Dark Star

4

PINBACK SHIFTED AWKWARDLY in the beach lounge chair and adjusted his sunglasses. It was hot on the sand today. He squinted up at the brilliant sun directly overhead.

Judging by the position of Old Sol, it was just about noontime. He’d have to get ready for lunch—but not yet. The sun felt too good right now. He glanced at his watch. Have to be careful; another ten minutes on this side and then he’d turn over and bake the other half.

Leaning back, he squirmed into a comfortable position on the lounge, fiddling slightly with his swimsuit and tank top. Just another ten minutes.

He was slipping into a comfortable half-dreamworld when the scratching sound interrupted. He tried to ignore it, but it refused to go away. Not only that, but it was getting louder. Now what?

Must be some kid nearby digging with a shovel. Have to speak to his mother. Pinback raised his glasses, leaned out from under the glare of the big sunlamp, and glanced backup the narrow corridor.

Boiler’s backside hove into view, out of place and unwelcome, thoroughly shattering the idle illusion Pinback had so carefully constructed. The corporal was dragging something heavy in the artifical gravity, a large, square piece of metal with open hinges on one side.

Pinback thought he recognized it. He watched as Boiler dragged the weighty slab over to the far end of the corridor and turned it, leaning it at an angle up against the wall, facing back at them. Then he did recognize it.

“Hey, that’s the lid to the heating unit, isn’t it?”

Boiler ignored him. He examined the lid, then knelt and readjusted it so that it rested against the wall at a slightly sharper angle. Then he rubbed his hands in evident satisfaction and walked back past Pinback.

The sergeant watched him leave. He was as puzzled as he was awake, now. Boiler’s cryptic activities seemed to have no meaning. Pinback was enlightened moments later.

Boiler reappeared and now held a large, cumbersome object cradled tightly in both arms. Even though they had used this particular instrument only once before, and a long time ago at that, Pinback knew what it was immediately.

It was the portable laser—both lighter and deadlier than it looked. Its presence in Boiler’s hands suggested unpleasant possibilities.

For a moment Pinback thought of just leaving. When Boiler got some crazy idea fixed in his Neanderthal skull, nobody could talk him out of it. Not even Doolittle. And whatever he was up to now was bound to be crazier than most.

He took a step toward the exit, then stopped. This wasn’t something he could just walk away from. If Boiler wanted to try to mutilate his own hand with his collection of knives, that was one thing. But the laser was more than a toy.

“You’re… you’re not supposed to have that out except in an emergency,” he finally managed to stutter. His beach fantasy had long since been shattered. “That’s not for target practice.”

Boiler barely bothered to glance at him. Instead, he hefted the weapon and lined up an eye with the lens-sight. While Pinback watched and fretted, Boiler pulled the trigger.

There was a short burst of intolerably bright red light. The light beam contacted the center of the propped-up lid. A brief flare of flame erupted from the wounded area as the intense heat ignited the metal itself. It died out quickly, cooling.

A neat hole surrounded by molten metal had been drilled in the lid’s middle. Boiler looked back at Pinback and smiled with pleasure. Then he licked his thumb and touched it to the sight at the far end of the laser, a back woodsman’s gesture of centuries past.

“That’s dangerous,” Pinback insisted inanely as the corporal raised the laser again. “You might cut all the way through the lid and into the ship’s circuitry. You could cut through something vital.”

Boiler fired again. There was a puff of white from the lid this time as another hole spurted tiny flames and appeared alongside the first. Boiler frowned, lowered the weapon, and began adjusting some switches set into one side.

Pinback watched him nervously, wishing Powell, wishing even Doolittle were here. He really should go and get Doolittle, but what would Boiler do if left alone?

“Suppose you cut right through the lid and then through the hull of the ship? What about that, huh?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s calibrated for distance, stupid,” Boiler growled.

“So what? You could still make a mistake. It wouldn’t take much. I’ll tell Doolittle.”

