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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49897 ***
+
+                         The Gravity Business
+
+                           By JAMES E. GUNN
+
+                         Illustrated by ASHMAN
+
+     [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy January
+     1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+     copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+     _This little alien beggar could dictate his own terms, but how
+     could he--and how could anyone find out what those terms might be?_
+
+
+The flivver descended vertically toward the green planet circling the
+old, orange sun.
+
+It was a spaceship, but not the kind men had once dreamed about. The
+flivver was shaped like a crude bullet, blunt at one end of a fat
+cylinder and tapering abruptly to a point at the other. It had been
+slapped together out of sheet metal and insulation board, and it sold,
+fully equipped, for $15,730. It didn't behave like a spaceship, either.
+
+As it hurtled down, its speed increased with dramatic swiftness. Then,
+at the last instant before impact, it stopped. Just like that.
+
+A moment later, it thumped a last few inches into the ankle-deep grass
+and knee-high white flowers of the meadow. It was a shock of a jar that
+made the sheet-metal walls boom like thunder machines. The flivver
+rocked unsteadily on its flat stern before it decided to stay upright.
+
+Then all was quiet--outside.
+
+Inside the big, central cabin, Grampa waved his pircuit irately in the
+air. "Now look what you made me do! Just when I had the blamed thing
+practically whipped, too!"
+
+Grampa was a white-haired 90-year-old who could still go a fast round
+or two with a man (or woman) half his age, but he had a habit of
+lapsing into tantrum when he got annoyed.
+
+"Now, Grampa," Fred soothed, but his face was concerned. Fred, once
+called Young Fred, was Grampa's only son. He was sixty and his hair had
+begun to gray at the temples. "That landing was pretty rough, Junior."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Junior was Fred's only son. Because he was thirty-five and capable
+of exercising adult judgment and because he had the youngest adult
+reflexes, he sat in the pilot's chair, the control stick between his
+knees, his thumb still over the Off-On button on top. "I know it,
+Fred," he said, frowning. "This world fooled me. It has a diameter
+less than that of Mercury and yet a gravitational pull as great as
+Earth."
+
+Grampa started to say something, but an 8-year-old boy looked up from
+the navigator's table beside the big computer and said, "Well, gosh,
+Junior, that's why we picked this planet. We fed all the orbital data
+into Abacus, and Abacus said that orbital perturbations indicated that
+the second planet was unusually heavy for its size. Then Fred said,
+'That looks like heavy metals', and you said, 'Maybe uranium--'"
+
+"That's enough, Four," Junior interrupted. "Never mind what I said."
+
+Those were the Peppergrass men, four generations of them, looking
+remarkably alike, although some vital element seemed to have dwindled
+until Four looked pale and thin-faced and wizened.
+
+"And, Four," Reba said automatically, "don't call your father 'Junior.'
+It sounds disrespectful."
+
+Reba was Four's mother and Junior's wife. On her own, she was a
+red-haired beauty with the loveliest figure this side of Antares. That
+Junior had won her was, to Grampa, the most hopeful thing he had ever
+noticed about the boy.
+
+"But everybody calls Junior 'Junior,'" Four complained. "Besides, Fred
+is Junior's father and Junior calls him 'Fred.'"
+
+"That's different," Reba said.
+
+Grampa was still waving his puzzle circuit indignantly. "See!" The
+pircuit was a flat box equipped with pushbuttons and thirteen slender
+openings in the top. One of the openings was lighted. "That landing
+made me push the wrong button and the dad-blasted thing beat me again."
+
+"Stop picking on Junior," Joyce said sharply. She was Junior's mother
+and Fred's wife, still slim and handsome as she approached sixty, but
+somehow ice water had replaced the warm blood in her veins. "I'm sure
+he did the best he could."
+
+"Anybody talks about gravitational pull," Grampa said, snorting,
+"deserves anything anybody could say about him. There's no such thing,
+Junior. You ought to know by now that gravitation is the effect of the
+curving of space-time around matter. Einstein proved that two hundred
+years ago."
