Cheela - Starquake Part 2

"Good," said Time-Circle. "Let me check it out. Hmmm. This is an historic moment, what message shall I use? It has to be short, but it should be significant. I've got it!" His tread moved over the screen as he set up the message.

"Turn back O Time,"Cliff-Web muttered.... "I read it on the detection screen just as I tweaked the last parameter."

'That is what I just sent!" said Time-Circle. "It works! It works!"

"I already said that," Cliff-Web reminded him as he pouched his tools and measuring instruments. The gravity wave detector was long and ma.s.sive, but folded up into a package that fitted nicely into the big pouch in his body that he had developed for instrument transport. At the very last he went over to the corner and picked up the plant that had been sitting there. It was his trademark, pet, and closest companion-a cleft-wort plant. Checking the plant over carefully, Cliff-Web put it into another pouch in his cavernous body.

"You've plugged up the past of one of your four back-time channels," he warned as he left.

Time-Circle wasn't listening. He was preparing a message to himself at the dedication ceremonies for the Time-Comm machine some three turns into the future. As he was sending it, a confirmation message came from his future self.

He had arranged for it to use the same back-time channel that he had used for his test message. His future self reported that the message had been received at the dedication ceremony, and only two sethturns early. The wave pattern of Time-Circle's eye-stubs slowed as he made adjustments to the time-interval circuits. The message utilization code tacked onto the end of the confirmation message indicated that the message was within a few bits of the maximum that could be sent over that distance in time. Time-Circle had the computer make a scroll copy of the coded message so he could later calculate the exact bit-time product, but it looked as if it were close to what his theory had predicted-864 bit-greats. That meant that he could send a message 864 bits long over a time interval of one great of turns, or a one-bit message over 864 greats. Time quantization statistics would cause variations, of course, and one of his research tasks with the machine was to determine those statistical variations.

He didn't want to fill up any more channels with messages until he had done some calculations, so he put a pa.s.sword lock on the touch-and-taste screen, which turned a blank silver patch in the yellow-white floor as he headed for the door.

The walls around the Time-Comm laboratory were extra high, and thus very thick at the base. As his tread approached the door, a sensor pattern in the floor read the wrinkles in his tread and the inner door slid open. He entered the security port in the base of the wall and felt his body stiffen as a magnetic field penetrated his body and generated a magnetic susceptibility map to compare with the stored version.

"You are carrying a scroll out that you did not have when you came in," a mechanical sounding voice vibrated through his tread.

"It's the instruction manual for the operation of the Time-Comm machine," Time-Circle explained. "I'm going to read it at home."

"Accepted," replied the machine. The magnetic field disappeared, and the outer door opened. Before Time-Circle left, he set the intruder barriers. He couldn't see the barriers, but the top of the tall wall now bristled with alternating north and south magnetic poles. The fields were so strong and the gradients so high that it would take forever to push anything through them to get over the wall. The field strength near the center of the barrier was strong enough to elongate the cells in a living organism until they didn't function properly. He had been told it felt as if you were putting a tendril into the purple-hot flame of a gamma-ray flare. He noticed the fading track of Cliff-Web that indicated he had pushed off down the slanting corridors to the north-east. Time-Circle moved in the opposite direction and headed Bright-west for the Administrative Compound of the Inner Eye Inst.i.tute to arrange for the dedication ceremonies.

Cliff-Web felt quietly pleased with himself. First the s.p.a.ce Fountain (he could see the tiny spike of light growing up into the sky over the wall at the end of the long north-east corridor), now the Time-Comm machine. The time machine was finished so far ahead of schedule that the formal turn-on ceremonies were still scheduled for three turns from now. He wasn't sure whether he would bother going to them. He hated to have people tell him how wonderful he was. It made his eye-stubs squirm just thinking about it.

He was anxious to get home to his holovid and his plants. He then remembered his cleft-wort that he had pouched when he left. He stopped and, forming a manipulator, reached into his pouch and pulled out the plant.

