Barbarian

10:10:11 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

He came from the north, subjugating all in his path. His name was Ferocious-Eyes, the Terrible One, and he rode on the back of a giant Swift. He was small, but his wiry, heavily speckled body was more than a match for any of the warriors in his army, for they feared the ferocious glare from his twelve pink eyes more than they did his whip-sword.

As a two-great-old hatchling, just barely able to talk, he had been abandoned on the north slopes of the Exodus Volcano by the elders of his food-short clan. Without even one sharp-seeing “common” eye, the heavily speckled one would be useless for work in the fields. The hungry hatchling had found the nest of a pair of wild Swifts before the Swifts found him. When the Swifts returned, he was sitting, satiated, among the tattered remains of one of their eggs. Raised by the Swifts as one of their own, he soon was participating in raids on the herds of the clans around them.

Many turns later, now a youngling, he rode into his old clan compound on the back of one of his nest brothers, flicking the whip-sword that he had invented by tying sharp shards of dragon crystal onto a long strand of woven fibers. Unreachable on his perch high above the ravenous five-toothed maw of his mount, he was invincible. He slashed the leader of the clan to shreds, fed him to his mount, and took over the clan. Until that time, he had no name. Now he took one, Ferocious-Eyes, from the awed whispers he could hear as he rode through the compound.

Three dozen turns later Ferocious-Eyes was satiated. His eating pouches were satiated with food; his brain-knot was satiated with stories he had commanded from the Old Ones; and his ego was satiated with compliments from the fawning cheela competing for the scraps of food he discarded. His desire for power was not satiated, however, for he would never forgive the cheela race for abandoning him because he was too speckled.

Ferocious-Eyes picked out three of the cheela in the clan, the speckled ones that had the most pink eyes, and taught them how to ride Swifts. It was easy for the speckled ones, for with their pink eyes, they could see subtle color changes in the hides and eyes of the Swifts that allowed them to read the moods of the dangerous animals. Ferocious-Eyes left one of his new warriors in charge of the clan and took the rest of his small army to conquer the next clan.

The pattern of conquest of the Terrible One was simple. His army would surround a clan compound, then he and a small group of bodyguards would ride into the compound. He, personally, would challenge the leader of the clan. If the leader was foolish enough to attempt to duel, he soon was meat for Ferocious-Eyes’ Swift. The army would stay long enough to feed themselves and their mounts, disarm and subjugate the clan, pick and train some recruits, then move on, leaving one or two of their number to keep the clan under control. At some of the first clan compounds they had experienced resistance, but any opponents left alive after the battle was over had all but one eye lopped off and were set free to bring a warning to the next clan.

The Terrible One, now at the head of a small roving army, had six captains who each led a dozen mounted picked warriors. They were supported by a much larger army that extracted food and supplies from the subjugated clans and transported it by long lines of porters that stretched from the West, North, and East Poles to wherever the army was. The lines were now converging on the northern outskirts of Bright’s Heaven.

“We are coming upon Bright’s Heaven, O Terrible One,” said Falling-Quint “The home of Qui-Qui, the God of Youth and Knowledge. She lives in a Maze Temple protected by magic. It is said that no one but her has been able to find the way to the center of the maze.”

“She is no more a god than I am,” said Ferocious-Eyes.

“But they say she can talk to the stars and fly in the sky. They also say she is forever beautiful and never dies.”

“She can do no more than the ancient ones that lived before the big crustquake,” said Ferocious-Eyes. “God or not, I bet the juices will still come out when you throw one of your quirrls down on her.”

His Swift roared and snapped at the Swift carrying Falling-Quirrl. They both had to slap their mounts on their sensitive eyes before they could quiet them down.

“The Swifts are getting hungry,” she said.

“We’ll stop here and kill a Flow Slow to feed them.” Ferocious-Eyes slid down off the tail of his mount. His tread slapped the crust in a loud command.

“Where is that slave carrying the sparkling wine?” he demanded. “I’m thirsty!”

“The Terrible One is just north of the city,” the messenger reported. “They have stopped to eat and feed their mounts.”

“The Terrible One,” mused Qui-Qui, suddenly very tired. The rejuvenation robot had been pestering her to undergo yet another rejuvenation, but she had been putting it off as the news of the Terrible One had been coming in.

“It seems like history on Egg is following the history of Earth. We even have our own Attila. Only instead of Attila-the-Hun, Scourge of God, he is Attila-the-Speckled, Scourge of Bright.”

