Heavy Planet

by Hal Clement

  “I’d love to, but I don’t think we can afford to let him get mad at us until we’re good and far away. I don’t want him and his friends dropping their spears on the Bree now or any other time.”

  “I don’t mean to make him angry, but afraid of us. ‘Barbarians’—he’ll eat that word if I have to cook it personally for him. It all depends on certain things: do the Flyers know how these gliders work, and will they tell us?”

  “They probably know, unless they’ve had better ones for so long they’ve forgotten—”

  “So much the better, for what I have in mind.”

  “—but I’m not sure whether they’ll tell. I think you know by now what I’m really hoping to get out of this trip; I want to learn everything I possibly can of the Flyers’ science. That’s why I want to get to that rocket of theirs near the Center; Charles himself said that it contained much of the most advanced scientific equipment they have. When we have that, there won’t be a pirate afloat or ashore who’ll be able to touch the Bree, and we’ll have paid our last port dues?we?ll be able to write our own menus from then on.? “I guessed as much.”

  “That’s why I wonder whether they’ll tell what you want; they may suspect what I’m after.”

  “I think you’re too suspicious yourself. Have you ever asked for any of this scientific information you want to steal?”

  “Yes; Charles always said it was too difficult to explain.”

  “Maybe he was right; maybe he doesn’t know it himself. I want to ask one of his people about these gliders, anyway; I want to watch that Reejaaren grovel.”

  “Just what is this idea of yours, anyway?” Dondragmer told him, at length. The captain was dubious at first, but gradually grew more enthusiastic; and finally they went over to the radios together.

  13: SLIP OF THE TONGUE

  Fortunately Reejaaren did not return for a good many days. His people remained; four to six gliders were always drifting overhead, and several more squatted on the hilltops beside their catapults. The number of aircraft did not change noticeably, but the population of the hilltops increased day by day. The Earthmen above had entered into Dondragmer’s plan with enthusiasm and, Barlennan suspected, some little amusement. A few of the sailors were unable to pick up what was needed with sufficient speed, and had to be left out of the main plan in one sense; but even they understood the situation and would, Barlennan was sure, be able to contribute to the desired effect. In the meantime he put them to work repairing the shattered masts, whose rigging had at least kept them with the ship. The plan was matured and well rehearsed long before the interpreter’s return, and the officers found themselves impatient to try it out though Dondragmer had been spending time at the radio meanwhile on yet another project. In fact, after controlling themselves for a few days, the captain and mate strolled one morning up the hill toward the parked gliders with a full determination to make a test of the idea, though neither had said a word to the other about his intention. The weather had completely cleared long since, and there was only the perpetual wind of Mesklin’s seas to help or hinder flying. Apparently it wanted to help; the gliders were tugging at their tie-down cables like living creatures, and crewmen were standing by the wings with a secure grip on the surrounding bushes, evidently ready to add their strength if necessary to that of the restraining lines. Barlennan and Dondragmer approached the machines until they were ordered sharply to halt. They had no idea of the rank or authority of the individual giving the order, since he wore no insignia; but it was not part of their plan to argue such matters. They halted, and looked over the machines casually from a distance of thirty or forty yards, while the crewmen looked back rather belligerently. Apparently Reejaaren’s superciliousness was not a rare trait with his nation. “You look astonished, barbarians,” one of them remarked after a brief silence. “If I thought you could learn anything by looking at our machines, I would have to force you to stop. As it is, I can only assure you that you look rather childish.” He spoke Barlennan’s tongue with an accent not much worse than that of the chief linguist. “There seems little to learn from your machines. You could save much trouble with the wind in your present situation by warping the front of your wings down; why do you keep so many people busy instead?” He used the English word for “wings,” not having one in his own language. The other requested an explanation; receiving it, he was startled out of his superiority for a moment. “You have seen gliders before? Where?”

  “I have never seen your type of flying machine in my life,” Barlennan answered. His words were truthful, though their emphasis was decidedly misleading. “I have not been this close to the Rim before, and I should imagine that these flimsy structures would collapse from their added weight if you flew them much farther south.”

  “How—” The guard stopped, realizing that his attitude was not that of a civilized being toward a barbarian. He was silent for a moment, trying to decide just what his attitude should be in this case; then he decided to pass the problem higher in the chain of command. “When Reejaaren returns, he will no doubt be interested in any minor improvements you may be able to suggest. He might even reduce your port fee, if he deems them of sufficient value. Until then, I think you had better stay entirely away from our gliders; you might notice some of their more valuable features, and then we would regretfully have to consider you a spy.” Barlennan and his mate retired to the Bree without argument, highly satisfied with the effect they had produced, and reported the conversation in its entirety to the Earthmen. “How do you think he reacted to the implication that you had gliders capable of flying up in the two-hundred-gravity latitudes?” asked Lackland. “Do you think he believed you?”

