Cheela - Starquake Part 3

"When the accident happened, the President of the Combined Clans made the commitment that the people of Egg would undertake a mission to restore the rocket and save the humans. But the initial public enthusiasm for the project rapidly wore off. It was a full two greats of turns before even a design study contract was issued-andit was inadequately funded. The Web Construction Company has completed the design effort and come up with a technically feasible approach. They tried to keep the costs down, but the mission is going to require a significant increase in the s.p.a.ce budget and the Legislature of the Combined Clans are clenching their treads and procrastinating to avoid having to appropriate the funds."

Star-Glider pushed on the scroll and it flattened out on the deck. He lowered an eye to read it.

"A promotion to admiral!" he said.

"Yes. Six more points on your star if you take the job," said Milky-Way. "And I can almost guarantee another star if you can ride the Swift without getting eaten."

Star-Glider hesitated.

"You will earn every one of those six points if you take the job," said the admiral. "You will have to go on holovid shows and attend clan gatherings to regenerate public enthusiasm for the project. You will have to get to know most of the members of the Legislature of the Combined Clans and become so close to the members of the legislative sub-group on s.p.a.ce, Communications, and Slow One Interactions that they will think of you as a hatchling mate. Above all, despite provocation, you will have to keep calm, make no enemies, and never lose your temper. Can you do it?Will you do it?"

"Yes!" Star-Glider responded emphatically.

"Congratulations ... Admiral," said Milky-Way. "I happen to have brought along some dozen-pointers with me." He fumbled through his pouches, then pulled out a board with a half-dozen stars on it. While Star-Glider remained motionless in the middle of the room, the admiral circled him, pulling six-pointed stars out of the holding sphincters in Star-Glider's body and inserting shiny new twelve-pointed stars.

When he completed the circuit he asked, "Care to change your name, too?"

"No. I still like the one I chose after I graduated from the academy."

"Well then, Admiral Star-Glider," said Milky-Way. "Let's a.s.semble your crew for an announcement."

Admiral Star-Glider turned over the command of the s.p.a.ce station to First Officer Horizon-Sensor and returned with Milky-Way to the surface of Egg. He had been in orbit for over a great of turns and was looking forward to going to his clan gatherings again.

The pilot on the jumpcraft used a short burst of inertia drive to drop them out of their polar orbit. He timed the deorbit push so that their perigee occurred near the East Pole. As they approached the strong magnetic field region above the pole, stubby superconducting wings unfolded from the slender jumpcraft.

Tilting the winged s.p.a.cecraft as it flew through the slippery magnetic field lines, the pilot transferred momentum to Egg through the East Pole fields and switched from a polar orbit to an equatorial orbit.

There was no change in the jumpcraft's speed since the interaction with the magnetic field was essentially lossless. The maneuver took them within a hundred meters of the thin metal stalk of the s.p.a.ce Fountain.

The tower was now fifty kilometers high and loomed above their trajectory. Star-Glider made sure he was on the topside as the turn was made. The view was excellent. He could even see the small construction elevators moving up and down the lengthening shaft.

06:52:20 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050.

The young roustabout felt uneasy. Normally he wouldn't mind at all being squeezed in an elevator between two plump-lidded females. A little squeeze and tickle would help pa.s.s the dothturn-long drop to the surface. This time, however, one female was his gang-chief and the other was the shift supervisor.

This was his first shift up on the s.p.a.ce Fountain since he had started his apprenticeship at Web Construction, and he was trying to make a good impression so they would let him have more high tower time.

The two supervisors talked shop under his tread, and he suffered in silence as he tried to find some place for his eyes to look that wasn't eyeflap or topside. Six of his eyes watched the three pairs of rapidly moving streams of superconducting rings shooting up through holes at the corners of the triangular-shaped elevator. The other six eyes stared out into s.p.a.ce toward the distant horizon where he could see blotches and lines that were cities and roads leading westward toward Bright's Heaven.

