Furthermore, the gravitation could be raised or lowered at will, on all of the planetoid or on any small portion of it.

"Fine, fine," said Harvey, much pleased. Before the engineer took off Harvey promised him several large Plymouth Rocks before Thanksgiving, and as an afterthought took a numerological reading on his name. Then he instantly started in to work.

The house went up. Saws whined. Sheds went up. Hammers hammered. Lawns were laid, ground fertilized, worm-eggs installed. Some natural vegetation of a weird nature appeared, its seeds having been alive but frozen for a time measured in epochs. No doubt of it, the soil was alive. The fowl flourished in their fenced in yard, prone to no diseases, having no natural enemies, neither mice nor lice.

Harvey worked with three generations of chickens. He made his experiments with fluctuating gravity under the chicken house.

His employees were fascinated. Harvey explained. "I'm actually 50 years old," he said. "Don't tell my fiancee. She thinks I'm 40. But being out in space, virtually with no gravitational pull on my body for almost all of my life, my life expectancy has been pushed up to somewhere in the hundreds. I can pass for forty.

"Gravity," he said, "makes people grow old and probably hastens death. The muscles have to fight gravity, so do all the other organs. The muscles toughen, get stringy, the skin, the nerves, the arteries and the meat of the body get brittle and hard. This is what is known as 'old age.'

"Think what effect a lowered or fluctuating gravity could have on these beautiful gray white birds."

Harvey experimented a great deal as the weeks passed. He often adjusted the gravity lugs down to a point where they exerted just enough force to hold the atmosphere to the planet. The results were remarkable on the Plymouths.

The third generation of fowl were distinctly a fifth larger than their ancestors. The cocks, which normally should weigh 10 lbs., now weighed between 10 and 14. The hens in proportion kept a couple of pounds under this; they matured faster, they bred much more vigorously than any Plymouth Rock ever had. The eggs were consistently larger.

Harvey early decided against hatching incubators because the hens, untroubled by vermin or other influences such as bad weather which could make them neurotic, paid tranquil attention to their jobs. He did, however, have open electric brooders constantly 

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