Dragon's Egg

by Robert L. Forward

  “Strange,” thought Bright’s-Second, “they all seem to be heading for the same place above Egg. Perhaps they will hit each other and destroy themselves, as an example to the cheela not to worship false gods.”

  Suddenly he had another thought, and shortly he was staring at still another egg-shaped orbit—that of Bright’s Messenger with its new numbers used.

  “Bright’s Messenger is going to be at the same point at the same time,” he said to himself. “What is going to happen? It would be to Bright’s glory if I could predict the outcome for the people, so they could be properly prepared.”

  Bright’s-Second tried as hard as he could to extract the most from the inadequate numbers that came from the crude astrologer sticks, but all he could tell was that Bright’s Messenger and the six fallen ones were going to be near the same place at the same time.

  “They look as if they will all collide and be destroyed,” Bright’s-Second reported to the High Priest. “But it could be that Bright’s Messenger will toss the other six off into different directions again, perhaps back up to where they were. I simply don’t know what to predict.”

  “It would be so much better if we knew,” she replied, “but perhaps Bright is testing us again.”

  Bright’s-First was wise in the ways of religious leaders and only told her people that they were all to be praying, with their eyes to the eastern skies, when the time came for the stars to meet.

  Inexorably the seven spots in the sky drew closer together, and now everyone could see the irregular flaring in intensity as if they were glaring at each other. Bright’s-Second was busy at the astrologer sticks. He had the novices working in teams, one for each of the seven lights. They often got in each other’s way and a number or two was lost or misread, but he could take care of those later. He himself, with his practiced eyes, was estimating the relative distance between the points of light, while the novices were measuring with respect to the background stars. It was now obvious that they were not all going to meet at exactly the same place. Then, as the cheela watched, they saw Bright’s Messenger swing by Sex, West, Food, East, Crust, and finally Sky, then continue on its accustomed path back into the blackness, leaving the six standing still in the sky!

  A keening vibration shook the crust as a great of greats of cheela treads chattered in fear and awe at the amazing sight. Where before, the six stars had risen and set in the skies each turn as the other stars and Bright’s Messenger had done, they now were stationary. They neither rose nor set, but slowly rotated once a turn around a point above the east magnetic pole.

  The High Priest took full advantage of the extraordinary sight, and at the next turn proclaimed that the new formation was composed of six of Bright’s eyes, brought down to Egg by Bright’s Messenger to vigilantly watch over the cheela to see if they were daring to worship false gods again. The proclamation was accepted by the cheela, and the pantheistic temples were reduced to rubble by frightened mobs cowering under the constant glare of the Six Eyes of Bright.

  The new formation in the sky bothered Bright’s-Second. It was counter to everything he had ever known about the behavior of the many lights in the sky. Having been a trooper chaplain during the last northern campaign against the barbarians, he had marched with the troopers across the equator to destroy a barbarian town. There, through breaks in the smoke cover, he had seen some tiny stars that rotated in small circles over the north pole, as Bright did over the south pole. He could understand a star being motionless in the sky if it were near a pole in the sky, but this was the first time an east or west magnetic pole had acted like the north and south poles.

  TIME: 08:03:10 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  “The compensator masses are down,” Carole said, turning to Pierre. “Now it is Dragon Slayer’s turn.”

  Pierre, ignoring the small screen pager on his wrist, reached over to a nearby console. “Page crew of Dragon Slayer!”

  The console blinked.

  PAGING CESAR RAMIREZ WONG

  PAGING JEAN KELLY THOMAS

  PAGING AMALITA SHAKHASHIRI DRAKE

  PAGING SEIKO KAUFFMANN TAKAHASHI

  PAGING ABDUL NKOMI FAROUK

  Pierre watched as the “Page acknowledged” mark appeared in front of each name. The computer had found them all busy at one task or another onboard the Dragon Slayer. He leaned forward and asked, “Does everything look good for a departure at 0930?” He reached down and flicked the audio output panel to avoid the screen clutter from a multiple response. The computer fed him the positive confirmations one at a time. Dragon Slayer was ready to go.

  Kicking off from the console, Pierre floated across the bridge of St. George, then pulled his way down the tunnels to the launching hangar that contained the seven meter sphere that would be his home for the next eight days.

  TIME: 09:10:15 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  It was twenty minutes to separation and the crew of Dragon Slayer gathered in the small lounge at the base of the ship. Pierre looked over the crew who were to share the next eight days of danger, drudgery, and excitement with him. He couldn’t have picked a better group. All had at least double-doctorates despite their youthful ages. Jean, Amalita, and Abdul each had a Ph.D. in astrophysics and a doctorate in one aspect or another of electrical engineering. “Doc” Cesar Wong (the only “real” doctor on Dragon Slayer) had the unusual combination of an M.D. in aerospace medicine and a Ph.D. in supermagnetics. Pierre himself had a Ph.D. in high-density nucleonic theory, and doctorates in gravitational engineering and journalism. Seiko, at 32, had them all beat. At last count she had four doctorates and expected to earn another as the result of their trip. Although each was a specialist in one aspect or another of neutron star physics, they had cross-trained so that each one of them could carry out any portion of the detailed science schedule that Dragon Slayer’s crew was on. Pierre spoke.

  “After separation we will be on ten-hour interlocking duty shifts. There will be a two-hour overlap so the new person coming on duty can be debriefed on the status of the experiments before taking over. It is now 0912 so Abdul, Seiko and Doc are on duty, with Doc on his mid-shift meal break and Seiko to go off duty at 1000. We had better get into the routine, so the rest of us should relax now. I know we aren’t going to quarters during breakaway, but our shift will be coming up soon, so make sure that you get some sleep, and don’t spend your off hours just watching the others work.”

  The time for separation approached, and they all went up to the main deck where each would have a viewport. The breakaway was quiet and uneventful. The procedure consisted of opening the hatch doors of the huge mother ship, unlocking the attachment fittings, and slowly backing the larger ship away from the freely falling sphere. Pierre had been right—no one went to quarters as the small sphere floated away from the immense side of the interstellar ark.

  Cesar spoke. “It is always awe-inspiring to be outside, and up this close. The last time for me was when I came on board two years ago.”

  “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 ti
ght-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.

  TIME: 09:45:00 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  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.”

  TIME: 09:50:34 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  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 fou
r-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.

  TIME: 06:26:30 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

  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.