Starquake.pdf

idly to the surrounding crust. She was a little apprehensive about being underground, but felt sure that the
clankers would never find her in her secret hideout.
The end of the shift finally turned around, and Heavy-Egg dismissed his crew. He watched them crowd
onto the lifts and head for the surface of Egg and the pulp-bars with more speed than he had seen out of
them all turn.
"Last lift, boss." Hungry-Pouch was holding the lift steady.
"Wait for me," said Heavy-Egg. "Got to see the chief."
He took the elevator to the upper deck of Topside Platform and made his way to the compound that
was the office of the chief engineer of Topside Platform. His crew had barely made their quota today,
and he finally had to take some action. He didn't mind a little squeeze and tickle during the shift, it helped
make the turns go by; but when he had found Yellow-Rock treading Easy-Row behind the elevator shaft,
that was the pod that toppled the plant. He wanted them replaced.
The door to the chief engineer's compound was open. Heavy-Egg flowed in with a determined tread,
then stopped. A young stranger was in the office, and the chief engineer was listening to him deferentially.
The youngling had badges bigger than the chief engineer's badges.
"Shift Supervisor Heavy-Egg," said the stranger. "It's good to see you again." Seeing the bewilderment in
Heavy-Egg's eye-wave pattern, he added, "I'm your boss, Cliff-Web. I've been 'rejuved'—I think they
call it now. Do you have a problem?"
"It can wait until next shift," Heavy-Egg said, reversing his tread-ripple. He moved back out the door in a
daze and made his way to the bottom deck. Yellow-Rock avoided his glance as Heavy-Egg flowed onto
the lift, took over the controls from Hungry-Pouch and started the long trip down the Space Fountain to
the surface.
Time-Circle was feeling lonely again and was looking for someone to talk to. Another of the channels in
his time machine had become clogged with noise. He wandered over to the other side of the Inner Eye
Institute and visited the Crustallography compound; but Neutron-Drip wasn't at her computer, so he
went looking for her in the laboratory. All he found was Eager-Eyes, busy treading a touch-and-taste
console. On either side of the console were two highly flattened
Spheroidal bowls that represented the east and west hemispheres of Egg. They were shaped according
to the old-style maps where distances were marked off in tread lengths. They were flat in the regions near
the magnetic poles where the cheela treads were of minimum size, and more curved near the magnetic
equator where the horizontal component of the magnetic field stretched out the cheela's tread. Now that
the cheela had space travel, they realized that Egg was spherical; but the ancient shape was still useful for
the crustallogists, for most of the activity in the crust took place near the poles. The maps flickered with
lights showing the crust-quake activity. A bright blue spot would appear on the map, then shift down in
color as the intensity of the quake died.
"I was looking for Professor Neutron-Drip," Time-Circle told Eager-Eyes.