Four -Mucho Tomcat
‘“Yes,” replied the alien;“but can you eat it?”’
Kate's face was blank.
‘You don't get it,’ saidByron, feeling foolish. He shook his head.
‘You lost me,’ Kate told him,‘I'm sorry.’ She felt strangely numb, as if the stars around herwere not screened away but impossibly close, touching... ‘Look!’she declared. ‘You can see the engine.’
Byron followedher gaze. Glimmering dully, silver-grey against light-pricked black,was the misshaped powerhouse of the MuchoTomcat,the giant engine that was the smaller craft's means of crossinginterstellar space.
‘Nice,’ said Friendly, who hadnever handled anything half as large. ‘I like...’
Kate folded her arms and smiled.‘Ernie was proud of her; too proud maybe.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged. ‘He died,’ shesaid quietly.
Byron sensed some mystery. ‘Howexactly? Your sister was pretty evasive.’
‘Sal's upset; we all are,’Kate explained. ‘But it'll work out.’
He was none the wiser. The shipclosed under the illusion of acceleration. Minutes would see himinside the greater body. Its structured interiors already occupiedhis thinking. The woman next to him, tall and silent, vanished fromhis mind and took with her the fragile thread of his inquisition.
He stepped through the double lockand paused. A draught of warm air brought the smell of ripened death:fetid meat and stale wine, a feast of unmasked gods. He turned leftdown a passage whose blistered walls were greasy, pocked.
He thought to hear a sound behindhim.
The sticky odour faded, draggedbehind filters. He halted, wishing the stench had lingered, as hisfirst duty was to locate and expel his predecessor's blightedcarcass...