by Hal Clement
“Know?”
“Well, it’s pretty obvious. One of the layers of the plateau, just below the foot of the cliff, has to be ammonia. That’s mineral there. A lot of it was melted by the falling rock, and the Mesklinites smelled it—”
“Smelled something like it.”
“What else could that be?”
“How do I know? I’m not a Mesklinite.” A third voice cut in. “The two of you are just gabbling. We haven’t seen a layer that looked like ammonia — it’d be white, like ice.”
“It would be ice.”
“All right, but we haven’t seen any.”
“It’s underground at river level.”
“But how could—?”
“That’s what I’m saying! We’ve got to check — I mean, Barlennan’s people have to check—”
“How? They don’t have drills, or shovels, or picks, and you can’t expect a Mesklinite to go tunneling, do you?” The captain had never heard this verb, but context suggested its meaning, rather too clearly. “Why not? Barlennan’s had lots of time underground now, and he’s still all right.”
“How do you know he is?” The captain started to tune out, as usual. Just another of the theory-based wrangles among Flyers, which of course might lead to something later. Then he saw what the something probably would be. The Flyers were very persuasive beings— Any being with muscles and a nervous system complex enough to consider alternatives consciously can shudder. Dondragmer was obviously listening, too.
INTRODUCTION TO “LECTURE DEMONSTRATION”
From Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology, edited by Harry Harrison, Random House, 1973
I have been a high-school teacher for a quarter of a century, a student for nearly twice as long. “Lecture Demonstration” may show me as the former to people who did not know John Campbell, but not to those who did. He bought my first story over thirty years ago when I was a college sophomore. Since then we have exchanged thousands of words of correspondence and spent many, many hours in conversation. We sometimes agreed, sometimes did not. I was trained in theory — astronomy and chemistry — and still tend to center my extrapolation on one factor alone, like a politician. John’s education was in engineering, and he tended to remember better than I that all the rules are working at once: when he focused on one, it was to start an argument. We were alike in one way. The phrase “of course” set either of us going. It’s such fun to take apart a remark where those words appear! To show why, or how, or under what circumstances it isn’t true at all! That attitude was the seed of Mission of Gravity, the story on which I am content (so far) to let my reputation rest, and how much of that story was John is for future Ph. D. candidates to work out. He provided none of the specific scientific points, for once, but the general attitude underlying it was so obviously Campbellian that I have been flattered more than once to hear that “of course” Hal Clement was a Campbell pseudonym. He would certainly have had as much fun writing Mission of Gravity as I did. Low-gravity planets and high-gravity planets were old hat to science-fiction fans, but, of course, no one planet can vary greatly in its gravity. So, naturally, Mesklin was born, thousands of times the mass of Earth, but whirling so rapidly on its axis that its equatorial diameter is more than twice the polar value, less than eighteen minutes pass from noon to noon, and a man massing a hundred and eighty pounds weighs five hundred and forty at Mesklin’s equator and nearly sixty tons at its poles. Its people were fun to make up too. Little, many-legged types afraid of flying away with the wind at their low-gravity equator, about at the cultural level of Marco Polo — and one of them at least was a much sharper trader. He followed along very cooperatively when the strange beings from the sky hired him, until he had them where he wanted them. Then he held out — for scientific knowledge. Of Course one doesn’t interfere with the development of a primitive tribe by teaching it modern technology. “Lature Demonstration” takes place during the formative years of the College on Mesklin, when the teachers are still learning too, and Mesklinites are finding that human beings are quite human. Whatever that may mean.