Weary, tight-lipped, he turned from the screen. "Nothing here. Let's try the crew quarters." 

"Good enough." Once again, the ensign fell in beside him. 

Overhead, the alarm bell clanged. 

Boone went rigid; spun about as the com-box crackled, raw and ragged: "Top level calling! There's something in "A" passage--something awful! Get the biologist--Oh, my God--!" 

A scream: the scream of a soul in torment. 

The com-box went dead. 

The ensign at his heels, Boone raced for the lift-shaft. 

The top level, "A" passage. The lights at the far end were out. 

Boone snatched the ensign's nerve-gun. Cat-footed, he moved forward. 

Ahead, something shifted in the shadows. He became aware of a vague, phosphorescent glow. 

A whisper of sound. A floundering wallow of movement. 

Raw-nerved, Boone flicked on his light-rod. 

Its beam sprayed out across a creature like nothing ever seen before in earth or heaven. A bulbous thing, a nightmare of pseudopodal horror. 

But before he could fire, it began to change. 

First it drew together, a bubbling mass like green calf-slobber shot with blood. A rank stench of musty death curled to him from it. 

Then, while he watched, a shape began to rise out of the slime; a shape-- 

He caught his breath. His blood froze. 

It was a woman! 

Now she stood erect and naked, shrouded from the hips down in the slime-mass. Her hands caressed her high, proud breasts. She laughed and stretched her arms out toward Boone.In spite of himself, he took a dragging step forward. Then another, and another. As from afar, the ensign's shout dinned in his ears. He half turned. As one, woman and slime-mass lunged towards him. And now, incredibly, Boone saw that there were 

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