Starquake.pdf

"One," said Cliff-Web. "And an infinity more to go." He sucked on a chewy red ball from one of the new
food machines.
"It's going to be a long, dull job," Steel-Slicer said. "Forty generations of ferrying monopoles over the
same dull stretch of space between the factory and the deorbiter mass. The situation is ripe for boredom,
mistakes, and even mutiny. I want plenty of history in the creche-classes, lots of time off from the ferrying
job at entertainment centers, and the best and newest of the food machineson the ferry ships."
They watched the second ship dump its cargo of north monopoles.
"Let's go over to the refurbishment facilities at West Pole Space Station," said Cliff-Web. "I want to see
how they are coming on the conversion of the Abdul from an exploration ship to a cargo ship."
20:55:45 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050
It was many greats later when Steel-Slicer and Cliff-Web visited Otis again. Having recently undergone
his 34th rejuvenation, Steel-Slicer was now young looking, while Cliff-Web and the scoutship were old
and tired. The black hole at the center of the scout ship was now noticeably less massive, as its rest mass
had been used up to operate the inertial drives for the past 1300 greats. They watched as a cargo ship
unloaded the last of the north monopoles in the holding tank of a long electromagnetic gun. A stream of
high-speed monopoles shot from the tube and penetrated deep into the now solid crust of the deorbiter
mass. In the center, the monopoles were held by the strong gravity forces of the ten-meter-diameter ball
despite the magnetic repulsion from the rest of the monopoles in the ultra-dense core.
As the last of the stream spluttered out, a continuous combination of'trumming and dancing for joy rose
throughout the communications links. It grew in volume as the image of the last of the monopole stream
spread through the space around Egg at a slow crawl of the speed of light.
"We're done!" Cliff-Web's aged tread was trying to keep up with the victory'trumming of his engineers.
"That's one giant ripple for cheela-kind," said Steel-Slicer calmly, knowing that they still had much to do.
"We'll let it cool down for eight to twelve greats, then we can take the next tread-ripple on our long
journey home."
"My new class of gravitational engineers will be ready. Will you have a good gravity-well pilot to take us
down?" Cliff-Web asked. "Even though the surface gravity and escape velocity of Otis are only a small
fraction of that of Egg, it will be a tricky landing for someone used to flying around in space."
"My next class of pilots are already training on the ring masses around the human spacecraft Dragon
Slayer," said Steel-Slicer. "In about two greats they will transition to simulated landings 50 meters up
from Otis. You'll get the best one from that group, and he or she will be allowed to choose a new name.
Everyone in the class agrees that the name they want is 'Otis-Elevator.' "