Sacrifice

07:08:13 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

Qui-Qui had left her engineering class working on their lessons and was now out in the fields teaching the farming class how to tell ripe nut-pods from immature ones. Through her tread she could hear a loud commotion from the hatchling pens. Zero-Gauss, now very old, was always having trouble keeping the large numbers of hatchlings under control while still tending the eggs. Qui-Qui left her farming class and rushed to the hatchery.

“Weak eyes…weak eyes…speckle-hides have weak eyes.” The high-pitched sound of the taunting treads came from a group of unspeckled hatchlings who were keeping three speckled hatchlings from getting to the food troughs.

“I’ll show you who’s weak,” one of the speckled ones said, then rushed at her tormentors and managed to glide up on top of one of the males and started jabbing at him with a sharp crust-rock. Zero-Gauss was busy with a hatchling just emerging from an egg and could only shout at them from the egg-pen.

Overworked, frustrated, and angry, Qui-Qui rushed at the brawling hatchlings and sent all of them sliding across the crust with swift slaps from a manipulator.

“That will be enough of that!” she said fiercely, her dark eyes blazing down at them over her large eyeflaps. “You will stop fighting and eat quietly.” Some still whimpering from the slaps, the hatchlings gathered around the food troughs and ate their midturn meal. Zero-Gauss finally came in from the egg-pen, pushing a new hatchling in front of her to the food trough.

“I don’t know what to do,” Zero-Gauss said tiredly. “It seems like every turn they fight more and more. I keep telling them we all have to work together, but the won’t listen to me.”

“Maybe it will become better when some of the younglings become old enough to help us,” said Qui-Qui, who then checked in on her engineering class before going back out into fhe fields. The younglings there were now arguing.

“Don’t pick that one, stupid,” a speckled youngling said to a non-speckled one.

“Why not. It looks perfectly ripe to me.”

“It’s got ground-slug eggs in it.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s obvious,” said the speckled one. “Just look at its color compared to the good one next to it.”

“I don’t see any difference,” said the non-speckled one.

“That’s because you only have ‘common’ eyes.” The speckled one extended its four pink eyes with obvious pride. “We speckle-hides have ‘special’ eyes that can see things you plain-hides can’t. That’s what makes us so special.”

“You’re not so special,” said the non-speckled one raising his pull-pike that he used to bring down fruits from the taller plants.

“That’s enough of that,” Qui-Qui hollered from a distance. “You younglings are acting just like a bunch of hatchlings.”

07:12:02 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

While Hohmann-Transfer was busy with her scrollwork, some of her eyes noticed that one of the stars in the sky was rapidly growing in size. She let the scroll roll up and went to the command deck as the star grew larger and larger. By the time she got there, she could see the yellow-white speck in front of the star. It was the last of the large interstellar exploration ships, the Abdul Nkomi Farouk. Now, all that were left out in interstellar space were a few scout ships.

“East Pole Space Station calling Abdul,” said Hohmann-Transfer. There was nearly two methturns delay while the signal traveled across the 30 kilometers that separated them. During the wait the spinor warp drives on Abdul were turned off and the star receded back into the heavens, while the ship stayed in orbit around Egg.

“This is Captain Searching-Eye of the interstellar exploration ship Abdul reporting to base as ordered. Captain Far-Ranger and Admiral Steel-Slicer were given the last positions of our two scout ships and were still searching for them when we left Here X-l. What is the status of things on Egg? We are all concerned.”

“Terrible,” said Hohmann-Transfer. “We are reduced to depending upon the capabilities of an entertainer, and she has been able to do nothing for two dozen greats of turns. I am calling a general meeting as soon as you get here.”

The main meeting bowl on East Pole Space Station was jammed with bodies. The larger assembly rooms elsewhere on the station were also crowded with concerned spacers watching the video links to the main meeting bowl.

“It has now been two dozen greats of turns since the disastrous starquake destroyed civilization on Egg,” Hohmann-Transfer began. “I have done the best I can with the inadequate support from the surface, but the situation continues to look completely hopeless. The one engineer we had left on the surface flowed before we could save him. We are now reduced to training our own engineers with an entertainer as the teacher.”

