Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 10 — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

MISSION OF GRAVITY eo but understandable prejudices against lifting and jumping and throwing and everything else involving any height, the situation might be different. Well, Bar- lennan’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 cer- tainly 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?” “IT 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 naviga- tion 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 some- thing 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 water- fall 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 pointed too nearly straight ahead for comfort—the edge of their beams might be confused with the rim of the escarpment until it was too late to rectify the error. Even at this distance Lackland was uneasy after sunset; and he finally asked Barlennan to have either himself or Dondragmer ride on the tank to give warning if he began to slant to the left. He had learned long since that the natives, while not in a class with Terrestrial cats or owls, could see at night rather better than a man. They made the waterfall 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 Mesk- linite 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 (CORMIC OO) KS (EO)