"Well—" she hesitated. "It's really silly, but—Last night, you see, I was thinking of something poor Professor Thomasson had said, half-jokingly, when we were discussing Oscar. He said that Oscar might not be a complete organism." She gestured toward the black thing on the table. "You know—his flat underside, that he walks with, and those curious flat areas along his sides? He can grip with those. If you put your hand there, he grips it."
Horitz nodded. "Thomasson showed me that trick." He reached over and put his hand on Oscar's black, glutinous side. "Shake hands, Oscar."
The hand sank visibly in the black flesh. When Horitz pulled it away, there was a small sucking noise.
"Ugh," said Walsh disgustedly.
"Well," continued Dr. Ilyanov, "you know that Oscar's space shell was wrecked. Professor Thomasson suggested that the accident that wrecked it might have wrecked Oscar too—that really, when he is all there, he is three or four Oscars linked together—"
She laughed embarrassedly. "Anyhow, when I slept last night, I had this nightmare. I dreamed that I saw Oscar floating in space, but there was more of him. There was another similar shape attached behind him, and two smaller ones, one on either side. He was like a sort of black cross—with those horrible tassels waving at each point of it—floating along, under the stars...."
"Well," said Horitz puzzledly, "what was so horrible about that?"
"Why, I don't know," said Dr. Ilyanov. "But it was."
Horitz crumpled up his sandwich-wrappers and threw them into the waste chute. "Might as well get started again," he said. He picked up the passenger list and read, "Jaeger, Jahore, Jessamin, Johnson."