Emperor

21:02:58 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

The long procession from the distant clan compound started to arrive well before the end of the turn. Every clan member except those in charge of the herd came. Dented-Shield, the leader of the clan, led the procession, carrying her battered shield high in front of her. Right behind her came her warriors carrying a freshly killed food Slink. It was pink with glowing white spots. Next were younglings with pouches full of nuts and berries. Then came the Old Ones. From their pouches peered the eyes of tiny hatchlings. Bringing up the rear were the herders who were not out taking care of the herd.

“Where did they get the pink and white food Slink?” Crust-Crawler whispered as the procession approached.

“There is a clan farther east that is charged with growing that flavor of food Slink,” Otis-Elevator replied. “I notice that most of the glow-jewels that I have given them are missing. They probably traded the jewels to the other clan for one of the food Slinks the Emperor allows them to keep.”

“Welcome, friends of the Dusty Crust Clan,” said Captain Otis-Elevator. “Your gifts of food for our meager turnfeast are most welcome. While we wait for the turnfeast to start, perhaps you would like to taste these preturn samples we have set out on the food mats.”

“Let us give thanks to Bright for our new friends and their marvelous food machines,” said Dented-Shield. “May we all never be hungry again.”

The warriors and the younglings dropped their loads of food, which were picked up eagerly by Chef Pouch-Pleaser’s crew. The members of the clan, having just finished a long trek, were hungry and wandered about between the foodmats, sampling the large variety of foods that the food machines could produce.

“Aren’t you spacers going to eat any of the food?” Letter-Reader asked Otis-Elevator, who picked up a dark red ball of chewy meal-mush and put it into an eating pouch to reassure Letter-Reader.

“We would rather wait to taste the food that you brought,” said Otis-Elevator.

“The food Slink isn’t bad,” said Letter-Reader, putting a couple of golden yellow crystals into a food pouch. “But I don’t understand why you would want to eat groundnuts and singleberries instead of these tasty chunks.”

“You will see after a few greats of eating nothing but meal-mush from the machine we will give you,” Otis-Elevator told him.

“I’ll never get tired,” said Letter-Reader, sucking on the end of a yellow and silver stick. “I’m going to try everything on the instruction scroll.”

“Are you going to be operating the machine?” asked Otis-Elevator.

“Yes. I’m the only one in the clan who can read, so they put me in charge of running it.”

“The turnfeast is ready,” ’trummed Chef Pouch-Pleaser loudly into the crust. They all went into the compound to the eating area where the pink and white food Slink, perched on a dressing of chopped groundnuts and fresh singleberries, was waiting for them. It was soon surrounded by spacers, while the members of the Dusty Crust Clan gathered around their new food machine. Letter-Reader almost forgot to eat as he operated the machine, producing piles of golden yellow crystals, dark red balls, blue-white eggs, and yellow and silver cylinders, each one tasting better than the next.

“It is truly a miraculous machine,” Dented-Shield told Crust-Crawler as they shared squirts from a bag of singleberry juice. “It causes me to worry, though. My workers will become restless if they do not have to hunt for food.”

“They could come here and we could teach them other things. We will teach them to read letters, work with numbers, and how to operate machines. We will even teach them how to make machines of their own.”

“An excellent idea!” said Dented-Shield. “I will leave some of them here when we depart. Perhaps while you are teaching them, they may be of service to you in building your giant machine that will pull down the starships from the skies.”

Suddenly, three herders came into the eating area, moving as fast as their treads could take them. One of them had dropped his herder pike in his panic.

“The Taker has come!” the first shouted.

“She counted the herd and was very angry,” said the second, coming up to Dented-Shield. “She said for us to take her to you, and we came as fast as we could.”

An alarm rang through the crust. “Five Swifts approaching from the east,” said a computer voice. “Magnetic barriers are activated.”

“Swifts?” said Crust-Crawler.

“The Emperor’s warriors do not crawl on the crust,” said Dented-Shield. “They ride on the backs of trained Swifts.” Dented-Shield rose from the resting pad next to the eating mat she had been sharing with Crust-Crawler and started to leave. Crust-Crawler joined her.

“This is no concern of yours,” said Dented-Shield. “I shall go out to meet them myself. They are angry with me, not you.”

“I want to meet them and explain that the loss of the food Slinks was an accident,” Crust-Crawler said.

“The Emperor does not accept excuses,” said Dented-Shield.

“Perhaps he will accept payment. Or perhaps the Taker will accept a bribe. Besides, I think I should turn off the magnetic barrier before one of the Emperor’s tame Swifts burns a tread.”

“That would be wise,” said Dented-Shield.

Crust-Crawler turned off the magnetic barrier and stood beside Dented-Shield as they waited for the Taker and her party to approach. The five Swifts each carried a heavily speckled cheela. The random dark red and yellow-white speckled pattern even extended to their eyeballs. Behind the five Swifts plodded a line of porters, their pouches overloaded with cargo. Some were speckled, but nowhere near as much as the five warriors. The warriors kept their eyes looking in all directions, since they were in strange territory, but they seemed unimpressed with the huge gravity catapult off in the distance and the shiny machines scattered about the base.

“I don’t see how they can see out of those pink eyeballs,” Engineer Thermal-Conductor whispered. “That would put them at a great disadvantage in a battle.”

“They can’t see well,” Dented-Shield explained. “But the speckled ones make up for it by their control over animals. It is rumored that the Emperor can talk to animals.”

“I can see how riding on a Swift would be a significant advantage in a battle,” said Otis-Elevator. “One warrior on a Swift would be much more than a match for a dozen warriors on the ground.”

“Two dozen,” said Dented-Shield quietly. “I know.” Her eight eyes looked down at the deep dents in her shield. She dropped the shield on the ground and moved forward to meet the Taker, unarmed.

“Greetings, Taker of the Emperor,” she said. “I am Dented-Shield, Leader of the Dusty Crust Clan.”

“You failed,” said the Taker. Her harsh voice was slightly muffled by the body of her Swift.

“We have come to take the 132 Zebu Slinks that belong to the Emperor. You are four short. You know the penalty.”