"There, there, Pretty-Web," he said. "You getting too warm?" He held the plant up to his eyes and looked it over carefully. Itwas too warm. It was almost the same yellow-white on the top as it was on the bottom, and it was drooping a little between the acute angle of the artificial cleft that took the place of the natural rock clefts in the mountains where the cleft-wort normally grew.

Now that the plant was out in the open where it could see the dark blackness of the starry sky, the top surface cooled off and turned a velvety red-black, while the underside turned a reflective silver. Cliff-Web lifted the plant up to his own deep red topside and put the base of the holder into a pouch he formed on his topside. He directed his body to heat the pouch; and the plant, with its roots in a source of heat and its topside cooled by the black sky, started to regain its normal circulation and perked up. The tension threads that wove back and forth from one side of the cleft to the other tightened, and the topside corrugations grew more wrinkled, increasing the emissivity of the top surface. Tiny threads of red light started at random in the black-red top, and wended their way down the feeder veins to the dull red stem leading to the yellow-white base. It was a pretty moving display.

Cliff-Web could almost feel the hum of the plant as it worked to make food.

Relaxed and happy with himself and his plant, Cliff-Web didn't hurry as he pushed his way north-east.

Using the walls of the compounds along the street as a levering wedge, he pushed his body through the magnetic field lines that tried to prevent his northward motion.

For a while he moved through the slumlike area of Old Town that surrounded the sprawling grounds of the Inner Eye Inst.i.tute. Most of the compounds here had their window slides closed, so there wasn't much to see except wall. The intersections were irregular and he found he had gone too far east before he realized he should have taken a north-west tack back a few intersections. The north-west street he had available now was 60 degrees north of east instead of the nominal 30 degrees. Grunting with annoyance at himself, he pushed his way across the intersection, found the south wall of the street and pushed north-west, this time more north than west. A robotic glide-car for hire pa.s.sed in the spa.r.s.e traffic and he was tempted to wave it down, but it was going in the wrong direction, and besides, he could use the exercise.

As Old Town changed to the suburbs of Bright's Heaven, the street pattern became more regular. The main thoroughfares ran straight east and west, with the side-pairs of streets angled off at exactly 30 degrees north from east in crisscrossing patterns that formed diamond and triangular blocks. The personal compounds were built right up to the walkway, and the walls had been coated with frictionless tile to allow for rapid motion of pedestrian traffic north and south. Most of the compounds now had their window slides back so Cliff-Web could look into the outer courtyards.

He stopped to admire the plant arrangement in one fence-port. Someone had taken a normal, triangular window opening and had inserted cleft-brackets between alternate courses of bricks, making an ascending staircase of cleft-brackets. A single heavy stem came up from the crust, divided into two branches that went up from the sides of the triangular notch, then spread its web over one cleft support after another. Being staggered, each web of the multi-webbed plant was able to see the dark sky and thrive. The top two clefts in the arrangement were not yet webbed, but he could see the little tendrils being trained to make the next step. Surrounding the growing tips were little boxes. He couldn't figure out what they were. He was impressed with the display. As he moved over the nameplate embedded in the walkway in front of the door, he took note of the name. D. M. Zero-Gauss, 2412 North-West 7th Street. Must be a professor at the Inst.i.tute. He would have to arrange a visit to discuss gardening some turn.

Cliff-Web didn't miss the proper intersection now that he was back again in familiar territory. He tacked north-west past his compound, still a number of diamonds to the north, made the sharp turn to the north-east onto his own street, and headed for home. His compound was one of the largest in the neighborhood. It took up a whole diamond to itself. After he had earned the huge incentive bonus for coming in way under the target cost for the design of the s.p.a.ce Fountain, he had enough stars to his credit that he bought out his neighbors, tore down the walls between the four plots, and expanded his old personal compound. One of his neighbor's compounds had been turned into a workroom, another into a potting yard and heatbed for new sprouts, and the third into quarters for his pets. He whispered a happy electronic whistle into the crust as he approached his compound. Happy noises echoed back.