+
+"Go back to your games, Grampa," Fred said impatiently. "We've got work
+to do."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grampa knitted his bushy, white eyebrows and petulantly pushed the last
+button on his pircuit. The last light went out. "You've got work to
+do, have you? Whose flivver do you think this is, anyhow?"
+
+"It belongs to all of us," Four said shrilly. "You gave us all a sixth
+share."
+
+"That's right, Four," Grampa muttered, "so I did. But whose money
+bought it?"
+
+"You bought it, Grampa," Fred said.
+
+"That's right! And who invented the gravity polarizer and the space
+flivver? Eh? Who made possible this gallivanting all over space?"
+
+"You, Grampa," Fred said.
+
+"You bet! And who made one hundred million dollars out of it that the
+rest of you vultures are just hanging around to gobble up when I die?"
+
+"And who spent it all trying to invent perpetual motion machines and
+longevity pills," Joyce said bitterly, "and fixed it so we'd have to
+go searching for uranium and habitable worlds all through this deadly
+galaxy? You, Grampa!"
+
+"Well, now," Grampa protested, "I got a little put away yet. You'll be
+sorry when I'm dead and gone."
+
+"You're never going to die, Grampa," Joyce said harshly. "Just
+before we left, you bought a hundred-year contract with that
+Life-Begins-At-Ninety longevity company."
+
+"Well, now," said Grampa, blinking, "how'd you find out about that?
+Well, now!" In confusion, he turned back to the pircuit and jabbed a
+button. Thirteen slim lights sprang on. "I'll get you this time!"
+
+Four stretched and stood up. He looked curiously into the corner by the
+computer where Grampa's chair stood. "You brought that pircuit from
+Earth, didn't you? What's the game?"
+
+Grampa looked up, obviously relieved to drop his act of intense
+concentration. "I'll tell you, boy. You play against the pircuit,
+taking turns, and you can put out one, two or three lights. The player
+who makes the other one turn out the last light is the winner."
+
+"That's simple," Four said without hesitation. "The winning strategy is
+to--"
+
+"Don't be a kibitzer!" Grampa snapped. "When I need help, I'll ask
+for it. No dad-blamed machine is gonna outthink Grampa!" He snorted
+indignantly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four shrugged his narrow shoulders and wandered to the view screen.
+Within it was the green horizon, curving noticeably. Four angled the
+picture in toward the ship, sweeping through green, peaceful woodland
+and plain and blue lake until he stared down into the meadow at the
+flivver's stern.
+
+"Look!" he said suddenly. "This planet not only has flora--it has
+fauna." He rushed to the air lock.
+
+"Four!" Reba called out warningly.
+
+"It's all right, Reba," Four assured her. "The air is within one per
+cent of Earth-normal and the bio-analyzer can find no micro-organisms
+viable within the Terran spectrum."
+
+"What about macro-organisms--" Reba began, but the boy was gone
+already. Reba's face was troubled. "That boy!" she said to Junior.
+"Sometimes I think we've made a terrible mistake with him. He should
+have friends, play-mates. He's more like a little old man than a boy."
+
+But Junior nodded meaningfully at Fred and disappeared into the chart
+room. Fred followed casually. Then, as the door slid shut behind him,
+he asked impatiently. "Well, what's all the mystery?"
+
+"No use bothering the others yet," Junior said, his face puzzled. "You
+see, I didn't let the flivver drop those last few inches. The polarizer
+quit."
+
+"Quit!"
+
+"That's not the worst. I tried to take it up again. The flivver--it
+won't budge!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The thing was a featureless blob, a two-foot sphere of raspberry
+gelatin, but it was alive. It rocked back and forth in front of Four.
+It opened a raspberry-color pseudo-mouth and said plaintively, "Fweep?
+Fweep?"
+
+Joyce drew her chair farther back toward the wall, revulsion on her
+face. "Four! Get that nasty thing out of here!"
+
+"You mean Fweep?" Four asked in astonishment.
+
+"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 Niccolò 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.
+
+Grampa looked up from his pircuit and said, "If I were you, Junior, I
+would take a good look at the TV repairman when we get back to Earth.
+_If_ we get back to Earth," he amended. "You can't be Four's father.
+All over the Universe, gravity is the same, and if it's gravity, the
+polarizer will polarize it."
