Uller Uprising

Uller Uprising

By H. Beam Piper.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Uller Uprising
   1. Introduction
      1. I: The Silicone World
      2. II: The Fluorine Planet
   2. Prologue
   3. I: Commander-in-Chief Front and Center
   4. II: Rakkeed, Stalin, and the Rev. Keeluk
   5. III: Four-and-Twenty Geek Heads
   6. IV: If You Read It in Stanley-Browne
   7. V: You Can Depend on It It’s Wrong
   8. VI: The Bad News Came After the Coffee
   9. VII: Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?
   10. VIII: Authority of Governor-General von Schlichten
   11. IX: Don’t Push Them Anywhere Put Them Back in the Bottle
   12. X: The Geek Luftwaffe and the Kragan Airlift
   13. XI: Of Princedoms Which Have Been Won by Conquest
   14. XII: The Shadow of Niflheim
   15. XIII: A Bag of Tricks We Don’t Have
   16. XIV: The Reviewers Panned Hell Out of It
   17. XV: A Place in My Heart for Hildegarde
4. Colophon
5. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Uller Uprising

Introduction

Dr. John D. Clark

I

The Silicone World

1 The Star and Its Most Important Planet

The planet is named Uller (it seems that when interstellar travel was developed, the names of Greek Gods had been used up, so those of Norse gods were used). It is the second planet of the star Beta Hydri, right angle 0:23, declension −77:32, G0 (solar) type star, of approximately the same size as Sol; distance from Earth, 21 light years.

Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit, at a distance of 100,000,000 miles, making it a little colder than Earth. A year is of the approximate length of that on Earth. A day lasts 26 hours.

The axis of Uller is in the same plane as the orbit, so that at a certain time of the year the north pole is pointed directly at the sun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points directly away. The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperature runs from 120° C to a low of −80° C. At the equator it remains not far from 10° C all year round. Strong winds blow during the summer and winter, from the hot to the cold pole; few winds during the spring and fall. The appearance of the poles varies during the year from baked deserts to glaciers covered with solid CO₂. Free water exists in the equatorial regions all year round.

2 Solar Movement as Seen from Uller

As seen from the north pole⁠—no sun is visible on January 1. On April 1, it bisects the horizon all day, swinging completely around. April 1 to July 1, it continues swinging around, gradually rising in the sky, the spiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July 1. From July 1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading out from the center until on October 1 it bisects the horizon again. On October 1 night arrives to stay until April 1.

At the equator, the sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon for all 26 hours of the day on January 1. From January 1 to April 1, the sun starts to dip below the horizon at night, to rise higher above it during the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the same hours, but rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noon it is higher each day in the southern sky until April 1, when it rises due east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April 1 to July 1, its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1, it is visible all day, bisected by the northern horizon.

3 Chemistry and Geology of Uller

Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth, sodium is somewhat commoner. As a result of the shortage of calcium there is a higher ration of silicates to carbonates than exists on earth. The water is slightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodium silicate (water glass). It would have a pH of 8.5 and tastes slightly soapy. Also, when it dries out it leaves a sticky, and then a glassy, crackly film. Rocks look fairly earthlike, but the absence or scarcity of anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all the sedimentary rocks are of the sandstone type.

All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the central seas in the spring only, or until the polar cap is completely dried out.

4 Animal Life

As on Earth life arose in the primitive waters and with a carbon base, but because of the abundance of silicone, there was a strong tendency for the microscopic organisms to develop silicate exoskeletons,