Boiler’s head jerked up, and he stared dangerously at the sergeant. Boiler was right on the edge, and something just might have happened except—

They were interrupted by a smooth, faintly erotic voice that was totally unexpected right then.

“Sorry to break in on your recreation, fellows,” the computer announced contritely, “but it is time for Sergeant Pinback to feed the alien.”

“Awwww,” Pinback groaned, shuffling one foot and looking down at the floor, “I don’t wanna do that now.”

“May I remind you, Sergeant Pinback,” the computer continued inexorably, “that it was your idea in the first place, and no one else’s, to bring the alien on board. If I may quote you, you said, ‘the ship needs a mascot.’”

“Yeah, but—” Pinback tried to protest. The computer rode over any objections.

“It was your idea, so looking after it is your responsibility, Sergeant Pinback.”

Boiler gave him the sinister ha-ha.

“Rats,” grumbled Pinback. “I’ve gotta do everything around here. It’s everybody’s mascot—why can’t they help out?”

“It’s your pet, buddy. I don’t even like looking at it. Gives me the galloping quivers. Even Doolittle thinks you should toss it out the lock.”

“No feelings, any of you. So it isn’t the perfect pet, so what? We all have our faults.”

Boiler greeted that with another ha-ha and turned back to adjusting the laser.

Pinback walked off down the corridor muttering to himself. Lazy, care-for-nothings, insensitive—a good thing at least one person on this ship was interested in something besides destruction. Wait till they got back to Earth and everyone got a look at his alien. Not much question who would get the medals then! He had intended to share the glory with the others, but if they didn’t care enough to help look after it, well then, they could just go find their own mascots!

He muttered to himself in this manner all the way back to the compartment they had sealed off for the live alien specimens. On the way he stopped and picked up a dustpan and broom. A sanitary portable vacuum would have been more practical and more efficient, but some insane psychometrician back on Earth had decided that a dustpan and broom would be the better choice.

They’d feel less lonely with a few familiar tools around, and the extra exercise would be desirable. Pinback wished the psycher were there now, so he could exercise the dustpan and broom over his skull.

Over door was a crude stenciled sign that read WATCH IT! The admonition had firm foundation in previous happenings, and he opened the door carefully.

His particular pet alien had grown more and more adventurous as it had become acclimated to the ship. The last time he had gone to look after it, it had been waiting just inside the doorway to pounce on him.

Then there was the time the luminants had gotten loose. Brilliantly hued geometric shapes of pure light, the most alien life form they had ever encountered, the luminants had allowed themselves to be docilely convoyed on board and into a cage of lucite. Once in free space, they had proceeded to saunter out of their “cage” as though it were not there—which for them was quite true. There followed a hectic week of pursuing them all over the ship, with dark panels, flashlights, and anything they thought might induce or force the luminants back into their cage.

It was all frantic and impossible. How do you capture something made out of pure light? It was Powell who finally hit on the idea of using mirrors. A complex arrangement of hidden mirrors made their new cage into an honest one. They could still slip out any time they wanted—but the internal mirror arrangement insisted otherwise. So they stayed put, inside the glass prison.

Pinback stepped into the room and quickly looked around. No sign of the Beachball.

The room was empty except for the luminants’ big smoked-glass cage. Four of the luminants responded immediately to his presence. Pity they weren’t intelligent. They were peaceful, even friendly—and extremely stupid.

Now, as he hunted for the Beachball, the four light-creatures floated close to the glass wall of their cage. They might have made nice pets… but how could you pet a thing you couldn’t even be sure was there? It would have been like trying to be affectionate to the beam of a searchlight.

Pinback didn’t like them.

“All right, where are you?” He bent over and started peering under tilted crates and empty shelves. “Come on, ball, quit playing around.” Beachball was an accurate description, if not a particularly dignified name for the alien. Boiler, typically, had named it, and despite Pinback’s best efforts to the contrary, the label had stuck.