“Yes, Taker.” Dented-Shield moved closer.

“What is the penalty?” Crust-Crawler whispered to Letter-Reader, who was standing next to him.

“An eye,” said Letter-Reader. “One eye for each Slink.”

“But she only has eight eyes now!”

“I will move forward with you, Dented-Shield,” said one of the elders of the clan.

“I will too,” said another.

“Wait!” said Crust-Crawler. “We are visitors from the stars in the sky. When our great ship came down from the stars we accidentally killed some of the Zebu Slinks that the clan was guarding. We would be more than willing to pay the Emperor for his loss.”

“It is good for you that you admit your crime, slave,” said the Taker. “You are indeed a stranger. Otherwise you would know that the Emperor has no need of money. Money is for trade between slaves. What the Emperor wants, he takes.”

“We can give him a machine that makes food,” said Crust-Crawler. “It will make more food than a great of food Slinks.”

The Taker paused, her eye-stub waves switching from one pattern to another as she considered. Crust-Crawler took advantage of the hesitation.

“I have some samples right here,” he said, moving over to the food mats. He picked up a half-dozen each of the red balls and the golden cubes and brought them back. Forming a strong manipulator he reached up over the back of the Swift and handed them to the Taker. The Taker took one each and looked them over carefully. Then she glared down at Crust-Crawler.

“Eat them!” she commanded. “Now!” She watched carefully as he took them back from her and put them in a feeding pouch. After a few sethturns he opened his pouch to show her that they were gone. He then raised the rest up for her to choose another. She sucked carefully at the golden crystal, then dropped it in her eating pouch.

“The Emperor will take the food machine,” she said.

“I will place it on another machine that will carry it for you,” said Crust-Crawler.

“I had better give them a cargo-glider,” said Power-Pack. “It has a large accumulator. We don’t want the Emperor to run out of food.”

Within a few methturns a cargo-glider was loaded with a second food machine and brought before the Taker.

“This is the box that controls the glider,” said Crust-Crawler. “I have set it for automatic. Wherever the box goes, the glider will follow.”

The Taker took the box, then called over the leader of the porters.

“Here, slave,” she said. “You carry the box. Be careful you do not damage the Emperor’s food machine. The penalty will be severe.”

“Yes, Taker,” said the porter. Crust-Crawler noticed that he only had nine eyes.

Crust-Crawler then handed up a scroll. ’This scroll contains the instructions for the operation of the food machine. In there the Emperor can read how to produce over a dozen greats of different kinds of food with the machine.“

The Taker took the scroll and placed it in a pouch without deigning to look at it. “The Emperor has more important things to do than read,” she said. “I do his reading for him.”

“There is plenty of room left on the cargo-glider,” said Crust-Crawler. “Your porters could unload their cargo and let the glider carry it for them.”

“Ah! Yes. The cargo,” said the Taker. “Unload the eggs!”

Each porter emptied three or four pouches, and soon there was a pile of black and white striped Slink eggs on the crust. The porters were still fairly bulky, however. They were probably still carrying the food supplies for the party and the Swifts, as well.

The Taker looked down at Dented-Shield. “Here are 144 Slink eggs. They belong to the Emperor. In 72 turns I will return. If you have taken proper care of the Emperor’s 144 Zebu Slinks he will magnanimously give you twelve of them to feed the clan. If you fail, you know the penalty.”

“Yes, Taker,” said Dented-Shield.

“Speaking of penalties,” said the Taker. “You have not yet paid your penalty for the last failure.”

“But we gave you the food machine!” Crust-Crawler objected loudly.

“Silence, slave!” the Taker roared. “You do not give the Emperor anything. The Emperor takes.”

The Taker brought her eyes to focus on Dented-Shield. “The Emperor also does not accept excuses,” she said, pulling a long whiplike sword from its scabbard along the flank of her Swift.

“I understand, Taker.” Dented-Shield raised four eyes up on elongated stubs.

“I will stand beside you,” said an elder.

“I will too,” said another, moving forward with an eye-stub erect.

“I, too,” said Captain Otis-Elevator. He moved bravely forward to stand next to Dented-Shield. He held up an eye-stub, the eye glaring at the Taker.

“This affair is no concern of yours!” whispered Dented-Shield so loudly the electronic wave tingled Otis-Elevator’s hide.

“I was pilot when my ship caused your clan damage,” said Otis-Elevator. “I will cleanse my clan’s honor by sharing in your punishment.”

“I care not where the four eyes come from,” said the Taker, cutting off the conversation with an expert whirl of her whip-sword. Four eyes fell to the crust and burst open from the fall. The Taker then stowed her whip-sword and urged her Swift up onto the cargo glider. Her four silent bodyguards did the same.

“Our Swifts are tired from much travel,” the Taker said to the lead porter. ’Take the box and lead this floating machine back to Bright Center.“ She left without looking back.

Dented-Shield waited until the Taker was far in the distance. She then turned her attention to Otis-Elevator beside her. His remaining eleven eye-stubs were rigid with fury, the eye-balls riveted on the distant speck on the horizon.

“It is useless to fight the warriors of the Emperor,” said Dented-Shield. “Fortunately, they do not come often.” Instead of reaching over to touch his hide with a tendril, she reached over with one of her good eye-stubs and rubbed the rigid base of one of his stubs. The subtle sexual overtones of the touch helped him come to his senses.

“Your clan and my clan have participated in a feast of friendship. I know I speak for the rest of the Spacer Clan,” said Otis-Elevator, “when I say that we wish to be more than a friend of the Dusty Crust Clan. Although we are not bound to out-clan relations by exchange of partners and eggs, we can be bound to out-clan relations by mingling of body juices in combat.”

He raised a stump of an eye-stub, body juices still dripping from the end. She brought her fresh stump forward and touched his, their juices blending. There was a hesitation, then the two elders of the clan that had shared in the sacrifice moved toward them and added their two stubs. Crust-Crawler took a sharp object from one of his pouches, deliberately slashed the side of one of his eye-stubs and pushed forward to join the group.

