The total count was thirteen.
“Nice round number,” Wanker commented. “What are the chances, Mr. Rhodes, that the creature took the place of one of these people between the time it escaped the bridge and everyone reported here?”
“Slim, sir. I was on the horn real quick, and everyone got up here real quick.”
“Yeah, if the creature is clever, and we know it is, that would be the time to do a substitution, when we least expect it.”
“If we can be sure about everybody now,” Warner-Hillary said, “what about when we fan out to search for the thing?”
“All search parties will go out in twos,” Rhodes said. “The bridge will be manned by no less than three people at all times.”
“Why don’t we all just stay on the bridge,” Darvona said, “until we get back to base?”
“We can’t give that creature the run of the ship,” Rhodes told her. “No telling what it’ll do.”
Wanker ordered, “Smithers, take Blake here and get to the engine control pod. And make it fast.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Too late,” Sadowski said, watching readouts at his station. “The beastie’s doon it.”
Everyone trooped over to engineering.
“The beastie’s doon what?”
“He must be in the power control pod,” Rhodes said.
“Aye,” Sadowski said.
“There go the engines!” Sven exclaimed.
A dying whine filled the ship as the engines lost power and the electrogravitic fields faded. The engines throbbed their last. The ship’s velocity was still tremendous, but below that of light.
“I goofed again,” Wanker said. “Should have sent the security men there to start.”
“Captain, the monster could have sabotaged something just about anywhere in the ship,” Rhodes said. “We can’t cover everything.”
“At least this way we can vouch for everybody here,” Sven said.
“There’s always a silver lining to every turd,” Wanker said.
“Is that how the saying goes?”
“Never mind. All right, the sooner we find the creature, the better off we’ll be.”
Rhodes was at his station. “Captain, you can say that again.”
“What d’you got in your crystal ball, Mr. Rhodes?” Wanker asked, walking over to him.
“A black hole, or whatever that singularity is,” Rhodes said.
“Oh, yes, the black hole.”
“Yes, sir. We’re heading right for it.”
* * *
Search-and-destroy teams fanned out into the ship, two-by-two, all personnel armed with quantum flamers.
The team rosters were the following: Smithers and Darvona, Blake and Rhodes, Sadowski and Warner-Hillary. Everyone else remained on the bridge.
The ship’s scanners were quite capable of scanning the ship itself for life readings, but something was wrong. The monster showed up nowhere.
“Could it have left the ship?” the captain asked Rhodes over the first officer’s internal comm link (built into his ear canal).
“Let’s hope so, sir. But it could be disguising itself.”
“As what? One of us? But I have all of you pinpointed.”
“As some other life-form that the scanners can’t pick up or routinely ignore, sir.”
“Such as?”
“Cockroaches.”
“Cockroaches?”
“Yes, sir. Mankind brought them along when it conquered space, sir.”
“Propagating vermin all over the galaxy,” Wanker mused. “Mr. Rhodes, you’re not as dumb as you could be.”
“Uh, thanks, I guess, Skipper.”
The search went on, to no avail. Two hours went by, in which time the ship’s course began to deflect toward the massive collapsed object marked on Warner-Hillary’s star charts. Any such object has a tremendous gravitational pull, and this specimen was no exception. On the ship’s screens, the object’s accretion ring of inflamed dust and gas began to glow more noticeably. The ship was being sucked into this stellar vortex, and in a few hours would pass a point of no return.
* * *
“Smithers calling the captain.”
“Wanker here.”
“Sir, I really have to go to the head.”
“Uh, you need assistance, Smithers?”
“Sir, Lieutentant Roundheels wants to watch.”
“Huh?”
“Sir, we’re supposed to observe each other at all times. You know?”
“Oh. Well, she’s right. We can’t let anyone get out of sight.”
“But,
sir,
I just have this thing about going to the bathroom in front of somebody, sir. Just can’t do it. When I go into a public head I can’t even—”
“Mr. Rhodes, what do you think?”
“Have him leave the door open a crack.”
“Sirs,” Smithers protested, “please, I really gotta have privacy or else I’ll just sit there.”
“Captain,” Rhodes said, “slim chance the creature will be hiding in any one head.”
“I don’t like it, but go ahead and have your privacy, Smithers. Make it damned fast, though.”
“I gotta do Number Two, sir, and that—”
“Too much information, Smithers!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sheesh.”
* * *
The search continued.
The Sadowski-Warner-Hillary team limited its sweep to the engine control areas, where the ship’s chief engineer desperately tried to restart the engines. The monster had done a beautiful job of sabotage. Nothing was missing or damaged, but some strategic electronic modules were covered with a hardened slime that rendered them completely useless.
“That slime!” Warner-Hillary spat.
“Literally true, Lieutenant,” Rhodes said. “Krutons are really an intelligent species of slime mold.”
“Yuck.”
“Now, Lieutenant, let’s not stoop to speciesism. Human chauvinism is against regulations, you know.”
“Screw regulations. I hate slime like that.”
The captain broke in. “Sadowski, can you clean up in there and restart the engines?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” the chief technical officer answered. “In time, but ‘tween the Isle o’ May an’ the links o’ Tay, mony a ship’s been cast away.”
