Mission of Gravity and Star Light by Hal Clement
"Mission of Gravity" and its sequel "Star Light," written by Hal Clement, revolve around the fictional planet Mesklin, located in the double-star system 61 Cygni. The stories feature the Mesklinites, small, intelligent creatures resembling fifteen-inch caterpillars with tough exoskeletons, who navigate their planet's extreme gravitational variations—ranging from three to seven hundred Earth gravities. The Mesklinites are portrayed as resourceful explorers, eager to acquire scientific knowledge and form a College of Mesklin between the two novels. In contrast, the human characters, while also on exploratory missions, often appear less shrewd and driven compared to their alien counterparts. The plots delve into themes of cooperation and competition for knowledge, as the Mesklinites cleverly manipulate their human visitors for educational gains. The sequel introduces Dhrawn, a planet that may be more star-like than planetary, adding layers to the exploration of survival in alien environments. A notable aspect of the narrative is the development of communication between species, culminating in humans learning the Mesklinite language, Stennish, despite the unique anatomical challenges posed by the Mesklinites' lack of lungs. Overall, the novels offer a rich blend of adventure, scientific inquiry, and cultural exchange between species.
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Mission of Gravity and Star Light
First published:Mission of Gravity (1954; serial form, Astounding Science-Fiction, April-July, 1953) and Star Light (1971; serial form, Analog, June-September, 1970)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—alien civilization
Time of work: The distant future
Locale: Within twenty light years of Earth in the direction of the constellation Cygnus
The Plot
Hal Clement creates, in Mission of Gravity, a fictional planet called Mesklin in the double-star system known to astronomers as 61 Cygni. In the sequel, he moves to the gigantic Dhrawn, a few light years away and still in the known universe. In both stories of adventure and exploration, two motivations drive the Mesklin-ite aliens, who are clearly more interesting characters to Clement than their human handlers and explorer counterparts. First, the tiny Mesklinites are hardy explorers and astronauts who want to carry on their explorations. In the time between the two novels, they establish a College of Mesklin. The Mesklinites are also shrewd bargainers who exploit their human visitors in order to acquire more scientific knowledge than the dominant humans seem to want to give. Conversely, even though they are on major missions, the humans seem less eager and shrewd than their tiny partners. The younger humans are more eager, and in the sequel, Clement makes good use of this trait, as he does in his fiction for young adults and juveniles.
Mesklinites resemble fifteen-inch caterpillars, though they have an immensely tough exoskeleton. They are the most intelligent of the many species on Mesklin, which has variable gravity ranging from three Earth gravities at the equator to nearly seven hundred Earth gravities at each pole. The environmental details of the planet, and of Dhrawn in the sequel, along with Clement’s ideas of what may cause such conditions, are as interesting as characterization and plot. A further conjecture by Clement concerns how planetary conditions affect the evolved life-forms—small, hard-shelled creatures evolve in high gravity. The entire mix is extremely detailed to fascinate readers interested in hard science. The human characters themselves, however, resemble science-fiction readers or scientists. Their main activity in both books is to discuss how to manage in the variable conditions of Mesklin and Dhrawn, as well as how to learn more about planetary conditions.
In the first novel, human astronauts accidentally land a research rocket at the South Pole of Mesklin and cannot retrieve it because of the immense gravity there. Charles Lackland has been on the surface at the equator for several Earth months and has taught the clever Mesklinite leader and ship captain, Barlennan, enough English to plan a rescue mission. The Mesklinites agree to undertake the difficult journey to the South Pole in their ship Bree. Near the novel’s conclusion, they hold the humans hostage until they are taught the principles of flight, which is an incredible accomplishment for their species.
In the sequel, Barlennan cleverly invents a fiction about possible alien life on Dhrawn, knowing that humans are always looking for new life-forms. He manipulates his human friends to supply him with details about spaceflight. In the sequel, the human handlers have become a little more interesting and various. The human life span is much shorter than that of Mesklinites, so Lackland has been replaced by a team in orbit that includes some eager juveniles.
By the end of the two adventure stories, the characters have learned a lot about Mesklin and Dhrawn, as well as about the competition for knowledge among species and about what can be learned cooperatively. In Star Light, they discover that Dhrawn, like Jupiter in the Milky Way, may be closer in nature to a star than to a planet. Furthermore, the explorers find out by necessity how to survive in alien conditions; Dhrawn is home for neither Mesklinites nor humans. A final fascination in the plot and in the environmental details, which in Clement’s work are closely tied, is that by the end of the sequel, humans have learned to communicate in the Mesklinite language, called Stennish. The wonder in that comes from the fact that Mesklinites have no lungs, so that sound is generated from a sort of siphon in their small bodies.