“You were very brave to come forward as you did,” said Dented-Shield as the group broke apart. “I would be honored to share an egg with you, for I am sure the hatchling would bring honor to our clan. Would your clan become our out-clan by exchange of partners as well as mingling of combat juices? That is, if you are willing to mate with a female that only has seven eyes.”

“None of us is perfect.” Otis-Elevator waved his stump.

“Then if your clan leader will permit, you will come with us as we return to our clan compound,” said Dented-Shield. “I am sure we have a lot to learn about each other.”

“I have no objection,” said Crust-Crawler. “Do you, Captain Otis-Elevator?”

“None,” he replied. “But I think this is time for a name change. From now on, call me Captain Otis-Elevator no longer. Instead, call me Avenging-Eye!”

Dented-Shield gathered her clan, the clan’s clutch of Slink eggs, and headed east toward the clan compound. Letter-Reader operated the glider carrying the food machine while Avenging-Eye moved alongside, giving instructions through a rapidly rippling tread. Not all the clan left, though. A number of the younger members stayed with the “Spacer Clan” to become apprentices to the engineers and learn the secrets of reading and computing.

The word of the strangers from the stars and their marvelous food machines spread across the crust. The leaders of other clans came to visit and were greeted warmly by Crust-Crawler and fed the delicious “starfood” from the machines. The members of the clans were eager to learn more about the miraculous machines of the spacers. The memories of a life of ease and plenty in the ancient days before the starquake had been passed down verbally from the tales of Old Ones in their hatchling pens, so they were not afraid of the technology, but embraced it.

It wasn’t long before the clans abandoned their homesites and resettled around the spacer’s base. They were careful to bring along the Emperor’s herds of food Slinks; but instead of being allowed to wander, the herds were kept in pens made of magnetic barriers and fed from food machines that had been adapted to manufacture a feed for the food Slinks that produced optimum growth in the animals. But they weren’t eaten, for Chef Pouch-Pleaser and Engineer Metal-Bender had worked together to make food machines that could produce chunks of food Slink meat that were indistinguishable from the real thing.

“It seems like my crew is spending half its time building food machines,” Metal-Bender said one turn at the meeting of the senior staff.

“One-dozeth is more like it,” said Crust-Crawler. “Besides, with all the clan apprentices, your machine construction team is twice as large as it was.”

“My crust engineering team is five times as large as it was,” Engineer Crust-Cracker told the group. “We already have the support foundations under the gravity catapult and have excavated and lined the crust under the central hole. We are now moving into road building. We will have all the roads in the base camp plus clan compounds paved in the next four turns and the road out to the power plant site will be widened to Flow Slow size in a dozen turns.”

“With the extra crew and the road, the construction of the main power plants is way ahead of schedule,” said Power-Pack. “The first plant will be sipping magma in six turns.”

“Good,” said Push-Pull. “My crew has finished reconnecting the tubing on the gravity catapult to turn it from a flying machine into a standard catapult. One power plant should allow us to test it at one-quarter power.”

“When you think you are ready, I’ll send a message up to

East Pole Orbital Station to send down a lightly loaded scout ship,“ said Crust-Crawler. “I want to bring down a rejuvenation machine. Some of these clan leaders are getting old and nearly eyeless from their encounters with Taker. Their experience is too valuable to lose at this stage.”

“We can make our own rejuvenation machines,” said Delta-Mass. “If the precision shops on the interstellar arks can fabricate the delicate inner machinery, Metal-Bender’s crew can do the rest of it.”

“We still have the problem of getting the rare catalyst to promote the formation of the rejuvenation enzyme,” Crust-Crawler reminded his colleague.

“That’s no problem,” said Delta-Mass. “We have been shoving so much crust through the mass separator machines to make metal stock that as a byproduct we have collected enough of the catalyst to activate four dozen rejuvenation machines.”

“How are our relations with the clans, Avenging-Eye?” asked Crust-Crawler.

“Excellent,” said Avenging-Eye. “The members of the Dusty Crust Clan now almost consider themselves spacers. They mix willingly with the other clans and have even taken over all of the beginner reading and computation classes. There seems to be a tenseness in the actions of the elders, though. I think it is time for the Taker to come again.”

“The thought makes me tense,” said Crust-Crawler. “Are we ready for her?”

“I hope so,” said Avenging-Eye.

21:03:12 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

The Taker came out of the west. She and her four warrior-guards rode their Swifts down the center of the paved road while the porters plodded alongside on the crust, carrying their heavy loads of Slink eggs. Even at the great distance Crust-Crawler could see the annoyed twitch in the Taker’s eye-wave pattern as she passed by the clan compounds and food Slink pens.

“The timing is nearly perfect,” Crust-Crawler said as one eye looked up at the sky. A large object was falling out of the sky directly toward them. A low groan started in the crust, rose to a piercing shriek, then tapered off as the gravity catapult brought the spherical scout ship to an abrupt halt in midair, then lowered it gently onto the landing platform.

The clan cheela and the food Slinks had seen a dozen landings already and were not disturbed. The porters accompanying the Taker, however, back-treaded and scattered, some of them pushing eggs out of their pouches as they fled. Two of the riding Swifts bolted, and it took expert handling by the warrior-guards to bring them under control, but not before one of the Swifts scooped up three of the dropped eggs.

The Taker got her mount under control, glared angrily at Crust-Crawler, then with harsh commands and flickers of her whip-sword, reformed her expedition. Three eyes were left lying in the road.

The Taker moved her Swift forward and pulled a scroll from her pouch.

“Clan Leaders! Come forward!”

The leaders of the eight clans that had come to live around the base gathered in a group in front of the Taker. Dented-Shield moved forward from the rest. She had no weapons, but she carried her shield by her side.

“Greetings, Taker of the Emperor,” she said. “I am Dented-Shield, Leader of the Dusty Crust Clan.”

“I have come to take the 132 Zebu Slinks that belong to the Emperor,” said the Taker. “Why did you leave your assigned grazing place and bring them here without permission?”

“The Emperor’s Slinks are protected from wild Swifts here. If you count them you will find we have lost none of them. The Emperor’s Slinks have better grazing here. If you look at them you will find them all in prime condition.” The Taker had already counted the black and white striped Slinks in the pen when she had ridden by earlier; in fact, except for one yellow and pink Slink missing from the herd belonging to the White Cliff Clan, all were in excellent condition.