He was first greeted by Chilly, the genetically miniaturized hybrid Swift. Chilly had slithered up to the top of the compound fence, its tail wrapped around the street-sign post built into the corner, and greeted him with up and down bows of its head. The five sharp-pointed teeth would spring out to show a glowing white maw, then draw back in again as it swallowed. Chilly took a swipe at the cleft-wort plant Cliff-Web was carrying on his back, but Cliff-Web diverted the animal by sticking a manipulator down its gullet. Chilly's razor-sharp teeth, which could have amputated the end of his manipulator in one bite, just sc.r.a.ped the skin slightly and continued to mouth the manipulator as he pulled it free. Cliff-Web paused to let Chilly slide onto his topside and reached through the fence window to pat a few friendly bodies on the other side. He reached his doorway, pulled out his magnekey, unlocked the fence-door, and slid it into the wall. He was immediately surrounded by three Slinks, a half-dozen Slinklings, and Cold, Chilly's mate.

After he said h.e.l.lo to all the Slinks, they took off on their various Slinkish activities, and he had time to look around for Rollo. The ball-like animal was cowering in a corner behind its large, slow-moving cousin, Slurge, a miniaturized Flow Slow. Slurge had gotten into the parasol bed. He would have to speak with his caretaker, Moving-Sand, about that.

"Come here, Rollo," he called, holding out a waving tendril. "Come, Rollo. Come here."

Slowly the ball rolled out from behind the Flow Slow, its mult.i.tude of eyes drawn by the waving tendril.

Finally it moved close enough for the tendril to stroke it. It rumbled in pleasure, ducking its eyes out of the way of the moving tendril.

"There, there, Rollo," he said. "No need to be afraid. The noisy Slinks are all gone now." The pet, now more relaxed, rolled around his periphery, enjoying caresses from one tendril after another. Just then Moving-Sand flowed into view around the corner.

"I knew it must be you when I heard the commotion. Those Slinks must have vibrated the whole neighborhood by now." Suddenly he noticed the Flow Slow in the parasol bed.

"Hey!" said Moving-Sand. "What do you mean letting Slurge get into the plants! How am I going to keep things in shape here if you don't help?"

Forming a heavy, clublike manipulator, Moving-Sand flowed over to the heavy creature that was soaking up plant juices through its lower tread, and banged it hard on one side.

"Move, you big hunk of flabby rock," Moving-Sand hollered through the crust.

Shrinking as much from the shrill cry on its underside as from the heavy blows on its armored topside, the miniaturized Flow Slow moved off the patch of parasol flowers and back onto the lawn it had been trained to keep in check.

Moving-Sand gave it a few more blows to keep it moving. "Your mail is in your study and your meal is in the oven," Moving-Sand said. "Get it yourself. I've still got a dozen more fountain-shoots to transplant."

"How are the fountain plants doing?" asked Cliff-Web.

"The ones that survived are doing fine," Moving-Sand reported. "They would do better if you had left them back at the East Pole where you found them, where the magnetic field goes straight up and down. I found if I started from seed, picked those with a tilted firing tube and lopsided catcher, and planted them pointing in the proper direction, I could get them to grow. Don't ever expect them to get too large, though. Nope. The catcher would get so lopsided they'd topple over. Got one planted right over there."

Moving-Sand's eye-stubs twitched to a circular patch of parasol flowers, in the center of which was a tiny fountain of blue-white sparks.

The fountain plant was a highly energetic form of plant life that worked at intense rates just to stay alive.

Biologists at the Inner Eye Inst.i.tute still argued over whether it should be cla.s.sified as a plant or an animal, since it could only live in highly rich, neutron-poor soil like that found in the East and West Pole mountains.

The central core of the fountain plant was a long thin tube. Its extensive root system pulled in the nutrients and burned them at a terrific rate. The blue-hot temperatures inside were transferred to seedlike particles that were shot up the tube into the sky in a shower of tiny blue-white specks. The specks cooled by radiation and were only dull red by the time they were gathered in by the cup-shaped collector at the base of the plant to be recycled again. Each gamma-ray photon emitted during the short-lived trajectory moved the nuclear equivalent of the photosynthesis cycle one more notch along on the way to make an energized molecule that could be used by the plant to grow.

