Starquake.pdf

"Renegotiate them," she replied. "Just remind them they will be getting the experience of an old, flabby
Qui-Qui in the body of a young, firm Qui-Qui."
She watched the traveling wave motion in Grey-Stone's eye-stubs slow to almost a complete halt as he
pictured the image she had created.
"At twice the original fee!" he finally said.
"That's why I have you for my manager," she replied with a rippling overtone in her tread. "There is
nothing too audacious for Grey-Stone."
She paused, and her eye-stubs stood still while she rippled her bountiful eye-flaps in her famous gesture
of shocked, innocent bewilderment.
"Of course ... it could be ... ," she said, the ripples of her eye-flaps coming to a stop. "That ... the
treatment leaves me flat." She flicked off the video with a chirp of amusement as Grey-Stone's eyes stood
straight up in shock.
Qui-Qui programmed her housekeepers to keep her three compounds in shape while she was gone and
took the Jump Loop to the West Pole Rejuvenation Center. She had been assigned there to be close to
her clan home of White Rock City. At the Rejuvenation Center she had no problem passing all the
physical examinations. The last step was a final interview with the senior physician in charge of the
Center, Sabin-Salk. During the examinations, Qui-Qui had had plenty of time to think. Now she had
some questions.
"What I don't understand," she said, "was why I was selected instead of some scientist or writer or
musician or politician?"
"According to our evaluation, you happen to be one of the best cheela ever laid on Egg," Sabin-Salk
said matter-of-factly. "You are an expert in communication with other cheela. With a different
background or training you too could have been a
writer or a musician or a politician, perhaps even a scientist, in fact, if it weren't that you are too honest
to deceive people, with your intelligence, good looks, and charisma, you could probably even convince
people you were a god and start a new religious cult."
"But all I am is an entertainer," she protested.
"I don't think even you believe that," he said. "To the average holovid viewer you are nothing but twelve
big eye-flaps. But those who have talked with you know that behind those eye-flaps is one of the tightest
brain-knots on Egg. You have a lot of friends in large compounds. Your choice was no accident.
"Now, let me take you around the treatment facility and show you what you must undergo. The
procedure will not be easy." They entered the first compound where there were a couple of robotic
attendants and a lot of exercise equipment.
"First we must exercise you and feed you until you have built up a good supply of flesh in your body.
The dissolver enzymes will use that as the building material to produce support structures in the
intermediate plant body. Those support structures must be of high quality or they will break in the strong
gravity of Egg."