Starquake.pdf

"I have advanced degrees in Humanology, Human Medicine, Expanded Matter Science, Inertial and
Gravitational Engineering, and Science Administration. I was also Leader of the Fourth Segment in the
Legislature of the Combined Clans."
"Successes?"
"Not many, I'm afraid," Lovely-Eyes said. "I have spent most of my life trying to find some means to
prevent the eventual starvation of the humans. I have studied human medicine to find some method like
deep sleep to keep the humans alive without food. I have studied expanded matter science to find a way
to make food with the equipment the humans have on Dragon Slayer. I have studied inertial and
gravitational engineering to find a way to return the distant asteroid sooner. I was unsuccessful.
"I went into politics, became leader of the fourth segment, pushed through the funding to form a special
task force to solve the human starvation problem, then left the legislature to run the task force. I had the
brightest minds, both cheela and robotic, working on the problem for two generations. They were
unsuccessful. When the funding for the task force
was terminated I gave up and came here. I have no successes to tell the younglings about. I'm afraid I
wouldn't be a good choice for that job."
"No," Creche-Master/71 agreed. Her tread was manipulating her touch screen. "One egg available for
hatching in 18 turns."
"I'll take it!" said Lovely-Eyes.
The driven soul of Lovely-Eyes was, at last, at peace. The egg had produced a near-perfect hatchling,
exactly as the geneticists had predicted. The hatchling had the official name of White-Rock/207891384,
but Lovely-Eyes, recalling an old story he had read in his humanology studies, called him Grandest-Tiger.
Grandest-Tiger was dodging in and out from under Lovely-Eyes' hatching mantle, playing
peek-and-chase with its robotic hatchling-mates. While Grandest-Tiger played, Lovely-Eyes picked up
one of the hatchling's learning toys. It was quite expensive for such a simple toy, but the hatchling
psychologists felt it was important for the young ones to have experience with the paradoxical
phenomena early in their life.
The toy was a simple ring. It came with a dozen tiny metal spheres. When a sphere was pushed through
the hole in the ring, it didn't come out on the other side immediately. Depending upon which side the ball
was put through, it would come out at some different time, either in the past or the future. Right now there
were six spheres lying on the crust. Idly, Lovely-Eyes picked up five of the spheres and poked them, one
at a time through the ring. There was a long pause, then the five spheres popped out again.
Suddenly, Lovely-Eyes pulled back his hatching mantle and rushed out of the pen, leaving a bewildered
Grandest-Tiger behind. The robotic hatchling-mates diverted the attention of Grandest-Tiger from the
disappearing Old One while they sent emergency messages to the creche-master for a replacement.
03:55:03 GMT WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE2050