+
+"That's just supposition," Junior said stubbornly. "The fact is, it
+isn't because it doesn't. Q.E.D."
+
+"Maybe the polarizer is broken," Fred suggested.
+
+Grampa snorted. "Broken-shmoken. Nothing to break, Young Fred. Just a
+few coils of copper wire and they're all right. We checked. We know
+the power plant is working: the lights are on, the air and water
+recirculation systems are going, the food resynthesizer is okay. And,
+anyway, the polarizer could work from the storage battery if it had to."
+
+"Then it goes deeper," Junior insisted. "It goes right to the principle
+of polarization itself. For some reason, it doesn't work here. Why?
+Before we can discover the answer to that, we'll have to know more
+about polarization itself. How does it work, Grampa?"
+
+Grampa gave him a sarcastic grin. "Now you're curious, eh? Couldn't
+be bothered with Grampa's invention before. Oh, no! Too busy. Accept
+without question the blessings that the Good Lord provideth--"
+
+"Let's not get up on any pulpits," Fred growled. "Come on, Grampa,
+what's the theory behind polarization?"
+
+Grampa looked at the four faces staring at him hopefully and the
+jeering grin turned to a smile. "Well," he said, "at last. You know
+how light is polarized, eh?" The smile faded. "No, I guess you don't."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He cleared his throat professorially. "Well, now, in ordinary light
+the vibrations are perpendicular to the ray in all directions. When
+light is polarized by passing through crystals or by reflection or
+refraction at non-metallic surfaces, the paths of the vibrations are
+still perpendicular to the ray, but they're in straight lines, circles
+or ellipses."
+
+The faces were still blank and unillumined.
+
+"Gravity is similar to light," he pressed on. "In the absence of
+matter, gravity is non-polarized. Matter polarizes gravity in a circle
+around itself. That's how we've always known it until the invention of
+spaceships and later the polarizer. The polarizer polarizes gravity
+into a straight line. That makes the ship take off and continue
+accelerating until the polarizer is shut off or its angle is shifted."
+
+The faces looked at him silently. Finally Joyce could endure it no
+longer. "That's just nonsense! You all know it. Grampa's no genius.
+He's just a tinkerer. One day he happened to tinker out the polarizer.
+He doesn't know how it works any more than I do."
+
+"Now wait a minute!" Grampa protested. "That's not fair. Maybe
+I didn't figure out the theory myself, but I read everything the
+scientists ever wrote about it. Wanted to know myself what made the
+blamed thing work. What I told you is what the scientists said, near
+as I remember. Now me--I'm like Edison. I do it and let everybody else
+worry over 'why.'"
+
+"The only thing you ever did was the polarizer," Joyce snapped.
+"And then you spent everything you got from it on those fool
+perpetual-motion machines and those crazy longevity schemes when any
+moron would know they were impossible."
+
+Grampa squinted at her sagely. "That's what they said about the gravity
+polarizer before I invented it."
+
+"But you don't really know why it works," Junior persisted.
+
+"Well, no," Grampa admitted. "Actually I was just fiddling around with
+some coils when one of them took off. Went right through the ceiling,
+dragging a battery behind it. I guess it's still going. Ought to be out
+near the Horsehead Nebula by now. Luckily, I remembered how I'd wound
+it."
+
+"Why won't the ship work then, if you know so much?" Joyce demanded
+ironically.
+
+"Well, now," Grampa said in bafflement, "it rightly should, you know."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We're stuck," Reba said softly. "We might as well admit it. All we can
+do is set the transmitter to send out an automatic distress call--"
+
+"Which," Joyce interrupted, "might get picked up in a few centuries."
+
+"And make the best of what we've got," Reba went on, unheeding. "If we
+look at it the right way, it's quite a lot. A beautiful, fertile world.
+Earth gravity. The flivver--even if the polarizer won't work, there's
+the resynthesizer; it will keep us in food and clothes for years. By
+then, we should have a good-sized community built up, because out here
+we won't have to stop with one child. We can have all the babies we
+want."
+
+"You know the law: one child per couple," Joyce reminded her frigidly.
+"You can condemn yourself to exile from civilization if you wish. Not
+me."
