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Chapter 29

He hurried down to the farm deck. He jumped out of the elevator cage, ran through the open doorway of the food production compartment. He saw things—small, active animals—milling around the sprung trap. He caught only a glimpse of them, received a confused impression of pale skin and waving limbs as they scattered at his approach, scurrying to hide behind and under tanks and vats.

He approached the tool box cautiously. The lid had not fallen all the way down; whatever had displaced the upright was caught half in, half out. The hindquarters of the hapless little beast were no more than a bloody mess with most of the flesh ripped from the fragile bones. By the looks of what was left it had been a quadruped of some kind.

Grimes conquered his revulsion, opened the lid. What was inside was undamaged. He knew what it was even before he lifted it out carefully and turned it over. He looked down in horror at the contorted features of a dead, miniature Susie. At last he put the mutilated body, all of it, back into the box, shut and secured the lid. He carried the container out of the farm deck and then up to his quarters, making sure that all doors were closed behind him. He put the box on his desk then poured himself a stiff drink and sat down to think things over.

He remembered how he had flushed that original homunculus down his toilet, thinking that it was dead. Its flesh would have been macerated together with sewage and other organic garbage before being pumped into the algae vats. He remembered, then, how he had told Balaarsulimaam about clones. This information must have been passed on to the Joognaanard body sculptors who, making use of it, incorporating it with their own techniques, had produced, to Susie's instructions, what was, in effect, a mini-clone. (That name would do as well as any.) He did not think that Susie's motivations had been malicious. She could not have anticipated that the bottle would be broken, that its contents would be disposed of as they had been.

One thing was certain; he must not dispose of the remains of this Susie as he had disposed of the remains of the original one. There would have to be a proper spaceman's funeral, the ejection out through the airlock of the body.

But that would have to wait. Before any mass is ejected from an interstellar ship the drive must be stopped; failure to observe this precaution almost inevitably leads to disaster. Nobody has yet returned to tell what it is like to fall into a self-generated black hole. So the most sensible thing to do, thought Grimes, would be to wait until he had disposed of all the mini-Susies and then to consign the accumulation of cadavers to space in one operation.

He told himself disgustedly, You're a cold-blooded bastard, Grimes!

But even though he had liked the original Susie, even loved her in his fashion, he felt no affection for her . . . progeny? Yes, that word would have to do. He remembered the high-pitched, vicious chitterings that he had heard when he interrupted that macabre feast. He did not have to open the lid of the tool box to see again the tattered ruin of what had been a shapely rump and pair of legs. For all their human appearance these clones—mini-clones? pseudo-clones?—were only mindless but dangerous carnivores.

Too, he had to look after himself.

He would have his story to tell when finally he returned to Bronsonia—a story concocted as much for the protection of Susie and Hodge as for his own benefit. And would that tale hold water if Branson Star, returned to her rightful owners, were found to be infested with tiny humanoids, each one the image of a woman wanted by the authorities for the crime of skyjacking?

There would be questions, very awkward questions, asked.

So. . . .

How to disinfect the ship in the time remaining to him before planetfall?

Poison would have been one answer—if he had been able to lay his hands on any. But even if he had there would have been the possibility—the probability—that the things would die in inaccessible places.

Traps?

He had tried the idea once and hadn't liked the end results.

Starvation?

The things were meat eaters. They had disposed of the aquatic worms in the algae tanks. They had helped themselves from one of the yeast vats. They had at least half eaten one of their own number.

Suppose, he thought, he cleaned out the yeast vats; these, with only a wire-mesh cover to protect their contents, were far too accessible. The tissue-culture and algae vats were safe enough from depredation, however. The hydroponic tanks? There was food there if the homunculi could adapt to a vegetarian diet. Already they had eaten the tomatoes. (And befouled the lettuces . . . thought Grimes sourly.) So the "market garden" would have to go. Life-support systems would continue to function nonetheless. The algae were quite capable of purifying water and regenerating atmosphere—especially when there was only one man (one man and an unknown number of mini-women) to maintain. And there was an ample supply of assorted meats. Several kilograms of those, just to be on the safe side, could be transferred from the growing vats to the galley cold stores.

And then. . . .

Possibly cannibalism would bring about a reduction of numbers, although indications were that this did not occur unless the victim was already dead. But the process might take too long.

Grimes visualized a trail of scraps of meat—not large pieces, only enough to stimulate the appetite—leading from the farm deck, down the spiral staircase around the axial shaft to the boat bay. Inside the boat would be the real bait. When the little horrors were feeding, Grimes would seal the boat bay, shut down the Mannschenn Drive, eject the boat (which had to be gotten rid of in any case as corroboration of his fictional account of the voyage) and then resume passage.

There was very little chance that the boat would ever be picked up.

If it were, of course, it would be discovered that it came from Bronson Star and the salvagers would be puzzled by the tiny but apparently human corpses.

But then—if it ever happened—Grimes would be a long, long way from Bronsonia. He might even be dead of old age.

In any case it was nothing to worry about. But the immediate situation most certainly was.

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Framed