You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
06:55:16 TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050<br />
Quiet<br />
When the Rescue Expedition returned from its successful mission, the Commander of the East Pole<br />
Space Station arranged a formal reception for Admiral Star-Glider and his staff. Admiral Milky-Way and<br />
a number of the sextant leaders from the Legislature jumped up for the occasion.<br />
Cliff-Web dutifully shined up his engineer badges, painted his body in a pattern of silver and yellow that<br />
Moving-Sand had assured him was stylish, plugged his remaining holding sphincters with glow-jewels,<br />
and suffered through the event.<br />
The reception started at turnfeast and lasted three dothturns. The foodmats were covered with enough<br />
food and drink to gorge a Flow Slow. There was a whole roasted hatchling with its pouches full of<br />
triposter-nut stuffing and tastefully garnished to cover the accident scar, cubes of Flow Slow marinated in<br />
a pungent sauce that Cliff-Web didn't care for, a chopped fruit he hadn't seen before, topped with<br />
pickled Tiny Shell eggs, and baskets piled high with tiny bags of sparkling juice from White Rock City.<br />
Cliff-Web took two and broke one in his eating pouch. The delicate flavor of the distilled pulp juice was<br />
heightened by the spurts of energy from the fissioning uranium nuclei added just before the distillate was<br />
bagged. Cliff-Web stayed until Admiral Milky-Way climaxed the event by a promotion ceremony for<br />
Admiral Star-Glider. Three sextant leaders and three Space Force officers formed a circle around<br />
Star-Glider and each replaced a single twelve-pointed star with a two star cluster. Star-Glider took the<br />
opportunity to choose a new name for himself. He was now Admiral Steel-Slicer.<br />
Cliff-Web decided it was time to leave when Schuler-Period started making eyes at him. She was at<br />
least two pulp-bags past her limit and was trying to get him to come to her quarters to sample her locker.<br />
She wasn't bad looking and would have been fun to tread, but he made it a point never to get involved<br />
with government officials. He did too much business with the government. He slipped away while she<br />
was admiring Steel-Slicer's new stars.<br />
A dothturn later, stripped of his reception finery, he was at the launch deck of the space station, waiting<br />
for a Web Construction Company shuttlecraft to pick him up. The launch deck was on the Egg-facing<br />
side of the spherical space station. He looked out at his glowing home world and tried to make out the<br />
cities below. At 406 kilometers distance the cities were blurred patches on the yellow crust, and the only<br />
thing that showed up was the cool patch of the East Pole mountain range with his Space Fountain rising<br />
up from it.<br />
The top of the Space Fountain stopped at 405,900 meters, while the East Pole Space Station was in<br />
synchronous orbit at 406,300 meters. The space station was located slightly to one side of the Space<br />
Fountain so he could not only see the nucleus of what was to be the Topside Platform, but the long stalk
Change language