are startled by a transmission from the cloud. The dispassionate voice informs them their life-support system is required for the survival of its race; an agent has been sent to take it—by force, if necessary. The exchange is cut short by a report from the reception area; the beast is tearing through the travel-tube doors. The Security men fire their rocket guns, but the creature shrugs off the impact of the explosive shells. The guards resort to hand-to-hand combat and are effortlessly killed. After witnessing the slaughter on the big screen, Verdeschi orders Maya and Sandra Benes to safety in the Medical Centre. They arrive there and he issues a priority-one order to Computer: all Moonbase doors are to remain locked and will open only on his voice command. Verdeschi opens the main door—and finds the creature directly outside. He and Fraser escape through an alternate exit. As the beast ransacks Command Centre for life-support equipment, the two men split up. Verdeschi will deal with the creature while Fraser establishes a defence at the Life-Support Centre. In the overcrowded care unit, an ailing Koenig tries to join his men, but finds the door locked and the commlock panel unresponsive. Before passing out, he tells the convalescing Carter to take over. Carter contacts Verdeschi, who is preparing a trap in the Technical Section. The workshop where the spacesuits are inspected and repaired is equipped with a steel-walled vacuum chamber; Verdeschi hopes to decoy the creature inside and evacuate the air, killing it. Using himself as bait, he successfully lures the invader into the vacuum chamber. After several minutes, he repressurises the chamber and opens the metre-thick hatch to verify the creature's death—and out it leaps, unharmed. Verdeschi runs, but cannot elude it. The beast has him in its clutches when Maya comes to his aid (having escaped from Medical by transforming into a mouse and crawling through an air-vent into the ventilation ducts). After first trying and failing to mimic its form, the Psychon woman transforms into an alien animal and distracts the beast away from him. The Maya/Animal takes a beating and Verdeschi forces the beast off her with a high-pressure carbon-dioxide fire hose. Retreating to the Medical Section, they find Helena has contracted the illness. Before losing consciousness, she recommends using a high-pressure injector gun to administer a massive dose of ionethermyecin, an anaesthetic agent too powerful for use