“It still is,” said Murchison, “and it didn’t fly exactly-it shot away from us. I’m not yet sure of the mechanics of the process, but apparently the thing produces gases in its intestinal tract which react explosively together, propelling it forward. Used in conjunction with its wings this would help it to escape fast-moving natural enemies like the barnacle. The gases must still have been present when I began work.
“There is a similar species, much smaller,” she went on, “which is native to Earth. We studied the more exotic types of Earth fauna in preparation for the e-t courses. It was called a bombardier beetle and it-”
“Doctor Conway!”
He swung away from the screen and ran into the main compartment. He did not need to be an empath to know that something was seriously wrong.
The team leader of the maintenancemen was waving frantically and Prilicla, encased in its protective globe and supported by gravity nullifiers, was drifting above the man’s head and trembling.
“Increasing awareness, friend Conway,” reported the empath. “Suggesting rapidly returning consciousness. Feelings of fear and confusion.”
Some of the confusion, thought Conway, belongs to me…
The maintenanceman simply pointed.
Instead of the hard coating he had expected to see there was a black, oily, semi-liquid which flowed and rippled and dripped slowly on to the floor plating. As he watched the area where the flame was being applied, the stuff rolled away from one of the barnacles, which twitched and unfolded its wings. The wings flapped, slowly at first, and it began pulling free of the patient, drawing its long tendrils out of the bird until it was completely detached and it went blundering into the air.
“Kill the torches,” said Conway urgently, “but cool it with the air hose. Try to harden that black stuff.”
But the thick, black liquid would not harden. Once initiated by the heat the softening process was self-sustaining. The patient’s neck, no longer supported by solid material, slumped heavily on to the deck followed a few seconds later by the massive wings. The black pool around the patient widened and more and more of the barnacles struggled free to blunder about the compartment on wide, membranous wings, trailing their tendrils behind them like long, fine plumes.
“Back everybody! Take cover, quickly!”
Their patient lay motionless and almost certainly dead, but there was nothing that Conway could do. Neither the maintenancemen nor the medical technicians were protected against those fine, harmless-looking tendrils of the barnacles-only Prilicla in its transparent globe was safe there, and now there seemed to be hundreds of the things filling the air. He knew that he should feel badly about the patient, but somehow he did not. Was it simply delayed reaction or was there another reason?
“Friend Conway,” said Prilicla, bumping him gently with its globe, “I suggest that you take your own advice.”
The thought of fine, barnacle tendrils probing through his clothing, skin and underlying tissues, paralyzing his muscles and scrambling his brain made him run for the side compartment, closely followed by Brenner and Prilicla. The Lieutenant closed the door as soon as the Cinrusskin was inside.
There was a barnacle already there.
For a split second Conway’s mind was like a camera, registering everything as it was in the small room: the face of O’Mara on the communicator screen, as expressionless as a slab of rock with only the eyes showing his concern; Prilicla trembling within its protective globe; the barnacle hovering near the ceiling, its tendrils blowing in a self-generated breeze, and Brenner with one eye closed in a diabolical wink as he pointed his gun-a type which threw explosive pellets-at the hovering barnacle.
There was something wrong.
“Don’t shoot,” said Conway, quietly but firmly, then asked, “Are you afraid, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t normally use this thing,” said Brenner, looking puzzled, “but I can. No, I’m not afraid.”
“And I’m not afraid because you have that gun,” said Conway. “Prilicla is protected and has nothing to fear. So who He indicated the empath’s trembling feelers. “. . . is afraid?”
“It is, friend Conway,” said Prilicla, indicating the barnacle. “It is afraid and confused and intensely curious.
Conway nodded. He could see Prilicla beginning to react to his intense relief. He said, “Nudge it outside, Prilicla, when the Lieutenant opens the door-just in case of accidents. But gently.”