"He'd know, of course," Channok said reflectively, "that everybody would be wondering what's hidden in that safe! And it could be anything up to and including full instructions on how to set up an artificial culture of antibiotics. Plenty of governments would pay twenty times what the Ra-Twelve is worth as salvage for that kind of information. But it's nothing we need to know."
"Not that bad," Peer agreed.
"And the guy who opens that wall-safe had better be an armaments expert! Which we're not. But now, crew-member Peer, if we want to get Santis' cargo cached on Old Nameless before I fall asleep, we ought to get started. Idle curiosity is something we can satisfy some other time."
"Two hours past your sleep-period right now!" said Peer, glancing at her wrist-watch. "Tsk, tsk! That always makes you so grouchy."
Half an hour later, they were on their way—Channok in the Ra-Twelve, Peer in the Asteroid, keeping as close to each other as two ships in flight could safely get. With the red glare of the Old Nameless sun a trifle off-center before him, Channok settled down in the most comfortable pilot-seat he'd ever found on any ship and decided he could relax a trifle. Peer was obviously having a wonderful time doing her first solo-piloting job on a ship of the Asteroid's size; and since she'd run and landed the Asteroid any number of times under his supervision, he wasn't worried about her ability to handle it. However, he continued to check in on her over the communicators every five minutes or so, and grinned at the brisk, spacemanlike replies he got in return. Crew-member Peer was on her best behavior right now!
By and by, then—he couldn't have said just when it started—Channok began to realize that some very odd things were happening around him—
It appeared that the Thing he had put out for burial in a space-crate hadn't liked the idea of being left alone. So it was following him.
Channok decided uneasily that it might be best to ignore it. But it kept coming closer and closer until, finally, the crate was floating just outside the Ra-Twelve's control room port, spinning slowly like a running-down top.
The crate stayed shut, but he knew the Thing inside it was watching him.