“We had better leave,” said Linear-Spring, one of the mechanical engineers. “The Terrible One is irresistible.”

“No,” said Qui-Qui. “If he is anything like the Attila-the-Hun of Earth, he will not stop until he has conquered all of Egg or dies. If we leave, he will just follow us. We will stay and fight.”

“But he has six dozen mounted warriors with him, and dozens and dozens more in reserve.”

“We must stay and fight.” Qui-Qui picked up a pricker and a long pike. “And he cannot be allowed to win, for if he does, then the Dark Ages will surely fall on Egg, as they once did on Earth.”

Ferocious-Eyes moved unopposed through the deserted city of Bright’s Heaven. He stopped his army when they came to the Maze Temple. He and Falling-Quirrl circled all around the outside wall. There were a few windows in the high wall, but they were barred and the sliding panels had been shut tight. Every few millimeters there were portholes—some at crust level and some at eye level. Through a few ports they caught the glimpse of an eye-ball looking out at them. Along the top of the wall there ran a spiral of metal. Occasional flashes of light appeared in the loops.

“Those must be the ‘magnetic barriers’ our newest slaves told us about,” said Falling-Quirrl.

“It is strange that something that is not hot and glowing can burn.” Ferocious-Eyes suddenly whipped his Swift and rode directly at the wall between two portholes, flicked a tendril at the top of the wall and rode away again.

“It burns,” he said, sucking the tip of his tendril. “We can’t go over.”

There was only one entrance to the Maze Temple. It was large, and because it had no door or bars it looked ominous. The entrance opened into four narrow corridors that immediately took sharp turns as they branched off into the maze. The corridors were too narrow to allow a Swift to pass.

Ferocious-Eyes gathered his warriors,

“Falling-Quirrl. You and your warriors will dismount and prepare to enter. Three into each corridor. Arm yourselves with short swords and prickers for close combat. The rest are to ride your Swifts up to the wall on either side of the entrance and fill those portholes with pikes and quirrls. If they can’t see, they can’t fight.”

The picked vanguard of the Speckled Horde arranged themselves in a rough line, one sharp-seeing “common” eye always watching their commander. He unpouched a pair of limber-swords and waved them in a complex pattern.

“Attack!” he shouted.

They charged, the mounted warriors rapidly outdistancing Falling-Quirrl and her dozen warriors on tread. As the Swifts moved across the bare ground, they began to roar and swerve to one side or the other despite the efforts of their masters to keep them under control. From a porthole in the wall an eyeball was watching.

“The undercrust magnetic barriers are bunching them up into the firing lanes,” Weber-Gauss reported to the control room. “Let loose the terror tops!”

Ferocious-Eyes suddenly heard high-pitched screams arising from all along the outer wall of the maze. Through the holes at crust level there emerged a stream of spinning screaming objects that danced across the crust. They were wide at the top and narrowed down to a tiny point at the bottom. By some magic means they were able to stay balanced on the tiny point instead of falling over as one would expect.

Sticking out from the whirling body of the screamers were sharp knives that slashed long gashes in Swift and warrior alike. Panicked by the high-pitched screams, the Swifts bolted and the warriors fled.

One of the screamers came straight at Ferocious-Eyes. He watched it come, then gave it a flick with the tip of his whip-sword. The screamer changed course and curved around his nervous mount. Ferocious-Eyes rode to meet the fleeing Falling-Quirrl.

“I said for you to attack! Look at me!”

Falling-Quirrl stopped instantly and all her eyes went up on rigid stalks. Ferocious-Eyes rode up to the nearest eye-ball, formed a pincer manipulator and slowly crushed the eye-ball.

“Attack,” he said.

Falling-Quirrl gathered her warriors and led them back toward the waiting entrance to the deadly Maze Temple. The Swifts refused to approach the wall, and all the warriors were forced to dismount and make their way on tread across the open ground.

More of the spinning screamers came from the wall, but the surprise was gone. The speckled warriors continued their advance. They tried to dodge the screamers and stabbed at them with their pikes and swords to knock them over, but the strange random motion of the screamers across the crust and their rigid resistance to being pushed over caused many casualties. The remaining warriors finally got close enough to the wall that most of the screamers now shot out past them.

“The terror tops have them bunched into the firing-tube target areas,” Weber-Gauss reported to the control room. “Initiate ripple-barrage on areas one through eight.”

