Starquake (Cheela 2) by Robert L. Forward

Author:Robert L. Forward [Forward, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: english, High Tech, Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780595167487
Publisher: IUniverse.com
Published: 2001-01-17T06:08:41+00:00

06:58:09 GMT TUESDAY 21 JUNE2050

Heavy-Egg finally came to his senses. He dimly remembered the shrieking pain in his eye-balls. It now was a dull ache. He stretched his eye-stubs to make sure his eyes weren't hidden behind their eyeflaps, but he could see nothing. He listened with his tread, trying to figure out where he was. All was silent around him. The only sounds were the thumping of his fluid pumps and faint rumbles from deep inside Egg.Pieces of memory started to return. He remembered blindly wandering around on the top of the East Pole mountains, mad with pain. Finding the drop chute. Creeping, falling, sliding down through the darkness. New pain as he hit a broken section of the chute. Cries for help into the crust until his tread was raw, but no help came. Then the hunger pains grew stronger than the burn pains. He had finally found food. A chunk of food was in his manipulator, ready to go into his eating pouch. He was starved. But for some reason he had not eaten.

He felt something underneath his tread. It was the body of another cheela. He moved his tread around, feeling the dead body-it was a large female. There were long slashes in the body torn by a crude blade. The sharp piece of metal that had caused the slashes was in one of his manipulators. The chunk of food was in another. He formed a set of tendrils and reached out to touch the food. It was smooth and round and soft and leathery…

"An egg!!!" he cried, his tread grating the crust with its vibrations. "I nearly ate an egg!!!"

He went mad again.

Eye-stumps waving erratically, he put the egg back in its mother, then stumbled across the deserted street. He found a store with an open door. It was a pulp-bar. Pushing his way past the body of the barkeeper he found the cache of pulp-bags. He couldn't read them, but after sucking a few bags dry he didn't care. The dull pain in his eyes went away. He felt good. He loaded his carrying pouches with as many bags as he could carry and weaved his way back out into the street.

"Hello!" he called. No answer.

"Got to keep on moving. Got to find somebody."

He moved his overloaded body laboriously down the street and found another open door. This one led to a repair shop. Maybe he could find a good knife. He found lots of tools, but no knife. He picked up a tool from its holder next to the mechanic's work-pad. It was a welding torch. It used tanks of liquids that were mixed to produce an ultra-hot flame. The torch was on automatic and it immediately formed a long flame that flickered toward Heavy-Egg's hide. He screamed in insane panic as he felt intense heat once again. His pouches vomited bags of distilled pulp, and he dropped the torch which licked at a bag that burst into a bright violet-white ball of flame.

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