The Rithian Terror

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Somewhere in the city, a monster was hiding.

Lying back against the limousine's cushions. Thorne Spangler let his mind dwell on that thought, absorbing it with the deliberate enjoyment of a small boy sucking a piece of candy. He visualized the monster, walking down a lighted street, or sitting in a cheap hired room, tentacles coiled, waiting, under the shell that made it look like a man—or a woman. And all around it, the life of the city going on: Hello, Jeff. Have you heard? They're stopping all the cars. Some sort of spy case … My sister tried to fly out to Tucson, and they turned her back. My cousin at the spaceport says nothing is coming in or leaving except military ships. It must be something big.

And the monster, listening, feeling the net tighten around it.

The tension was growing, Spangler thought; it hung in the air, in the abnormally empty streets. You could hear it: a stillness that welled up under the beehive hum—a waiting stillness, that made you want to stop and hold your breath. Spangler glanced at Pembun, sitting quietly beside him. Does he feel it? he wondered. It was hard to tell. You never knew what a colonial was thinking. Probably he decided, he's most heartily wishing himself back on his own sleepy planet, far from all this commotion at the hub of the Universe.

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