Starquake.pdf

"My plan is to use the robots on Egg," Cliff-Web explained. "With the two grethturn communications
delay from synchronous orbit to the surface, it will be impossible for us to direct them from up here. But if
you can help control them, we can send down the information needed for them to make repairs to the
catapult. First, however, we have to find those robots and gather them at one of the poles. Can you do
that?"
"I've already found some," said Qui-Qui. "They are just as dead as everyone else. Except for one. I
found him in a box at the West Pole Rejuvenation Center. He works perfectly, except he only wants to
work on keeping rejuvenation machinery fixed. I tried all the robot control tricks I could think of, but the
best I could do was make him fix the video link machines. Unfortunately, it was the only functional robot
I saw. I'm afraid we can't use robots to repair the gravity catapults." Although disguised by the squeaky
sound caused by the gravitational time shift, Qui-Qui could hear the overtones of dejection when
Cliff-Web's voice finally returned.
"I'll have to think of something else," said Cliff-Web. "Well, goodbye for now."
"Goodbye, Engineer Cliff-Web," Qui-Qui said in her most pleasant tone. "It has been a real pleasure
talking to you. I hope to see you in personreal soon."
She spent the next two grethturns thinking of the many greats of turns she faced being all alone.
When Qui-Qui's gravitationally red-shifted voice finally reached Cliff-Web, it had been lowered from her
normal contralto range to a slow, husky tone normally only heard in the privacy of a love-pad room.
Cliff-Web stammered a reply. "... ah ... Yes. I've really enjoyed ... been a pleasure ... talking with you ...
ah ... Qui-Qui ... really nice...." The link went dead.
Two turns later Qui-Qui returned to the Rejuvenation Center wearing a full panoply of M.D. badges.
The maintenance robot had repaired the auxiliary power generator and had gotten one enzyme machine
working. Once that was done, it had allowed itself to work on lower priority items and had cleaned out
all the bodies and tidied up the place. It was now trying to get a second enzyme machine working. She
slipped into the main office and tried to read the files to find out how the Center worked so she could do
a better job of playing a doctor. There was no power to the memory banks, so she went back and
complained to the robot. It took him two turns, but he finally got the main office memory powered and
running.
She then found that the memory files were blank. They had been erased by the radiation during the
quake. She went into M.D. Sabin-Salk's old office compound and took down a few scrolls from his
scroll wall. Except for some very faint markings at the very center of the scroll, they were blank too. She
reported her findings to the West Pole Space Station.
"Why are you still at the West Pole?" Hohmann-Transfer was annoyed. "You should be out looking for
robots or something useful!" Her harassed voice changed to one of near panic as Shannon-Capacity told
her the bad news. "I could expect computer files to go, but scrolls, too?"
"Even taste-plates," said Qui-Qui. "There used to be an ornate taste-plate sign in the crust at the
entrance to the Center. It's now tasteless." The delayed reply back from Hohmann-Transfer was worse
than useless.
"Civilization is destroyed! What shall we do?!?"