Turning, he burned off a couple of deposits clinging to the lower right-hand curve of the duct. That’s when he heard the noise. Frowning, he shut off the laser and flicked on the safety as he turned to look behind him. He’d about decided that his imagination was starting to get to him when he heard it again-a kind of wet, lapping sound.

There was a slightly larger recess a few meters down the duct, a sometime storage area for supplies and tools. It should be empty now, cleaned out, the supplies stocked elsewhere and the tools salvaged by the departing maintenance personnel. But the gurgling noise grew louder the nearer he crept.

He had to bend to see inside. Wishing he had a light, he squinted in the reflected glow from the duct. There was something moving, an indistinct bulk in the darkness. The creature that had shed its skin? If so and he could bring it out alive he was sure to receive an official Company commendation. Maybe his unanticipated contribution to the moribund state of Fiorinan science would be worth a couple of months off his sentence.

His eyes grew accustomed to the weak illumination. He could see it more clearly now, make out a head on a neck. It sensed his presence and turned toward him.

He froze, unable to move. His eyes widened.

Liquid emerged suddenly in a tight, concentrated stream from the unformed monster’s mouth, striking the paralyzed 73

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prisoner square in the face. Gas hissed as flesh melted on contact with the highly caustic fluid. Murphy stumbled backward, screaming and clawing at his disintegrating face.

Smoke pouring through his clutching fingers, he staggered away from the recess, bouncing off first one wall then the other. He had no thought of where he was going, or where he was. He thought of nothing save the pain. He did not think of the fan.

When he stumbled into the huge blades they shredded him instantly, sending blood and ragged chunks of flesh splattering against the metalwork of the duct. It would have taken some time for his erstwhile friends to have found him if his skull hadn’t been caught just right between one blade and the casing. Fouled, the safeties took over and shut down the mechanism. The motor stopped and the blades ground to a halt. Down the main corridor a previously quiet fan automatically picked up the slack.

Then it was quiet again in the side shaft except for the distant, barely audible noise which emerged from the old storage recess, a perverse mewling hiss there was no longer anyone present to overhear.

Clemens’s quarters were luxurious compared to those of the other prisoners. He had more space and, as the facility’s medical technician, access to certain amenities denied his fellow Fiorinans. But the room was comfortable only by comparison. It would not have passed muster on the most isolated outpost on Earth.