The captain hesitated. To leave the control room unguarded for a considerable length of time certainly was not desirable. On the other hand, the Chaladoor looked as open and placid at the moment as one could wish. No stars, dust clouds, planetary bodies, or asteroid flows which might provide ambush points lay along the immediate course stretch ahead; the detectors had remained immobile for hours…
It shouldn’t, he pointed out to the others, take them an hour to conduct a search of the ship which would be adequate for the purpose. There were few hiding places for a creature of the size described by Miss do Eldel. Further, if the thing was aggressive, there was no reason to expect it would remain hidden. He’d turn on the ship’s automatic alarm system now which would blast a warning over every intercom speaker on board if suspicious objects came within detector range. They’d keep together, move as a group through each compartment of the ship in turn. That could be done in less than twenty minutes. If they encountered nothing, they’d assume there were no lurking monsters here to be feared.
“After all,” he concluded, “this creature, whatever it was, may have come aboard, looked about, and simply left again shortly after Miss do Eldel saw it…”
Nobody appeared really satisfied with this solution, but they set off from the control section a few minutes later. The Venture’s interior gradually came ablaze with lights as the search party went through the passenger area first, worked on to the back of the ship and the storage, finally checked out the lower deck. But no ungainly beast was flushed to view; nor could they find the slightest traces such a creature might have left, even in the passage where Hulik declared she had seen it. Hulik remained unconvinced.
“What the rest of you do is your own affair!” she stated. “But I intend to go on no-sleep for the next several ship-days and remain in my stateroom with the door locked. Vezzarn can bring me my meals. If nothing happens in that time, I shall be satisfied the thing is no longer on board. Meanwhile I advise all of you to take what precautions you can…”
The captain felt Hulik was not being too realistic about the situation. A creature capable of transferring itself through the hull of an armored trader into the interior of the ship presumably would also be capable of transferring itself into any stateroom it selected. Perhaps Hulik simply did not want to admit that to herself. At any rate, no one mentioned the possibility.
As he sat at the control desk near the end of his next watch, Goth whispered suddenly from behind his shoulder, “Captain!”
He started. These had been rather unsettling days in one way and another, and he hadn’t heard her come up. He half turned. “Yes?”
“Got any of the intercoms on?” her whisper inquired. She sounded excited about something.
“No. What do—” He checked abruptly. He’d swung all the way around in the chair to look at her.
And nobody was standing there.
“Goth!” he said loudly, startled.
“Huh?” inquired the voice. It seemed to come out of thin air not three feet from him. “Oh!” A giggle. “Forgot! I — hey, watch it!”
He’d reached out towards the voice without thinking, touched something. Then Goth suddenly stood there, two feet farther away, rubbing her forehead and frowning.
“Near put out my eye with your thumb!” she announced indignantly.
“But what… since when—”
“Oh, no-shape! Special kind of shape-change, that’s all. just learned it this sleep period so I forgot to switch off when I came in. I was…” She put her hands on her hips. “Captain, I found out where that thing Hulik saw is hiding!”
“Huh?” The captain came out of the chair, hand darting to the desk drawer where he kept the gun. “It is on the ship?”
Goth nodded, eyes gleaming. “In Yango’s cabin!”
“Great Patham! Was Yango—”
“Don’t worry about him. He was in there with it just now. Talking to it. I was listening at the door.” Goth glanced down at herself, patted her flanks. “No-shape’s pretty handy once you get used to not seeing you around anywhere!”
“Now wait,” said the captain helplessly. “Did you just say Yango was talking to the creature?”
“And it to Yango,” Goth nodded. “Snarly sort of thing! No kind of talk I know. Yango knows it, though.”
He stared at her. “Goth, you’re sure he has that animal in his stateroom with him?”
“Well, sure I’m sure! He opened the door a crack once to look out.” Goth put her hands out on either side of her. “I was that far from him.”
“That was dangerous! The creature might have caught your scent.”
“No-shape, no-sound, no-scent!” Goth said complacently. “Had them all going, Captain. I wasn’t there. Got a look through the door at a bit of the thing. Big, and brown fur. Saw part of a leg, too. Odd sort of leg—”
“Odd?”
“Kind of like a bug’s leg. Got that shaggy fur all over it, though. Couldn’t really see much.” She looked at him. “What are we going to do?”
“If Laes Yango’s talking to it, he’s got some kind of control over it. We’d better handle this by ourselves and right now, while we know the thing’s still in the stateroom.”
“It won’t go out by the door for a while,” Goth said.
“Why not?”
“Doorlock won’t turn till we get there. Pulled a bit of steel inside it. So it’s stuck.”
“Very good!” When Laes Yango’s shipment of hyperelectronic equipment had been brought on board, he’d insisted on having one very large crate of particularly valuable items placed in his stateroom instead of the storage. “Remember that big box he has in there.?” the captain asked.
Goth looked dubious. “Don’t think it’s big enough for that thing to climb into!”
“Something with a body as large as that of a horse’s — no, I guess not. It was just a thought.” He pocketed the gun. “Let’s go find out what it is and what Yango thinks he’s doing with it.” He looked down at her. “This might get rough. We’ll sort of play it by ear.”
Goth nodded, grinned briefly.
“And I go no-shape, eh” ”
“Plus the rest of it,” said the captain. “But don’t do anything to make Laes Yango think he’s arguing with a witch — unless it looks absolutely necessary.”
“Saving that up.” Goth nodded.
“Exactly. We might still have to pull a few real surprises of our own before this trip’s over. You’ll clear the doorlock as soon as we get there—”
“Right,” said Goth and vanished. He kept his ears cocked for any indication of her presence on the way to Laes Yango’s stateroom, but caught nothing. The no sound effect seemed as complete as the visual blankout. As he came quietly up to the door, her fingers gave the side of his hand a quick ghostly squeeze and were gone.
He stood listening, ear close to the panel. He heard no voice sounds, but there were other faint sounds. Footsteps crossed the stateroom twice from different directions — brisk human footsteps, not some animal tread. Yango was moving about. Then came a moderately heavy thump, a metallic clank. After a few moments, two more thumps… Then everything remained still.
The captain waited a minute, activated the door speaker.
He’d expected either a dead silence or some indication of startled, stealthy activity from the stateroom after the buzzer sounded. Instead, Laes Yango’s voice inquired calmly, “Yes? Who is it?”