CHAPTER VIBoone died a thousand times in that one moment. Then, shouting a warning to the four remaining crewmen, he caught up an axe from the rack of emergency equipment and crept towards converter-room and monster.
The thing had withdrawn now, dragging the dead man’s body with it—for what awful purpose Boone could not even guess.
Yet the question that lay implicit in the thought made him pause just short of the door for the fraction of a second. It turned out to be a pause that saved his life.
For in that same instant a claw-hand snaked back through the hatchway. Filth-encrusted nails scraped along his arm, endeavoring to seize him.
Boone jerked back with a hoarse, involuntary oath. Wildly, he swung the axe.
The keen blade bit into the monster’s extended arm. A muddy sludge of blood
