Starquake.pdf

along the magnetic field lines and makes it difficult to move things across the magnetic field lines. The two
magnetic poles of Dragon's Egg are on opposite sides of the neutron star near the equator. They are
called the "East" and "West" Poles. Midway between the two magnetic poles the magnetic field lines are
parallel to the surface, and the cheela find it easy to move east and west but difficult to move north and
south.
There are things lacking on a neutron star that we take for granted. There is no sun. The light and energy
that keep us alive on Earth pour down from the Sun during the day, while at night it is dark and cold.
Thus, most life-forms on Earth go to sleep at night. On Egg the light and energy that keep the cheela alive
come upward from the crust. It is never dark, so the life-forms on Egg never developed sleep. They do
not have a moon, so they have no months. They do not orbit a star, so they have no year. Their only
natural unit of time is the rotation of the fixed stars in the sky. Thus, their equivalent of a day-night cycle is
a turn of the star.
The cheela don't have lamps, candles, fireplaces, or flashlights, for there is no dark and no cold on the
glowing surface of Egg. Even the inside of a cave is brightly illuminated by the glow from the walls. The
cheela don't have hanging pictures, hinged doors or windows, leafed books, rooftops, or tops to anything
usually, for the gravity is too high. They don't have airplanes, balloons, kites, whistles, fans, straws,
perfume, lungs, or breath because there is no air. What atmosphere there
is consists of a few electrons and ions of iron or other typical crustal nuclei. They don't have umbrellas,
bathtubs, showers, or flush toilets because there is no rain nor are there streams, lakes, or oceans.
Life for a modern cheela is not drab. Although cheela do not wear cloth to cover their supple, elastic,
and variable-shaped bodies, they do dress up. Even uncivilized cheela wear body paint to cover their
nakedness, and the modern fluorescent, liquid crystal, and variable-emittance paints make the city streets
bright with color and patterns in the pre-turnfeast rush. Civilized cheela also never leave their compounds
without first inserting into the holding sphincters in their hide a set of six badges that indicate their
profession and their rank in that profession. For more festive occasions, jewelry can replace or augment
the badges on the hide, while jewel-rings encircle each of their twelve eye-stubs.
A corner of a typical cheela home compound is shown in Figure 1. There are paintings on the wall, but
they are painted right on the wall. There are books, but they are rolled up scrolls that are stored in
scroll-walls. There are soft pads and pillows, but they are for resting and reading, not sleeping, for cheela
don't sleep. There are windows, but they have no glass, for there is no cold or hot air to keep out. If a
cheela wishes privacy, he pulls the horizontally sliding window blind shut. There is a door to the
compound, which also slides in a track. Although modern cheela now use nuclear-power chronometers
to keep track of time, the old-fashioned pendulum clock works as well on Egg as it does on earth,
provided a sturdy frame is made to hold the pendulum in the strong gravity. On Earth, a one-meter
pendulum ticks a slow once a second, whereas on Egg a one-millimeter pendulum ticks a fast three times
a blink. On the right is one of the favorite pets of the cheela, a longhaired Slink.
Since cheela are egg-layers that leave their eggs at the hatching pens of their clan, they do not form
family units, and each cheela lives alone with its pets. Most cheela choose a Slink for their pet. There are
as many different breeds of Slinks on Egg as there are different breeds of dogs on Earth, and apparently
for the same reasons.
A typical mongrel Slink is a small hairy animal with an oval shape, an undertread for moving, and twelve
eyes up on stalks. Although most cheela don't admit it to themselves, except for the hair and the
significantly lower intelligence, a Slink looks