Cheng said to Veta, "This zanat was good on the one end. He got all those people for old Tornelescu—the ones the doc tested the catalyst on. They say he even did the work, too; squirted the stuff in with an aeroderm. By the reports on the show-screen, he must have killed over two thousand."
Cheng's helpers came back, rolling a wheeled case so broad it completely blocked the barred doorway.
"Like I said," the smuggler smirked, "this boy's good on the one end. Now we'll see how he fits on the other."
He stepped back, out of the way. His men rolled the case up tight to the door, then lifted a sliding hatch at the end.
Slithering sounds came from the case. Then, quickly, a strange, grey-black form slid through the open hatch, between the door's bars, and down onto the floor of the cell.
Veta drew a swift, noisy breath. Her voice cracked. "Gulfers—!"
The sweat on Ross' forehead began to bead. A greyness came to the corners of his mouth.
Now a second of the creatures slithered down onto the floor. Then a third, and a fourth.
There was a horror in the creatures' very shapelessness. Flat, sprawling, like six- or seven-foot patches of dampness, they undulated over the floor in an erratic, wave-like pattern, closer and closer to Ross and the girl.