A series of explosions from inside the Maze Temple caused the advancing warriors to hesitate and look all around for danger. They saw nothing, then died, as heavy weights struck at them from out of the sky and pierced them from topside to tread. The limber-swords swinging about Ferocious-Eyes were still flashing the “attack” pattern, so they pressed on.

“They are now in the range of the flame throwers,” reported Weber-Gauss.

Jets of violet-hot flame came from some of the eye-level portholes and swept back and forth, leaving pools of flaming liquid and screaming blistered warriors. One warrior who managed to reach the wall between two portholes slid a shield over a flame hole between bursts. The flame thrower backfired and an explosion behind the wall sent flames and pieces of bodies flying through the sky. The speckled one moved in front of the porthole and repeatedly jabbed the end of a pike in the hole to keep it from being reused. One after another, the flame throwers fell silent as porthole after porthole was blocked by a crust-rock or pike guarded by a singed, sliced, and angry speckled warrior.

Only six of Falling-Quirrl’s warriors made it to the entrance. She sent two each into three of the corridors, then she entered the fourth alone.

“The pressure sensors indicate seven targets.” Mega-Bar was monitoring the indicators on the maze map in the west wall control room. “There are two each in the dead-end corridors and one entered the main maze trail.”

“Let them pass over the first traps, then reactivate those behind them,” said Neutron-Gas. “That way we can get them coming or going.”

Falling-Quirrl moved slowly along the narrow corridor. She jabbed a pricker into every porthole before passing and looked carefully for traps. The point of her short sword poked hard into the crust in front of her before she put her tread on it. When she reached the striped section of corridor, she was especially careful. She prodded the ground and walls with her sword and pushed her shield ahead of her with the front portion of her tread weighing it down. Nothing happened, and she passed over.

In the distance she heard a crackle and a scream. It sounded like Nasty-Scar. Almost immediately there was a sharp explosion and another scream. She came to another striped area and started across it using her shield under her tread again. There was a loud explosion and a dented shield flew up from under her shocked tread. The shield came down on top of the wall, pushed down on the magnetic barrier until it glowed and hummed, then fell back down into the corridor, nearly hitting her.

Ferocious-Eyes waited and waited for Falling-Quirrl and her warriors to emerge. Finally they did, their bodies pushed one-by-one out of the entrance by a little machine that just fit neatly between the narrow corridor walls. Three had been burned by a strange flame that cooked holes through their bodies, and three had deadly puncture wounds that went from tread to topside.

The last one pushed out was Falling-Quirrl. Ferocious-Eyes sent the butchers to pick up the body, but they brought her to him, for she was still alive despite the large oozing holes in her. Two-thirds of her body was paralyzed from damage to her brain-knot, but she was able to talk with the rest of her tread.

“They have traps that they can turn on and off. I passed over one on the way in. It got me on the way out. I played dead. They stabbed me only a few times through a hole in the wall, then left me. They are weaklings, unused to killing. I would have made sure with a thrust to my brain-knot.” She held out her dented shield.

“My shield struck the ‘magnetic barrier’ and was not burned. Maybe with many shields or one large one, we can keep the barrier from burning us.”

Ferocious-Eyes tried her shield on the magnetic barriers in the open areas outside the wall. He found that he could indeed pass over it if he narrowed his body down so that it stayed on the shield. Other shields didn’t work, however. They interrogated some of their new slaves from the local clans and found out that what was needed was a special metal called a “superconductor.” The slaves were sent into Bright’s Heaven to scavenge sheets of this “superconductor” to make into shields.

Turnfeast came, and it was time to feed the warriors and their mounts. There was plenty of meat for the warriors, as the butchers had been busy after the battle. The Swifts didn’t get cheela meat, however. It was too good to waste on them, and besides, it wouldn’t do for them to learn that their riders were so tasty. The Swifts got Flow Slow meat from the herd that traveled with the army.

Ferocious-Eyes was bored, so he decided to kill the Flow Slow himself instead of letting the butchers do it. One of the butchers scampered up the trailing edge of the animal to the top and drove the Flow Slow straight at his leader.

Ferocious-Eyes, pike sticking straight up, waited as the Flow Slow moved ponderously toward him. It was a huge one, twice as tall as the walls around the Maze Temple. He watched carefully as the square plates of bony armor, each as large as a shield, flowed over the top of the creature and down. He fixed on a weak spot between the moving plates, rushed forward to insert the pike into the chink, then reversed tread to get out from under as the Flow Slow impaled itself on the pike and flowed.

