"Not even an integument. You saw how slippery he looked? That's why. There's nothing holding him in but energy."
"Now, look," said Stone. "He eats, doesn't he? He must have waste materials of some sort."
Bowman shook his head unhappily. "Sorry. No urates. No nitrates. No CO2. Anyway, he doesn't eat because he has nothing to eat with. He absorbs. And that includes the lining of the tanks, which he seems to like as much as the contents. He doesn't bore those holes he makes—he dissolves them."
They sent Bowman back to quarters for a hot bath and a shot of Happy-O and looked up Hrunta, the biochemist.
Hrunta was glaring at paper electrophoretic patterns and pulling out chunks of hair around his bald spot. He gave them a snarl and shoved a sheaf of papers into their hands.
"Metabolic survey?" Jenkins asked.
"Plus," said Hrunta. "You're not going to like it, either."
"Why not? If it grows, it metabolizes. If it metabolizes, we can kill it. Axiom number seventeen, paragraph number four."
"Oh, it metabolizes, all right, but you'd better find yourself another axiom, pretty quick."
"Why?"