Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 10 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

curled over the edge and spilled down- — ward. 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 lack of 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 ex- cept that created by the fall itself, and the stream grew rapidly calmer as it moved smoothly away toward the ocean. Lackland looked for a rainbow in the spray with something like a tinge of homesickness; but the sun was in the wrong position, and he wasn’t sure that methane drops would produce one any- way. He must ask one of the physicists, he decided. The crew of the Bree had gone over- board the moment the tank had stopped; and the way they were strung out along the rim of the gorge indicated that there would not be much morale difficulty dur- ing the descent. Now Barlennan called them back to the ship, and work com- menced 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 cliff’s height. Some of the sailors began securing all loose gear about the rafts, though pre- parations for the original journey had left little to do in this respect; others reached down between the rafts and be- gan unfastening the lashings which held them together and checking at the same time the butfers 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 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION any point on the cliff face would be suit- able, 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. All this was improvised, though the man did not realize it; the natives were not used to lifting objects any distance. It was ad- justed 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, and knowing the qualities of Mesklinite animal and plant tissues didn’t make it look any better. Still, no one seemed to worry, and sailors should certainly know ropes. An excited hooting and general with- drawal from the edge indicated that safe arrival of the first raft, and Lackland blinked as the sailors proceeded to stack several more on top of each other while CORmmicooolxs (EC)