Ferocious-Eyes left the butchers to their work. As he moved away, his eye-stubs were waving slowly in deep thought. Instead of joining his warriors feasting on their comrades, he merely snatched a roasted eye-stub from the carcass of Falling-Quirrl and sucked on the eye-ball as he made his way to the area where the slaves were working on producing superconducting shields. He stopped and looked in disappointment at the eye-stub. He had unfortunately grabbed the eye-stub with the crushed eye-ball, so the eye-ball hadn’t squirted juice out into his eating pouch when he had sucked on it.

Ferocious-Eyes was in a bad humor when he arrived at the slave pens. He called the slave in charge of the armory away from his meager turnfeast.

“Do you see that large Flow Slow over there?” he asked the slave, his eye-stubs pointing to a herd grazing nearby. “The big female.”

“Yes, O Terrible One,” the slave replied.

“Instead of making shields out of the ‘superconductor’ metal, I want you to make metal covers for the plates on that Flow Slow.”

“Don’t ask me to do that, Terrible One,” said the slave. “A Flow Slow is dangerous if it is angry, and it will surely be angry if we try to nail plates to it.”

“You have three turns,” said Ferocious-Eyes. “After that it will be an eye for each turn you are late.” He tossed the disappointing eye-stub to the crust and returned to the turnfeast to get another. The slave picked up the discarded food, but somehow the eye-stub didn’t taste as good as he had thought it would.

“It has been five turns and he still doesn’t do anything,” said Qui-Qui. “The warriors circle around out of range of the Terror-Tops, keeping anyone from going out or coming in, but they don’t attack. They must be planning something, but what? Levitate me with the gravity machine. Maybe I can see something.”

“We will have to turn off the power to the defenses to activate the machine,” said Weber-Gauss. “But we should be safe enough if we make it short.”

A dothturn later, the speckled warriors surrounding the Maze Temple went on alert as a deep humming started in the crust. The hum rose to a whine, and out of the middle of the Temple the God of Youth and Knowledge ascended. She went up ten centimeters and stopped. Coming toward her from the outskirts of Bright’s Heaven was what looked like a huge robot. No. It was a Flow Slow, covered with metal. On top was a tiny speckled creature.

Following the armored Flow Slow was the Speckled Horde, recuperated from their wounds and back at full strength. Qui-Qui felt her spirits sink along with her body as the gravity machine brought her back down again.

Ferocious-Eyes wasted no time with preliminaries. Either the Flow Slow would conquer the Maze Temple for him or it would fail. Riding on its topside, he rippled backward as the metal-covered plates moved forward underneath him. His two bodyguards kept the Flow Slow moving and on course with occasional pricks between the armored plates. They moved over the outer magnetic barrier with ease, the crust giving off bolts of electricity as the coils failed under the increased magnetic pressure.

He waited while his warriors silenced the flame throwers along a section of wall, then urged his gigantic metal mount forward. The falling plates of superconductor, backed by the massive weight of the Flow Slow, pressed against the ultra-strong magnetic barrier along the top of the outer wall. The coils of wire hummed as the barrier resisted the pressure, then the atmosphere sparked with energy as the coils collapsed.

Bellowing from the pricks of the tiny ones riding on its topside, the armored Flow Slow pushed over the outer wall, toppling it into the next wall of the maze. The Flow Slow continued on and entered a secret room, reachable only by a subterranean tunnel. It was one of the control rooms for the outer maze defenses. Quirrls from the bodyguards on either side of Ferocious-Eyes pinned the acolytes to the crust.

The Flow Slow moved over the bodies and crashed through another wall, heading for the center of the Maze Temple. One bodyguard was struck by a falling weight that had been fired upward from a tube in the corridor through which they passed. The strong thread tied to the weight dragged her off the top of the Flow Slow. She fell to the crust and burst.

Ferocious-Eyes pricked the Flow Slow to drive it harder as it breeched the next wall. They were now in a large inner room that held a number of acolytes. He could hear their treads talking rapidly, but they didn’t seem to be speaking to one another.

A flickering image of a strangely bloated cheela floated in the center of a magic window embedded in the floor.

“Attila has managed to ride a Flow Slow right over the walls. He is penetrating deep into the maze.” The speaker looked up as the wall came down. “Attila is here! We are lost!” He started to run, but was trapped and crushed along with the others as they tried to flee through the one exit from the communications room.

