Part 8 (1/2)

”We cast the beams for the small landing grid, Mr. Bordman. We melted the metal out of the cliffs and ran it into molds as it flowed down.”

He stopped. One of the Indians said:

”We made the girders into the small landing grid. It bothered us because we built it on the sand that had buried the big grid. We didn't understand why you ordered it there. But we built it.”

The second dark man said with a trace of swagger:

”We made the coils, Mr. Bordman. We made the small grid so it would work the same as the big one when it was finished. And then we made the big grid work, finished or not!”

Bordman said impatiently:

”All right. Very good. But what is this? A ceremony?”

”Just so,” said Aletha, smiling. ”Be patient, Mr. Bordman!”

Her cousin said conversationally:

”We built the small grid on the top of the sand. And it tapped the ionosphere for power. No lack of power then! And we'd set it to heave up sand instead of s.h.i.+ps. Not to heave it out into s.p.a.ce, but to give it up to mile a second vertical velocity. Then we turned it on.”

”And we rode it down, that little grid,” said one of the remaining Indians, grinning. ”What a party! Manitou!”

Redfeather frowned at him and took up the narrative.

”It hurled the sand up from its center. As you said it would, the sand swept air with it. It made a whirlwind, bringing more sand from outside the grid into its field. It was a whirlwind with fifteen megakilowatts of power to drive it. Some of the sand went twenty miles high. Then it made a mushroom-head and the winds up yonder blew it to the west. It came down a long way off, Mr. Bordman. We've made a new dune-area ten miles downwind. And the little grid sank as the sand went away from around it. We had to stop it three times, because it leaned. We had to dig under parts of it to get it straight up again. But it went down into the valley.”

Bordman turned up the power to his heat-suit motors. He felt uncomfortably warm.

”In six days,” said Ralph, almost ceremonially, ”it had uncovered half the original grid we'd built. Then we were able to modify that to heave sand and to let it tap the ionosphere. We were able to use a good many times the power the little grid could apply to sand-lifting! In two days more the landing grid was clear. The valley bottom was clean. We s.h.i.+fted some hundreds of millions of tons of sand by landing grid, and now it is possible to land the _Warlock_, and receive her supplies, and the solar-power furnace is already turning out pigs for her loading. We wanted you to see what we have done. The colony is no longer in danger, and we shall have the grid completely finished for your inspection before the s.h.i.+p is ready to return.”

Bordman said uncomfortably:

”That's very good. It's excellent. I'll put it in my survey report.”