He wished he couldn't.
Because the thing that had brushed his hand ... the slimy, gelatinous thing that now was making the flesh crawl over every inch of his body ... was a monstrous, many-eyed, pseudopodal horror he couldn't even classify.
But it could classify him, apparently; for already its amoeboid protrusions were eddying in close to his feet with tiny, obscene sucking noises.
Heart pounding, blood chilling, Dane gripped the yat-stick till his knuckles ached. At last—at last he knew why that hatch-lid overhead had been painted such a vivid scarlet.
It led into the spaceship's bem-tank!
CHAPTER III
Even as the realization of where he stood at last burst upon Dane with full, nerve-shattering force, the creature confronting him moved forward, closing in about him in a half-moon arc that reached from wall to wall. How large it was, Dane could only guess, for it extended farther into the dimness than he could see, piling up in great, semi-transparent folds almost as high as his head in places, like some monstrous, shapeless jellyfish speckled with eye-spots.
Now, while Dane watched, rigid, the creature put forth another pseudopod. Stickily, the protuberance crept along the metal tank-wall, closer and closer.
A trickle of icy sweat rilled down Dane's spine. Numb, shallow-breathed, he drew back from the advancing tentacle of protoplasm.