Starquake.pdf

Eighty turns later, Qui-Qui returned from her rejuvenation in her flyer, bringing the rejuvenation robot
and the enzyme machine with her. She glided to a landing near the Inner Eye Institute. No one seemed to
be around, so Qui-Qui got out to attach the flyer to the tie-bolts. She heard a slithering in the crust, and
her eyes saw a number of miniature pet Swifts approaching. She didn't recognize any of them. She had a
little bit of food in a carrying pouch and took it out. She formed some tendrils to pat the animals and
called them to her.
The pack of Swifts saw the food, and their slither turned into a charge. Their maws opened, and sharp
teeth snapped out into ripping position. Roaring with hunger, they rushed at Qui-
Qui. She threw the bit of food to one side to distract them, then made a dash for the flyer. The robot
watched impassively as she flowed rapidly aboard the flyer and slammed the magnetic shield shut, a
manipulator dripping juices where she had fended off one of the beasts.
Hurt and a little frightened, Qui-Qui became concerned. Something had happened while she was gone.
She raised the flyer, flew over the frustrated pack of Swifts, and moved slowly down the streets. The
plants that once had flourished on the grounds of the Inner Eye Institute looked untended. All the fruits
and pods had been stripped. She came to a compound in the middle of the Institute that looked sealed
off. The doors were shut and rocks were placed outside so that it was difficult even to get to the door to
open it. The sliding window panels were shut too, and bars were placed across many of the openings.
Along the top of the wall was a makeshift coil of wire. Tiny curlicues of light appeared in the middle of
the coils as stray nuclei from space spiraled to their death in the super-strong magnetic fields.
A sliding panel in a barred window moved aside slightly, and a single eye-ball peeked through. The
panel was thrust aside and Quick-Writer thrust half his eyestubs through the bars and waved frantically at
the rapidly moving flyer. Qui-Qui raised the flyer up over the walls and brought it down inside the closed
compound. She was greeted by eight of her former students. Three of them—Quick-Writer, the scribe;
Coulomb-Force, the electromagnetic engineer; and Newton-Einstein, the gravitational engineer—were
the older ones she had left in charge of the classes. Of the three dozen that had been in advanced classes
when she left, there were now only five.
"It was terrible," said Coulomb-Force. "Right after you left, Zero-Gauss flowed. Then things got worse."
"Actually," said Quick-Writer. "Things were fairly stable while we went through the ritual of butchering
Zero-Gauss and distributing her meat. Most of it went to the hatchlings, since she loved them so. After
the ritual distribution, however, things did get worse. Speckle-Top told me to turn off the communicator."
"Why?" Qui-Qui asked.
"She said we shouldn't be paying attention to voices from the sky," interrupted Coulomb-Force. "Then
she started to destroy the communicator, but I said she might get shocked and
I would do it for her. I just disconnected it from the power source. Later I got some parts from a store in
centertown and smashed them up, then hid the communicator."
"She also told the students that they didn't have to attend classes anymore," said Quick-Writer. "Most of
them cheered and went off to play games. A few came to me and asked if they could learn on their own.
There were eight. Three were killed in the fights."