Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 10 — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

~~ MISSION OF GRAVITY 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 sud- denly 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 set 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 other 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 de- scent half completed it occurred to him to call Toorey to invite the interested parties to watch. The geology department re- sponded and commented freely during the rest of the process, but as far as Lack- land could tell their remarks were mostly of the “it’s obvious that” and “I told you so” variety. None of them bothered to tune in any of the “eyes” which were still with the Bree’s gear, to get a look at the natives. 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 tarned 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 said. “There will be a slight problem in connection with 37 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?” “Certainly. The armor will easily be heavy enough to serve as anchor, and if you take a turn of the rope about your own body you can pay it out gradually. I don’t see any difficulty; the load will be only a few of your pounds.” “Not that way, perhaps, but there’s another point. Your rope is very thin indeed, and the handling clamps of my armor are somewhat clumsy when it comes to managing small objects. What if the cord slips out of my grip?” That silenced Barlennan for a moment. “What is the smallest object you could handle with reasonable security?” “Oh—one of your masts, I should say.” ' “There is no trouble, then. We will wind the rope about a mast, and you can use that as a windlass. You can toss mast and rope over afterwards; if the stick is broken the loss will not be too. great.” Lackland shrugged. “It’s your health and property, Barl. I don’t have to say Ill be careful; I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, especially through my negligence. I'll be out shortly.” The Mesklinite, satisfied, leaped back to the ground and began to give the ‘necessary orders to the few remaining sailors. The second last load went down with all these; and a few moments later the Earthman emerged from his con- veyance. Barlennan was waiting for him. A single raft now lay at the cliff edge, tied in its sling and ready to go. A radio and the bundled remains of the scaffolding lay EoOmMmIichbooks: co = = m a s,-