Starquake.pdf

Slinklings, and Cold, Chilly's mate.
After he said hello to all the Slinks, they took off on their various Slinkish activities, and he had time to
look around for Rollo. The ball-like animal was cowering in a corner behind its large, slow-moving
cousin, Slurge, a miniaturized Flow Slow. Slurge had gotten into the parasol bed. He would have to
speak with his caretaker, Moving-Sand, about that.
"Come here, Rollo," he called, holding out a waving tendril. "Come, Rollo. Come here."
Slowly the ball rolled out from behind the Flow Slow, its multitude of eyes drawn by the waving tendril.
Finally it moved close enough for the tendril to stroke it. It rumbled in pleasure, ducking its eyes out of
the way of the moving tendril.
"There, there, Rollo," he said. "No need to be afraid. The noisy Slinks are all gone now." The pet, now
more relaxed, rolled around his periphery, enjoying caresses from one tendril after another. Just then
Moving-Sand flowed into view around the corner.
"I knew it must be you when I heard the commotion. Those Slinks must have vibrated the whole
neighborhood by now." Suddenly he noticed the Flow Slow in the parasol bed.
"Hey!" said Moving-Sand. "What do you mean letting Slurge get into the plants! How am I going to
keep things in shape here if you don't help?"
Forming a heavy, clublike manipulator, Moving-Sand flowed over to the heavy creature that was
soaking up plant juices through its lower tread, and banged it hard on one side.
"Move, you big hunk of flabby rock," Moving-Sand hollered through the crust.
Shrinking as much from the shrill cry on its underside as
from the heavy blows on its armored topside, the miniaturized Flow Slow moved off the patch of parasol
flowers and back onto the lawn it had been trained to keep in check.
Moving-Sand gave it a few more blows to keep it moving. "Your mail is in your study and your meal is
in the oven," Moving-Sand said. "Get it yourself. I've still got a dozen more fountain-shoots to transplant."
"How are the fountain plants doing?" asked Cliff-Web.
"The ones that survived are doing fine," Moving-Sand reported. "They would do better if you had left
them back at the East Pole where you found them, where the magnetic field goes straight up and down. I
found if I started from seed, picked those with a tilted firing tube and lopsided catcher, and planted them
pointing in the proper direction, I could get them to grow. Don't ever expect them to get too large,
though. Nope. The catcher would get so lopsided they'd topple over. Got one planted right over there."
Moving-Sand's eye-stubs twitched to a circular patch of parasol flowers, in the center of which was a
tiny fountain of blue-white sparks.
The fountain plant was a highly energetic form of plant life that worked at intense rates just to stay alive.
Biologists at the Inner Eye Institute still argued over whether it should be classified as a plant or an
animal, since it could only live in highly rich, neutron-poor soil like that found in the East and West Pole
mountains.