“She is doing a good job under the circumstances,” said Cliff-Web. “The problem is that without robots and other labor-saving machines, everyone on the surface has to spend a good deal of his time just keeping himself alive. We give them as much advice as possible, but the two-grethturn time delay in the communication link doesn’t help.”

“How much longer will it be before they will be able to get a gravity catapult into operation?” someone asked.

“It all depends upon whether Qui-Qui can keep things under control down there and keep the classes going,” said Cliff-Web. “If she can, then by selecting out the ones most competent in gravitational engineering and keeping them free to go to classes, we should soon have someone competent enough to go to the gravity catapult sites at the East and West Poles and tell us how bad the damage is. If the damage is not too bad, then it will only be another one or two dozen greats until we have trained a batch of engineers who can fix the damage, repair a power plant to run the catapult, and get it into operation.”

“You are talking about generations!” exclaimed Hohmann-Transfer. “You didn’t tell me that before! We can’t wait that long!”

“I told you, but you wouldn’t listen,” said Cliff-Web. “And we have no alternative but to wait as many generations as it takes.”

“But we’re getting older all the time. Without rejuvenation we will all be dead before they finish!” said Hohmann-Transfer. “You will have to make some rejuvenation machines.”

“You forget we are limited to the materials that we have on hand in the space stations and spaceships. I have had my engineers look into the problem. We could easily rework some of the metal in the less essential portions of the ships into machines to produce the rejuvenation enzymes. But the actual process requires the use of a rare metal isotope. In the whole space fleet there is just enough to make two machines, each capable of making enough enzyme for one person every three dozen greats. Basically, only two people can be kept alive by rejuvenation.”

“Then the rest will have to die!” said Hohmann-Transfer. “What is the use of fixing the gravity catapult if there are only two people left to save?”

“We can’t allow the space contingent to die off to two people,” said Cliff-Web. “The cheela on the ground have lost all their scrolls and all their technology. We need to keep the space contingent at full strength. Since we don’t have rejuvenation machines to make young cheela out of old ones, we will have to make younglings the old-fashioned way. I understand that it’s not bad, once you get used to it.”

There were a number of amused rumbles from the audience, but they went right under the tread of Hohmann-Transfer.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“I am recommending that the medicos take selected personnel off their contraceptive drugs. Can’t you just see it?” he said, his eye-stubs sweeping around the large meeting bowl. “We could put the egg-pen down here at the bottom of the meeting bowl, with the hatchling pens stretching up the sides, and the creche-schools around the top.”

It was ultimately decided to proceed with the building of the two rejuvenation machines. It would be important to have some continuity as the collection of space stations and spaceships were converted into a space colony. After much debate, Hohmann-Transfer and Cliff-Web were chosen to use the rejuvenation machines. The rest of the cheela were allocated one egg each, for the space stations could not handle much more than a doubling in the population. Many cheela went through many greats of serious thought before they finally decided on their “egg partner.”

07:15:16 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

Qui-Qui was called to the communicator by one of the scribes, Quick-Writer.

“I am still copying a section of a maintenance manual for auxiliary power generators.” Quick-Writer told Qui-Qui when she arrived at the flyer. “They inserted a message to you a few methturns ago asking that you come.”

Qui-Qui waited while Quick-Writer finished writing down the last words of the maintenance manual on the scroll in his neat script from the dictation 406 kilometers above. Quick-Writer then activated the video link. Some diagrams appeared on the screen. He copied them quickly, for the video link was extremely wasteful of energy. As soon as he was done, the link was switched back to audio only. There was a pause, then Cliff-Web came on the link.

“Our new Space Council has come to a decision,” said Cliff-Web. “We feel that it is now time for you to go to the West Pole and undergo rejuvenation. Now, I know what you are probably thinking—that Zero-Gauss should be the one to go, since she is older. The problem with that is the rejuvenation robot has been unable to get more than one enzyme machine going. If we send Zero-Gauss now, then you can’t go for some 36 greats. By then you would be close to 90 greats old and might flow before you could be rejuvenated. We decided we couldn’t afford to lose you. You are the only one with the mixture of drive, determination, optimism, and charisma that is needed to keep the surface younglings concentrating on our joint goal, reunification of the clans of Egg. The vote was 288 to 1. I needn’t tell you who the ‘one’ was. As soon as you can, you are to travel to the West Pole, undergo rejuvenation, then return bringing the rejuvenation robot and the enzyme machine. The robot will be useful in getting some power generators running at Bright’s Heaven and possibly repairing some of the other equipment.”