“I will take 132 Slinks from each herd for the Emperor,” said the Taker. “The Emperor magnanimously gives you the rest to feed your clan.” She waved her eyes at the porters, who started to unload their cargo of Slink eggs from their pouches.

“Here are the eggs for your next herd. They are the Emperor’s property, guard them carefully. You know the penalty.”

Dented-Shield’s tread hesitated as she spoke, but she finally ’trummed outthe reply.

“We do not wish to have the remaining food Slinks. We willingly give them to the Emperor.”

“You do not give things to the Emperor, slave,” said the Taker angrily. “The Emperor takes! For your insolence I shall take all of the food Slinks, and your Clans can grub for groundnuts. Now pick up those Slink eggs and take care of them.”

“We do not wish any more of the Emperor’s Slink eggs.” Dented-Shield sounded braver this time.

“Insolent slave!” the Taker roared. ’The Emperor owns everything. Every food Slink, every groundnut, every fruit on every plant, even the meat on the wild Swifts he owns. Pick up those eggs, or I shall banish you all from the Emperor’s lands and you shall starve.“

“We give to the Emperor all that which belongs to the Emperor. We have no need of the Emperor’s food. We have the food machines to feed us.”

“I will take the food machines, slave. Everything belongs to the Emperor. Even you.” Taker pulled out her whip-sword and flicked it menacingly. “When I am through with you, insolent crust-slug, there will be no more talk of refusing to raise the Emperor’s food Slinks.”

Dented-Shield raised her shield as Taker urged her riding-Swift forward. Crust-Crawler rapped a short command into the crust and a nearly invisible magnetic barrier sprang up across the road. The riding-Swift slowed and reared as its tread touched the magnetic barrier. The ultra-strong magnetic fields stretched the molecules in the tread of the Swift to the breaking point. The Swift roared and backed off, favoring the burned edge of its tread.

Crust-Crawler moved forward to stand next to Dented-Shield.

“There is no need to raise food Slinks anymore,” he said to the Taker. “The food machines can now give us Slink meat as well as all the other foods it did before. Now that we have nearly finished our task here, we would like to meet your Emperor. We will give him many, many food machines, cargo-gliders, personal gliders, road pavers, and other machines, as well as the power plants to run them. All of Egg can become prosperous, and there will no longer be a need for slaves.”

Crust-Crawler noticed that Taker’s eye-wave pattern almost stopped as she contemplated the thought of not having slaves to do her bidding.

“If the Emperor will guarantee me safe conduct,” said Crust-Crawler, “I and my machine makers will be glad to visit him in Bright Center. Otherwise, he may come here. As you notice, we have not attacked your party and have given you more than you came for. We would welcome the visit of the Emperor. If he wishes, he can ride in our starships and look down on all of his domain at one time.”

As if to punctuate his offer, there was a rising whine in the crust and the gravity catapult threw the scout ship back into the sky.

Faced with a barrier she could not overcome, and awed by the technology around her in spite of herself, the Taker decided to retreat.

“I leave to report your behavior to the Emperor,” she said. “He will decide what you will do next.”

Crust-Crawler had the barrier around the herding pens lowered, and the porters, now reloaded with Slink eggs, drove the docile herds off on the long journey to Bright Center. Before the Taker left, however, she and her warriors used the treads of their riding-Swifts to push over all the low walls outlining the clan living areas and tread the meager contents into the crust.

“I hope the Emperor is more reasonable than the Taker,” said Metal-Bender.

“If the Emperor is the original Attila,” Crust-Crawler replied, “even two dozen rejuvenations wouldn’t be enough to make him reasonable. I think we had better work on our defenses.”

The Taker got back to Bright Center just as Attila finished his latest rejuvenation. His compact, muscular body was stronger than ever and just as speckled as before. He had a holding pouch of golden yellow crystals and was popping them one by one into an eating pouch.

“Good haul, Crazy-Eyes,” he said, looking at the food Slinks flowing past. “I want one of those striped ones.”

“I will have the servers prepare it for turnfeast, Terrible One,” said the Taker.

“I want it now!” demanded Attila. “I’m hungry.” He waved at a nearby server. “That stupid rejuvenation robot kept feeding me mush and telling me to eat slowly. Had to dent it with my sword before it would let me go.”

“I had some trouble in the eastern provinces,” the Taker said after a long silence.

“Some slaves holding out on you?”

“No. They not only gave us back all the food Slinks they were supposed to, but they even refused to take their dozeth.”

“I thought the herds looked bigger. What’s the matter with them?” Attila asked. “They can’t survive long on just groundnuts.”

“They have also refused to eat your groundnuts or plant fruits,” said the Taker.

“You sound like your brain-knot has stopped working, Crazy-Eyes,” said Attila. “If I didn’t know you better, I would say you are getting too old to be the Taker.”

“I am still the strongest of your warriors, O Terrible One,” said the Taker fearfully. “But I have even worse news, O Terrible One.”

“Stop that ‘O Terrible One’ nonsense, Crazy-Eyes. I’m feeling great in this new body, and you know and I know that no other warrior of mine would be as good as you are for Taker-of-the-Emperor.” He paused for a moment as a server brought in a raw chunk of Zebu Slink.

“That is, unless you don’t come out on top at the next combat trials.” Attila stuffed his eating pouch with the meat and started to suck on it noisily. He then tossed a few golden yellow crystals in on top of the meat.

“Excellent combination,” he said. “Now, tell me the bad news.”

“They refused to take the new batch of Slink eggs.”

“You sliced up the Clan Leader and a few Elders until you found someone in the clan who would take the eggs rather than die, didn’t you?”

“I tried to, O Terrible One,” said the Taker, her tread stuttering in fear. “But we were near the compound of the strange clan that made the food machine. They created an invisible barrier that stopped my riding-Swift.” She paused as she saw his eye-wave pattern take on a slow, thoughtful motion. “I did my best, Terrible One,” she said.

