Starquake.pdf

ag. He opened a pouch in his side and tucked the travel bag away in his body. He would have to take it
out again when he took the Jump Loop transport. They only allowed a small amount of pouched baggage
in the main cabin of the jumpcraft.
He went to his study, pouched a few instruments and technical scrolls, then gave his robotic office
secretary instructions for handling messages. Lassie, having seen her master leave many times before,
moved slowly from her resting pad and came over to have him pat her on the eye-stubs. As Cliff-Web
patted the balding Slink, he made soft electronic whispering noises to her, while at the same time talking
to Moving-Sand with his undertread.
"It will be at least a half-great before I can take time away from the project to come back for a visit," he
said. "It could be that Lassie will die while I'm gone."
"I'll take care of her," Moving-Sand promised. "The rest of the Slinks will be glad to have something
besides Flow-Slow meat in their meat-bins."
"Don't feed her to the Slinks," said Cliff-Web. "She has been my faithful Slink since engineering school. I
will eat her myself."
"I can't understand you!" Moving-Sand sounded disgusted. "Here you are rich enough to eat prime
cheela steaks every day and now you tell me you want to suck old, stringy Slink meat."
"I do," said Cliff-Web. "But perhaps you're right about it being old. Better make ground meat out of the
tougher cuts." He gave Lassie one last pat, picked up his mascot plant Pretty-Web, and flowed out the
door, through the courtyard, and out to the street where a robotic glide-car was waiting to take him to
the Jump Loop.
He slid onto the waiting plate of thick metal between the front shield and the rear power unit, and the
transparent superconducting shell closed over him. The glide-car rose a few microns and sped down the
street, riding on the traveling ripples of magnetic field that it generated in its base plate.
The passenger terminal for the Jump Loop was on the outskirts of Bright, not far from the ruins of the
ancient Holy Temple. There was some restoration work going on there, and Cliff-Web could see the
large crust-moving machines working on an eye-mound. The job was one of the few that Web
Construction had lost. He and his engineers were used to high-technology jobs and always ended up
losing on price for crust-moving projects. The glide-car came to a halt, and Cliff-Web inserted his
magnecard in the slot. The glide-car subtracted 8 stars and 64 greths and released him from his
temporary transparent prison.
The terminal was in a tough part of town, so he moved quickly across the street toward the door
marked IN. Just as he activated the automatic door with his tread, a small youngling burst through the
opening going the wrong way. He was filthy and his decorationless hide had more scars than most
soldiers. Holding the door open with his tread, he jabbed a sharp metal pricker at Cliff-Web, who
rapidly reversed his tread ripple.
"That's right, you fat egg-sucker. Move back and you won't get hurt." He looked back through the door.
"Crumpled-Tread ... Speckle-Top ... Move it!" he hollered. "The Clankers are right behind you!" Two
more street urchins burst through the door; they were even smaller than the gang leader. The littlest one
had some costume jewelry and an embroidered wiper she had obviously stolen. She was no more than a
hatchling, and Cliff-Web could look down on her topside to see that "Speckle-Top" was indeed covered