A glowing speck swung around the tower a hundred meters away and shot off into the distance. It was probably a jumpcraft headed for the Jump Loop. The elevator came to a stop at the 60 kilometer platform. The platform was bare except for the deflector magnets surrounding each of the six pairs of ring streams. The upgoing elevator that rode the other three streams had just left the on-shift replacement, and they waited while the shift instructions were pa.s.sed.

"Keep a few eyes on the deflector for stream three-up. It's getting warm, and Topside says they are getting too many pushouts," the off-shifter reported. "I sent down for a spare."

"Got it right here," said the on-shifter, pulling a bulky box from a cavernous workman's pouch. "I'll have it fixed in no time. Have fun in Swift's Climb."

"I expect to. See you in a dozturn."

Heavy-Egg knew about pushouts. That was his job on the Topside Platform. The six up-streams were scanned by some sort of detector when they came topside. Any rings that were bent or too hot got pushed aside into a rejection bin where they slammed into a magnetic stopper. You didn't want bad rings going into the turn-around magnets. They could cause a lot of problems. Heavy-Egg's job was to hook the ring out before the next one was rejected so they wouldn't bang into each other and get dented. The magnetic field in the stopper was so strong it would burn his skin if he left his manipulator in it too long. It was hot and noisy work, but he enjoyed it. Each of the rings he saved was worth more than he made each turn. They were made of monopole-stabilized metal, the only thing on Egg that didn't blow up in free fall. The last dozturn shift he figured he had saved Web Construction enough money to pay him for a whole great of turns, and he hadn't allowed one banger.

They reached the bottom of the tower and the off-shift crew shuffled off the elevator and headed for the chutes. Heavy-Egg stopped to feel the crust at the top of the East Pole mountains. It was humming with power from the con- stant stream of rings that were accelerated in long circular tunnels at the base of the mountain and shot upward in a fountain of metal.

Heavy-Egg flowed into the chute-car. This time he arranged it so that the female next to him wasn't his gang-chief. Her name was Glowing-Tread, and they became real friendly as the chute-car rocketed down the mountain pa.s.ses in a semi-enclosed superconducting chute that kept the magnetic field out.

They braked to a halt in the outskirts of Swift's Climb and headed for the nearest pulp-bar. The pulp-bar had some private pad rooms and some couples headed directly for them, dropping some stars in the bartender's cash pouch as they pa.s.sed.

It was still a few methturns to turnfeast, so Heavy-Egg and Glowing-Tread treated each other to a few bags of fermented pulp from the petal-pod plants. They were into their third bag when Heavy-Egg's favorite holovid show came on. It was the "Qui-Qui Show," starring the s.e.xiest female entertainer on Egg. The males whooped and stamped the crust in rhythm while the females made jokes about the shape of her eyeflaps.

"If she put all twelve eyes on one side, her tread would leave the crust," muttered Glowing-Tread, drawing a few laughs.

"My eye-b.a.l.l.s say you have the same problem," said Heavy-Egg, making the first move. She turned all twelve eyes around to look at him, and his eye-stubs grew stiffer as she winked one after the other in a fairly good imitation of Qui-Qui's famous ripple-wink.

"Like this?" she said, leaning heavily on him and letting her fleshy eyeflaps rub against his topside edge.

"It's a good thing you are there to lean on or I might topple over and bruise something."

They got real friendly again, and she even let him reach into her heritage pouch to feel her clan totem.

However, the totem wasn't familiar-so she wasn't a member of one of the out-clan families related to his clan. She was willing to rent a pad-room and go further, but Heavy-Egg still felt a strong allegiance to his in-clan and its out-clan families. Any egg he might be responsible for must end up in his clan hatching pens. There were already too many clanless hatchlings on the streets.

Heavy-Egg parted reluctantly with Glowing-Tread. She found someone else and went off to turnfeast with him. Frustrated, Heavy-Egg invested a few stars in a private holovid screen room and watched the rest of the Qui-Qui Show.

Qui-Qui was of his in-clan, and he had actually seen her at a clan gathering. Of course she had been surrounded by admirers. His dream since he became old enough to realize that females were different from males was to have Qui-Qui lay his egg. He knew it would never come true, but that didn't stop him from dreaming.

