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THE STAR BEAST
They called this strange tentacle-headed blob that had floundered into the System Oscar. They were to learn a better name.
The body was sprawled in the curve of the deck about midway between two of the entrance wells. It had arms and legs, if you looked closely enough at the limp tangle of garments; it had a gray beard and a purple face.
The other figure had neither limbs nor a face. It was black, and it looked more like a pile of mud than anything else: a five-foot lump of black mud, slightly flattened at either side, with a cluster of black, stumpy filaments at the top. It moved slightly, dropping the filaments a little toward the dead body; then it flowed away again, and the filaments pointed straight up, toward the stars.
Phil Horitz came up at the forward end of the deck. He let the levitor push him gently clear of the well then stepped over to the glassine and looked out at the tiny blue disk that was Earth. His back was to the body and its watcher. He struck a cigarette, inhaling deeply, then turned around.
He swore and threw his cigarette away, leaping forward at the same instant. He skidded to a halt in front of the corpse and fell to one knee beside it. "Dead," he said. "Oh, Lord."
He searched the body swiftly, and came up with a flat metal box, attached by a silver chain to the body's middle. He tried the lid; it opened easily. The box was empty.
Horitz sighed and lifted the dead man's chin. Under the grey beard was a deeply-indented red line that encircled the throat.
A deep voice swore fervently in his ear. He didn't wait for it to finish. He made an adjustment on the transceiver and said, "Captain Tooker, please. This is Philip Horitz." A querulous male voice spoke: "Yes, Horitz? What do you want?"
Horitz repeated his message, and added, "I'm bringing the body down to Thomasson's stateroom. Get the ship's doctor and meet me there."
Two figures exploded out of the levitor well a dozen yards away; one bulky and grey-haired, the other lean and young. They ran up to Horitz, panting. The bulky one, Walsh, was still swearing.
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