Attila finally broke his silence. “Did your Swift have a burned tread?” he asked.

“Yes!” she replied, amazed at his question. “I could not understand it. I could see no heat radiation coming from the barrier.”

“That strange clan makes more than food machines,” said Attila thoughtfully. “You ran into a magnetic barrier. It takes more than a Swift to cross them. What else did you see?”

“They have many machines. Some cover the crust with smooth roads, some spit out long tubes and bars of metal, and others crawl around cutting the metal into pieces to make other machines. They have even turned their giant flying machine into a machine that catches metal spheres that fall from the sky.”

“Those are Old One tales from the days before the big crustquake,” said Attila. “Next you will be telling me that there are cheela that live among the stars.”

“I saw two cheela get out of the sphere and unload some small machines,” the Taker told him. “Then they got back in the sphere and it was tossed back up into the sky.”

“I don’t like the idea of someone being able to come and go from Egg without my permission. What if all the slaves decided to go to live in the stars?”

“The leader of the strange clan offered to give us all the machines we wanted, including new food machines that would make any kind of food Slink meat,” she said. “He said we wouldn’t need herders or gatherers for food, and all the work could be done by machine. There wouldn’t be a need for slaves anymore. I didn’t like the sound of that.”

“If there weren’t any slaves,” said Attila, “there wouldn’t be a need for an Emperor and his warriors.” He jammed another hunk of raw Slink in his eating pouch. “There is rebellion falling from the sky,” he said. “I shall crush it under my tread just as I did long ago.” He wiped his manipulator on the crust and started moving toward the ancient Maze Temple in the middle of Bright Center.

He found no guard around the maze. The slaves were so afraid of the place that they never came near. Attila ignored the entrance and circled around the outside until he came to a wide breach in the tall walls. As he flowed up over the crumbled blocks of rock, the Taker lagged behind.

“Come along, Crazy-Eyes,” Attila ordered. “You are not letting the Old One tales get to you, are you?”

“I have heard there are death-traps in there,” said the Taker.

“You heard correctly.” Attila continued to follow the path of destruction into the interior. The Taker came to an abrupt halt. “But the death-traps stopped working when I reached the power generator.”

They finally came to the last broken wall. It opened into a large room. In the middle was a pile of metal plates and old Flow Slow bones. Attila pushed the bones aside and picked up a metal plate as big as a large shield. He gave it a tap and it rang loudly.

“Feels solid,” he said. He placed it on the floor of the room and flowed onto it, pulling the edge of his tread up until none of it touched the crust. He held the position for a moment.

“Did you hear my whisper?” he asked. The metal plate gave his tread an echoing sound.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” said the Taker.

“Good,” said Attila. “It’s still superconducting.”

He started moving more bones and stacking up the plates.

“Get some slaves in here to gather up all these plates,” he said. “You may have to persuade them a little with a whip-sword.” Just then Attila felt a sharp pain in his tread. He looked down to see the blade of a pricker and a few crystallium eye-stub bones.

“Had to get one last cut, didn’t you Qui-Qui,” he said. His tread flicked, and the bones scattered across the room.

“Who’s Qui-Qui?” the Taker asked.

“Someone I knew long ago,” said Attila.

As they exited the breach in the maze wall Attila said, “I remember ordering a zoo some time ago. I wanted to see all the animals that lived on Egg. Where is it?”

“There has been a zoo in Bright Center since long before I was a hatchling,” said the Taker.

“Take me there,” said Attila, flowing up the tail of his riding-Swift.

At the zoo, Attila rode rapidly by the holding pens until they came to the Flow Slow pen. He dismounted and slid through the narrow passage crack in the thick wall.

“They are dangerous, O Terrible One,” warned a keeper.

“Quiet, slave!” Attila said as the Flow Slow started toward him. “Crazy-Eyes. Come here.”

The Taker got down from her mount and, short-sword at the ready, entered the cage.

“You keep moving right in front of it, tempting it on,” said Attila. He moved to one side and held still. The attention of the Flow Slow shifted to the Taker. She moved away and the Flow Slow followed her. Attila rushed the animal from the back side and caught the leading edge of a plate as it rose from the crust and started to flow up to the top of the rolling animal.

The Taker alternately poked and hollered at the front of the Flow Slow. The huge plates appeared over the top of the animal and looked as if they were falling directly down on her.

Suddenly it sounded as if the Flow Slow were calling her name.

“Crazy-Eyes,” came the muffled voice. “Look up here!”

The Taker backed away to see Attila on top of the Flow Slow, his tread moving backward as the plates of the Flow Slow moved ponderously forward.

“I haven’t forgotten how to do it,” Attila said proudly. He thumped the animal hard on the top and it stopped moving, bewildered. He thumped it in another place, and it started flowing again.

“It’s a stupid way to ride,” he said as his tread started to move again to keep him on top of the animal. “You don’t get to rest your tread as you do riding a Swift. You have to walk as far as it does, only backwards.” He prodded the Flow Slow until it was moving as fast as it could go, then nimbly rippled down the trailing edge onto the crust.

“Get some slaves and nail those superconducting plates to it. No magnetic barrier is going to stop me!”

“It is so slow; it will take a great of turns to get to the stranger’s compound,” Taker said.

“I see you have never moved an army,” said Attila. “A few warriors on Swifts can move rapidly across the crust; but an army of warriors moves with the speed of a Flow Slow and, like a Flow Slow, eats everything in its path.” He reached into a pouch and pulled out some dark red balls. He popped two into his eating pouch then rolled the rest into the path of the approaching Flow Slow.

21:03:45 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

“Say, everybody,” said Abdul. “There’s something funny going on down on Egg.” He pushed an override switch and the image showed up on all the screens.

“It looks like a column of driver ants,” Cesar said.

“An apt analogy, Doctor Wong,” said Seiko. “I have been monitoring the condensed news briefs from the cheela. The landing base is expecting an attack by Attila. That must be his army.”

“They’ll be there in thirty seconds,” said Pierre. “If only we could do something.”

“The speckled cheela have pink eyes,” said Seiko. “Remember how the Prophet Pink-Eyes was affected by our laser?”