Three more walls and the Flow Slow reached the center of the complex. Ferocious-Eyes stopped the Flow Slow and looked around. In the center of the room were a jumble of boxes connected with heavy tubes. Against one wall was the most beautiful female cheela Ferocious-Eyes had ever seen. She was carrying a pike and what looked like a pricker, but it was hard for his eyes to make out something that small.

“You must be Qui-Qui,” Ferocious-Eyes said. “The cheela who never dies.” He inserted a quirrl into a specially trained throwing pouch. “Let’s see if your magic can protect you from a quirrl.” The quirrl flashed down through the air and buried itself deep in the crust just in front of Qui-Qui. He started to reload, when she rushed forward to slash him with her pike. He brushed back his bodyguard, twirled his whip-sword forward and cut the end off the pike. The return flick cut a slash across Qui-Qui’s topside. She didn’t feel it.

With her pike gone, Qui-Qui retreated to the jumble of pipes and valves that made up the central power distribution system for the maze complex. The power generator itself was hidden in the old underground laboratory of Zero-Gauss.

She tried to goad Attila off his nearly invincible perch.

“And you must be Attila-the-Speckled,” she said. “I hear you are called ‘Ferocious-Eyes.’ ‘Weak-Eyes’ would be more like it after missing big targets like these.” She flapped her lower eyeflaps at him. “Come and get me, my little speckled hatchling child.”

The insult of being called a “child” nearly made Ferocious-Eyes lose control, but he calmed himself down. Whip-sword flickering in front of him, he prodded the Flow Slow from behind and forced it into the jumble of tubes and boxes. Qui-Qui clambered away. The Flow Slow mounted a box. The large valve inside gave way and gigantic surges of power burned through the huge body. The Flow Slow died and spread out, breaking other power connections. The automatic defenses of the Maze Temple collapsed and the Speckled Horde rushed in.

Qui-Qui was crushed against the wall by the spreading body of the Flow Slow.

Ferocious-Eyes slid down off the dying Flow Slow and approached Qui-Qui. Suddenly a section of the wall slid aside and a dome-shaped metal object appeared. It moved and talked and seemed to be alive.

“Are you ready to undergo rejuvenation?” the robot asked.

“No!” shouted Qui-Qui, her tread muffled by the crushing body of the Flow Slow. “Don’t talk to him! Reset! Stop! Deactivate circuits!”

“I cannot obey that command,” the robot replied. “I must keep the rejuvenation machinery running.”

Qui-Qui didn’t answer. The robot moved over to her and examined her body with its sensors.

“She is dead. She waited too long for rejuvenation.” The robot turned toward Ferocious-Eyes. It moved around him, sensors in operation.

“You are in excellent muscle tone, ready for instant rejuvenation,” said the robot. “Would you like a young new body?”

“Yes!” Ferocious-Eyes kept his eyes on the moving, talking magic dome of metal.

“First we must prepare the records for the Combined Clans Rejuvenation Board.” The robot pulled a scroll out of a compartment. “Name?”

Ferocious-Eyes thought for a moment. A new body deserved a new name. A name like no other.

“Attila,” he stated proudly.

10:13:14 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

The Space Council met in a compound that had the bright globe of Egg hanging directly overhead. The glow from Egg no longer had any warmth in it.

“We have lost a good friend and a great teacher and engineer,” said Cliff-Web.

“And our only contact with the surface,” Admiral Steel-Slicer added. “It looks as if we are stuck up here until Attila loses control. If only there were some way to kill him, like dropping something on him.”

“We could deorbit a projectile easily enough,” Cliff-Web said. “But once the projectile built up speed, the magnetic field of Egg would tear it apart into a cloud of plasma that would dissipate before it got to the surface. To do any damage we would have to deorbit a large mass. We don’t have the mass and we don’t have the energy to deorbit it. Besides, we would be killing whole clans of innocent slaves just to get one person.”

“It’s going to be a long, long time before civilization is rebuilt again to the point where they can bring us down,” Steel-Slicer said, resigned.

“We will just have to figure out a way to get down to the surface without their help,” Cliff-Web said.

“It’s going to be tough,” Steel-Slicer said. “None of the spacecraft that we have was designed for landing on the surface. Is there some way to fix up some kind of atmospheric or magnetic drag brake?”

“Egg doesn’t have enough atmosphere to help much,” Cliff-Web replied. “I could design a magnetic drag brake using metal of the right conductivity; but unlike atmospheric braking, the kinetic energy gets turned into heat inside the metal brake. At high deceleration levels the brake would melt. At low deceleration levels we have the problem of supplying gravity for the crew. Besides, magnetic braking becomes less effective at lower velocities. Braking can take some of the energy out of the vehicle, but it would still be going much too fast to land.”

