Starquake.pdf

A glowing speck swung around the tower a hundred meters away and shot off into the distance. It was
probably a jumpcraft headed for the Jump Loop. The elevator came to a stop at the 60 kilometer
platform. The platform was bare except for the deflector magnets surrounding each of the six pairs of ring
streams. The upgoing elevator that rode the other three streams had just left the on-shift replacement, and
they waited while the shift instructions were passed.
"Keep a few eyes on the deflector for stream three-up. It's getting warm, and Topside says they are
getting too many pushouts," the off-shifter reported. "I sent down for a spare."
"Got it right here," said the on-shifter, pulling a bulky box from a cavernous workman's pouch. "I'll have
it fixed in no time. Have fun in Swift's Climb."
"I expect to. See you in a dozturn."
Heavy-Egg knew about pushouts. That was his job on the Topside Platform. The six up-streams were
scanned by some sort of detector when they came topside. Any rings that were bent or too hot got
pushed aside into a rejection bin where they slammed into a magnetic stopper. You didn't want bad rings
going into the turn-around magnets. They could cause a lot of problems. Heavy-Egg's job was to hook
the ring out before the next one was rejected so they wouldn't bang into each other and get dented. The
magnetic field in the stopper was so strong it would burn his skin if he left his manipulator in it too long. It
was hot and noisy work, but he enjoyed it. Each of the rings he saved was worth more than he made
each turn. They were made of monopole-stabilized metal, the only thing on Egg that didn't blow up in free
fall. The last dozturn shift he figured he had saved Web Construction enough money to pay him for a
whole great of turns, and he hadn't allowed one banger.
They reached the bottom of the tower and the off-shift crew shuffled off the elevator and headed for the
chutes. Heavy-Egg stopped to feel the crust at the top of the East Pole mountains. It was humming with
power from the con-
stant stream of rings that were accelerated in long circular tunnels at the base of the mountain and shot
upward in a fountain of metal.
Heavy-Egg flowed into the chute-car. This time he arranged it so that the female next to him wasn't his
gang-chief. Her name was Glowing-Tread, and they became real friendly as the chute-car rocketed
down the mountain passes in a semi-enclosed superconducting chute that kept the magnetic field out.
They braked to a halt in the outskirts of Swift's Climb and headed for the nearest pulp-bar. The pulp-bar
had some private pad rooms and some couples headed directly for them, dropping some stars in the
bartender's cash pouch as they passed.
It was still a few methturns to turnfeast, so Heavy-Egg and Glowing-Tread treated each other to a few
bags of fermented pulp from the petal-pod plants. They were into their third bag when Heavy-Egg's
favorite holovid show came on. It was the "Qui-Qui Show," starring the sexiest female entertainer on
Egg. The males whooped and stamped the crust in rhythm while the females made jokes about the shape
of her eyeflaps.
"If she put all twelve eyes on one side, her tread would leave the crust," muttered Glowing-Tread,
drawing a few laughs.
"My eye-balls say you have the same problem," said Heavy-Egg, making the first move. She turned all
twelve eyes around to look at him, and his eye-stubs grew stiffer as she winked one after the other in a