Read Ebook: The Gravity Business by Gunn James E Ashman William Illustrator

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Ebook has 284 lines and 13891 words, and 6 pages

"I mean that thing, whatever you call it." Joyce fluttered her hand impatiently. "Get it out!"

Four's eyes widened farther. "But Fweep's my friend."

"Nonsense!" Joyce said sharply. "Earthmen don't make friends with aliens. And that's nothing but a--a blob!"

"Fweep?" queried the raspberry lips. "Fweep?"

"If it's Four's friend," Reba said firmly, "it can stay. If you don't like to be around it, Grammy, you can always go to your own room."

Joyce stood up indignantly. "Well! And don't call me 'Grammy!' It makes me sound as old as that old goat over there!" She glared malignantly at Grampa. "If you'd rather have that blob than me--well!" She swept grandly out of the central cabin and into one of the private rooms that opened out from it.

"Fweep?" asked the blob.

"Sure," Four said. "Go ahead, fweep--I mean sweep."

Swiftly the sphere rolled across the floor. Behind it was left a narrow path of sparkling clean tile.

Grampa glanced warily at Joyce's door to make sure it was completely closed and then cocked a white eyebrow at Reba. "Good for you, Reba!" he said admiringly. "For forty years now, I've wanted to do that. Never had the nerve."

"Why, thanks, Grampa," Reba said, surprised.

"I like you, gal. Never forget it."

"I like you, too, Grampa. If you'd been a few years younger, Junior would have had competition!"

"You bet he would!" Grampa leaned back and cackled. Then he leaned over confidentially toward Reba and whispered, "Beats me why you ever married a jerk like Junior, anyhow."

Reba looked thoughtfully toward the airlock door. "Maybe I saw something in him nobody else saw, the man he might become. He's been submerged in this family too long; he's still a child to all of you and to himself, too." Reba smiled at Grampa brilliantly. "And maybe I thought he might grow into a man like his grandfather."

Grampa turned red and looked quickly toward Four. The boy was staring intently at Fweep. "What you doing, Four?"

"Trying to figure out what Fweep does with the sweepings," Four said absently. "The outer inch or two of his body gets cloudy and then slowly clears. I think I'll try him with a bigger particle."

"That's the idea, Four. You'll be a Peppergrass yet. How about building me a pircuit?"

"You get the other one figured out?"

"It was easy," Grampa said breezily, "once you understood the principle. The player who moved second could always win if he used the right strategy. Dividing the thirteen lights into three sections of four each--"

"That's right," Four agreed. "I can make you a new one by cannibalizing the other pircuit, but I'll need a few extra parts."

Grampa pushed the wall beside his chair and a drawer slid out of it.

Inside were row after row of nipple-topped, flat-sided, flexible free-fall bottles and a battered cigar box. "Thought you'd say that," he said, picking out the box. "Help yourself." With the other hand, he lifted out one of the bottles and took a long drag on it. "Ahhh!" he sighed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and carefully put the bottle away.

"What is that stuff you drink, Grampa?" Four asked.

"Tonic, boy. Keeps me young and frisky. Now about that pircuit--"

"Did you ever work on Niccol? Tartaglia's puzzle about the three lovely brides, the three jealous husbands, the river and the two-passenger rowboat?"

"Yep," Grampa said. "Too easy."

Four thought a moment. "There's a modern variation with three missionaries and three cannibals. Same river, same rowboat and only one of the cannibals can row. If the cannibals outnumber the missionaries--"

"Sounds good, boy," Grampa said eagerly. "Whip it up for me."

"Okay, Grampa." Four looked at Fweep again. The translucent sphere had paused at Grampa's feet.

Grampa reached down to pat it. For an instant, his hand disappeared into Fweep, and then the alien creature rolled away. This time its path seemed crooked.

Its gelatinous form jiggled. "Hic!" it said.

As if in response, the flivver vibrated. Grampa looked querulously toward the airlock. "Flivver shouldn't shake like that. Not with the polarizer turned on."

The airlock door swung inward. Through the oval doorway walked Fred, followed closely by Junior. They were sweat-stained and weary, scintillation counters dangling heavily from their belts.

"Any luck?" Reba asked brightly.

"Do we look it?" Junior grumbled.

"Where's Joyce?" asked Fred. "Might as well get everybody in on this at once. Joyce!"

The door to his wife's room opened instantly. Behind it, Joyce was regal and slim. The pose was spoiled immediately by her avid question: "Any uranium? Radium? Thorium?"

"No," Fred said slowly, "and no other heavy metals, either. There's a few low-grade iron deposits and that's it."

"Then what makes this planet so heavy?" Reba asked.

Junior shrugged helplessly and collapsed into a chair. "Your guess is as good as anybody's."

"Then we've wasted another week on a worthless rock," Joyce complained. She turned savagely on Fred. "This was going to make us all filthy rich. We were going to find radioactives and retire to Earth like billionaires. And all we've done is spent a year of our lives in this cramped old flivver--and we don't have many of them to spare!" She glared venomously at Grampa.

"We've still got Fweepland," Four said solemnly.

"Fweepland?" Reba repeated.

"This planet. It's not big, but it's fertile and it's harmless. As real estate, it's worth almost as much as if it were solid uranium."

"A good thing, too," Junior said glumly, "because this looks like the end of our search. Short of a miracle, we'll spend the rest of our lives right here--involuntary colonists."

Joyce spun on him. "You're joking!" she screeched.

"I wish I were," Junior said. "But the polarizer won't work. Either it's broken or there's something about the gravity around here that just won't polarize."

"It's these '23 models," Grampa put in disgustedly. "They never were any good."

The land of the Fweep turned slowly on its axis. The orange sun set and rose again and stared down once more at the meadow where the improbable spaceship rested on its improbable stern. The sixteen Earth hours that the rotation had taken had changed nothing inside the ship, either.

"That's just supposition," Junior said stubbornly. "The fact is, it isn't because it doesn't. Q.E.D."

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