Starquake.pdf

nothing, tor the forces were gravitational. Eagle reached a third of the speed of light in two nanoseconds
and left the surface of Otis to find itself hovering motionless 100 meters up over the outskirts of Bright. It
started to fall.
"Divert one-twelfth flow in Tube Array 1 to Tube Array 2," said Otis-Elevator.
There was a pause, then the First Officer replied. "No response, Captain."
"Try it again." Eagle built up speed as it fell.
"I did, sir," First Officer Space-Treader responded. "The signals are being sent and received, but the
diverter valve is not responding. It must be stuck!"
"It's not stuck," interjected Cliff-Web. He transferred an image of the diverter valve from his engineer's
screen to that of the two officers. "Someone forgot to remove the safety pin. You can see the glow-tab at
the end." He flowed off the screen and headed for the inner railing that surrounded the hole in the torus.
"Use some of our accumulator energy to slow the flow in Tube Array 1," he said as he squeezed his
body beneath the railing. "We can't land using that, but it will slow our fall and give us more time."
"Where are you going?" Otis-Elevator asked. The reply was distant and muffled, for the vibrations set up
by Cliff-Web's tread had to make a circuitous path from the tubular engines of Eagle up to the command
deck.
"I'm going to pull that pin," said Cliff-Web.
Cliff-Web found Tube Array 2 and made his way along the gigantic bundle of pipes that wound in layers
around the toroidal body of Eagle. Fortunately, Eagle had enough self-gravity that he was in no danger of
falling. As he neared the central hole in the ring he could see the crust of Egg below him. The captain had
the pumps to Tube Array 1 on, but Eagle was still falling rapidly. Cliff-Web reached the juncture where
Tube Arrays 1 and 2 connected through the diverter valve. As he got near Tube Array 1 his tread started
to slip as the rushing ultra-dense dust inside the tube tried to drag him along in its inertial reference frame.
He clenched his tread tighter against the smooth surface of Tube Array 2 and carefully made his way to
the diverter valve. He pulled the pin and held it up to the video monitor.
"Divert flow!" he shouted, hoping that they could hear him over the long distance through the hull.
"I will wait!" roared the captain's amplified voice from the ship's general announcement system. "Hurry!"
Cliff-Web looked at the rapidly approaching crust. Somewhere down there were dozens and dozens of
bags of South Pole singleberry juice that he would never get to taste.
"Too late!" Cliff-Web shouted. "Divert flow!"
The diverter valve slammed. The ultra-velocity, ultra-dense dust switched from one Tube Array to the
other. The change in gravity potential created an ultra-strong repulsive gravity field that pushed Cliff-Web
from his perch near the diverter valve and threw him toward the crust below. There was a bright streak
of incandescent plasma, and he was gone.
Eagle's repulsor gravitational field reached out from the central hole in its hull and shoved against the