“How about adding some sort of propulsion for the final phases?” Steel-Slicer asked.

“The inertia drives on the scout ships are energy efficient, but their thrust-to-weight is so low they can’t be used for landing,” Cliff-Web replied. “One of the jumpcraft could conceivably be modified to use old-fashioned antimatter rockets for the landing phase. But even if we could make the tons of antimatter needed to heat the propellant, we just don’t have the hundreds of tons of propellant needed to land a jumpcraft with its heavy gravity generators. We are mass limited.”

“We will just have to find some mass somewhere. Would it help to sacrifice one of our space stations?”

“I’m working on another idea. We could use one of the compensator masses around the human spaceship. They could make do with just five. The idea is somehow to use one of those masses as a ‘first stage’ for our lander. We can store the energy we need on the mass so we don’t have to carry it on the lander, then transfer the energy to the lander through some kind of launcher.”

“Are you thinking of a launcher like a jump loop?” asked Steel-Slicer.

“They are too long to fit on the mass,” said Cliff-Web. “I was thinking of a large gravity catapult sitting on the mass. We would somehow put the mass in an elliptical orbit around Egg that would take it down almost to the surface. Just at periapsis, the gravity catapult would launch the landing vehicle in the direction opposite to the orbital trajectory and leave the lander stopped, stationary, a few meters above the surface.”

“It would be an easy landing from there!” said Steel-Slicer. “We could land a crew of engineers and then build our own gravity catapult so the rest of us could come down.”

“I was hoping to get two berries off a singleberry bush,” Cliff-Web said. “I think we can design things so that our lander is the gravity catapult. Saves time.”

“You can’t fly a gravity catapult! A gravity catapult only generates gravity forces when the ultra-dense mass currents are increasing. How are you going to drive the pumps? A long power line back to the mass?”

“You also get gravity forces when the mass currents are decreasing,” Cliff-Web said. “But you shouldn’t really think about the changes in the mass currents. What really makes the gravity field is the increase or decrease of the gravitomagnetic field inside the torus. I think we can design a gravity catapult that requires no outside power to operate. It will have changes in the fields without changing the speed of the mass currents, just their direction. In fact, this sounds like a good project for my new gravitational engineering seminar.” He went off to meet his class.

10:13:26 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

“It is time for the team reports again, class,” said Cliff-Web. “How is the design for the lander coming? Who is Team Leader for the lander?”

One of the students in the back spoke up. “The basic design is finished. We will have two long, thin multi-channel tubes that wind around the torus in multiple layers to make the interior field more uniform. The lander will take off with one tube empty and the other fully charged with high speed black-hole dust that will produce a gravitomagnetic field at maximum strength counterclockwise. Then when we want gravity repulsion force we use a diverter valve to switch some of the mass current from the channels in the first tube into the second tube, but going in the opposite direction. The reverse current will cancel some of the gravitomagnetic field inside, which is equivalent to decreasing its strength. The decreasing gravitomagnetic field will make a gravity repulsor field that will keep the lander levitated above Egg.”

“What is the hover time?” Cliff-Web asked.

“Only three methturns, so far,” the Lander Team Leader replied. “Now that we have the basic design, we are going back and cutting weight. Our goal is six methturns levitation time, which should give us nearly a grethturn for a landing.”

“Keep working,” said Cliff-Web. “Launcher Team?”

“We had the easy job,” another student reported. “The launcher is basically like the gravity catapults on Egg, but bigger. Our real effort has been on making the gravity repulsion field at the center as uniform as possible to minimize strains on the lander during launch. The size became awfully large though, twenty centimeters. I don’t think we are going to be able to put it on one of the human compensator masses. We will need the larger deorbiter mass. I think the humans call it ‘Otis’ after the human that built the first space fountain.”

“It wasn’t a space fountain, it was an elevator,” Cliff-Web explained.

“What is an elevator?” asked the student.

“Never mind. Launch Base Team?”

“While the launcher keeps getting bigger, the base keeps getting smaller,” said a third student. “We’ve formed a joint study team with an astrophysics class taught by Plasma-Sheath, Doctor of Astrophysics. We are learning the realities of particle and plasma physics, while they are learning the fun of being a gravitational engineer. Our team now has the name ‘Planet Busters.’ We went out in a scout ship and took a look at Otis. The surface is too far down in the fuzz. We are going to have to use monopoles to shrink it and make it denser. Fortunately, the humans kept their monopole factory running, so they have plenty in storage.”

