One factor alone limited Mesklin’s storms to the point where sea travel was possible: methane vapor is far denser than hydrogen. On Earth, water vapor is lighter than air, and contributes enormously to the development of a hurricane once it starts; on Mesklin, the methane picked up from the ocean by such a storm tends, in a relatively short time, to put a stop to the rising currents which are responsible for its origin. Also the heat it gives up in condensing to form the storm clouds is only about a quarter as great as would be given by a comparable amount of water — and that heat is the fuel for a hurricane, once the sun has given the initial push.
In spite of all this, a Mesklinite hurricane is no joke. Barlennan, Mesklinite though he was, learned this very suddenly. He was seriously considering towing the Bree as far upstream as time would permit when the decision was taken out of his hands; the water in the lake receded with appalling suddenness, leaving the ship stranded fully twenty yards from its edge. Moments later the wind shifted ninety degrees and increased to a speed that made the sailors cling for dear life to deck cleats, if they happened to be on board, and to the handiest vegetation if they did not. The captain’s shrill hoot ordering those” off the ship to return went completely unheard, sheltered as they were in the almost complete circle of the valley walls; but no one needed any order. They picked their way, bush by bush, never holding with less than two sets of pincers, back to where their comrades had already lashed themselves as best they could to the vessel that was threatening every moment to lift into the wind’s embrace. Rain — or, more properly, driven spray that had come completely across the island — lashed at them for long minutes; then both it and the wind ceased as though by magic. No one dared release his lashings, but the slowest sailors now made a final dash for the ship. They were none too soon.
The storm cell at sea level was probably three miles or so in diameter; it was traveling at about sixty or seventy miles per hour. The ending of the wind was only temporary; it meant that the center of the cyclone had reached the valley. This was also the low-pressure zone; and as it reached the sea at the mouth of the fiord, the flood came. It rose, gathering speed as it came, and spurted into the valley like the stream from a hose. Around the walls it swirled, picking up the Bree on the first circle; higher and higher, as the ship sought the center of the whirlpool — fifteen, then twenty, then twenty-five feet before the wind struck again.
Tough as the wood of the masts was, they had snapped long since. Two crewmen had vanished, their lashing perhaps a little too hastily completed. The new wind seized the ship, bare of masts as she was, and flung her toward the side of the whirlpool; like a chip, both for helplessness and magnitude, she shot along the stream of liquid now pouring up the little river toward the island’s interior. Still the wind urged her, now toward the side of the stream; and as the pressure rose once more, the flood receded as rapidly as it had risen — no, not quite; the portion now floating the Bree had nowhere to go except back out through the little river-course, and that took time. Had daylight lasted, Barlennan might even in his ship’s present condition have guided her back along that stream while she still floated; but the sun chose this moment to set, and in the darkness he ran aground. The few seconds delay was enough; the liquid continued to recede, and when the sun returned it looked upon a helpless collection of rafts some twenty yards from a stream that was too narrow and too shallow to float any one of them.
The sea was completely out of sight beyond the hills; the limp form of a twenty-foot-long sea monster stranded on the other side of the brook gave a graphic picture of the helplessness of the Gravity Expedition.
XII: WIND RIDERS
Much of what had happened had been seen from Toorey; the radio sets, like most of the less prominent articles about the Bree’s deck, had remained lashed in position. Not much had been distinguishable, of course, while the vessel had been whirling in the brief maelstrom; but her present situation was painfully clear. None of the people in the screen room could find anything helpful to say.
The Mesldinites could say little, either. They were used to ships on dry land, since that happened fairly often during late summer and fall as the seas receded in their own latitudes; but they were not accustomed to have it happen so suddenly, and to have so much high ground between them and the ocean. Barlennan and the mate, taking stock of the situation, found little to be thankful for.
They still had plenty of food, though that in the canoe had vanished. Dondragmer took occasion to point out the superiority of rafts, neglecing to mention that the supplies in the canoe had been tied down carelessly or not at all owing to a misplaced confidence in the high sides of the boat. The little vessel itself was still at the end of its towline, and still undamaged. The wood of which it had been made shared the springiness of the low-growing plants of the higher latitudes. The Bree herself, constructed of similar materials though in much less yielding form, was also intact, though the story might have been different had there been many rocks in the wall of the round valley. She was and had remained right side up, owing to her construction — Barlennan admitted that point without waiting for the mate to bring it up. The complaints were not in any way connected with lack of ship or supplies, but with lack of an ocean to float them on.
„The surest way would be to take her apart, as we did before, and carry her over the hills. They’re not very steep, and there still isn’t enough weight to matter.” Barlennan made this suggestion after long thought.
„You’re probably right,? Captain; but wouldn’t it save time to separate the rafts only lengthwise, so that we have rows the full length of the ship? We could carry or drag those over to the stream, and surely they’d float before we went down very far.” Hars, now his former self after his encounter with the rock, made this suggestion.
„That sounds promising. Hars, why don’t you find out just how far down that would be? The rest can start unlashing as Hars suggested, and unloading where we have to. Some of the cargo will be in the way of the lashings, I’m afraid.”
„I wonder if the weather is still too bad for those flying machines?” Dondragmer asked, of no one in particular. Barlennan glanced upward.
„The clouds are still low and the wind high,” he said. „If the Flyers are right — and they ought to know, I should think — the weather is still too bad. However, it won’t hurt to look up occasionally. I rather hope we see one again.”
„One I wouldn’t much mind myself,” replied the mate dryly. „I suppose you want a glider to add to the canoe. I’ll tell you right now that I might, in extremity, get into the canoe, but the day I climb onto one of those flying machines will be a calm winter morning with both suns in the sky.” Barlennan did not answer; he had not consciously considered adding a glider to his collection, but the idea rather struck his fancy. As for flying in it — well, changed as he was, there were limits.
The Flyers reported clearing weather, and the clouds obediently thinned over the next few days. Greatly improved though the flying weather was, few crew members thought to watch the sky. All were too busy. Hars’s plan had proved feasible, the stream being deep enough for the rafts only a few hundred yards toward the sea and wide enough for a single raft very little farther down. Barlennan’s statement that the additional weight would mean little proved wrong; every component was twice as heavy as it had been where they last saw Lackland, and they were not accustomed to lifting anything. Powerful as they were, the new gravity taxed their hoisting abilities to the point where it was necessary to unload the rafts before the rows of little platforms could be nartlv carried and dragged to the stream. Once they were