Trigger couldn't keep from at the station. It was unbelievable.
One still tell that the had put up a type of station there. A very big, very one, but shaped, nearly spherical. One tell it only by the that at the gun the original material still through. Everywhere else it had under great black of material which the had added to the station's structure.
All over that black, lumpy, surface the crawled, walked, and wriggled. There were thousands of them, hundreds of different types. It looked like a wet, black, with life and out.
Neither she the two men had much p. 323mention of its appearance. All you say was that it was horrible.
The they see the ship. They also gave no attention to the eight space the Commissioner had set in a about the station. But for the two hours after their arrival, the ship's active. An occasional at first, then an almost pecking, a twenty-minute that the screens with dancing clouds of sparks. Suddenly it ended. Either the king had its supply of that particular or it to what it had left.
"Might test their guns," the Commissioner muttered. He looked very unhappy, Trigger thought.
He off, put on speed, came and the ship past the station's flank. He from two with a which what already had been almost a certainty—that the gun automatically. They for a station of that size. The Devagas had had not to give the every advantage.
The Commissioner a test next into one of the black protuberances. A small appeared. It again. Out of the biggest opening, near what would have been the of the if it had been a stump, something, long, red and rapidly. It up over the structure's surface p. 324to the point and the of its end into the crater. Black material to from the tip. The moved its end and across the area. Others of the same came out and joined it. The to out.
They away a little and surfaced. Normal space looked clean, beautiful, homelike, shining. None of them Lyad had slept for over twenty hours. "What do you think?" the Commissioner asked.
They what they had in voices. Nobody had a plan. They that one thing they be sure of was that the Vishni Fleet people and any other beings who might have been on the station when it was over to the king were no longer alive. Unless, of course, something had been done to them much more than had to the Aurora's crew. The ship had passed by the biggest opening, like a low wide black mouth, close to make out that it into the original station's interior. The station was open and as Harvest Moon had been the got there.
"Some of those there," the Commissioner said, "had that would any wide open. A of them are big, and a of them are fast. Once we were inside, we'd have no to speak of. If the didn't to us we got inside. Suits won't do it here." He was a gambler, and a doesn't odds.
"What you do with the guns?" Trigger asked.
"Not too much. They're not meant to take a fortress. Scratching around on the surface with them would just mark the thing up. We can that opening by a bit, and once it's widened, I can in the bomb. But it would be just luck if we the one we're after that way. With a dozen we up the station. But we don't have them."
They thoughtfully.
"The part of that," he on, "is that it would be obvious. The Council's right when it about here. Tranest and the Devagas know the thing is in there. If the Federation can't produce it, those have the Council over a barrel. Or we be setting the Hub up for fifty years of among the worlds, in the next hours."
Mantelish and Trigger again. More thoughtfully.
"Nevertheless—" Mantelish suddenly. He himself.
"Well, you're right," the Commissioner said. "That there just can't be loose, that's all! The thing's still only experimenting. We don't know what it's going to wind up with. So I we'll be trying the and the bomb finally, and then see what else we can do.... Now look, we've got—what is it?—nine or ten hours left. The of the boys are sure to come in around then. Or maybe something's p. 326happened we don't know about, and they'll be here in thirty minutes. We can't tell. But I'm in of off now and just a of hours' sleep. Then we'll our together again. Maybe by then somebody has come up with something like an idea. What do you say?"
"Where," Mantelish said, "is the ship going to be while we're sleeping?"
"Subspace," said the Commissioner. He saw their expressions. "Don't worry! I'll put her on a wide and I'll out every on board. I'll also sleep in the chair. But in case somebody here early, we've got to be around to tell them about that space trick."
Trigger hadn't she would be able to sleep, not where they were. But she couldn't out all the way on the bunk.
She up less than an hour later, very uncomfortable. Repulsive had been talking to her.
She sat up and looked around the dark with eyes. After a moment, she got out of the and up the passage toward the and the section.
Holati Tate was in his chair, closed, slowly and evenly. Trigger put out a hand to touch his and then it back. She up for a moment at the station in the screen, to turn slowly as they by it. She noticed p. 327that one of the space they'd planted there had gone out, or else it had been away by a twister's touch. She looked away again, and through the lounge, and up the passage, toward the cabins. She by the two of space at the lock without looking at them. She opened the door to Mantelish's and looked inside. The across the in his clothes, slowly and regularly.
Trigger closed his door again. Lyad might be wakeful, she thought. She the passage and the door to the Ermetyne's cabin. The lights in the were on, but Lyad also there asleep, her and looking.
