Starquake.pdf

holding him by his two-star Admiral's badges. Other tendrils, hidden by their bodies, started tickling him.
"Want to have a little fun?" she said in an electronic whisper that sent tingles through his body. "I know a
nice quiet little pad-place nearby."
Steel-Slicer started to turn down the offer when he was jolted by a slap from a heavy manipulator.
"Leave my flapper alone!" said the tough, glaring at him.
Stunned by the shock, Steel-Slicer didn't notice the loss of two of his star-cluster badges as the freckled
female pulled away.
"I got them!" she hollered, and started for theIN door at full tread ripple. The tough was right behind her.
"Stop!" shouted Steel-Slicer as he finally noticed his loss. He started after them. The tough pulled a
sticker from a pouch in his rapidly retreating trailing edge and waved it menacingly.
"Go suck your eye-balls, Spacer!" yelled tne tougn.
"Here comes a clanker!" warned the speckled female as they approached the door. The door was
opened by their confederate outside, and it almost shut before the peace officer arrived; but he squeezed
through the crack and took up the chase.
Steel-Slicer halted when the peace officer took off after them. He stopped, a little embarrassed, and
shifted a star cluster partially to cover the bare place on his hide. It was doubtful the officer would catch
the thieves. Since it was time for his jumpcraft to leave, he turned and headed for the boarding area.
"That egg-eating clanker got through!" shouted Speckle-Top. "Scatter! We'll sell the stuff later!"
She pushed down a side street that led toward the old temple grounds, where she knew there were
plenty of places to hide. Luckily the clanker had followed Crumpled-Tread. She was the one with the
stolen badges so even if the clanker caught him, they would have to let him go.
Her street-trained tread heard the rapid movement of two other clankers coming, so she hurried, trying
to keep the noise of her tread-ripple down. At the entrance to the old temple grounds she squeezed her
skinny body through a quake-crack in the ancient outer perimeter fence. Dodging some workers carrying
out restoration work, she rushed past one of the newly restored "eyes" of the ancient monument and
made her way to a small crust-rock at a point where the base of the "eye-stub" met the wall that formed
the "body" of the temple. Behind that rock was an ancient tunnel that she discovered a few turns ago. She
had noticed a tiny hole in the wall after the huge crust-moving machines had passed. Looking for a safe
place to hide stolen stuff until it could be sold, she had found that the hole opened into an underground
tunnel heavily lined with an old-fashioned type of thick metal superconductor.
When originally built in the days of Pink-Eyes the prophet, the superconductor had kept the magnetic
field of Egg out of the tunnel so the High Priests of Bright could travel quickly from the outer sanctuary to
the top of the Inner Eye mound, where they would miraculously appear to the crowds below. The tunnel
was now clogged with pinned magnetic flux that was strongly coupled to the walls.
Speckle-Top pushed her way through the flux lines until she was inside, whereupon she rolled the rock
back to hide the entrance. She relaxed as the magnetic field pinned her body sol-