Starquake.pdf

Qui-Qui noticed someone exercising under the guidance of a robot in the far corner of the room. It was
a large male, almost as large as she was. The robot spoke something to the male, who muttered curses as
he increased the tempo of his exercise.
"Who is that?" asked Qui-Qui.
"It is Engineer Cliff-Web. He owns Web Construction Company."
Qui-Qui's eye-wave pattern slowed in puzzlement. She obviously didn't know who Cliff-Web was.
"He was the one who built the Space Fountain and the Jumbo Bagel space motor to rescue the Slow
Ones," said Sabin-Salk.
All of Qui-Qui's eyes turned to look in awe at the engineer.
"I was selected with someone that important?" she said.
"Actually, he was in the first selection list," said Sabin-Salk. "But he is quite a bit older than you and,
having been involved with scrollwork much of the time, he was in poor physical condition. He was in the
exercise phase for almost 40 turns before he had sufficient muscle tone. Two more turns of starving, and
he will be ready for treatment."
"Starving!" Qui-Qui gasped. "I thought you said we were fed."
"You are fed during the build-up phase," Sabin-Salk explained. "But we must have your well-muscled
body starving and near exhaustion before we inject the animal-plant conversion enzymes. They then
activate the dormant genes in you that were left after our evolution from the dragon plants long ago." He
paused and observed her carefully as he continued. "I warned you that it would not be pleasant. If you
would rather not take the treatment...."
"No. I want to go ahead with it," said Qui-Qui. Her eye-stubs wavered to a halt as she asked her next
question. "Will I still be conscious during the burning part?"
Dr. Sabin-Salk looked bewildered, so she continued.
"I am of the clan of the Ancient One Swift-Killer, the first cheela in recorded history to undergo
rejuvenation. In the hatchling pen I was told how she struggled to climb the East Pole mountains to send
the first message to the humans. After sending the message, her exhausted body was severely burned by
the heat from an infalling meteorite. The burning caused her body to revert spontaneously to the dragon
plant form, where the damage was mended. Later the dragon plant reverted back, and Swift-Killer found
she had a new, young body."
"Swift-Killer was extremely lucky," Sabin-Salk stated. "Most cheela who have tried the burning
approach to rejuvenation died. The only function of the burning was to shock the body and get it to
produce the animal-to-plant conversion enzymes. We do not burn you. Instead we manufacture the
enzymes artificially and inject them into you. They dissolve everything in the body except the nerve tissue
and the outer layer of skin. That liquid is then used to make the plant."
They left the still exercising Cliff-Web and moved on to the next compound. A large array of small
machines stood in one corner of the compound, each with two tubes that connected to two larger
collecting lines that led to two large tanks. A single robot was tending the machines.