  “I couldn’t say; he decided about then either that he was saying too much or hearing too much, and put us in storage until his chief returns. I think we started the right attitude developing, though.” Barlennan may have been right, but the interpreter gave no particular evidence of it when he returned. There was some delay between his actual landing and his descent of the hill to the Bree, and it seemed likely that the guard had reported the conversation; but he made no reference to it at first. “The Officer of the Outer Ports has decided to assume for the moment that your intentions are harmless,” he began. “You have of course violated our rules in coming ashore without permission; but he recognized that you were in difficulties at the time, and is inclined to be lenient. He authorizes me to inspect your cargo and evaluate the amount of the necessary port fee and fine.”

  “The Officer would not care to see our cargo for himself and perhaps accept some token of our gratitude for his kindness?” Barlennan managed to keep sarcasm out of his voice. Reejaaren gave the equivalent of a smile. “Your attitude is commendable, and I am sure we will get along very well with each other. Unfortunately, he is occupied on one of the other islands, and will be for many days to come. Should you still be here at the end of that time, I am sure he will be delighted to take advantage of your offer. In the meantime we might proceed to business.” Reejaaren lost little if any of his superiority during his examination of the Bree’s cargo, but he managed to give Barlennan some information during the process which he would probably have died rather than give consciously. His words, of course, tended to belittle the value of everything he saw; he harped endlessly on the “mercy” of his so far unseen chief Marreni. However, he appropriated as fine a respectable number of the “fir cones” that had been acquired during the journey across the isthmus. Now these should have been fairly easy to obtain here, since the distance could not be too great for the gliders — in fact, the interpreter had made remarks indicating acquaintance with the natives of those regions. If, then, Reejaaren held the fruit as being of value, it meant that the “barbarians” of the isthmus were a little too much for the interpreter’s highly cultured people, and the latter were not so close to being the lords of creation as they wanted people to think. That suggested that the mate’s plan had a very good chance of success, since the interpreter would prob
ably do almost anything rather than appear inferior to the “barbarian” crew of the Bree. Barlennan, reflecting on this, felt his morale rise like the Earthmen’s rocket; he was going to be able to lead this Reejaaren around like a pet ternee. He bent all his considerable skill to the task, and the crew seconded nobly. Once the fine was paid, the spectators on the hills descended in swarms; and the conclusion about the value of the fir-cone-like fruit was amply confirmed. Barlennan at first had a slight reluctance to sell all of it, since he had hoped to get really high prices at home; but then he reflected that he would have to go back through the source of supply before reaching his home in any case. Many of the buyers were evidently professional merchants themselves, and had plentiful supplies of trade goods with them. Some of these were also edibles, but on their captain’s orders the crew paid these little attention. This was accepted as natural enough by the merchants; after all, such goods would be of little value to an overseas trader, who could supply his own food from the ocean but could hardly expect to preserve most types of comestibles for a long enough time to sell at home. The “spices” which kept more or less permanently were the principal exception to this rule, and none of these were offered by the local tradesmen. Some of the merchants, however, did have interesting materials. Both the cord and the fabric in which Barlennan had been interested were offered, rather to his surprise. He personally dealt with one of the salesmen who had a supply of the latter. The captain felt its unbelievably sheer and even more incredibly tough texture for a long time before satisfying himself that it was really the same material as that used in the glider wings. Reejaaren was close beside him, which made a little care necessary. He learned from the merchant that it was a woven fabric in spite of appearances, the fiber being of vegetable origin?the canny salesman refused to be more specific?the cloth being treated after weaving with a liquid which partly dissolved the threads and filled the holes with the material thus obtained. “Then the cloth is windproof? I think I could sell this easily at home. It is hardly strong enough for practical uses like roofing, but it is certainly ornamental, particularly the colored versions. I will admit, though it is hardly good buying procedure, that this is the most salable material I have yet seen on this island.”

  “Not strong enough?” It was Reejaaren rather than the merchant who expressed indignation. “This material is made nowhere else, and is the only substance at once strong and light enough to form the wings of our gliders. If you buy it, we will have to give it to you in bolts too small for such a purpose — no one but a fool, of course, would trust a sewn seam in a wing.”

  “Of course,” Barlennan agreed easily. “I suppose such stuff could be used in wings here, where the weight is so small. I assure you that it would be quite useless for the purpose in high latitudes; a wing large enough to lift anyone would tear to pieces at once in any wind strong enough to furnish the lift.” This was almost a direct quote from one of his human friends, who had been suggesting why the gliders had never been seen in countries farther south. “Of course, there is very little load on a glider in these latitudes,” Reejaaren agreed. “Naturally there is no point in building them stronger than necessary here; it adds to the weight.” Barlennan decided that his tactical adversary was not too bright. “Naturally,” he agreed. “I suppose with the storms you have here your surface ships must be stronger. Do they ever get flung inland the way mine was? I never saw the sea rise in that fashion before.”

  “We naturally take precautions when a storm is coming. The rising of the sea occurs only in these latitudes of little weight, as far as I have been able to observe. Actually our ships are very much like yours, though we have different armament, I notice. Yours is unfamiliar to me — doubtless our philosophers of war found it inadequate for the storms of these latitudes. Did it suffer seriously in the hurricane that brought you here?”

