The sparkling fog is affecting the others, too. They've all quieted
down and they slip along the bulkheads as though they were being
followed. Only Murdo blusters back. He says, what the hell? We
expected something different, didn't we? Well, this is sure different
enough, isn't it?
I'd turn back but I don't know how. I have nothing to go by. The
instruments make no sense.
I _am_ going crazy. I looked out the port just now and saw a water
buffalo. It was standing right out there in space with its head down
looking at the ship! I had a light turned on it and suddenly it
charged and hit the port headon. It bounced off and went staggering
away and disappeared.
But it left a big white scratch on the quartz outside. At least I
think it did. Wait. I'll look again. Yes. A big white scratch. It's
still there. So how can I be mad? Maybe it's a new kind of madness....
* * * * *
Some of the sparkling fog has penetrated the ship. Turn out the light
and you can see it in the cabin. Not as thick as out in the void but
thick enough to see; thick enough to stand there and ask you to talk
to it.
Murdo is ready to turn back. He came to the control room and said, "I
saw it out there."
"You saw what?"
His face was pale and his hands twitched. "A boa-constrictor. Exactly
like the one I killed four years ago on the Amazon. It came to the
port and looked in at me."
"It must be your imagination."
"No. It was there. Let's turn back. Get out of this."
"I wish we could."
"You mean--?"
"I don't know where back is. We might just as well go as we are.
Changing course doesn't help if you don't know your directions. Our
only hope is to drive on out of this cloud. If I turned I might go
right back into it."
"Then one direction is as good as another?"
"That's right."
His mind wandered as he turned away. "I didn't know it would be like
this," he muttered. "I thought it would be fun--sport. I thought we'd
put on space suits and go out and make a kill. I thought--"
"The space suits are ready. Do you want to try it?"
He shuddered, his hanging jowls almost flapping. "You couldn't drag me out
there."
The stuff is getting thicker in the ship.
Jane came into my cabin. She had an odd look on her face. She said,
"There's a big tiger in the companionway."
I got up from my bunk and suddenly she seemed to realize what she'd
said. She repeated it. Then she fell down in a faint. I put her in my
bunk and looked out into the companionway. The sparkling fog glittered
but there was no tiger.
When she came to, she didn't seem to know where she was. Then she
smiled. "I must have been drinking too much," she said. Then she
realized where she was. "But look where it got me? Into your bunk."
"Do you feel all right now?"
"I guess so. I can get up now. I _do_ have to get up, don't I?"
"I think you'd better."
After she left I did some thinking. The sparkling haze had been
outside the ship and I'd seen a water buffalo through the port. Murdo
had seen a boa-constrictor. Then the haze penetrated the hull and got
inside the ship. And Jane had seen a tiger in the companionway.
Were they phantoms? Was Jane's tiger a tiger of the mind? Murdo swore
his snake had been real and my buffalo left a mark on the port. I sat
there trying to think. With the sparkling fog drifting around me. It
seemed to be trying to tell me something.
Things grow worse. Today, at mess, Murdo was holding forth about a
Plutonian ice bear he'd killed. I think he was trying to cover the
gloom that has settled over us. Anyhow, he'd just got to the point
where the bear was charging down on him when we heard the roar of
thunder from outside. Maybe I'd better repeat that for the record. _We
heard a roaring through the walls of the space ship. In the void._
Nothing goes through the walls of a space ship in the void but we all
heard it and jumped to the port. And we all saw it.
An ice bear as big as ten of the largest that ever lived in the
Plutonian ice flows. A huge ravening beast that rushed through the
void at the ship and tried to tear the port out of its metal seat with
teeth as big as the height of a man.
The women fell back, screaming. Keebler, in his usual stupor stared
blankly as though not realizing what was going on. Kelvey looked to
Murdo for guidance. When none came he crouched behind a chair.
Murdo fell back slowly, step by step as though his eyes were fastened
to the quartz and it was hard to pull away. I don't remember what I
did. Murdo was saying "My God--my God--my God," as though chanting a
ritual. He tore his eyes from the sight and looked at me.
"You wanted big game, buster," I croaked. "There it is."
"But it can't be real. It _can't_!"
"Maybe not, but if that port gives I'll bet it won't be from vacuum
pressure."
"Vacuum draws. It doesn't press," Kelvey babbled inanely, but nobody
paid any attention to him.
The beast made two more charges on the ship, then drew back screaming
in rage from a snapped tooth. And all around us, there in the ship,
the sparkling fog glittered and tried to talk.
Two hours. The beast still rages in the void outside our ship.
* * * * *
Jane is dead. She was horribly mangled. I put her in her bunk and laid
a blanket over her and now the blanket is soaked in her blood.
No one could have helped her. It happened in the lounge. She was in
there alone. I was in the control room. I don't know where the rest
were.
I was working uselessly with the controls when I heard a terrible
scream mixed with a hideous snarling. I ran into the companionway and
stared toward the lounge. Murdo appeared from somewhere and we were
shouldering each other on the companion ladder. Murdo fell heavily.
Then we were both looking into the lounge.
It was too late to help Jane. We saw her there, still and bloody. A
shiny black leopard was crouching gory-mouthed over her body with its
paws on her breast. It's eyes were black magnets, holding mine.