“Yeah,” the captain said, “I realize that, but what the bloody hell is he talking about, Rhodes?”
“We’re running out of time, sir,” Rhodes replied.
“Right. I knew that, just wanted confirmation. Okay, Mr. Sadowski, do the best you—”
There was a pause.
“Something, Captain?” Rhodes asked.
“The life reading on Darvona and Smithers. Something’s changed.’’
“What, sir?”
“Darvona, come in!”
“Sir, I’m here. We’re in forward storage. What’s the matter?”
“Where’s Smithers?”
“He’s right here… well, he was a minute ago. Smithers?”
“You don’t see him?”
“Sir, he was just here a second ago. I’m sorry, sir, I let him out of my sight.”
“Darvona, get out of there, now!”
“What?”
The monster is near you somewhere! It’s approaching!”
“On our way!” Rhodes yelled as he and Blake dashed toward the storage area.
“Darvona, get out of that bay right now!”
“I’m nowhere near a hatch. Smithers, where are you?”
“Smithers
is
the monster! Your only chance is to make it to the hatch! Shut it and seal it behind you!”
* * *
Darvona was afraid, more afraid than she had been in her entire life. More afraid even than when she was abducted by that nukecycle gang on Tau Ceti Three—before she found out what a bunch of sweethearts they really were, for all that they liked to play rough…
Well, never mind that now.
The storage bay was well lighted, but that didn’t help. She was alone, and afraid. She began to shake.
Beads of fine cold sweat banded her pretty brow.
She tried to steady herself, got a better grip on her flamer. She had to keep her head. If she panicked, it would be over.
Treading lightly, she walked between the rows of crated equipment and supplies, her eyes darting nervously behind, ahead, right, left. She approached an intersection of aisles and stopped, carefully checking each way before proceeding.
She moved on. Ahead was an area less well lighted. She looked up. A few overhead fixtures were out. Shoddy maintenance, she thought. Everything was shoddy aboard this ship.
“Damn,” she whispered to herself.
This ship would have to turn over a new leaf. She needed a promotion. At home, bills were piling up. Back debts. She had always lived beyond her means. The debts were entirely her fault, but she…
Concentrate! she told herself. Why are you thinking of all that nonsense when there’s a monster about?
She turned a corner, walked down the aisle, coming out of the dark area, and came up against a dead end, an oversize crate blocking the way. She turned around and went back, heading toward the gloom again.
Something stepped out of the crossing aisle and stood at the intersection, a hulking shadow.
Darvona suppressed a scream and raised her flamer, frantically trying to steady her hand and get the target in her sights.
It was gone. Just like that, it had disappeared. She waited for half a minute, then slowly moved forward. How could it have done that? She hadn’t seen it move off. It simply wasn’t there anymore. Actually, it had looked as though the monster had shrunk in on itself. It had sort of collapsed.
Collapsed? Collapsed to what?
To the puddle of green stuff!
But that meant—
She heard something behind her, a fluid gurgling. She whirled.
The monster loomed above her, and before she could raise the flamer, a gray beslimed tentacle snaked out and snatched it from her hand. She was frozen with fear, capable only of watching with horror as the thing’s complex mouth worked and clicked and slavered. She could not scream, could not move.
One of the creature’s pincer-tipped forelimbs descended…
* * *
“Mr. Rhodes, where are you?”
“At the hatch of the forward storage bay, sir! We’re going in now!”
Rhodes pushed the man-size access hatch open, poked his head in, looked around, and stepped through.
He heard sobbing.
“Darvona!”
Blake following, he ran, threading his way through the maze of gray composite containers, homing in on the sound of inconsolable weeping.
“Darvona!”
She was sitting cross-legged on the deck, near the end of a dead-end aisle. Her head was in her hands.
Rhodes ran to her.
“Darvona, what happened?”
“I’m ruined, that’s what!”
“What?”
“Ruined for life!”
“What do you mean?”
“Financially! Look what that son of a bitch did to me!”
She handed him a blue folder. Rhodes took it and opened it. Inside was an official-looking legal document.
“What’s this?” he asked, too distressed for the words to have any meaning.
“A lawsuit! For harassment and personal suffering!”
“What?” Rhodes was incredulous.
“The Kruton’s suing the whole ship, and the government, and everybody. I’m named in the suit! The legal costs will keep me in debt forever!”
“Oh, come on, this can’t be anything more than a nuisance suit. After all, this critter’s a damn spy!”
“Spies have civil rights, too. At least that’s what it said.”
“Don’t worry till you talk to your lawyer. Besides, the Forces should cover your legal costs.”
“No, he’s firing off a dozen lawsuits. This one he gave me is personal! I’ll have to take out a loan!”
* * *
Smithers was found in the head, caked with slime. Though stiff and sore, he was otherwise uninjured. The monster had slapped him with two lawsuits, one for personal injury, the other for sexual harassment (displaying obnoxious body parts).
Implacably and inexorably, the Kruton stalked the ship, jumping out of shadows to serve papers on everyone aboard. Soon, though, the effect wore off, and the creature became simply a nuisance. In time, everyone came to ignore the thing.