Qui-Qui acknowledged the message, then turned the communications link back to Quick-Writer. He started writing again as the dictation continued.

It took a few turns for Qui-Qui to get things organized so that she could be gone the half-great it would take for her to undergo rejuvenation. One of the engineering students, Coulomb-Force, removed the communicator and an accumulator from the flyer so the education of the classes could continue.

Zero-Gauss was relieved that it wasn’t she that had been chosen for rejuvenation, for she wanted nothing more than to be with her little ones. Now that there were adults to help take care of the older hatchlings and run the creche-classes, she had nothing to do but hatch eggs and tell stories of the old days before the starquake.

As the flyer carrying Qui-Qui zoomed down the old road toward the West Pole, it passed by a large herd of food Slinks. Speckle-Top was with the herd, teaching her herding class. Everyone in the class had speckles and at least one pink eye. She was teaching them things that were not found in the textbooks, like how to look at an animal with your special pink eyes and tell where it hurt, and how to approach an animal so that it would think you were a friend.

As Speckle-Top watched the flyer pass, an old worry began nagging her brain-knot. Every turn they came closer to fixing one of those gravity machines they kept talking about. Then down would come the spacers and with them their laws. Then after that would come the clankers and their lashes. Speckle-Top didn’t want the spacers to come; she liked things the way they were.

07:15:32 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

Eighty turns later, Qui-Qui returned from her rejuvenation in her flyer, bringing the rejuvenation robot and the enzyme machine with her. She glided to a landing near the Inner Eye Institute. No one seemed to be around, so Qui-Qui got out to attach the flyer to the tie-bolts. She heard a slithering in the crust, and her eyes saw a number of miniature pet Swifts approaching. She didn’t recognize any of them. She had a little bit of food in a carrying pouch and took it out. She formed some tendrils to pat the animals and called them to her.

The pack of Swifts saw the food, and their slither turned into a charge. Their maws opened, and sharp teeth snapped out into ripping position. Roaring with hunger, they rushed at Qui-Qui. She threw the bit of food to one side to distract them, then made a dash for the flyer. The robot watched impassively as she flowed rapidly aboard the flyer and slammed the magnetic shield shut, a manipulator dripping juices where she had fended off one of the beasts.

Hurt and a little frightened, Qui-Qui became concerned. Something had happened while she was gone. She raised the flyer, flew over the frustrated pack of Swifts, and moved slowly down the streets. The plants that once had flourished on the grounds of the Inner Eye Institute looked untended. All the fruits and pods had been stripped. She came to a compound in the middle of the Institute that looked sealed off. The doors were shut and rocks were placed outside so that it was difficult even to get to the door to open it. The sliding window panels were shut too, and bars were placed across many of the openings. Along the top of the wall was a makeshift coil of wire. Tiny curlicues of light appeared in the middle of the coils as stray nuclei from space spiraled to their death in the super-strong magnetic fields.

A sliding panel in a barred window moved aside slightly, and a single eye-ball peeked through. The panel was thrust aside and Quick-Writer thrust half his eyestubs through the bars and waved frantically at the rapidly moving flyer. Qui-Qui raised the flyer up over the walls and brought it down inside the closed compound. She was greeted by eight of her former students. Three of them—Quick-Writer, the scribe; Coulomb-Force, the electromagnetic engineer; and Newton-Einstein, the gravitational engineer—were the older ones she had left in charge of the classes. Of the three dozen that had been in advanced classes when she left, there were now only five.

“It was terrible,” said Coulomb-Force. “Right after you left, Zero-Gauss flowed. Then things got worse.”

“Actually,” said Quick-Writer. “Things were fairly stable while we went through the ritual of butchering Zero-Gauss and distributing her meat. Most of it went to the hatchlings, since she loved them so. After the ritual distribution, however, things did get worse. Speckle-Top told me to turn off the communicator.”