The Qui-Qui Show was finally over. Heavy-Egg played it back again using the automatic replay feature while he pouched a turnfeast meal without seeing or tasting it. Most of the rest of the off-shift crew were going to take a few turns of break-time, but he made his way back up to the top of the mountain and reported to the Web Construction scheduler. There was always some roustabout who got too lazy or too full of pulp to make it back to work on time. He was lucky; there was a Topside job open. He grabbed it eagerly, for the only thing that he liked better than thinking about Qui-Qui was the nearly s.e.xual thrill of working on the tower, where the tiniest slip meant instant death.

Heavy-Egg enjoyed work, and often wondered what it would feel like to be a human and have to spend a third of your life unconscious. He had heard that humans would fall asleep even when their lives were in danger. He then remembered hearing long ago on the holovid that the humans were in some kind of danger and wondered if any of them were asleep.

06:53:21 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050.

Amalita crawled slowly along the pa.s.sageway ladder from the Science Deck to the Central Deck, her muscles fighting the high outward-going residual gravity tides. She was careful at each step to maintain a tight three-point grip with feet and hands on the rungs as the varying forces from the errant compensator ma.s.s alternately tried to pull her up and down the ladder. As she pa.s.sed the protection tank containing Seiko, she looked inside. Seiko had her eyes shut, and her limbs hung limply in the water. She was sound asleep.

"I guess thirty-six hours of strenuous activity is enough even for a super-human like her," Amalita muttered. She clung to the handholds near the communications console. Pierre was strapped into the seat.

"If only Dragon Slayer had some means of propulsion," she said to Pierre.

"It'd have to be faster-than-light propulsion to get away from the neutron star before the tides tore us...."

Suddenly something clicked in Pierre's mind. In special relativity, faster-than-light travel was equivalent to time travel-and he knew the cheela could travel faster than the speed of light. Pierre turned back to the console screen.

"Sky-Teacher," he said. "You can travel faster than light. Do you have time travel?"

"Yes," said Sky-Teacher. "A Doctor of Tempology communicated through time two minutes ago, just after your accident."

"Then send a message back in time and get someone to deflect the meteorite!" said Pierre.

"Unfortunately, our time machines don't allow communication with times before the machine is first turned on," said Sky-Teacher.

"Then we've had it," said Pierre, his body jerking about in his console chair. "The hull won't last more than two minutes."

Rescue

06:53:40 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050.

An intermittent buzzing sound radiated through the crust. Cliff-Web tried to ignore it and continued with the pleasurable task of setting out tiny parasol plants in a border around his back garden to replace the old ones that had gone to seed. He pulled up the old plants and put them in a pile for Moving-Sand to haul away, then replaced them with new little shoots. They were a new variety he and Moving-Sand were developing from a mutant form he had discovered on his last engineering job.

The normal parasol plant had twelve supporting rods that grew up and out from the single tap root to support the reddish, cool concave top surface that radiated to the sky. These shoots had twenty-four rods. The doubling was not simple, however, but was more like two plant skeletons trying to exist under the same skin, for the glowing pollen tips of the cantilevered rods alternated in s.e.x and color. Normal parasol plants slowly pulsed with time, the pollen tips turning from deep red-black to a bright white-hot glow, then back again. The two sets of tips on the double parasol were out of phase. While one set was dark, the alternate set was bright, producing a pleasing blinking effect.

The buzzing persisted.

"Moving-Sand," he hollered into the crust. "Can you answer that for me?"

"You get it. I'm busy cleaning out the Slink rooms," came a voice from the rear of the compound.

With a shrug, Cliff-Web emptied out his gardening pouch, wiped his manipulator on a wiper, dissolved the stubby, bony arm back into his body, and made his way to his study. The buzzing grew louder as he entered the room.

La.s.sie was still resting in the warm corner of the room. He glided onto the taste-plate in the floor, and a portion of his undertread touched theANSWER square on the screen. It was Admiral Star-Glider, head of the Slow One Rescue Expedition. The picture was speckled with white spots again. He would have to call the video-link company and get them to find the bad spot in the X-ray fiber cable to his compound.

