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their little moon that circled around the neutron star five times a second. The hull of Dragon Slayer did not<br />
spin while it orbited, however, but stayed oriented with respect to the distant stars. To the two humans<br />
standing on the hull, the white-hot neutron star seemed to be rotating around the equator of the ship five<br />
times a second, while above and below them whirled a ring of six red masses that passed over the two<br />
poles of the spherical ship while it rotated to always be tangent to the direction to the star. In this<br />
configuration, the gravity tides from the ring of masses cancelled the dangerous gravity tides from the star<br />
and allowed the humans to survive.<br />
"I'll give her a slight push while you pay out the safety line," Pierre said.<br />
He let go of Amalita's body, and the uncompensated tides started to pull her outwards. The further she<br />
got away from the ship and the closer she got to the massive bodies in the ring, the stronger the forces<br />
became. A sprinkling of white-hot sparks gathered off in the distance to observe.<br />
"She is getting heavy," said Cesar.<br />
"It looks stable," said Pierre. "Let her go."<br />
The last of the safety rope whipped through the tiedown and followed Amalita as she accelerated rapidly<br />
toward the ring 200 meters away. Just before she reached the ring her body was momentarily<br />
surrounded by a swirling cloud of white-hot specks. There was a flash, and she was gone.<br />
When Pierre and Cesar came inside, Jean and Seiko helped them out of their suits.<br />
"Unless somebody is going to use the console library, I think I'll get back to working on my book," said<br />
Pierre.<br />
"Which one?" Jean asked.<br />
"The popular version that covers everything that happened on the trip. I was going to call itDragon's<br />
Egg, but the editors at Ballantine Interplanetary said that they already had a title of that name in their<br />
inventory. Besides, they wanted something more personal, so they chose,My Visit With Our<br />
Nucleonic Friends.I think it's a dumb title, but they are the ones buying the book."<br />
"I don't think money is a consideration anymore," Seiko reminded him.<br />
"Hmm." Pierre glanced down at the star image table and noticed that there were a number of new<br />
features on the surface of the neutron star.<br />
"There have been some changes in the last hour," he said to Seiko.<br />
"Yes," she replied. "While you and Doctor Wong were outside, the cheela have reestablished a highly<br />
technological civilization on the ground and have resumed extensive space travel activities. They have<br />
rapidly caught up to where they were at the time of the starquake and are continuing on at a rapid pace."<br />
"I'd better get busy writing if I am going to stay up with them." Pierre reached down and pulled himself<br />
through the passageway hole in the deck. He stopped when he came to the main deck. Abdul was there.<br />
He had opened the metal shield on one of the equatorial viewports and was looking out through the tinted<br />
glass.
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