“I guess it does,” the captain agreed. He considered. Hulik do Eldel and Laes Yango weren’t at all likely to be in the same lofty safecracking class, but — “Could you fix the vault and the strongbox so you couldn’t get in again?” he asked.

“Huh?” Vezzarn looked reflective for a moment. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “that could be done…”

“Fine,” said the captain. “Get up. We’ll go do it right now.”

Vezzarn paled. “Skipper,” he stated uncomfortably, “I’d really rather not go anywhere near…”

“The forward lock over there,” warned the captain, “can be opened awfully quick again!”

Vezzarn climbed awkwardly out of the chair. “I’ll go, sir,” he said.

Worm Weather appeared in the screens seven hours later…

It was very far away, but it was there — fuzzily rounded specks of yellowness drifting across the stars. They picked up five or six of the distant dots almost simultaneously, not grouped but scattered about the area. There seemed to be no pattern to their motion, either in relation to one another or to the Venture.

Within another half-hour there might have been nearly fifty in the screens at a time, to all sides of the ship. It was difficult to keep count. They moved with seeming aimlessness, dwindled unnaturally, were gone in distance. Others appeared… Goth had set up the Drive, and came back to join the captain. The lounge screens had been cut off from the beginning. Laes Yango called on intercom to report the fact, was told of a malfunction which would presently be corrected.

And still the Nuri globes came no closer. The encounter might have been a coincidence, but the probability remained that Vezzarn’s exposure of the crystal in the strongbox had drawn the swarms towards this area of space. They seemed to have no method of determining the Venture’s moment-to-moment position more exactly. But sheer chance might bring one near enough to reveal the ship to them -

“You scared?” Goth inquired by and by in a subdued voice.

“Well, yes… You?”

“Uh-huh. Bit.”

“The Drive will get us out of it if necessary,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

In another while there seemed fewer of the globes around. The captain waited some minutes to be sure, then commented on it. Goth had noticed it, too. Their number dwindled farther. At last only one or two doubtful specks remained in space, now far behind the ship. But neither of them felt like leaving the screens.

“Being a witch,” sighed the captain, “can get to be quite a job!”

“Sometimes,” Goth agreed.

He reflected. “Well, maybe things will quiet down for a spell… Almost everything that could happen on board has happened by now!” He considered again, chuckled. “Unless one of those — what did you call them? — vatches joins the party!”

Goth cleared her throat carefully. “Well, about that, Captain—”

He gave her a quick, startled look.

“Can’t say there’s one around,” Goth said. “Can’t say there isn’t though, either.”

“One around! I thought you’d know!”

“They come close enough, I do. This one doesn’t. If it’s a vatch. Just get a feeling there’s been something watching.” She waved a hand at the Chaladoor in the screens. “From a ways off.”

“It could be a vatch?”

“Could be,” Goth acknowledged. “Wouldn’t worry about it. If it’s your vatch, he’s probably just been curious about what you were doing. They get curious about people.”

The captain grunted. “Since when have you had that feeling?”

“Off and on,” Goth said. “On the ship… once or twice in Zergandol.”

He shook his head helplessly.

“Might fade off after a while,” Goth concluded. “He starts making himself at home around here, I’ll let you know.”

“You do that, Goth!” the captain said.

Two watches farther along, it became apparent that not everything that could happen on the Venture had happened so far. What occurred wasn’t vatch work, though for a moment the captain wasn’t so sure. In fact, it was something for which nobody on board had any satisfactory explanation to offer.

Hulik do Eldel gave the alarm. The captain was on duty when the intercom rang. He switched it on, said, “Yes?”

“Captain Aron,” Hulik told him in an unnaturally composed voice, “I’m locked in my stateroom and need immediate assistance! Knock before you try to enter, and identify yourself, or I’ll shoot through the door.”

The captain pressed Goth’s buzzer. “Why would you shoot through the door?” he asked.

“Because,” Hulik said, “there’s some beast loose on the ship.”

“Beast?” he repeated, startled. Goth’s face appeared in her screen, pop-eyed, nodded at him, disappeared.

“Beast. Creature. Thing! Monster!” Hulik seemed to be speaking through hard clenched teeth. “I saw it. just now. In a passage off the lounge. Be careful on your way here! It’s large, probably dangerous.”

“I’ll be there at once!” the captain promised.

“Bring your gun,” Hulik told him, still in the flat, dead tone of choked-down hysteria. “Several, if you have them…” She switched off as Goth came trotting out of her cabin, buttoning up her jacket. “Vatch?” the captain asked hurriedly.

Goth shook her head. “Not a whiff of one around! She couldn’t see a vatch anyway, if there was one around.” She looked puzzled and interested.

“Could something else have got on the ship — out of space? Something material?”

“Don’t know,” Goth said hesitantly. “Course you hear stories about the Chaladoor like that.”

“The do Eldel’s no doubt heard them, too!” commented the captain. He slid his gun into a pocket, felt his nerves tightening up again. “We’ll hope it’s her imagination! Come on.”

They emerged from the control section, moved along the passage to the lounge, wary and listening. Nothing stirred. The lounge was dim, and the captain flipped the lights up to full strength as they entered. They went down a side passage, turned into another, stopped at a closed stateroom door.

“Let’s stand aside a bit,” the captain whispered. “The way she was talking, she might shoot through the door if she’s startled!” He rapped cautiously on the panel, pressed the door speaker.

“Who’s there?” Hulik’s voice inquired sharply.

“Captain Aron,” announced the captain. “Dani’s with me.”

There were two clicks. The door swung open a few inches and Hulik gazed out at them over a small but practical-looking gun. Her delicate face was drawn and pale, and there was a nervous flickering to the dark eyes that made the captain very uneasy. She glanced along the passage, hissed, “Come in! Quickly!” and opened the door wider.

“…I didn’t get too good a look at it,” she was telling them in the stateroom a few seconds later, still holding the gun. “It was in the passage leading back from the lounge, about thirty feet away and in shadow. A dark shape, moving up the passage towards me.” She shivered quickly. “It was an animal of some kind — quite large!”

“How large?” the captain asked.

She considered. “The body might have been as big as that of a horse. It seemed lumpy, rounded. It was close to the floor — I had the impression it was crouching! The head — big, round, something like tusks or fangs below it.” Hulik’s finger lifted, made five quick, stabbing motions in the air. “Eyes!” she said. “Five eyes in a row along the upper part of the head. Rather small, bright yellow.”

Everyone — with the exception of Olimy — was gathered in the control section; and except for Goth, all of them carried a gun. Hulik’s story couldn’t simply be ignored. It was clear she believed she had seen what she’d described. Vezzarn evidently believed it, too. His face was as pale as the do Eldel’s. Laes Yango was more skeptical.