“Why?” Qui-Qui asked.

“She said we shouldn’t be paying attention to voices from the sky,” interrupted Coulomb-Force. “Then she started to destroy the communicator, but I said she might get shocked and I would do it for her. I just disconnected it from the power source. Later I got some parts from a store in centertown and smashed them up, then hid the communicator.”

“She also told the students that they didn’t have to attend classes anymore,” said Quick-Writer. “Most of them cheered and went off to play games. A few came to me and asked if they could learn on their own. There were eight. Three were killed in the fights.”

“Fights!?!”

“They were terrible,” said Coulomb-Force. “It only took a few turns of nobody working before the food got short. Some of the plain-hides tried to kill a food Slink and got into a fight with the speckled-hides.”

“It ended with most of the plain-hides being driven off to the east,” said Quick-Writer. “They stripped the plants before they left and managed to hold onto some herds of food Slinks. We went with them at first, but decided our first duty was to the future of Egg and came back to where Coulomb-Force had hidden the communicator. Speckle-Top and the rest of the speckled-hides didn’t bother us as long as we kept out of sight.”

“They obviously didn’t like us, though,” said Coulomb-Force. “So we started fortifying this compound. How do you like my magnetic barrier?”

“Is that the coil across the top of the wall?” Qui-Qui asked.

“Yes, I’ve been collecting superconducting wire since I was a hatchling, and it finally found a good use. It sure used up the energy when I charged it, but it keeps us safe from speckles and Swifts alike.”

“I was attacked by a pack of Swifts when I landed,” said Qui-Qui.

“There are a lot of wild animals now,” Quick-Writer told her. “All the pets that people used to have are now on their own. I also noticed that the young miniature Swifts and Flow Slows are bigger than the older ones. The hybrid miniaturization process must be a temporary one, since the new generations seem to be reverting.”

“Where is Speckle-Top now?” Qui-Qui asked. “I didn’t see anyone around when I flew in.”

“She knew you would be returning shortly,” Quick-Writer replied. “I guess she didn’t want to meet you eye-balls to eyeballs, so she and the rest of the speckled-hides left a dozen turns ago. They headed north, taking the food Slinks with them.”

“We had better get the communicator operational again,” said Qui-Qui. “I should tell this to the spacers.”

“They already know all about it,” said Coulomb-Force. “I set up the communicator as soon as we secured this compound Newton-Einstein is using it now. I think he is getting instructions from Engineer Cliff-Web.”

“Follow me and I’ll take you there.” Quick-Writer led them through a maze of wall and passages. “Don’t go that way,” he said, pointing with his eye-stubs at what looked like the main passageway while turning to his left into what looked like a storage alcove and climbing over some bags of dried nuts.

“Why?” asked Qui-Qui.

Coulomb-Force didn’t answer, but picked up a heavy nut from a burst bag and rolled it down the corridor. The nut flashed into an incandescent glare of purple-hot plasma.

“Cliff-Web suggested it,” said Coulomb-Force. “Of course it is more spectacular on a small object like a nut, but it is enough to turn a large cheela into dinner.”

They worked their way through the maze to the inner compound where Newton-Einstein was at the communicator.

“Yes. She just arrived,” said Newton-Einstein. “I will give her the directions.”

Qui-Qui was hoping to hear the familiar voice of Cliff-Web again, but Newton-Einstein had obviously finished the conversation and wasn’t willing to wait another two grethturns.

“Greetings, Teacher Qui-Qui,” Newton-Einstein said, his eye-balls seemingly locked on her newly restored eye-flaps. “Rejuvenation has certainly treated you well. I would be glad to take lessons from you any turn.”

Qui-Qui now regretted the necessity that had required her to mate with some of the young nubile males so long ago. They grew up so quickly and now seemed so brash.

“What were the directions from the spacers?” she asked, ignoring his remarks.

“Cliff-Web now feels that I am properly prepared to evaluate the condition of the gravity catapults on Egg. He suggests that we start with the ones at the West Pole, since they were furthest from the epicenter. Shall we go?” He moved closer and extended an eye-stub out to her.

