He ought to give the lamps a brief test before sending a set to Carl. No sense in burdening the man with a clutter of useless equipment if the things wouldn’t do more than give the Halleyforms a suntan. Saul slipped on a set of goggles and bent to turn on the timer.

The sudden brrr-ap! of the tiny alarm made him jump, even though he was ready for it. Then came a faint pop as the lamp suddenly filled the amber tunnel with sharp, actinic light. Even under the goggles, Saul blinked and had to turn away.

When he next looked, he realized that something funny was going on. All at once every surface appeared to be coated in a shimmering haze. The walls themselves seemed to ripple and crawl, like the fur on a caterpillar’s back. At first he thought it was an optical illusion—an effect of the weird coloration and glare. Then he realized.

There’s Halley Life everywhere! It’s impregnated into the fibercloth, and now it’s fleeing from the lamplight.

The fuzzy ripples swept back in waves. Nearby, Saul saw the air begin to fill with a fog of fine dust—killed organisms, he supposed—floating free of the walls and settling with glacial slowness towards the floor. Trying not to inhale any of it, he wafted bits into a sample bag and sealed the container tight.

The, as abruptly as it erupted in brilliance, the lamp shut down. The noisy alarm quit without an echo and suddenly all was dimness and quiet. Saul pulled off the goggles, blinking as he warred for the spots to fade.

His bonephone crackled to life.

—Lintz, Vidor. Saw your glare all the way down at Shaft Three, Doc. Is it safe to come in now? Carl wants Garner and those lamps right away… like yesterday.—

“Uh, yeah.” He shook his head. “Lintz to Spacer Vidor. We have lamps and goggles and fresh coffee for you guys. Come on in, boys.”

He turned and skip-launched himself back into the irregular, vaulted chamber. Through the frosted sides of the slots, the sleepers were still silhouettes. Status lights on each casket made the center of the dim hall glitter like some phosphorescent Christmas tree, or a giant, glimmering starfish at the bottom of the ocean.

Ninety packages, waiting to be opened. Someday. If we make it.

The several-times-delayed unslotting of emergency replacements was reaching a critical stage in sick bay, where Nick Malenkov was all alone, now. One med tech had died of a purple bite, and Peltier, the other, had succumbed to some raging infection yesterday. At this rate it was a good question whether the “unthawing” crew would find anyone alive to greet them when they awakened.

No. We will succeed. We must.

He passed the bench where Joao Quiverian still muttered to himself, piecing together lamps and bulbs with snaillike deliberation. Later, Saul knew, he would have to personally check all the lamps himself.

He made sure the coffee maker was full, then gathered up his own spacesuit.

They’ll be needing all the help they can get, even if Malenkov has declared me an invalid. I may not be able to fight as long and as hard as these youngsters, but even a middle-aged alter kocker like me can hold up a lamp and squeeze a spray bottle in a fight like this.

Funny thing about that. Although he was weary—and in a perpetual haze from the drugs that kept his sinuses clear—in some ways Saul had never felt better. His digestion, for instance—there were no faint twinges anymore, and his knee joints no longer grated and vibrated as he moved.

Weightlessness and calcium deconditioning, he decided…or maybe it’s just that somebody loves me again. Never, never underestimate the effects of morale.

He almost stopped to call Virginia then. But of course he would get his chance to talk to her when he joined the others at the power plant. She would be there, at least in surrogate, controlling up to a dozen mechs, doing the work of ten men.

Perhaps he would have a chance to wink at one of her video pickups, and make her smile.

He had just stepped into his suit—and was reaching for his tabard decorated with a DNA helix—when voices over by the entrance told of the arriving spacers.

Vidor and Ustinov shot through the opening in graceful tandem. Tired or not, pride wouldn’t let them skim walk or pull along the wall cables. The two men twisted in midair and landed in crouched unison not more than two meters in front of Saul.

“Where’s Ted?” Joseph Ustinov asked tersely. The bearded Russo-Canadian took quick note of the direction Saul indicated, and headed out past the stacked packing crates toward the dim corner where Spacer Garners electric blanket was a radiating ball of warmth.

“Got that Java, Doc?” Vidor asked Saul, grinning. The young Alabaman seemed to have thrived in the adversity of the last week. Days of combat in the halls had brought him out of the depression of having been the one to find Captain Cruz slumped over his sleep-webbing, almost dead.

“Sure, Jim.” Saul handed him a bulb of hot, black coffee, and began filling a thermos for Carl and the others. “There are fresh sandwiches over in that bag. I’ll help you fellows tote the lamps and goggles, and show Carl how—”

A shrill, horrified scream seem to curdle the air.

Hot coffee spilled out in globby spray as Saul whirled. Across the dimly lit chamber, Spacer Ustinov tumbled in midair, still rising toward the ceiling and sobbing as he shook a clublike object in one hand.

Someone or something had startled him into leaping skyward with all his might. Whatever it was had scared him half out of his wits, for the man was gibbering, transfixed on the thing he held.

As Saul and Vidor stared, Ustinov cried out again and threw it away. The object arced through the chilled air, curving over gently in Halley’s faint gravity, and struck a packing crate barely meters from Joao Quiverian’s workbench.

The Brazilian scientist jerked back, first in astonishment and then in revulsion when he saw what had bounced within close reach. A delicate bulb shattered into power in his left hand.

There, dripping ocher onto the lime-colored fibercloth floor, lay a dismembered human arm. Impossibly, the grisly limb seemed o be still twitching.

Things, Saul realized, sickly, were crawling out of the hunk of flesh and bone. Purple things.

He grabbed the wide-eyed Vidor by the collar and pushed him toward the stacked equipment. “Get goggles and a lamp!” he told the spacer quickly. “They’re our only weapons here. Joao! Rig an extension to that outlet! Quickly!”

This time the Brazilian didn’t argue. Vidor fumbled with the cords binding the lamps while Saul squeezed a spray of scalding coffee at a purple that was about to duck out of sight behind a sleep slot. A whistle escaped the thing as it retreated back into the open.

“Dammit, Doc!” Vidor cursed. “I gotta teach you how to tie proper knots!”

Saul started to answer when he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh damn,” he moaned. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you goin’?” Vidor cried out.

By then, though, the die was cast. Saul had crouched and leaped off into open space.

Vidor was really the one more qualified for this sort of thing. But right then he was tangled up in lamps and cords. Saul had been the one to see Ustinov begin to fall again, and realize that the man was still sobbing and unaware of where he was headed. Even Halley’s gravity wouldn’t allow any explanations or delay.

Ustinov ’s suit was a lot more sophisticated than Saul’s. But the incoherent spacer didn’t seem about to use his jets, or anything else, to keep from falling back toward the tattered ruins of Spacer Tech Garner’s electric blanket, now awrithe with waving purple forms.

Everything was happening in slow motion, or so it seemed to Saul, who spoke quickly into his communicator.

“Lintz routed to Osborn and Herbert. Mayday! Purples in sleep slot one! Garner’s dead. Mayday!”