“You are all doing good work,” said Cliff-Web. “You have 24 more turns to finish your team report, then I think Plasma-Sheath and I had better talk to the humans before we go any further.”

10:13:32 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

“We have a call from East Pole Space Station, Pierre,” said Jean. “It’s Cliff-Web and an astrophysicist named Plasma-Sheath. They are dumping some detailed information through a data channel, but they also want to speak with you.”

Pierre stopped his checkout of the ship’s computer and switched his screen to the communications channel, where two cheela appeared on the screen. Cliff-Web was the smaller, although large for a male. The other wore badges on her hide with a starburst in the center. Pierre was becoming better at identifying the sexes, although Plasma-Sheath made it easy with her big lower eyeflaps.

“We have found a way to get back down to Egg,” Cliff-Web began without preliminaries. “Since we are very short of everything in space, we would have to borrow some mass and monopoles from you. Unfortunately, your ring masses are too small; only the deorbiter mass would do. We would shrink it with monopoles until it turns into a miniature neutron star, then use that as a base to construct the lander and its launcher.”

Pierre was puzzled. “I don’t see how you can do that. Even if you could shrink it so the surface density equals that of a neutron star, the equation of state is unstable and it will collapse into a miniature black hole.”

“We are aware of that,” said Plasma-Sheath. “By injecting only one type of monopole into the deorbiter mass, we can increase the center density by the formation of monopolium, but the monopolium atoms will have a tendency to repel each other since they will have the same magnetic charge. It is hoped that in this way we can keep the shrinking of the deorbiter under control and keep it from collapsing into a black hole.”

“Sounds risky to me,” said Pierre. “Are you sure of your calculations?”

“No,” replied Plasma-Sheath. “But it is a risk that we must take.”

Suddenly another cheela appeared on the screen. Pierre recognized the two-star clusters on the hide of Admiral Steel-Slicer, leader of the space cheela.

“That is not what concerns us,” he said. “We not only want to use the deorbiter mass as a base to build our gravity catapult, but to deliver the catapult to the surface of Egg. We will have to divert it from its normal orbit.”

“That’s all right,” said Pierre. “All we need is its gravitational field, and it makes no difference if it is a degenerate asteroid, a miniature neutron star, or a black hole. The external gravity field is the same. Just make sure you put it back in its elliptical orbit when you are through so we can use it to get back up to St. George. You aren’t going to be using it for too long, are you? We only have supplies for a few weeks since this mission was designed for eight days.”

“That is the problem.” Steel-Slicer was now alone on the screen. “It is possible that the compensator mass will be destroyed in the process of placing the gravity catapult on Egg.”

Pierre paused for a few seconds in shock, then quickly realized that he was wasting the equivalent of weeks of time of the cheela whose blinking image indicated he was checking in at the console every fifth of a second.

“Without the deorbiter mass, we would be stuck here…What are the odds?”

“We are constantly trying to find another way of doing it,” Steel-Slicer replied, “but right now the odds are 12 to 1.”

“Well,” said Pierre. “That’s not bad.”

“There is an 11 in 12 chance that the deorbiter mass will be tidally disintegrated while delivering the gravity catapult to the surface of Egg and only a one-twelfth chance it will survive. It all depends upon how the orbital and tidal dynamics couple into the interior vibrational modes of the deorbiter mass during the actual transit.”

Pierre paused a few seconds again, but this time his brain was not worrying about the cheela.

“There is Oscar, the other large asteroid mass that was used to put the deorbiter mass into its elliptical orbit. Couldn’t you use that?”

“With our limited resources, we do not have the power to alter the celestial laws for large, low-density masses,” said Steel-Slicer. “That asteroid is well on its way out of the Dragon’s Egg system. The best we could do is bring it back in about six months. That is equivalent to eternity for us.”

“Hmmm.” Pierre considered the options, then said, “I think I’d better talk with Commander Swenson and the rest of the crew.”

They gathered in the viewport lounge to discuss the question. Doctor Wong blackened the viewport in the floor as they entered. No one objected. It would be hard enough to make a decision without having the bright yellow image of Sol flickering through the port.

“Commander Swenson says the decision is up to us,” Pierre replied. “Her only conditions were that there be a secret ballot and that the decision to let the cheela use Otis be unanimous.”