+
+Junior frowned at his wife. "I believe you're actually glad it
+happened."
+
+"I could think of worse things," Reba said.
+
+"I like your spunk, Reb," Grampa muttered.
+
+"Speaking of children," Junior said, "where's Four?"
+
+"Here." Four came through the airlock and trudged across the room,
+carrying a curious contraption made of tripod legs supporting a
+small box from which dangled a plumb bob. Behind Four, like a round,
+raspberry shadow, rolled Fweep.
+
+"Fweep?" it queried hopefully.
+
+"Not now," said Four.
+
+"Where've you been?" Reba asked anxiously. "What've you been doing?"
+
+"I've been all over Fweepland," Four said wearily, "trying to locate
+its center of gravity."
+
+"Well?" Fred prompted.
+
+"It shifts."
+
+"That's impossible," said Junior.
+
+"Not for Fweep," Four replied.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" Joyce suspiciously asked.
+
+"It shifted," Four explained patiently, "because Fweep kept following
+me."
+
+"Fweep?" Junior repeated stupidly.
+
+"Fweep?" Fweep said eagerly.
+
+"He's why the flivver won't work. What Grampa invented was a linear
+polarizer. Fweep is a circular polarizer. He's what makes this planet
+so heavy. He's why we can't leave."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The land of the Fweep rotated once on its axis, and Grampa lowered
+the nippled bottle from his lips. He sighed. "I got it figured out,
+Four," he said, holding out the pircuit proudly. "A missionary takes
+over a non-rowing type cannibal, leaves him there, and then the rowing
+cannibal takes over the other cannibal and leaves him there and--"
+
+"Not now, Grampa," Four said inattentively as he watched Fweep making
+the grand tour of the cabin.
+
+The raspberry sphere swept over a scattering of crumbs, engulfed them,
+absorbed them. Four looked at Joyce. Joyce was watching Fweep, too.
+
+"Rat poison?" Four asked.
+
+Joyce started guiltily. "How did you know?"
+
+"There's no use trying to poison Fweep," Four said calmly. "He's got no
+enzymes to act on, no nervous system to paralyze. He doesn't even use
+what he 'eats' on a molecular level at all."
+
+"What level does he use?" Junior wanted to know.
+
+"Point the scintillation counter at him."
+
+Junior dug one of the counters out of the supply cabinet and aimed the
+pickup at Fweep. The counter began to hum. As Fweep approached, the hum
+rose in pitch. As it passed, the hum dropped.
+
+Junior looked at the counter's dial. "He's radioactive, all right. Not
+much, but enough. But where does he get the radioactive material?"
+
+"He uses ordinary matter," Four said. "He must have used up the few
+deposits of natural radioactives a long time ago."
+
+"He uses ordinary substances on an atomic level?" Junior said
+unbelievingly.
+
+Four nodded. "And that 'skin' of his--whatever it is he uses for
+skin--is more efficient in stopping particle emissions than several
+feet of lead."
+
+Fred studied Fweep thoughtfully. "Maybe we could feed him enough
+enriched uranium from the pile to put him over the critical mass."
+
+"And blow him up? I don't think it's possible, but even if it were, it
+might be a trifle more than disastrous for us." Four giggled at the
+thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Joyce glared at him furiously. "Four! Act your age! We've got to do
+something with him. It's preposterous that we should be detained here
+at the whim of a mere blob!"
+
+"I don't figure it's a whim," Grampa said. "Circular gravity is what
+he's got to have for one reason or another, so he just naturally bends
+the space-time continuum around him--conscious or subconscious, I don't
+know. But protoplasm is always more efficient than machines, so the
+flivver won't move."
+
+"I don't care why that thing does it," Joyce said icily. "I want it
+stopped, and the sooner the better. If it won't turn the gravity off,
+we'll just have to do away with it."
+
+"How?" asked Four. "Fweep's skin is pretty close to impervious and
+you can't shoot him, stab him or poison him. He doesn't breathe, so
+you can't drown or strangle him. You can't imprison him; he 'eats'
+everything. And violence might be more dangerous to us than to him.
