallel to the cliff edge two hundred yards away. The Mesklinites might be getting over their horror of heights, but Lackland was developing one. Besides, he had never attempted to repair the main spotlight since their first battle with Mesklin’s animal life, and he had no intention of driving close to that edge at night with only the running lights to guide him. They made the cataract in a single lap of about twenty days. Both natives and Earthman heard it long before they arrived, at first a vague trembling in the air that gradually rose through a muted thunder to a roar that put even the Mesklinite vocal equipment to shame. It was day when they came in sight of it, and Lackland stopped involuntarily as they did so. The river was half a mile wide where it reached the brink, and smooth as glass — no rocks or other irregularities appeared to exist in its bed. It simply curled over the edge and spilled downward. The fall had eroded its way for a full mile back from the cliff line; and they had a splendid view of the gorge. The ripple marks gave no clue to the liquid’s speed of fall, but the violence with which the spray erupted from the bottom did. Even in this gravity and atmosphere a permanent cloud of mist hid the lower half of the curved sheet, thinning gradually away from its foot to reveal the roiled, eddied surface of the lower river. There was no wind except that created by the fall itself, and the stream grew rapidly calmer as it moved smoothly away toward the ocean. The crew of the Bree had gone overboard the moment the tank stopped; and the way they were strung out along the rim of the gorge indicated that there would not be much morale difficulty during the descent. Now Barlennan called them back to the ship, and work commenced at once. Lackland relaxed once more while cordage was dragged forth and a plumb line dropped over the edge to secure a more precise measure of the cliffs height. Some of the sailors began securing all loose gear about the rafts, though preparations for the original journey had left little to do in this respect; others reached down between the rafts and began unfastening the lashings which held them together and checking at the same time the buffers that held them safely apart. They were fast workers, and raft after raft was dragged away from the main body of the ship. Barlennan and his first mate, once this work was well under way, went over to the edge to determine the best place for the lowering operation. The gorge itself was rejected at once; the river within its walls was too rough, even if they had wanted to do their reassembling while afloat. It turned out, however, that almost any point on the cliff face would be suitable, so the officers quickly chose one as close as possible to the mouth of the gorge. The reassembled ship or its separate parts would have to be dragged to the river without the tank’s help, and there was no point in making the journey any longer than necessary. A scaffold of masts was arranged at the edge to give a point of suspension far enough out to prevent rope friction, though the masts were not long enough to hold a raft completely away from the cliff face; a block and tackle, which Lackland observed with interest, was attached to the scaffold, and the first raft dragged into position. It was adjusted in a rope sling that would carry it horizontally, the main cable attached to the sling and hitched around a tree, several sailors seized the cable, and the raft was pushed over the edge. Everything held up, but Dondragmer and his captain inspected each part very, very carefully before the mate and one of the crew crawled aboard the platform that hung somewhat slanted against the rock an inch or so below the edge. For a moment after they had gone aboard everyone watched expectantly; but again nothing happened, and Dondragmer finally gave the signal to lower away. All the crew members who were not on the cable rushed to the edge to watch the descent. Lackland would have liked to watch it himself, but had no intention of venturing either the tank or his armored person close enough to do so. Beside his own uneasiness at the height, the sight of the cordage the Mesklinites were using made him unhappy; it looked as though an Earthly clerk would scorn it for tying a two-pound bag of sugar. An excited hooting and general withdrawal from the edge indicated the safe arrival of the first raft, and Lackland blinked as the sailors proceeded to stack several more on top of each other while the cable was being drawn up. Apparently no more time than could be helped was to be wasted. Confident as he was in Barlennan’s judgment, the Earthman suddenly decided he wanted to watch the stack of rafts make the descent. He was on the point of donning his armor when he remembered that it was not necessary; he relaxed again, called Barlennan, and asked him to arrange one or more of the little communicators so that their “eyes” could cover the desired activity. The captain complied immediately, having a sailor lash one of the sets to the scaffold so that it looked almost straight down and placing another on top of the pile of rafts which had just been secured in their rope sling. Lackland switched from one to the othe
r as the operation proceeded. The first was a trifle more disconcerting than he had expected, since the supporting cable was visible for only a few feet from the pickup lens and the load seemed to be floating down without support; the other gave him a view of the cliff face that would undoubtedly have been highly interesting to a geologist. With the descent half completed, it occurred to him to call Toorey to invite the interested parties to watch. The geology department responded and commented freely during the rest of the process. Load after load went down, with little variety to make the operation more interesting. Toward the end a longer cable was installed and the lowering was done from below, since the greater part of the crew had now descended; and Lackland had a suspicion of the reason when Barlennan finally turned away from the scene of action and leaped toward the tank. The radio which had been used from that position was permanently mounted, and had not been taken down with the others. “We have only about two more loads, Charles,” the captain opened. “There will be a slight problem in connection with the last one. We’d like to keep all our gear if possible, which means dismantling and sending down the masts used for our lowering tackle. We don’t want to throw them down because we’re not sure they’d take it — the soil below is very rocky. Would you be willing to get into your armor and lower the final load by hand? I will arrange for it to consist of one raft, those few masts and the associated tackle, and myself.” Lackland was startled by the last item. “You mean you would trust yourself to my strength, knowing that I’m already under three and a half times my normal gravity and will have the weight of my armor as well?”