five or six men wind up the windlass, like so. That pulls the
free end of the beam down until the notch engages with this
key-slot, which you’ve pro-cut at the other end. Then you un-
lock the vise, and there’s your hoop; for safety you might
drive a peg through the joint to keep the thing from spring-
ing open unexpectedly.”
“Wouldn’t the beam you were using break after it had bent
a certain distance?” Lavon asked.
“Stock timber certainly would,” Stravol said. “But for this
trick you use green wood, not seasoned. Otherwise you’d have
to soften your beam to uselessness, as Tanol says. But live
wood will flex enough to make a good, strong, single-unit
hoopor if it doesn’t, Shar, the little rituals with numbers
that you’ve been teaching us don’t mean anything after alll”
Shar smiled. “You can easily make a mistake in using num-
bers,” he said.
“I checked everything.”
“I’m sure of it. And I think it’s well worth a trial. Anything
else to offer?”
“Well,” Stravol said, “I’ve got a kind of live ventilating sys-
tem I think should be useful. Otherwise, as I said, Than’s
ship strikes me as the type we should build; my own’s hope”
lessly cumbersome.”
“I have to agree,” Tanol said regretfully. “But I’d like to
try putting together a lighter-than-water ship sometime,
maybe just for local travel. If the new world is bigger than
ours, it might not be possible to swim everywhere you might
want to go.”
“That never occurred to me,” Lavon exclaimed. “Suppose
the new world is twice, three times, eight times as big as ours?