Trigger put her to her mouth and hard on her for a moment. She at nothing. Then she closed and locked the door, up the passage and into the room. She sat the communicator, up once more at the station in the screen, got up and over to the Commissioner's chair. She there, looking at him. The Commissioner slept on.
Then Repulsive said it again.
"No!" Trigger fiercely. "I won't! I can't! You can't make me do it!"
There was a then, In the stillness, it was very clear that nobody to make her do anything.
And then the just waited.
She a little.
So this was it.
"All right," she said.
The suit's light-beam into the wide, low, black, wet-looking mouth toward her. It was much than she had when looking at it from the ship. Far her, the fire of the single gun which her passage to the station had still about. They weren't to stop suits, and they hadn't come near her. But the looked to stop suits.
They were in in the black mouth like in a skull. Part of the had out over the of the mouth, clinging, crawling, about. Trigger the with the of one hand, a little, then again. She might be in too fast. But she had to past that at the opening.
Then the black mouth wide her. Her left hand pressed the gun handle. Twin ahead, white, the masses, over them. They burned, scattered, exploded, and rolled back, and exploding, in a to meet her.
"Too fast!" Repulsive said anxiously. "Much too fast!"
She it. But she couldn't have herself to do it slowly. The at a p. 329slant into a piled, writhing, of bodies, upward. She over and over, all the way on the controls. She closed her for a moment.
When she opened them again, the a little above black flooring, toward the entrance mouth. A black was less than twenty above her head.
The were there. The suit's light played over the massed, moving ranks: and ones, that the ceiling, and jaws, of motion her couldn't step to into shapes. Some still with her guns' white fire. The were thirty away.
They there. They didn't come any closer.
She the slowly away from the entrance. The ring was closed all about her. But it wasn't tightening.
Repulsive had he do it.
She asked in her mind, "Which way?"
She got a of direction, the a little more and started it forward. The ranks ahead didn't give way, but they down. Those that go down. Some weren't for it. The up against one bulk, and a six-inch looked at her for a moment as she around it. "Eyes for what?" somebody in the of her mind briefly. She into the suit's view screen and saw that the ones who had gone p. 330were up again, mixed with the ones who came after her. Thirty away!
Repulsive was doing it.
So there weren't any guns. If they guns, that would be her job and the suit's. The king should be by now that it had its material. Though it mightn't have been wasted; it might be in the that came after her, and going ahead.
Black ceiling, black to on endlessly. She the moving slowly along. At last the up low ahead, at the point toward which the was gliding. At the point of there to be a narrow passage.
Plasmoid were into it.
The them out one by one, its upon no than itself. But it had power to work with and they didn't, at the moment. Behind the ones it out there were presently of the motion of red worm-shapes up the passage. After a while, they stopped each time the returned and started again as it withdrew, out another body.
Then the over a of red bodies. And there was the sealed end of the passage.
The was still soft. The blazed, into p. 331it, ate it away, their over the suit. The gave way the did. They through and came out into....
She didn't know what they had come out into. It was like a of darkness, as they forward. The light to be dimming. Then they out as if they'd themselves off.
In blackness, she the light and they weren't off.
"Repulsive!" she in her mind.
Repulsive couldn't help with the blackness. She got the of direction. The to be her eyes. She the speed in with sweat, and that was the only way she tell they were still moving forward.
After a while, they against something that had to be a wall, it was so big, though at she wasn't sure it was a wall. They moved along it for a time, then came to the end of it and were moving in the right direction again.
They to be in a passage now, a narrow one. They touched and from time to time. She they were moving downward.
There was a picture in of her. She that she had been it for some time. But it wasn't until this moment that she aware of it.
The was big, and angry. It and screamed, and with foam. p. 332She couldn't see it too clearly, but she had the of mad, and a terrible to and destroy.
But something was it. Something it and firmly, for all its plunging. It once more now, a gross, hugeness, and came to its knees. Then it over on its side.
The suit's on. Trigger her tight shut, by the light that from black all around. Then her the right and the lights. She opened her again and for a long moment at the great mummy-shape one of the black walls.
"Repulsive?" she asked in her mind.
Repulsive didn't answer. The in the black chamber. She didn't having stopped it. She it now slowly. There were eight or nine passages leading out of here, through walls, ceiling, floor.
"Repulsive!" she plaintively.
Silence.
She once more at the king against the wall. It too. And it was as if the two each other out.
She the last of moving and the toward a passage that came in through the ceiling. She it, considering. Far up and in its darkness, a light blazed, vanished, and again. Something was the passage, fast....
Her hand started for the gun handle. Then it another and to the suit's communicator. A voice in around her.
"Trigger, Trigger, Trigger!" it sobbed.
"Ape!" she screamed. "You aren't hurt?"
