Deep Space

Chapter 3

"Steve Perron picked his way through the debris of the wrecked laboratory. He held his ray gun at the ready. It was clear that someone had stopped at nothing in their search for the cultures. The incubator had been smashed. The flasks had gone. Someone had got what they came for. Someone, or something. The door on the far side was wrenched from its frame. What ever had done this had used considerable force. Steve kept his finger on the trigger of the ray gun as he edged through the gap where the door had been.

As he cleared the door way he saw Jocelyn's shoe, the heel still jammed in the walkway. He knew now that there was more than a wrecked laboratory to worry about. He found the professor moments later still sprawled on the walkway. Perron knew at once he was dealing with a sline beast attack. He should have guessed from the stench of sulphur in the lab but the slumped form of the scientist confirmed it.

Jocelyn lay on her back, eyes wide open, mouth wide open, her body rigid with terror. Perron crouched beside her. He could tell that she was still breathing but Perron knew there would be no chance of reviving her yet – that would take many days, if they could succeed at all. Her mouth was ringed with the characteristic scaly callus left behind by a sline beast's sucker kiss - she would have almost choked on the fleshy gag. Two small burns on Jocelyn's forehead showed where the sline beast's probes had attached themselves.

The beast's motive in its attack was clear - Peabody's lab coat was torn open and her blouse ripped; her skirt was torn from hem to hip, laying bare her legs. Almost every inch of her flesh was covered with v-shaped peck marks from the beast's beak, each drawing a small bead of blood at the tip of the v; behind each peck, a purple mark from the tongue. There was nothing that Steve could do for her, she needed medical attention. All he could do was to summon a crash team, warning them to be on the look out for the beast.

Perron could see where the beast had gone - a trail of silver encrustation tracked along an adjoining gangway. He followed it towards the science bay's air lock. There he found the second victim.

He didn't recognise her but the name tag on the tattered remains of her Space Corps tunic told him it was Technical Officer Karen Shaw – she must have been working at the air lock when the beast attacked.

A red wheal up one side of her head showed that the creature had struck out from a distance with a tentacle, knocking her unconscious with a single whip like blow. From what Perron knew of sline beasts this would have been calculated just to render its victim helpless. He could imagine the creature winding its tentacles around the young officer's body. Sucker calluses spiralling up her legs and around her body showed how it had done this. Then it would have attached its tendrils to her forehead – Shaw bore the same burn marks as Peabody had - and waited until she recovered consciousness, delighting in its victim's terror as she awoke.

Perron could only imagine what it must have been like for the young girl, waking to feel her body locked in the rigid embrace of the sline beast's tentacles, seeing the horrific yellow eye and the creature's beak, and then, worst of all, seeing inside the creature's alien mind, every carnal lust revealed

Shaw's lips were surrounded by the same callus that showed she had been gagged just as Peabody was. The choking effect of the gagging flesh would have been made worse by the way in which the creature would have responded to every whimper and groan. Each muffled cry would have served only to heighten its arousal as Shaw would have realised from her horrific insight into the sline beast's mind. It was no surprise that her mouth gaped and eyes stared wide in terror just as those of the scientist had.

The beast had evidently taken its time, confident that it had surprised both its victims and aroused no attention. It appeared to have been fascinated by Shaw's body. Her tunic had been shredded by the creature's beak. Perron could see how the sleeves of her tunic had burst at the seams as tentacles had pushed their way up them. Her underwear had been stripped away as well. If he had thought about it, Perron might have appreciated the sline beast's enthusiasm for its victim but he was more concerned to help her and to track down the attacker.

Shaw's torso was covered with tiny sucker calluses, obviously the creature had probed every corner of her body with the very tips of its tentacles. Her breasts and belly were blemished by beak and tongue marks, as were her neck and thighs.

But in time the beast had finished. Discarding the girl beside the airlock door, it had left the base - the trail of silver slime showed its path into the airlock and from there it would have gone out into the airless expanse of the dead planet beyond.

Steve Perron put in another call for a medical team to attend to Shaw but now the problems really started. How had the dammed thing got into the science bay in the first place?....."

Garan Duufrig was distracted again. The amber lamp had turned red and was flashing more urgently than before. He flipped the magazine away impatiently, leaving it floating in zero-g behind him. He pressed the reset button a few times and then tried ignoring it for a while. The lamp carried on flashing. He'd have to do something about it and that meant he wouldn't be spending much time thinking about the delights of a tentacular embrace with Technical Officer Shaw.

He hit the intercom button on the panel. A view screen showing the warty face of the helmsman flickered into life. "Navigation Station," Duufrig announced, "I've got a mayday from the planet surface."