“Focus the laser on the landing base, Abdul!” Jean chimed in.

“Okay. But a laser beam isn’t going to do anything to a cheela except titillate it.”

21:04:15 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

The whine of the pumps on the gravity catapult changed pitch as they caught the heavily laden cargo ship and lowered it gently down to the off-loading platform. Dozens of space cheela poured down the curved off-ramp and started unloading the cargo hold. Star-Counter left the control deck and came down to greet Crust-Crawler.

“Had trouble getting volunteers to stay in space where it’s safe,” Star-Counter told him. “Everyone wants to be down here where the action is.”

“I see you brought some weapons,” Crust-Crawler was pleased.

“Positron beamers, fountain howitzers, antimatter mines, slicetop gliders, and a couple of meters of super-mag barrier coils.”

“I’ll get the barrier coils to Engineer Electro-Magnetic immediately,” said Crust-Crawler. “The Speckled Horde is only a few turns away.”

“I could see it as we were coming down,” said Star-Counter. “The column stretches out for hundreds of meters. Are you sure we have a chance against all of them?”

“Most of them are porters and support personnel,” said Crust-Crawler. “The only ones we really have to fear are Attila himself and some three dozen greats of his speckled warriors. If we can defeat them, the rest will give up.”

“Three dozen greats against two greats,” said Star-Counter.

“But our 288 have technology on their side.”

“We have something more than that on our side,” Star-Counter added.

“What is that?” asked Crust-Crawler.

“We know we must not lose. Boost me up a few meters at low power so I can report on what they are doing.”

21:04:16 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

Attila rode his Swift at the head of his army. Group after group, each led by a greaturion who commanded a great of mounted warriors, stretched out down the long paved road toward the west. Beside Attila rode the Taker.

“A nice road the strangers have made for us,” the Taker said. “The quicker to hasten their deaths.”

“It looks freshly paved,” said Attila. “I don’t understand that, or the warm spots either.”

“Warm spots?” asked the Taker.

“Shove those black eye-balls under your floppy eye-flaps and use the pink eyes Bright gave you,” Attila snapped.

The Taker lowered all her normal eyes and looked with her pink ones at the road. She could see ragged spots of ultra-red along the road, as if something warm were underneath.

“What are they?” the Taker asked.

“I don’t know. And I don’t like things I don’t understand.”

They reached the outskirts of the stranger’s compound. The lead warriors halted. It would take nearly a turn for the rest of the long column to gather.

Attila had been looking forward to this battle. It was the first time in many generations that he had felt the tingle of danger rippling over his hide.

“Bring up those Flow Slows!” he commanded. “And the first dozen greaturions report to me.” The twelve group leaders rode up on their Swifts and gathered around him.

“I will ride the first Flow Slow over the barriers at the main entrance,” said Attila. “The first four groups are to follow me in.” He turned to the greaturion of the Fourth Group. “Torn-Tread!”

“Yef, O Terrible One.” Torn-Tread’s tread was lisping because of the massive scar from the bite of a Swift.

“You will ride the second Flow Slow over the barriers to the right, and Groups Five through Eight will follow you. Eleven-Eyes will take his Flow Slow to the left.

“Bring up my Flow Slow!” he ordered, sliding down off his Swift. The Swift stayed with its mate, which was being ridden by the Taker.

“It is almost turnfeast,” reminded the Taker.

“We will not stop for turnfeast,” said Attila. “My warriors will eat the meat of the strangers for their turnfeast.”

Attila scampered up the trailing edge of the Flow Slow and took over control of the great animal. The greaturions whirled their mounts around and raced back to gather their groups. The warriors saw Attila on the Flow Slow, heard the shouts of their greaturions, and immediately dashed forward, their war-cries mingled with the roars of their Swifts.

“They’re attacking!” yelled Crust-Crawler. “He’s not even going to talk to us first!”

“It has been a long time since the Terrible One has had an excuse to fight,” said Dented-Shield. “He was afraid you would surrender.”

“We’ll give him a fight,” Crust-Crawler promised. “Fire the antimatter mines!”

Engineer Power-Pack closed a switch and in a rippling roar, the road to the west exploded under the treads of the Speckled Horde. Swifts and their warrior mounts were torn apart by the explosions and tossed to the sides of the road. Those that had been along the edges of the road or between the mine emplacements immediately left the road, only to be met by two more rippling roars as two more strings of mines on either side of the road went up.

Attila felt a dull thump through the body of his Flow Slow as the antimatter mine went off. The Flow Slow gave a deep rumble of pain, but continued on under the prickling from the creature above it. Attila could sense the animal was hurt. But, except for a cracked plate underneath its armor cover, it was still functional.

He looked out from his vantage point on top of the Flow Slow and surveyed the damage that had been done to his army. Unlike the Flow Slow, the army had been badly hurt by the sneak attack. The warriors had not panicked under the attack and were still moving forward toward the enemy, but they were not in their usual group formations. They all had at least one eye fixed on their Emperor.

Attila pulled out his limber-swords and flashed them in a complex pattern about his body. The warriors halted their disorganized rush and looked about for a greaturion. The greaturions, limber-swords signaling, gathered the warriors that were around them, then signaled their leader. There were only six groups now—half the warriors had been killed by the antimatter mines. Limber-swords flashing, Attila lined up the groups behind the three Flow Slows and the attack continued.

“Let’s get this beast moving!” Attila called, as he jabbed the point of the pricker between the cracks in the Flow Slow’s armor. He marched backward as the Flow Slow ponderously moved forward. He looked upward at the large sphere hanging in the sky above him. He refused to be awed by it. The sphere would fall once the fort fell and the power was turned off.

High above the battlefield Star-Counter watched the developing action and reported down to her friends below.

“First two groups now within range of the fountain-tubes,” she said. “Coordinates one-three and one-six.”

“One-three fired,” said Metal-Bender, throwing small switches on his console. “One-six fired.” Racks of long, nearly vertical tubes fired in salvos and dozens and dozens of tiny heavy balls shot up into the sky to fall like tiny avenging meteorites on the Speckled Horde. The crust vibrated with the cries of punctured warriors and Swifts, but the attack moved on.

