“Let me come across, sir!”

/’Denied. Stay on the bridge. I’m all right; I just got a fright.” I headed for Telstar’sbridge. “I’m trying to figure out what happened here. Right now I’m about ninety degrees along the disk from the damage.” If I kept talking, I wouldn’t have to think about what I’d seen. “The cabin where I found the corpse had no hull damage. I guess something ricocheted down the corridor and hit him just as he opened the hatch.

Okay, I’m at the bridge now.”

I slapped the hatch control, to no effect. “The bridge is sealed; I’ll never be able to get in without tools. I’ll check the remaining cabins past the corridor bend.” A figure moved in the dim standby light. “Mr. Ulak, is that you?” I hurried toward him. “What did you find belo--”

I froze.

“Captain?” Vax.

My mouth worked. No sound came.

“Sir, are you all right?”

I produced a small whimper, like a child in a nightmare.

Urine trickled down my leg.

“Say what’s wrong!” Vax bellowed.

I whispered,”Ulak. Brant. Howard. Back to the gig, flank! Mr. Holser, sound General Quarters! Battle Stations!”

I tried to back away. My feet seemed glued to the deck.

The figure in the corridor quivered. It wore a kind of translucent suit that sat legless on the deck, flowing from an irregular base to near my own height.

Globs of matter seemed to flow along the skin of the suit.

A jagged patch on the suit, a meter above the deck, contracted and expanded again. Colors flowed.

I willed myself to step backward. “There’s something here! It’s alive and it’s not human.” Why did I whisper when nothing could hear through vacuum? I took another step.

“Lord God... “ We ask thy mercy, in this our final hour.“General Quarters! Man your Battle Stations!” Vax bellowed orders into the caller. “Mr. Carr, seal the bridge!”

The creature moved. I couldn’t see how. It... flowed toward me. I took another step back, then another.

It moved again. It changed shape as it flowed, then regained height. It seemed subtly changed.

Suddenly I understood.

“Oh, Lord God, it isn’t in a suit! That’s its own skin; it can live in vacuum! Vax, it’s changing shapes!” A surge of adrenaline freed me to move. The creature darted away, heading the opposite direction along the corridor. It moved with breathtaking speed.

I turned and ran. “Ulak, Brant! Where are you?”

“Back at the gig, sir! Hurry!”

I stumbled down the ladder, the steps pulling at my magnetized feet.

“Howard reporting. I’m in the gig. Where is it, sir?”

“I don’t know!” Panting, I pounded down the corridor. I risked a glance backward. Nothing.

“Oh, Jesus Lord! It’s coming out of the hull!” A shriek.

“Launch the gig!” I shouted. “Back to the ship! Don’t wait!”

Vax roared, “Belay that! Pick up the Captain first!”

“Go!” I gasped for breath, racing to the cabin I’d first entered. Wait. I skidded to a stop. If one of the beings was emerging from a tear in the hull, it must be in one of these cabins. I couldn’t get out the way I’d come.

“We’re clear of the hull! Captain, come on out, we’ll try to reach you!”

Vax. “Man the lasers! Seal all compartments!”

! keyed my caller. “Mr. Howard, back to the ship!” I raced to the ladder to Level 3. “I’ll come out below!”

“We’re thirty meters distant, sir! Where are you?”

“Engine room!” I swung my light wildly around the darkened compartment. Stars glinted through a breach in the hull.

I clambered toward it, squeezed myself through. In a moment I stood onthe hull, trying to spot the gig against the black of interstellar space.

There, about fifty meters aft.

“Here!” I waved my light.

“Right, sir.” Seaman Brant maneuvered the gig closer.

“That... thing is halfway out of the hull, behind you.” I spun around; an alien form quivered in a gap in Telstar’shull, over one of the cabins. My skin crawled.

I remembered my jets, touched the nozzle control at my side. I lifted off. Clear of the infested ship, separated from whatever scampered in its corridors, I felt weak with relief.

Still, I floated alone in space, with no protection but a suit. I

hadn’t even thought to go into Telstararmed.

Hiberniashrank perceptibly. I shuddered. Vax was moving the ship clear to Fuse. To abandon us. Helpless, I calculated distances. My panic ebbed. He was only turning the ship to bring her lasers to bear. “Darla, record!” I shouted. “Full visuals!”

“I have been, sir.” Her voice was calm. “Ever since you took the gig.”

I keyed my thrusters, propelled myself toward the gig’s silhouette.

Someone moaned.

A voice; a sailor in the gig.”Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven... “

With a squirt of my side jets, I rotated to face Telstar.A plump oval shape drifted from behind the dead ship. It looked, Lord God help me, like a huge goldfish with a stubby tail. It was almost half as large as Telstar.It pulsed. A mist spurted from an opening near the tail. It glided past the hull toward us. Colors flowed on its surface.

Rough-surfaced globs projected from its sides.

I found my voice. “Gig, back to Hibernia!Flank!” I slammed on my thrusters, veered away from the gig, spun toward my ship.

The creature I’d found within Telstarrecoiled against the hull, launched itself at the fish as it floated by. It touched the being’s side and clung there for a moment, growing smaller.

The surface of the huge creature seemed to flow. The being outside of it disappeared, absorbed within.

One of the rough globs on the goldfish lengthened, began to spin in a slow, widening circle. It gained momentum.

Abruptly it detached and flew directly at the gig.

“Look out!” My cry came too late. The projectile splattered on the gig’s hull, oozed along its side. The gig’s alumalloy frame sputtered and melted beneath the glob.

A choked scream, suddenly cut off. The gig’s engine flared and died. The glob ate away at the gig’s hull. Frantic motion, in the cockpit. Metal dripped onto a suit and pierced it. There was a visible rush of air. Blood, a wild kick, then nothing.

I looked back at the goldfish. Another, much larger projectile began to wave.

“Vax!”

“Yessir, I’m coming!”

“Fuse the ship!”

“Jet this way, sir! Hurry!”

“Fuse! Go to Hope Nation! Save the ship!”

“You’re almost aboard, Captain!” Hibernia’sbow drifted around.

An icy calm slowed my slamming heart. “Mr. Holser, Fuse the ship at once! Acknowledge my order!”

“Captain, move! Jet over here!”

The fishlike being released its projectile. The mass whipped toward Hibernia.It struck the gossamer laser shields protruding from the nose ports. They disintegrated in rivulets of metal.

Vax shouted, “Fire!” The tracking beam of Hibernia’slaser centered on the goldfish, just now drifting clear of Tel-star.A spot in its side glowed red. The skin colors swirled.

The goldfish jerked as if in convulsion.

The creature’s skin swirled and opened to form half a dozen tiny holes. Droplets of fluid burst from them. The goldfish slid away toward the protection of Telstar’shull. The laser followed, centered again on the side of the fish. More holes spouted protoplasm. Abruptly, it was behind Telstar.In slow motion I drifted across the void. Hiberniahad to be saved, regardless of my fate. “Fuse! For God’s sake, Vax! Obey orders!” I was frantic.

“Hurry, sir! Use the forward airlock! Alexi, cycle the lock!”

I was too far from the ship. The enemy might come out at any moment. I sobbed with rage and frustration. “Vax, Fuse!”

“Hurry, Captain!”

I was beside myself. “VAX, FUSE THE FUCKINGSHIP!”His soft response came clear in my speaker. “No, sir. Not until I have you aboard.”