+Right now, Fweep is friendly, but suppose he got mad! He could lower
+his radioactive shield or he might increase the gravity by a few times.
+Either way, you'd feel rather uncomfortable, Grammy."
+
+"Don't call me 'Grammy!' Well, what are we going to do, just sit around
+and wait for that thing to die?"
+
+"We'd have a long wait," Four observed. "Fweep is the only one of his
+kind on this planet."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Probably he's immortal."
+
+"And he doesn't reproduce?" Reba asked sympathetically.
+
+"Probably not. If he doesn't die, there's no point in reproduction.
+Reproduction is nature's way of providing racial immortality to mortal
+creatures."
+
+"But he must have some way of reproduction," Reba argued. "An egg or
+something. He couldn't just have sprung into being as he is now."
+
+"Maybe he developed," Four offered. "It seems to me that he's bigger
+than when we first landed." "He must have been here a long, long time,"
+Fred said. "Fweepland, as Four calls it, kept its atmosphere and its
+water, which a planet this size ordinarily would have lost by now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reba looked at Fweep kindly. "We can thank the little fellow for that,
+anyway."
+
+"I thank him for nothing," Joyce snapped. "He lured us down here by
+making us think the planet had heavy metals and I want him to let us go
+_immediately_!"
+
+Fred turned impatiently on his wife. "Well, try making him understand!
+And if you can make him understand what you want him to do, try making
+him do it!"
+
+Joyce looked at Fred with startled eyes. "Fred!" she said in a high,
+shocked voice and turned blindly toward her room.
+
+Grampa lowered his bottle and smacked his lips. "Well, boy," he said to
+Fred, "I thought you'd never do that. Didn't think you had it in you."
+
+Fred stood up apologetically. "I'd better go calm her down," he
+muttered, and walked quickly after Joyce.
+
+"Give her one for me!" Grampa called.
+
+Fred's shoulders twitched as the door closed behind him. From the room
+came the filtered sound of high-pitched voices rising and falling like
+some reedy folk music.
+
+"Makes you think, doesn't it?" Grampa said, looking at Fweep benignly.
+"Maybe the whole theory of gravitation is cockeyed. Maybe there's a
+Fweep for every planet and sun, big and little, polarizing the gravity
+in circles, and the matter business is not a cause but a result."
+
+"What I can't understand," Junior said thoughtfully, "is why the
+polarizer worked for a little while when we landed--long enough to keep
+us from being squashed--and then quit."
+
+"Fweep didn't recognize it immediately, didn't know what it was or
+where it came from," Four explained. "All he knew was he didn't like
+linear polarization and he neutralized it as soon as he could. That's
+when we dropped."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Linear polarization is uncomfortable for him, is it?" Grampa said.
+"Makes you wonder how something like Fweep could ever develop."
+
+"He's no more improbable than people," said Four.
+
+"Less than some I've known," Grampa conceded.
+
+"If he can eat anything," Reba said, "why does he keep sweeping the
+cabin for dust and lint?"
+
+"He wants to be helpful," Four replied without hesitation, "and he's
+lonely. After all," he added wistfully, "he's never had any friends."
+
+"How do you know all these things?" Joyce asked from her doorway,
+excitement in her voice. "Can you talk to it?"
+
+Behind her, Fred said, "Now, Joyce, you promised--"
+
+"But this is important," Joyce cut him off eagerly. "Can you? Talk to
+it, I mean?"
+
+"Some," Four admitted.
+
+"Have you asked it to let us go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well? What did it say?"
+
+"He said he didn't want his friend to leave him."
+
+At the word, Fweep rolled swiftly across the floor and bounced into
+Four's lap. It nestled against him lovingly and opened raspberry lips.
+"Fwiend," it said.
+
+"Well, now," Grampa said maliciously, his eye on Joyce, "that's no
+problem. We can just leave Four here with Fweep."
+
+In a voice filled with sanctimonious concern, Joyce said, "That's quite
+a sacrifice to ask, but--"
+
+"Joyce!" Reba cried, horrified. "Grampa was joking, but you actually
+mean it. Four is only a baby and yet you'd let him--"
+
+"Never mind, Reba," Four said evenly. "It was just what I was going to
+suggest myself. It's the one really logical solution."
