Starclimber Read Online Free PDF Page B

Kate continued, “long whiplike tentacles, with eye spots for detecting light, and olfactory sensors for locating prey. Two of these tentacles can discharge a high-voltage current, enough to electrocute a full-grown man.”
    It was odd watching her onstage, bathed in the dusty shaft of light from the projector. It was both the Kate I knew so well and a complete stranger. She seemed a cool, highly intelligent woman, who’d never have anything to do with the likes of me.
    “Where’s your proof?” sniped one fellow from the audience.
    I looked over, trying to spot him, but the voice might have come from any number of gentlemen near the front.
    “During my expedition,” Kate said, “I managed to collect an aerozoan egg, which was in a state of anhydrobiosis.”
    “Nonsense!” came another voice from the front.
    Kate was a marvel of composure. When the audience grew too noisy, she simply paused and waited for the ruckus to abate.
    “Anhydrobiosis is a well-documented state,” Kate continued. “Without water, the organism goes into a torpor to conserve energy. It can survive like that for years. When it’s returned to a more hospitable environment, it revives itself. My companions and I saw several adult aerozoans do just that. We also witnessed the hatching of several eggs, which had been floating in wait for some forty years.”
    Her projector now showed a photograph of the aerozoan egg inside a large glass jar. Through its translucent shell you could see a tightly bundled coil of intestines and glimpse a beak. I felt the preternatural chill of the ghost ship shiver through me.
    “As you can see,” Kate said, “the egg contains enough hydrium to keep it aloft until it hatches.”
    “But where is your proof!” cried yet another crowlike gentleman.
    “There is no proof!” one of his cronies grumbled.
    I could see Kate give a sigh, bend down, and lift a large cage covered with a velvet cloth. She set it on the table.
    “I couldn’t decide whether to dissect the egg and study its embryonic anatomy or make it hatch. “Kate paused for a moment, and the audience fell attentively silent. I could now see that she was actually enjoying the drama of her presentation. She gazed calmly out into the audience. “I let it hatch.”
    She whisked the velvet cloth off the cage, and there, inside, was the aerozoan hatchling, flexing its small tentacles and jetting vigorously against the glass. It was larger than the ones we’d seen, on the Hyperion , some eighteen inches in length.
    I smiled at the satisfying gasps and cries that gusted through the audience.
    Kate stood beside the case and beamed.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Aerozoania devriesus .”
    I couldn’t help chuckling at the name she’d given it. But really, I’d have expected no less from Kate. Even though I’d seen it before she did, and had nearly been electrocuted by the thing, she had taken the liberty of naming it after herself.
    “This specimen is only two weeks old but in time will grow to eight feet in length. It thrives on a mixed diet of insects and small rodents, which it can already lift with its tentacles to its beak. After electrocuting them first, of course.”
    “No! No, I won’t stand a moment more of this nonsense!” said a balding gentleman, standing up in front.
    “Sir Hugh,” said Kate calmly, “I’m happy to take questions when I’m finished.”
    So this was Sir Hugh! Usually when you hear a lot about someone, and then meet them for the very first time, they look quite different from what you expect. Amazingly, Sir Hugh looked exactly like I’d expected. He was large, fiftyish, with a big pompous head. What little hair he had started about halfway back on his skull and tufted out slightly at the sides. He looked immensely pleased with himself. He turned his back on Kate and faced the audience.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, it wounds me that this fine institution even hosts such a carnival sideshow! But to have it passed off