other appearances. She remembered the other homes, and how it had always managed to find her, and how it always came to this wrenching scene, and how this had happened before, so many times, so many other
* * *
Two hours later, when Kratrina didn't come in, two of the alien caretakers came and found her unconscious.
They knew, by the trail of yellowish slime around her, that their security had been breached. And they knew, too, upon interviewing Kratrina under deep hypnosis, that the creature had disappeared for a week. Long enough to lay its eggs. Somewhere.
When they found it, beneath the loose sand outside the ponderosa pines, and killed it, they knew they were too late.
Though Kratrina was kept sedated, but even that, they knew, was late. The creature's body, autospied, confirmed their suspicions that Kratrina's anguish during the week of the creature's apparent disappearance had caused it to spawn and her surge of emotion at the obscene embrace of the sluglike alien, had allowed the larvae to become spaceborn and to hatch in the cold void.
The administrator of the house took it upon himself to order the sponging of Kratrina's memories to prevent any residual emotion from seeping out, to feed those creatures. Or rather, that creature, since they were
* * *
Two hours later, when Kratrina didn't come in, two of the alien caretakers came and found her unconscious.
They knew, by the trail of yellowish slime around her, that their security had been breached. And they knew, too, upon interviewing Kratrina under deep hypnosis, that the creature had disappeared for a week. Long enough to lay its eggs. Somewhere.
When they found it, beneath the loose sand outside the ponderosa pines, and killed it, they knew they were too late.
Though Kratrina was kept sedated, but even that, they knew, was late. The creature's body, autospied, confirmed their suspicions that Kratrina's anguish during the week of the creature's apparent disappearance had caused it to spawn and her surge of emotion at the obscene embrace of the sluglike alien, had allowed the larvae to become spaceborn and to hatch in the cold void.
The administrator of the house took it upon himself to order the sponging of Kratrina's memories to prevent any residual emotion from seeping out, to feed those creatures. Or rather, that creature, since they were