Dragon's Egg (16 page)

“I’ve been out a dozen times on antenna maintenance,” Amalita said. “But you’re right—no matter how often you see it, it is still impressive.”

Pierre spoke into the communications console. “You look good, St. George. See you in a week.”

“Good hunting, Dragon Slayer,” came Carole’s throaty reply.

They drifted away from the ark. As it grew smaller and smaller in the distance, the crew members gathered around the port facing the retreating mother ship. Finally Pierre went to one of the consoles and rotated the sphere so that the port faced the neutron star that they would soon be orbiting at close quarters.

“The deorbiter will arrive in six hours,” Pierre said to the crew. “Everyone into the high-gravity protection tanks.” He closed the metal shields over the viewport windows, turned off the console, and started opening the hatches in the six spherical tanks clustered around the exact mass center of Dragon Slayer.

The crew went to suit lockers, where they stripped down to briefs and put on tight-fitting wet suits with a complex array of hydraulic tubing, pressure bladders, and a full underwater breathing apparatus. They then climbed, one by one, into the spherical tanks. Abdul was ready first and climbed into the tank with the hatch that opened downward into the lounge. Pierre helped him in, closed the lid, checked the breathing air once more, got a final nod from Abdul and then purged all the air out of the tank, filling it completely with nearly incompressible water. He then checked out all the ultrasonic driver circuits that would send powerful currents to the piezoelectric drivers that would produce rapidly varying pressure waves from different sides of the tank to counteract the differential gravity fields that the water alone did not take care of.

Once he had Abdul safely in the tank, he turned and visited the rest of the crew. Amalita had checked out her equipment and was climbing into her tank, while Seiko Kauffmann Takahashi, with her typical Germanic thoroughness, was still checking out her air system. Jean
was already in her tank and Doc had carried out the final checkout with her. Pierre floated by Seiko, and double checked Jean’s tank for good measure. He took no chances, for if Jean’s tank failed during the de-orbiting maneuver and any of the water leaked out, then the beautiful body of Jean Kelly Thomas would be literally torn to shreds by the powerful tidal forces from the deorbiter that would yank at head and feet with a pull of 10,000 gees, while simultaneously compressing her about her waistline with 5000 gees.

“We would have to bottle her and pour her into the crematorium when we got back to St. George,” he thought to himself. Pierre shook his head at the grisly thought and proceeded to climb into his own tank.

Pierre looked through his faceplate at the miniature control console built into the side of his tank. One viewing screen was divided into six sections. Each section held a picture of the inside of one of the tanks. He waited patiently as Seiko finished her methodical check of each one of her pressure bladders, closed her hatch cover, purged her remaining air, then turned to face her console pickup.

“Seiko Kauffmann Takahashi secured,” intoned the stolid image, the short efficient oriental bob outlining the determined round face.

Pierre flashed a smile at all the screens. “I’ll push the button for the down elevator,” he said, touching a panel and flicking the screen controls to bring in a view of a large, rapidly spinning star in one corner and a glowing speck in another. The speck flashed occasionally as powerful rocket motors trimmed its course.

Through the long wait they could feel vibrations and slight accelerations that leaked through their water shields and pressure suits. These were vibrations from the ship’s rockets, as the computer brought the spacecraft and the ultradense asteroid closer together.

“Down we go!” Pierre whispered into his throat mike,
but he was only part way through the first phoneme when the asteroid passed by them. In a blink, they whirled half way around the massive sphere and found themselves falling down toward the neutron star, the ship’s engines firing at full blast to remove the angular momentum that had been imparted by the gravity whip.

The drop down into the fierce gravity well of Dragon’s Egg only took two and a quarter minutes. All was quiet for most of the fall, but in the last few seconds—as they began to approach the neutron star—Pierre could feel the differential pressures of the tidal forces on the water in the tank. Then in a last instantaneous burst of feeling, Pierre’s head was jerked about by a fierce acceleration. His ears ached and his hands and legs were jerked about by the second and third order tidal effects, as the piezoelectric drivers sang their ultrasonic cloak of protection into the water that surrounded him.