It was better than naming it after Pinback, which had been the corporal’s initial suggestion. At first Pinback was flattered. Then, as the nature of the alien became more obvious, he was considerably less so.

“Come on, quit hidin’.” The luminants swarmed over to the side of the cage nearest him, and he waved his arms irritably at them. “Go on, beat it.”

They scattered to the back of the cage. Even their total alienness could be tolerated if they would only make a sound of some sort—something to indicate a bare hint of the sentience that was probably there.

“Come on, come,” he muttered. He set the broom and pan down on a huge crate and started snapping his fingers. “I haven’t got time for this. Come on.”

There was a sudden flash of spotted red in front of him, followed by a loud thump. Startled, Pinback jumped back. Then he recognized the source of the sound. He put hands on hips and glared down at the alien angrily, covering his nervousness. “And to think when I brought you on the ship I thought you were cute.”

The alien twittered engimatically back at him.

Well, to a man who had been away from home and all other companionship save that of his crewmates for as many years as Pinback had, the alien might have seemed cute at one time.

It was about a third the size of a grown man, neatly spherical, and colored bright red. Large blotches of yellow, black, and green concentric circles mottled the pulsing body. It also sported a set of clawed, lightly webbed feet. That was all. It possessed nothing resembling hands, arms, a multipart torso, or even a face.

It could distinguish sounds and sight, though the organs carrying out these functions were well hidden beneath the bulbous body. Occasionally it made sounds like a querulous canary. These were matched by deeper moans which sounded suspiciously like Pinback sounded when he had a bad bellyache.

The sergeant had moved to a nearby cabinet and was rummaging inside it. After a bit he came out with a large, somewhat frayed head of alien-world cabbage. They had run out of food from the alien’s own home world a long time ago, its appetite proving to be far greater than even Pinback could have imagined.

“All right, soup’s on.” He held out the battered greenery. “Come on, this is no time to get picky. We don’t have any more of the other stuff.”

The alien made no move to come forward. “Here, eat it,” Pinback yelled. He tossed the vegetable toward the alien. He was about fed up with this “pet.”

The cabbage bounced a couple of times and came to a stop in front of the Beachball.

“Eat it, damn you. Take it or leave it. It’s all we’ve got.”

The alien seemed to pause, then leaned forward over the food as if inspecting it with invisible eyes. Both multiple claws tapped at the floor, an imitation of a gesture it had observed in Pinback. Whether or not the alien had any real intelligence was questionable, though at times it performed actions apparently unexplainable in any other way. But that it was imitative, like a parrot, was undeniable. Certainly it hadn’t displayed anything which could be interpreted as an effort toward communication.

Eventually the tapping stopped. The claws reached out, grabbed the cabbage, and shoved it back toward Pinback. It twittered noisily.

“Oh yeah? What am I supposed to do now, huh? Whip you up a twelve-course RD-Three gourmet dinner? I don’t know anything about the kind of food you like. These old specimen vegetables are the only nonconcentrates we’ve got aboard, and I don’t think you would like concentrates—we’re not crazy about them ourselves.”

The Beachball quivered, twittered mindlessly.

“Ah, go ahead,” Pinback finally said disgustedly, turning his back on the alien and picking up the broom and dustpan. “Starve—see if I care.” He started muttering to himself again. “Do all the work… damn unappreciative alien twit…”

Moving on short, powerful little legs, the alien took a leap and jumped onto the cabinet to Pinback’s right. It might have been trying to draw his attention. If so, it failed. Pinback continued to sweep, gathering alien excrement into the dustpan.

“I do my best to prepare your meals, I clean up after you, and do you appreciate it?” He snorted, spotted another dirty area, and swept again.

The alien paused at its post on the cabinet and appeared to consider the situation. Either it had a definite plan in mind, or else Pinback’s bent-over form was just too tempting a situation. It leaped.

Twittering violently, it landed, claws first, square on Pinback’s back. Pinback yelped and straightened up, but the Beachball hung on, scratching and bouncing ferociously against him.

