The Unorthodox Engineers

got work to do.’

‘Like what, Fritz?’

‘Like beating the daylights out of the computer, for a start. There must be some reason why that damn planet lollops all over space like that. And unless we can come to grips with the problem I’d guess we’re in for a pretty rough landing.’

Two days later, standard shipboard time, the Tycho Brahe quit hyperspace with a delicious quiver and proceeded on planetary drive to the rendezvous. In high orbit three supply ships circled the innocuous-looking mudball of Getawehi, while far below the solitary pinnace rode the lower circuit making a precariously bad job of maintaining a synchronized station above the ground base. Around them the fiery orb of Geta seemed to trace her possessive path as if guarding her solitary ugly-duckling of a planet.

When the rendezvous was complete, Van Noon abandoned the computer for a telescope and found the results equally uninformative. From any angle of off-world approach, Getawehi refused to deliver up its secrets. Superficially it was a sparsely vegetated, rather uninviting ball of rock and earth. It had never achieved a life-form capable of developing any degree of civilization and seemed content to go rolling perversely through space until the stars grew cold. Its only claim to activity was on the radio-frequency bands, where its output, inexplicably, was both prodigious and impenetrable.

Jacko watched the pencil being fractured by Fritz’s powerful fingers. ‘So how’re we going to play it, Fritz?’

‘I’m not sure yet. We don’t seem able to gain any meaningful information from up here, so we’ll have to go to where it’s all happening.’

‘Well, so far the planet has wrecked every ferry they’ve sent. Were you thinking of taking the whole UE group?’

‘Not initially. Just the two of us, if you’re game. I need to get down there to get the feel of the place.’

Jacko shrugged. ‘I’ve got a pilot’s licence, but in the circumstances I make no guarantee about the quality of touchdown.’

‘That’s understood, Jacko. If you can get us down without any broken bones, it’ll be the best we can expect.’

‘Brumas isn’t going to be very happy. He’s lost too many ferries already.’

‘He’ll be a lot less happy if he goes back to Terra minus his ground crew. Frankly I don’t see any alternative. Down there we stand a chance of doing something constructive. With the rest of the UE group still spaceborne we’ve at least hedged our bets.’

‘What sort of equipment do you want to take?’

‘Just light-engineering kit. If we need anything special they can do a spacedrop.’

‘Assuming we can get into contact.’

‘Wooley has his laser link down there, but the thought comes to me that if we can get control of one of those super-power transmitters down there, the communications problem should be over.’

‘That’s the bit that has me worried, Fritz. Where the hell are these transmitters? There’s not a sign of them in the telescopes.’

‘I scarcely expected to find equipment shacks and antennae laid out in a row. Let’s face it, Jacko, we’re playing in a pretty weird sector of the universe. We’re up against so many unknowns that we’d be lucky to recognize a dog before it bit us.’

Three

‘Can’t you hold her, Jacko?’ Van Noon was watching anxiously through the ferry viewpoints as the ground details of Getawehi grew more specific and less stable with their continued descent.

‘The automatic control system is fighting me. The inertial guidance platform says that Getawehi is directly under, while Getawehi’s gravitation says that it’s sideways.’

‘So who’s right?’

‘Both and neither. It’s all relative, but it does raise complications. To exaggerate slightly, imagine trying to land a ship on a ramp angled at forty-five degrees from the horizontal. Do you approach at a true right-angle to the surface of the ramp, or do you follow the geocentric vertical?’

‘Which way’s softest?’

‘Either way you’re in trouble. If you choose the first, you’re liable to topple. If you choose the second you’re liable to skid down a one-in-one slope on one landing pad. Throw in the fact that your ramp is not only inconstant in angle but also varies in direction, and you have a rough idea of the dilemma facing both myself and the ship’s computer at this moment.’

‘What will be the result if we remain controlled by the inertial platform?’

‘We crash.’

‘What if we cut the automatics and try to achieve Getawehi’s conception of the vertical?’

‘We might just make it, if we conserve fuel and don’t apply the corrections until the final moment. Only one problem—we don’t know what Getawehi’s conception of the vertical is. Even with the best of luck we’re bound to come down askew on some parameter or other.’

‘Gyp the automatics and fall by line-of-sight for a while.’

Jacko looked at him grimly. ‘Right. I’m cutting all automatics except the stabilization gyro. We’d have had to do that sooner or later anyway. A small craft like this doesn’t have enough fuel to make course corrections on a continuous oscillatory basis.’

Van Noon took up station by a viewpoint and watched the wildly plunging horizon with some dismay. ‘How far are we aiming to land from the base camp?’

‘Under these conditions I couldn’t guarantee any position within a twenty kilometre radius. I’m heading far out so that we don’t risk putting a jet burn across the camp. The camp’s at the foot of the valley, and I’m aiming to come in between those two mountain ranges, about halfway up the pass.’

The rising scream from the ferry’s outer skin told them of their entry into Getawehi’s atmosphere. The laser altimeter raced suddenly alive and began to count down the distance to the surface, acknowledging Jacko’s gentle manipulation of the thrusters .

Through the viewport the horizon spun wildly and disappeared from view. Fritz took one look through the opposite port at the alarming prospect of Getawehi approaching sideways-on, then ducked back to Jacko at the controls.

‘If you call that a line-of-sight approach, we’d best go back for an optician.’

Jacko took his hands from the controls momentarily. ‘If you think you can hold this she-devil in control any better, you’re perfectly at liberty to try.’

The success of this impromptu manoeuvre was dramatic. The ferry immediately ceased its wild swinging and settled into a more restricted pattern of deviation from the geocentric vertical. Jacko looked at the controls in considerable amazement.

‘I don’t get it!’

Van Noon thought for a moment, then his lips twisted into a grin of amusement. ‘I think I do. Both line-of- sight and inertial guidance are related to the geocentric vertical. All we did was substitute your reactions for those of the automatics. But we were wrong. All we have operating now is a simple stabilization gyroscope. Don’t you see what that means?’

‘No.’

‘Where does the axis of a gyroscope point?’

‘Near a planetary mass? Towards the centre of gravity if it’s halfways orientated from the start.’

‘Precisely! And since Getawehi’s gravitational centre is not a fixed point, the gyroscope is swinging the ship to follow the gravitational drift. That was the tendency the inertial guidance system was fighting. But we don’t have to fight it—the gyroscope is already giving us the factor we need. It’s automatically correcting us to Getawehi’s concept of the vertical.’