Starquake.pdf

You should be able to find more cages in that compound over there next to the elevator building."
"I don't know." Speckle-Top patted the top of the Slink and drew it close to her for a hug. "It sounds
like a lot of work."
"Rin-Tin-Tin's friends are getting awfully hungry," said Zero-Gauss as she pushed the bottom portion of
her tread through some cage bars and poked Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottonball, and Poofsie to make them
chirp.
"Well," Speckle-Top said reluctantly. "Can't let Slinks starve. Come, Fuzzy-Pink. Show me the cages."
Zero-Gauss and the animals were up on the crust before the next turnfeast. Zero-Gauss found the
laboratory food supply for the animals and reluctantly agreed to let Speckle-Top feed the animals while
she explored the compound of the Inner Eye
Institute and the surrounding city. It was worse than she had thought. Not only were all the rest of the
cheela dead, but all the plants and animals, too. She had gone to the zoo and visited the cages of the giant
north hemisphere Flow Slows and Swifts. All dead. The only Flow Slows and Swifts left were her hybrid
miniaturized pets. She found a few seeds in some gardening stores, but wondered if they had survived the
blizzard of penetrating radiation that seemed to have cooked everything else. Fortunately, the packaged
food in the food stores was edible. They and the animals could survive on that until they could get some
crops planted and harvested.
When Zero-Gauss returned to the Inner Eye Institute she found that Speckle-Top had arranged the
cages and some boxes to make a compound for the animals and was happily playing with them.
When the big-badge professor came back, Speckle-Top's sharp eyes noticed that she had taken off the
cheap plastic badges she had been wearing in the hole and had replaced them with expensive metal ones.
Speckle-Top shook off the pile of Slinks that had been clambering all over her and, shoving back an
inquisitive mini-Swift, she left the compound she had made. The eye-waves on the big-badge grown-up
had a twitch that showed she was worried about something.
"Whole species gone. Wiped out!" said Zero-Gauss. "All we have left is the collection from my
laboratory, and it is solimited"
"Looks to me like we got lots of everything," said Speckle-Top. "The stores are full of food, and when
we want something special, we can eat one of your food Slinks. What is the taste of the striped ones?"
"No!" Zero-Gauss was nearly panic-stricken at the thought. "We must not eat them. They are the last
ones on Egg. I must breed them to keep the species alive. The plants, too. They are the only ones left. I
have to save the plants, too."
She went to the edge of the hole and looked down at the dozens and dozens of plants many millimeters
below. They would survive there for a time, but they or their seeds must be laboriously hauled up on the
crust if they were to be available for future generations,if therewere any future generations.
Speckle-Top had come up beside Zero-Gauss as she peered down the hole at the plants. The feeling of
the immature body next to hers caused the collapse of Zero-Gauss's last defenses
against the Old-One syndrome. She spread out a hatching mantle and covered the scarred,
paint-smeared, speckled topside of the ugly youngling.