believe me or not. Please leave Lieutenant Silver to guard me."

He couldn't refuse. He nodded curtly to Joe Silver, who looked too damn smug for words. So they'd paired off already? So much for his quick dream of marrying a spacegirl....

It had never happened to him before, though, and it was a hard dream to give up, all the more so for its abrupt flowering in a heart that heretofore had held nothing but love for the silence of the spaceways. John Pinkham, rugged, handsome, all a woman could want, had been dedicated to his profession since he was five; and many a wench had found that out to her disappointment. Now ... oh, well. Maybe there wasn't room for space and a girl in his heart, after all. And maybe she wasn't what she seemed.

He led them into the corridor and locked the quarters behind him.

Around the first bend and up the first ramp they found Second Watch Officer Wright. They knew him by his chubby build and his uniform. They couldn't recognize his head, even when they found it three minutes later.

CHAPTER VI

They gathered in Sparks' radio room. That was due to the simple fact that, aside from themselves, only Sparks was alive on this side of the mutiny gates. The other officers were scattered—in the most grisly sense of the word—all over the place.

"Seven of us, if Silver's still alive," said Daley. "Eight with the girl. Why us? He could easily have attacked us in a body." Five of the dead officers had been found in a heap, just-used pistols in their rigid hands. Atomic force was obviously useless against the thing from the asteroid.

Pink said, fighting nausea, "All the senior officers are alive. We can run the Elephant's Child without the eleven who died. Maybe that's why. Maybe we have to be preserved to carry this monster wherever he wants to go."

"Logical," said Jerry. "He'll have to be pretty persuasive, though. I hope he knows that."

Sparks said, "The radio's working. I had an answer from the Cottabus that she's heading this way. Diogenes hasn't replied; she must be further off."

"Evidently he doesn't care if the radio works," said Calico.

"Or else he wants the whole armada assembled," added Daley.

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