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Brendan asked, puzzled. “Most beings excrete some waste material.”
    “This Junk makes a waste of space,” Killashandra replied, grinning at Lars. “I can’t see any movement now, but it sure moved incredibly fast in the twenty-odd minutes it took us to get back up here. Getting tape on this, Bren?”
    “You bet.”
    “Well, then, let’s try some comparison,” Lars said. He motioned for Killashandra to follow him. “The first team found nine such phenomena? Well, let’s go see the next one.”
    “I’m hungry again,” Killashandra added apologetically.
    Brendan made an exceedingly gross sound, but he had more food ready for them when they reached the airlock. They ate while he changed sites.
    And that became the routine of the next ten hours. Search and eat. Eat while searching. At first Brendan had clever, often hilarious comments to make about their “starvation diet,” but then he became as fascinated as they by what could only be called the “behavior” of the Junk.
    At each of the five sites they investigated, they foundthat the opalescence had diminished in size from the mass that the geologists had recorded.
    “Hey, you two, I’m calling a rest period. Your vital signs are becoming erratic.”
    “With all the food we’re ingesting?” Killa said, half teasing. “Now that you mention it—whoops!” She tripped and fell forward into Lars.
    “Now that you mention it,” Lars continued, steadying her, “I could curl up for a hundred or so hours.”
    “Hunger would uncurl you in about three,” Brendan replied. “Chow’s up!”
    They waited long enough before eating to insert their suits in the cleanser and shower themselves. Bren did manage to keep them awake long enough after they had eaten to get to their bunk.
    But the next morning, as he served an enormous breakfast, the two singers were alert and keen to examine the remaining locations. By comparing the exploration notes with the present state of the ribbing, they saw distinct differences: less alteration the farther the opalescence was from the rib they had sampled.
    “Is this a mass defection, migration, withdrawal?” Lars asked, puzzled.
    “Pinch me, you pinch us all?” Killa responded.
    “How could one piece of Junk communicate with the others?” Brendan asked.
    “That’s the easy one,” Killa said with a grin. “Through the rock mass. We felt that tremble. Maybe that’s communication.”
    “I’ll credit that,” Lars said, “but where is the Junk retreating
to
? Anything show up on the scopes, Bren?”
    “Visualize me shrugging,” the ship said drolly, “because I
have
checked all my systems for malfunction. The Junk refuses to have its picture taken. There isn’t so much as a black blob registering on the walls of any ofthe caverns you’ve been in. But the Junk’s very much
in situ.
”
    “Wait a minute, team,” Killashandra said, a grin deepening. “I know what I missed … crunch underfoot. There’s no debris or rubble or pebbles or anything in the caves!”
    Lars blinked and lowered his head, frowning as he thought over her remark. “No, you’re right, there isn’t. Only that small pile of dust.”
    “Where the rib finger had wormed its way down. It may
eat
its way down.”
    “I could draw a comparison between your appetites and the—hey!” Brendan protested as Killa lobbed a pencil file at his titanium panel.
    “I wonder what it does eat,” Lars said. “Shall we whip up some appetizing bits and pieces for it to sample?”
    “Didn’t the explore team do that, Bren?” Killa asked.
    “No, they did not.” Bren’s voice rippled in amusement. “After they seemed to lose tools to its melt process.”
    “I don’t remember a mention of that,” Killa said, frowning. She had only just reviewed the reports during breakfast.
    “I gather that by inference, Ki,” Brendan said. “And the inventory.”
    “So, what shall we offer up in sacrifice to the Junk God in the Grotto?” Killa asked.
    “A