Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 10 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

latter an idea. The tank in which they were riding is crippled, and the Earth- man’s cumbersome armor makes it im- possible for him to reach the dome in the triple gravity; but the crew of the Bree is able to tow him back on a sled made.of metal from the wrecked tank. Barlennan now suggests that a similar sled be made for his ship, and towed to the other ocean by another tank. This proves feasible, as the ocean ex- tends into the low-gravity regions of the equator where Lackland can survive to operate the tank. The route is laid out with the aid of more aerial photographs, the sled constructed at the main expedi- tion base on Toorey, Mesklin’s inner moon, and ferried to the equatorial station. As winter draws to a Close, the Bree is loaded aboard—the ship is only forty feet in length, and easily carried by her crew in their present near-weightless environ- ment—and the trip starts. Barlennan, through a misunderstand- ing of Lackland’s, has already had an experience which has jarred out of him the ingrained, conditioned fear of height characteristic of all natives of his part of the planet—a fear amply justified by the savage gravitation under which they live, which makes a fall of even half their eighteen-inch body length almost cer- tainly fatal. The very idea of a fall is strange to them; in their land, an object released at a height simply disappears, _to reappear almost simultaneously on the ground below in a well flattened state. ParT 2. CHAPTER VII. TP to this time, most of the hills had been gentle, smooth slopes, - their irregularities long since worn off by weather. There had been no sign of the holes and crevasses which Lackland somewhat feared before starting. The hilltops had been smoothly rounded, so that even had their speed been much higher the crossing of one would hardly have been noticed. Now, however, as they topped such an acclivity and the landscape ahead came into view a dif- ference ae os every eye at once. MISSION OF GRAVITY _ It was longer than most they had crossed, more a ridge across their path than a mound; but the great difference was in the top. Instead of the smooth, windworn curve presented by its fellows, it seemed at first glance actually jagged; a closer look showed that it was crowned with a row of boulders spaced with regu- larity that could only mean intelligent arrangement. The rocks ranged from monstrous things as big as Lackland’s tank down to fragments of basketball size; and all, while rough in detail, were generally spherical in shape. Lackland brought his vehicle to an instant halt and seized his glasses—he was in partial armor, but was not wearing the helmet. Barlennan, forgetting the presence of his crew, made a leap over the twenty yards separating the Bree from the tank and settled firmly on top of the latter. A radio had been fastened there for his con- venience long before; and he was talking almost before he had landed. “What is it, Charles? Is that a city, such as you were telling me about on your own world? It doesn’t look very much like your pictures.” “IT was hoping yo ucould tell me,” was the answer. “It certainly is not a city, and the stones are too far apart for the most part to be any sort of wall or fort that I could imagine. Can you see any- thing moving around them? I can’t with these glasses, but I don’t know how keen your eyesight is.” “I can just see that the hilltop is ir- regular; if the things on top are loose stones, I'll have to take your word for it until we’re closer. Certainly I can see nothing moving. Anything my size would be impossible to see at that distance anyway, I should think.” “I could see you at that range without these glasses, but I couldn’t count your eyes or arms. With them I can say pretty certainly that that hilltop is deserted. Just the same, [ll practically guarantee that those stones didn’t get there by accident; we'd better keep our eyes open for who- ever set them up. Better warn your crew.” Lackland mentally noted the fact of Bar- lennan’s poorer eyesight; he was not physicist enough to have predicted it from the size of the native’s eyes. The GOmiGcbooks