“We will bring Coulomb-Force along with us,” said Qui-Qui, taking charge once again.

“Why?” Newton-Einstein asked. “He knows nothing about gravitational engineering. Besides, he is needed here to keep the power generators running.”

“I brought a robot to take care of the power generators,” Qui-Qui explained. “You forget that a gravity catapult also needs a power plant. While you are checking out the status of the gravity catapult, Coulomb-Force can be finding out if we have some way to run it.”

“If you say so.” Newton-Einstein was obviously disappointed that he wouldn’t be taking the trip alone with Qui-Qui.

“Show me the rest of the compound.” Qui-Qui started off down a corridor that had alternating stripes of dust and hard rock on the floor. “Then we should be on our way.” Quick-Writer hurried to block her path.

“We don’t have this one activated,” said Quick-Writer. “But you should learn what those alternating stripes in the dust mean when you come across them in the maze.”

“Another shock treatment?” asked Qui-Qui.

“Worse,” said Quick-Writer. He pressed a portion of a picture on the wall in a coded pattern to activate the trap.

“Careful,” warned Coulomb-Force.

“Sooner or later we are going to have to learn to do this with our eyes under flaps,” said Quick-Writer. He didn’t pull in his eyes, but moved quickly over the striped pattern on the floor, his tread developing an exaggerated rippled that allowed his tread to touch the hard crust, but bridged over the undisturbed dusty portions. Safely on the other side, he rolled a nut back across the path. An explosion from a tube buried in the crust at the middle of the striped pattern sent a heavy weight up into the sky, trailing a thin, tough fiber. The weight fell back down, just to one side of the firing tube. It sank deep into the crust, carrying the end of the fiber with it. The sides of the hole glowed from the impact.

Qui-Qui looked at the two holes in the crust connected by a tough fiber, then looked at Quick-Writer.

“Those Zebu barriers are all through the compound,” said Quick-Writer. “Only the outer ones are activated all the time. If the high speed weight doesn’t damage your brain-knot, then the fiber will stitch you to the crust until we get there to cut you loose.”

Quick-Writer deactivated the barrier, and Qui-Qui tried to cross with the required exaggerated ripple. She made it across with only one buzz from the training monitor.

Before they left, Qui-Qui took the flyer up on a high trajectory to look around. There were some large herds off in the distance to the north, but no danger nearby. Coulomb-Force obviously enjoyed the experience of flying, but Newton-Einstein came down with all twelve eye-balls tucked under pale eyeflaps.

Leaving Quick-Writer in charge of the compound, Qui-Qui, Newton-Einstein, and Coulomb-Force set off for the West Pole, gliding just above the crust. One of the gravity catapults was not far from White Rock City. Qui-Qui had been taken to the catapult site for a visit when she was in creche-school.

As they approached the site, Coulomb-Force had Qui-Qui stop. “There is a major power conduit running alongside the road. The conduit joined the road just a meter or so back. I think it came from that power plant over next to those foothills.” He flicked his eye-stubs to the north.

“We might as well look at it while we are here,” said Qui-Qui. She turned the flyer to the north, raised the elevation to a few centimeters so she would pass easily over the deserted homes and office compounds, and headed for the artificial mound off in the distance.

The power plant was in surprisingly good shape. During the starquake, the crust motions had bounced back and forth through the chaotic pattern of mountain roots at the West Pole and had nearly cancelled out at the site of the plant Qui-Qui was so pleased with their find that she went back to the food lockers in her flyer and brought out a bag of sparkling wine to help pass away the time while they waited for the West Pole Space Station to respond. While they were traveling over the surface, Cliff-Web had orbited to the West Pole Space Station to keep the communications delay down.

“I’m glad to hear that most of the power equipment looks in good shape,” Cliff-Web said. “The first thing to do is to connect the power circuits of the flyer to the control console. Hopefully we will find some power units that were shut down by the safety monitors before the units were damaged by the starquake. Let me know what the status board says and what you plan to do before you activate anything. We don’t have any ground power experts up here, but our spaceship power plant engineers may have some suggestions.”

