Starquake.pdf

"We got some spare lifts," said Heavy-Egg. "I'll get one set up. I'm almost at break-turn, so I'll take you
down."
They took the elevator to the bottom deck. This would be the transfer point for passengers, so the
ceiling was cold black with simulated stars. The lifts on the Space Fountain rode the streams up to this
deck, while the streams of rings continued on to the turning magnets above them on the middle deck. The
passengers and freight transferred to smaller elevators that took them to the top deck, while the lifts were
detached from the streams, pulled back from the hole in the platform and stacked until a down-going lift
was needed.
As Cliff-Web watched, a lift was removed from a stack, placed on glide-rails and moved out on support
arms until its deflection coils surrounded the tubes carrying the flowing streams. Each lift used three
stream pairs for safety. The support arms were pulled back, and the lift bounced lightly as it shifted its
load to the streams. A roustabout hurried over with a ramp to cover the crack between the platform and
lift. Cliff-Web waved him back with a flip of his eye-stubs.
"Save it for the crust-crawlers," he said, gliding over the six-micron-wide crack. He tried to keep his
eyes focused off in the distance, but some of them insisted on looking down at Egg, 406 kilometers
below his tread.
The things a boss must do to maintain respect,he said to himself.
Heavy-Egg activated the lift controls. As soon as they cleared the bottom deck, the pipe covering the
ring stream ended, and they could see the reflection of Egg's glowing crust in the silvery flow. Except for
the first 100 millimeters, where a vacuum pipe was needed to keep the weak electron and iron vapor
atmosphere of Egg from heating the rings, there was no solid structure in the tower, not even a skeleton
framework, just flowing rings.
"If you don't mind, Boss, I got a few chores to do while I take you down," Heavy-Egg said.
"The job comes first. It would be different if I were a paying passenger."
"I got to finish the checkout on this lift and later on down deliver a part to Platform 40."
"What kind of checkout?' Cliff-Web asked.
"The stream selector controls," Heavy-Egg replied. "Right now we ride on all six streams. Drag on the
up-streams and push on the down-streams. I just got to check that we can turn off a coupler if a stream
gets rough and the automatic doesn't do it."
Cliff-Web wasn't worried. He knew this part of the design well. The lift could theoretically levitate on
just one stream, although, if it were badly unbalanced, the torque rebalance requirement could cause
problems at the next deflector platform. Two or three streams were more than adequate for a smooth
ride. He watched with interest as Heavy-Egg turned off one coupler after another and checked the
response of the other five couplers as they took up the load. Then Heavy-Egg turned off all three down
couplers and rode only on the up-streams. He reversed the controls and they switched to riding the
downstreams only without a noticeable glitch in the motion.
"No problems there," said Heavy-Egg. "We're coming up on Platform 40."