Cold air washed over them. Light glinted on the seven-foot synthice slabs stacked floor to ceiling, each casing a contract worker stiff in frozen sleep. 

Narrow-eyed, Boone probed each nook and crevice with his light-rod, then stepped back. "All right. Let's have the next one." 

The ensign slammed shut the hatch. He studied Boone curiously. "Just what are you looking for?" 

Boone shrugged. "Monsters don't come out of nowhere; not really. My bet is that they get aboard our ships at the Titan base--in embryo, maybe, or as a virus. If we can spot one before it's grown to a full-scale nightmare, it may give us a hint as to how to beat them." 

"But they say they're human, sometimes--" 

"Maybe. But no man I know can appear and disappear at will, and so far we're the only humanoid race we've found anywhere in the system. Till I see more proof, I'll put my money on alien life-forms plus optical illusion." 

"Oh." The ensign's brows drew together. He opened the next hatch. 

Another blank. 

It went on like that, section after section. They checked supply storage, power receptors, converters. 

Still nothing. 

In the control room, when they got there, Japetus was already fading from the visiscreen. Hyperion loomed ahead, a bead-like dot hovering in the shadow of the Rings. 

Beyond it, dim and distant, lay Titan. 

Titan, greatest satellite of Saturn, nearly half the size of Earth itself. Titan, that had given Man mekronal, the precious, mysterious catalyst that cut loose the human race from the need for the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere of its homeland. 

Titan, world of lost sphere-ships and phantasmic monsters. 

Bleakly, Boone wondered if he'd ever reach it. 

Or even if he did, would Eileen Rey live to see it with him? What were the odds against a woman struck down by Titan fever? 

Those were questions without answers. 

 Prev. P 11/73 next