Fear that man

Carefully, they sighted on the cables linking the net to magno-pegs, burning through the heavy strands. Eventually the net slid off the ball, pulled downward by its own weight. They dropped the weapon and ran up the ramp that had opened in the side of the floater to welcome them like the tongue of a favorite dog.
        “Thank the stars!” Lotus said, coming into Coro’s arms, her wings fluffed out and fluttering slightly, beautiful in the warm yellow light of the cabin. Sam felt as if he were intruding on something private. But after a few messy and misplaced kisses of joy, the two separated.
        “Thought you’d never get here,” Crazy said, getting out of Coro’s pilot seat and into his own chair. “I have the floater ready. We better move, and fast. There’s another detachment of those worms leaving the mother ship.”
        They all turned to stare at the viewplate. A block of yellow light shone where a port had opened in the giant vessel’s side. Coro climbed into his chair, keeping his eyes on the screen.
        “Where to?” Sam asked as he crawled into his makeshift berth.
        “Anywhere,” Lotus said, shivering with disgust. “Anywhere that’s not near those… those…”
        “Agreed,” Coro said between clenched teeth.
        The floater groaned, leaped. The screen showed a spinning night scene that tumbled and flopped as they moved across the forest, low to the tops of the trees and with full anti-radar gear in operation. As they moved, Coro and Sam tried to explain what they found.
        “We have to go on to Hope,” Coro said finally.
        “Easier said than accomplished,” Lotus noted. “We don’t have a starship.”
        “Don’t be so negativistic,” Coro said, smiling a thin smile that almost wasn’t. “We might have a ship. It is a small chance, but we just might be able to get one.”

----

    IX
        
        Food-slugs as large as houses lay pulsating against the warm walls of the growth room, their pink skins glistening with moisture in the mist-laden air. Patches of white spotted the most bulbous portions of the giants, the areas of new flesh tender and undeveloped, as yet inedible. The smaller slug-forms tending them moved through the tremendous bulks in sanitary linen frocks, their pseudopods testing the toughness of skin near the connection junction where flesh of food-slug met nutrient tubes in the wall. They occasionally took small instruments out of pockets in the nightgown garments they wore, plunged them into the food-slugs and took readings as the cancerous masses throbbed mindlessly, adding cell after cell after cell at a rate that was almost visible. The food deck stretched into the distance, filled to overflowing with the ponderous behemoths that neither thought nor felt nor moved nor laughed. But merely were. A team of butchers slithered down the main avenue between stalls. A forty-car train of magno-carts floated behind them. The butchers stopped at each food-slug that had grown beyond a mark on the floor that was used to make a quick judgment on their readiness. With precision, they used cauterizing lasers to slice huge steaks from the fleshy giants, hefting the fluid-oozing slabs onto the carts and moving ahead-trimming, cutting, butchering for the great crew of Raceship.
        The reek of life fluids spilled was constantly sucked away by enormous ceiling fans, replaced by perfume-heavy air.
        The Central Being examined the work in progress, watched as the skins of the cancerous slugs formed and covered the wounds the butchers had left, as skin on other food-slugs bulged and stretched and reformed to accommodate the ever-increasing supply of meat and fat. And the Central Being approved. This was fine. This was a goodness. And when the gargantuan steaks were spitted and roasted for the crew, when the fat dripped into the fire and sizzled and bloated the air with its fumes, then the crew would also see it as a goodness and would give thanks to the Central Being. This was the plan sliding on polished runners. Only briefly did the Central Being think of the annoying creatures in the floating ball. They were gone now and certainly not worth the bother of a protracted chase. Besides, within the day, the ship would be lifting and setting course for the world called Hope. The center of these creatures’ empire. From there, destruction of this blasphemous species would be swift and most gratifying…
        Food slugs as large as houses