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welcome.” Brendan sounded a trifle miffed.
    “Can’t help this,” Lars added, glancing up apologetically at the airlock’s optic.
    Brendan’s sigh was audible. “No, I suppose you can’t, really. I’ve just never seen any bodies consume so much food in such a short time. And you’re both bone-thin.”
    “Symbiont,” Killashandra managed to say, one hand cramming as many of the bright green vegetable spheres into her mouth as would fit, while she scooped up more milsi stalks in the other. “You’ll never see a fat singer,” she added after swallowing her mouthful.
    Oddly enough, the compulsion to gorge eased off about the time they were mopping up the plates with a yeast bread that was one of Brendan’s specialties. Though as a shell person, he was nourished entirely by the fluids pumped into the titanium capsule that contained his stunted body, still he was fascinated by food and did most of the catering, even when Boira was on board.
    Replete, Killashandra and Lars exchanged the depleted catering packets in their suits for fresh ones, donned their helmets, picked up the extra equipment, and exited the B&B to resume their explorations.
    “Why are we trying to carve a hunk out of the junk?” Killashandra asked as they made their way back to the lower cavern.
    “We were sent here to investigate the stuff,
in situ
, make recommendations as to its possible value, and/or usefulness,” Lars said. “And see what makes it luminesce. Any report on whether or not the hunk of the junk grew in captivity, Bren?”
    “No. I mean, no mention of increase in the sample; however, the report said, once excised, the specimen lost all iridescence.”
    “The junk doesn’t like light,” Killa said thoughtfully. “Could be it has to have darkness to sparkle. Or there’ssomething in the composition of this planet that makes it iridescent?”
    “And some element that makes it expand, grow, flow, whatever it does,” Lars remarked, equally thoughtful. “Down the sides and to the next level. All in four years or so.”
    “Never heard of anything that
grew
in such a deprived environment as this,” Killa said with a snort.
    “Well, we ain’t seen everything yet, have we?” Lars responded equably.
    A ten-second spray of liquid nitrogen turned the entire stalactite colorless, and when Lars gave it a sharp chop with his rock hammer, the end—a piece the length and width of his gloved hand—fell to the ground. Through her boot soles, Killashandra felt a sharp shaking, unexpected and severe enough to unbalance her.
    “Did you feel that, Lars?”
    “Indeed I did!” Lars had flailed his arms briefly to steady himself.
    “Feel what?” Brendan asked sharply.
    “A tremor, a shake, a quake. Did you register anything?” Lars asked.
    “Hmm. Well, there is a minute blip on the stability gauge. Not enough to set off a stabilizer alarm.”
    “Look!” Killa shone her light to the opposite wall, and the two singers saw that the other intrusion had disappeared. “A definite reaction to our action. The Junk has enough sense to retract from peril?”
    “Sense or reflex?” Lars asked, scooping the colorless stalactite into the duraplas specimen sack he had pulled from his thigh pocket. “Let’s see how
far
it’s retracting.”
    Guided by Bren and moving as fast as was safe in the dark maze, they returned to the first chamber. The opalescence was subtly muted, and they had to turn ontheir suit lights. Then they could see that the Junk had noticeably contracted on both sides of the wall, though the farther “rib” was longer than the one from which they had taken the stalactite. They saw no other change in the central portion of the rib.
    “Hey, look, Lars, a channel,” Killa said. She pointed to the faint shadow on the wall where the Junk had been. “It makes a channel. Does it absorb rock as it extrudes?”
    “Could it be making the caves?” Lars asked. That stunned both listeners into silence.
    “Total absorption?”