For the first time Joel could see the guard's eyes.
They had no pupils, no color, only a weird flickering light in their depths that glimmered like candle flame!
Joel could feel his stomach contract like a fist. The alien smell filled his nostrils. He took an involuntary backwards step, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The guard wasn't human!
Before Joel could question him the guard retreated through the door, hastily shutting it with a click. Joel sank to the edge of his bunk.
Where did the guard come from?
A mutation? The Eugenics Board would never have allowed a mutation to survive. Joel himself had escaped their vigilance only because it had been impossible to detect his abnormally heightened vision and sense of smell at birth.
Then what was the creature?
It wasn't a native to Mars or Venus. Their dominant life forms had been exterminated centuries ago. Perhaps it hailed from the Centaurian planetary system. He sat up abruptly at the thought.
A Centaurian?