Fear that man

their kind, although the children were often perfectly normal. Today, there were fourteen million Mues-only an eighth of one percent of the galactic population, but alive and breathing and happy just the same. And Hurkos was one of them.
        Fourteen million.
        And he could not remember having ever heard of them before.
        “Food’s about ready,” he said. Just then the light above the wall slot popped off and the tray slid out.
        “Smells good.”
        They pulled the tray apart where it was perforated and sat on the floor to eat. “It’s damn eerie,” Hurkos said, spitting the words around a mouthful of synthe-beef. “There should be some trademark, some scrap of writing, at least one brand name!” He paused, swallowed, then snapped, “The food!”
        Sam waved him back to his seat before the Mue could spill his dinner in a futile effort to rise quickly. “I already looked. The volume of food basics below the synthesizer is in unmarked containers.”
        Hurkos frowned, sat down. “Well, let’s see what we do know. First, there is no log. Second, there is no trade name, serial number, brand anywhere on the ship. Third, you have no memory of your own past beyond this morning. Fourth, though you do not remember a thing that happened to you in your lifetime, you do remember the basics of empire history, human history. Except, that is, for a few especially glaring holes. Such as the artificial wombs and we Mues.”
        “Agreed thus far,” Sam said, putting down his food, wiping his mouth.
        “What’s the matter? You hardly ate.”
        Sam grimaced, waved a hand vaguely and let it fall into his lap. “I don’t know exactly. I’m afraid to eat.”
        Hurkos looked down at his own tray, paused half-finished with a mouthful. “Afraid?”
        “There’s this… hazy sort of fear… because…”
        “Go on!”
        “Because it’s been made by machines. The food isn’t natural.”
        Hurkos swallowed. “There is the fifth piece of data. You’re afraid of machines. I thought so earlier-judging by your reaction to the sight of the robosurgeons.”
        “But I’ll starve!”
        “I doubt that. You ate enough to keep you going. You just won’t get fat is all.”
        Sam started to say something, but in the moment it took for his words to come from his larnyx to his tongue, he felt his head being ripped apart by thunders that shook every ounce of his flesh and soul. He opened his mouth, tried to scream, closed it abruptly. There was a chaos of noise in his head, a fermenting, fizzing, erupting madness. He was just barely aware that Hurkos was still talking to him, but he heard nothing. The world of the ship was distant and unreal. The noises, then, were speaking to him in a language of cacophony. Then he lost all awareness, was wrapped into the boomings, the dissonance. He pushed from the floor, found his seat, strapped in.
        Hurkos was beside him, obviously shouting. But he heard nothing.
        Nothing but the dissonance.
        He saw the Mue running, crawling into the flexoplast mattress they had taken off the surgeon’s table. They had decided, since there was no second chair, that the flexoplast-wrapped completely around the Mue as a protective shell-would be a perfect substitute for a chair.
        Sam slammed down on the toggles, blasted… then hyperspaced with a gut-wrenching jerk.
        Hurkos was shouting from inside his mattress.
        The ship moaned.
        He reclined in his seat. The ship reached top hyperspace in incredibly short time. And collided with something…

----

    IV
        
        The thunders, as soon as Sam had thrown the ship out of hyperspace and into Real Space, had faded into silence. He again had control of his body.
        Hurkos was rolling all over the floor, bounding off the walls as the ship shuddered, wallowed with the impact.
        Sam remembered, suddenly, that they had struck something, and he looked up at the viewplate and the blank expanse of normal space. So near that he could almost touch it, another ship was drifting in front and slightly to the left of him. Perhaps only a mile away. Close for a shield-collision. He punched for open radio and tried to contact the other vessel, but he received no response.
        “What the hell were you doing!” Hurkos shouted, freeing himself of the flexoplast and staggering to his feet.
        Sam loosened his seatbelt and also