Part 11 (2/2)

”You looked fine to me, too,” he said. ”And I bet you're looking even better now after rejuvenation.”

”... I wish we had video,” Shannon-Capacity interjected.

”It's been twenty turns since the starquake,” Cliff-Web continued. ”And you're the only one we've been able to contact. I've talked to the few people here on the s.p.a.ce station who know you and I've done some research in our library, limited as it is. You produce your own performances, manage your own finances, control dozens of personal staff including a dozen robots, and pilot you own flyer. You arenot stupid.”

He hesitated before continuing, ”Do you think you can become an engineer?”

”Sure,” she replied. ”With the right teacher and enough time. Why?” The answer from Cliff-Web came two grethturns later.

”The admiral is basically right. We're stuck up here. We don't have any s.p.a.cecraft that can land on Egg under its own power without cras.h.i.+ng. We can't build a lander because we have no tools and no raw materials to work with. We need something to 'catch' one of the s.p.a.cecraft we have. The jump loops are down, but it might be possible to reactivate one of the gravity catapults if they aren't too badly damaged.

”My plan is to use the robots on Egg,” Cliff-Web explained. ”With the two grethturn communications delay from synchronous...o...b..t 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 s.h.i.+ft, 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-s.h.i.+fted 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 s.p.a.ce Station.

”Why are you still at the West Pole?” Hohmann-Transfer was annoyed. ”You should be out looking for robots or something useful!” Her hara.s.sed 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?!?”

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 acc.u.mulators on her flyer. She ordered it to bring the acc.u.mulators in from the flyer as ”urgent cargo” and put them next to the acc.u.mulators 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 acc.u.mulators.

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-b.a.l.l.s. 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. Pus.h.i.+ng 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.

”h.e.l.lo!” 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 were mixed to produce an ultra-hot flame. The torch was on automatic and it immediately formed a long flame that flickered toward Heavy-Egg's hide. He screamed in insane panic as he felt intense heat once again. His pouches vomited bags of distilled pulp, and he dropped the torch which licked at a bag that burst into a bright violet-white ball of flame.

”I can see!!” Heavy-Egg said as the singed end of one of his eye-stumps gave a weak response to the intense flood of light. Entranced by the light, he madly added bag after bag of pulp to the growing blaze.

The equipment in the shop caught on fire and drove him out into the street. Then the tanks of welding liquid blew up in a tremendous explosion.

The next time Qui-Qui checked in on the communicator, there was some good news.

”Staring-Sensor at the East Pole s.p.a.ce Station has detected a large fire and explosion in Swift's Climb at the base of the East Pole mountains,” said Lieutenant Shannon-Capacity. ”It could be a signal or it could be a delayed reaction to the starquake. So far, it is the only sign of life on Egg.”

”Then it is our only hope,” said Qui-Qui. ”I'm heading for Swift's Camp. I'll take the flyer, but I'm not going to fly, it wastes too much power. I'm going to travel close to the surface where the gravity repulsors have plenty of ma.s.s to push against. In that mode I could travel around Egg a couple of times without emptying the acc.u.mulators.” She paused, ”Sure seems like a terrible waste though. Here I have this terrific toy that can fly about in the sky and I have to use it as a dull crust-glider.”

Leaving the robot tending its rejuvenation machine, Qui-Qui lifted the flyer on a low alt.i.tude, minimum energy flight profile, and headed for the East Pole. Meter after barren meter pa.s.sed under the flyer as she traversed the glowing yellow-white crust.

Avoiding the wreckage of the Jump Loop spread over the crust, she brought the flyer down in a flat s.p.a.ce in the outskirts of Swift's Climb. Finding nothing to tie it down to, she made sure that the machine was left far from anything solid in case there was another crustquake. Before leaving the flyer she made a call to the East Pole s.p.a.ce Station floating overhead and waited for the reply.

”The blaze occurred in the eastern section,” said Staring-Sensor. ”It's the old section of town right at the bottom of the superconducting chute that was used by the Web-Con workers on the s.p.a.ce Foundation project. Just find an east-west road and head for the mountains.”

Just then another voice entered the communication link. It was Hohmann-Transfer.

”At all costs youmust protect our flyer,” the admiral warned. ”The fire may have been caused by looters.

You are to take weapons with you and report in every dothtum.”

”I have no weapons, and it will take me two dothturns just to get to the east side from here,” said Qui-Qui. ”Besides, one fire does not a band of looters make. I will report in when I get back.”

Qui-Qui did begin to feel a little uneasy as she made her way through the deserted town. She moved quietly and stopped often to listen. Finally she heard a voice. It had the high tenor pitch of a male tread.

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