“Coordinates one-two. Coordinates one-seven. Coordinates two-three,” Star-Counter reported from above.

Down below, Attila took out his limber-swords and flashed another signal. The greaturions now switched their advance to a zig-zag pattern. Many of the deadly falling balls missed their targets. Attila heard a grunt as the warrior next to him took a ball through the brain-knot. His dead body, carried over the front of the Flow Slow by the moving plates, was crushed into the crust beneath.

“Three-three. Four-seven. Four-two. Five-seven. Six-seven. Seven-seven,” said Star-Counter.

“My tubes are empty,” Metal-Bender said.

“Attila’s Flow Slow has almost reached the barrier and the other two are not far behind,” Crust-Crawler told them. “We have got to stop those Flow Slows! Activate the robots.”

The tubes that acted like fountain plants had finally stopped shooting pellets. They were approaching the barrier. Attila slowed his Flow Slow, wary of new surprises. Lying in front of the nearly invisible magnetic barriers were complex chunks of metal. Suddenly, they seemed to come alive. Each one had a number of large manipulators that pinched, cut, or burned. The robots had been programmed to go after the Flow Slows, especially the riders on top. Some were crushed under the massive armored plates, while others scurried around to the trailing edge and started to ride up on top. They were impervious to sword blades; and once a Swift had encountered one of the cutting, burning, pinching robots, they refused to go near them again.

“Use your quirrls!” Attila shouted to the mounted warriors around them.

The warriors loaded their specially adapted pouches with short heavy quirrls and used their internal muscles to throw the quirrls in a short arc from their perches high up on their Swifts. The quirrls punctured the metallic hides of the robots, leaving a glowing wound. Some stopped working; some were pinned to the crust; but the others kept on.

“Two are climbing the Flow Slow!” said one of the warriors next to him.

“Throw quirrls!” Attila was thumping the Row-Slow hard to make it reverse itself. The robots now had to climb against a down-flow of moving plates, and they slowed their advance. First one, then the other was picked off by quirrls. The Flow Slow groaned again. One of the quirrls had found a chink in its armor. The Flow Slow was now surrounded by a swirling mass of Swift-riding warriors that had silenced the rest of the robots as they tried to attack.

“The robots got two of the Flow Slows,” Star-Counter said.

“We can hear that through the crust,” said Crust-Crawler over the bellows from the Flow Slows. “It can’t be pleasant having a construction robot cutting and burning its way down to your brain-knot.”

With a wailing cry, the bellows stopped. The remaining Flow Slow echoed the cry of its dying mate, then returned to its usual complaining groans as the mite on its topside pricked it into motion once again.

“They didn’t get the important one,” said Crust-Crawler. “Attila is going to breach the magnetic barrier.”

“Follow me,” Attila shouted. Limber-swords whirling a victory flourish, he urged the armored Flow Slow up onto the magnetic barrier. The crust groaned as the generators attempted to maintain the field, then the barrier fell. With shouts of triumph, the vanguard of the Speckled Horde poured through the opening. They fell back as they were met by a barrage of positron beams that ate holes in their hides. The positron beamers had limited range in the tenuous atmosphere, but the range of the beamers was longer than the range of the quirrls. The quirrls, however, could be thrown in any direction, while the positron beams spiraled along the east-west magnetic field lines. The spacers with their beamers and the warriors with their quirrls sparred with each other at long distance like knights fighting bishops in a weird end game.

“Herders! Spread your stickers!” Letter-Reader shouted to his clan. He then ran out between the knots of fighters and threw tiny tread stickers in the path of the Swifts. His actions were followed by others. The moving Swifts ran into the stickers and roared as they came to a halt. Their riders cursed and slashed at them to get them moving again, but many were caught by the stinging positron beams.

Slowly, relentlessly, the defenders were driven back. Attila again raised his limber-swords and signaled a command. The warriors about him cursed with anger, then fought all the harder.

“What happened?” Crust-Crawler asked Dented-Shield.

“Attila has decided to call in the rest of his army,” said Dented-Shield. “The first echelon is angry that they did not finish the battle by themselves.”

“They are coming fast,” Star-Counter told them.

Attila signaled again, and the warriors about him disengaged and retreated to set up a guard to protect the gap in the magnetic barrier. As the rest of his army approached, Attila slid down the backside of the Flow Slow and mounted his riding Swift. Limber-swords flashing, he triumphantly led the Speckled Horde through the gap.

“Let loose the slicer-gliders!” Crust-Crawler yelled. “Be careful how you point them, they can’t tell friend from foe.”

Dozens upon dozens of small powered gliders zoomed across the crust. On their topsides glistened three long razor-sharp blades, which caused many a warrior to abandon his damaged mount. But even an unmounted warrior from the Speckled Horde was a formidable foe. Great upon great, the Swifts and their riders flowed through the gap. The fountain tubes had been reloaded and belched once again. Positron beams flickered through the atmosphere to eat holes in flesh, and glide-cars driven by reckless spacers spewed antimatter bombs from each side until the driver was stopped with a whip-sword or a quirrl to the brain-knot. The defenders were driven back of their last magnetic barrier. The armored Flow Slow was moved forward once again.

A battered glide-car slid to a stop beside Crust-Crawler and Dented-Shield. The driver was Avenging-Eye. His pouches were stuffed with heavy objects.

“We’ve got to stop that Flow Slow,” said Avenging-Eye. “Lower the barriers while I get across.” Without waiting for a reply he jammed his speed control into high and headed directly for the barrier.

“Stop!” cried Crust-Crawler after him, then signaled to Engineer Electro-Magnetic. The barrier dropped; the glide-car shot across, and the barrier popped back up again.

“A crazy fool,” Eleven-Eyes told Attila. “Advance with quirrls!” he commanded to his warriors behind him.

“He’s after the Flow Slow!” shouted Attila, slapping his Swift into action. The Taker’s Swift was already past him, and she was unsheathing her whip-sword. Avenging-Eye feinted a turn and rolled an antimatter bomb toward her, but she knew his target and could not be fooled. He increased the speed of his glide-car to maximum, trying to get by her, but her whip-sword caught him in the side. Avenging-Eye exploded as the antimatter bombs in his stuffed pouches went off in a gigantic explosion. The remains of the glide-car slid under the plates of the still advancing Flow Slow.

