Starquake.pdf

As he flowed up over the crumbled blocks of rock, the Taker lagged behind.
"Come along, Crazy-Eyes," Attila ordered. "You are not letting the Old One tales get to you, are you?"
"I have heard there are death-traps in there," said the Taker.
"You heard correctly." Attila continued to follow the path of destruction into the interior. The Taker
came to an abrupt halt. "But the death-traps stopped working when I reached the power generator."
They finally came to the last broken wall. It opened into a large room. In the middle was a pile of metal
plates and old Flow Slow bones. Attila pushed the bones aside and picked up
a metal plate as big as a large shield. He gave it a tap and it rang loudly.
"Feels solid," he said. He placed it on the floor of the room and flowed onto it, pulling the edge of his
tread up until none of it touched the crust. He held the position for a moment.
"Did you hear my whisper?" he asked. The metal plate gave his tread an echoing sound.
"I didn't hear a thing," said the Taker.
"Good," said Attila. "It's still superconducting."
He started moving more bones and stacking up the plates.
"Get some slaves in here to gather up all these plates," he said. "You may have to persuade them a little
with a whip-sword." Just then Attila felt a sharp pain in his tread. He looked down to see the blade of a
pricker and a few crystallium eye-stub bones.
"Had to get one last cut, didn't you Qui-Qui," he said. His tread flicked, and the bones scattered across
the room.
"Who's Qui-Qui?" the Taker asked.
"Someone I knew long ago," said Attila.
As they exited the breach in the maze wall Attila said, "I remember ordering a zoo some time ago. I
wanted to see all the animals that lived on Egg. Where is it?"
"There has been a zoo in Bright Center since long before I was a hatchling," said the Taker.
"Take me there," said Attila, flowing up the tail of his riding-Swift.
At the zoo, Attila rode rapidly by the holding pens until they came to the Flow Slow pen. He dismounted
and slid through the narrow passage crack in the thick wall.
"They are dangerous, O Terrible One," warned a keeper.
"Quiet, slave!" Attila said as the Flow Slow started toward him. "Crazy-Eyes. Come here."
The Taker got down from her mount and, short-sword at the ready, entered the cage.