`Why don’t you try young Carson, in our engineering department? He was interested in such things before he took a job with us. Intelligent chap – I’ve had many an interesting talk with him.’
`I’ll do that. Thanks, Doc. Call the Chief’s office as soon as you have located O’Neil. Speed.’ She cut off.
Carson agreed with Krathwohl’s opinion, but looked dubious. `O’Neil is arrogant and non-cooperative. I’ve worked under him. But he undoubtedly knows more about field theory and space structure than any other living man.’
Carson had been taken into the inner circle, the problem explained to him. He had admitted that he saw no solution. `Maybe we are making something hard out of this,’ Clare suggested. `I’ve got some ideas. Check me if I’m wrong, Carson.’
`Go ahead, Chief.’
`Well, the acceleration of gravity is produced by the proximity of a mass – right? Earth-normal gravity being produced by the proximity of the Earth. Well, what would be the effect of placing a large mass just over a particular point on the Earth’s surface. Would not that serve to counteract the pull of the Earth?’
`Theoretically, yes. But it would have to be a damn big mass.’
`No matter.’
`You don’t understand, Chief. To offset fully the pull of the Earth at a given point would require another planet the size of the Earth in contact with the Earth at that point. Of course since you don’t want to cancel the pull completely, but simply to reduce it, you gain a certain advantage through using a smaller mass which would have its center of gravity closer to the point in question than would be the center of gravity of the Earth. Not enough, though. While the attraction builds up inversely as the square of the distance – in this case the half-diameter – the mass and the consequent attraction drops off directly as the cube of the diameter.’
`What does that give us?’
Carson produced a slide rule and figured for a few moments. He looked up. `I’m almost afraid to answer. You would need a good-sized asteroid, of lead, to get anywhere at all.’
`Asteroids have been moved before this.’
`Yes, but what is to hold it up? No, Chief, there is no conceivable source of power, or means of applying it, that would enable you to hang a big planetoid over a particular spot on the Earth’s surface and keep it there.’
`Well, it was a good idea while it lasted,’ Clare said pensively. Grace’s smooth brow had been wrinkled as she followed the discussion. Now she put in, `I gathered that you could use an extremely heavy small mass more effectively. I seem to have read somewhere about some stuff that weighs tons per cubic inch.’
`The core of dwarf stars,’ agreed Carson. `All we would need for that would be a ship capable of going light-years in a few days, some way to mine the interior of a star, and a new space-time theory.’
`Oh, well, skip it.’
`Wait a minute,’ Francis observed. `Magnetism is a lot like gravity, isn’t it?’
`Well – yes.’
`Could there be some way to maqnetize these gazebos from the little planets? Maybe something odd about their body chemistry?’
`Nice idea,’ agreed Carson, `but while their internal economy is odd, it’s not that odd. They are still organic.’
`I suppose not. If pigs had wings they’d be pigeons.’
The stereo annunciator blinked. Doctor Krathwohl announced that O’Neil could be found at his summer home in Portage, Wisconsin. He had not screened him and would prefer not to do so, unless the Chief insisted.
Clare thanked him and turned back to the others. `We are wasting time,’ he announced. `After years in this business we should know better than to try to decide technical questions. I’m not a physicist and I don’t give a damn how gravitation works. That’s O’Neil’s business. And Carson’s. Carson, shoot up to Wisconsin and get O’Neil on the job.’
`Me?’
`You. You’re an operator for this job – with pay to match. Bounce over to the port – there will be a rocket and a credit facsimile waiting for you. You ought to be able to raise ground in seven or eight minutes.’