The fountain plants Cliff-Web had seen in the East Pole mountains often lived less than a turn. They would start from seed in a promising mound of dust, would sparkle for a few dothturns, getting visibly bigger as time went on, then as the nutrient wore out, the firing stalk would start to shoot out larger seed particles. In the last few methturns, the dying stalk would start to wobble while the ejection velocity increased, and the seeds would be shot over a region many centimeters on a side. If they landed on a promising mound of neutron-poor material, the process would start again. Otherwise the seeds would wait until ground tremors or animal motion moved them to the right place.

Cliff-Web had hoped that by supplying adequate amounts of nutrients he could keep them running for many turns at a time. These plants were not designed for a long life, however, and seemed to give up after a half-dozen turns. They were a real delight when sparking, so he just enjoyed the sight for a few methturns, then went across the outer courtyard to his study room in the inner compound.

As he entered the study, La.s.sie moved off its pad near the wall that backed up to the oven in the next room. The aging Slink moved erratically as it came to greet its master. The Slink was so old it had lost most of its long hair. Cliff-Web was bemused at how much the hairless Slink looked like a wrinkled cheela hatchling. The close resemblance of the two species was probably why the slinks were the favorite pets of the cheela. Practically every cheela kept one, and the latest trend was to name the animals after hairy, four-legged human pets such as La.s.sie, Trigger, Peter, Bossy, and Tabby.

Cliff-Web went to his work station, and the silver touch-and-taste screen activated as soon as his tread moved onto it. As a major engineering contractor, Cliff-Web had the latest in intelligent terminals. He read his computer net messages, dictated some replies to his roborespondor program, arranged for the final billing for the Time-Comm machine, then turned to his scroll delivery. He had been gone for a long time, and even though computer messages had replaced most personal message delivery services, there still were a large number of message scrolls in his scroll wall.

Made of strong, crisscrossing plates built into the wall of his study, the scroll wall held those doc.u.ments that were either too important or too bureaucratic to trust to the computer net message service.

Suspecting what it was, Cliff-Web reached for the largest scroll and pulled it from its diamond-shaped hole in the wall. A glance at the outside showed he had guessed right. It was the formal request for plans for the design of the inertia drive engine to replace the failing rocket in the asteroid protecting the humans.

Strengthening his manipulator bone to compensate for the weight of the multi-folded doc.u.ment, he lowered it carefully to the floor where the springy metal foils distorted into an ellipsoidal shape, just waiting for the flick of a tendril to flatten out at the desired sheet. Although there was a copy for him to look at in his message files, Cliff-Web still liked to stare at the crust when he was thinking, so he formed a tendril and, poking it in the central hole of the scroll, pushed down.

The slight bit of pressure added to the strong gravitational field of Egg caused the metal foil to flatten out, revealing the top page. It was the Request For Plan for the giant inertia drive. Cliff-Web scanned the first page and didn't like what he saw.

"May Bright set!" he swore. "It's been over two greats of turns since we promised the humans we would rescue them. I thought the Slow One Interaction Laboratory would have done more by now! This Request For Plan is only for a preliminary design effort. They should have done that study in-compound a great of turns ago."

Having stared down at many such doc.u.ments in his career, he inserted another tendril about two-thirds of the way through the stack. The "flow-plate" foils that the bureaucracy had inserted between the cover sheet and the meat of the doc.u.ment rolled up again into a tight ellipse. He let a few more pages roll up, back-rolled one page, then cursed again.

"Suck a Flow Slow! They only budgeted 144 great-stars for this contract! They must be expecting us to add eggs to their pen."

He let a few more pages roll up until he got to the listing of the work items required. He didn't curse this time, because he had seen the same thing happen too many times before.

"... and the only difference between this 'preliminary' design effort and a 'full' design effort is that we don't have to submit firm price quotes as part of the final report." He moved his tendril and let the pages roll up quickly one after another as he scanned them. His eye-wave motion slowed and his tread'trummed nervously as his brain-knot thought of an alternate approach to the problem.