"Turn on your holovid to the public services channel," said Star-Glider. "The legislature is winding up its debate on the funding for the Jumbo Bagel. There should be a tally soon, and then we will be able to start work."

"Seeing" Star-Glider through the ultrasensitive taste buds built into his tread, Cliff-Web turned some of his eyes toward a silvery screen set in one wall of his study. He formed a tendril and, reaching to a small console set into the floor, touched some panels. Brief scenes flashed in front of the screen as the planar phased-array antenna embedded in a corner of his compound switched its reception beam to receive a stream of modulated gamma rays coming from a direct broadcast satellite hovering to the west of the Eyes of Bright.

Four of his eyes looked upward at the pattern of six glowing asteroids hovering over Bright. The pattern was badly askew.

"The Six Eyes are already way out of their pattern," said Cliff-Web. "We should have been up there to fix that long ago. After all, we promised we would."

"Well, politicians like to make promises," Star-Glider replied. "But when it comes to appropriating money for it, they seem to feel they can take their time, especially in cases like this one, where there is no real urgency. We have plenty of time."

"We did have plenty of time when the accident happened," Cliff-Web reminded him. "But the politicians have fooled around for six greats of turns trying to find a cheaper way to do it. My engineers and I have done our best, but there is no way we can build that giant inertia drive engine and get it up into s.p.a.ce for less than a billion stars, and the longer they wait, the more it is going to cost. How are the humans taking it?"

"According to Sky-Teacher, they are becoming panicky. He can tell by the overtones in their speech."

"What is the present estimate of the time to failure?"

"It's hard to tell. We have an eight body gravity model that can predict the future positions of the ship and asteroids with respect to Egg fairly accurately, but the real unknown is the strength of the s.p.a.cecraft hull. The humans are in the process of climbing into their acceleration protection tanks, and they should be safe there for a while. But, I would like to get the rocket fixed before the hull fails so the humans can take the whole ship back up when it is time for them to go. I would guess we have at least two human minutes."

"That gives us four greats of turns," Cliff-Web said. "I should be able to get the drive built in less than two.If we get the money." He turned his attention to the three-dimensional scene floating above the floor in front of the silvery holovid screen. The legislators had gathered in a large depression in the center of Bright that served as a meeting compound. The place wasn't used very often lately, since most large gatherings for business and entertainment were carried out through multiple communications linkups rather than in person.

This was the last session of the legislature before the recess for elections, however, and it was traditionally held at the meeting compound. The last item of business left in this great's session was the appropriation of the money to build the giant scale inertia drive engine needed to replace the failing engine on the human herder rocket. The large, doughnut-shaped device had been dubbed the "Jumbo Bagel" by the holovid newscasters. The name came from the engine's resemblance to a confection eaten by the humans. One of the legislators was speaking, and the holocamera zoomed in on the waving eye-stubs as the speaker's pad amplified his tread motions.

"... I, for one, don't want to go back to my clan just before election and say that we are going to have to raise taxes just to save a bunch of ignorant Slow Ones who were too dumb to build their s.p.a.cecraft correctly. Let them rescue themselves, I say!"

"I'm sure my esteemed colleague in the third s.e.xtant of the chamber didn't really mean that," another speaker chided. "We certainly can't blame the Slow Ones for being ignorant. They live so slowly that there is no chance they will ever catch up with us. Yet they are not animals. We cannot ignore their plight and just let them die.

After all, they did help us once."

"But that was long ago. Back when we were still but savages. We have paid them back in full by filling up their memory crystals with all the advanced technology they could possibly use. We even cleaned out the black holes in their Sun to stop the ice ages they would otherwise have to face. We owe them nothing, I say. s.p.a.ce exploration is dangerous. People-humans and cheela alike-are often killed by unforeseen accidents. These Slow Ones knew they were on a risky mission when they volunteered. They were unlucky and will have to accept their fate. Why should we empty our pouches to save them from their own foolhardi-ness. I will voteNo!"

"He can't be serious!" Cliff-Web exploded in anger. "We can't let those humans die when we could easily save them! He must be playing to the voters. Is there really a chance that those fools won't give us the money?"

