Starquake.pdf

Hearing the decimal number for the platform at 40 kilometers altitude made Cliff-Web's eye-stubs
twitch.Every engineering measurement on Egg used the base twelve numbering systemexcept distance.
They had inherited meters, kilometers, and millimeters from the humans and seemed to be stuck with it
despite many attempts to switch to a non-metric length system where the units were in easily calculated
multiples of twelve.
Heavy-Egg brought the lift to a smooth stop. A small crew was busy repairing a redundant deflector on
stream four-up. Cliff-Web glided over to the edge of the platform. The gravity acceleration on the
platform was now significantly stronger, about one sixteenth that on the surface of Egg. He looked out
over the barrier. At 40 kilometers altitude he could make out the outline of Swift's Climb and see the
kilometer-long streak of the Jump Loop on the east side which he would shortly be using for the jump
home. He hadn't heard anything from
Moving-Sand, so Lassie was still alive, but he wondered if she was still mentally alert enough to
remember him.
It was nearly turnfeast when Cliff-Web returned to his compound. As the front door slid into its recess
he was engulfed with a swarrn of happy snuffling Slinks. Even Lassie was there, having dragged herself
from the mat next to the oven as soon as she had heard his familiar scuffle as he came up the street.
Lassie's cluster had grown with the addition of a clutch of hatchlings. They had never seen Cliff-Web
before, but that didn't stop them from joining the happy throng, leaking from both intake and output
orifices in their hatchling eagerness. He twirled them all around the eye-rims again and again, until, finally
satisfied, they rumbled off. Rollo must have forgotten him, because he was back hiding behind Slurge,
which was just managing to push its way through the magnetic fence that bordered the tasty patch of
parasol plants. Cliff-Web flowed over to the miniature Flow Slow, and, forming a large bony
manipulator, gave Slurge a hard rap on the armored plate just below one of its tiny eyes.
"Back on the lawn!" he hollered.
Slurge retracted its eyes from the side toward the parasol patch. Without the constant reminder of the
tasty plants coming to its almost nonexistent brain-clump, it quickly forgot about the garden and started
back in the other direction onto the lawn, where it continued its methodical munching and sucking. With
the Flow Slow moving in the proper direction, Cliff-Web had time to look at the arrangement of his
garden. Moving-Sand must have had some success breeding the fountain plants, for there was a tall one
in the center of the circular patch with six more arranged in a hexagon around the central one. All seven
were sending up healthy showers of sparks. He then finally noticed something odd. If he had not just
come from the East Pole he would have noticed it earlier. All the showers of sparks were going straight
up into the air. That was really unusual, for the magnetic declination in this portion of Egg was nearly a
quarter-pi off vertical.
"Moving-Sand!" he pounded into the crust.
From off on a distant corner of the compound came a gruff reply. "About time you came back."
The ancient tracking senses built into the super-sensitive undertread of Cliff-Web instantly triangulated
the position of the sound and placed Moving-Sand in the northeast corner of the potting compound. With
his attention riveted on that portion of
the surrounding territory, his tread could now pick out the motion of someone else with Moving-Sand.
He flowed across the outer courtyard to the opposite side of the large compound.