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The poison of these creatures is not dangerous to healthy individuals. The life of a victim of a Crystal Deceiver assault can be saved by medical treatment if the creature has not devoured an irreparable quantity of the victim’s body mass.

No. Grinder shook his head. The box had said Glass Prowler. Surely the corporation that had captured the insect for resale would not have made a mistake and boxed up a Crystal Deceiver instead.

Rattled, he switched off the terminal, then the overhead light, and returned to bed.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

He switched the light back on. This time, the noise had come from the bulkhead beside his bed.

He took a close look at the wall. Were there any gaps in the bulkhead, any apertures through which a medium-sized insect could enter?

Yes. Power access ports. Slight gaps in durasteel panel welds. Above, poor fits around lighting fixtures. Night Caller was not a new ship; there would inevitably be ways for the thing to get in.

Ton Phanan answered on Grinder’s third knock, sliding open the panel to his quarters and glaring with his one eye. “What?”

“Do you still have that spray sealant from Storinal?” Grinder asked.

“I see you remembered to wrap a towel around yourself this time.”

“Never mind that. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Can I have it?”

“You have a middle-of-the-night plastic sealant emergency?”

“That’s right.”

Phanan sighed. “All right. Hold on.” He returned to the door a minute later with the spray bottle.

“Thanks, Ton. I owe you.”

“You owe me about an hour’s sleep.”

“I’ll stand a watch for you sometime.”

Grinder returned to his room and spent the next hour methodically plugging every gap, no matter how tiny, in his ceiling, walls, and floor—except for the air vent. He ran a power cable to the vent so that any creature touching it would be electrocuted. He heard no scratching in the meantime. Perhaps the creature had wandered off.

He switched off his lights.

This time there was no noise.

It took him another hour, but finally he dropped off to sleep.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

For a moment he was too groggy to understand his own sense of alarm—too groggy, really, to remember his own name. Then he remembered both.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

The noise was louder this time. Unmuffled. As if—

As if the creature was within his room.

Cold fear gripped him. While he was out getting the sealant from Ton Phanan, the Crystal Deceiver had slipped into his room.

Now it was trapped here, with him. It couldn’t escape if it wanted to.

And it wouldn’t want to. It would crawl on him and bite him and make a meal of his paralyzed body—

With a moan, he reached out to turn on his side-table lamp.

It clicked, but didn’t come on.

He peered around the room, but there wasn’t even the faint green glow from his terminal power key.

Power was out to his quarters. Had the creature chewed through power cables to get in at him? No—it would have been electrocuted.

Was it smart enough to—No. Couldn’t be.

Maybe it was a dream.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

The creature was under his bed.

He shrieked and leaped up. He charged blindly across his quarters, slammed into the door before he realized he was upon it, and slapped the door switch.

Nothing.

He grabbed the door where it slid into the wall. He tugged at it, trying to accomplish with friction and finger pressure what it normally took servomotors to accomplish, and dragged it open—a fraction of an inch. Beyond was empty corridor.

Scritch, scritch, scritch. Behind him. Still under the bed? Or coming for him, tottering on its glassy legs, with jaws distended?

He got his fingers into the door gap and heaved, slamming the doorway fully open.

A glassy, chittering mass swung into his face from ahead and above.

He screamed and fell backward. He felt himself hit the hard floor of his quarters.

Then darkness claimed him.

26

“He suffered some sort of fit, I think. Tests may tell us more.”

It was Ton Phanan’s voice, and Grinder could see light through his closed eyelids. Cautiously, he opened them.

A ceiling, like the one in his quarters,