Starquake.pdf

He activated a conference link and gathered his engineers together to prepare a response to the Request
For Plan. Web Engineering would probably lose money on the contract, but that didn't bother Cliff-Web.
The combined clans of Egg might not care much about the humans, but Web Engineering did.
06:51:19 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050
Dr. Cesar Wong lifted his eyes from the porthole looking into Jean's protection tank and peered at the
control board in the wall. The tell-tales indicated that three tanks were now occupied and that Jean,
Abdul, and Seiko were temporarily safe from the rapidly varying tidal forces. Pierre was still in the library
on the lower crew deck, but should be back soon to get into his tank. Cesar slowly made his way around
the central column to his own tank, being careful not to lose control of his limbs to the tearing gravity
forces. Amalita's tank was next to his, but she was not there and not in her tank. He looked around with
concern. The main deck was empty.
"Amalita!" he called. There was no reply, but he heard sounds of heavy breathing coming down the
passageway from the Science Deck. He started up the passageway rungs to see what was going on.
Normally, when the compensator masses were doing their job, the central portion of the Dragon Slayer
was in nearly free fall. Only near the outer walls did the gravity field become large enough to give a sense
of up and down. Now, however, the compensation was way off, and the gravity forces on the upper and
lower decks were substantial. The average field was nearly two Earth gravities and slowly getting
stronger, while the variations around that average sometimes exceeded two gravities for a millisecond or
so. The variations did not act long enough to build up large velocities, but they made it difficult to navigate
the rungs. He turned around so that the gravity was pulling him "down" the ladder to the "upper" Science
Deck and climbed down to stand next to Amalita, who was sitting on the ceiling, trying to struggle into a
spacesuit.
"I'm going to repair the herder rocket by replacing the valve with a redundant valve from another
rocket," she panted.
"You'll be killed!" he said, his eyes growing wide with concern.
"We'llall be killed unless somebody fixes that rocket," she said. "I may not make it, but I'm going to give
it a good try."
"I admire your bravery," said Dr. Wong. "But if you would only stop to think, you would realize that
bravery is not going to be enough." He bent down and made her look at him.
'The herder rockets operate in the region halfway between us and the compensator masses, which are at
200 meters from the center of the ring," he said. His voice took on a commanding tone. "What is the
magnitude of the tidal force at 100 meters from one of those masses?"
Doc Wong watched Amalita's eyes glaze over as the superfast colloid computer under the brown
ponytail raced through the mental calculations.
"133 gees per meter," she said. Her eyes blinked as she returned to the task of putting on her helmet.
"But it is compensated by the neutron star tides of 101 gees per meter...."