+
+"Fwiend," said Fweep gently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The land of the Fweep turned like a fat old man toasting himself in
+front of an open fire, and Junior sat at the computer's keyboard
+swearing in a steady monotone.
+
+"Junior!" said Joyce, shocked.
+
+Junior swung around impatiently. "Sorry, Mother, but this damned thing
+won't work."
+
+"I'm sure that calling it names won't help, and besides, you shouldn't
+expect a machine to do something that we can't do. And if it did work,
+it would only say that the logical answer is the one I sug--"
+
+"Mother!" Junior warned. "We decided not to talk about it any more.
+Four is strange enough without encouraging him to think like a martyr.
+It's out of the question. If that's the only way we can leave this
+planet, we'll stay here until Four has a beard as white as Grampa's!"
+
+"Well!" Joyce said in a stiff, offended tone and sat back in her chair.
+
+Grampa lowered the nippled bottle from his lips and chortled. "Junior,
+I apologize for all the mean things I ever said about you. Maybe you
+got the makings of a Peppergrass yet."
+
+Junior turned back to the keyboard and studied it, his chin in his
+hand. "It's just a matter of stating the problem in terms the computer
+can work on."
+
+"I take it all back," said Grampa. "That computer won't help you with
+this problem, Junior. This ain't a long, complicated calculation; it's
+a simple problem in logic. It's a pircuit problem, like the one about
+the cannibals and the missionaries. We can't leave Fweepland because
+Fweep won't let our polarizer work. He won't let our polarizer work
+because he doesn't like gravity that's polarized in a straight line,
+and he don't want Four to leave him.
+
+"Now Fweep ain't the brightest creature in the Universe, so he can't
+understand why we're so gosh-fired eager to leave. And as long as he's
+got Four, he's happy. Why should he make himself unhappy? As a favor
+to Four, he'd let us leave--if we'd leave Four here with him, which we
+ain't gonna do.
+
+"That's the problem. All we got to do is figure out the answer. No use
+making a pircuit, because a puzzle circuit is just a miniature computer
+with the solution built in; if you can build the pircuit, you've
+already solved the problem. And if you can state the problem to Abacus,
+you've already got the answer. All you want from it then is decimal
+points."
+
+"That may be," Junior said stubbornly, "but I still want to know why
+this computer won't work. It won't even do simple arithmetic! Where's
+Four? He's the only one who understands this thing."
+
+"He's outside, playing in the meadow with Fweep," Reba said, her voice
+soft. "No, here they come now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the airlock came Four, carrying Fweep on his shoulder like
+a raspberry cat without head or tail. Four's thin face glowed with
+exertion and glistened with sweat. Already the orange sun had begun to
+paint his skin tan.
+
+"We've been playing dodge ball," Four panted. "Fweep was the ball and I
+had to dodge him."
+
+"There's something wrong with this computer," Junior complained. "Take
+a look at it."
+
+"Sure, Daddy," Four said promptly, and he took his father's place at
+the keyboard. After a few moments, he began to frown, then detached
+a front panel. He started sorting through the maze of wires and
+electronic components.
+
+Grampa watched him with a wary eye.
+
+Joyce was unable to restrain herself any longer. "The way you people
+talk, a person would think we were never going to leave this
+godforsaken, miserable, uncivilized planet."
+
+"That seems to be the general idea," Grampa chuckled, enjoying her
+dismay.
+
+"Unless we can build a reaction rocket ship to push us out of Fweep's
+range," Fred said glumly.
+
+"We've got the iron ore!" Junior put in eagerly.
+
+Grampa snorted. "Come on, use your brains. You'd have to build a ship;
+these flivvers weren't built for the stresses of reaction flight.
+By the time you've solved all the problems of motors and alloys and
+rocket-tube linings, fuel, ship construction, personnel protection,
+and all the rest of it, this planet would be another Detroit and your
+great-great-great-grandchildren would be living in it. You couldn't
+build a blast furnace even if you had the complete Congressional
+microfilm library! You'd do better trying to figure out how Fweep does
+what he does and doing some practicing on that."
+
+"Well," Junior said peevishly, "trying to get away is better than
+sitting here talking about it."
