Starquake.pdf

She started with the animals. Three of the nine segments of the field-free room held multiple breeding
pairs of all the major animals on Egg with the exception of the two that were larger than a mature cheela,
the ponderous Flow Slow and the carnivorous Swift. These were represented by miniature genetic
hybrids about the size of a Slink.
She had a number of different types of Slinks. In addition to three sets of brightly colored but stupid
food Slinks bred with flesh of different flavors, there were some highly trained herding Slinks bred for
intelligence. Now, with the addition of Poofsie, she had two sets of a laboratory strain especially bred
with bodies that responded like the body of a cheela to environmental changes.
She had a lot to check in the laboratory. After having gone through the long, laborious task of getting
into the laboratory, she was in no hurry to leave. There was at least two turns of work to do, what with
taking the animals through physical checkups as well as intelligence tests. They had restocked the food
lockers in the dressing alcove the last time they had pumped out the room, so she would just refuel at
turnfeast from them. Besides, someone had to check the quality of the nuts and fruits on the food plants.
Steel-Slicer was looking forward to his return to the Polar Orbiting Space Station. Many things had
happened since his last visit there. He had retired from active duty, was elected to the Legislature of the
Combined Clans, and had been selected for rejuvenation. He was still entitled to wear his two-star
Admiral cluster badges, so he put them on for his visit.
Far-Ranger had also just finished her rejuvenation and was about to warp back out into interstellar
space. She had invited him up to attend her "warpfeast" before she left.
The robotic glide-car hummed through the run-down east side of Bright's Heaven and slid to a stop in
front of the entrance to the Jump Loop terminal. Steel-Slicer slid his
magnecard into the payslot, and the glide-car released him. As he flowed to the walkway he noticed a
small, wiry, scarred, and badgeless youngling slumped against the wall nearby. The youngling's eyes were
casually, but attentively, watching everything going on around him, especially the traffic in and out of the
automatic doors to the terminal. The terminal was in a rough section of town, so Steel-Slicer moved
quickly across the street and through theIN door.
Once inside, he relaxed a little and headed for the baggage queue, where he unpouched his small
traveling kit. There was a little time left before the jump so he moved through the crowded terminal
toward the pulp-bar. He started to circle around a small, heavily speckled female who had all eyes on the
tough-looking male to whom she was talking. Suddenly, without seeming to look where she was going,
the female backed away from the tough, and Admiral Steel-Slicer found himself half-enveloped with
speckled female flesh.
"Excuse me," Steel-Slicer said as he tried to move away.
"I don't mind if you don't," said the nubile female as she brought a number of her eyes around and
draped a few speckled eye-flaps on his topside. "Besides, you're a lot handsomer than that rough-tread
over there." She flicked her eye-stubs at the tough, who glared at them. Steel-Slicer noticed that the
speckled pattern on the female extended to her eye-balls. Some of them were pink instead of the normal
dark-red.
The Admiral tried to extract himself, but found that the female had formed a number of tendrils and was