Hal Clement: Heavy Planet

“But you forbade—”

“We thought—”

“You were high —” A chorus of objections answered the captain, who cut them short. “I know I forbade such actions, and I told you why. When we return to high-weight and decent living we must have no habits that might result in our thoughtlessly doing dangerous things like that—” He waved a pincer-tipped arm upward toward the tank?s roof.?You all know what proper weight can do; the Flyer doesn?t. He put me up there, as you saw him take me down, without even thinking about it. He comes from a place where there is practically no weight at all; where, I believe, he could fall many times his body length without being hurt. You can see that for yourselves: if he felt properly about high places, how could he fly?” Most of Barlennan’s listeners had dug their stumpy feet into the sand as though trying to get a better grip on it during this speech. Whether they fully digested, or even fully believed, their commander’s words may be doubted; but at least their minds were distracted from the action they had intended toward Lackland. A faint buzz of conversation arose once more among them, but its chief overtones seemed to be of amazement rather than anger. Dondragmer alone, a little apart from the others, was silent; and the captain realized that his mate would have to be given a much more careful and complete story of what had happened. Dondragmer’s imagination was heavily backed by intelligence, and he must already be wondering about the effect on Barlennan’s nerves of his recent experience. Well, that could be handled in good time; the crew presented a more immediate problem. “Are the hunting parties ready?” Barlennan’s question silenced the babble once more. “We have not yet eaten,” Merkoos replied a little uneasily, “but everything else — nets and weapons — is in readiness.”

“Is the food ready?”

“Within a day, sir.” Karondrasee, the cook, turned back toward the ship without further orders. “Don, Merkoos. You will each take one of these radios. You have seen me use the one on the ship — all you have to do is talk anywhere near it. You can run a really efficient pincer movement with these, since you won’t have to keep it small enough for both leaders to see each other. “Don, I am not certain that I will direct from the ship, as I originally planned. I have discovered that one can see over remarkable distances from the top of the flyer’s traveling machine; and if he agrees I shall ride with him in the vicinity of your operations.”

“But, sir!” Dondragmer was aghast. “Won’t — won’t that thing scare all the game within sight? You can hear it coming a hundred yards away, and see it for I don’t know how far in the open. And besides—” He broke off, not quite sure how to state his main objection. Barlennan did it for him. “Besides, no one could concentrate on hunting with me in sight so far off the ground — is that it?” The mate’s pincers silently gestured agreement, and the movement was emulated by most of the waiting crew. For a moment the commander was tempted to reason with them, but he realized in time the futility of such an attempt. He could not actually recapture the viewpoint he had shared with them until so recently, but he did realize that before that time he would not have listened to what he now considered?reason? either. “All right, Don. I’ll drop that idea — you’re probably right. I’ll be in radio touch with you, but will stay out of sight.”

“But you’ll be riding on that thing? Sir, what has happened to you? I know I can tell myself that a fall of a few feet really means little here at the Rim, but I could never bring myself to invite such a fall deliberately; and I don’t see how anyone else could. I couldn’t even picture myself up on top of that thing.”

“You were most of a body length up a mast not too long ago, if I remember aright,” returned Barlennan dryly, “or was it someone else I saw checking upper lashings without unshipping the stick?”

“That was different — I had one end on the deck,” Dondragmer replied a trifle uncomfortably. “Your head still had a long way to fall. I’ve seen others of you doing that sort of thing too. If you remember, I had something to say about it when we first sailed into this region.”

“Yes, sir, you did. Are those orders still in force, considering—” The mate paused again, but what he wanted to say was even plainer than before. Barlennan thought quickly and hard. “We’ll forget the order,” he said slowly. “The reasons I gave for such things being dangerous are sound enough, but if any of you get in trouble for forgetting when we’re back in high-weight it’s your own fault. Use your own judgment on such matters from now on. Does anyone want to come with me now?” Words and gestures combined in a chorus of emphatic negatives, with Dondragmer just a shade slower than the rest. Barlennan would have grinned had he possessed the physical equipment. “Get ready for that hunt — I’ll be listening to you,” he dismissed his audience. They streamed obediently back toward the Bree, and their captain turned to give a suitably censored account of the conversation to Lackland. He was a little preoccupied, for the conversation just completed had given rise to several brand-new ideas in his mind; but they could be worked out when he had more leisure. Just now he wanted another ride on the tank roof.

The bay on the southern shore of which the Bree was beached was a tiny estuary some twenty miles long and two in width at its mouth. It opened from the southern shore of a larger gulf of generally similar shape some two hundred fifty miles long, which in turn was an offshoot of a broad sea which extended an indefinite distance into the northern hemisphere — it merged indistinguishably with the permanently frozen polar cap. All three bodies of liquid extended roughly east and west, the smaller ones being separated from the larger on their northern sides by relatively narrow peninsulas. The ship’s position was better chosen than Barlennan had known, being protected from the northern storms by both peninsulas. Eighteen miles to the west, however, the protection of the nearer and lower of these points ceased; and Barlennan and Lackland could appreciate what even that narrow neck had saved them. The captain was once more ensconced on the tank, this time with a radio clamped beside him. To their right was the sea, spreading to the distant horizon beyond the point that guarded the bay. Behind them the beach was similar to that on which the ship lay, a gently sloping strip of sand dotted with the black, rope-branched vegetation that covered so much of Mesklin. Ahead of them, however, the growths vanished almost completely. Here the slope was even flatter and the belt of sand grew ever broader as the eye traveled along it. It was not completely bare, though even the deep-rooted plants were lacking; but scattered here and there on the wave-channeled expanse were dark, motionless relies of the recent storm. Some were vast, tangled masses of seaweed, or of growths which could claim that name with little strain on the imagination; others were the bodies of marine animals, and some of these were even vaster. Lackland was a trifle startled — not at the size of the creatures, since they presumably were supported in life by the liquid in which they floated, but at the distance they lay from the shore. One monstrous hulk was sprawled over half a mile inland; and the Earthman began to realize just what the winds of Mesklin could do even in this gravity when they had a sixty-mile sweep of open sea in which to build up waves. He would have liked to go to the point where the shore lacked even the protection of the outer peninsula, but that would have involved a further journey of over a hundred miles. “What would have happened to your ship, Barlennan, if the waves that reached here had struck it?”