Starquake.pdf

Qui-Qui didn't bother to reply. She turned off the communicator and returned to her battle of wits with
the robot. First she got it to reconstruct most of the files for the operation of the rejuvenation center from
its internal memory. She then read those and figured out a way to get the robot to recharge the
accumulators on her flyer. She ordered it to bring the accumulators in from the flyer as "urgent cargo" and
put them next to the accumulators that were used as standby power to the enzyme machines. She then
sent it off on a "repair" in the main office while she switched cables and charged up the accumulators.
Then she made the robot haul the "urgent cargo" back to the flyer. She was now ready to go anywhere
on Egg. But there was nowhere to go.
06:58:09 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050
Heavy-Egg finally came to his senses. He dimly remembered the shrieking pain in his eye-balls. It now
was a dull ache. He stretched his eye-stubs to make sure his eyes weren't hidden behind their eyeflaps,
but he could see nothing. He listened with his tread, trying to figure out where he was. All was silent
around him. The only sounds were the thumping of his fluid pumps and faint rumbles from deep inside
Egg.
Pieces of memory started to return. He remembered blindly wandering around on the top of the East
Pole mountains, mad with pain. Finding the drop chute. Creeping, falling, sliding down through the
darkness. New pain as he hit a broken section of the chute. Cries for help into the crust until his tread
was raw, but no help came. Then the hunger pains grew stronger than the burn pains. He had finally
found food. A chunk of food was in his manipulator, ready to go into his eating pouch. He was starved.
But for some reason he had not eaten.
He felt something underneath his tread. It was the body of another cheela. He moved his tread around,
feeling the dead body—it was a large female. There were long slashes in the body torn by a crude blade.
The sharp piece of metal that had caused the slashes was in one of his manipulators. The chunk of food
was in another. He formed a set of tendrils and reached out to touch the food. It was smooth and round
and soft and leathery ...
"An egg!!!" he cried, his tread grating the crust with its vibrations. "I nearly ate an egg!!!"
He went mad again.
Eye-stumps waving erratically, he put the egg back in its mother, then stumbled across the deserted
street. He found a store with an open door. It was a pulp-bar. Pushing his way past the body of the
barkeeper he found the cache of pulp-bags. He couldn't read them, but after sucking a few bags dry he
didn't care. The dull pain in his eyes went away. He felt good. He loaded his carrying pouches with as
many bags as he could carry and weaved his way back out into the street.
"Hello!" he called. No answer.
"Got to keep on moving. Got to findsomebody."
He moved his overloaded body laboriously down the street and found another open door. This one led
to a repair shop. Maybe he could find a good knife. He found lots of tools, but no knife. He picked up a
tool from its holder next to the mechanic's work-pad. It was a welding torch. It used tanks of liquids that