fangs beneath the laughing lips; that, like Medusa, the woman was crowned not with rippling hair, but writhing serpents. He screamed as the voice on the com-box had screamed; blazed point-blank at the naked belly with his nerve-gun. The soft flesh shimmered, darkened. Great scales took form. The smooth body distorted into the plated, cartilaginous torso of a dragon. Boone hurled himself aside as its great horned head lanced forward. With all his might, he threw the nerve-gun into the yawning mouth. The mighty jaws clamped down. The metal crumpled. Behind Boone, thunder crashed in the passage. A fire-bolt from a blaster smashed into the monster. Dragon and slime-mass alike exploded into spattering fragments. Half-stunned, Boone felt the ensign's fingers dig into his shoulders and drag him back towards the lift-shaft. But he shook them off. "No. I've got to see--" Even as he spoke, he knew that the words were coming out an incoherent mumble. He staggered back anyhow ... clawed amid the smoke and debris. His hands came up green and stinking with viscous slime. Numbly, he stared down at them. "Then--it was real--no optical illusion--" "Real? Of course it was real!" This from the half-hysterical ensign. "I saw it all--the woman, the dragon! If I'd been two seconds later with the blaster, it would have got you!" Boone slumped against the wall. "That thing--" 

A muffled crash of sound from the lift-shaft cut in on him. Red lights flashed on the call-board. "Third level--!" The ensign's voice rang raw with tension. "Come on!" Boone lunged for the lift. Together they plummeted downward ... stumbled out into a murky, smoke-eddying third level passage. More slime, purple this time, and a man with a blaster. Only he hadn't fired quite quick enough. He sprawled dead on the floor-plates, his chest torn wide open as if by talons. Red lights were flashing all over the call-board now. Alarm bells jangled wildly. The captain's voice rasped from the com-box: "All hands! Make for your closest emergency carrier and stand by to abandon ship! Central Control will blow all carriers clear in three minutes! Repeat, Central Control will blow all carriers clear in three minutes, so get aboard fast! All hands...." Stiff-lipped, Boone stared up at the call-board. "Seven levels signalling! It's an attack in force, then...." The ensign clutched his arm. "Let's go! There's a carrier at the end of the passage!" Boone started to turn, then stopped short. "Eileen--!" "What?" "The other biologist--the girl with Titan fever." "Let the medmen worry about her! They'll take her off if she's not too sick to move!" "No!" Spasmodically, Boone jerked free. "We can't leave her!" "But there's no time!" "I can't help that." Boone shoved the other away. "You go ahead...." The 

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