A dazed Taker wiggled out from under her dead Swift, ordered a warrior off his mount, and was pulling out a new whip-sword from her weapons pouch when Attila arrived.

“Only a miracle can save us now,” said Crust-Crawler.

Suddenly a cry of anguish arose from the advancing army. The cry was repeated by some of the friendly clan warriors nearby.

“Attila and his warriors are pulling in their eye-balls,” Dented-Shield observed in bewilderment.

“It’s too bright!” Letter-Reader shouted, pulling in three of his eyes.

“What’s too bright?” asked Crust-Crawler.

“It’s an ultra-red beacon from the center of the Eyes of Bright. It makes my pink eyes ache.”

“The humans have turned on their laser!” Crust-Crawler exclaimed.

“Most of the Horde have only a few eyes up,” said Dented-Shield. “They are having trouble controlling their riding-Swifts.”

The Taker pulled in her speckled eyes and looked out with her two common eyes. She had to sweep them back and forth to find out what was going on around her.

“Stop that light!!!” Attila roared, all of his eyes under their flaps. He had been proud that none of his eyes were common, though it meant that he could never read the small writing on a scroll.

Both the Taker’s and Attila’s riding Swifts were struck by slicer-gliders and stopped to tend their wounds. The ultra-red light glared on.

“These stupid Swifts are useless,” Attila shouted. He drew his three limber-swords and slid down the back of his Swift, the flickering swords protecting his flanks from unseen enemies as he tried to peer out from under his eyeflaps at the glaring hostileness. The Taker slid down to stand beside her leader.

A screaming shriek passed by one side of them, then another seemed to pass under them. It was only after the tiny missile with the supersharp vertical blades had passed that the Taker realized her tread was slippery and the muscles didn’t work well anymore. Attila screamed again and leaned his small muscular body against hers as he tried to lift his tread from the torture of another slicer-glider.

The riding-Swifts were easy to kill, Crust-Crawler recalled later. Without their riders to protect them, they were easy targets for a positron beam. The speckled warriors were tougher, even though they were mostly blind; for once on the crust, they could sense an enemy coming through their tread and most of them had one or more common eyes to see with. Attila, however, had none.

The battle grew old, but the ultra-red light from above glared on and on.

“Will it never end!” shouted Attila, his limber-swords flickering about him in an interwoven shield. The Taker had moved away from him to avoid the blades.

“The humans take forever to do anything,” Crust-Crawler said from a short distance away. “For once let Bright delay them some more.”

“Come and get me, slaves,” said the Taker, her whip-sword flickering on the crust. The muscles in her weapons pouch fired a quirrl, but the bolt fell short and vibrated in the crust. She flashed her whip-sword about her body menacingly.

“With pleasure,” Dented-Shield said, raising her shield and pike. The Taker’s whip-sword whirled faster as she advanced on Dented-Shield.

“Wait, Dented-Shield,” called Crust-Crawler.

Standing off at a safe distance, far from the reach of the whip-sword, he shot the Taker with a positron beam. It made a large hole.

Juices oozing from tread and hide, the Taker snaked out her whip-sword to take an eye from her tormentor. A dented shield blocked the slash. Another bolt from the antimatter weapon burned deep into her brain-knot.

The Taker flowed.

The crust around Attila grew silent, but the ultra-red glared on. Attila stopped waving the limber-swords a moment to allow his tread to hear what was going on. The manipulators holding the limber-swords felt a vibration coming down the haft. When Attila waved the swords again, there was nothing to wave. The sword blades had disintegrated.

Attila pushed a pink eye out into the ultra-red glare and saw a speckled hide!

“Give me your sword,” Attila demanded.

“Yes, O Terrible One,” came the voice, and Letter-Reader’s sword sliced through the protruding eye.

“Avenging-Eye is avenged!” Letter-Reader boasted.

Attila screamed in agony.

Crust-Crawler raised his positron beamer. “Let’s get this over with.”

“No!” Dented-Shield said. “He is mine!” She ran up on top of Attila. His body twisted and almost flipped tread upward in an attempt to shake off his assailant. She held him down and drove her short-sword into his brain-knot. Attila’s eyeflaps relaxed, and the pink eyes flowed out on the crust as the ultra-red glare from the Eyes of Bright finally faded.

Dented-Shield picked up a lifeless eye-ball and lopped it from its stub. She went on to the next one.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five,” she said. “That takes care of what you owe me. Now for the elders that stood with me.” She continued around the flowing body until she came to the last eye. Crust-Crawler was holding it in a manipulator and had a small slicer ready.

“I am tired,” Dented-Shield said. “You can have that one.”

“This is for Qui-Qui.” And Crust-Crawler sliced the last eye-ball from the Emperor of Dragon’s Egg.

“Who is Qui-Qui?” Dented-Shield asked.

“Someone I knew long ago,” he said.

21:04:17 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

“Excellent choice of frequency, Jean,” said Seiko. “Short ultraviolet. Too long for normal cheela vision and too short to cause sexual side effects. It definitely affected the battle.”

“What is happening?” Abdul asked.

“Happened. It was all over in a tenth of a second.”

“But who won?” Abdul shouted.

“The space cheela did, of course.” Seiko was monitoring the snippets of condensed news from the crust below.

“With a little help from their friends,” said Abdul.

“They need a little more help,” Seiko said. “Then: libraries were wiped out by the starquake, and they want us to send back some of the information on our library HoloMem crystals. They don’t want all of it, but they will let our computer know which sections.”

“I’ll bring up the first crystal.” Pierre, seated at the library console, reached up to the HoloMem rack and pulled out the first crystal. It was still labeled A to AME, but that human dictionary content had been replaced long ago with knowledge from the cheela. The crystal would transmit faster if it were in the communications console on the Main Deck, so Pierre pushed himself up the metal ladder as fast as he could go, knowing that no matter how fast a human moved, it was too slow for a cheela.