“How could the land raise that much?” murmured Maury, looking out and down at the green too far below to tell what it represented. Jeff shrugged.
“This is a bigger world than Earth—even if it’s lighter,” he said. “Possibly more liable to crustal distortion.” He nodded at the peaks above them. “These are young mountains. Their height alone reflects the lesser gravity. That glacier up there couldn’t have formed on that steep a slope on Earth.”
“There’s the Messenger,” said Cal.
His deeper-toned voice brought them all around. He had been standing behind the rest, looking over their heads. He smiled a little dryly and sadly at the faint unanimous look of hostility on the faces of all but the Survey Leader’s. He was unusual in the respect that he was so built as not to need their friendship. But he was a member of the Team as they were and he would have liked to have had that friendship—if it could have been had at any price short of changing his own naturally individualistic character.
“There’s no hope of that,” said Doug Kellas. “The Messenger was designed for launching from the ship in space. Even in spite of the lower gravity here, it’d never break loose of the planet.”
The Messenger was an emergency device every ship carried. It was essentially a miniature ship in itself, with drive unit and controls for one shift through no-time and an attached propulsive unit to kick it well clear of any gravitic field that might inhibit the shift into no-time. It could be set with the location of a ship wishing to send a message back to Earth, and with the location of Earth at the moment of arrival—both figured in terms of angle and distance from the theoretical centerpoint of the galaxy, as determined by ship’s observations. It would set off, translate itself through no-time in one jump back to a reception area just outside Earth’s critical gravitic field, and there be picked up with the message it contained.
For the Harrier team, this message could tell of the aliens and call for rescue. All that was needed was the precise information concerning the Harrier’s location in relation to Galactic Centerpoint and Earth’s location.
In the present instance, this was no problem. The ship’s computer log developed the known position and movement of Earth with regard to Centerpoint, with every shift and movement of the ship. And the position of the second planet of star K94 was known to the chartmakers of Earth recorded by last observation aboard the Harrier.
Travel in no-time made no difficulty of distance. In no-time all points coincided, and the ship was theoretically touching them all. Distance was not important, but location was. And a precise location was impossible—the very time taken to calculate it would be enough to render it impossibly inaccurate. What ships travelling by no-time operated on were calculations approximately as correct as possible—and leave a safety factor, read the rulebook.
Calculate not to the destination, but to a point safely short enough of it, so that the predictable error will not bring the ship out in the center of some solid body. Calculate safely short of the distance remaining… and so on by smaller and smaller jumps to a safe conclusion.
But that was with men aboard. With a mechanical unit like the Messenger, a one-jump risk could be taken.
The Harrier had the figures to risk it—but a no-time drive could not operate within the critical area of a gravitic field like this planet’s. And, as Jeff had said, the propulsive unit of the Messenger was not powerful enough to take off from this mountainside and fight its way to escape from the planet
“That was one of the first things I figured,” said Jeff, now. “We’re more than four miles above this world’s sea-level, but it isn’t enough. There’s too much atmosphere still above us.”
“The Messenger’s only two and a half feet long put together,” said Maury. “It only weighs fifteen pounds earthside. Can’t we send it up on a balloon or something? Did you think of that?”
“Yes,” said Jeff. “We can’t calculate exactly the time it would take for a balloon to drift to a firing altitude, and we have to know the time to set the destination controls. We can’t improvise any sort of a booster propulsion unit for fear of jarring or affecting the destination controls. The Messenger is meant to be handled carefully and used in just the way it’s designed to be used, and that’s all.” He looked around at them. “Remember, the first rule of a Survey Ship is that it never lands anywhere but Earth.”
“Still,” said Cal, who had been calmly waiting while they talked this out, “we can make the Messenger work.”
“How?” challenged Doug, turning on him. “Just how?”
Cal turned and pointed to the wind-piping battlemented peaks of the mountain looming far above.
“I did some calculating myself,” he said. “If we climb up there and send the Messenger off from the top, it’ll break free and go.”
None of the rest of them said anything for a moment. They had all turned and were looking up the steep slope of the mountain, at the cliffs, the glacier where no glacier should be able to hang, and the peaks.
“Any of you had any mountain-climbing experience?” asked Joe.
“There was a rock-climbing club at the University I went to,” said Cal. “They used to practice on the rock walls of the bluffs on the St. Croix River—that’s about sixty miles west of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I went out with them a few times.”
No one else said anything. Now they were looking at Cal.
“And,” said Joe, “as our nearest thing to an expert, you think that”—he nodded to the mountain—“can be climbed carrying the Messenger along?”
Cal nodded.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I think it can. I’ll carry the Messenger myself. We’ll have to make ourselves some equipment in the tool shop, here at the ship. And I’ll need help going up the mountain.”
“How many?” said Joe.
“Three.” Cal looked around at them as he called their names. “Maury, Jeff and Doug. All the able-bodied we’ve got.”
Joe was growing paler with the effort of the conversation.
“What about John?” he asked looking past Doug at John Martin, Number Nine of the Survey Team. John was a short, rugged man with wiry hair—but right now his face was almost as pale as Joe’s, and his warmsuit bulged over the chest.
“John got slashed up when he tried to pull the alien off you,” said Cal calmly. “Just before I shot. He got it clear across the pectoral muscles at the top of his chest. He’s no use to me.”
“I’m all right,” whispered John. It hurt him even to breathe and he winced in spite of himself at the effort of talking.
“Not all right to climb a mountain,” said Cal. “I’ll take Maury, Jeff and Doug.”
“All right. Get at it then.” Joe made a little, awkward gesture with his hand, and Maury stooped to help pull the pillows from behind him and help him lie down. “All of you—get on with it.”
“Come with me,” said Cal. “I’ll show you what we’re going to have to build ourselves in the tool shop.”
“I’ll be right with you,” said Maury. The others went off. Maury stood looking down at Joe. They had been friends and teammates for some years.
“Shoot,” whispered Joe weakly, staring up at him. “Get it off your chest, whatever it is, Maury.” The effort of the last few minutes was beginning to tell on Joe. It seemed to him the bed rocked with a seasick motion beneath him, and he longed for sleep.
“You want Cal to be in charge?” said Maury, staring down at him.
Joe lifted his head from the pillow. He blinked and made an effort and the bed stopped moving for a moment under him.