"That might work," he said to himself. He let the scroll roll up and put it back into the scroll wall as he moved onto his touch-and-taste communicator. He was about to set up a con- ference call to some of his chief engineers out in the field when a slowgonging sound penetrated the crust. His pendulum clock was marking the end of the turn with the slow tolling of the twelfth dothturn.

He checked his nuclear chronometer-the ancient pendulum clock was still keeping perfect time despite the large crustquake a few turns ago. No use calling anyone now. Everyone on Egg was settling down to their main meal of the turn. He would get something to eat himself and make the call at dothturn one.

La.s.sie followed him to the meal room as he left the study. La.s.sie may have been old, but she wasn't dumb; it would be her mealtime too. Moving-Sand had prepared a good turnfeast. A small pan with a loaf of ground eye-anchor and spices surrounded by a dozen small parasol root-nodes was warming in the oven. He lifted the lid of the cooler built into the meal-room floor and found a fresh salad of petal-leaves with hot sauce made from crushed North Pole stinger-fronds. He also extracted a cooled bag of singleberry wine. It was from the north slopes of the Exodus Volcano and was supposedly one of the best.

He was busy thinking about the new project and normally would have just dumped the contents of the food plates into an eating pouch and gone back to his study, but this turn he decided to stay in the meal room and enjoy the excellent turnfeast. He put the plates on the temperature-controlled segments in the floor next to his eating pad and settled his large body down. He moved two of his eating pouches around until they were next to each other and in front of the two dishes. A manipulator held the bag of singleberry wine above both pouches and squirted streams into one or the other as the taste called for.

The eye-anchor loaf was superb. There were still a few excellent flank slabs in the freezer that were even better, but he was glad that Moving-Sand had settled for the cheaper cut, since he would rather have the slabs when he had company. After all, it wasn't often that one had prime cheela meat for turnfeast.

He was fortunate that he still had most of his bonus left when the carca.s.s went on sale, otherwise Fountain-Petal would have been eaten by non-clanners. She had been killed in a terrible glide-car accident caused during a crustquake. All dead cheela carca.s.ses belonged to their clan and were sold at auction to augment the clan tributes that were used to cover the expenses of raising the clan hatchlings. Since, on the average, there was only one cheela carca.s.s per lifetime for every cheela, even the tough, stringy meat of an Ancient One was more expensive than the best animal meat. Only a rich person could afford to buy more than one eye-segment of the typical carca.s.s. The meat of an accident victim in her prime was nearly priceless to the indolent wealthy who seemed to spring up in modern affluent societies. Cliff-Web brought honor back to his clan when he outbid a combine of feast pad operators for all twelve eye segments of Fountain-Petal. The clan tribute was lowered by a dozeth for a great after the sale.

The bag of wine was dry, the platter of ground eye-anchor muscle was empty, and Cliff-Web was poking at the remains of his hot-cold salad when the crust vibrated with the complex melody of the half-dothturn chime. It was still too early to set up a conference call to his engineering team, so he let La.s.sie suck at his dishes, then moved slowly into the entertainment room. He didn't want entertainment, however; he wanted news-news about the humans and their predicament. He wanted to see what the average cheela on Egg knew (or cared) about the precarious predicament of the Slow Ones above them.

He turned on the holovid and focused his eyes on the empty s.p.a.ce between him and the silver screen covering the floor and two walls of the corner of the room. A scene appeared, floating in s.p.a.ce. It was a new prophet, treading the ancient phrases of Pink-Eyes, the First Prophet, promising s.e.xual ecstasy to all. Cliff-Web vibrated his eye-stubs in annoyance at this additional example of a degenerating modern society. Already there were some modern males who were renouncing their clans to avoid the tribute needed to raise the hatchlings. After all, they didn't generate eggs that needed hatching and raising. The next thing you knew, female cheela would be aborting their eggs because they got "tired of carrying them." They should be thankful they weren't human females who had to take care of their offspring after they were hatched.

