He hurried to the white ball and picked it up. It was about the size of a large melon, very regular in shape, and not at all what he would have expected a meteor to be. Judging by the ease with which he was able to move it, he judged it to have the density of wood rather than stone, and its pale rind-like surface made him think of a hard-shelled fruit. One side seemed partly decomposed and was friable under the pressure of his hands.
Very odd, Rachad thought. He decided to give the object closer inspection. He tucked it under his arm, passed through the airshed, and made his way to the mess deck.
He now messed with the rest of the crew, having been unceremoniously booted out of the sternhouse by Zhorga once the men seemed more settled. Few of them were friendly toward him, however, and he met only hostile glances as he walked in, set down the ball on his bunk, and unscrewed his helmet.
The stench of the crew quarters invaded his nostrils, but within seconds he ceased to notice the familiar thick odor. He unfastened the suit’s toggles and pulled apart the self-sealing inner lining, ducking his head through the brass ring and pulling the suit down over his shoulders. He withdrew his arms from the sleeves and picked up the ball with his bare hands. It was as cold as ice—colder. It seemed to suck the heat from him. He dropped it back on the bunk, his fingers numb.
Then he became aware of Boogle standing over him. The sailor spoke in a hoarse whisper. “What you got there, boy?”
“It dropped on the deck,” Rachad said, blowing on his aching fingers.
“So that was it… we heard the thump…” For once Boogle’s bulging eyes were fixed in concentration as he leaned closer to the pallidly shining ball. Then, with a hysterical shriek, he staggered back.
“Oh God! Look at this, mates!” he called out breathlessly. “He’s copped a space dragon’s egg!”
Rachad blinked, and gave a nervous laugh. “Nonsense!” he declared. “Space dragons don’t exist. This is a piece of rock, that’s all, that probably drifted in from the Girdle of Demeter.”
He fell silent, uncomfortably aware of the crowd that rapidly surrounded him in answer to Boogle’s cries. He caught a whiff of superstitious panic.
Boogle pointed with a trembling finger. “Don’t you recognize it, any of you?” he hooted. “A space dragon’s egg, that’s what it is!”
“It’s a dragon’s egg, all right,” another voice said hotly. “I saw one in Indie, once—de-animated.”
“Well this one won’t be!” Boogle snapped back excitedly. “Our little Captain’s pet has brought a dragon into the ship, that’s what he’s done! And we’re all done for!”
“Get rid of it!”
Boogle’s last words had ended on a wail, and echoing wails answered them. The panic mounted. Men went for spacesuits. Some so much forgot themselves as to dash for the companionway unprotected.
“All right!” Rachad yelled in exasperation. “I’ll get rid of it!”
He picked up the ball, intending for some reason to transfer it to the table before suiting up and taking it back topside. The ball was no longer cold; in fact it seemed improperly warm, and in the next moment or two a network of fine cracks appeared on its surface, which then broke open. A gray tentacle, ending in a pincer which clicked audibly, emerged and waved in the air.
With an involuntary cry of horror Rachad dropped the space egg. Around him were screams and a general rush.
“Don’t be fools!” he shouted, nonplussed. “A thing that size can’t hurt you.”
But he was proved wrong for the second time. The monster remained small only for as long as it took it to emerge from the egg. It seemingly had no central body. It was a matted mass of tentacles, of lumps and nodes. Each tentacle was either pronged, pincered or bladed, and many of them were also barbed and suckered.
Defying any laws of matter Rachad could envisage, it swelled and grew, the tentacles thickening, growing stronger, lashing about them and seizing the legs of the table, which it shook in an impressive show of strength.
And it continued to grow, with lightning speed. Later Rachad remembered little of the next few minutes. In fact, he was among the first to be suited and to go clattering along the short corridor to the companionway. Others attempted to pull their suits on as they ran, while some had left their helmets behind and, too afraid to go back for them, cowered in the corridor together with those lacking suits at all, unable to go either way.
Rachad, however, joined the press at the airshed (which was so hastily operated that both doors were momentarily levered open at the same time, only to be slammed shut again, fail-safe fashion, by the internal air pressure). The crew streamed out onto the deck, some climbing the ratlines, others huddling together behind whatever cover they could find.
Taking himself to the port rail, Rachad looked out again. The white flecks were more easily seen now. They were closer. And even as he looked, one burst into life!
At first it was only a burgeoning patch, writhing and slowly expanding. But then it seemed to explode into a fiery smoke which billowed and spread and roiled, towering over the Wandering Queen, until finally it took on definite shape and became solid.
And now it stood revealed as a giant version of the tentacled creature on the mess-deck—a monster huge enough to crush the ship to matchwood!
It seemed aware of the passing galleon, for it came onward, propelling itself by some means unknown, blotting out space and becoming even more vast as it approached, its tentacles jerking this way and that in a frantic dance as it reached for its prey.
Rachad was stupefied. The monster, he guessed, was three or four times the size of the ship, and any one of its pincers could have snipped a mast easily. In color it was predominantly gray, but the skin had an oily sheen which seemed to glow with hundreds of transient hues.
While Rachad was frozen at the rail, his shipmates clung to one another or else fell to their knees, sobbing uncontrollably inside their suits. In no time at all the space monster was upon them, expanding about them, the stars glimmering through its reticulated body. Its tentacles reached out to embrace the ship—
Then there was a flash, a flare, an explosion of light. The galleon rocked, tipped, began to spin.
And it was over. The ship restabilized, her attitude corrected at once by the ether’s constant action. Of the space monster, Rachad’s dazzled eyes could see nothing.
He passed a hand over his faceplate, forgetting for a moment that he could not rub his eyes. How could such a huge beast disappear so completely? How, indeed, could it grow so incredibly swiftly in the first place?
He blinked hard, and when his vision cleared and he looked about him, he discovered, at least, what had caused the explosion.
The space monster had been demolished by a single shot from one of the bombards. Bosun Clabert stood on the foredeck, his hand resting on the weapon, which somehow he had lifted onto its firing platform. His other hand held a lighted taper, of the kind that would burn even in the void.
Even he must have been surprised by the result of his action. Rachad turned away, staring into space. The distant milky glints, he noticed, were still there, sweeping slowly by.
After a while of apprehensive waiting those on deck began to wonder why the ship had not yet been burst asunder by the monster left swelling down below. There was conferring with Captain Zhorga under the air balloon. He decided instantly to investigate.
Since most were loath to join the expedition between-decks, Rachad found it easy to attach himself to the party. Zhorga and Clabert went first, ready with pistols. The others carried sabers, alert to chop at tentacles.
There was no need. The monster had grown to the size of a pony, and then died. Its tentacles were scattered forlornly about the mess-deck, and were already beginning to corrode and shrivel, looking like dead wood.