Starquake.pdf

close. She could have done a good imitation of M.D. Sabin-Salk's tread accent, but she had never heard
him whisper. She did the best she could.
"Tell me how to repair the communication links to Bright's Heaven!" she commanded.
"Open box," said the robot.
Qui-Qui was bewildered. She looked around, then saw a large metal box in one corner of the room.
The room wall had suffered a large dent where the box had slid into it. She went over to the box and
read the badly faded label. It was another robot! According to the label, it was a maintenance robot for
the next bank of enzyme machines that were due to be sent to the rejuvenation center. She undid the
latches and slid off the heavy lid. Twelve glassy eyes raised up from a Slink-sized dome and looked
around. The top of the dome had the design of a cleft-wort plant.
"Energy!" it said. The end of the box fell away and the robot glided out on its undulating underside. It
paused by the damaged robot to exchange information, then moved into the enzyme machine room,
where it found a partially full accumulator and reenergized itself. Qui-Qui followed it. The robot ignored
her and started to lift an enzyme machine back onto its base.
"Stop!" she said. "Repair the communication links to Bright's Heaven."
"That is not my function," said the robot. "My function is to maintain the Rejuvenation Center in
operational condition."
"Reset!" she commanded. 'The Rejuvenation Center cannot operate without doctors. All the doctors are
dead. You must get new doctors. The doctors must be called from Bright's Heaven. You must repair the
communication links to Bright's Heaven so the doctors can be called."
The robot paused in its repair of the damaged enzyme machine. It moved to the main offices, found one
of the video link consoles, and opened it. It carried out a few tests, then moved to the next console.
Since none of them were operational, it then took out a part from one console, other parts from another
console, more from a third, and put them in a fourth. It left the room for a while and came back with a
small energy source to power the console. It went through its testing routine again.
"The communication link is repaired. Bright's Heaven does not respond." It returned to its work of fixing
the enzyme machine.
Qui-Qui tried the video-link console. She had made so many long-distance calls in her life that she knew
all the screen blotches and tread murmurs that indicated the condition of the various portions of the links.
The call probably made it to the central exchange at White Rock City, but the fibers were dead from
there to Bright's Heaven. She tried to get the robot to go to White Rock City to fix the central exchange,
but it refused to leave its assigned duty station and the enzyme machines. She finally gave up and set out
for White Rock City herself to pick up her flyer.
As soon as the flyer was activated, the acoustic coupler to the deck vibrated the floor with a recorded
message.
"Qui-Qui! Respond on channel 36. Qui-Qui! Respond...."
The communications set was already on channel 36 so she activated the transmitter.