Cliff-Web had a modern holovid set with full computer accessories. The computer was not quite as intelligent as a robot, but nearly as good. It kept copies in its molecmem of all the programming that had pa.s.sed through its 144 channels in the previous six turns and could retrieve older programs from its permanent memory.

"What news programs have mentioned the humans?" he asked.

"None in the past six turns," replied the computer. "There was a science news program on an educational channel 36 turns ago that mentioned that Sky-Teacher, the special purpose robot used for talking to the humans, had been deactivated for modernization and repairs since the human communicator Pierre Niven had left the communications console. Its place had been taken by an automaton, but Sky-Teacher would be back before the humans missed it. The broadcast was sponsored by the Slow One Patrons."

"The whole public and bureaucracy are Slow One Patrons," said Cliff-Web. "They treat the humans as if they were just another animal to protect. They say, 'The humans areso slow andso stupid,we have to take care of them.' Yet theyaren't taking care of them! The humans are in danger, and we cheela are trying to save a few stars by delaying work and underestimating costs." He gave a muttered curse and moved off to his study. It was still two grethturns until dothturn one, but if he knew his chief engineers, they were akeady through with their turnfeasts and back at their consoles.

He activated a conference link and gathered his engineers together to prepare a response to the Request For Plan. Web Engineering would probably lose money on the contract, but that didn't bother Cliff-Web.

The combined clans of Egg might not care much about the humans, but Web Engineering did.

06:51:19 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050.

Dr. Cesar Wong lifted his eyes from the porthole looking into Jean's protection tank and peered at the control board in the wall. The tell-tales indicated that three tanks were now occupied and that Jean, Abdul, and Seiko were temporarily safe from the rapidly varying tidal forces. Pierre was still in the library on the lower crew deck, but should be back soon to get into his tank. Cesar slowly made his way around the central column to his own tank, being careful not to lose control of his limbs to the tearing gravity forces. Amalita's tank was next to his, but she was not there and not in her tank. He looked around with concern. The main deck was empty.

"Amalita!" he called. There was no reply, but he heard sounds of heavy breathing coming down the pa.s.sageway from the Science Deck. He started up the pa.s.sageway rungs to see what was going on.

Normally, when the compensator ma.s.ses were doing their job, the central portion of the Dragon Slayer was in nearly free fall. Only near the outer walls did the gravity field become large enough to give a sense of up and down. Now, however, the compensation was way off, and the gravity forces on the upper and lower decks were substantial. The average field was nearly two Earth gravities and slowly getting stronger, while the variations around that average sometimes exceeded two gravities for a millisecond or so. The variations did not act long enough to build up large velocities, but they made it difficult to navigate the rungs. He turned around so that the gravity was pulling him "down" the ladder to the "upper" Science Deck and climbed down to stand next to Amalita, who was sitting on the ceiling, trying to struggle into a s.p.a.cesuit.

"I'm going to repair the herder rocket by replacing the valve with a redundant valve from another rocket," she panted.

"You'll be killed!" he said, his eyes growing wide with concern.

"We'llall be killed unless somebody fixes that rocket," she said. "I may not make it, but I'm going to give it a good try."

"I admire your bravery," said Dr. Wong. "But if you would only stop to think, you would realize that bravery is not going to be enough." He bent down and made her look at him.

'The herder rockets operate in the region halfway between us and the compensator ma.s.ses, which are at 200 meters from the center of the ring," he said. His voice took on a commanding tone. "What is the magnitude of the tidal force at 100 meters from one of those ma.s.ses?"

Doc Wong watched Amalita's eyes glaze over as the superfast colloid computer under the brown ponytail raced through the mental calculations.

"133 gees per meter," she said. Her eyes blinked as she returned to the task of putting on her helmet.

"But it is compensated by the neutron star tides of 101 gees per meter...."

"Leaving 32 gees per meter," said Doc. "The joints in the herder rockets are designed to stand those strains, but you'll have to admit that your joints can't."

As he took the helmet from her unresisting hands, a bright streak of light flashed across the star image table above them. The cheela Polar Orbiting s.p.a.ce Station had shot by them once again.