“Hey, come on,” Pinback yelled, dropping both the pan and broom and trying to swat behind himself. “Get off… get offa my back, damnit!” But while the alien was large and didn’t weigh much, it was also smooth-surfaced and extremely difficult to get a grip on. Pinback couldn’t.

“All right… all right, now,” he shouted, “that’s enough! Come off it. That’s—hey!”

The alien had shifted its position slightly higher onto his back and now was in position to pull at Pinback’s shoulder-length tresses.

“My hair… quit pulling my… ouch!”

He staggered, aware for the first time that the Beachball might not be playing now. Still clawing at the thing on his back, he stumbled into a wall, turned, and staggered away. The alien reached around and started to paw his face.

Now frantic, Pinback finally managed to get a hand between himself and the alien and shoved it free. Immediately the being fell off, bounced on the floor, and scampered out the open door while twittering loosely in what might have been interpreted as a pleased fashion,

“Goddamn son-of-a-bitch, ungrateful, stupid, rotten, alien tomato-thing!” Pinback finally got the hair out of his eyes, then moved to the door and peeked out into the corridor.

It was sitting about halfway up the hall, panting like a happy puppy and, despite the absence of obvious eyes, no doubt watching him intently. Pinback sighed.

Well, the thing just wanted to play, after all. “All right, fun is fun. Get back in here.” He stepped into the corridor and started toward it, snapping his fingers. “Come on, come on.” The alien didn’t budge.

“Come on now… good boy… good Beachball… that’s right.” He was closing in on it. Now he leaned forward to give it a reassuring stroke—and it made a violent lunge at him. Despite its not having a mouth in sight, or teeth, Pinback drew his hand away fast.

He knew enough about alien life-forms now to realize that it might have other, less visible but nonetheless potent, forms of defense.

Those unattractive yellow and black spots, for example, occasionally showed suspicious signs of moisture around the rims. Maybe the alien could secrete something unpleasant when angered. Why, it might even be toxic; and here they had been harboring it all these weeks.

Come to think of it, nobody had run any extensive tests on the alien. It had seemed so friendly and blatantly harmless at first that the thought had not occurred to him—or to anyone else. He sort of regretted that little oversight, because now he didn’t know whether the Beachball was bluffing or not.

Its claws were another proposition entirely, of course, though his skin was more irritated than broken.

Well, he wasn’t going to take any chances. Its twittering as it had lunged at him had risen to a sound that bore more than casual resemblance to a growl.

If it just want to play, he was going to have to try something else to get control over it. Perhaps the subtle approach.

It ought to be inside his jumpsuit… ah, there. This had always worked with the creature before. He leaned over cautiously, shoved the object toward the Beachball, and squeezed it.

It was a tiny gray mouse with pink ears and a big pink nose. It made satisfying squeaking sounds. These didn’t seem especially erudite to Pinback, but maybe they were close to Beachball talk. He squeezed it again.

“Here, boy… want the mousey? Nice mousey, pretty mousey…” This was a helluva occupation for a grown technician. “Want your mouse? Here, boy.”

The Beachball didn’t appear inclined to move any closer, but the violent pulsing seemed to lessen. Pinback dropped the rubber toy just in front of it. Again the claws tapped on the floor in imitation (or was it imitation?) of Pinback.

Coming to some Beachballian decision, the alien took a short hop forward and covered the mouse. Non-twittering sounds began to issue from it—crunching, swallowing sounds. Pinback interpreted them correctly. The alien was eating the mouse.

“Idiot!” he screamed, and reached down to recover the mouse’s remains.

The Beachball lunged forward again and this time made contact with Pinback’s bare hand. There was a searing sensation as if he had waved his hand over a low flame, and the alien almost hissed at him. Pinback jerked away, holding his hand and sucking at the injured member to try and lessen the pain—a purely reflexive, not too bright action on his part. Fortunately, the substance had already sunk into the skin and so didn’t transfer to his tongue.