+
+Reba stared thoughtfully at Junior and said, "Maybe Fweep would go with
+us."
+
+"Yes!" Joyce said excitedly. "Maybe the dear little thing _would_ go
+with us. That would solve everything!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Without looking around, Four said, "I asked him already. Fweep's afraid
+to come along."
+
+"I'm sure we would be very good to him," Joyce said swiftly. "I've
+always liked pets. Why, I once had a goldfish of my very own!"
+
+"Which you let die," Fred said dryly, "because you forgot to feed it."
+
+"Oh, he's not afraid of _people_," Four told them. "He's afraid of
+space and unpolarized gravity and things like that. He's lived here all
+his life--that's a long time--and it makes him feel awful funny just to
+think about leaving. He says he can still remember the way our linear
+gravitation felt inside when we landed."
+
+"Well," Joyce said firmly, "he'll just have to fight it, that's all.
+If a person let that kind of neurotic impulse rule his life, he'd be
+completely demoralized in no time."
+
+Four glanced over his shoulder at Joyce, as if to see if she were
+joking. Shaking his head, he returned to the computer's innards. A
+moment later, he swung around and stared accusingly at Grampa. "You've
+cannibalized Abacus!"
+
+"Well, now," Grampa protested, licking his lips nervously. "You see,
+I--"
+
+"That's where you got the parts for the pircuits!" Four said with
+merciless logic.
+
+Joyce stood up virtuously and shook her finger at Grampa. "First you
+entice us out here in this nasty old flivver; then you get us stuck;
+and now you've ruined the computer for your nasty old games!"
+
+"Well, now," Grampa blustered, "the goldarn thing wouldn't work, would
+it? We didn't need it--not with Four around. He figures everything out
+in his head and we just used Abacus to sort of check him. Ain't that
+right now?"
+
+Five pairs of eyes stared at him in silence.
+
+"Well, now," Grampa said defensively, "I got it all worked out anyhow.
+We can leave here any time we get ready."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The land of the Fweep turned and grew small in the view screen, and
+Junior sat in the pilot's chair, his hand on the control stick, his
+eyes fixed on the moving dials in front of him.
+
+There were three others in the room: Reba, who looked at the dwindling
+Fweepland and sighed; Joyce, who sat tautly in her chair, her face
+fixed and unbelieving; and Fred, who looked at Joyce and shook his head.
+
+Grampa opened the door to his room and stepped cockily into the central
+cabin, shutting the door behind him. "Well?" he demanded confidently.
+"Are we heading for Earth?"
+
+Junior gestured toward the screen. "If Four's coordinates are right."
+
+"Speaking of coordinates," Grampa said briskly, "make sure we got the
+coordinates of Fweepland. It'll take a long time for that atmosphere to
+dissipate. A nice little world like that is worth its weight in uranium
+to a good real estate salesman."
+
+"How did you do it?" Joyce challenged.
+
+Grampa slapped her familiarly on the shoulder. "A problem of gravity,"
+he said gayly, "but a simple one. Nothing for an old pircuit man like
+me. I guess you folks won't laugh at Grampa and his pircuits any more.
+Not only did Grampa get you out of Fweepland, but he's taking you back
+with a valuable little subdivision in the third quadrant to file on."
+
+"I hate to spoil the party," Fred said, "but have you thought about
+what you're going to do with Fweep?"
+
+"Fweep?" Grampa repeated, puzzled. "Why should I do anything with
+Fweep?"
+
+"We can't take him back to Earth with us."
+
+"Why not?" Grampa demanded.
+
+"In the first place, the Immigration Authority would have to pass on
+him. That might take years, with Fweep's powers and abilities. More
+important, if Fweep got loose on Earth, every flivver would have the
+same problem there that we had here. And next time Fweep might not be
+so cooperative. I don't know what you did to Fweep in there, but if
+he's still alive, the I.A. isn't going to take a chance."
+
+Grampa considered the prospect without dismay. "I wonder if we could
+smuggle him in. With all those flivvers not working, they'd have to pay
+us before they could take off."
+
+"Grampa!" Fred said sternly. "That would be blackmail--or worse.