His eyes failed to see the glow of the deorbiter mass as it flashed again across his screen, leaving Dragon Slayer motionless in the center of the six compensator masses that were whirling about the neutron star and the spacecraft five times a second. “What a ride!” a female voice said over the intercom, masked by the excitement and the breathing mask.

“Time to get out of your swimming pools and get to work!” Pierre said to the faces on his screen. He fingered the pump control switch and felt the pressure drop inside his tank.

Not many saw the faint star as Bright’s Messenger left it at the center of Six Eyes. It had been too faint to see when it was in its high orbit above the star, since it did not have a glow of its own like the other stars in the sky. But once it was basking in the glow of Six Eyes, the speck reflected their radiance and could be
seen by those worshipers of Bright with the best eyesight or the most faith.

“The new star in the center of Six Eyes does not move,” the Chief Astrologer reported to Bright’s-First, the High Priest. “The Six Eyes are almost motionless—however, they do rotate once every turn about the east pole. The new inner star is at the exact center of Six Eyes and does not move at all.”

The High Priest was pleased with the news. Finally something logical was happening in the skies above Bright’s Heaven.

“If the new star does not move in the sky, then it is like Bright—who also does not move. Many generations ago Bright sent down six of his eyes to keep careful watch on the unfaithful cheela of that time. It seems that Bright has approved of what he has been seeing, and he has sent down his inner eye of faith to look upon those who have been worshiping him for so long. This new eye is the Inner Eye of Bright.”

After exiting the tanks, the crew of Dragon Slayer gathered on the main console deck. The outside metallic micrometeorite shields had been pulled back from the six darkened viewing ports and they stared out. It was a dizzying sight, although they could feel no motion.

They were in a synchronous orbit 400 km out from the neutron star. To counteract the 41-million-gee gravitational pull from the nearby star, their spacecraft had to orbit about the star at five revolutions per second. Yet despite the rapid rotation they felt nothing because Dragon Slayer was stabilized to inertial space and did not try to keep a port facing the neutron star. It was good that it did not, for the centrifugal force in a spacecraft spinning around at five revolutions per
second would have been enough to crush their bodies to a pulp against the outer bulkhead.

Since the spacecraft was orbiting but not spinning, this meant that the large, brilliant image of the neutron star flashed by each of the viewing ports five times a second, shining a flickering white glow on the walls of the central deck. Also visible through the ports was a ring of six, large, red ultra-dense asteroids only 200 meters away. They too whirled about the spacecraft five times a second, their glow alternating with the flashes from the distant neutron star.

Seiko took in the scene at one view port with a quick professional glance. She then shut her eyes and went limp in the air. Her arms and legs were stretched out in all directions.

“What’s the matter!” Cesar exclaimed, looking over at her with concern.

Seiko slowly opened one eye. “Don’t be concerned, Doctor Wong, I was merely checking the tidal compensation,” she said, slightly annoyed at being interrupted. “At 406 kilometers from the neutron star, the tidal gravity gradient should be 101 gees per meter. Even though my middle is in free-fall, my arms, legs and head try to go in different orbits. My feet are one meter closer to the star and should feel a pull of 202 gees. My head is one meter further than my middle and should also feel a pull of 202 gees, while my arms should feel a push of 101 gees.

“The six compensator masses also make tidal forces of the same magnitude, only they make tides of the opposite sign. I was just trying to see how accurately the two tides were compensating by using my hands and feet as crude accelerometers. I am surprised at how small the residual tide is. Only very near the hull can I sense any forces on my arms as the ship rotates.” She closed her eyes again and continued to feel the play of the minute gravitational tugs coming twenty times a
second on her hands and feet as the compensator masses and the neutron star whirled about the ship five times a second, rotating their four-lobed gravity pattern about the nonspinning ship.

After watching for some minutes, the crew began to be bothered by the flickering of the lights. By common consent, the metal shields were activated and slid back over the viewing ports, returning the main console room to its steady internal illumination. The crew then turned to their job, which was to examine the neutron star with instruments a lot more sophisticated than a naked human eye.

