Starquake.pdf

"You keep moving right in front of it, tempting it on," said Attila. He moved to one side and held still. The
attention of the Flow Slow shifted to the Taker. She moved away and the Flow Slow followed her. Attila
rushed the animal from the back side and caught the leading edge of a plate as it rose from the crust and
started to flow up to the top of the rolling animal.
The Taker alternately poked and hollered at the front of the Flow Slow. The huge plates appeared over
the top of the animal and looked as if they were falling directly down on her.
Suddenly it sounded as if the Flow Slow were calling her name.
"Crazy-Eyes," came the muffled voice. "Look up here!"
The Taker backed away to see Attila on top of the Flow Slow, his tread moving backward as the plates
of the Flow Slow moved ponderously forward.
"I haven't forgotten how to do it," Attila said proudly. He thumped the animal hard on the top and it
stopped moving, bewildered. He thumped it in another place, and it started flowing again.
"It's a stupid way to ride," he said as his tread started to move again to keep him on top of the animal.
"You don't get to rest your tread as you do riding a Swift. You have to walk as far as it does, only
backwards." He prodded the Flow Slow until it was moving as fast as it could go, then nimbly rippled
down the trailing edge onto the crust.
"Get some slaves and nail those superconducting plates to it. No magnetic barrier is going to stop me!"
"It is so slow; it will take a great of turns to get to the stranger's compound," Taker said.
"I see you have never moved an army," said Attila. "A few warriors on Swifts can move rapidly across
the crust; but an army of warriors moves with the speed of a Flow Slow and, like a Flow Slow, eats
everything in its path." He reached into a pouch and pulled out some dark red balls. He popped two into
his eating pouch then rolled the rest into the path of the approaching Flow Slow.
21:03:45 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050
"Say, everybody," said Abdul. "There's something funny going on down on Egg." He pushed an override
switch and the image showed up on all the screens.
"It looks like a column of driver ants," Cesar said.
"An apt analogy, Doctor Wong," said Seiko. "I have been monitoring the condensed news briefs from
the cheela. The landing base is expecting an attack by Attila. That must be his army."
"They'll be there in thirty seconds," said Pierre. "If only we could do something."
"The speckled cheela have pink eyes," said Seiko. "Remember how the Prophet Pink-Eyes was affected
by our laser?"