“It would be a lot easier to say ‘Yes’ if the chances were better,” Jean said. “Eight percent is not very good odds.”

“Eight and a third percent,” corrected Seiko. “We must also remember the number of intelligent beings involved. By putting our five lives at risk, we prevent the demise of an entire intelligent civilization.”

“I just don’t like the way we have to go,” said Abdul. “Starving to death is not my idea of fun. I’d rather go quickly.”

Cesar spoke up. “I would like to remind everyone that just over three hours ago, all of us would have experienced a quick death if it had not been for the efforts of the two cheela, Admiral Steel-Slicer and Engineer Cliff-Web, who now ask for our help.”

Pierre waited for more discussion. There was none, so he passed out blank sheets of paper.

“Write ‘Yes’ if you agree to let the cheela use Otis, and ‘No’ if you think the risk is too high.” Then Pierre collected the ballots and went through them quickly.

“There are four ‘Yes’ votes and one ‘No.’ I will inform Admiral Steel-Slicer that they will have to find another way of getting down to Egg. Then I will program the herder rockets to change Otis’s orbit so we can go home.”

“Just a minute,” Abdul spoke up. “I change my mind. Switch my vote to a ‘Yes.’ It wasn’t the fault of the cheela that Amalita was taken away and it’s stupid to be mad at a neutron star. It doesn’t care.”

10:25:02 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

Steel-Slicer and a newly rejuvenated Cliff-Web watched from a scout ship as the cargo ship brought the first batch of north monopoles from the distant monopole factory and dumped them into the human deorbiter mass. The monopoles scattered into a diffuse cloud from their mutual repulsion as they were released from the hold of the cargo ship. The cloud was sucked up by the gravity field from the deorbiter mass and disappeared beneath the fuzzy surface of the kilometer-sized ball. Later they would have to shoot the monopoles into the magnetized ball with an electromagnetic accelerator.

“One,” said Cliff-Web. “And an infinity more to go.” He sucked on a chewy red ball from one of the new food machines.

“It’s going to be a long, dull job,” Steel-Slicer said. “Forty generations of ferrying monopoles over the same dull stretch of space between the factory and the deorbiter mass. The situation is ripe for boredom, mistakes, and even mutiny. I want plenty of history in the creche-classes, lots of time off from the ferrying job at entertainment centers, and the best and newest of the food machines on the ferry ships.”

They watched the second ship dump its cargo of north monopoles.

“Let’s go over to the refurbishment facilities at West Pole Space Station,” said Cliff-Web. “I want to see how they are coming on the conversion of the Abdul from an exploration ship to a cargo ship.”

20:55:45 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

It was many greats later when Steel-Slicer and Cliff-Web visited Otis again. Having recently undergone his 34th rejuvenation, Steel-Slicer was now young looking, while Cliff-Web and the scoutship were old and tired. The black hole at the center of the scout ship was now noticeably less massive, as its rest mass had been used up to operate the inertial drives for the past 1300 greats. They watched as a cargo ship unloaded the last of the north monopoles in the holding tank of a long electromagnetic gun. A stream of high-speed monopoles shot from the tube and penetrated deep into the now solid crust of the deorbiter mass. In the center, the monopoles were held by the strong gravity forces of the ten-meter-diameter ball despite the magnetic repulsion from the rest of the monopoles in the ultra-dense core.

As the last of the stream spluttered out, a continuous combination of ’trumming and dancing for joy rose throughout the communications links. It grew in volume as the image of the last of the monopole stream spread through the space around Egg at a slow crawl of the speed of light.

“We’re done!” Cliff-Web’s aged tread was trying to keep up with the victory ’trumming of his engineers.

“That’s one giant ripple for cheela-kind,” said Steel-Slicer calmly, knowing that they still had much to do. “We’ll let it cool down for eight to twelve greats, then we can take the next tread-ripple on our long journey home.”

“My new class of gravitational engineers will be ready. Will you have a good gravity-well pilot to take us down?” Cliff-Web asked. “Even though the surface gravity and escape velocity of Otis are only a small fraction of that of Egg, it will be a tricky landing for someone used to flying around in space.”

“My next class of pilots are already training on the ring masses around the human spacecraft Dragon Slayer,” said Steel-Slicer. “In about two greats they will transition to simulated landings 50 meters up from Otis. You’ll get the best one from that group, and he or she will be allowed to choose a new name. Everyone in the class agrees that the name they want is ‘Otis-Elevator.’”