'Would thirty percent over cost be reasonable?'

Francis shook his head. 'Might not come to much.'

'Well, I certainly won't haggle. Suppose we leave it up to you gentlemen - your pardon, Miss Cormet! - to decide what the service is worth. I think I can rely on your planetary and racial patriotism to make it reasonable and proper.'

Francis sat back, said nothing, but looked pleased.

'Wait a minute,' protested Clare. 'We haven't taken this job.'

'We have discussed the fee,' observed Beaumont.

Clare looked from Francis to Grace Cormet, then examined his fingernails. 'Give me twenty-four hours to find out whether or not it is possible,' he said finally, 'and I'll tell you whether or not we will walk your dog.'

'I feel sure,' answered Beaumont, 'that you will.' He gathered his cape about him.

'Okay, masterminds,' said Clare bitterly, 'you've bought it.'

'I've been wanting to get back to field work,' said Grace.

'Put a crew on everything but the gravity problem,' suggested Francis. 'It's the only catch. The rest is routine.'

'Certainly,' agreed Clare, 'but you had better deliver on that. If you can't, we are out some mighty expensive preparations that we will never be paid for. Who do you want? Grace?'

'I suppose so,' answered Francis. 'She can count up to ten.'

Grace Cormet looked at him coldly. 'There are times, Sance Francis, when I regret having married you.'

'Keep your domestic affairs out of the office,' warned Clare. 'Where do you start?'

'Let's find out who knows most about gravitation,' decided Francis. 'Grace, better get Doctor Krathwohl on the screen.'

'Right,' she acknowledged, as she stepped to the stereo controls. 'That's the beauty about this business. You don't have to know anything; you just have to know where to find out.'

Dr Krathwohl was a part of the permanent staff of General Services. He had no a.s.signed duties. The company found it worthwhile to support him in comfort while providing him with an unlimited drawing account for scientific journals and for attendance at the meetings which the learned hold from time to time. Dr Krathwohl lacked the single-minded drive of the research scientist; he was a dilettante by nature.

Occasionally they asked him a question. It paid.

'Oh, h.e.l.lo, my dear!' Doctor Krathwohl's gentle face smiled out at her from the screen. 'Look - I've just come across the most amusing fact in the latest issue of Nature. It throws a most interesting sidelight on Brownlee's theory of - 'Just a second, Doc,' she interrupted. 'I'm kinda in a hurry.' 'Yes, my dear?'

'Who knows the most about gravitation?'

'In what way do you mean that? Do you want an astrophysicist, or do you want to deal with the subject from a standpoint of theoretical mechanics? Farquarson would be the man in the first instance, I suppose.'

'I want to know what makes it tick.'

'Field theory, eh? In that case you don't want Farquarson. He is a descriptive ballistician, primarily. Dr Julian's work in that subject is authoritative, possibly definitive.'

'Where can we get hold of him?'

'Oh, but you can't. He died last year, poor fellow. A great loss.'

Grace refrained from telling him how great a loss and asked, 'Who stepped into his shoes?'

'Who what? Oh, you were jesting! I see. You want the name of the present top man in field theory. I would say O'Neil.'

'Where is he?'

'I'll have to find out. I know him slightly - a difficult man.'

'Do, please. In the meantime who could coach us a bit on what it's all about?'

'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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s - right? Earth-normal gravity being produced by the proximity of the Earth. Well, what would be the effect of placing a large ma.s.s 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 d.a.m.n big ma.s.s.'

'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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce-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?'