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The following sections are selected extracts from the book,My Visit With Our Nucleonic Friends, by Pierre Caraot Niven, Ballantine Interplanetary, New York, Earth and Washington, Mars (2053). This is the only book to win the Nobel, Pulitzer, Hugo, Nebula, and Moebius prizes in the same year (2053). DRAGON’S EGG The home star of the cheela was given the picturesque name Dragon's Egg by the humans because it is a star right-at the end of the constellation Draco (the Dragon), as if the Dragon had left an egg behind in its nest. The cheela coincidently also called their home Egg because it is the source of lifegiving heat and light, and glows warmly like the eggs they lay. Egg, like most neutron stars, rotates rapidly because it is a small, compact body and only 20 kilometers in diameter that condensed from a large, slowly rotating red giant star many millions of kilometers across. Most of the mass, magnetic field, and angular momentum of the original star ended up in the neutron star. Dragon's Egg has a surface gravity of 67 billion Earth gravities, a magnetic field at the poles of a trillion gauss, and a rotation rate of 5.0183495 revolutions per second. Thus, one turn of Egg is roughly one-millionth of an Earth day. This approximate million-to-one relative time scale also seems to apply to the cheela life processes. Our nucleonic friends think, talk, live, and die a million times faster than we humans. RELATIVETIME SCALES The cheela use a base twelve numbering system since they have twelve eyes. The cheela units of time are given in the following table, along with the roughly equivalent time span for humans, taking into account the average lifetime of the cheela compared to the average lifetime of a human. Human Time Cheela Time Remarks 1 day 3,000 g 100 cheela generations 1 hour 126 g 4 cheela generations 45 min 94 g cheela lifetime
15 min 31 g cheela generation 29 sec 1 g = 1 great = 144 turns (equiv. to human year) 0.2 sec 1 t = 1 turn of Egg (equiv. to human day) 17 msec 1/12t =dothturn (equiv. to human hour) 1.4 msec 1/144t = grethturn (equiv. to human 10 min) 115 msec 1/1728t = methturn (equiv. to human minute) 10 msec 1/20736t = sethturn (equiv. to human 4 sec) 800 nsec 1/28832t = blink (equiv. to human blink) OUR NUCLEONIC FRIENDS One can hardly imagine a more alien life form than a cheela. A typical cheela weighs the same as a typical human, about 70 kilograms; but the nuclei in the cheela body have lost their electron clouds, so the nuclei are condensed into a tiny body that is squashed by the high gravity and stretched by the high magnetic field into an oval pancake shape a half-centimeter in diameter and a half-millimeter high—alittle larger than a sesame seed. The body is tough and flexible, with a tread on the bottom like that of a slug. Unlike a slug, a cheela can move equally well in any direction. The cheela have twelve eyes spaced around their periphery, giving them 360-degree vision. The eyes are up on stalks like those of a slug, but because of the high gravity the stalk is thicker. The cheela see using the ultraviolet and soft X-rays emitted by the 8200-K glowing surface of Egg. Despite their alien appearance, the cheela are not thought of as ugly, terrifying monsters. Instead, they have become our friends. One suspects that their small size may have something to do with it, as well as the fact that they cannot use anything on Earth, or even the Earth itself. Anything made out of normal matter would collapse at a touch from their ultra-dense nucleonic bodies. LIFE ON A NEUTRON STAR Living on a neutron star is very different from living on the Earth, but our friends, the cheela, find it very pleasant. The very high gravity field of 67 billion times Earth gravity means that everything must be built low to the crust and very sturdy. The very high magnetic field of a trillion gauss tends to elongate objects
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STARQUAKE Acknowledgments
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Prelude Burrowing through the dark
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science instruments and consoles, w
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Please take a rest." "Doctor Wong,
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about half a day we will be in prop
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Amalita floated over to the table a
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One of her near eyes caught him loo
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"All you need to do is shrink the h
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Pierre spoke quickly to the robotic
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slid open. He entered the security
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Slinklings, and Cold, Chilly's mate
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page and didn't like what he saw. "
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He activated a conference link and
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egg-tending fever. Every time I see
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A glowing speck swung around the to
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"If only Dragon Slayer had some mea
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"That gives us four greats of turns
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"I see someone in the back." "Brigh
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with spots of different emittance t
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Web Construction is the biggest con
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activated. "There are 144 connector
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With the X-ray illuminators in plac
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up and wait. Then there would begin
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06:55:16 TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050 Quiet
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There was a loud clang from nearby.
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Hearing the decimal number for the
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walls made out of high quality supe
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It was turnfeast, and Time-Circle s
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"After the success with the three m
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"Renegotiate them," she replied. "J
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"Those machines produce both the an
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millimeters away it fades into the
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She started with the animals. Three
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idly to the surrounding crust. She
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06:58:07 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050 Qu
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kilohertz gravitational radiation t
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"We're losing it!" Heavy-Egg shoute
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y the errant streams. Treads grippi
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"Less than a turn," said the Comm O
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"Our total space force consists of
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"Bright has cursed us all!" Hohmann
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straight toward her, moving rapidly
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You should be able to find more cag
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close. She could have done a good i
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"My plan is to use the robots on Eg
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were mixed to produce an ultra-hot
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and gravitational waves. Status 82%
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"There is someone muttering nearby.
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farming class how to tell ripe nut-
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of engineers who can fix the damage
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Eighty turns later, Qui-Qui returne
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They worked their way through the m
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other two read zero. Must be breaks
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Qui-Qui would arrive at each clan c
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satiated, however, for he would nev
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They charged, the mounted warriors
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out that what was needed was a spec
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"You must be Qui-Qui," Ferocious-Ey
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stage' for our lander. We can store
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"We are aware of that," said Plasma
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"One," said Cliff-Web. "And an infi
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field. Cliff-Web had returned to no
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"There are flying animals on the hu
Page 127 and 128: nothing, tor the forces were gravit
Page 129 and 130: "We will need to have a new power g
Page 131 and 132: "Good. Let's cut it up and haul it
Page 133 and 134: The trade was made, with the captai
Page 135 and 136: operation," said Power-Pack. "My se
Page 137 and 138: "We would rather wait to taste the
Page 139 and 140: "But she only has eight eyes now!"
Page 141 and 142: her whip-sword and urged her Swift
Page 143 and 144: for the Taker to come again." "The
Page 145 and 146: As if to punctuate his offer, there
Page 147 and 148: As he flowed up over the crumbled b
Page 149 and 150: "Focus the laser on the landing bas
Page 151 and 152: "It has been a long time since the
Page 153 and 154: their quirrls sparred with each oth
Page 155 and 156: "The humans take forever to do anyt
Page 157 and 158: "That's the last of the HoloMem sto
Page 159 and 160: to the Science Deck. Pierre looked
Page 161 and 162: "Hey! Look at the sightseers," Abdu
Page 163 and 164: choose will be a better name, anobl
Page 165 and 166: The screen on the communications co
Page 167 and 168: This was the first time there had b
Page 169 and 170: "Coupling experiments successful,"
Page 171 and 172: Manager-Director/5 set up a confere
Page 173 and 174: "The cheela are bringing them now."
Page 175 and 176: "Mine," replied Abdul. "She's right
Page 177: Amalita and Abdul in two segments o
Page 181 and 182: and behaves much like a young cheel
Page 183 and 184: Ngw* 5. CI»ft-Wort Plant Upon reve
Page 185 and 186: We wanted Dragon Slayer at a 406-ki
Page 187 and 188: Figure 10. Gravity Catapult The wor
Page 189: 6. F. J. Tipler, "Rotating Cylinder
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