So much for subtlety and psychology. Now it was time for less Freudian approaches.

He disappeared inside the alien-holding room, and reemerged moments later hefting the broom firmly in one hand. It would have been easier with someone else to help herd the Beachball, but Boiler would only have laughed and he doubted that the oh-so-superior Doolittle would have bothered.

It didn’t matter. He could handle the alien by himself. He’d show the others he could. Turning up the corridor, he prepared to give it fair warning… and stopped.

The alien had disappeared.

It still wanted to play? All right! He started up the corridor, looking behind him at every odd second. You had to watch out for the alien. It was tricky. Not intelligent, but tricky. There was a definite animal cunning in that Beachball. It reminded him of Boiler.

He slowed as he approached the turn in the corridor, edged cautiously up to it—and peered quickly around the bend. Not… something grabbed his ankles, and he screamed. But this time the alien had made a mistake. While it had a solid grip with both clawed feet, its muscular system was weak and it couldn’t put much into the grip. Certainly not enough to topple Pinback.

The sergeant turned at the waist and swatted downward with the broom, catching the alien squarely.

It twittered and let go, backing away down the corridor, back, back. Pinback followed, continuing to swat at it. He had driven it halfway back to the holding-room entrance when the Beachball apparently decided it had taken enough.

Timing its leap in midswing, it caught the broom handle right at the base of the plastic straw and yanked it from Pinback’s grasp. Now, using its semi-flying ability, it showed its imitative tendencies once again by flailing violently at Pinback, forcing him back down the corridor.

“No, no… you idiot… ow, yowch!” Something caught his feet and he stumbled, the broom crashing down heavily on the back of his neck.

“No, no!” Pinback continued to flail about for a couple of seconds until he suddenly realized that the broom was no longer in belligerent motion. He grabbed at it, glanced up, and saw the alien disappearing around the far end of the corridor.

It was moving back toward the engine-service area, the rear of the ship.

Not that he was worried about anything as theatrical as a suddenly sapient alien taking over the ship, but if the mischievous monster got itself entangled in any delicate machinery…

Naturally, anything that could be easily damaged should be well protected. But considering the lapse of maintenance on the ship these last months, there was no telling what shielding panels or covers might be out of place. No telling what Boiler might have played with besides the heat-unit shielding. The sooner the alien was back in its room and locked up, the better.

Untangling himself from the broom, Pinback started down the corridor after the rambunctious alien. One open bay after another yielded nothing. He was about to start back when a familiar twittering sound came to him from one of the big service bays. He moved slowly inside.

The twittering seemed to come from just behind the door leading to the inner service chamber. He put a hand on the latch, at the same time wondering that the creature had had enough sense or curiosity to close it behind itself, and threw it open.

Nothing showed inside but a tangle of old machinery, dimly lit by the service lights. Hunting through the room, broom firmly in hand, he followed the faint honking. The sound was moving away from him again, and the darkness was increasing. There wasn’t much reason to visit this part of the ship.

The section he was heading for was fully automatic and he wouldn’t find much of anything in the way of lighting there. He’d have to bring his own light with him.

There was a powerful flashlight in one of the service boxes. It produced a satisfyingly broad beam. Aiming it ahead and sweeping it thoroughly into all deep corners, he moved deeper into the little-visited service section of the ship.

This was absolutely crazy. There were never supposed to be fewer than two men at a time in this section of the Dark Star. There were too many things that needed two sets of hands to repair, and a number of things that could go bang at odd moments. But Pinback had forgotten most of that. Over the years, you only remembered the parts of the ship that had given you trouble.

Also, a number of elevator and ventilation shafts ran through here at odd angles. But there was no danger of stumbling into one of those, not with the light. Actually, he had no business being this deep into the service bay by himself. It was strictly against regs. But he couldn’t tell Doolittle what had happened, not now. And he didn’t dare tell Boiler.

