Careening, the creature changed course. The arms clawed out to clutch Boone.
Leaping wide, he slashed with the axe—a savage blow with all his strength behind it, straight for the central core, the button.
There was a sound like a watermelon bursting. The button broke and flew apart, not so much sliced as shattered. A sickening stench erupted through the cabin. The arms sagged, limp save for spasmodic twitchings.
Half-sick with the sight, the smell, Boone stumbled back.
But before he could even drop the axe, a new cry came.
It rose behind him, this time—from the cabin's other end, the hatchway to the landing ladder.
Boone spun, ran towards the ladder.
From the bottom of the narrow shaft, a white-faced crewman beckoned in a frenzy. "Out—! Get out!" He vanished through the exit port.
Boone dropped the axe and, sliding, plummeted down the ladder. In seconds he, too, was stumbling through the port.
The crewman who'd shouted crouched on the ground in the shadow of the ramping fins beside one of his fellows, the man who'd lain unconscious since they landed. "Look!" His whole arm shook as he pointed.