It took most of the rest of the turn to maneuver the flyer into the power plant compound and activate the control console. There were a few blinking bright blue-hot lights that indicated unit failures, but most of the board glowed a cool red under the word READY.

“The pressure readings on four of the power wells are above minimum,” Coulomb-Force reported. “The other two read zero. Must be breaks in the casing, because the pressure cap connectors have no cracks. I’m going to activate well number 2, run the flow through the distribution manifold to motor-generator number 2 and see what happens.”

There were no objections from above, so Coulomb-Force pressed the ACTIVATE button on the console and the pressure cap on power well 2 opened and allowed the high-pressure, neutron-rich fluid from deep inside Egg to flow to the distribution manifold. The valves held and the pressure gauges on the manifold rose. He then activated another button and the flow surged into the motor-generator. A deep rumble vibrated through the crust and rose to a steady hum.

“We have power!” Coulomb-Force shouted. “We are on our way!”

Qui-Qui reported the good news through the communications link, then switched the power circuits connecting the console to the flyer so the accumulators would be charging instead of discharging.

Two more bags of White Rock City sparkling wine and a friendly three-way tussle in the cushioned, but cramped, back compartment of the flyer left them all exhausted. It was a full turn before they left the power plant, the flyer following the power conduit to the site of the gravity catapult a few meters away.

“The catapult looks all right to me,” said Newton-Einstein as they raised the flyer up and circled above the gigantic torus lying half-buried in the crust.

“Wouldn’t it lose the ultra-dense fluid in the pipes if the power failed?” Coulomb-Force asked.

“No,” said Newton-Einstein. “The fluid is really monopole stabilized black-hole dust. It is highly magnetic and the tubes are made of high temperature superconductor. Even without power, the tubes keep the black-hole dust contained.”

They landed outside the catapult control compound and went in.

“We’re in luck!” Coulomb-Force was looking over at a glowing light above a large power breaker in one corner. “The conduits from the power plant are intact, and we have power! Let’s activate the console and check out the status of the catapult.” He closed the tripped power breaker and the console lights went on. The board was a steady deep red except for a blinking blue failure light in one corner.

Newton-Einstein glided to the console, and the wave motion in his eye-stubs came to a complete halt as he read the engraved inscription above the blinking blue-hot light.

Worried, Qui-Qui flowed over next to him.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“There was a leak; the ultra-dense dust is gone.”

They went around the outside of the catapult and found the leak. There was a small funnel-shaped hole in the crust near the base of the foundation where the jet of black-hole dust had dropped into Egg, pulling the crust with it.

“The catapult must have been working when the starquake hit,” said Newton-Einstein. “The dust was circling the torus at high speed and all of it shot out of the hole. If it had not been operating, we would have only lost one loop’s worth. We could have patched the leak and operated the catapult on the rest.”

“Well, there are three more catapults here at the West Pole,” said Qui-Qui. “Let’s go look at them.”

“I hope their power plants are working,” Coulomb-Force said. “I don’t think we could count on the interconnect power conduits to be unbroken over those long distances.”

They didn’t even bother to stop at the next gravity catapult. A major break in the crust had torn the large torus into two half-circles. Two turns later Newton-Einstein reported up to the West Pole Space Station. “None of the gravity catapults are operational at the West Pole. We will have to try the East Pole.”

It was Qui-Qui who reported in from the East Pole. Coulomb-Force and Newton-Einstein were too discouraged.

“As we suspected, the machines here were even more damaged. Not even one power well remained pressurized. We will just have to learn to make monopole stabilized black-hole dust and recharge the gravity catapult at the West Pole after we fix the leak. It will take us a few greats, since you are going to have to dictate to us in detail how to go about it; but we’ll keep working at it.”

The three waited patiently for the reply. It was from Cliff-Web, now back at East Pole Space Station. “I’m afraid that it is going to take a little longer than a few greats. No one uses monopole stabilized black-hole dust anymore. It hasn’t been made for over two dozen generations. We have no information on it up here, since it is an obsolete material. With the library records erased down there, we are going to have to get what information we can from the humans and that will take many minutes, perhaps as much as an hour. Even that information will only be general knowledge. I and the other engineers up here will have to expand that into detailed instructions of how to build the machines to produce and stabilize the black-hole dust, try them out up here on prototypes, then dictate the information down to you. All that will take considerable time.”

