Star quest

the wall That meant an angled shot. The gas pistol was a marvelous little weapon. It was good for a hundred or so shots before a refill was needed, and it was not bulky. A minute pellet of compressed gas left the barrel. When it sunk into the object fired at, resistance caused heat and expanded the pellet The "explosion" caused thereby could down any man or beast. Or, he hoped, a metal wall. He wanted to strike the wall so that the pellet would have to travel through it at an angle, thus giving it time to expand before it crashed through into the storeroom. He depressed the stud.
    Almost immediately, the wall ruptured, split back. From the same position, he fired again. Again. When he put down the pistol, the rent was large enough to squeeze through. He squeezed.
    The place was dark. Very. There was a musty odor, part of it the dankness of any closed space, part of it food scraps, organic wastes. He stumbled about, looking for a light switch, found a palmer next to what seemed to be the outline of the door, and flooded the place with light. The door would be watertight, and certainly, no cracks should be there to emit light onto the deck.
    Blinking his eyes, he surveyed the room. There were a number of crates, unmarked, stacked about, lashed to the walls in columns and to rings set in the floor. There were walkways between the cargo boxes, but he could see nothing that might have moaned.
    There was a rustle.
    He looked to the floor for rats.
    "Well," a voice croaked. It was like dragging a rake across tarpaper. "Well, what do you want?"
    The renting wall had made only a soft screeching sound, so the person was unaware that he hadn't come in through the door. But what person? He didn't see anyone. It began asking him again, and it proved a £0od beacon to home on. He followed it among the crates and came finally to a cage. He jumped back. There was a face looking out of the cage at him. A face and nothing more. The thing was a head with a lump of ugly gray tissue beneath its pate where a neck ordinarily would have been. Several tentacles snaked out from that lump.
    "Well?" the face asked
    One of the tentacles smashed down onto the floor of the cage.
    Slap-crackity!
    He now knew where the sound had been coming from.
    "What the Hell do you want?" the face screamed.
    "Shhh," he said, forcing himself to go closer to the cage, bending down, finally hunkering on the floor. "They don't know I'm in here."
    The gray eyes looked at him calculatingly. "Who are you?"
    "Wait. If I tell you, will you answer some questions for me?"
    The tentacles slapped about in annoyance. "Okay, okay. God, let's not quibble."
    "Then I am called Tohm."
    "What do you do on the ship?"
    "Nothing. I'm a passenger. I'm trying to get to the capital to hunt for my woman."
    "Your woman?"
    "Yes. She was kidnapped, as I was, by the Romaghins. I feel she will soon be sold. I must find her." To the other's further questioning, he recounted his history as a Jumbo and now as a man again.
    "Why does this crew help you?"
    "They think my father is a wealthy trader of concubines."
    "Hah," the face said, puckered with glee. "Good. They deserve it."
    "Now," Tohm said, leaning forward but not too close, "who are you?"
    "They call me Hunk."
    "Well," he said hesitantly, "what… what are you?"
    There was silence a moment.
    "You mean you've never seen a Mutie before?"
    "What's a Mutie?" Tohm asked, relieved that now he would finally find out.
    "By the gods, you are a stoical bastard, aren't you! Very few people would have reacted so calmly to seeing a Mutie for the first time."
    "Then you're a Mutie?"
    "Yeah. I'm the result of all the nuclear wars the Romaghins and Setessins fought before atomics went obsolete and the laser cannon came into use. Radiation changed me as a fetus. I have a heart stuffed up here in my necks, a brain, and the digestive system of a bird, simple and compact."
    Tohm swallowed, but found there was no saliva. His mouth was perfectly dry. "Then you're all—"
    "No, no. Each is different from the last. I'm a very severe case. At least, I'm unique."
    Tohm sighed. Things were beginning to clear in some corners. Still, most of his concepts were confused and incomplete. "What happened to the city?"
    "Hah," the head said. It slapped tentacles against the floor and laughed again. Finally, tears rolling down its cheeks, it said, "That was good, wasn't it? Maybe we didn't carry through a complete exchange, but we came close. Damn close. That'll give them