Mission of Gravity Read Free

different matters.”
    „I see — I guess. We sort of took for granted that you’d have a reaction time commensurate with your gravity, but I can see that’s just man-centered thinking. I guess I get it.”
    „What I could understand of your talk sounded reasonable. It is certainly evident that we are different; we will probably never fully realize just how different. At least we are enough alike to talk together — and make what I hope will be a mutually profitable agreement.”
    „I am sure it will be. Incidentally, in furtherance of it you will have to give me an idea of the places you want to go, and I will have to point out on your maps the place where I want you to go. Could we look at that Bowl of yours now? There is light enough for this vision set.”
    „Certainly. The Bowl is set in the deck and cannot be moved; I will have to move the machine so that you can see it. Wait a moment.”
    Barlennan inched across the raft to a spot that was covered by a smaller flap, clinging to deck cleats as he went. He pulled back and stowed the flap, exposing a clear spot on the deck; then he returned, made four lines fast about the radio, secured them to strategically placed cleats, removed the radio’s cover, and began to work it across the deck. It weighed more than he did by quite a margin, though fts linear dimensions were smaller, but he was taking no chances of having it blown away. The storm had not eased in the least, and the deck itself was quivering occasionally. With the eye — end of the set almost to the Bowl, he propped the other end up with spars so that the Flyer could look downward. Then he himself moved to the other side of the Bowl and began his exposition.
    Lackland had to admit that the map which the Bowl contained was logically constructed and, as far as it went, accurate. Its curvature matched that of the planet quite closely, as he had expected — the major error being that it was concave, in conformity with the natives’ ideas about the shape of their world. It was about six inches across and roughly one and a quarter deep-at the center. The whole map was protected by a transparent cover — probably of ice, Lackland guessed — set flush with the deck. This interfered somewhat with Barlennan’s attempts to point out details, but could not have been removed without letting the Bowl fill with ammonia snow in moments. The stuff was piling up wherever it found shelter from the wind. The beach was staying relatively clear, but both Lackland and Barlennan could imagine what was happening on the other side of the hills that paralleled it on the south. The latter was secretly glad he was a sailor. Land travel in this region would not be fun for some thousands of days.
    „I have tried to keep my charts up to date,” he said as he settled down opposite the Flyer’s proxy. „I haven’t attempted to make any changes in the Bowl, though, because the new regions we mapped on the way up were not extensive enough to show. There is actually little I can show you in detail, but you wanted a general idea of where I planned to go when we could get out of here.
    „Well, actually I don’t care greatly. I can buy and sell anywhere, and at the moment I have little aboard but food. I won’t have much of that by the time winter is over, either; so I had planned, since our talk, to cruise for a time around the low-weight areas and pick up plant products which can be obtained here — materials that are valued by the people farther south because of their effect on the taste of food.”
    „Spices?”
    „If that is the word for such products, yes. I have carried them before, and rather like them — you can get good profit from a single shipload, as with most commodities whose value depends less on their actual usefulness than on their rarity.”
    „I take it, then, that once you have loaded here you don’t particularly care where you go?”
    „That is right. I understand that your errand will carry us close to