Ignoring the dejected looks of Coulomb-Force and Newton-Einstein, Qui-Qui tried to put a cheerful trill in her tread as she replied. “You had better get busy talking to the humans, then. It always takes them forever to do anything. And while you are at it, ask them to send you a capsule history of that they called the ‘Dark Ages.’ By knowing how their learned people maintained islands of knowledge while surrounded by ignorance and barbarians, I may learn things that will help me cope with the situation here. Also, does anyone up there know any magic tricks?”

They returned to the maze at Bright’s Heaven. Slowly the information trickled from the HoloMem crystals in the human console to the East Pole Space Station, where it was studied, checked out, and sent on down to the surface below. By the time Coulomb-Force died, he had managed to construct a few more free-space communication sets. Young scribes, chosen for the honor because of their neat script, copied the information from space, and the manuals and textbooks were passed on to others who attempted to build and operate the machines described with their inadequate tools and resources. There were long periods when no information was being dictated, so many of the scrolls were decorated by the bored scribes with elaborate fluorescent illustrations in the spaces along the edges and within the technical diagrams.

Qui-Qui spent most of her time in the flyer, gathering food and recruits. She was known to the clans around as the glowing God of Youth and Knowledge, the Mother of Egg. She could fly through the sky and talk to the stars. She was forever beautiful and never died.

Qui-Qui would arrive at each clan cluster flying high above in the sky in her flyer, circling until each individual in the tribe had seen her. She would then skim low to the surface and hover the flyer above the ground next to a large rectangular stone altar that the clan had erected and piled high with food offerings. While her acolytes were transferring the food offerings to the flyer on one side, the God of Youth and Knowledge glided out on a nearly invisible crystallium platform on the other side. She seemingly floated in space, while above her flickered brightly colored curlicues of light from compact ion generators she had pouched in her topside.

Qui-Qui would ask to see the hatchlings and younglings. Then seemingly out of nowhere, she would materialize gifts for the young ones. There were educational toys, special treats (full of important trace elements) to eat, and beginner scrolls to read. Just before the younglings became adults, they were treated to a ride on the flyer back to the Maze Temple at Bright’s Heaven, where they were tested. Only a few were chosen to stay. The rest returned to their clans, awed by what they had seen. Once every three dozen greats, Qui-Qui retired to a special room at the sacred center of the maze for a half-great and came back restored to youth.

08:26:37 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

The last three scout ships came in from deep space together, and Far-Ranger reported to the Space Council. “We found them almost at the core. Plenty of neutron stars, even some with life. But none had progressed past the savage stage. Life is too easy on the typical neutron star. With no competition, there is no need for intelligence. I guess we can thank the humans for arousing curiosity in us so long ago.”

“How are things on Egg?” Steel-Slicer asked Hohmann-Transfer.

“Terrible,” she said. “It has been over a whole human hour since the starquake and things are only getting worse. I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of making decisions. I’m tired of fighting to keep us going. I’m tired of life.”

“Perhaps you should rejuvenate early,” Admiral Steel-Slicer suggested.

“No, I’m tired of rejuvenations, too. You can have my rejuvenation. I resign. You take over. I’m going to tend eggs.” She pulled the twelve-pointed stars off her hide, gave them to Steel-Slicer and headed off to the main conference bowl, now the hatching pen and creche-school.

09:31:11 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE 2050

After generations of use, the old flyer stopped flying despite the best efforts of the engineers in space and on the ground to keep it running. The clans now had to bring their food offerings to the Maze Temple. There were more clans now, however, and many stayed near the Maze Temple where they traded food for labor-saving machines. The clans farthest away became forgetful, drifted away from the influence of the God of Youth and Knowledge, and reverted back to savagery.

Qui-Qui still flew in the sky on special occasions, but now she was levitated above the Maze Temple by gravity repulsor fields from the small prototype gravity catapult her acolytes had managed to make. It only used dense nucleonic fluid, however, for the manufacture of monopole stabilized back-hole dust had proved elusive.

The turns passed.