"If it comes to a tally this turn, the appropriation will probably pa.s.s, although it will be close," Star-Glider calculated. "What I am afraid of is that they will decide to put the tally off until after the elections. We will then have a large number of newly elected clan representatives and we will have to go through the whole round of re-educating and re-justifying. It could cost us a full great of turns, and time is getting short...."

Another cheela moved to a speaker's pad. She had to be leader of the fourth s.e.xtant since she came from the frontmost pad of that s.e.xtant. Her body was large and firm and she had great presence. The wave-pattern in her eye-stub motions moved slower and slower as she drew the attention of the a.s.sembled legislators.

"The legislator from the first s.e.xtant and the legislator from the third s.e.xtant are both competent people They have both looked at the same set of facts yet can't seem to agree. I am sure that there are others of you with similar differences of opinion. I would like to propose a compromise position. I recommend that we return this appropriations scroll to the hole in the scroll wall that it came from, and pull it again when the elections are over. By that time we will have more information from our accountants and engineers and we can make a more knowledgeable decision. Perhaps by that time, they will have found a less costly way of carrying out the project."

"The humans are in danger, we must act now if we are going to do any good at all!" said a tread from the first s.e.xtant. The leader of the fourth s.e.xtant paused, formed a pair of tendrils, reached into a pouch, and pulled out a scroll. She placed it on the floor where the gravity held it flat. Lowering one of her eyes near the ground, she proceeded to read.

"Record of the reports to the Legislative Sub-Group on s.p.a.ce, Communications, and Slow One Interactions. Dated Turn 112 of the 2875th great of turns since Contact. A progress report from the Commander of the Slow One Rescue Expedition, Admiral Star-Glider." She skipped over a portion, then continued."

"I quote Admiral Star-Glider. 'Our a.n.a.lysts estimate the tides will be high enough to tear the hull of the human s.p.a.cecraft by 2880. The humans can survive in the tidal protection tanks until perhaps 3010.' "

she continued. "In a later section ... 'From the time a start is authorized, our engineers estimate that it will take about two greats to make the inertial drive engine and install it in the human rocket.' "

"We have time. In a few turns it will be just 2876. The humans will be safe for at least four greats, and we only need two greats to complete the task. Surely we can defer a decision for a short period while we go through elections."

The leader of the first s.e.xtant moved swiftly forward to a speaker's pad. "The distinguished leader of the fourth s.e.xtant neglected to continue the quote of the Commander of the Slow One Rescue Expedition.

Would she please read the next portion of the report while she has it so conveniently under tread?"

Her eye-stubs twitching in annoyance, she continued reading. " 'If there is a delay in the start of construction, however, the actual cost may exceed the present estimated cost. To maintain the schedule, a number of fabrication steps will have to be taken in parallel. There is a possibility of error and costly rework may be necessary.' " She raised her eye from the scroll, "Yes, there is risk in delaying the start, but there is risk in starting now and not looking for a less expensive solution. As leader of the fourth s.e.xtant, I press for a tally on holing the scroll."

"That does it," Star-Glider muttered. "Once a leader of a s.e.xtant presses for a tally, debate stops until the tally is taken. I'm glad she was at least made to read the part about the extra expense, but she covered herself well. This is going to be close. If the tally were yes or no to appropriate the money, then we would probably win, because no one wants to go on scroll as being willing to let the humans die. But there are a lot of yes tallies that would be just as happy to put off a decision until later."

The view on the holovid zoomed back to show the legislators moving to their pads, where they touched their tread screens to indicate their tallies. In a glowing rectangle inset in the center of the holovid block, Cliff-Web could see the tally. It had reached 114Yes and 112No for holing of the scroll when two more legislators scurried down the ramps and the total was tied at 114 each.

"There is one legislator missing!" Admiral Star-Glider exclaimed.

"I see someone in the back."

"Bright's Curse!" Admiral Star-Glider quickly identified the missing cheela. "It's Talking-Tread of the fifth s.e.xtant. He's bound to tally for holing the scroll. But he's only got three sethturns to get to his voting pad."

They watched the legislator moving down the ramp. He was one of the senior legislators, and his pad was down near the center of the meeting bowl.