No, Doolittle would have given him another of those supercontemptuous smiles which he reserved only for Pinback. And Boiler—Boiler would either grin or, worse, laugh outright. But he could tell Talby. So someone would know where he was.

He hesitated. Talby might understand—but for sure he wouldn’t do anything to help. So why bother? Pinback moved on. Crazy Talby. At least he was harmless. Not like Boiler, who—

There was a twittering sound to his right, and he swung the beam rapidly in that direction. The brilliant, slick red epidermis of the Beachball gleamed back at him.

It was sitting in a small square doorway. Pinback didn’t recognize it right away—and when he did, his breath came up short. The alien was sitting in this level’s emergency entrance to the main service-elevator shaft.

Maybe he could pry it into the room. He jabbed at it with the broom, but it was impossible to get the end of the stick behind the alien. Suddenly it moved—backward, into the shaft. Pinback dropped to all fours and crawled forward quickly. There was a chance he could reach it with the stick before it drifted down too far.

Holding the flashlight in front of him, he had just a quick glimpse of the Beachball as it vanished through the open hatchway on the other side of the shaft.

He sat back, sighed. Now he was really in trouble. The alien was loose in one of the most sensitive, least-visited areas of the Dark Star. It could roam around back there, fooling with who knew what, unless it was recaptured immediately.

But he had no way to get across the shaft. If he could only bring the elevator down it would be easy enough to cross over its top and slip through the emergency hatchway the alien had just vacated.

But the elevator was locked and could be activated only at the expense of notifying those on the bridge that it was in use. If he slipped back there and keyed it himself, certainly Doolittle or Boiler would be on station. And if they saw the elevator suddenly thrown into use, they would want to know what Pinback was doing fussing around in a section of the ship he had no business visiting.

If he remembered correctly, use of the elevator would even key a warning light in their living quarters. Only when it was working on automatic was the signal silent. And no sound issued from the shaft now.

He didn’t think he could concoct an excuse that would fool Doolittle. Eventually he would end up confessing that he had let the alien escape. Then he would be in terrible shape. Doolittle wouldn’t trust him with anything, and Boiler would never stop snickering.

All right, so he wouldn’t use the elevator. He would get the alien back without anyone knowing, and without anyone’s help. He stuck his head into the shaft, looked across, then down. It would help it he weren’t so afraid of heights. He could drift in a starsuit for hours without being troubled, but he got dizzy atop a ladder.

Not that it was so terribly far from here to the bottom of the shaft. The Dark Star wasn’t that big. If he slipped and fell while trying to cross, why, he might only break an arm or maybe both legs. In addition to being painful, that would be even worse than asking for Doolittle’s or Boiler’s help—but he was going to get across.

With what? There was nothing like an emergency ladder going down the shaft. The elevator was equipped with too many fail-safes—there was no need for a ladder. And there was no other way to the rear of the ship except across this shaft.

It had been designed this way, on the off chance that if any crewmember went berserk and tried to kick himself out the emergency airlock, or fool with the vital communications/life-support instrumentation, he would have to use the elevator—thus activating those tell-tales in the bridge and living quarters that now bedeviled Pinback.

No one could use the elevator without some other member of the crew knowing about it. But Pinback would fool them—somehow.

Moving back into the service chamber, he hunted around with the light. Eventually he found a heavy metal canister which he was sure the wiry but light alien wouldn’t be able to move. He rolled it over until it blocked the small hatchway.

Then he hurried back up to the crafts room. It was empty. Doolittle’s wooden-jar organ sat alone, silent, behind a thin partition. The pottery wheels, the glass works, the metal etching and macrame sections, the instructional film viewers—all were deserted. That meant Doolittle and Boiler were either forward in the control room or, more likely, relaxing in their living quarters. Good. It didn’t matter to Pinback whether they were taking sunlamp treatments or a bath—as long as they were out of his way.

