Starquake.pdf

y the errant streams.
Treads gripping the rough spots on the deck, they made their way to the launch area. The atmosphere
above the deck was already full of tiny flakes of dirt that were coming apart and expanding into tenuous
plasma. Three shuttlecraft waited in their launch cradles, and some of them already had a few workers on
top of their curved surfaces. Cliff-Web's eye-balls were starting to itch as he moved up the slippery
curved ramp to the safety of the shuttlecraft with its black hole gravity field.
"Shall I lift off, Boss?" the shuttlecraft pilot asked. "There's all kinds of junk starting to fall off Topside
onto us."
"Not yet," said Cliff-Web. "We're in no danger of falling, and it will be a long time before Topside
decomposes into non-degenerate matter. Who's missing?"
"Nearly everyone from the lower decks," the chief engineer replied. "Wait, here comes the elevator!"
Through the deck the distant whine of motors could be
heard. Way off in the distance a crowded elevator rose through the center of the platform. A cursing
flood of roustabouts swarmed from the elevator toward the launch deck. Driven by the itching madness
in their disintegrating hides and daring only to poke out an occasional eye from under their eye-flaps, they
rushed blindly toward the launch deck.
"Stop! Sto ... !" the first one cried as she became aware of the gaping slash that blocked their way. Her
tread tried to reverse on the slippery surface of the decomposing deck, but the pressure from behind was
too much. Her cry stopped abruptly as she slid into space.
Instead of falling, however, she free-falled across the gap; and her voice returned, louder and cursing, as
her mangled tread clung tenaciously to the jagged metal on the other side.
"Jump!" Cliff-Web shouted to the others who were milling nervously on the other side of the chasm.
"You will just float over."
The itching grew worse as flakes of skin billowed in a cloud around the stranded crew as they tried to
overcome a lifetime of habit and deliberately throw themselves over a precipitous cliff.
"I'll do it if you will," Hard-Way told Shiny-Tread.
"Last one over eats Tiny Shell ploops." Shiny-Tread moved away from the crack, then tucked his eyes
under their flaps, smoothly rippled up to speed on the increasingly slippery deck, and launched himself
into orbit. Hard-Way followed right behind. She was larger and stronger than he was, and her greater
strength gave her a longer leap over the void.
Once he had jumped, Shiny-Tread felt an amazing sense of well-being, as if he were back in his egg. His
body contracted into a ball, distorted by the muscular tread that still twitched as it tried fitfully to make
contact with something solid. The itching of his hide grew more intense. He pushed out an eye-ball to
look. He could see the platform floating by below him, Hard-Way balled up high above him, and the
crowded shuttlecraft ahead. He would have passed over the shuttlecraft and out into space, but the
gravity of the black hole in the shuttlecraft reached out and pulled him in. He landed heavily on the
topside of the chief engineer.