Starquake.pdf

"That is an amazing display of fountain plants," Cliff-Web said as he rounded the potting compound wall.
"One of those plants looks as if it has been growing for a half-dozen turns or more. How did you
accomplish that? And how did you get the fountains to go straight up?"
"She helped a little," said Moving-Sand, his eye-stubs twitching in the direction of the stranger. She was
a large, slightly over-bulky female who was obviously well past her egg-bearing prime, but still not quite
ready to quit and tend hatchlings. The normal motion of her eye-stubs switched to the converging wave
greeting pattern as she spoke.
"I am Zero-Gauss, Doctor of Magnetics at the Institute," she said. "I specialize in the study of the
interaction of magnetic fields on plants."
"Then it is your compound that has the cleft-wort trained to climb the staircase of supports on the
window."
"Yes," she replied. "When Moving-Sand came over to inquire about my technique, I learned that you
had a large collection of strange plant forms. We have had such an interesting time while you were away.
I've explained my various tricks in using magnetic fields to train plants and animals, and Moving-Sand has
supplied me with a number of new types of plants that you collected in your various journeys around Egg.
They are not only lovely additions to my garden, but some of them are proving valuable in my research at
the Institute."
"I noticed that you two have really improved the performance of the fountain plant in the front circle
bed," Cliff-Web said. "What did you do?"
"I brought over a large superconducting coil with a persistent current in it, and we buried it in the crust
below the root system. We tilted it so that the direction of the combined magnetic fields of the coil and
Egg is vertical. That way, the jet of sparks from the fountain plant can rise straight up as it does at its
home location at the East Pole."
"Was a lot of work. But it did the trick," said Moving-Sand grudgingly. 'That fountain plant has lasted
more than a dozen turns and is still growing. Best I could do before was three turns. Was hardly worth
bothering to plant them."
"I guess even plants thrive best when conditions are similar to what they are familiar with," said
Cliff-Web.
"Not necessarily. In my research laboratory at the Institute," Zero-Gauss explained, "I have found that
many plants grow faster and healthier if there is no magnetic field at all."
"No field at all?" Cliff-Web's engineering curiosity was aroused. "What do you do? Put them at the
center of some Helmholtz coils and cancel out the magnetic field of Egg?"
"I do use a pair of large Helmholtz coils to start with," she replied. "The coils only zero out the field at the
center, however. Even a few microns away the cancellation is poor enough that the plant is affected.
Between the coils I have built a special room lined with superconducting shielding where I have
completely eliminated the magnetic field of Egg over a large enough volume that I can carry out tests on
dozens of plant samples at the same time."
"I don't understand." Cliff-Web's eye-stubs were twitching in a confused manner as his engineer's brain
tried to imagine how one could make such a room. "I suppose you could make a room with a floor and