"Oh, yes ... Mac, I think it's a Vanderlark."
He put the bottle down. The drink had helped him. "A Vanderlark? What's that supposed to be?"
"I guess there's only one of it," Alice corrected herself. She rubbed her lips for a moment with a handkerchief. "I wish my mouth wouldn't shake," she said petulantly. "It makes it hard to talk.
"The Vanderlark's a—a thing—that lives in deep space. It's made out of black. One of my boy friends who was a pilot in deep told me about it once when he'd been drinking. He was awfully afraid of it.
"I guess it's everywhere, really. Bill said it was everywhere, always, in all spaces and all times. I don't understand that very well, do you, Mac?"
"Go on," McFeen said. He turned the phlomis bottle around, studying it with haggard concentration.
"Anyway, deep is where the Vanderlark is more. Most of the time it doesn't bother anybody. But if you call it—it—it comes."
"Call it? What do you mean? We never called that thing."
"We didn't mean to call it," Alice said, "but maybe.... Or maybe it was the Hyra called it. I mean, when we hit deep space and they began to increase. Maybe when they increased they made a—a quiver in space that attracted it. They're not alive in the way other things are. They're different. Or maybe a part of them has always been where the Vanderlark is."
McFeen rubbed his hands over his face. He got another bottle of phlomis from the locker, uncapped it, and then put it aside without tasting it. "What are we going to do, Alice?" he asked humbly.