The Old One watched attentively as Sharp-Slicer carefully opened her laying orifice and deposited her egg at the entrance to the egg-pen. “That egg does not look right,” the Old One said with a combination of concern and disapproval.

Sharp-Slicer looked at the egg-sac with her dozen dark red eyes. The egg was much smaller than normal, and very pale. “It didn’t feel right while it was growing, either,” she replied. “I hope it will be all right after it hatches.”

“Don’t worry, I and the other Old Ones will take good care of it,” Loud-Talker said. “Perhaps it will grow bigger after it hatches and can get more food.”

Relieved of her burden, Sharp-Slicer left the egg pen and returned to her duties as Leader of the Clan. The egg would be well taken care of by the devoted Old Ones. Within a few turns, she had forgotten all about the incident. After all, when one was as old as she was, with a half-dozen eggs contributed to the egg-pen, they all seemed to blend into one another.

The pale egg got lots of attention, for all the Old Ones were very concerned about every one of the eggs
entrusted to them. Loud-Talker took extra care to keep the pale little egg-sac sheltered at all times under the flared edge of skin that he used as a hatching mantle. He never forgot to roll the flattened oval sac over a full dozen times each turn, to keep the eggling inside properly exercised.

Loud-Talker was at first concerned when the time for hatching came and went, but soon thereafter he could feel the eggling stir inside the sac. It was with relief that he finally felt the warm flush of fluid under his mantle as the egg sac burst and the eggling squirmed out.

Loud-Talker carefully rolled the other egg-sacs away from the new hatchling while still keeping them all under his hatching mantle. He maneuvered the hatchling to the edge of his mantle and let it come out.

“Pink eyes!” Loud-Talker exclaimed in amazement, his cool dark red eyes staring down at the small pale cheela. The dozen tiny pink eyes surrounding the white body of the new hatchling waved unsteadily as they stared up at the cold, dark sky.

His t’trum of amazement brought another Old One, who had been helping in the hatchling pen. The two Old Ones looked the new hatchling over with great concern. There was obviously something wrong with it, with its small size, pink eyes, and feverishly hot pale body.

“I have never seen a little one like this before,” said the other Old One.

“I have not either,” Loud-Talker said. “But when I was Leader of the Combined Clans, I heard from my advisors about hatchlings similar to this one. They are called Bright’s Afflicted.”

Loud-Talker flared another section of his skin and slowly passed it up and over the little one. “Why don’t you take over the eggs for a while,” he asked the other, “while I take this little hatchling out to the
hatchling pen and give him something to eat?” Carefully prodding the little one along, he went out the entrance of the egg-pen to the feeding trough of the hatchling pen. There, Loud-Talker helped the hatchling put a tiny piece of pod into an intake orifice. Soon the little one was successfully finding and stuffing himself with more food, with almost no help from the Old One.

Loud-Talker watched the hatchling eat. He was clumsy, but then most hatchlings were clumsy until they had practiced eating for a few turns. However, this one seemed worse than the others. Loud-Talker formed a slender tendril and moved it close to one of the hot tiny pink eyes, but the eye did not withdraw into its protective fold until the tendril was almost upon it.

“Poor hatchling,” Loud-Talker said. “I am afraid those pink eyes of yours do not serve you well.” His protective instincts swelled, and from then on, the little hatchling became the special project of Loud-Talker.

Pink-Eyes ate and grew, but always stayed much smaller than the other hatchlings his age. He had courage, and tried to play in the rough-and-tumble games that hatchlings play, but his poor eyesight put him at a considerable disadvantage. The part of life in the hatchling pen that he liked best was listening to the stories of the clan storyteller.

Loud-Talker was the storyteller, for he had had many more experiences than the other Old Ones. After each storytelling session, the other hatchlings would rumble noisily away, pushing and shoving each other, while Pink-Eyes would stay and ask questions about life outside the hatchling pen. He questioned Loud-Talker about what it was like to be Leader of the Combined Clans and talk to a dozen greats of cheela at one time, and have them all listen quietly to the words.