A short search, and he found what he was looking for—a good long solid board, designed for carving and therapeutic woodwork, now to be put to a purely practical use. He hurried down the corridor with it.

The canister was still in place, with no sign that the alien had tired to force it. That meant it was still on the other side.

Sweating, Pinback heaved the canister aside and peered across the dark elevator shaft. Still no sign of the alien, neither in the black unlit depths nor in the heights above.

Carefully, working as noiselessly as possible, he edged the board across the open gap. His one real concern was that it might not be long enough, but it spanned the gulf easily.

It would have been nice if he had had a board more than a dozen centimeters wide. This was not a very reassuring bridge, but it would have to do. And it was much better than a cable, which for a while he thought he might have to use.

Well, there was nothing left but simply to climb on and crawl across. Nothing to it. His pulse was racing.

Come on, now, Pinback, it’s only a couple of meters. You’ll be across before you know it.

Shifting the flashlight to his left hand, he put both hands out on the board, over the blackness, and pressed down sharply a couple of times. The board gave very slightly. Seemed solid enough.

Moving slowly, ever so slowly, he crawled out a centimeter at a time until his full weight was on the board. He stopped, jiggled while resting on the wood. Again it gave slightly. But there were no threatening cracking sounds, and the board didn’t bend under him.

It was going to be all right.

Setting both hands in front of him, he brought his knees under his waist. Hands, knees, hands, knees—and then he was reaching for the far rim. He was more relieved than he cared to acknowledge when he was finally across and through the hatchway on the opposite side.

Standing up in the corridor, he saw lights in the distance. The only lights that would be shining here would be from the region of the emergency airlock, and then only if the interior airlock door had been activated.

Probably the crazy Beachball had bumbled into the contact switch which activated the door mechanism. Another couple of steps confirmed it. The door was wide open, the interior of the bay bright with light.

A sudden thought brought him to an abrupt stop. No doubt the alien was trapped inside. He had retreated to the absolute end of the ship. But Pinback had forgotten the broom. Well, he wasn’t going back across that pit for a stick of wood. The flashlight would make do as a prod. Considering his present state of mind, he suspected his bare hands would be equal to the job.

He slowed as he neared the open doorway, edged right up to the opening, and jumped inside, holding the flashlight in front of him and trying to scan every direction at once.

A familiar twittering and honking greeted him. The alien was there, sure enough, clinging with those seemingly adhesive claws to the far wall. Pinback’s gaze went immediately to another nearby switch—the one that would blow the explosive bolts on the emergency hatch cover and send anyone inside the lock flying out into free space.

Thus far the Beachball hadn’t made a motion toward it. But if it suddenly took it into its head—or wherever its thinking mechanism was located—to fly onto the switch, even its slight weight should be enough to set off the device. He tried to edge toward it without being obvious.

“Go on, get out of there,” he muttered menacingly, dividing his gaze between the alien and the lock mechanism. He made poking motions toward the alien with the blunt end of the flashlight. Unimpressed, the creature didn’t budge.

“Out!” Pinback screamed. At his screech the alien leaped, not for the worrisome switch but straight at Pinback. He should have been ready for it. He wasn’t.

This time it didn’t attempt to dig at him. Instead, it made a sort of half-swipe in passing. That was more than enough to distract Pinback. Then it flew out the door, back the way they had both come.

Maybe now was the time to call for aid. After all, the monster had made two recognizably antagonistic moves at him. It could now be classed as definitely hostile, despite his earlier, gushing report. He saw his naiveté in retrospect.

No, what kind of coward are you, Pinback? What are you afraid of… a little corrosive alien saliva?

“Come back here, you!” he yelled decisively, hurrying in pursuit.

Actually, he made up some distance on it. But not enough. Reaching the hatchway leading to the shaft, he bent quickly, stared in—and saw the board disappearing back across the black gulf, back between a pair of busy clawed feet.

“No… oh, no…”

Beachball was being imitative again.