06:52:19 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050.

Captain Star-Glider was waiting at the docking port as the small jumpcraft maneuvered closer to the s.p.a.ce station. It was carrying a two-star admiral, and custom demanded that the captain of the station be there to greet such an important visitor. He wasn't sure why the admiral was coming. It might be that he was on his way out into s.p.a.ce, but Star-Glider was not aware of any imminent deep s.p.a.ce launches. He suspected that the visit might involve him, since his tour of duty as station commander was about over and it was time for him to move on to a new command. While he waited, he allowed four of his eyes to watch the Six Eyes of Bright pa.s.s over, only a kilometer away. It was now over four greats of turns since the meteorite had struck the rocket and the compensator ma.s.ses were now noticeably out of line. He idly wondered what the bureaucracy of the Combined Clans was doing about it for he had heard nothing in the holovid news reports.

The jumpcraft docked smartly on a flat spot on the side of the spherical s.p.a.ce station.

"Welcome to the Polar Orbiting s.p.a.ce Station, Admiral Milky-Way," Star-Glider said, his tendrils brushing his six-pointed captain's star in salute. "What brings you so far from the warmth of Egg?"

"Well, Icould say that I've come on a surprise inspection," the admiral answered. Then his tread rippled with laughter as he noticed the nervous twitch in Star-Glider's eye-stubs. "But actually I've come to see you about a private matter. Can we retire to your quarters?"

"Certainly." Star-Glider was slightly puzzled. Usually a change of command was made by a public announcement. He led the way down the corridors and they entered his quarters. He had left the holovid on and the viewblock contained a close-up of a single cheela eye. It was a cool, deep red and the eye-stub below it was thickening as it drew the eye down below the plumpest, s.e.xiest eyeflap on Egg.

The holocamera pulled back to show the rest of the female cheela as she con- turned her slow ripple across the stage, winking one eye after another as she sang the slightly risque song, 'Twine Thine Eyen About Mine." Slightly embarra.s.sed, Star-Glider moved over to the control patch to turn it off, but the admiral blocked his way with a tendril.

"Don't do that," he said. "Let her finish her song, it's one of my favorites." He moved over to a resting pad and flowed himself out to enjoy the show. Star-Glider perched on the other pad with half his eyes on the viewblock and half on the admiral. The song came to an end, and with it the show. Star-Glider moved out a portion of his tread and turned off the holovid.

"A perfectly delightful creature, that Qui-Qui," Milky-Way rumbled. "I find her an excellent antidote for egg-tending fever. Every time I see those twelve luscious eyeflaps, I feel like a hatchling again." He shuffled his tread a bit, then reached into a pouch and pulled out a message scroll. Instead of rolling it over to Star-Glider, he held onto it as he talked.

"As you probably realize, your tour of duty here is coming to an end. You have done an excellent job and could stay on here for another tour if you so desire, but you have been recommended for another position. It is not one of the normal command posts, but is a unique one-time mission that requires someone with your breadth of experience in large s.p.a.ce operations. It will be an onerous post at times and will require a long-term commitment on your part. Longer than the usual four-great tour of duty. For those reasons, we are not just going to a.s.sign you to the post. Instead, I came up here to talk to you candidly about the positive and negative aspects of the position and give you an opportunity to turn it down."

"I don't mind committing myself to an extra-long duty tour, if it is the right kind of post," said Star-Glider.

"But what is so onerous about the job?"

"You will be given full responsibility ... but almost no authority," Milky-Way explained. "In fact, most of the work of the commander of this special mission will be to beg and plead and cajole to get enough authority to carry out the mission he has the responsibility to perform. In this case, by authority I mean money." He rolled the message scroll across the deck.

"It was over four greats of turns ago that a meteorite struck one of the rockets herding the Six Eyes of Bright and placed the humans in danger. At that time it was estimated that it would take about five human minutes or ten greats of turns be- fore the circular formation of the Six Eyes became so deformed that the gravity tides would tear the Inner Eye s.p.a.ceship apart. Shortly after that, even the isolation tanks would be unable to protect the humans.