  “Rather badly,” Barlennan lied. “How are your own ships armed?” He did not for a second expect the interpreter to answer the question in any way, except perhaps a resumption of his former haughtiness, but Reejaaren for once was both affable and cooperative. He hooted a signal up the hill to some of his party who had remained above, and one of these obediently came down to the scene of bargaining with a peculiar object in his pincers. Barlennan had never seen a crossbow, of course, or any other missile weapon. He was suitably impressed when Reejaaren sent three quartz-tipped bolts in a row thudding for over half their six-inch length into the hard trunk of a plant some forty yards away. He also lost most of his surprise at the interpreter’s helpfulness; such a weapon would be so much dead weight before the Bree was a quarter of the way to her home latitudes. More as a test than anything else, Barlennan offered to buy one of the crossbows; the interpreter pressed it on him as a gift, together with a bundle of bolts. That was good enough for the captain; as a trader, he naturally enjoyed being taken for a fool. It was usually profitable. He secured an incredible quantity of the wing fabric — Reejaaren either forgot to make sure it was in small bolts, or no longer considered it necessary — much of the elastic rope, and enough of the local artifacts to fill the Bree’s decks, except for the normal requirements of working space and the area devoted to a reasonable food reserve. He was rid of everything salable that he had brought to the island, with the possible exception of the flame throwers. Reejaaren had not mentioned these since he had been told they were damaged, though he had obviously recognized them as armament of some sort. Barlennan actually thought of giving him one, minus chlorine ammunition, but realized he would have to explain its operation and even demonstrate. This he had no intention of doing; if these people were not familiar with the weapons he did not want them to know the truth of their nature, and if they were he did not want to be caught in a lie. It was much nicer to have Reejaaren in a good humor. With the selling completed, the crowd of local people gradually melted away; and at last there remained only the gliders and their crews, some of the latter down near the ship and others on the hilltops by their machines. Barlennan found the interpreter among the former group, as usual; he had spent much time talking casually to the sailors. They had reported that he was, as expected, pumping them gently about the flying ability of their people. They had filled their part of the game with noncommittal replies that nevertheless “accidentally” revealed a considerable knowledge of aerodynamics. Naturally, they carefully gave no hint as to how recently the knowledge had been acquired — or its source. Barlennan at this point was reasonably sure that the islanders, or at least their official representative, believed his people capable of flight. “That seems to be all I can give or take,” he said as he secured Reejaaren’s attention. “We have, I think, paid all necessary fees. Is there any objection to our departing?”

  “Where do you plan to go now?”

  “Southward, toward decent weight. We do not know this ocean at all, except by vague reports from some of our merchants who have made the overland journey. I should like to see more of it.”

  “Very well. You are free to go. Doubtless you will see some of us on your travels — I occasionally go south myself. Watch out for more storms.” The interpreter, apparently the picture of cordiality, turned up the hill. “We may see you at the coast,” he added, looking back. “The fiord where you first landed has been suggested as possibly improvable to harbor status, and I want to inspect it.” He resumed his journey to the waiting gliders. Barlennan turned back to the ship, and was about to give orders for immediate resumption of the downstream journey — the goods had been loaded as fast as they were purchased — when he realized that the stakes dropped by the gliders still barred the way. For an instant he thought of calling the islander back and requesting their removal; then he thought better of it. He was in no position to make a demand, and Reejaaren would undoubtedly grow supercilious again if he put it as a request. The Bree’s crew would dig out of their own troubles. On board, he issued an order to this effect, and the cutters were once more picked up; but Dondragmner interrupted. “I’m glad to see that this wo
rk wasn’t wasted time,” he said. “What?” asked the captain. “I knew you were at some stunt of your own for the last forty or fifty days, but was too busy to find out what it was. We were able to handle the trading without you. What have you been doing?”

  “It was an idea that struck me just after we were first caught here; something you said to the Flyers about a machine to pull out the stakes gave it to me. I asked them later if there was such a machine that was not too complicated for us to understand, and after some thinking one of them said there was. He told me how to make it, and that’s what I’ve been doing. If we rig a tripod by one of the stakes, I’ll see how it works.”

  “But what is the machine? I thought all the Flyers’ machines were made of metal, which we couldn’t fashion because the kinds that are hard enough need too much heat.”

  “This.” The mate displayed two objects on which he had been working. One was simply a pulley of the most elementary design, quite broad, with a hook attached. The other was rather similar but double, with peglike teeth projecting from the circumference of both wheels. The wheels themselves were carved from a solid block of hardwood, and turned together. Like the first pulley, this was equipped with a hook; in addition there was a strap of leather threaded through the guards of both wheels, with holes punched in it to match the peg teeth, and the ends buckled together so that it formed a continuous double loop. The whole arrangement seemed pointless to the Mesklinites — Dondragmer, who did not yet understand why the device worked, or even whether it actually would. He took it over in front of one of the radios and spread it out on the deck. “Is this now assembled correctly?” he asked. “Yes, it should work if your strap is strong enough,” came the answer.?You must attach the hook of the single pulley to the stake you want to extract; I am sure you have methods of doing that with rope. The other pulley must be fastened to the top of the tripod. I?ve told you what to do from then on.? “Yes, I know. It occurred to me that instead of taking much time to reverse the machine after it was wound up tightly, however, I could unfasten the buckle and rethread it.”