+Besides getting in trouble with the I.A., you'd get it from the W.B.I.
+and the I.C.C."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grampa waved his hand impatiently. "We'll solve that problem when we
+come to it. After all, an old pircuit man like me--"
+
+"What _did_ you _do_ to Fweep?" Joyce repeated insistently.
+
+Grampa cleared his throat with pride. "Well, now, I'll tell you. I
+just happened to notice that Fweep liked my tonic. Every time I took a
+little nip, the little beast was around my chair, trying to clean my
+hand for me."
+
+"Tonic!" Joyce sniffed. "Liquor, you mean!"
+
+"Now that's not right," Grampa objected. "I said tonic and I mean
+tonic. Got a little alcohol in it for a preservative, maybe, but the
+important part is the minerals. That's the Longevity Institute's
+secret. It's what keeps me young. Want a little nip?" He leered at
+Joyce.
+
+"You mean you got Fweep drunk?" Fred exclaimed.
+
+"Well, now, that was the _effect_, but I can't swear it was the
+alcohol. Not unless Fweep can use the stuff on the molecular level if
+he wants. On the other hand, maybe it was the minerals in there that
+affected him. Little world like Fweepland, maybe it lacked a few
+things when it was made. But the way I looked at it, it stood to reason
+the little fellow could use a drink. Alone all these centuries, he
+must've got pretty dry. But whatever it was, he sure got high. Lost all
+control."
+
+"Poor Fweep," Reba murmured.
+
+"Poor nothing," Grampa said. "He was the happiest little critter I ever
+saw. When Four explained to him just what we wanted, he went right to
+work on that bottle and--"
+
+Gramp's door swung open once more. "Grampa! Grampa!" Four shouted.
+"Fweep! He--I mean--well, we've been calling him by the wrong pronoun.
+Look!"
+
+Four came running out of the room. Behind him rolled a tiny raspberry
+sphere about the size of a marble. Occasionally it hopped in the air
+and said, "Fweep?" in a small, high voice.
+
+Behind it rolled and hopped a second raspberry marble. "Fweep?" it
+said. Behind it came another and another until the cabin was full of
+them, rolling, bouncing, calling "Fweep?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dazedly, Junior counted them. "One hundred and one, one hundred and
+two, one hundred and--"
+
+"Oh, Junior," Reba said, hugging him excitedly. "Aren't they cute?"
+
+"What happened?" Grampa asked, as dazed as Junior.
+
+"Maybe it was the tonic," Four said, "but I suspect it was the the
+unpolarized gravity. All of a sudden, Fweep started splitting like an
+amoeba, over and over. Do you suppose that was what made him nervous?"
+
+"That's the way the little fellow reproduces, all right," said Grampa.
+"I wonder if he has to wait until a race becomes civilized enough to
+discover the polarizer, eh?"
+
+"Ugh!" gasped Joyce, brushing a Fweep out of her lap.
+
+Grampa looked at the cabin and its occupants happily.
+
+"I'd like to remind you," Fred said gravely, "that this multiplies our
+problem of what to do with Fweep over one hundred times."
+
+"What problem?" asked Grampa. "The only problem we got is how we're
+gonna spend the cash. We're in business--the gravity business. We'll
+call it Gravity, Incorporated, and we can reclaim every little hunk of
+rock in the Solar System. Each one of those little fellows is worth
+a fortune! We'll give the satellites and the asteroids Earth-normal
+gravities and atmospheres and, by golly, we're rich!"
+
+"Rich?" Joyce echoed. A smile slowly replaced the expression of
+distaste. She snapped her fingers. "Here, Fweepie," she said in her
+most enticing tone. "Here, little darlings! Come to dear Joyce!"
+
+But they had all hopped to Four and were clustered around him like a
+raspberry bubble bath. Through them, his face peered, thin and happy.
+
+Grampa looked at Reba. She was hugging Junior happily and smiling at
+Four. Grampa looked back at the boy.
+
+"We'll have to be exclusive, though," Grampa said. "Considering the
+Fweeps' likes and dislikes, that is. We'll sell only to people with
+children."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gravity Business, by James E. Gunn
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49897 ***