Starquake.pdf

"Don't . .."
"Won't." Both of their screens rippled with laughter.
Graviton-Maker/321 set his crew of gravity robots in the path of the slowly tumbling plate of glass. This
piece of high-strength glass was one of the many parts of the spacecraft that the expanded matter
scientists wanted to examine. As soon as his robots had the viewport under control, he sent some of
them off with the window while he and the rest of the crew returned to Dragon Slayer. By the time he
had returned, Void-Maker/111 had cut a large circular sample out of the spacecraft hull. The task of
capturing the circular piece of hull was so similar to the task of catching the viewport that
Graviton-Maker/321 did not even bother to monitor the robots. They were faster thinking and more
intelligent than he was when it came to doing their job.
Electromagnetic-Manager/1and his team had arrived and Graviton-Maker/321 joined them as they
entered the hole where the viewport had been. They all felt a little uneasy as they entered the dark interior
of the ship. Not only was the friendly glare of Egg gone, but they could no longer see the sky.
"Human Protection Tank 6 ahead," said Electromagnetic-Manager/1 to his team as they floated into the
center of the cylindrical room. "Take over control."
A team of electromagnetic engineers brought up their generators. Each team was assigned a disinto
engineer whose crew of robots were used to clear a path through the walls and cut the cables. In a few
dothturns they had cut free Tank 6 containing Abdul from the main hull, had replaced the ship's power to
the tank with their own, and had inserted their own optical link in the fiber optic connection to the rest of
the tanks.
Electromagnetic-Manager/1 monitored the video transmission channel and looked once again at a human
as seen in their own region of the visual spectrum. This human was very different from Carole, the
Commander of the human expedition. The hair on top of this human's head-lump was short and black
instead of long and yellow. But instead of the ridiculously long thick braid coming out of the top of the
head-lump, this human had a ridiculously long string of hair in the middle of the head-lump. The face was
dark colored, and the pupils of the eyes seemed very wide open. Electromagnetic-Manager/1 wondered
if the look of the human was due to the breathing mask that the humans had to wear under water, or
whether something else had caused it.
04:02:39 GMT WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE 2050
"I lost power for a second!" said Abdul, just short of panic. "What's going on?"
"The cheela have breached the hull and are wandering around inside Dragon Slayer," said Pierre.
"I sure hope they know what they are doing!" Abdul replied.
04:02:40 GMT WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE 2050