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"Bright has cursed us all!" Hohmann-Transfer shouted. "Here we are in the middle of the biggest<br />
catastrophe to hit Egg, and I get stuck with a stupid, big-liddedentertainer" Suddenly the admiral's voice<br />
shifted to panic.<br />
"We'vegot to find somebody else on Egg," she said. "If we can't find somebody to rebuild a jump loop<br />
or a gravity catapult, we'll be stuck here in space until we die! We've got to find somebody else. We've<br />
got to find somebody else."<br />
Qui-Qui turned off the communication set. "Well, Quick-Quieter," she said out loud to herself. "It looks<br />
like you're through with acting for a while. This is thereal thing. As the admiral said, 'We've got to find<br />
somebody else.' "<br />
She thought about using the flyer, but decided against it. Until she found a way to recharge the<br />
accumulators, she would save the energy for the communications set. There were a number of towns<br />
nearby that she could check out on tread, including the home town of her clan. She hoped she would find<br />
someone alive there. Subconsciously twitching the clan totem in her heritage pouch, the thought of all her<br />
close friends in the clan—the elders, the hatchlings, theeggs! The thought of her clan's eggs and hatchlings<br />
lying unattended moved her to instant action.<br />
Within sethturns she had the flyer skimming along the surface to White Rock City, the home of the White<br />
Rock Clan. She knew exactly where the clan hatchery was, since she had left an egg there only two<br />
greats of turns ago.<br />
The sight at the clan hatchery wrung her brain-knot into<br />
knots. In the hatchling pen were the tiny bodies of innocent, defenseless hatchlings that had been thrown<br />
against the wall to burst and fall to the crust like overripe singleberries. Those bodies that had been<br />
cushioned by the dying Old Ones were covered with fatal blisters, while the juice in the blisters was<br />
cooked until it was nearly solid. Hoping against hope, she went to the egg-pen and laboriously rolled the<br />
dead Old One off the eggs he had been tending. It was only two turns since the starquake, so the eggs<br />
should have survived without being tended. She looked the eggs over carefully, then, awkwardly forming<br />
a hatchling mantle, she tucked them under her. There was no damage and no blisters, but no life. She<br />
twitched the clan totem in her heritage pouch and went out to search the rest of White Rock City.<br />
06:58:07.3 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050<br />
Marooned
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