Johnny screamed as he was lifted straight into the air by the skin of his shoulder. He hung there in Norbert's grip, screaming, struggling to break free. Norbert's inner jaws, impelled with all the energy of his powerful crysteel-mesh throat muscles, drove through Johnny's chest, splitting him like a side of beef. Norbert dropped the red dripping thing to the deck and turned, ready for the next one.

Harris, seeing the way things were going as he ran to attack Norbert, tried to pull up in midstride. Too late. Norbert swung around like a grotesque yet graceful ballet dancer and struck out with one of his taloned feet. The blow landed high on Harris's sternum. Norbert's talons made an audible hissing sound as they cut through the air, driven by the force of his heavy shoulder muscles. The talons ripped Harris apart from the left shoulder blade to his right hipbone. Harris opened his mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. His lungs had been punctured in the blow. He made an ugly squishing sound as he fell to the deck.

The rest of the crew took this in and froze in position. They had never seen anything move as fast as Norbert, when he was aroused.

Norbert halted, looking around. He seemed about to attack again. Just in time, Stan shouted out the shutdown order: “Priority override! Code Myrmidon!”

Norbert froze in position, awaiting further orders.

It was a moment of balanced possibilities. The crew seemed on the verge of panic, ready to run out of the control room screaming.

Captain Hoban gulped hard and felt nausea at the back of his throat, but he knew he had to control the men. He got hold of himself and said coldly, “Two of you there, get pails and mops and clean up that mess. See what comes of not following orders? This didn't have to happen. Now get a move on….”

There was an awkward, sullen moment, and then the crew obeyed. And the ship Dolomite hurtled on toward its rendezvous with AR-32.

27

Subdued, the crew returned to their quarters. The men seemed dazed, unsure of what to think. All of them except Min Dwin, the Laotian hill woman. She went directly to her bunk and pulled out her spacebag. From it she took out a long object in a flat leather sheath. She pulled it free. It was a machete, sharpened to a razor edge.

Badger said, “What are you up to, Min?”

“Those bastards killed Johnny,” Min said. “I'm going to get me some officer meat”

“With that? They'll cut you down before you get within ten feet of them.”

“Maybe I can pick up a gun. One of those that fires the softslugs. I'd like to see that weird doctor with the glasses take one in the gut.” She started toward the passageway leading back to the main ship's stations.

“Hold on a minute, Min,” Badger said.

She stopped and turned. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Johnny was your man, huh?”

“Yeah. It was a recent thing. Now it's over. What about it?”

“Come over here and sit down,” Badger said. Reluctantly she complied, sitting on a locker with the machete balanced on her knees.

“Min, I understand you're plenty pissed off. I am, too. I wasn't all that fond of Steroid Johnny, or his friend Harris, but I wouldn't have wanted what happened to them.”

“Right. So?”

“So this. It was Johnny's own fault, Min.”

“It would never have happened if that professor guy hadn't brought that thing along.”

“Sure. That thing he calls Norbert is obviously dangerous. But so what? We work around dangerous stuff all the time. That's what we volunteered for.”

“I know. But Johnny —“

“Johnny disobeyed a direct order. He thought he knew better. I hate to say it, Min, but him and Harris got what they deserved.”

“I never thought I'd hear you saying this, Red,” Min said. “Who's side you on, anyhow? You suddenly turned into a company man?”

“I'm just telling it like it is,” Badger said. “It's like somebody told Johnny not to stick his hand into a buzz saw, and he went and did it anyway. Who would you kill then?”

Min twisted her fingers together in an agony of indecision. “I don't know, Red. It doesn't seem right just to leave it.”

“You're right about that,” Badger said. “But now's not the time to do anything about it. You go walking out of here with that machete, they'll put you down fast and ask questions later.”

“Aren't we going to do anything?”

“Sure we are. But not now.”

“When, then?”

“Look,” Badger said, “don't push it with me. I know you're sad over Johnny. You'll get over it soon and find someone else. As for what we're going to do, we're going to wait and see how things develop. When we make a move — if we do — they won't be expecting it. Is that fair enough?”

“Yeah,” Min said. “I guess it is. You got any drugs on you, Red?”

“Walter here takes care of my supply. What have you got, Glint?”

Glint had a first-rate stock of assorted chemicals. He was the crew's supplier and he always had plenty to sell.

“Try this one,” he said, taking a pillbox out of his spacebag and shaking out two into his hand. “This'll make you forget Johnny ever existed. If you like them, I'll make you a good price for a hundred. But these two are on the house.”

“Thanks, Walter,” she said.

“Hey, what are friends for?” said Walter Glint.

28

Gill sat at the control board, his fingers playing sensitively over the buttons. A telltale above his head gave a readout on orbit and showed a digital display of gravity vectors. Another telltale showed electromagnetic activity. AR-32, the planet itself, had come up rapidly and now filled most of another larger screen.

The planet was colored a dusty yellow and gray, with occasional black and purple markings indicating barren mountain ranges. Large livid splotches showed dead seabeds. A faint shadow darkened the upper right hand corner of the screen; it was cast by Ingo, second largest moon of AR-32, made of nearly seventy-percent telluric iron.

While Gill set up the orbiting procedure, Captain Hoban slid into a control chair beside him and ran up a readout on electrical and solar phenomena on the planet's surface. His sad face creased into a puzzled frown.

“I'm getting some strange signals,” he told Stan.

“Where are they coming from?”

“That's what's strange. I can't get a fix. They keep on shifting.”

“Can you derive any information as to their production?” Stan asked.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Is someone making these signals, or are they natural phenomena?”

“At this stage I can't tell,” Hoban said. “We have no definite data on any other ships in the area.”

“There's a lot of solar debris around, though,” Stan said. “No telling yet what it might be.”

Gill punched up another set of numbers. “The weather down there on the surface is even worse than you expected, Dr. Myakovsky.”

Julie came into the control room. She had already changed into a plasteel landing outfit The cobalt-blue plastic form-fitting clothing with its orange flashes looked stunning on her. Stan's heart was in his mouth as he watched her.

“Are we ready to go down?” Julie asked.

Captain Hoban said, “I wouldn't recommend it, Miss Lish. The surface phenomena are worse than we were led to believe. Perhaps if we give the weather time to settle down a little …”

Julie shook her head impatiently. “There's no time for that. If our worst peril is from the weather, Captain, we're doing very well indeed!”

“I suppose that's true,” Hoban said. He turned to Gill. “Are you ready to accompany the party, Gill?”

“I am, of course, ready,” the synthetic man said. “I have taken the liberty of asking for volunteers for this. There are five of them, and they are waiting for your orders.”

He stood up from the control panel. He was tall, and even with his mismatched features, he was good-looking. If he had been a true man, you would have said there was something haunted about his expression. Since he was only a synthetic, you had to figure there'd been something amiss with his facial mold.